# Melatonin



## Guest (Jan 16, 2005)

Melatonin is a natural hormon that the body produces when it gets dark. Although its effects are not perfectly understood yet, it is known to cause sleepiness, but not grogginess as with benzos. It does not cause addiction, no lethal dosage has been determined so far and medical trials have shown that 60x the natural dose does not seem to cause adverse effects, except maybe temporary contraception. 0.5 mg is enough to induce sleep. The molecule can be synthetised and is sold in tablets (although it is illegal in a number of countries). Remarkably, some tests have shown that melatonin supplements increase the rate of REM sleep by about 25% and some test patients have reported more vivid dreams as a result.

Due to the apparent connection between REM sleep and DP/DR and the fact that many DPers seem to suffer from sleep pathologies, I thought that melatonin might be a research avenue. I AM NOT ENCOURAGING ANYONE TO TRY MELATONIN IN ANY WAY. But I ordered Natrol melatonin pills myself the other day and have been trying it for a few days. It is probably a bit too early for me to draw any conclusion. I was just curious if any of you took or had tried melatonin before and if that improved or worsened or had any form of impact on their DP/DR symptoms.


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## DutchMark (Aug 10, 2004)

Well, I never tried it, but keep updating here on how it works out!


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## Guest (Jan 17, 2005)

As i've mentioned before. I use Melatonin all the time and it has given me a fairly regular sleep pattern, with 7 or 8 hours of sleep a night and the occasional lucid dreams. One of the few supplements i've found to be highly effective.


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## Guest (Mar 11, 2005)

I used to have the most awful time sleeping, and Melatonin is seriously the only thing to this day that has helped me to get decent sleep, and consistently too. I'm also ultra sensative, I take a piece of a 3mg pill that's smaller than the size of the ball of a sewing needle, and I sleep the night through!

Of course, like all of you I'm sure, a bad nights sleep makes connecting with pieces of reality or even maintaining "stability" infinately harder, especially after a few nights in a row, so in that sence only, Melatonin has helped me immensely. Valerian is the only other thing that ever helped me sleep, but, like with most people, it stopped working after a week or two and I always felt even more impaired the next day anyways.

-Vic


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## university girl (Aug 11, 2004)

took melatonin for a while. improved my sleep but did not affect my DP.


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