# Ambien...lit up at lights out...



## fattmik (Jun 15, 2007)

Has anyone else experienced a strange resuscitation (I'm talking a good 40 percent mental capacity) after taking ambien?

Every once in awhile, I'll take 10mg from a prescription I got last year. I feel loopy and my mind is playfully scattershot, but I swear it activates my brain in a way that no other prescription (or non-prescription) drugs have since I've felt DP'ed. (Well, maybe painkillers have helped too.).

Thirty minutes after swallowing and it's as if I've been turned on, lit up, almost half of my brain firing again. Unfortunately, the trippy and disorienting sensations that accompany it make me fairly useless. And I'm aware enough of its troubling addictive nature to attempt any long-term trials.

But I'm less interested in whether or not it's good or bad, recommended or not, than if anyone who has taken it has noticed this effect. Even the next day, when I feel re-oriented, I have a much more connected and fluid feeling.

Anyone else?

I'm guessing that, for me at least, the specific GABA receptors that ambien hits are the issue. Even the benzos don't effect them like this.


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## comfortably numb (Mar 6, 2006)

Ambien hits different sub units of the gaba-a receptor thats why it's different. Thats why it also causes delerium, memory loss and that weird sleep walking shit alot more then benzos do. It also doesent cause as much or any physical dependence if used at the recomended dose.

I havent tried ambien but i have tried the other benzo knock off's such as lunesta (imovane up here) and sonota (starnoc up here). There way too weird for daytime use and they don't feel like benzos at all. They give a more drunken feeling plus alot of memory loss.

I actually hallucinated on starnoc and it was like delerium not psychedelic at all. My first and last time trying that.

Ambien is safe just don't overdo it and for the love of god don't drive on it. Also if painkillers worked for you (im assuming narcotics right?) they would be a daytime choice. But be aware of addiction with those. Ive been there done that.


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## fattmik (Jun 15, 2007)

Luckily I've endured none of the sleepwalking...just some slight delerium and memory loss. This isn't my first time using Ambien either...in fact, I'm a few years past any chronic or habitual drug use of any non-anti-depressant form.

I've been through a painkiller addiction before and had to wean myself off, so I know the trial of testing any drug like that long term. And with ambien there can be a very rapid tolerance build up. Even if used as directed (nightly basis for two weeks), it can sink its teeth in.

What comes up must come down.

Thanks for the more specific info, I figured it was that one odd GABA receptor. Lord knows why it helps me (even while making me loopy), but no fears about long term, or even daytime, use.

Mainly just wondering about the patterns. I've really liked CuredOne's posts these past few weeks (and the fact that he/she has come back so graciously and so often to answer question after question), because I think the obsessive comparison of symptoms or "solutions" is a function of the DP/DR.

William Styron's Darkness Visible made a similar point about the shape-shifting and illusive nature of depression - the impossibility of nailing down any singular DNA for that disease. It's the snowflake principle: no two versions of depression/DP/DR are alike. And looking too deeply for similar grooves is going to exacerbate the obsessive nature of this.

But I do think, and Feeling Unreal helped illuminate this, that certain patterns (emotional, biological, personality traits) emerge as you peel back the layers of our individual struggles. And there is safety in the numbers of this board and the ability to relate to others' problems. There is only so much that can be gleaned or given over the internet, but the initial discovery of our collective problem is crucial I think. We may not feel full, we may not feel each other or ourselves, but we don't feel so overwhelmingly alone. Or that's the hope.

The ambien issue struck me as odd...something neither Dr. Simeon nor my psychopharmacologist could explain. There is line to be walked; there's no carbon copy template for diagnosis or improvement, but I do believe there is some general and consistent shape to some of this. Like that GABA seems to play a primary role for most of us, even if (for me) the benzo's aided the depersonalization, while they've been close to a saving grace for you, Comfortably Numb.

Perhaps its best to not question these things too much...and let the letting go lead me back to more solid ground.


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## Absentis (Jul 10, 2007)

This probably has nothing to do with what you're experiencing, but I thought I'd share the link anyways. http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn9215.html

You seem to have had a paradoxical reaction to ambien, in a similar fashion to those people discussed in the article.


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## fattmik (Jun 15, 2007)

Thanks for that. Really interesting, and exactly what I was looking for.


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