Thread: Diphenhydramine(benadryl)?

I know that when you are going through some sort of discomfort, you are prone to lighter sleep. Like if you have a cold, or sore from working out, or in your case hay fever. These things should all cause you to sleep lighter and be more aware during REM periods of sleep, thus causing you to have more vivid dreams. I know this from reading other forums and 1st hand experience(I work out a lot, and it causes my body to be very tired while sleeping). Anyways what I am getting at is I do not think that the diphenhydramine had anything to do with it. Hope this helps, or either shatters your OTC discovery.

The lighter sleep thing makes sense; now that I think about it I did wake up a few times during that night, which is rare for me. But anyway the benadryl didn't seem to have any effect after that night.

Diphenhydramine is a deliriant. If taken in doses above what's recommended, it can actually cause a dream-like state during waking (i.e., realistic hallucinations.) It increases acetylcholine in the brain, a neurotransmitter that's important in the function of memory, muscle control and dreaming. It's released during REM sleep, and the diphenhydramine you took increased the amount of acetylecholine also. It probably wouldn't help dreaming lucidly any, as one of it's side effects is short-term memory impairment and "mental fogginess". The intensity of these effects increases with dose.

It should be noted that taking diphenhydramine in doses above what is indicated on the label is neither recommended nor safe.

Also, I'm not a doctor. Any information I've presented is compiled from online resources. Always consult your doctor and/or pharmacist before taking any drug or supplement.
In other words, don't take medical advice from people on the internet, mmkay?

McDerp, I've had quite a bit of experience with diphenhydramine. I took it most nights one summer, ranging in dosage from 25 mg to 400-450 mg. At standard doses, I would occasionally experience weird hypnagogic things, but dreaming itself seemed less frequent. At high doses, your memory gets extremely weird (you have no short term memory, but your long term memory is fine). So for example, I would watch an episode of Scrubs and have no idea how the episode was progressing, yet I remembered numerous lines from the episode the next day. Essentially, I think you would have trouble maintaining dream control, because you'd forget within a couple of seconds.

Having said this, dreams on non-diphenhydramine nights after repeated use gave me HORRIBLY vivid nightmares. I was never able to become lucid in them, but the amount of physical pain and in-dream depression was something I never want to go back to.

tl;dr It probably won't help.

buckybadger010, speaking of in-dream depression, have you or anyone else subscribed to this thread ever had a random dreaming night where the set of dreams had like a weird depressing ambiance coming from them, then the next day you felt depressed, but the dreams were by no means depressing, they just had a depressing vibe come from them? This has happened to me like twice, and both times I had not taken anything or to my knowledge done anything different.

Dextro,

I was just writing a post and it got blown away, so I'm going to make this much more succinct than it was. I'd be delighted to talk about it more if you like.

For me, this experience involves EXTREME depression within the dream (feeling like I've lost my family, friends, been tortured, and more all in one). The dream content does not reflect this, and DCs don't believe me when I try to express what I'm experiencing. The feeling is simply too awful to describe. Upon waking, I do feel pretty crappy, at least until midday or later.

I did some research which I discussed thoroughly in my original post, but since that's gone now I'll just say this. The neurochemistry of waking and sleeping mental activity: The disinhibition-dopamine hypothesis - GOTTESMANN - 2008 - Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences - Wiley Online Library

This abstract says that monoamines except dopamine are silent during REM. Serotonin is among these, and is an important player in depression (or, at least, depression treatment). But this would mean that ALL dreams should have a downer vibe to them, so I don't think this is the answer. However, if you're dreaming outside of REM (which does happen), perhaps the brain chemistry in that stage of sleep would result in a sense of depression, and it just seems atypical because we don't usually remember that part of our sleep cycle.

Regardless, I'm glad you posted. This is probably the only sort of dream experience that affects my daily living, and no one else on DV to this point seems to have had anything like this. Dream on, and I'll post back in this thread if I come across anything that might explain this. Cheers!

Dextro,

Just had one last night. Thought I'd share it here before I take the day.

In the dream, me and my younger brother (16) were in a grocery store, and debating who was going to pay for what. I wanted some tapenade, but this was a tiny grocery store and seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. When we couldn't find pre-made stuff, I started looking around for olives. At this point the dream wasn't depressing per se, but there was something eerie about me and my brother taking care of the groceries with the implication the food was only for us.

Then (and I don't know the context of this change), the store became some kind of electric-brain-pulse treatment center. Everyone quietly sat in a chair for 40 minutes and let the supposed good vibes come to them. We also all had a sheet of paper that was filling itself out saying how long in mm:ss the treatment had been going and what part of the brain/what system was being affected at the moment. At 35:47, acetylcholine, I suddenly felt the despairing feeling set in. The treatment wrapped up, and the person to my left (who was switching between my ex-girlfriend and another friend, neither of whom are especially compassionate people) patronizingly said "There, doesn't that feel better?" And I replied, "I feel worsre" and burst out into tears. She then went on a tagent about self-absorption and talked about other self-absorbed people that have brought things on themselves, but talked about them sympathetically.

I woke up, and it was 8:49, one minute before my alarm. I felt like absolute shit and still had this feeling lingering. Fortunately, it's dissipated since I started writing this, about 40 minutes later, but it feels like it's going to be a long day nonetheless.