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Advances in Insomnia Research

schizaphonic

schizaphonic

Bluelighter
Joined
Dec 4, 2011
Messages
111
Location
Purgatory
I've been suffering insomnia for years now cant remember the last time i dreamed, and the benzos I'm on don't really put me to sleep they just knock me out. (and they suppress R.E.M sleep)

http://www.physorg.com/news10562.html

If this report is true, this pill could literally be a dream..............


Much Love and Peace...............
"Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." -Friedrich Nietzsche

-Schiz
 
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Oh yeh that would be awesome, chronic insomnia for the last 11 years but it has worsened in the last 2 years due to my health conditions. I've been awake for 48 hours right now. I miss dreaming
 
big surprise..... yet another wonder psych-drug.

"Rats given the drug slept soundly and performed better in maze tests the following day than rats given conventional sleeping medications, suggesting that the drug improves memory capacity. Measurements of muscle tone and brain activity revealed an increase in the dream phase of sleep.
Click to expand...

Flowers for Algernon, anyone? 8)

I'm amazed humanity has made it this far; considering that before all these wonderful psych-meds, we were obviously a completely bereft and unstable species. :\
 
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Ixchellian said:
big surprise..... yet another wonder psych-drug.



Flowers for Algernon, anyone? 8)

I'm amazed humanity has made it this far; considering that before all these wonderful psych-meds, we were obviously a completely bereft and unstable species. :\
Click to expand...

I agree with your sentiment, with the caveat that for most of human history, there has been no electric light, absent which insomnia would essentially be a non-issue. It is pleasant to imagine that we might one day engineer a drug or other treatment which can reliably treat a condition (chronic, prolonged insomnia) which is not natural to the human condition and which we have brought upon ourselves.

Point being that, prior to the advent of "all these wonderful psych-meds," many of the societal strains and stressors which necessitate the use of psychiatric medication also had not yet come into existence.
 
^ There also wasn't the stresses of modern life, disconnection from community and high potency amphetamines, fight fire with fire i say.

I was told about this new med by my previous psych (i compassionate man, whom i respected, unlike some other Doctors) remembering this i did some research and up popped orexin-RA-1. So the original post isn't based on 2nd hand information, i have talked to a well respected (in my community) Psychiatrist about this and he seemed very positive.
 
Electric lights have little to do with it..... they do have off-switches, plus curtains & sleep masks have been around for a lot longer.
But that doesn't matter nowadays, does it?

It's our societal work/play/sleep ethics & habits that've changed..... along with the masses of sensory stimuli & demands for our attention that come at us from all angles. Electricity & the internal combustion engine gave rise to the Industrial Revolution...... but that just made us more efficient economically & culturally.

It was the development of rapid/instant communication that has been pushing us over the brink.

Plus, the pharm/psych industries run hand-in-hand.
The problem is that now, the horse is getting way beyond the cart. The big laboratories are pumping out new drugs for mental illnesses that haven't even been noted as problematic in the past; beyond a few anecdotal or isolated cases; or worse, for illnesses & disorders that have been treated effectively by non-pharmaceutical means for centuries.

Insomnia isn't a recent development for humanity.... it's just that docs are taking care of ever increasing numbers of patients, and they're often being pushed by pharmaceutical labs to peddle the most new-&-improved drugs that people can afford.
So of course they're going to make new wonder-pills.... even if the older drugs work just fine.
Hell, the lab rats don't even know how a lot of psych meds work, only that they should work for most people. And often, that's all that matters; until people start turning into vegetables, birthing defective offspring, running amok, or even just dropping dead.

But again...... I think a limited Flowers-for-Algernon scenario has been developing amongst our society. The push to medicate children young for "ADD/ADHD", is a good example of what can happen. Many kids who are naturally daydreamers & night-owls are now considered defective, and our culture has accepted that hammering down the uneven nails is the fair & right thing to do.
 
^ problem is the old drugs don't work fine, the body needs R.E.M sleep to fully recharge and give you that refreshed feeling. Not dreaming, has terrible consequences on the mind and with the old pills (if your a true insomniac) don't get you to stage five sleep where you dream and you are on a forum where people experiment with chemicals that haven't even been trialed yet, at least this stuff has been studied to some degree

Besides i think the representative in the article was just giving an example, the bloody thing is going on sale in 6 months! they most likely went onto human trials years ago.

When i was a kid, no one told me i had ADHD and i had a ball! day dreaming, skipping school, play in my tree house, it didn't really matter that i was a bit over active. but now i need the pills to lead a normal life, i cant spend my life building an awesome tree house, i need to study and work to get ahead in this modern society, BTW i have multiple 'problems'
 
Who says you can't build treehouses for the rest of your life??

Ever consider that maybe old drugs didn't work because some insomnia is caused by imbalances in other parts of our minds/lives.... and throwing drugs at them is part of the problem?

I'm not surprised that so many people have the soul-sickness.

And I'm well aware of how medications are developed..... and nowadays it doesn't take 5-10 years to go from theory to human trials. Analogue fast-tracking is the rule now, and venlafexine and its derivatives is a good example of the process
 
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Hmm... I'm interested.


I don't suffer from insomnia, but rather non-24 hour sleep wake cycle syndrome. I am unable to complete school, it is one of the major factors that contributed to my addiction, and I have very little hope for a future, considering I am unable to hold down a job at 7/11 because of my sleep problems. It has been fucking devastating.

I usually require 10-16 hours of sleep to feel fully rested in a day (any less than what I need, and I will feel tired for the entire week. If I get three hours of sleep one night, 9 or 10 the next will not do me any good, and I am usually unable to fall asleep at night when my brain is telling me I shouldn't be sleeping now anyways, depending on where my 26 hour schedule is), and I am extremely hard to wake up. Perhaps a little extra REM is the cure to my problems? Thus far, everything from benzos (I fucking hate them, I am weening down, but they have turned me from a 100+ page a day reader into someone who struggles to read more than two pages at a time, reducing my inclination to read, which has become my favorite hobby) to light and melatonin therapy (ineffective).

I usually avoid new drugs like the plague, but because of the devastating effect my disorder has had on my life, I will absolutely give it a shot if it clears.
 
@Ixchellian, dude I'm 27 i don't want to build tree-houses! i want further my mind, body and spirit in a mature fashion. sure i was a dreamer, and i still have dreams, but they're not about playing in the yard with toys. if drugs can help me achieve my goals then that's what I'm going to do. I practice meditation and yoga, basically take time to work, rest and play but it's still a struggle without the medications so if they can improve on what I'm already on then i think that's a good thing (my wife doesn't want to live in a tree-house :) )
 
schizaphonic said:
@Ixchellian, dude I'm 27 i don't want to build tree-houses! i want further my mind, body and spirit in a mature fashion. sure i was a dreamer, and i still have dreams, but they're not about playing in the yard with toys. if drugs can help me achieve my goals then that's what I'm going to do. I practice meditation and yoga, basically take time to work, rest and play but it's still a struggle without the medications so if they can improve on what I'm already on then i think that's a good thing (my wife doesn't want to live in a tree-house :) )
Click to expand...

Good luck with that, then.

But you're still failing to see the larger point, in regards to building treehouses.
 
^I don't think I'm failing to understand your metaphor, but how about a house in the trees. I have my own plan ;) a lifestyle which suits me, Believe me, I'm no suit, after i get my education (Bachelor of I.T) and save for a deposit i plan on moving to a 2.5-3 acre Eucalyptus forest 'lot' about an 45 min out of town and building my own home, i want to be a freelance programmer (Perth gets pretty good Wimax out there) and work from home (and at my leisure). it's a compromise in the mean time, but it's what i want.

imagine that leaving my beautiful unique home and walking through a wonderful natural forest, a place to be free and connected to nature.

My Dream home:
heritage-render-lg.jpg


Everyone here lives on tiny blocks in generic brick houses as close to the city as possible, average price for one of these monstrosities is 650,000 dollars.

anyway, i have gotten waaaaay of topic.

edit: you are talking about staying connected to my inner child aren't you?
 
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schizaphonic said:
My Dream home:
NSFW:
heritage-render-lg.jpg


edit: you are talking about staying connected to my inner child aren't you?
Click to expand...

In part, yes.
No truth holds that you can't (or shouldn't) make a living from doing what you love, and have fun doing it.
Though we must live within the bounds of our community, we know our own truths.
But just as nothing is true, everything is permitted.

Dreaming during daylight hours is just as important as the REM-type at night. One without the other, makes for a very dull life. It's just unfortunate that one medicine taken that influences on aspect, normally creates a deficit in the other.
 
^I think were on the same page Ixchellian. My problem is i was addicted to meth about 7 years ago which destroyed my ability to day dream :( so i just live life day to day, when i sleep on Zolpidem i do get some imagery and dream like experiences but it's stage 4 sleep not full blown R.E.M (stage 5) so if there is a drug which does induce R.E.M sleep i would be all the better for it, cause at the moment my mind is like a calculator (not that i don't have a <3 :) ), that's why i said i have a "plan" rather than a dream.

edit: I don't know if this question is appropriate for TDS, but if anyone knows of any herbal remedies/drugs which induce lucid dreaming or dreaming in general please let me know.
 
I actually know a very successful architect that has designed, you guessed it, several tree-houses! And an engineer that designs nothing but roller coasters. Finding a way to work at what you love doing is key to living your life as opposed to waiting for it to happen when you have the right stuff or live in the right place. Schiz, this is not a criticism of the path you are choosing for yourself--I think it sounds great--just general musing that the thread brought up for me.

And, IX, have you read Anatomy of an Epidemic by Robert Whittaker?
 
^ But i am doing what i love Information Technology!, I have been building my own computer systems for 14 years, (first one at 13) my current is just about as elite as it gets without resorting to water cooling. i have been a long time member of a overclocking forum for over ten years, Technology, Nature, and Music these are my passions, and I'm following them. anyway this seems irrelevant to OP, but thanks for the info/support guys =D <3
 
schizaphonic said:
edit: I don't know if this question is appropriate for TDS, but if anyone knows of any herbal remedies/drugs which induce lucid dreaming or dreaming in general please let me know.
Click to expand...

Hmmm..... the only sleep-aid drug (which is also an antidepressant) that I've found which induces very vivid and/or lucid dreaming is trazodone. However, with regular use the dream-effect diminishes fairly rapidly. I use it around 2-3 times a month, with at least a week in between doses.

The best part is that I still remember my trazodone-dreams just as vividly as when I had them. Very handy..... :)
 
^ awesome I'll talk to my psych kinda killing THREE birds with one stone (lack of dreams, depression and lack of sleep), thanks for the info!
 
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