So a three week stretch of chronic insomnia is over. A period where I barely slept at all, leaving me severly depressed, incapable of doing anything, and making me, at times, want to harm myself is over. And it's over thanks to the wonders of tablets.

And while I'm not used to taking a pill that's designed NOT to keep me awake, I bow down at the altar of whichever god sent me these round little poppets.

Ok, they smell like the worst feet imaginable, and taste how you'd imagine them too. But by jimminy they work. They made me dizzy, made my arms tingle and then, ZOWEEE, I awoke ten hours later feeling refreshed, energised, and motivated. Motivated to do what, I haven't worked out, but it's nice to have the option to do something should I feel the need.

The only downside (apart from the smell and taste) are the weird dreams. I spent last night dreaming of the peak district, filing cabinets, and a pair and a half of adidas Indoor Supers.

Still, at least I was able to dream.

Are these herbal ones, or perscription stuff EIM?

I get it chronic myself at times, so I'll try anything new out.

Herbal. The strongest you can get without perscription, apparently. They're called Valerina or summat.

I do have a perscription (not made out in my name, obv) but wanted to try these first. They seem to work.

QUOTE:
Ok, they smell like the worst feet imaginable

That sounds like valerian (sp?), a herbal remedy - I tried them once and didn't like their effect.

I stick to camomile tea these days.

I have some valerina in a drawer somewhere, they definitely do the job but I also get really weird dreams.

I've tried those herbal pills which honk a bit as well.

I found that it still took ages to drop off, but then you'd be dead to the world for 10 hours. So it was great for catching up on your missed sleep at weekends, but if you tried it on a weeknight, it would just murder you when the bastard alarm went off.

I took some herbal ones for a while, once. They had limited effect ...except for making my breath (and burps) absolutely rancid! I had to stop taking them, in fact, so badly did they 'come back' on me.

I used to occasionally scrounge temazepam off my Mum. That did the trick! Particularly when washed down with two or three pints of McEwans No.1 Champion Ale, I found! :^)

I've tried variations on this sort of thing - gentian, geranium, valerian etc. not sure they ever worked all that well. what is the name of your ones EIM?

I sometimes take far too many Kalms if work is stressing me out - you need far too many to get any kind of effect. Now they've got a sleep variety I might try those.

I tried a few of those herbal things, all of which seem to contain valerian, last year. None of them did shit. Nytol worked a bit, but also made me feel a bit mental the following morning.

Everyone I know (me included) seems to have had really bad insomnia this last few months.

Strangely, I was discussing all this with some friends, just a couple of weeks back. We all agreed that one of the worst aspects of conventional sleeping pills (like the temazepam I scrounged) was that if you woke up in the middle of the night (say, 3am) you'd find yourself wide awake again and unable to return to your slumber. I believe that this is actually an advantage of the herbal ones - they seem to have a more gentle 'curve' of effect and keep you under throughout the entire night. on the other hand (and this could just be me, but...) I found the herbal ones seemed to give me a bit of a 'hangover', the next morning! Does anyone else get this with them?

I've had a bout of insomnia myself lately, though pretty mild. Climatic, maybe?

Not me today. And I was woken up at 4am by the cat crying on the windowsill having been locked out all night. I fell back to sleep relatively quickly after that.

Lyra - They're called Valerina. You have to take 4 a night. Hmmmm. Why not just make the pills bigger? Say, the size of a biscuit?

My only sleeping tablet experience is with Diphenhydramine (Nytol and Sleepeaze, which I guess is the shitty Boots over the counter version.)

It made sleeping a lot easier, but getting out of bed a total strain. On the plus side, I had crazy vivid dreams. Also, if you wildly exceed the stated dosage (for example, if you have two abcesses in your mouth, haven't slept for two nights, and can't get to a dentist for another 36 hours, leading to a small mental breakdown), strange and interesting things happen to the inside of your skull.

I don't want dreams. I hate the things I dream. When I do sleep I wake up exhausted from the stress of the horrible dreams I have.

I wouldn't mind not sleeping enough if I wasn't so bastard tired all the time.

i like dreaming, even the grimmest dreams i've had (like the three dreams in one week i had about nuclear holocaust) haven't bothered me that much. sometimes i wake up more tired than i go to sleep.

i love dream science though, i wrote a really terrible, wishy-washy, social science to the core dissertation about neurology, psychophysiology and dreaming amongst different cultures. absolute balls through and through, but i had an excellent time researching it all.