STAY AWAY! My traumatic experiences with Ambien

Post Reply New Topic

I'm an insomniac. I have been for years.

The effects of this pill are horrifying. The first couple times I took it, it didn't even put me to sleep for more than 5 hours (my insomnia is that bad). My dreams become very realistic and are very intensified that I can wake up (and know that I am awake), get up and use the bathroom, get something to eat, and after a half hour of being awake I am still living the dream in my head, although it's not affecting my behavior during the "awake half" of my reality. I decided to refrain from taking it again.
Yesterday was an exception, as I had gone on a 2-hour bike ride to tire myself out previous to going to bed, hoping it would help me fall asleep easier.

This time I took it on accident.

The first time I took it, I took the whole pill, after that I only took half of one. Yesterday (I'm a night stocker), before going to bed, I found the other half of that second pill laying around. I confused it with another type of sleeping pill that my mother had given me and told me to only take half of, and I took it before going to bed. I was asleep for 14 hours, and was almost late for work. The latter quarter of this 14 hours, each time my alarm went off, I would get up, and knowing that I was awake, it was as if I was physically forced to suspend my alarm and I could not make my own independent decision to stay up. I felt as if I was a prisoner of my own dream, and that it was pulling me back into bed so that I could continue its story.

This dream was so intense that I was very shaken after I finally got up less than an hour before I went into work (after a nice, hot shower). I went into work, and I spent the first half of my shift feeling nothing but fear. Extreme fear. I bumped into a shelf extender and when a couple of cardboard coffee cup holders (which were the product on that shelf extender) hit the ground, I stood there in horror before dropping everything and taking off running into the breakroom. The song "I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing" by Aerosmith came on the intercom radio, and as soon as I realized that the line, "...don't wanna fall asleep" was about to be sung, I ran into the restroom covering my ears and went into a meltdown.

I spent the next hour debating to myself whether I was awake or asleep. Any little occurrence during my shift that was out of the ordinary caused me to wonder which reality was real, the one I was living while awake or the 14-hour dream (or nightmare) I had. Just now realizing this, I was actually almost living the episode, "Dave," in Lost, where Hurley had the same issue. I had actually made the decision to commit suicide after I was to get off of work. Luckily I "sobered up" eventually.

This drug needs to be taken off of the market. I would not wish this on my worst enemy, including the psychotic co-worker who had threatened me last year, or even the Jonas Brothers. I am not trying to be funny, either.

(Just to be clear, I am not currently using marijuana, which is what I usually use to help me sleep. I can't afford it right now. So it did not play any role in what happened. I wouldn't have taken any sleeping pill if I had any marijuana.)

Again, here is the episode of Lost that I was referring to. Please watch it if you want a good idea of what I experienced last night. http://www.hulu.com/watch/90177/lost-da ... isodes,1,0

Ambien = Dave

same here cowboy...lunesta is pretty weird also....the med that has helped me the most is a muscle relaxer called
flexeril. very powerful stuff. left me unable to drive for a day. dizzy for at least 18 hours. but, sleep i did.

soma, another muscle relaxant, also works great, with effects only lasting for 12 hours or so.

i'm in a lot of pain, constantly. tried mj about a year ago but did not help me.

if you try flexeril or soma, must be careful. dizziness makes driving VERY risky. walking is risky!

not sleeping for a couple of days will certainly drive you to try anything, i know.

I would like to add that exercise before bed will often make you less likely to sleep because it gets your heart rate up and endorphins going. A lot of those sleep aids are actually anti-psychotics renamed to be used as sleep meds. I have read about a lot of strange reactions to them. Have you ever tried Melatonin- an OTC supplement? Its harmless and works well for lots of people. There have never been any adverse reactions to it because our brains make it in order to balance our internal clock or circadian rhythms. You can get it at the grocery or drug store.

I hope you find something that helps you sleep and doesn't give you reactions. It is awful to not have enough sleep for even one night let alone continuously.

Actually I was once taking Melatonin for a couple months, and it worked well for a short while, but eventually ceased to have any effect on me.

The FDA is a big group of s**theads. I'm not surprised at all about what you said. You can never put anything like that past them, especially re-labeling drugs and placing them in the hands of someone who will more than likely fall victim to it's negative effects.

I am extremely traumatized by this and now, for the rest of my life, I'm never going to touch any prescription drug (besides marijuana If it gets legalized for medicinal purposes in my state in November), simply out of fear.

Ambien is notorious for causing weird experiences. Especially activation and loss of impulse control or hallucinations. Still it is a med that works for many and it can be great for those. I used ambien off and on for 7 years with no big problems. There should be a warning about it but I don't think it should be pulled from the market. After all it is much less addictive than some other stuff and more efficient too. It's not a sleeping pill though, it just makes people fall asleep, not stay asleep. I know it sounds harsh but all meds have been horrid to some people, can't yank them all. Me, I'm partial to benzo sleep meds, but that is because I can't get addicted to those, most people can. Part from addiction they don't make people do crazy stuff.

I drink a special kind of tea that helps to aid sleep.

With meds different people can have very different reactions, you know. My personal nightmare/horror drug is trazodone, but lots of other people take that without problems.

I was pretty immune to Ambien, my doctor even upped the dose to double the usual maximum, but I ended up completely tolerant to it in 2 weeks. It would also make me somewhat euphoric, so I'd end up playing computer games all night. Not a good sleep med for me (but not as bad as what you experienced, of course).

These days I take diphenhydramine and doxepin for sleep. Even that's working less and less well with time, though.

I took Ambien for years without a problem. It seems that a lot of the weird side effects happen to women for some reason, such as sleep-driving and sleep-shopping. My horror drug is Lamictal, which kept me up for two or three days straight with sweating and jumpiness till I started hallucinating from lack of sleep. Trazodone gave me violent dreams.

I would take Melatonin if I could. It makes me sleepy in a nice way. But it makes my immune system illness worse so I wake up groggy with sore eyes and weak.

I take Halcion and aI vary with Imovane (Similar to Lunesta).

My friend is immune to Ambien some are and those never get any effects.

Ive taken ambien and most of the time it puts me to sleep and I sleep good all night but sometimes It doesent work. I think that at least a couple of times I have sleep walked on it. Im not sure if I did or not but when I woke up things around the house were not where I left them when I went to sleep and there was torn up paper all over the floor

Ambien worked well for me and allowed me to sleep through the night. They advise you go to asleep right away with ambien because if I didn't and I sat up I would sometimes see things in 3d which I thought was kind of cool. Trazadone was a nightmare drug and I had intense nightmares with that stuff.

Wow, thanks for posting.

I have similar experiences of feeling like I'm dreaming while I'm awake, as though there are two of me and sometimes I can experience both sort of spaces at once - the one here and the one in the dream space. I also have that thing where my dreams are so intense that I don't know if I've gotten out of bed or not and I can dream within a dream. And sometimes there are things that seem to cross over from my dreams that appear in my room. Sometimes scary, sometimes just curious.

I'll be sure to stay away from Ambien. Currently the strongest thing in my diet is tea.