So, yesterday on Facebook I asked about Ambien, given that my doctor had prescribed literally a few pills of it as kind of an “emergency, break glass when needed” insomnia fix.
Well, after reading the thread on Ambien, I think it scared my mind straight or something since I got a great night’s sleep last night.
One of the side benefits of that thread was the wealth of completely bizarre stories from those who have experienced side effects from it. I mean, some of them were eye-goggling. (“I woke up with a loaded gun in my bed.”)
I figure, hey, why not bring that out into the open?
If you have interesting AMBIEN TALES to tell, well, hey, do tell.
*leans forward to listen*
*face melts*
*bees exit new face holes*
*bees all buzz together GO TO ZZZLEEEEEEP*
Beth Turnage says:
Can’t. I meditate. Best fix ever to calm the writer’s anxious brain. Can tell you a good Prozac story when I was foolish enough to listen to a doctor. Never again.
September 14, 2016 — 8:10 AM
CBlack says:
We don’t have that here (UK & Australia) although possibly we do, it is just called something else (someone will correct me no doubt). Heath Ledger died from taking too much of it and I do remember at the time Jack Nicholson having something very scary to say about them and his experience scared him off them too. So you are in good company. And aren’t all writers supposed to suffer from insomnia…………
September 14, 2016 — 8:11 AM
Ivy says:
In Australia it’s marketed as Stilnox.
September 16, 2016 — 5:50 AM
Martin says:
This is a ‘fun to listen to’ ambien story I just heard this week on The Moth podcast https://themoth.org/radio-hour/rem-car-wrecks-and-the-circus “My place in Rock and Roll History by Gordon Edelstein”
September 14, 2016 — 8:12 AM
Lisa May says:
Heard this wild tale of rock-star status and ambien disaster the other day: https://themoth.org/radio-hour/rem-car-wrecks-and-the-circus
September 14, 2016 — 8:14 AM
beencalled says:
Not so much of a story, but more of a “This one time this thing happened”, but I know this guy, let’s say his name is Mel, but the L is silent.
Anyways, this guy takes some of this so-called Ambien and then goes to school. During first period his class goes to the Media Center (formally known as a library) and it hits him hard.
Next thing, I, I mean this guy I know, goes to all the computers in the room and puts them on badgerbadgerbadger.com.
So all the computers in the media center are filled with images of badgers bouncing up and down to a techno mantra of “badger badger badger mushroom mushroom…”
And that’s all I remember. I mean, that all the guy told me.
September 14, 2016 — 8:26 AM
pedaltrash says:
and now I’m headed to badgerbadgerbadger.com…
September 14, 2016 — 1:21 PM
Laura Jimenez says:
I miss the Badger song! And now it’s in my head…
September 14, 2016 — 2:58 PM
Aimee Kuzenski says:
I fell asleep during sex that I don’t remember. Also sent more than a few emails I didn’t recall.
For those who haven’t seen it, the best Ambien personification ever: http://ambien.blogspot.com/2010/12/ambien-walrus-collection.html
September 14, 2016 — 8:38 AM
Liza says:
oh yeah, now i remember i have done that too. a friend gave me ambien (prescribed for her) and I had a full 12 hours with my ex, to this day is a black hole to me. It might sound like fun, but it isn’t and i never want to ask him what we did.
September 14, 2016 — 9:10 AM
acflory says:
Sorry, no Ambien tales, just a suggestion – ten minutes of sunlight first thing in the morning and a cup of hot milk with whatever you fancy last thing at night. Bon nuit!
September 14, 2016 — 8:51 AM
Elizabeth SaFleur says:
My husband is no longer allowed to take Ambien. He turns into a sex crazed maniac — and not in the good way. I mean, a girl’s gotta get her beauty sleep at some point. Hence, the complete and utter ban of Ambien in our house. ‘No’ means ‘No.’
September 14, 2016 — 8:58 AM
conniejjasperson says:
I had terrible insomnia several yrs ago. Dr. prescribed a few Ambien. Husband and I go walking at 5 am every morning. Walked 2 miles with no knowledge I was even awake. Greg said it was like leading a zombie. Couldn’t function at work–keyboard mystified me, not sure who drove me and my car to work, but it was in the parking lot when I left that afternoon. Did not take second dose.
September 14, 2016 — 9:09 AM
Candace K says:
Friends and family were not allowed to call past 9pm because I would either do nothing but mumble or it would act as a truth serum. Anything you do, you will not remember. It’s pretty terrifying.
September 14, 2016 — 9:09 AM
Brittany Constable says:
The weirdest thing was that I apparently told my husband that his face was a flag while I was half-asleep.
The bigger problem was that I just couldn’t shake it in the morning. I was unemployed at the time, which was good because I would not have felt safe driving under the influence of it. Turns out that a year or two after I had tried it, they discovered that women actually metabolize it much differently than men do, and therefore need a much lower dose. They’d never realized it before because they hadn’t bothered noting the differences in studies between men and women, or in some cases hadn’t bothered testing with women at all.
September 14, 2016 — 9:20 AM
Ben says:
As somebody who has spent time with people under the prescribed influence of Ambien — for your wife’s and B-Dub’s sake, please know that it can be absolutely terrifying for those who know what is going on even if you don’t have a clue. Irrational arguments, bizarre statements, screaming at things that aren’t in the room, pacing the house menacingly, eating/cooking random things at 3:30 in the morning, threats — it’s a quick ride to PTSDville.
September 14, 2016 — 9:26 AM
Maggy says:
This is gonna be pretty long, so…
I took ambien for a while when I was 19 or 20. I’ve had horrible sleep problems for a large part of my life, but 10 years later, thanks to maybe a healthier lifestyle & diet, I have no problem falling asleep or staying asleep, and I’ve been told that I may just require less sleep than the average person to feel refreshed & function properly. About 4 to 5 hours is the most I sleep.
Thank goodness I don’t have to turn to things like Ambien anymore because…
I started losing time. Seriously, if you’ve ever taken a Xanax & had too much to drink you will know what I mean. People will tell you you were acting fairly normal but you won’t remember anything. Whole blocks of time. The same thing happened with Ambien except without alcohol.
I would wake up & be shocked that it was Thursday. What happened to Wednesday? Ambien stole it!
That should’ve been enough to get me to stop, but I really wasn’t sleeping without medication, so I continued.
Until…
I woke up in my parent’s kitchen (I had been living at home at the time), with a spatula in my hand, and I had cooked an entire breakfast: eggs over-medium (how?? Over-medium is so finicky!), sausage patties, toast. I had even cut up some cantelope.
And I was wearing an oven mitt on my left hand.
And it was almost 3 in the morning.
I kind of flipped out, considering I couldn’t recall doing any of those things.
I told my doctor about it a few days later & he goes, “Oh, wow. You shouldn’t be taking Ambien, then.”
Ya think??
He went on to say that some people “react poorly” to the drug, and if you ever find you’ve been doing anything strange, you must stop immediately.
It’s funny now, but at the time it was terrifying.
And maybe just a little bit funny. Oven mitt? At least I was being safe.
It may run in the family because my dad took Ambien too, a few years after I did, even though he knew what had happened. He figured he’d be fine because his doc prescribed it.
Well, he & my mom went out of town for a wedding, and he took an Ambien the last night of their stay, to be sure he got plenty of sleep for the 4 or 5 hour drive in the morning.
Well, apparently he woke around 4am, my mom remembers the time he got up, and took another Ambien. He didn’t know why. He doesn’t even remember it, but there was a pill missing. So he and my mom loaded up in the car at 7am, and after about an hour on the highway, my mom realized something wasn’t right. He started swerving & laughing, not making sense, but saying everything was OK. When he almost collided into an oncoming semi truck, she had him pull over & switch.
Ambien is no joke! But I guess it doesn’t adversely affect everyone. Feeling lucky?
September 14, 2016 — 9:31 AM
Ivy says:
Hey there. I have always functioned well with only four hours of sleep a day. But a short sleep cycle is quite different to insomnia. I was in a medical study for this some years ago and was told it was genetic. The quality of sleep is still good, the short cycles are regular, and there are no health problems it is known to cause for this group.
For reasons unknown, this cycle has recently stretched out to 48hrs between short naps, but again, because I seem well-rested and all that, no alarm bells. There was some speculation about hormones being a cause for this recent change, despite no drama in blood reports, but all an extra dose of progesterone at bedtime did was give me a deeper sleep on the same short cycle.
So when friends ask ‘how do you find time to do (insert whatever)’ – this is the reason why. Except that some of my kids are also short sleepers and that can get annoying when I am in my fortress of solitude at 2am and they are all like ‘Cool! You’re up too? Can I join in?’
NO. THIS IS MAMA’s WITCHING HOUR. BEGONE!
They are like boomerangs, those kids.
September 16, 2016 — 6:22 AM
Maggy says:
Whooo your comment made me laugh! I don’t have kids yet buy I know what you mean about being awake in the wee hours & having someone want to join in on your party. I’m like, excuse me, I’m here every day & you show up this one time all Chatty Cathy like it’s fresh & new. Go away & let me be!
Yes, I’ve come to understand sleeping very little is just my normal. When I was younger I slept very little & I think anxiety from feeling it was abnormal traveled through the years & blossomed. I became afraid of only sleeping a few hours so in turn my thoughts raced, preventing me from falling asleep. I always felt refreshed though, even on 3 hours…
I guess I needed a doctor to set the idea loose in my brain that some people don’t need lots of sleep. Like you said, as long as there are no other health problems arising. I slept 3 1/2 last night & feel great.
Maybe we’re just a little super-human?
September 16, 2016 — 10:07 AM
Ivy says:
Hi hi! There are so many interesting sleeping patterns being studied, and like I said, they aren’t all associated with health problems. It’s so interesting!
With short sleep they’ve already identified a gene, and apparently you have a 50/50 chance of inheriting it if it runs in your family.
One of the other things I was told during the study was that short sleepers also share the following traits: they have a habit of talking rather fast, have unusually high pain thresholds (e.g. they were not surprised I’d had painless childbirths), they have very upbeat personalities (they suspect they are genetically immune to depression), and a lot are high achievers (perhaps the payoff of all the cramming while the world sleeps?).
I also heard that the dream goal is to be able to identify the genetic quirks that make people resilient in different ways, and to one day apply it as a kind of gene therapy for those who are predisposed to depression for instance. I think that’s amazing!
Anyhow, a light read on short sleep here:
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150706-the-woman-who-barely-sleeps
September 16, 2016 — 6:09 PM
joshuamneff says:
I’ve had problems with insomnia for most of my adult life. For many, many years I took benadryl at night, since it makes me dopey enough that I’ll fall asleep without either staring at the ceiling for long hours or keep getting up to do things my brain thinks I need to do RIGHT NOW.
My dad died a few years ago, and while cleaning out his apartment and dividing up his stuff and throwing out the rest, I was tossing out all of his medications. I saw that he had a prescription bottle with a small handful of Ambien and took that one home with me. My girlfriend at the time scolded me: “Don’t take meds that haven’t been prescribed for you!” But I countered that I might want to ask my doctor to prescribe me Ambien for my insomnia, but I should try it first. My dad had just provided me with a sample pack. I stand by my reasoning.
I took it a few nights in a row and it definitely helped me get to sleep and sleep through the night–better than benadryl ever did. But I’d wake up to find I’d eaten an entire bag of BBQ potato chips, the empty bag sitting sadly next to my computer, or that the email conversation I’d been having with a friend before bed had continued long after I remembered (although I’d luckily not written anything too embarrassing or incriminating). It occurred to me that I could easily blow through money, since I can be an impulse shopper even when I’m fully aware of what I’m doing, or I could write some regrettable things online, so I decided Ambien isn’t for me, posthumously thanked my dad for the sample, and never asked my doctor for a prescription.
September 14, 2016 — 9:36 AM
johnadamus says:
Ambien and Red Bull is not an appropriate cocktail before attending a rehearsal dinner where the best man offers you a poorly rolled joint and insists you should read his MS but only when high. Because he’s taped another joint to the title page.
September 14, 2016 — 9:48 AM
Gary Gibson says:
You win the Internet.
September 14, 2016 — 11:13 AM
mlhe says:
Sad yet so true.
September 14, 2016 — 12:55 PM
maqhem says:
I don’t think we have Ambien where I live but we do have an assortment of pills that are supposed to aid sleeping. I have tried a fair few of them and most are worthless if you suffer from actual insomnia – you’ll get tired but you still can’t sleep. One of them did the trick, though. Ten minutes after taking the pill I’d get a very bitter taste in my mouth, and five minutes after that: ALT + F4, gone. If I wasn’t lying in bed by the time the effect hit I would be waaaay to fascinated by the visual hallucinations to care about sleep.
The first few times I would wake up the next day and the last few hours of the day before would have been erased from by mind. I could never recall actually taking the pill but I could still taste the bitterness in my mouth.
The memory loss side effect went away with time, and I started to remember the crazy hallucinations I was having. I’ve seen my bedroom walls breathe, I’ve seen a garden gnome staring me down from across the room, and the most persistent hallucination was a GIANT MONSTER OF INSECTS writhing and crawling on the ceiling directly above me, stretching its long, slimy body of a thousand millipedes down towards my face, watching me fall asleep. It really should have been scary but it wasn’t. Somehow it was just incredibly fascinating and comforting.
A few of the times when I didn’t go to bed right away I decided to try and communicate with my future self through drawings and writing. I have been unsuccessful at deciphering the things I wrote (by hand) and the drawings I made had the artistic display of a baby’s diaper. They didn’t look like anything, although I do remember they made SO MUCH SENSE to me when I made them, like an epiphany of sorts. I thought it would’ve been fun to make one drawing or write one story every night before going to sleep, and then at the end put all the garbage I had produced into a collection. I never did that but I still think it was an interesting idea. It probably would have been a good fit within the genre of modern art.
September 14, 2016 — 9:58 AM
North says:
I completely agree about the visions should be scary, but they aren’t. Just fascinating and comforting in a way, great way to put it.
Also, love the last paragraph about trying to communicate to yourself. I was cracking up so hard at that.
September 14, 2016 — 12:01 PM
maqhem says:
Well I’ll be damned. Isabeth pointed out in a later comment that Ambien also goes by the name Zolpidem. That one I know. That was the name of the drug I used in the period described above. I guess we do have Ambien here after all.
September 14, 2016 — 4:58 PM
Wendy says:
Not to me personally, but I knew a person who took Ambien. One morning she “woke up” about 5 or 6 in the morning and proceeded to cook dinner. Raw meant in the over, uncooked macaroni sitting a pot of cold water, and even a nice desert pie. All setup and ready to go when she woke her husband telling him he needed to eat before heading into work. Her husbands a truck driver that works from 4 in the afternoon til early morning hours whenever he finishes his load. To say he was confused and a little concerned when he noticed the food in the kitchen was an understatement. Luckily she didn’t actually cook anything and it was all left unfinished.
September 14, 2016 — 10:03 AM
Caroline Clemens says:
Oh my. I’ve escaped all the drugs minus a couple post surgery. I guess I gave enough out in the hospital over 25 years that I have no use for them. I do know people that took them for jet lag sleeping issues. I forget the name of the sleeper that hits old people really hard. Oh no, you’ve got me thinking about stories again. Thnx.
September 14, 2016 — 10:05 AM
Allison Dickson says:
My one weird experience.
My husband and I were nearly done with the show we were watching when I decided to take my Ambien, so I would be good and ready to sleep by the time we headed upstairs for the night. It was a complete disregard to the warning my doctor had given me to take it only when I was in bed for the night. I thought he was just being super cautious, like maybe I would trip or hurt myself. I had only taken it a couple times before this, so I wasn’t sure exactly how it worked, but I assumed it came on a bit like Benadryl. A moment of drowsiness before the oblivion slowly took over. Ha! Wrong. In fact, I felt no drowsiness at all.
As the show ended, I heard someone shaking boxes at the top of the stairs. I assumed it was one of the kids and asked him to go check on them. Ken was like, “I don’t hear anything.”
Then I heard it again, and when I leaned over and looked up the stairs, I saw the boxes moving. I pointed and said, “There! Look! The boxes are moving!” Ken said there weren’t any boxes, and by that point, he sounded concerned.
I turned to look at him, and his face… It looked like melting wax, with bright red streaks running down from his eyes. I can still see it so clearly to this day. I screamed, “What happened to your face?!”
Then he asked, “Didn’t you take one of your sleeping pills?”
I had actually already forgotten that, and I said yeah I think so. Fast as the Flash, he hauled me upstairs and put me in bed. I think it was the one time I could literally say I was asleep before my head hit the pillow.
September 14, 2016 — 10:07 AM
terribleminds says:
holy hell.
September 14, 2016 — 10:29 AM
This says:
I had the exact same face-melting hallucination on LSD. Ambien is no joke!
September 14, 2016 — 2:22 PM
EM says:
Terrible experience with Ambien. I went away camping for a weekend and left it behind by accident. Went through withdrawal, ended up hallucinating in the ER for hours. Also probably took it for too long (mistook what the doctor had told me). My brain didn’t work properly for weeks, had insomnia, only thing that saved me was melatonin.
Take melatonin. Much much better option. Will never touch that shit again.
September 14, 2016 — 10:24 AM
pulplives says:
While not Ambien, a different sleep aid combined with an antidepressant taught me the vital difference between hallucinations and delusions.
Hallucinations: having the sensation that there is an octopus-like animal moving around inside your cranium.
Delusions: actually believing there is an octopus-lie animal wholly comprised of neurons winding its nervy tentacles along your cerebrum to make you forget if you’ve eaten today, turned off the shower, or where your car keys are. You then spend 48 hours researching all possible ways it could have gotten in there, conclude the origin was a bad batch of hotel single-serve toothpaste, and attempt to find a professional to get that sucker out of there (said professional mercifully contacts your spouse and suggests a different form of medical assistance.)
After a week or so of in-patient care, you then make peace with insomnia and are, in hindsight, relieved you did not own any major power tools at that time.
September 14, 2016 — 10:46 AM
J.C. Hutchins says:
DOCTOR FACEBOOK
September 14, 2016 — 10:57 AM
Roberta Rand says:
Here’s my Ambien tale…I took Ambien in the midst of my marriage breakup. I had taken my wedding rings off and set them on the night stand of our bedroom where I was sleeping alone. The rings went missing. I have several odd “recollections” of what happened to them…I flushed them down the toilet. I left them on a table in a restaurant…I honestly don’t know what happened to them. I can’t differentiate between reality and the dreams…It’s highly likely he stole them. But I will never know for sure because I have lost several days in the Ambien fog…
September 14, 2016 — 11:14 AM
Michele Leavitt says:
My brother, a long-term alcoholic, came to our family reunion this past weekend. He’d been tapering off for a few days in the hope of arriving sober, but slid back into the mess on the morning of our event. To prevent seizures, etc., I gave him an Ambien that night and he was okay. It’s in the same drug family as Ativan, which is used in detoxes, hospitals, and jails for folks like my bro.
September 14, 2016 — 11:18 AM
adpauli says:
I have never taken it myself, but when my brother and I were teenagers, he was having a lot of trouble with insomnia, so his doc prescribed him Ambien. He was hesitant to take it, but one night he decided he’d had enough and took a dose. We were sitting on my parents’ bed (the antique kind that had stairs to climb up into), right on the edge. My brother, even as a teenager, was not a small guy–almost six and half feet (he got taller) and probably 300 lbs. We were chatting with my mother as she got ready for bed, and then my brother starts to sway back and forth and lean backward. My mom and I stared at him and warned him he was about to fall off the bed, but he said, “No, it’s ok, there’s only water down there.” And with that he launched himself off the bed to land flat on his back on the floor. The thud seemed like it shook the whole house. My dad cam running upstairs, certain that something horrible had happened, but no, there was my brother on the floor, moving his legs and arms like he was floating on his back in the water. Between the three of us, we managed to get him up and into his bed. The next day, he had zero recollection of what had happened. But I guess he did get a good night’s sleep.
September 14, 2016 — 11:47 AM
North says:
So, I may have dabbled with Ambien a bit in my teenage years, since I did suffer from insomnia quite a bit, and I was also an experimental teenager. Not going to lie, I enjoy the stuff immensely. But, I also understand that I am an odd one with how I handle the hallucinations this drug gives off.
If you don’t immediately go to sleep after taking Ambien, the side effects can start happening within 15 to 30 minutes depending on your sensitivity. I found this out the first time when I was laying in bed with my cell phone, and started noticing every time I moved my phone, there were little streams of light that stayed behind. Before long I was waving it all over my dark room like a glow stick at a rave.
I have stayed up on my laptop after taking it, and those times were interesting. One time, I began hallucinating so vividly that I thought the keys on my key board were massive purple boulders, and my computer screen was the interior of a big cave with dripping green stalagtites/stalagmites, and a glistening purple pond in the center (I guess I was in the cave wall?) The perspective was definitely interesting, and I found pushing the boulders down (when in reality I was nonsensically typing) very fun.
Another time, I took it when people were still up and around, and this drug always does weird things to peoples faces. For me, it usually gives the person I’m looking at 6 or 7 eyes in a row, two noses, and a massive grinning smile. I know a lot of people freak out at this, but I always knew I was “tripping” and it never freaked me out, I found it entertaining.
In my experience, if you stay up for an hour after taking the stuff, your hallucinations will recede, but so will the drugs effectiveness to put you to sleep, it wasn’t made for people to stay up on. Also, put your phone away. I never called anyone, but I did answer a few late night phone calls and could not recall a single thing I said the next morning.
So in conclusion, you will most likely hallucinate if you do not immediately close your eyes and go to sleep. I can say Ambien does work well if you do that, knocks you right out and keeps you asleep.
September 14, 2016 — 11:56 AM
wanderthe5th says:
So I took my first (and only!) Ambien about a half hour before bed. Came back into my room to set my alarm, but then realized there were two goblins chasing me. I started running away, but since this was taking place on the side of my clock with the alarm switches and radio tuner, I kept tripping over those and they caught me. Fortunately, it turned out they just wanted to have a party! A disco ball descended (sort of), we danced, had a great time.
Then, in my real body, I fell down. “Oh,” I thought, “I just had a hallucination.” Got back up, noticed about two hours had passed, set my alarm, and got into bed.
I tried to lie down to sleep, but couldn’t because Big Ben was sticking out the back of my head. Not a miniaturized version, but the actual Big Ben. So I’m just sitting awake in bed, trying to figure out how I can lie down so I can sleep, but I was completely stumped. Then I fell out of bed, thought, “Oh, I was hallucinating,” and saw that about two hours had passed.
So then I stood up and was on the USS Voyager. I helped Captain Janeway and 7 fend off some aliens that had invaded the ship, but unfortunately they infected me and I was going to turn into one of them. Was rushed to sick bay, where the doctor was trying to figure out an antidote. From there I spent a damn long time trying to understand my teeth, and why they weren’t where they were supposed to be. (Spoiler alert: I’d had jaw surgery that changed the shape of my mouth 3 months prior. Didn’t remember at the time.)
Then I fell on the ground, thought “Oh, I was hallucinating,” two hours had passed. I was in college at the time and home for spring break, so from there I just crawled from my bedroom, through the hall, and to my parents’ room. It was about 4:30 am at that point. Managed to explain to my mom that something was going on, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was. She supervised me until I fell asleep, and during that time I told her aaaaaaallllll about what I was experiencing as I was turning into a were-eagle. (Guess the doctor didn’t find that antidote.)
The un-funny part of the story: I was *intensely* suicidal the next day. I’m lucky I had just enough presence of mind to ask for help and people willing to take care of me until that passed.
Moral of the story: don’t take Ambien for the first time without supervision, if at all possible. Whenever I tell a doctor or nurse about it, they always say they hear that all the time. Tons of people take it and have no issue, of course, but I doubt I’d be alive today if I’d been on my own.
Fortunately I didn’t hurt myself, either from falling during the night or from the after-effects. And I’ve got my life-long, severe insomnia under control now. Plus, I got to meet the actual crew (not just the actors!) of a famous Federation ship! How many people get to say that?
September 14, 2016 — 11:59 AM
mlhe says:
Best Ambien story I have: At a birthday party for a 55-year-old woman at the time Ambien was just on the market. Birthday girl is a nurse whose stories of insomnia are well-known by the friends who are celebrating with her. One of the gifts was a box someone purchased at the gift store at Disneyland with these words: ““A dream is a wish your heart makes, when you’re fast asleep.” Inside the box were seven sample packets of Ambien.
September 14, 2016 — 12:36 PM
amniehaushard says:
My husband used to take it. He wouldn’t actually go to sleep until about 2AM but he said he felt great in the mornings, despite only having five hours of sleep. We thought it was great … until the Ebay packages started arriving. Apparently at night he had been ordering random pottery from people on Ebay (why pottery????) In around 2-3 weeks he spent over $2000 on soup bowls and coffee mugs.
But the last straw was when I awoke to a horrible smell around 4AM and looked in the kitchen. He had cooked “dinner” with empty pots on the stove and an empty roaster in the oven. One of the pot handles had gotten so hot it melted, and that’s what I was smelling. We’re lucky he didn’t leave anything flammable near the burners or I might not be writing this today.
September 14, 2016 — 12:39 PM
Bex says:
I definitely took ambien ad prescribed for several weeks with only a few ODD interactions. I did however start sleepwalking, make food, and eat food in bed without being awake. My roommates also used to find me in very weird places or watching TV when the TV wasn’t on.
I do however recall one night in which I took some and as I was walking to bed I noticed pink giraffes wandering in my hall; so I asked my roommate to tell the little people to keep the giraffes outta my eyes.
She was intrigued.
That sir is a mighty powerful drug. Use responsibly and if you really have to… Say HI to the giraffes for me.
September 14, 2016 — 12:43 PM
Ms. Stretchy Pants says:
Please don’t even start with the Ambien, Chuck! My husband took it for about a year. His doctor, who is also one of his best friends, told him to only take it once he was in bed. He forgot to tell him to only take it once he was lying down, lights out and ready to fall asleep. My husband would take it while he was getting ready for bed and then he would sit and read. Big mistake!
You will NOT feel drowsy, it just hits you and you won’t realize it. My husband had whole, crazy conversations with me he never remembered. And that thing about the sex that someone else mentioned? Yes, that happens. And not the good kind. I banned him from touching me while he was taking it.
Let me tell you what can happen (even if you wait until your lying down): you can get in your car and drive somewhere and never know it; you can email, text or worse, delete something on your computer that is vitally important and not know it until the next day (wouldn’t want that to happen to your MS!); you can say things to your wife and kids that are awful, bizarre and so completely unlike yourself… and never know it.
I dub Ambien the zombie drug! Just back away… just no!
September 14, 2016 — 12:45 PM
David Wendig says:
I had been having trouble sleeping for many months. I was prescribed Ambien, at first it was miraculous, finally a good night sleep. Then during random episodes, I would awaken to find myself outside, sometimes completely dressed and others not. At first I chalked these episodes up to standard sleep walking. Then one night, I was feeling extra agitated and felt like I would not be able to sleep so I took a pill and went to bed. I remember nothing of the night, but when I woke in the morning I was holding a loaded gun. This gun had been in a locked cabinet in another part of the house, the ammunition was in a locked box within this locked cabinet, I had got the keys to open the cabinet, entered the combination for the ammunition loaded the gun then took it back to bed. My mind was reeling when I realized what had happened, I searched frantically to make sure no shots were fired. This was the last time I ever took Ambien.
September 14, 2016 — 12:58 PM
Pascale Kavanagh says:
More terrifying than funny, but here goes: my father was recovering from transplant surgery. The discomfort kept him from sleeping so they gave him ambien. He went into cardiac arrest and had to be resuscitated. This happened 3 more times until we finally figured out that the ambien was KILLING him. Literally. Modern medicine at work.
September 14, 2016 — 1:48 PM
Michelle Myers (@Tundragirl1966) says:
One morning I was heading down the stairs in my condo building to go to the gym at 4:45am, as you do, and on the last set of stairs before the lobby I encountered some jean shorts, one sock, and a puddle of what looked and smelled like urine (not a usual occurrence). In the lobby I find a guy in tighty whiteys and one sock treating one of the potted plants like a Weeble. I started yelling at him to get the eff out of the building, then realized it was 5am, I was in basically no clothes, and I had no idea who this lunatic was, so I continued on my way to the parking lot.
Later that day I ran into our resident manager and told her the tale, because obviously I was a little freaked out. She told me that he was a renter, and after the lobby incident, he went, not to his current apartment, but to the apartment where he used to live and which had, apparently, not changed the locks. He got into bed with the current resident, who called the cops. Dude was on Ambien, didn’t remember a second of any of it, and very shortly after this incident moved out.
I also have a coworker who was traveling internationally, took an Ambien, and WOKE UP ON A DIFFERENT PLANE.
Ambien, not even once.
September 14, 2016 — 2:08 PM
Chris Page says:
I’ve generally had good experiences with Ambien. One of the weird things I’ve noticed with it is that I don’t remember my dreams (which is disconcerting). No hallucinations or other weird affects. I did manage to write a fucked up short story, but that’s it.
In three years, I’ve had one bad experience: and that was mostly me getting up to “secure the perimeter” of the house after my girlfriend and I heard a weird noise. (I have no memory of doing any of this)
It may also depend on your dosage, though. I’m on a fairly low dose (10 mg) which I supplement with melatonin, and I have good sleep.
September 14, 2016 — 2:09 PM
Chris Page says:
And a follow up after telling my girlfriend about the thread:
Apparently we have some involved conversations after I’m out on Ambien that I have no memory of, including me getting up repeatedly to get water, telling her that I can’t sleep, and at least one conversation about petting things.
She assumed I was conscious for most of these.
September 15, 2016 — 1:09 AM
tinderbones says:
I usually have no problem with Ambien, however, if I wake up for any reason, (bathroom, bad dream, etc), I’ll tend to get distracted by a ‘great’ idea and wander away from bed. This is not ideal.
I have glue-gunned glow in the dark stars to inappropriate things, “invented” food, written stories I have no memory of writing, rambled on social media, wandered around the back yard barefoot, “crafted.” The Walrus is just an annoyance for me–delete tweets I have no memory of, throw away Blair Witch twig thing I made, clean up random kitchen mess– but for some, it can be a danger. You won’t know how you react until you try it. Best wishes on the sleep thing.
September 14, 2016 — 2:17 PM
scottiscribe says:
I participated in an overnight sleep study at a clinic. They gave me one pill of Ambien and I settled in for the night, my head and chest all wired up, reading a Stephen King novel for a bit. I was getting drowsy and glanced up. The walls and ceiling of the small room where expanding and contracting, as if the room was breathing. I got out of the bed and pulled off some of the sensors and crawled along the floor, running my hands over the walls. I could FEEL the wall breathing! I tried to match my breathing to the wall, so we’d be breathing together, kinda wanting to be in sync with the universe. A nurse came in and helped me back to bed and rewired all my sensors. She told me to stay put. I kept my eyes on the walls and ceiling until I blacked out.
The next morning, I felt fine. It wasn’t until after I left the clinic that I realized the whole episode was on video tape, as they had a camera going. I wonder if the techs were all laughing at me?
BTW, the results of the sleep study showed that my sleep is really and truly f**ked up. I never drop into the deep part of sleep (can’t remember the name) just bounce around from dozing to REM and back again. No wonder I’m exhausted.
September 14, 2016 — 2:38 PM
Ness says:
My husband has the same sort of sleep issues. He woke up 150 times during his 6-hour sleep study. And the first pill they gave him to help him sleep worked until he started having auditory hallucinations. Fun times.
September 14, 2016 — 2:45 PM
Rebecca J Robare says:
My best Ambien story is definitely my first. Like a lot of the other commenters, I didn’t realize that it was essential to take Ambien immediately before sleep, so I took my dose, got in bed, and started doing a simple word search puzzle. Shortly thereafter, I called my boyfriend (now husband) into the room to explain to him that the fairies were sending him messages via my puzzle. He gently put me to bed, and I had no memory of this the next morning until he told me about it.
Eventually I realized I needed to get off Ambien when I gave my contact info to one of those sketchy weight-loss drug web sites. I realized the next step was going to be buying stuff I didn’t really want. But I really needed a sleep aid for a while, and I’m glad one was available and that I was able to get off it before the side effects became damaging.
September 14, 2016 — 2:39 PM
Isabeth says:
We have Ambien Rules here:
1. Isabeth has to go directly to bed after taking Ambien (aka Zolpidem)
2. If Isabeth can’t sleep, she can read.
3. That means no Interneting!
4. If Isabeth gets the munchies, she can have cereal. No cooked food.
5. Isabeth must wake up Mr Isabeth if hallucinations start.
6. Isabeth is very welcome to wake up Mr Isabeth for Ambien sex.*
* If you are with someone inebriated on Ambien, it is NOT OKAY to assume consent! This should be decided during sobriety! I know everyone here knows this, but I don’t want my words standing alone without that caveat.
September 14, 2016 — 4:08 PM
Mary Alice Kropp says:
No weird Ambien stories here. It really didn’t do any of that stuff to me. I took my pill, and slept, well, okay. At least it was better than I usually do. Hubby was quite disappointed that there was no Ambien sex involved for the four or five years I was on the stuff. Yeah, I’ve been on pretty much all of them, including the antidepressants that can make you drowsy, trying to tackle this insomnia problem. I’ve had sleep problems since high school, and I’m 61 now. Add in the restless leg, and sleep? What’s that? The meds all worked for a few years, and then stopped. I was right back to not-sleeping. Hope you get yours solved quickly and completely.
September 14, 2016 — 4:19 PM
wagnerel says:
I’ve never taken it myself, but my brother has. My sister in law awakened at 2 AM once and discovered he wasn’t in bed. She found him standing at the kitchen sink, methodically washing some picture frames (she’d just purchased them and left them on the kitchen table) as if they were dishes.
September 14, 2016 — 5:32 PM
brdubard says:
Ambien worked fine for me, except for the no dreams part mentioned above. And a few texts I don’t remember sending. It was when I stopped taking it that I had the hallucinations. So I don’t take it any more.
September 14, 2016 — 5:36 PM
IndigoSpider says:
My doctor prescribed Ambien after my mom passed away. The first night I took it the neighbors called the police because I was screaming so terribly they thought a murder was occurring. I didn’t hear them banging on the door and they eventually broke in, also hearing me screaming and assuming some horrible scene awaited them. When they entered the bedroom I turned over and waved, offered to make them coffee and breakfast for their troubles. I had no recollection of any of it.
The second night I got up to go to the bathroom but my arms and legs weren’t working. Somehow, sheer momentum I suppose, I managed to stand up and hit the bedroom door, then careen down the hallway where I hit the edge of another door that flung me into the dining room where I proceeded to fall, face first, to the floor. As all this was occurring I remember thinking, “holy crap, why can’t I raise my arms to stop myself, why aren’t my legs actually moving, I’m paralyzed.” As I laid on the dining room rug I was trying to get my arms to push myself up but they simply would not move.
Once again, the neighbors were disturbed by all the thudding and banged on the door. I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, but managed a strange whine of sorts. They again called 911v(and the landlord to unlock the door that was fixed earlier that day from the police needing to break in). They took me to the hospital where they treated me for a broken nose (which was also suffering from 2nd degree burns from the rug) and a concussion.
The landlord said if I continued to take Ambien I’d be evicted but at that point, yeah, I didn’t need to be told no more Ambien for me! I wrote letters of apology to all my neighbors and thanked them for their help. A few days after all that a couple packages arrived from various online stores that I do not remember ordering.
My mom died in 2012, I still get waves from the police when they see me driving around town. They told me that, unfortunately, they respond to Ambien related incidents more often than people realize. At the time I was totally unaware of these Ambien stories and thought it was a bizarre reaction to grief.
September 14, 2016 — 5:55 PM
Stefanie says:
I’ve never taken a sleeping pill, but my mom does. She used to get up in the middle of the night, sleep walk to the fridge, eat, and go back to bed. She’s wake up in the morning with crumbs or chocolate pudding on her nightgown and wouldn’t remember eating anything. o.O
September 14, 2016 — 7:30 PM
kddomingue says:
Yep. This definitely reaffirms my belief that the pharmaceutical companies are out to get us. No Ambien for me, thankyouverymuch.
September 15, 2016 — 12:40 AM
decayingorbits says:
I have a prescription for Ambien from my doc — to use to help with jet lag on international travel — and I have never, in over 5 years of using it occasionally — had a problem.
At least not that I know of, LOL. That being said, I have started using Melatonin instead which seems to do the trick.
September 15, 2016 — 5:52 AM
Ed says:
How did this drug pass medical trials?
September 15, 2016 — 6:34 AM
kddomingue says:
So many drugs pass these trials that shouldn’t . Pharmaceuticals are a HUGE cash cow and new drugs are pushed through these trials at a mind boggling rate, purported to be safe, put out into the market, advertised on TV, prescribed by doctors, lauded as the new IT DRUG…..until people taking it start have seizures or driving a car in their sleep or developing heart problems after taking the drug. Then the FDA says “Oops! Sorry!” It’s all about the money. Truly a sad state of affairs.
September 15, 2016 — 9:38 AM
E.Maree says:
There’s a chilling comment, especially for parents, on the Ambien Walrus blog post (linked by Aimee Kuzenski, thank you!): “Ambien destroyed my life and I remember nothing of what happened. It has now been over five years since your lovely Ambien walrus convinced me to try to end my life and well as the lives of my children. We didn’t go on any shopping spread or driving excursions, not that I remember, apparently he wanted more from me than my money, he wanted my life and the reasons I lived for.
My children are fine, thank God, even though now I will never see them again. Its been five years and a month since the last time I remember seeing them. I have been stuck in the legal system since then and it seems never ending. I will never again have the life I once had. I won’t get to see my children graduate, I will never get another hug or snuggle from them. I did get my life from them. My nine year old son ran for help and saved all of us and I am thankful for that.
Before any of you take ambien, think of what can go wrong. I am the poster child of what can go wrong on ambien and I was crucified in the media for it and I will spend the rest of my life paying for it.
My name is Rebecca Koehler and I am from Oklahoma. Google it. It happened March 2, 2011. Never let it happen to you.”
The relevant news story is very hard reading after that comment, though thankfully all the kids are safe: http://www.news9.com/story/14190231/oklahoma-mother-accused-of-trying-to-kill-children-self
September 15, 2016 — 9:34 AM
decayingorbits says:
Sorry, this sounds more like some nut who heard about Ambien-related episodes and tried to cover up her attempted murder-suicide. There is far too much additional evidence that shows this wasn’t the result of some one-off Ambien-induced craziness.
September 15, 2016 — 9:09 PM
Holly Daugherty says:
I have taken Ambien for 7 or 8 years, and there is a learning curve to it. You do have to treat it differently, it is not for some people. You do not get drowsy, one minute you are conscious the next you are not. You will have a tiny bit of short term memory loss (yeah, I know but how many days have you not slept) you may have conversations with your spouse that you don’t remember for a few days, you may have sex that you don’t remember, you will sleep. You cannot take it every night, I usually avoid taking it as much as possible. If my insomnia is really effecting my life, I pick a night to go to bed at 10pm and have to set an alarm, it really wants you to sleep for 8 hours. Be warned, the sleep you get is weird and dreamless. I have not experienced the hallucinations or sleepwalking but I have missed a few good things with my husband. I would suggest you try Ginko Biloba, I have had 2 months of no insomnia since I started taking it. I hope you can get some sleep.
September 15, 2016 — 11:20 AM