Sounds like a bad trip!
Feb. 17th, 2009 09:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gonzocanuckI love reading Consumerist, which has a story about one man's horrible experience with a smoking cessation drug called Chantix. From the linked story:
That appliance sounds a little familiar (SFW).
By night four, my dreams began to take on characteristics of a David Cronenberg movie. Every time I'd drift off, I'd dream that an invisible, malevolent entity was emanating from my air conditioner, which seemed to be rattling even more than usual. I'd nap for twenty minutes or so before bolting awake with an involuntary gasp. I had the uneasy sense that I wasn't alone.
I smoked a cigarette, then tried going back to sleep. But each time I started napping, I'd dream that something increasingly ominous—carbon monoxide? Vampires?—was sucking vital essence out of me. Soon the clock on my desk read 3:20 a.m.
The most unsettling thing about sleeping on Chantix is that I never felt like I was truly asleep. Some part of me remained on guard. It was more like lucid dreaming, what I thought it might feel like to be hypnotized. And it didn't entirely go away come morning. As I showered, shaved, and scrambled into clothes, I tried to shake a weird, paranoid sense that I'd just been psychically raped by a household appliance.
That appliance sounds a little familiar (SFW).
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Chantix vs. Risk Factor
Date: 2009-02-24 09:45 pm (UTC)http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2007/10/every_day_at_least_one.php
I have been affected by the risks and negative outcome in my family and with my friends. This deadly drug should be banned and removed from the face of this earth.
Abusing the 'Patch"
Date: 2009-03-23 05:45 am (UTC)I live in a dreamless world. Which is true in a very literal sense; my nights are dark, and blank, but not haunted nor dreary. A curse or a blessing? Debatable either way, but I have never experienced dreams in a recognizant sense.
Day dreams and carnal fantasies aside, I have always listened bewildered and curios when friends spoke with such clarity about the long vivid dreams the previous night had brought them. Twisted films and wild fantasies well worth the price of admission, I often felt betrayed to have missed out, which come to think of it could very well be the accelerant that has led to all these years of vicious and exotic substance abuse.
Which could be true, but it’s doubtful. One could imagine while confronted with a truly desperate situation; perhaps ripped on Trip running naked through the park and suddenly staring past a flashlight and the disapproving menacing scowl plastered on the local patrolman’s face, blurting out…..
“It’s because I don’t dream….” Maybe it is true, but it is doubtful to hold water in a courtroom with expert testimony, much less wild-eyed and crazy frolicking through the local park. At the very least it is public indecency and quite likely a mandatory psych evaluation, but if it happened to be near a play ground it could turn into a whole new beast and one may find them-selves “registered.”
Enough of this ugly talk, we are discussing nicotine, or to be more exact, aides for the discontinued use of nicotine….
And the side effects of those aides, which in my limited experience also causes some heavy night time occurrences. Which should all be prefaced with the fact I love cigarettes, and smoking; I come from the Camel family. A bunch of wheezing fiends roaming through the house in tangled oxygen hoses in search of a lighter. Or to dump an ashtray; possibly the occasional flash, followed by a foul smell and a “holy shit!” as my step-father drunk on whiskey once again illuminates his face in a ball of flames forgetting the oxygen strapped around his neck as he fires up another fag…..
So my experience has been limited to using Nicotine aides for purely recreational use. Which sounds strange indeed, but the little buggers give me the wildest, and only, dreams in my life! I discovered this nearly 15 years ago when a friend kept remarking about the bizarre and intense experiences he was having on these ‘patches.’
“Its crazy man, I’ve never had dreams like this!” He told me one morning, “Jesus, last night I dreamt I was being led through a neon colored forest by goats with clown faces… They directed me through a clearing and pushed me off a cliff….. I woke up chewing on a carrot and had pissed myself! I’m done with these bastards; I’d rather die of lung cancer than wake in terror and pools of urine every morning!”
So I took them off his hands and began experimenting. Strategically placing them on spots I felt would be most advantageous on my body: Arteries, stomach, near the heart, hell even on the neck one drunken night, just to see which would have the greatest effect. And the dreams came; fast and furious sweat drenched nights filled with wild half-conscious hallucinations. It was fantastic, and legal.
This went on maybe once or twice a week for a solid year. And then the rashes started. Vicious red welts began to form where ever I stuck the patch, and by the morning they would have spread making a terrible mess of my skin. I stopped using them, and kept smoking of course, but the rashes stayed. They seemed to be gaining momentum and held a life of their own. In spots I had previously placed the ‘patch’ I would notice after exiting the shower large red blotches, elevated and nasty welts.
These spots kept mysteriously appearing for years after I discontinued my recreational experimentation with the ‘patch’ and I have never since had the urge to go back. Smoking is a vicious killer, this is true; but it doesn’t make me itch or look and feel like a leper…. and dreams are over rated anyway.
Chantix solution
Date: 2009-03-23 07:14 pm (UTC)wow!
Date: 2009-09-23 11:28 pm (UTC)