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Very Impaired
Zolpidem (Ambien)
Citation:   Llúvatar. "Very Impaired: An Experience with Zolpidem (Ambien) (exp45957)". Erowid.org. Dec 4, 2007. erowid.org/exp/45957

 
DOSE:
15 ug oral Pharms - Zolpidem (pill / tablet)
  20 ug oral Pharms - Zolpidem (pill / tablet)
This is an experience I had with ambien, and I will also give a description of a dream I had that night. The problem with writing an experience report for a drug like ambien is that I have such a fuzzy, if non-existent memory of the experience, that it’s almost impossible to write one for it. This will be my attempt to do the improbable...

I was staying at my cousin’s house on vacation, and this was quite the house in the middle of upper-class suburbia: pool table, dartboard, Pac-man arcade machine, hot-tub, steam room, gym room, and to top it off a 7-foot wide home theater with 5:1 surround sound-my heaven in shorter words. I had brought a little stash of random pills that I gathered before the trip, including my monthly script of ambien (20-10mg pills).

During one of my days where I wouldn’t partake in my illegal stash, I decided to wander in the land of ambien. I started off at (roughly) 11pm at night with 15 mg of ambien. After I took my dose, I put The Return of the King dvd on and racked the pool table for a game of 9-ball. As every single other report on ambien says, “this is where it becomes hazy”...

The effects begin in five minutes flat, nothing spectacular at this point, but a definite change in perception. After another five to ten minutes, I sense a feeling of falling backwards into an unknown, but eerily familiar land that leaves me with only one thought, “uhhhhhhhhh...wwhhaatt’ss ggooiinngg oonn hheerree?” How ambien effects you is hard to describe. My best attempt would be to say it’s a cross between dissociation and sedation, but any attempts to compare it‘s effects with another drug are useless; it‘s a completely unique experience. I get very confused with everything, and I can barely keep a constant train of thought. Physical movement is very impaired, and I'm usually reduced to lying down, looking like I just recently had a lobotomy. Much like DXM, you’ll probably either love it’s effects, or find it uncomfortable.

I finish my game of pool just in time to start to feel the effects and lay down in an ultra-comfy couch to watch my movie; which I never could follow, even though I've seen it plenty of times before. I laid there in a trance for close to two hours where nothing particularly exciting happened other than the random trip to smoke a cigarette, or play pac-man. When it was time to switch to disk two (the movie is fucking long), I realized that I didn’t really feel high anymore. This can get me into trouble, because I'm still VERY impaired, but I feel that most of the effects have diminished. Being an adventurous person, or better yet, compulsive; I will more than likely take more, which I did. Now the time is roughly 1am, and I go back to my suitcase, and grab two more 10mg pills. I normally would just take one more, but hey, I'm on vacation in a very plush house. Why not indulge a little? When I usually take a second dose, nothing would *really* happen; I would just get pissed off at the waste of a pill and fall asleep. That didn’t happen this time...

I put the dvd in and swallow the two pills with a sip of lemonade. I then set the pool table for another game of pool. After around 15 minutes of failing at pool, I gave up and made my way outside for a cigarette. As I sat outside, listening to the hum of crickets, I started to realize that I was REALLY fucked up; I was on the edge of delirious. My vision was filled with moving things that couldn’t be moving. The hot tub was moving to the right, putting distance between it and the wall; while it’s heavy plastic covering was slightly waving in completely still air. This was a little alarming, but endlessly entertaining to watch. I would close my eyes, after a long, slow drag off of a Kool, and open them again to watch the hot tub slide away from the wall; while my cigarette left trails that I could see for seconds afterwards.

I went inside after finishing my smoke feeling quite pleased with my experience, and ready to fall on the couch to drift off to sleep while watching my movie. I had started to notice as soon as I got inside, that some things in my vision were starting to double, even though I could still see all of it crystal clear. I then look up to the monster screen in front of me, and noticed that good old’ gandalf had become very disfigured. There was a set of eyes on his forehead, a nose in between his real eyes, his real nose with a mouth superimposed on it, and his real mouth. This was very confusing, disorientating, and a little bit disturbing, but I shrugged it off and closed my eyes to drift off to sleep; knowing that it would only get worse if I stayed awake.

I woke up at about 10 in the morning to my cousin using his gym room that was about thirty feet away from where I slept. I was incredibly groggy, and couldn’t bring myself to fully wake up; so I laid there with my eyes closed telling myself “five more minutes..”

After being on the edge of consciousness for a few minutes, I decided I might as well go ahead and get up.... So I “open my eyes” and I am greeted with a big painting of a person with two faces on the ceiling...which was not real...I was in a completely different house, staring up at this purple face with matching purple top hat and suit (much like Willy Wonka) but with a second, smaller orange face where his mouth would be. After “staring” at it for sometime, I very suddenly felt a sensation that can only be described as a localized orgasm on my shoulders and back. A soft buzzing that felt so good that it was actually uncomfortable. After a few seconds of it, I snapped back to reality, yet again, to the clanging of metal dumbbells in the other room. I still felt incredibly groggy, but there was no way I could dismiss what had just happened and drift off again.

I was completely confused by that two-minute dream, and I began to try and piece together the night before. I've never gotten such strong visual distortions from ambien before, that I can remember at least; and my waking dream was one of the weirdest thing I've ever experienced, and that is saying a hell of a lot. The painting on the ceiling was an obvious throw back to the double vision I saw the night before, but my subconscious completely opening my pleasure center and localizing the “buzz” on my shoulders was a wonderful treat and incredibly unnerving at the same time. I have no idea why it happened, and it had no reason to happen in the context of my mini-dream; it was completely out of nowhere. It left me confused, intrigued, and wishing that I could do that anytime I wanted to.

Exp Year: 2005ExpID: 45957
Gender: Male 
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Dec 4, 2007Views: 66,219
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Pharms - Zolpidem (143) : Hangover / Days After (46), General (1), Alone (16)

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