Misc Ether as a sleep aid

[iconoclast56]

Has anyone tried diethyl ether as a sleep aid? Compared to chloroform, ether has fairly low toxicity. The sleep it induces is unnatural and probably of low quality but one could just use small doses to relax so they can fall asleep. Xenon would be a way better solvent but its expensive and hard to obtain.

 

[HdoubleODeezy]

wouldn't it wear off a bit too quick?

 

[NeighborhoodThreat]

^That's my question, isn't it very short-acting?

Clearly there are better sleep aids...

 

[iconoclast56]

I don't know. I've never used it before. Nitrous oxide wears off very fast but from what I've read, chloroform lasts longer which is why people used to use it as a sleep aid in the 1800s. I don't know how fast ether is eliminated from the body. Redosing every 15 minutes would be pretty impractical but every couple of hours wouldn't be too bad since it kicks in instantly. On GHB, you sleep 4 hours then have to redose but the problem is GHB takes 30 minutes to kick in so if you get the dose wrong, you have to wait another 30 minutes for the additional dose to kick in.

 

[HdoubleODeezy]

^ GHB can also be deadly dangerous to dose half asleep. (if you get the dose wrong, that is)

 

[6apbhmm]

Not a good idea imo. It may be low toxic but it was used as general anaesthetics in the 19th century.. and since then mostly abandoned, except the poorest countries. Think it was for a reason don't you.

 

[sarcophagus.heels]

It's really not a good idea. The sleep it induces would not be great, and there are obviously other ways to knock yourself out that are less bad for you. Also, having used both ether and chloroform in lab, the two are similar in toxicity (at least judging by their HMIS rankings - both rate a 2 out of 4 for health risk). The idea of using ether makes me nauseous just thinking about it...

 

[The.Ghost]

I've also worked in a lab and handled ether by the liter, but chloroform by the mL. AFAIK, ether isn't too good for you, but chloroform is much worse -- it's a known animal carcinogen and suspected human carcinogen, among other things. I wouldn't go near the stuff without a fume hood.

I tried huffing ether once (lab grade, high purity, none of that starter fluid crap) and after the buzz wore off, I could smell it every time I exhaled for the rest of the day. Just a heads-up.

TL;DR Stay the hell away from chloroform.

 

[Jabberwocky]

^+1!!! yes, chloroform is baddddddd news

I had a buddy in college who was a big fan of ether. He suffered from mild insomnia and clearl the ether wasn't able to help him much, if it ever did at all. I'd do what was suggested... find a better/real sleep aid... there is so much better stuff out there. even doxylamine would be better, if it's not quite as powerful, at least it's going to start in your system for more than 30 minutes

 

[tricomb]

That's like using propofol to sleep.

 

[iconoclast56]

^ GHB can also be deadly dangerous to dose half asleep. (if you get the dose wrong, that is)

You'd have to get the dose REALLY wrong to have a fatal OD IME. I was using GHB to sleep for a month and I got the dosage wrong and ODd too many times to count. What happens is I wake up a few hours later feeling sick as hell and like I'm about to die and my brain stops working properly. One time I got stuck in the bathroom because I forgot how to operate the doorknob. Another time I wandered around my house walking into other peoples room and waking everyone up because I couldn't remember the way back to my own bedroom lol.

My misdoses were all intentional though. I suppose if you forgot you dosed and accidentally took another dose of the same size, the double dose might kill you. The worst OD I had was where I ingested 5g of GHB (a pretty high dose to begin with) and since I had a tolerance, I decided I could handle a mL of GBL on top of that. How wrong I was lol.