Misc Alcohol — Hallucinations?

[Inoxia]

So the other day I drank a lot of alcohol. I mean, lager for about six hours, then a short break, then gin for another six hours. Oddly I was unable to sleep, and was up all night.

The following day the hangover was terrible, but much worse than any I've had before; my blood pressure seemed to be through the roof. Then for a number of hours I was having mild hallucinations.

It did occur to me this may have been because I recently drank a few pints of lager coming down off LSA, but I don't think this was the cause; the hallucinations were completely different. On LSA, I never exactly saw anything that wasn't there, I just saw patterns moving and such. When I had this hangover, I kept briefly seeing things that weren't there, maybe flies moving around the room or people walking in the corner of my eye. Bizarrely, I had extremely vivid closed-eye visuals. Faces of people, some known some unknown, would quickly burn into my field of vision then disappear.

Other symptoms I wouldn't associate with a hangover included confusion, difficulty breathing and fever.

Is it possible for alcohol to cause hallucinations?

 

[General AP Napoli]

I've had very similar symptoms to what you described a while ago when I was dependent on alcohol. For me personally, I noticed if I went on a drinking binge (a couple hours to a couple days) bizarre symptoms like these would appear such as a higher blood pressure and heartrate, some visual distortions, a feeling of motion sickness, a horrible headache and stomachache.

Oddly enough these symptoms would only appear if I were hungover, but never would appear if I took the precautions to drink water while I was guzzling alcohol and take some vitamin supplements before bed to ensure I wouldn't be hungover the next day.

After analyzing my own situation, I hypothesized that these symptoms were caused by a minor acute alcohol withdrawal. It sounds like you have alcohol withdrawal symptoms as well.. how often do you drink? are you physically dependent on alcohol? Your best bet is to abstain from alcohol for about a week to let these symptoms clear up, drink water and take a multi-vitamin or two to help your body recover. If you still have high blood pressure or feel tense from the anxiety, I would suggest taking either valerian root or Kava Kava as both plants have a nice little sedative effect that will make you feel a lot better from the alcohol-induced anxiety. If it comes to a more extreme level, them I would recommend a benzo, such as a xanax or valium- I tried these when I had these same alcohol-ridden symptoms and it was very effective in stablising my body until it could recover on its own.

Heavy drinking of alcohol can surely cause odd effects as you just witnessed.. just be careful and don't overdo it, alcohol can be a very odd, dangerous substance.

 

[Inoxia]

After analyzing my own situation, I hypothesized that these symptoms were caused by a minor acute alcohol withdrawal. It sounds like you have alcohol withdrawal symptoms as well.. how often do you drink? are you physically dependent on alcohol? Your best bet is to abstain from alcohol for about a week to let these symptoms clear up, drink water and take a multi-vitamin or two to help your body recover.

I have read that these symptoms can be caused by withdrawal, but I'm not dependant; I have no regular pattern of alcohol consumption. I often go weeks without it, and other times drink a few days a week. I've been drinking small amounts every night for the last week or so, other than the session I mentioned, but I have no urge to continue drinking and don't feel dependant.
I drank several litres of water during the night but I seemed to have urinary retention, only urinated a couple of times.
This was probably the most alcohol I've consumed in a 24 hour period, but it didn't seem excessive as it was spread out.

 

[danceofdays]

One time I got drunk on a Friday night, didn't sleep that night, and ended up alternating swigs of beer and poppy pod tea the next night. By the time I got home from the bar (where I drank even more beer), I was seeing things move and hallucinating lights and shapes in my peripheral vision. I ended up vomiting quite spectacularly and passed out, and the next morning I was fine. Still have no idea how or why that happened, considering I hadn't drank for a few weeks before this. Must have been sleep deprivation amplified by the drugs, I guess.

 

[monstanoodle]

It could be that Ethanol's potential (in very high doses) to be a Mu-Agonist and the lack of sleep produced a sort of nodding / sleep deprivation type state which hallucinations of both kinds could work together?

All we can do is guess here and the people who've experienced similar things say so too, so we might not be much help. But I guess you'll know what not to do again

 

[CotoCole]

Folklore always taught me about alcohol withdrawall hallucinations only.

 

[JayJohnson]

Personal experience taught me about alcohol withdrawal hallucinations. (And the experience of more than a few heavy alcoholic friends of mine.)

In my experience though, it's only from drinking heavily for weeks(months/years) and then quitting cold turkey that the delerium tremens along with audio/visual hallucinations comes in. Which doesn't sound like the OP, from what was stated.

My *guess* then would be the drinking when coming down from LSA made a kind of connection/wiring in the mind connecting drinking booze and the LSA state. (Even if the hallucinations were different.) Like how I can listen to CD's or songs I heard while rolling hard and it will bring me to a very altered mental state, without the rolls.

 

[monstanoodle]

^ Yea that's another likely scenario I thought of, but he does mention that the visuals were unlike those of his LSA trip, I think.. **Double checks**...
Yea, he said they were completely different... But it still could be a possibility
Again though, all we can do is guess and speculate