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Misc Seroquel - sleep paralysis; anyone else get this?

RobotRipping

RobotRipping

Bluelighter
Joined
Jan 18, 2011
Messages
4,002
Location
NS, Canada
I'm sure most people experience the side effects but i've been taking seroquel for about 2 months on and off and what happens now, no matter the dose whether 25-100mg, i struggle to sleep then my body shuts down but my mind stays awake and i get stuck in sleep paralysis.

this is all fine and dandy but as soon as this happens i start to hallucinate, visual and auditory hallucinations that scare the living shit out of me. Like hoards of people trying to break into my apartment, or people surrounding me and sometimes i roll myself out of the sleep paralysis and everything is quiet, normal and fine.

the last time this happened, i saw some scary people with rags across their faces that were coming for me and i heard a bag drop beside my bed and just had the feeling of complete helplessness and impending doom. Sometimes the sleep paralysis is too strong to roll out of and i'm stuck there just experiencing the most fucked up things i can imagine. It's like it targets my worst fears and just hits me with them full force.

I've somehow even developed the ability to speak while in sleep paralysis, i've woken up my gf several times ranting about strange shit or even making jokes that i can talk while asleep. It's fucked up and i'm afraid to take seroquel again. So i'm stuck awake. Z-drugs don't knock me out, benzos don't either, really nothing knocks me out and now i'm in mini opiate withdrawal and fucked for sleep. I'm going to see my Dr. but i doubt he'll do anything other than throw me on mirtazepine or try tricyclcic antidepressants for whatever reason (not even depressed or psychotic).

TL;DR: anyone else get sleep paralysis from seroquel to the point they are afraid to even take it? Does anything else knock you out like seroquel should? because i'm a massive insomniac and nothing else puts me to sleep and now i feel fucked that i'll either get no sleep or face the most frightening experiences of my life every night just so i can have a terrible sleep. As well, why does seroquel cause this? from a pharmcological viewpoint. it's not like opiate sleep paralysis, it's far more intense, dark and fear inducing.
 
Honestly i'm afraid to take all drugs except opiates...and the occasional benzo or some such, but i still classify benzos as evil, up there with SSRI's..fuck that.

I have a hard time taking antibiotics unless i'm really really sick, and even then i hesitate.

If you think the seroquel helps with whatever your taking it for, than congratulations your a winner. If not stop...that easy.
 
i've been kind of in and out of opiate.opioid w/d while using it so that could be what's causing this weird shit. I also used to try to achieve this state naturally and to lucid dream so maybe i've predisposed myself to such things but fuck it, if i can't sleep again tonight, i'll be taking it anyway and will just have to deal with the monsters and demons i hear and see while in sleep paralysis.

nothing else knocks me out, fucking 14mg of etizolam, 400mg codeine and 7.5mg of zopiclone couldnt even do it last night. Even dilaudid wont knock me out with benzos and z drugs.
 
RobotRipping said:
i've been kind of in and out of opiate.opioid w/d while using it so that could be what's causing this weird shit.
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Yeah, that's possible, I don't like it during withdrawal and I've had nightmares and very restless sleep, so it causing sleep paralysis doesn't sound that strange to me. I was surprised to hear what Mr.Scagnattie said, it was one of my least favourite/least effective sleep drugs during WD. I guess we're all so different :)
 
I know a good mate with the same problem, he tried a few alternatives through his GP before finding one, i'll try to find out and let you know.
I would suggest you stop taking it soon as you can, my mate said the night terrors were so bad his mum ended up sleeping in the same room just to monitor him.
 
I know u said z's dont work but have u tried zopiclone works well 4me especially wit wds gl
 
I know u said z's dont work but have u tried zopiclone works well 4me especially wit wds gl
 
yeah zopiclone doesn't work for me any more, plus i have a huge benzo tolerance, so not really surprised it doesn't work. I could easily take 15mg and nothing happens, not even that nasty metallic taste, so i think i've fucked myself there. Used to work great but just not anymore, maybe my Dr will go with hydroxyzine or something if he's nice or more likely try to put me on mirtazepine which would be fine if it didn't cause massive weight gain. Guess i'll just have to see him this week and deal with the night terrors, you kind of get used to hallucinating and the sleep paralysis i guess, it bothers me but no sleep bothers me a tad bit more.
 
RobotRipping said:
I'm sure most people experience the side effects but i've been taking seroquel for about 2 months on and off and what happens now, no matter the dose whether 25-100mg, i struggle to sleep then my body shuts down but my mind stays awake and i get stuck in sleep paralysis.

this is all fine and dandy but as soon as this happens i start to hallucinate, visual and auditory hallucinations that scare the living shit out of me. Like hoards of people trying to break into my apartment, or people surrounding me and sometimes i roll myself out of the sleep paralysis and everything is quiet, normal and fine.

the last time this happened, i saw some scary people with rags across their faces that were coming for me and i heard a bag drop beside my bed and just had the feeling of complete helplessness and impending doom. Sometimes the sleep paralysis is too strong to roll out of and i'm stuck there just experiencing the most fucked up things i can imagine. It's like it targets my worst fears and just hits me with them full force.

I've somehow even developed the ability to speak while in sleep paralysis, i've woken up my gf several times ranting about strange shit or even making jokes that i can talk while asleep. It's fucked up and i'm afraid to take seroquel again. So i'm stuck awake. Z-drugs don't knock me out, benzos don't either, really nothing knocks me out and now i'm in mini opiate withdrawal and fucked for sleep. I'm going to see my Dr. but i doubt he'll do anything other than throw me on mirtazepine or try tricyclcic antidepressants for whatever reason (not even depressed or psychotic).

TL;DR: anyone else get sleep paralysis from seroquel to the point they are afraid to even take it? Does anything else knock you out like seroquel should? because i'm a massive insomniac and nothing else puts me to sleep and now i feel fucked that i'll either get no sleep or face the most frightening experiences of my life every night just so i can have a terrible sleep. As well, why does seroquel cause this? from a pharmcological viewpoint. it's not like opiate sleep paralysis, it's far more intense, dark and fear inducing.
Click to expand...

I've had so much wierd, downright awful shit happen to me with seroquel so I advise you to stop that medicine. I got tons of sleep paralysis and worse...
 
Howl said:
I've had so much wierd, downright awful shit happen to me with seroquel so I advise you to stop that medicine. I got tons of sleep paralysis and worse...
Click to expand...

I think I can offer some input here after my two week seroquel binge (25 mg or so at night) to help sleep during suboxone wd.

As I put it, 100mg put me in "awake zombie mode" aka sleep paralysis. And it zapped me of energy the next day regardless of the dose/sleep I got on it (or I had no energy since I was detoxing). However, I immediately felt better in the AM once I started using benadryl and melatonin and weed instead (slept with only weed last night, 7.5 hours woke up once around 4 hours and had to piss).

Seroquel made me SUPER paranoid too. I thought drones were watching me from the sky and basically just thought I was constantly being tracked and watched (by the Feds in my case). I'm not...I'm just a harmless stoner trying to make something of my life.

So I can relate to the night terrors too, even though for me, I never remembered my dreams on seroquel (weed helps make you not remember dreams). But I would wake up with my heart racing in a puddle of sweat and have no clue why.


Fuck Seroquel man, unless you need it for mental health or insomnia real bad, I would only recommend it for short stints during WD like Mr Scag said.

Peace.
 
ya thats weird i was perscribed serquel for 2yrs for sleep at night wit a 200mg dose n never had any of that unless id try to stay up but thatd never work shit wud kick my ass n id sleep forever
 
Howl said:
2yrs... You need to read up on something called tardive dyskinesia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tardive_dyskinesia

Also I took over 600mg a day. Got me addicted.
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Yes it happened to me a handful of times, I take the 25mg tiny pink ones made just for sleep sometimes to stretch out my valium (addicted to at least 20mg a day) and you know it's horrible, it happened only when I was out of valium for several days before I could refill my bottle and fuck I hear how it's supposed to mostly happen when one sleeps on their back well I sure didn't always wake up when in that position, often i would have my neck kinda crooked at an angle wh en I woke up and the fucked up flipped over vision made it even worse. I didn't feel presences or anything like that but I could literally kind of watch myself sleep and see while unable at all to move. I was out of benzos for short periods of time in the past too but that didn't happen at all even if i took 25-50mg of seroquel to sleep, it started since I'm on methadone. I started dropping out in mg that thing but thats another subject i just like to say it all the time so I will be able to get rid of it under a year and a half of treatment and not be a lifer %)

Also are you sure no benzos at all can knock you out ? Try asking for triazolam, temazepam or flurazepam, even nitrazepam, those are all heavy hypnotics which for the most part (not triaz) have deep muscle relaxant effect helping with sleep. Triazolam is heavy i get scriped only 12 a month .25mg is the highest dose so you imagine, the others are .125mg

If not then maybe try remeron that knocked my ass, but nah, no fuck this, if you can find etaqualone online I highly suggest it, it's not even a dangerous choice of a product to buy online the doses are big .3/.4g and it is still scripted in france...and if you know what metaqualone is...get yourself ready to fall into a temporary coma from this stuff that is also pleasant.
 
I've gotten some weird effects on it. At times, it almost felt like the beginnings of an epileptic seizure for me(a "jamais vu" feeling, a general, unidentifiable sense of fear and dread). I didn't have it as an anti-psychotic though, just for anxiety and sleep. Needless to say, I don't take it anymore.

Thankfully, I never had anything as bad as the OP mentions. That sounds terrifying man.

What about cyclobenzaprine? That stuff used to knock me out harder than just about anything I've ever taken. If I were a hardcore insomniac, that's the first thing I'd look towards.
 
I'm incredibly grateful reading this thread that I do not have any kind of these adverse reactions to Quetiapine because it's been a huge savior for me in opiate withdrawal. The insomnia is maddening after a while and with nothing else working for me, I would suck if this knocked me out but also came with all these other shitty symptoms.

All drugs effect people differently, but I've heard of a whole gambit of different reactions people have had different from one another with this drug in particular.
 
In a detox for heroin withdrawal I had sleep paralysis on seroquel

I spent 18 days in an inpatient treatment facility in February. I was prescribed 75 mg a night for sleep/anxiety due to the insomnia caused by my heroin withdrawals. I can't remember the last time I even had a nightmare, but on the seroquel I experienced terrifying sleep paralysis. I would wake up, or thought I woke up, and be laying in my bed in my room at the treatment place. But I couldn't move. Then something strange would happen and I would realize I was still dreaming. Again, I thought I woke up "for real this time", and I got up to go to the bathroom, and then I was surrounded by men trying to rape me, and I knew I was dreaming, but I couldn't wake up. They say time works differently in dreams, but I was asleep for two hours and I swear I felt every minute of it in real time in that sleep paralysis lucid dream state.

Seroquel doesn't even really help me sleep. The first time I went to rehab they gradually increased my dose to 200mg a night, with 150 of trazadone and 100 of benadryl, and I still wasn't sleeping at all. After 7 days I experienced auditory and visual disturbances and finally fell asleep for a few hours.

Opiate withdrawals suck. My insomnia is almost the worst symptom. But HECK YES, a combo of opiate withdrawal (dreaming for the first time in months) and seroquel can definitely cause nightmarish sleep paralysis.
 
^that's exactly the kind of thing i experienced with seroquel. I think i'm susceptible to such things anyway as i've often found myself in sleep paralysis either on purpose or just unexpectedly (most often while on opiates). What's weird is that i started to just accept the terror of the experience of having no control but fuck seroquel just made the darkest and weirdest shit happen, like targeting my worst fears. Regular sleep paralysis i can have a positive experience but something about seroquel just does not agree with that.

RE: cyclobenzaprine, yeah that can help sometimes but really my tolerance for it is high anyway and it doesnt work anymore either. If i combine it with opiates/etizolam then it can knock me out but then i feel paranoid about accidentally killing myself so it doesn't work out well.

I seem to always be in and out of opiate withdrawals, damn hydromorphone binge then a week or so of codeine just to get by at school and now i'll probably have to deal with insomnia and nasty RLS again, could be worse but those 2 aspects of opiate withdrawal bother me the most. Not an ideal way to spend my easter weekend.

i saw my Dr. today and basically told him i wanted to try hydroxyzine out and see if it's a better fit for me because seroquel is too strong, too many side effects and long term effects concern me the most, the night terrors are better than tardive dyskenisia (sp?). I took 50mg of hydroxyzine about an hour ago so i'll see how it works, feels like it took away some anxiety but i'm also at the tail end of a trip and in minor opiate withdrawal so fuck knows when i'll get to sleep (why i do this to myself i dont know).

It was either that or Nortriptyline; of course my Dr somehow knows about my previous opiate and benzo addictions and refuses to prescribe me temazepam, z-drugs or any decent hypnotic (or any gabaergic of any kind). So i either get to pick from anti depressants, anti psychotics or anti histamines. I've actually run the complete gamut of fucked up drugs a Dr. can legitimately prescribe for someone with anxiety and insomnia. I guess i'm lucky i can at least function on etizolam. Fucked up medical system certainly can't/won't help me now.

thanks for the responses, hope this thread makes people a bit more aware of how fucked up of a drug seroquel is/can be, especially when it is over prescribed.
 
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