Insomnia - help needed

[Claire18]

Hi everyone! New here and need some advice. 

I drank ayahuasca in the middle of November and about 5-6 weeks later I started to have sleep disturbances. At first i had really intense hypnagogic hallucinations, coudnt fall asleep at night, got stuck in some kind of inbetween wakefullness and sleep, could here my own thoughts living their own life in the mornings, felt like my eyes were open when they were closed etc. I also had/have severe anxiety. I read about HPPD but didn’t think it was that at first since I didn’t have any visual disturbances (I also have headache and slight tinnitus on one ear by the way).

I went to the doctor and got promethazine and sleept good three days in a row but on the fourth night when I took a break I woke up and hallucinated. I immediately stopped and the sleep has gotten somewhat better since then (no hypnagogia and weird thoughts), I easily fall asleep at night now but the problem is I have constant wakeups every hour and I sleep around 5 hours a night. I also feel very anxious and stressed during night. 

I started noticing some visuals the past month such as floaters, blurred visions, slight halos and starburst around light and mild after images after looking at a screen. I’m lucky the visual part is mild but the insomnia I’ve now had for 2,5 months is killing me and it has started to affect my job and ability to focus. 

I’ve tried a lot of different supplements but nothing seems to help in the long run. It’s like my body is on full speed all the time and even if I sleep poorly I can do really intense work outs without getting tired. I would prefer to get through this without medicine but I’m afraid the Insomnia will last a long time If I don’t do anything about it.

Do you guys have any recommendations on sleeping meds that works fine with HPPD? Or any other medicine I could try take short term to just calm my brain down I bit? Or do you think I should I just wait it out? I’ve seen some people recommending abstaining from meds if possible. I really don’t want to become dependent on anything but this is really starting to affect my life in a negative way so I’m a bit desperate. 

Thanks! 

[Jay1]

Hi, have you tried melatonin yet, that seems to work pretty well for me (5-10mg), i get a slight hangover feeling the next morning, but a small price to pay for getting my sleep cycle sorted. I take it for about 2-3 weeks and it tends to get me back on track. If that doesn't work, Zlopiclone almost certainly will. Again, make sure to just take them for a week or two and see if it helps you get into a natural sleep cycle. 

A technique that helps me a bit (and this is one i somehow made up myself) ... When i'm in bed and wide awake, I count as fast as I can in my head... As i start counting into double figures, it becomes a real struggle to keep the speed of the counting up.. keep cycling repeatedly between 1-20 as fast as i can until it's a real struggle to count.. For whatever reason, it seems to overload my brain enough to clear out my thoughts and help me get back to sleep. Strange, but worth a try!

[Claire18]

Hi Jay! Thank you for taking your time to reply, I’m really desperate over here and feel like I’ve ruined my life  can’t concentrate at work and I’m so worried I will  never be able to sleep properly again.

I did try melatonin for a short while when this started but didn’t notice a difference. But maybe I should try it again but for a bit longer as you mentioned! Regarding zopiclone I was actually thinking about that one since I understood it’s not as heavy as benzos. Do you know about the risk of  hallucinating on those when having HPPD? Seems like I am very sensitive (only did psychadelics once) and that my brain is stuck in some kind of hallucination mode since I even got these scary hallucinations after taking antihistamines that the doctor said are very light and even pregnant women can use them..

[Jay1]

Zopiclone is an odd one, in terms of visuals... I have very strong hppd visuals and zopiclone changes them... The visual snow and strobing stop almost completely , but the geometric patterns become more like spider webs, which is quite strange at first. So they do have potential to make you see things while on them. I've never had any prolonged visual changes though. 

The safer alternative (visually) would be a traditional benzo. They are also amazing for sleep (I have slept for 16 hours on a 2mg dose on klono!). If you treat them with full respect and only use them to try to break the cycle, I don't see any issue with them (as long as your doctor agrees, of course!).

[Claire18]

Thanks! I’m not too worried about visual changes, I’m more scared of getting an hallucination (on promethazine I got paranoid and thought it was a monster in my bedroom). No one can tell how I will react of course, I need to try myself