I hallucinated off Lexapro

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Has anyone else had this experience with Lexapro or any other SSRI? It is REALLY scary. The first incident was I heard music playing when I was in the shower, it was like a distant broken record. This morning, I was sitting on the toilet (too much information already), and I saw a bright flash of light and the towel on the shower expanded and started deforming and I heard also an odd sound with it, like it smacked the shower door.

I'm absolutely terrified right now, I've been paranoid all day due to it.

I've had issues with all the psychiatric medications over the years.

What you describe in your post doesn't jibe wthe the more common side effects of Lexapro. I would call your psychiatrist right now and tell him or her of the side effect you just experienced, as vivid hallucinations like that may be of a serious nature.

If I were you, I'd also be asking the psychiatrist how to titrate off this drug. You might want to download the harm reduction guide from the Icarus project's web site and show it your psychiatrist, and ask if this would be a reasonable method off getting off this drug. If he or she blows you off, I'd find a different psychiatrist.

Wow, I'm so sorry you had such a frightening experience. I've taking one tablet of Lexapro for about three weeks now, and I haven't noticed any hallucinations, just these really bizarre, vivid dreams.

That is one of the rare nasty side effects of lexapro that are known. It's more common with Viibryd (and even nastier). I thought the dreams I had about the female bullies in my hometown forcing me to have sex with them were bad when I was a teenager: Having those same female bullies having sex with me, then decapitating my head, legs and arms while taking Viibryd were even worse.

Is it actually "rare"? I too have very vivid dreams, they were worse when I just started, but have calmed down now after being on it for a month. My dreams are still vivid, but not as much as they were. Some are fun actually, it's like going on an adventure. But I've had some pretty bad nightmares due to it.

If you're hallucinating, you need to call your doctor and tell them you're having a bad side effect. You're probably going to have to try something else--Lexapro is obviously not working the way it should.

Don't worry too hard about it, though. I've had hallucinations, once, when I had a high fever; it didn't damage my brain or anything. It was just annoying and disorienting. Just don't take the next dose, and call the doctor ASAP.

With Christmas coming up so soon, the doctor may be out of the office, but you probably have an emergency nurse line you can call for advice, or an emergency psych hotline. Try them. This isn't precisely an emergency, since you are experiencing only minor hallucinations that you're very well aware aren't real, but it's still not something you want to have to deal with for too long. Nobody will be upset with you if you call in about this problem. Besides, the sooner you get a doctor's appointment, the sooner you can try a medication that might actually work for you without making you see and hear things.

Vivid dreams are a common side effect of many medications. If you're still sleeping well, they're not a concern. If they wake you up and you can't get back to sleep, that's probably something to ask your doctor about, since getting a reasonable amount of sleep is one of the things that helps speed recovery from mental illness.

I have very vivid dreams, and remember most of them. Unfortunately, many of them are repetitive nightmares. From this experience, though, I can tell you that it is entirely possible to get used to it, learn to go back to sleep, and generally have it not affect your quality of life. There's this theory that dreams are your brain practicing for really bad stuff--like, if you're being chased by something horrible or beaten up by somebody, or whatever, that's your brain trying to learn how to react if you are ever in that situation for real. The idea is that our ancestors couldn't really practice getting away from sabretoothed tigers without getting themselves into some serious risk--so their brains learned how to "practice" at night. Don't know if that helps you any, but it does explain a little about why people might have nightmares like that. It's not just your brain trying to torture you for no good reason; it's because there's a problem you're trying to solve.

I remember seeing reports of it on Dr. David Healy's Rxisks website (Rxisks.org). They just made some changes to the site on how to access reports, so I'm not going to attempt it right now, as I want to try to get some sleep, that is, if I can get the tinnitus to quit.

The only issue I have with Lexapro is that it makes me lethargic for a couple of hours after I take it. But that could be because I take a very high dosage and couple it with a Xanax.

I had auditory hallucinations when I first started taking SSRI's.

wow. no, nothing like that when i was on Lexapro. I did have very vivid dreams while on that med though.

I started on Lovan (Fluoxetine) earlier this year which was also the first SSRI I had tried. After a couple of weeks I started hallucinating and seeing things zoom past me, people in cars that weren't there and I was hearing things that weren't there for instance I would hear my phone vibrating or ringing when it's off and it would be persistent as long as the phone was near me.

I was taken off the Lovan after about 7 weeks and the doc's thought that it had induced schizophrenia but I don't think it's true. I still hear things but very rarely and it is usually just when I am going to sleep and still have some visual hallucinations when I am very tired but all of this had never happened before taking the Lovan.

You should see your doc immediately and tell him/her what is going on.