Beware of the Sleeping Pill…
Let’s flashback to August 2006. I was preparing to head to Thailand for the first time for my study abroad. In an attempt to help me with the time difference, my doctor had written me a prescription for Ambien, a really powerful sleeping pill. He told me I should take it half an hour before going to sleep.
I arrived in Bangkok after a very, very long day, having literally spent the past 24 hours in transit. I spent my first few nights staying with the friend of a friend and his Thai wife, both of whom I had never met before. They lived in a lovely house in the outskirts of town, where I had my own room with attached private bathroom. It was, by far, the nicest accommodation I would experience for months, though I did not know that then.
Like many travelers coming from North America, I had arrived at midnight. I had barely slept on the plane and was ridiculously exhausted. But I had just arrived in exciting Bangkok. I was with brand new, exciting people and was suddenly bursting with energy.
So, at 1:30am, I took my doctor’s advice and popped an Ambien. Knowing that he said to take them 30 minutes before sleeping, I did something really, really stupid: I took a shower.
This is where things started to get a little fuzzy.
I remember getting into the shower and turning on the water. The world started whirling and I seem to remember falling over.
Next thing I knew, it was 10:00am. I was in bed, in my pajamas, all the lights were off and the water was off. In fact, it looked as if nobody had even been in the bathroom.
I was stumped. I asked my hosts if they’d heard anything or helped me, which they hadn’t. And I still, to this day, have no recollection of what happened between 1:30am and 10:00am. It’s fairly obvious that I fell asleep in the shower, but I seriously have no history of sleepwalking (to the best of my knowledge).
You hear all those crazy stories about people on sleeping pills doing all sorts of crazy things in their sleep…sleep cooking or sleep driving, but you never really think anything funky like that can ever happen to you!
So, the lesson here? Don’t take a sleeping pill and then go do something. Take a sleeping pill and get into bed! Heck, maybe you’re even better off strapping yourself in there!
Have you had any interesting experiences with sleeping pills?