DOSE:

10 mg

oral

Pharms - Zolpidem

BODY WEIGHT:

180 lb

Introduction

For as long as I can remember, I have had a complicated relationship with sleep. At times I would sleep for over 16 hours each day, caught in a complex mishmash of consciousness where I could barely tell dreams from reality. Other times would find me rarely climbing into bed before 36 hours had elapsed since I last woke up. The four times I ever tried Ambien happened somewhere in between when my problems were more “when” when I felt tired rather than “how much” sleep I actually got.

I acquired around a dozen 10mg Ambien from a friend in an attempt to right my sleep schedule. I was a freshly uninsured legal adult and had no way to visit a doctor in pursuit of medication. I’m not sure how I thought I’d fix my problems with a handful of pills, but I was desperate. The following stories are my recollection of each time I took these pills.

Tale One - Couch Goblins

The first time I tried Ambien was not as exciting as the other times, but it did set a precedent for things to come.

It was around 8 pm on a weekend evening that I took the first pill. I was getting ready to lie down on the couch for the night as I didn’t have a bed yet. I needed to sleep that night but wasn’t tired, so I took one pill. I knew it would take some time to kick in, so I changed into pajamas, brushed my teeth, and tried to get comfortable. I eventually fell asleep.

Sometime later, but not too long judging by the amount of light, I woke up again. It was like one of those nights where you blink and it’s suddenly morning. My vision was blurry but I was looking down at the end of the couch and felt like my body was enormous. Not as in fat, but as in the size of mountains. My legs were long slopes towards the cliff face that was the arm of the sofa. Along with the size distortion, I began to see small figures dancing on my stomach and thighs. They looked like tiny goblins dressed in stereotypical, Keebler-esque elf costumes. There was something very cartoonish to the way they moved.

I must have fallen asleep again after that, as I came to sometime in the early morning. I couldn’t really make heads or tales of what had happened but assumed it had all been a dream. (Of note, I had extremely strange dreams for about the first 20 years of my life, mostly nightmares.) I would soon learn that it wasn’t the fault of my brain but the chemicals I had added to it.

Tale Two - Bedtime Stories

A few weeks after my first experience with Ambien, I once again found myself unable to sleep. I took another pill from my stash and swallowed it around 9 pm. As the drowsiness had happened faster than expected the first time, I took it right as I was laying down, this time in my new bed. However, I waited for about an hour and still didn’t feel any more tired. Figuring the drug just wasn’t working, I took out my laptop.

I started looking up old cartoons as the drug kicked in. I found myself opening tons of different windows to look up cartoon characters from Looney Tunes and the like. I then transitioned to looking at toys, and then at websites devoted to toys. I zoomed through Google search pages and got to a defunct Yahoo toy collector forum. All of the last few years of posts were spam, but I searched for the last few messages, to see how the group had died.

I got bored with this, however, and instead somehow got to an amateur fiction site. I started reading a story about a lonely man who gains a secret lover. I started to imagine that I was the man in the story and going through his daily life. I experienced his waking up, going to work, eating meals, everything. The timescale was not the same though, almost like a movie played on fast forward. At some point in the story, it’s revealed that the secret lover is actually his dog. I was horrified by this revelation and toiled in anguish for a while.

The drug seemed to be wearing off by this point and I suddenly felt much soberer. I lied for a while coming to terms with the strange few hours I’d had. It seemed like much more time had passed than actually did. I then stayed up for the rest of the night doing normal activities.

Tale Three - Doctor’s Orders

My third experience with Ambien was the longest and the one which sticks out most in my memory. Looking back, I absolutely should have stopped after this, but I was younger and stupider.

By this point, my interest in the drug was less for its value in aiding sleep and more in its ability to make me hallucinate. I had done a handful of drugs by this point (weed, opiates, speed, and ecstasy), but nothing had made me see things like that. And so, my next pill was taken during the middle of a weekday while I was at home.

I don’t remember the onset much. I think I was standing on the couch for some reason and feeling as though I was moving too fast. My memories really begin when I decide that I should head outside. At this time, I was a severe shut-in, having developed agoraphobia, and so I rarely left the house. This time, however, I could feel something compelling me to leave. A voice began to manifest, though it was indistinct.

I got dressed and took my camera, a cheap little digicam I’d received as a birthday gift, and headed out. It was raining lightly but consistently, cloudy but still quite bright. I walked through the open grass expanse between my home and the road, my feet getting wet due to my poor choice of flip-flops. The voice in my head was crystallizing slowly, compelling me forward. I took out my camera and recorded video of myself walking through the surrounding area. I took videos of people in the distance, which I perceived as shadow beings at the time, and voiced concern that they knew I was on drugs.

I started to narrate my entire journey in a foreign accent, switching between filming my own face and the environment. I became especially fascinated by the water pouring from the gutter pipe on a building for some reason. The voice, which now took on the tone of a cheesy German doctor in a horror movie, told me to head back home. I obeyed and listened as he bickered with another voice, that of a young German nurse. I reached my home quickly and turned off the camera.

The doctor then gave me new orders. He told me to go into the kitchen, which I did. He then told me to open a drawer and pull out a knife, which I also did. His final order to take the knife and cut open my arm. I put the blade to my skin before letting out an audible “What the fuck am I doing?” Less concerned than I probably should have been, I put the knife back in the drawer and walked out of the kitchen. I could hear the nurse berate the doctor for his dangerous command and then the two of them vanished.

As I was coming down, I sent the video to a friend and we watched it together. I was completely embarrassed and said I wouldn’t do the drug again. I believe I stayed up for most of that coming night.

Tale Four - The Forest Room

A few days after the preceding experience, I decided to do Ambien for what would be the last time. I’d gone back to wanting it for sleep, as I really needed to reset my sleep schedule and was hoping by some miracle that the drug would start working as intended. I got ready for bed and took the pill around 10 pm.

As I’d feared, the drug once again did not make me sleepy. Instead, I started to feel very strange in my own room, like it was unfamiliar. Even though nothing had physically changed, I felt like I was outside and specifically in a forest. I opened my laptop and looked down to see the keyboard as a bunch of weathered stones on a bed of moss. I messaged a friend of mine, who knew I had taken Ambien, and said I was confused and didn’t know where I was. He was concerned for me, but I couldn’t focus on his messages.

Instead, I was suddenly convinced there was a literal monster in my closet. I could see my own reflection in a mirror on one wall, but took this to be the shadow of said monster. Even though I couldn’t see it, I got the image in my head that it looked something like a gold and red Chinese dragon. I waffled between being concerned over the dragon and wanting very much to see it.

At this point, I had something of a break. I realized I was on drugs and that what I wasn’t seeing was real, and started to freak out. I was worried that the effects would never stop and I would always have to worry about distinguishing the real from the unreal. I messaged another friend of mine who was an EMT and told him that I wasn’t doing well. He asked what I took, and advised me to flush the rest of the pills when I answered. I did so with no hesitation. He then called me over Skype and we talked until I came down again. I was very thankful to have him there and have him being so kind and nonjudgemental.

Conclusion

My few times taking Ambien were strange experiences. Though I have experimented more with other substances in the intermediate years, nothing has had quite the same effect. I never “felt” high after taking the pills. It seemed to me that I was lucid and unimpaired despite experiencing things that were impossible. It didn’t feel good, and I’ve never wanted to try it again.

I really have no idea how extreme my reaction to the medicine is in comparison to others. I know hallucinations are possible, as are general altered states, but this seemed too bizarre for how common this drug is. I could never imagine taking it for sleep, even if it did make me drowsy as it should.

Not that it makes any difference, but my sleep schedule is still abnormal. I’ve learned to live with it in the past few years and am in the fortunate position to make it work. I rarely have dreams anymore, which I don’t mind. It still would be nice to get some rest though.

Exp Year: 2012	ExpID: 114798
Gender: Not Specified
Age at time of experience: 18
Published: Oct 15, 2020	Views: 653
[ View PDF (to print) ] [ View LaTeX (for geeks) ] [ Swap Dark/Light ]
Pharms - Zolpidem (143) : Therapeutic Intent or Outcome (49), Retrospective / Summary (11), Alone (16)