Claritin&Nightmares.

So my step dad (not a lucid dreamer, and hardly ever remembers dreams)
tells me that last night he took Claritin before bed and he had some fuckedd up dreams. He knows I'm into lucid dreaming, so he told me about his real vivid nightmares, which includes monsters attacking him and trying to kill him etc. He said these were the most vivid dreams he's ever had. So I looked up Claritin on the net, and one of its side-affects is that it might induce some fucked up dreams. I find this connection very interesting, anybody else have any experiences with Claritin?

Haha @ "fucked up dreams." I hope they have that on the drug company's official website.

I've never had such experiences with Claritin. There are plenty of other substances that are more known to affect dreaming.

I recently stopped taking Claritin-D after being on it for... about 8 years straight. Every night before bed. That's 2920 nights.
I have always had incredibly lucid dreams, but rarely nightmares. I do wonder if it helped give me some vividness. I'll need to be taking it from Sunday until August, so if I notice any increase in vividness I'll let you know. Because if so, I will definitely start taking it again, even with all the side effects it gives me!

Well if you take it for a long time, I think your body will get used to it, much like it does to other things. So if you want to use something like Claritin for lucidity, I would recommend taking it for very short periods of time because it just might become ineffective otherwise...

Well I actually took it for allergies and it always worked the same amount for me. I'm definitely looking forward to starting to take it again haha if not so much, those damn allergies :(

What kind of side effects do you get from it? I will have to take either that or Benadryl for a couple of months if I live at home - cat allergy. :(

Exactly, cat allergies. Man they suck.

The only real side effect that gets me is increased heart rate, and I think anxiety. My heart rate will shoot up, and sometimes stay up, for no good reason or even at the slightest stimulus. My family has a history of tachycardia though, so it is possible that I am just developing that (ugh). In fact, since I've been off the claritin and still have the tachycardia symptoms occasionally, but not as often, that's what I attribute it to.

I have read that some people experience insomnia, but that has never been the case for me, even with the stimulant effect of the drug.

Ahh interesting... Have you tried taking Benadryl instead? It's what I take, and it works in terms of relieving allergy really well. I haven't noticed any side effects, not even drowsiness, which is the most common one.

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Originally Posted by Mes Tarrant

Ahh interesting... Have you tried taking Benadryl instead? It's what I take, and it works in terms of relieving allergy really well. I haven't noticed any side effects, not even drowsiness, which is the most common one.

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I haven't, but I actually am planning on experimenting with a few different allergy meds. The whole racing heart thing gets extremely annoying. Benadryl will be my first try, thanks for the recommendation!

So I've been back on the claritin for a few weeks now. I haven't had any nightmares at all, but I have had a few extremely vivid dreams. In one I was unscrewing the shelves on this desk and could see each screw turning just as you would in real life. No lucids, no nightmares. Slight increase in vividness, maybe. I don't seem to have as many dreams as I did before I got back on it, but that may just be coincidence (meaning about 4/night instead of 5-7/night)