Drugs and Hallucinations

Before traveling to another country, many people choose to sit down with a travel doctor and figure out all of the different immunizations they will need and pills they should take with them so they don't end up dead from some tropical disease their body was previously unexposed to. OK, so maybe not dead, but it's still a good idea to cover the bases with a doctor.

When I went and did this, I found out that there are several different types of anti-malarials to take and I had a choice to make. Some you take only once a week, some are daily, some cause hallucinations, and others light sensitivity. Being that I am pretty much the whitest white person ever, I went with the newest drug out there, malarone, which was not supposed to make me get burned any faster (I was going to the equator after all and didn't want come home with an advanced case of skin cancer) and was not supposed to cause any hallucinations. It was more expensive and a daily pill so I had to get 90 of them (the pharmicist looked at me like I was insane when I brought in the prescription) but I decided to stay on the safe side.

The verdict on malarone:

Light sensitivity? Not a problem.
Not having a proper nights sleep for two months? Never again.

This wonder drug caused me to be awake for at least three hours (that was if I was lucky, it was often more like five) during the night, every single night from May 21st on (yep, I went back and counted). That means I stared at my mosquito net for hours on end for two months straight. When I got to Kenya I started taking it in the morning rather than right before bed as I had been, which helped in that I was awake for those hours contiguously rather than in bouts of an hour at a time from 10pm to 7am.

The worst part, however, was that the disclaimer about hallucinations was for me entirely false. For the last two weeks, I spent my nights in LaLa Land.

For some people on these anti-malarials, the hallucinations for them just mean really cracked-out dreams. Well my dreams have always been that way (and I always remember them), so that was nothing that concerned me. What was troublesome was the little old man with the stooped back who used to stand outside my window and taunt me (in really good English) while I was AWAKE for those three to five hours a night. My elderly friend had a really cool walking stick and a hobo's bag, with his look being rounded out by a long stringy beard reaching halfway down to his belly button.

At least I had the presence of mind to realize that my friend wasn't real, but at two in the morning when it is pitch black (the neighbors who had electricity weren't going to waste it by keeping lights on at night), it is unsettling at best to have someone who is very real, but isn't, but is, but isn't (but is???) talking to you and knowing things about you strangers shouldn't. I have taken care of people with schizophrenia while working in Anchorage, and believe me, I have a newfound appreciation for their false realities. It is so real.

This combined with the strange electronically produced music, the light show I watched on my wall one night (like being inside a kaleidescope) and listening to people from other dorms mess with our plumbing in the middle of the night and hearing every word of their non-existent conversations (we were locked in from the inside) leads me to tell you that I would personally not recommend malarone. At all.

On second thought, there was the night I spent writing the great American novel in my head...
It was shaping up to be a darn good book. Lots of deep insights and carousels. I guess I'll have to find another way to tap that particular brand of creative energy.