Viibryd Nightmares (Page 5)
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HI I am on Viibryd for 4 months now and i have these terrible horrific nightmares that i am dyng or sufficating a kind of sleep parasis and it happens a few times a night to where I am aware this drug is causing it. However it happens maybe once a week or once every otherweek so should i just stay on 20 mg i decided to bring it down and go on prozac but i want to make sure i am making the rght dec w doctor of course. I have been on cymbalta 2 years and ristiq 2 years prior and they were terrible to get off i notice that if i am 2 hours late for viibryd i have a night of hell with the nightmares. Does anyone else? Is viibryd going to be a nightmare to get off im very nervous. ;/

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3rd update. Done with this medication. There is something seriously demented about this drug. At 40mg is when the demonic sleep paralysis started, along with the brain zap feeling. 2nd update was when I dosed back down to 20mg and the SP stopped. Here's third update... Weight gain at 10 lbs. no thanks. Still have brain zaps... Decided to dose off. 15 mg for 10 days, 10 mg for a week, and 5mg for a week. Three days after the last 5mg, the sleep paralysis came back. This sucks! It is the worst feeling ever. Brain zaps still exist. This all started last night. Hopefully it is just the half life and its out of my system. Will do a final update in a few days. I highly discourage anyone to take this medication, especially with these types of side effects.

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Wow, I am hearing some familiar stories about Viibryd. I'm nearing end of my second month on it (tapered up to 40mg dose) and while I like the positive effects it has, I am experiencing all of the symptoms others are sharing. Going into REM sleep immediately and having horrible, vivid creepy dreams (sometimes dreams within a dream) with sleep paralysis, shivering, conscious mind knows I'm dreaming and I try to wake myself but can't move, try to cry out but can't (maybe related to taking dose a couple of hours later than normal?). Forgot to take it one night and had these vivid dreams/nightmares all night that permeated my conscious mind the next day and altered my mood (not in a good way). Having brain zaps when getting sleepy, like when watching TV and even while driving. Have been on SSRIs for years and years. Increased libido is nice for a change but I sometimes feel like I'm losing my mind in my sleep! By the way, I'm a pharmacist...WOW!! I'm having serious second thoughts about this medication, but now afraid it will be a nightmare coming off of it....

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I just woke up from a horrible nightmare, and the damn thing unmanned me.

I'm a Paramedic, and (for those of you that don't know) in many parts of the country, night-shifters are allowed to catch some sleep when not on calls. We have bunkrooms. It's great.

Except when your Viibryd causes such intense over-powering nightmares that you eventually scream out in your sleep and wake your poor partner out of his. Working with the same guy every Wednesday night for about seven years, and God bless him, he comes running out of his bunkroom over to mine.

This is what I've determined from reading, and reading, and reading about this medication: It's unfinished.

It works really well in some regards. It trips the right neural pathway.

In other regards, it's a damn mess.

I started early on with a "wave" feeling (I just now read others with the same side effect)... I mean, how trippy is that? The only way to describe it is as if there's a wave in your.... brain? It's a sensation of motion. And (as others have described on other sites) you LITERALLY hear a sound. I'm glad to know I'm not alone. Early on in titration I got it so very frequently, to the tune of fifteen times a day. Thing is, while it's strange, once you recognize it, it's not entirely unpleasant. As time went by this side effect was reduced both in severity and frequency.

I've become what's known as a "Violent Sleeper". I have dreams that I'm in a physical altercation, and wouldn't you know, I kick hard-as-hell. I've nearly hurt my fiancee´. She was the first to point this out to me and since then we've noticed this side effect recur. I'm telling you: Imagine you're lying next to your spouse and BOOM you kick out as hard as you can. Think of the risk there? I've physically contorted my entire body in these violent thrust-kicks. Luckily I've connected in only the slightest glancing-blows. But let me tell you, as a Paramedic and member of a SWAT Team, I have the physical make-up and capability of doing serious and grievous bodily injury. I'm truly and deeply afraid to hurt her in my sleep.

It's the nightmare(s) that settled this for me tonight. Imagine the most overpowering and seemingly real horror you can think of. Tonight, I knew I was in the bunkroom. I knew it was dark, and I was being suffocated by a demon. I felt shockwaves going into my neck and head- him "suffocating" me (this is a known side-effect) and I was utterly powerless. Imagine these dreams being impossibly real. I do not have the words. You experience them, not as "dreams" but as living breathing events. This demon in my dream hovered over me as he "gained" enough strength to begin "interacting with the real world" (all components of this messed up dream) so he could repeatedly choke me and clog my Jugular Veins (even in my sleep I knew that he was trying to do that). I tried to call out. I tried to move.

In the end, all I could do was pray. Imagine the severity of a dream like that? I LITERALLY recited, word for word, The Lord's Prayer and repeated Hail Marys in my head. Over and over and over. I was so awake-asleep that I even said them (in the dream) correctly, word for word. Imagine that. Imagine fearing, not for your body, but for your damn SOUL. As horribly cheesy as that sounds, try experiencing it. You lose very little brain function in these dreams. You're consciously aware of things that you'd know while awake. It's as if you retain some portion of your functional mind while the rest of it is asleep. And it overpowers you.

I have never experienced something so frightening and haunting. I hope I never do again.

I don't know what to do at this point. I honestly feel like tapering off the medication, but it's had enough positive effect that I'm wondering if switching to a daytime dosage will alleviate these problems. Ugh.

I want to leave you with this parting wisdom: if you continue to take this medication, DO. NOT. MISS. DOSAGES. I've noticed that, so little as an hour later than the previous day and boom, I'm having side-effects. As I said, I take mine at night and I start with nightmares that seem to last hours... only to wake up and realize that literally like two to three minutes have passed.

The medication needs to be taken with food because food slows the elimination rate. If you take it on an empty stomach (or late) I wish you luck. You won't have it. This is not an "XL" or "XR" version. It's their Beta-Test. When their patent runs out, they'll create an XL/XR version and make more money. For now, be a good steward of your own health and follow the instructions.

Take this advice and these side-effects seriously. They will alter your life.

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Update. Dropped down to 20mg and sleep paralysis is gone, along with nightmares. Thank god! All seems well now.

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I had a connection to the expansive and creative parts of myself. I think it was really like having a bipolar manic phase. I never felt that good. I was queen of the world. But then I fell into really b**** phases where no one could do anything right. I loved how I felt but realized that I was getting burned out. And I have been so low in getting off of it that I am tempted to go back...but I don't want to feel the angry parts again.

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I'm tired of seeing monsters and demons in my night terrors. If it had not resolved so many of my symptoms, I would have just settled with being depressed. Or at least switched back to Effexor.

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Yes! I made the connection after being on viibryd for about a month. Once I started taking the 40mg, about a week later the Sleep Paralysis started. After my third episode in two weeks, I knew it was the drug. It's been about 2mths now, and I have had 6 disturbing episodes. Demonic in nature. VERY disturbing. I am aging close attention to what triggers it, and it could be from caffeine combined with the drug. I am going to do more experimenting to see. But yesterday I had coffee, then a glass of black tea, and one 7.5 mg of adderall becaus ei was so tired. That night I had the SP. So I have ruled out anxiety pills and sleeping pills as the culprit, now I will see if its caffeine.

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I was on Viibryd for the first few months of 2012 and I had a very similar experience. I was having horrible sleep paralysis-like episodes at least once a week (though some were worse than others). I would also get these strange attacks whenever I began to fall asleep or let my mind go into a trance. It felt almost like a panic attack, but like I wasn't really there (feeling of falling, seeing bright colors, vision blanking out, dizziness...almost like having an out-of-body experience). I also gained a LOT of weight on this drug (probably 10-15 lbs, which is a lot considering I had previously gained much more on other antidepressants). Even with all of these side-effects, I still have positive things to say about this drug. For some reason, it helped me to reconnect with my spirituality. I felt a stronger connection to my higher self and a strengthened ability to tap into divine consciousness. I tend to be a more creative, intuitive person and it's difficult to tell sometimes whether I am completely in touch with reality. It's tough to say whether or not the drug was purely responsible for causing all of my spiritual experiences. Regardless of how much Viibryd had to do with it, I definitely gained a deeper understanding of my spirituality while on this drug.

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Does anyone have weird allergy symptons after waking up from these dreams/nightmares. My eyes and throat/tongue are so itchy and I am soo tired the day after one of these crazy, vivid dreams.

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In response to your question about whether or not I am continuing Viibryd, the answer is yes. It really has reconnected me to my creative spirit which has been AWOL for way too long. I am thrilled with that part and if I can reduce it enough I will stay with it.
But I am also clenching my jaw. That is another effect. I called it a "side effect" but my chiropractor today pointed out that it is and effect and he is absolutely right. Clenching has been an issue with other SSRIs. I do think that my pain levels have also been reduced.

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I understand why experiencing such a thing would be so terrible.

There have been many reports of people experiencing odd things from taking Viibryd.

Learn more Viibryd details here.

The best suggestion I can make is to contact your doctors and make them aware of these issues as you might need to try a different medication.

Are you both still taking it?

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Wow! I also had the worst dreams I have ever had last night. It was appalling. I am turning into a real shrew and no one can do anything right. I think that this is a very real side effect and I would suggest that you call your doctor asap. Do not go cold turkey! You must be carefully weaned off this medication and on to something else. That is a very dangerous thing to do.
Be kind to yourself. I know it is hard.

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