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Insomnia treatments
Category: Medicines
Type
Involuntary
Introduction and description
Insomnia is not technically a medical condition, but it is often simply used in everyday use to mean inability to get to sleep because of worry or depression, anxiety or illness. Ultimately its definition is actually somewhat imprecise. If a person says ‘yes’ to any one of three questions
"Do you experience difficulty sleeping?"
"Do you have difficulty falling or staying asleep?"
“Do you have difficulty staying asleep?”
Then that person is considered to have insomnia. Thus, insomnia is most often thought of as both a sign and a symptom that can accompany several sleep, medical, and psychiatric disorders. If the insomnia is not attributable to a medical, psychiatric or environmental cause it is called ‘primary insomnia’.
And as a consequence there is real interest in drugs that ‘help’ people sleep and they are very effective at producing ‘spiritual experiences’ [and rather unwanted side effects] of a somewhat terrifying nature. People can experience hallucinations, visions, OOB experiences, dysphoria – in fact virtually the full panoply of [largely negative] spiritual experience.
Zolpidem is just one of a number of drugs within this category - called Z-drugs - a group of nonbenzodiazepine drugs with effects similar to benzodiazepines which are used in the treatment of insomnia and whose names mostly start with the letter "Z". They all act in much the same way and on the same receptors.
There were 43 million prescriptions issued for insomnia medications during 2005 in the USA which generated a total of $2.7 billion for pharmaceutical companies. Eszopiclone (Lunesta) along with other "Z Drugs" including zolpidem (Ambien), zaleplon (Sonata) are the most commonly prescribed sedative hypnotics in the USA.
It may be no accident that Zolpidem is one of the most common sleeping medications prescribed in the Netherlands (who are hugely knowledgeable about drugs in general and their potential) , with a total of 582,660 prescriptions dispensed in 2008.
Who is using who?
The incidence of these drugs being used ‘recreationally’ is increasing . Sold on the street as Abee'ss, Amee's or Amb'zz, recreational users claim that "fighting" the effects of the drugs by forcing themselves to stay awake will sometimes cause “vivid visuals and a body high”. It is to this community that I have turned for some examples. What will become abundantly clear as you read the examples, is that some people prescribed these drugs for insomnia, have ended up using them ‘recreationally’.
Side-effects
If we take just one example drug from those shown below, typical side effects are shown in the table below which comes from the eHealthme website, a site which used Adverse Drug Reaction reports to produce its statistics.
Most common side effects by gender:
| Female | Male |
| Nausea | Pyrexia |
| Pain | Completed Suicide |
| Fall | Dyspnoea |
| Completed Suicide | Anxiety |
| Vomiting | Nausea |
| Pyrexia | Pneumonia |
| Anxiety | Drug Ineffective |
| Dyspnoea | Fall |
| Headache | Insomnia |
| Insomnia | Dizziness |
Another side-effect relevant to this site is that of death - the ultimate spiritual experience.
Again using the eHealthme website as the source we find the following charts of some of the main products.
Zolpidem - On Jun, 26, 2015: 24,434 people reported to have side effects when taking Zolpidem. Among them, 520 people (2.13%) have Death.
Ambien - For reasons I am unable to work out Ambien and Zolpidem are recorded separately on eHealthme, but Zolpidem has brand names that include Ambien, Ambien CR, Intermezzo, Stilnox, Stilnoct, Sublinox, Hypnogen, Zonadin, Sanval, Zolsana and Zolfresh. So in reality it might be better to add the following figures to the previous figures to get a true picture.
On Jun, 26, 2015: 43,182 people reported to have side effects when taking Ambien. Among them, 897 people (2.08%) have Death.
Lunesta - On May, 29, 2015: 15,204 people reported to have side effects when taking Lunesta. Among them, 92 people (0.61%) have Death.
Zopiclone - On Jun, 8, 2015: 6,412 people reported to have side effects when taking Zopiclone. Among them, 193 people (3.01%) have Death.
Sonata/Zaleplon - On Jun, 19, 2015: 2,042 people reported to have side effects when taking Sonata. Among them, 39 people (1.91%) have Death.
How it works
Most of these are short-acting nonbenzodiazepine hypnotic of the imidazopyridine class that potentiates gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), an inhibitory neurotransmitter, by binding to GABAA receptors at the same location as benzodiazepines. It works quickly (usually within 15 minutes) and has a short half-life (2–3 hours). Thus it is a GABA agonist and you can find more details about the exact mechanism of GABA agonists in the section covering this class of neurotransmitter.
The key side effects for producing a spiritual experience are:
- Anterograde amnesia
- Ataxia or poor motor coordination, difficulty maintaining balance
- Amnesia
- Impaired judgment and reasoning
- Short term memory loss
In effect, there is sensory deprivation as well as a knock out of the reasoning function and memory. The stage is set for the composer to step in and provide a full blown spiritual experience. It may also be worth reading the section on benzodiazepines, as the other side effects are identical, including the withdrawal symptoms.
The way it produces hallucinations and all the other interesting side effects of the GABA agonist is through overdose. In fact they are acting through poisoning.
Long term they cause brain damage - not that you would in fact know, because your brain is damaged.
On May, 30, 2015: 43,174 people reported to have side effects when taking Ambien. Among them, 8 people (0.02%) have Brain Damage.
References and further reading
The photos on this page are by Shirin Neshat (Persian: شیرین نشاط; born March 26, 1957).
They were chosen for their originality and subtlety rather than for any link with the subject of the page.
Shirin is an Iranian visual artist who lives in New York City. In 2010, she was named Artist of the Decade by Huffington Post critic G. Roger Denson, for
the degree to which world events have more than met the artist in making her art chronically relevant to an increasingly global culture, for reflecting the ideological war being waged between Islam and the secular world over matters of gender, religion, and democracy, and because the impact of her work far transcends the realms of art in reflecting the most vital and far-reaching struggle to assert human rights.
Observations
The table below shows some examples of hallucination numbers as of 2010. The figures come from eHealthme. The links take you to the eHealthme site where up to date figures for side effects of all sorts can be found. If the link does not work it may be because the data is being updated; the drug has been discontinued; or it has been renamed.
|
Observation identifiers |
Observation name |
No of observations |
|
002361 |
2049 |
|
|
002362 |
44 |
|
|
002363 |
96 |
|
|
002364 |
62 |
|
|
|
TOTAL |
2251 |
Other drugs in this category include
- Gaboxadol - also known as THIP was an experimental sleep aid drug. In March, 2007, Merck and H. Lundbeck cancelled work on the drug, citing safety concerns and the failure of an efficacy trial. It too acts on the GABA system
- Isoguvacine is a GABAA receptor agonist used in scientific research
Related observations
Healing observations
- Therapeutics Education Collaboration - Bohemian Polypharmacy 012489
- Valerian, insomnia and anxiety 010367
Hallucination
- Aliens of Ambien 002367
- Ambien 015644
- Amitriptyline hydrochloride 015646
- An accidental trip from EROWID 018233
- Belsomra and Suvorexant 023949
- Clomethiazole 005584
- Diphenhydramine 002100
- Fraulein O 006036
- From frying pans to fires 005136
- GHB withdrawal 005134
- Hallucinations from withdrawal 005135
- Hallucinations in an erratic driver and zolpidem 005067
- Hobson, Dr Allan - The effects of a stroke 05 - Imaginary reptiles conjured up by his drug-soaked thalamus 014252
- Lucidity Abounds Zopiclone by HM42 014810
- Lunesta 002364
- Lunesta - Hypnotic and hellish 016872
- Melatonin 55 020873
- Misuse of Sonata 002365
- Morning glory seeds - I almost died 015580
- Noodled by narcotics, and seeing how brain compression algorithms at work 014453
- Oxazepam and Serax 002207
- Promethazine 002116
- Restoril 015698
- Rozerem 015705
- Sleeping pills cause hallucinations 002360
- Solvent abuse causes brain damage and paranoia 002190
- St Vincent - Bonding with Huey Newton 016862
- Suddenly, I Was Seeing Bugs Everywhere by Xenoc 005437
- Temazepam 002201
- Zaleplon - Sonata 002362
- Zolpidem 002361
- Zopiclone 002363
Wisdom, Inspiration, Divine love & Bliss
- Anne Thomson - Attempted suicide 014257
- Noodled by narcotics, and seeing how brain compression algorithms at work 014453
- St Vincent - Birth in Reverse 016865
- St Vincent - Bonding with Huey Newton 016862
Out of time
In time
- An accidental trip from EROWID 018233
- Danielou, Alain – On drugs you are possessed by the spirit being of the drug 022582
- GHB withdrawal 005134
- Hobson, Dr Allan - The effects of a stroke 05 - Imaginary reptiles conjured up by his drug-soaked thalamus 014252
- Lucidity Abounds Zopiclone by HM42 014810
- Noodled by narcotics, and seeing how brain compression algorithms at work 014453
- Sleeping pills cause hallucinations 002360
- Sleeping tablets sent me bonkers 002366
- Solvent abuse causes brain damage and paranoia 002190
- St Vincent - Bonding with Huey Newton 016862
- Valerian, insomnia and anxiety 010367