Originally posted by quale:
The reason they prescribe ambien for sleep is that its mode of action is tailored so it is long enough to keep you asleep all night but let you wake up in the morning. The company that makes it also claims that it keeps your sleep patterns more naturual (i.e. ratio of differnt types of sleep rem etc..). This is probably true...and probably doesn't mean much (there is a guy who can't have REM sleep at all..but is a succesfull lawyer and has no apparent difficulties).
I think I read somewhere that this appears to be true in general for benzos and their non-anxiolytic derivatives, in particular that unlike barbiturates, they do not decrease the amount of REM sleep. The absence of hangover symptoms seems to correlate simply with the duration of action of drugs of this class, hence triazolam's common use as a sleep-aid.
In my personal experience, Sonata (zaleplon) was minimally effective as a sleep aid, with doses ranging from 10-70mg (it is more or less equipotent to ambien) not reliably inducing sleep, whereas xanax tended to make me pass out at doses above 5mg. Is the sedation of benzos and related drugs completely mediated by action on GABA-ergic neurons? I seem to have an unusually high tolerance for sedatives, though i do take other sedating drugs nightly (mirtazapine and primidone). i'm aware that GABA-mediated cns depressants generally exhibit cross-tolerance, but does this extend to anti-histamines (specifically mirtazapine) as well?
also, about the "hallucinations," i experienced similar effects with sonata. once, after taking 70mg and smoking a fair bit of pot, the hallucinations became so intense that i for some reason became convinced that my friend had dosed me with acid as a joke, despite the experience not being particularly similar to psychedelic intoxication at all. anyway, this has never happened to me after taking benzos (alprazolam, clonazepam, or lorazepam), so my guess that ambien and sonata amount essentially to benzos without the anxiolytic effects seems to be wrong.
