Suvorexant and Hallucinations: What Users Say

• Lib...
• July 23, 2015

Suvorexant for Insomnia "I have just experienced the worst night of my life due to 10 mg Belsomra. I read reviews, thought they had to be exaggerated... this medicine should not have been approved. Horrific hallucinations/nightmares... Didn't know if I was awake or asleep. Terrifying. If you are contemplating using this drug, do not do it!"

• Mat...
• Taken for 6 months to 1 year
• October 23, 2019

Suvorexant for Insomnia "I am an OIF veteran, and I developed shift work syndrome from not getting much, if any, sleep on my two deployments. With SWS or narcolepsy, I don’t get much REM sleep. So they put me on Ambien, but loud noises would wake me up, make me walk around, and hallucinate without any memory of doing it. Then I was put on Lunesta, and one night I didn’t fall asleep right away, and I started to hallucinate, and they put me on antipsychotics. I gave up on sleeping pills for a while until I stopped dreaming, period. Seriously, I was getting 0% REM sleep. So my doctor gave me some 10mg and 20mg samples of Belsomra. I didn’t like them because they didn’t make me drowsy like the other sleeping pills, and you have to actually try to go to sleep. But once I got used to it, the 10mg made me have vivid, violent, bloody dreams, and the 20mg made me have sci-fi dreams about parallel universes and stuff. So... I take 20s now. Lol I’m just happy to dream again."

• Sir...
• Taken for less than 1 month
• December 3, 2015

Suvorexant for Insomnia "You cannot be on Ambien and switch to this drug. It does not work on the same receptors, and you will go into Ambien withdrawal in the first night and blame it on this. I've been on Ambien for 2 years and been through withdrawal several times. Nightmares, muscle shocks, and a quick dream of getting punched in the face that puts you in a state of being afraid to fall back to sleep. 0 hours of sleep my first night. I went to work while having hallucinations. Don't blame the new drug, blame that it's being advertised as being an alternative."

• Vua...
• October 29, 2015

Suvorexant for Insomnia "I suffer from severe anxiety and depression and often find myself unable to fall asleep (note I take about 4 mg of Klonopin a day). I've never used a sleep aid before this, other than melatonin, and after almost 2 weeks of broken sleep, I could say I had a solid 8 hours and actually needed my alarm to wake me up for once, lol. The Klonopin helps, but I don't like taking it right before bed and would never give me sleep like this. Woke up a little groggy, but nothing unusual, no hallucinations or side effects. 12 mg did the trick (broke the pill 20 mg), and my gf said she's never seen my sleep like that, I was drooling, lol. Long story short, it is an effective sleep aid for me and suffered no ill effects. Felt well rested as well."

• sle...
• August 16, 2015

Suvorexant for Insomnia "I haven't had a restorative night's sleep since 1996. Been on a long list of meds for sleep. Dx - chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia. But my sleep disorder is longer than that. On a combo of Ambien 10 mg, Klonopin 1 to 1.5 mg for years. Lately, the combo is not working well, felt like I developed a tolerance for it. Doctor looking for something that hasn't already failed for me to give a break from Ambien. One of the meds prescribed to try is Belsomra 15 mg. Not sure it did anything. Awake for hours, felt like I was starting to hallucinate, well, just mildly. Tried it again for 3 days, each day, I would finally sleep for a few hours starting about 5 AM. Final day woke with a blaster migraine. Not worth even the copay. On to the next ..."

• Sle...
• August 26, 2015

Suvorexant for Insomnia "Took Ambien with no problems. Doctor wanted me to come off Ambien and try Belsomra. He gave me samples. Took a 10 mg dose and it didn't help me fall asleep or stay asleep. Up all night. Then the weird nightmares. I had hours of vivid, nightmarish dreams. Not good. Woke up exhausted. Why would anyone take this medication if it's going to give you nightmares? I'm already an insomniac. I don't need nightmares and hallucinations too. Going back to Ambien."

• Fre...
• September 28, 2015

Suvorexant for Insomnia "Weird! A bizarre full body and brain sensation. I went in and out of bouts of sleep the first times I used it. While the sensation wasn't pleasant (I felt sort of high in a not terribly comfortable way), I did get a decent total number of hours of sleep. Still, it was weird enough that I didn't want to repeat it and only did so again after intervals of several weeks. In total, I took it maybe 4 times. Took it again tonight and again had a long, trippy and not very pleasant initial period, then only slept about 5 hours and woke up feeling quite badly. Sorry, Belsomra, but you are going into the trash."

• Anonymous
• Taken for less than 1 month
• October 18, 2017

Suvorexant for Insomnia "This hideous medicine. I took it for a few days and not much help, then the weird satanic dreams started with not being able to jump outta bed or move. The bedroom was nice and quiet, and as soon as I'd started to fall asleep, it would sound like people were on my roof throwing pieces of metal on the ground. The most horrible hallucinations... throw this stuff away."

• Kas...
• July 26, 2021

Suvorexant for Insomnia "Wow, nope! Tried for a few nights, and the hallucinations were insane. I knew what hallucinations were, theoretically, but never in my life experienced any. This definitely gave me that experience, and it was not fun. A gigantic spider (the size of an average hand) hanging out on the ceiling every night as I watched it very closely. Then, all of a sudden, it scurried across the ceiling, down the wall onto my pillow, to which I was frozen solid. I couldn’t scream, I couldn’t move…so, I’m pretty sure the drug also gave me sleep paralysis. The same exact scenario every night while on this drug, even to the point that the spider was always in the same location and took the same path. I called up my neurologist, and he immediately took me off of them. If he didn’t, I was going to stop anyway, ha! Worst experience of all of the handful of drugs that I had tried."

• Anonymous
• October 26, 2017

Suvorexant for Insomnia "I had a terrible experience with this drug. First of all, it still took me a long time to fall asleep. When I did, I couldn't wake myself up when I had to. I also had hallucinations of flying creatures around the room, even with the lights on, that were very frightening. The next day, I felt like I had a terrible hangover and had a headache that lasted all day. I was drowsy all day and just had to drag myself around, even into the next day. I really think the FDA needs to review this drug! Overall, it was a very disturbing and unpleasant experience!"

• Tre...
• Taken for 2 to 5 years
• October 31, 2021

Suvorexant for Insomnia "For some reason, the Dr. started me on 20 mg. This was when I had high anxiety. I kept these pills for 2 years after I have long since gotten better because they cost a lot of money to buy. I took one last night, and it gave me hallucinations and hyperventilation while sleeping, but put me to sleep pretty fast. It is an easy pathway to lucid dreaming. The bad side is that it can also give you very vivid nightmares, sometimes I would have up to 10 dreams in one night."

• Kiz...
• Taken for less than 1 month
• October 4, 2019

For Insomnia "I had a terrible experience, but I kind of think it was a poor choice of the psychiatrist who prescribed it to me. I was having a bad mixed bipolar episode and hadn't slept more than 3 hours per night in over a month. I had voices, but they were in my head. I was hospitalized. They gave me suvorexant. I didn't sleep. The voices became actual voices telling me to kill myself. I was yelling at them, had thought blocking and disordered speech like I was psychotic. I was sent to a locked ward and I can't remember much about what happened until 3 days later. It was pretty traumatic. I don't think this med should be used in people who are manic or who have bipolar."

• Lil...
• Taken for less than 1 month
• May 27, 2018

Suvorexant for Insomnia "Trying this drug for one night was one of the scariest experiences ever, and I feel thankful to be alive today. I had extreme hallucinations and did not sleep. I was trying to operate my phone, and I couldn’t. I was alone and was thinking of calling 911, but I couldn’t manage to operate my iPhone! I have had severe chronic insomnia for 10 years, and I’ve been taking eszopiclone (Lunesta) every night for all of that time. Eszopiclone doesn’t always work fantastically for me, and I decided to give Belsomra a try for a night. Now I’m feeling thankful that eszopiclone works so well after the horrible experience of trying Belsomra."