Enter Hatman: Exploring the World of Benadryl-Induced Delirium | Hacker News Reader

Enter Hatman: Exploring the World of Benadryl-Induced Delirium

meghanboilard.substack.com

23 pointsbcohen12313 comments

> Short-term memory loss is common, and some people forget that they’ve taken a drug at all.

that's one of the reasons why people overdose on it. they forgot they took it and loop back to their idea of taking it and redose unintentionally.

> Skeptics may view this as a shared case of pareidolia, the human tendency to seek faces, figures, and familiar meanings in ambiguous stimuli (in this case, shadows). Others believe that the Hatman and his kind are paranormal creatures, akin to ghosts or aliens or demons. Some have hypothesized that shadow figures may travel from another dimension entirely.

those skeptics ... always so skeptical ... ;D

> And so long as people can buy those little pink pills at their local CVS for $7, so long as the dangers are minimized of the drugs we’re conditioned to believe are safe, the Hatman – and all the damage that comes with him – will persist.

weird conclusion. legalizing psychedelics would be a start as many benadryl users incompetently seek a psychedelical experience.

At a time in my life where I was not sleeping (at all, it's a long story) I would frequently see shadowy figures. It was very unnerving. There were no eyes or features to speak of - it would be like if you were in an already dark room and someone was standing there - you can't seem them except for a hint of a shape. Many times I would see one in the corner, stare at it for a long time, blink, then it would be in another or area of the room. It felt like if I fell asleep it would attack me, which only fueled the anxiety of no sleep even more.

It wasn't until well after I fixed those issues that I learned shadow figures are a common symptom of sleep deprivation and sleep paralysis. There's something deeply necessary yet anxiety producing about sleep. Even now I have to force myself to sleep because of all the ill effects that came from years of not sleeping.

- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33573871/

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_person

- https://www.sleepcycle.com/sleep-paralysis/sleep-paralysis-w...

If that "long story" is stimulant abuse, the shadow people are much more pronounced than in regular sleep deprivation. So is the psychosis.

I also had a few years period where I would get constant sleep paralysis during sleep. Multiple times weekly. It's a very unique feeling and you know it when it starts coming on. I trained myself to ignore it as best as possible and "go back to sleep" instead of opening my eyes. Much harder when it's incorporated into an actual dream though instead of just seeing/feeling/hearing things in your room.

After doing that for a while, I had an extremely intense episode where a vortex/black hole was at the bottom of my bed sucking me into it, and I just KNEW if I didnt fight it that I'd be dead. So I fought for my life. That was my last episode of sleep paralysis... going on 5 years now.

It did include some substance abuse primarily stimulant and alcohol (which has a stimulant effect) so that makes sense, but I think it was mainly depression (which fueled the substance abuse) and even that has sleep disrupting effects. The paralysis was strangely comforting because it felt like - and I reasoned as much at the time - that if I was able to stay still and barely breathing that nothing would happen. The problem couldn't see me because I was so still - I was so still I wasn't there.

Good job on your efforts so far. It sounds like you had a breakthrough.

/r/DPH is a bleak and troubling place. Seems to almost exclusively be teenagers, a lot of them fully aware how neurotoxic this drug can be, but it seems like loads of them are taking it every day.

https://www.reddit.com/r/DPH/comments/y1bu65/took_too_much_f...

/r/trees is full of teenagers too but they generally aren't ending up in the hospital. There are kids posting on /r/DPH about their daily hallucinations and are being pointed to /r/HPPD - kids!

(TW: Suicidal ideation)

I fight with ADHD and depression and am in a relationship that’s at best moderately containing some … issues. But things are improving.

Sometimes when I was younger (am mid 40’s now), I would fight such depression I would not want to wake up.

After my first wife died when I was 31, I turned to “TheraFlu” to sleep. I’d make a hot toddy with it and honey and whiskey.

It never helped. But I developed this “fight the dph” ability to not sleep.

So eventually if I wanted to sleep, it was 2-3 dph pills and melatonin. And then a sleep routine.

When I’d get depressed I would think of taking more. The most I ever took was 3-4 pills. It made me anxious. Itchy. Kicky in my sleepy.

I could never bring myself to take more.

Now it’s exercise. Hydration. Therapy. Real sleep, with my cpap…

It scares me how people experiment like that and I wish we knew more about the benefits of minor prescribed “trips”.

Tripping on diphen is nothing new. Even twenty five years ago forums were brimming with accounts of "Get high for cheap on benadryl"

In my own experience, I took it one night trying to come down from whatever stimulants were in the E pills we got. I forget the dosage but its was something hefty, but not insane. Within an hour I was getting fully blown hallucinations (like seeing objects in detail that were not there), lots of bugs and flies, and these intense fractal "tears in reality" that would crop up in my vision.

I guess being a kid at the time it was fun in a weird/bizarre sense, but not particularly worth it.

"For the most part, those that indulge in more “traditional” hallucinogens at moderate dosages are able to retain full functionality and awareness of the illusory nature of their altered perceptions."

I have no experience with this, so I wonder if it is true. It's not how I imagine the "high" state and not how it seems to me portrayed in literature and media.

Getting your character high is just a narrative vehicle to some tropey destination[1]. It is sometimes done in a deliberately exaggerated tongue-in-cheek manner ("This is how squares must think drugs are always like!") by the ones that know better, but oftentimes it must be just plain unawareness and/or disregard for realism.

The article deals with one of the specific kind of drugs[2] that "kind of" work that way.

To be fair, interacting with real people who are high while one is sober can get boring pretty fast. Maybe that makes accurate portrayal in fiction not worth it.

[1] https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ThisIsYourIndexO...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deliriant

Oops. I botched that first link:

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ThisIsYourIndexO...

As far as I can see, the only time you might lose the awareness is when you become too emotionally involved and start projecting emotions onto the world instead of owning them (just like you might do when you're sober and upset), and it makes everything messy. Bad trips can start that way.

I think the explanation of “shared human memory” plausible, in terms of it tapping into some primitive (possibly evolutionary) pathway (as it seems to occur in other cultures as well, so nurture is not likely).

We do have other perhaps similar “shared experiences” in the form of fear of snakes, which is theorized to come from primate evolution — we may even have “hard-coded” snake detection! Anecdotally and according to some studies, people can recognize a snake faster than they would even consciously realize it. This is also what snake attack survivors often tell. Maybe something similar exists for Hatman, it is just being repressed by default? Another evolutionary fear are birds as far as I know, plus fire. Some think this may be the origin of dragons (flying, fire-breathing snakes).

Very good write up on dph

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