Anyone here ever try this? I’m dying to find out what would happen, but have no intentions in trying this out myself. My best guess is that one achieves the feeling of being very sleepy, but unable to sleep.
Well it depends on the pill. Over-the-counter sleeping pills in the US are not really sleeping pills at all (they are not downers or depressants), but rather antihistamines that happen to have drowsyness as one of several side-effects.
Here’s a Slate article I happened across, and the author just happened to do your experiement for you on page 2. Sounds like you hit the nail on the head.
Did you mean to make the word “Here’s” a hyperlink?
And I’m suprised and confused to hear that there’s no over the counter sleeping pills. I remember a while back I was having sleeping problems, and my mom gave me a pill. My mom often gives me vitamens, and I just assumed this was one of them, so I swallowed it, and half an hour later I was out like a light, and proceeded to sleep for a veeeeery long time. I was tottaly exhausted waking up and felt like going back to bed, but I think I was told I had already slept for 15 hours or so. Not sure where else my mom would have gotten such a pill other than over the counter since my mom is hardly a druggy, and only purchases beer for guests.
Quick look at my OTC sleeping pill bottle shows the only active ingredient as diphenhydramine:
http://www.diphenhydramine.com/
Seems to knock me out well enough, but I usually only take it as a last resort, when I’ve been trying to sleep for hours without luck. I imagine caffeine would probably make anything taken at the same time work faster, but I’m most likely wrong.
JoeSki: You can’t buy narcotics OTC, not sleeping aids. Anything that puts you to sleep is a sleeping aid, and some antihistamines will put you to sleep.
Narcotics (a class which includes opioids such as heroin) are never sold over-the-counter in the US, and are only available with a prescription. They are commonly sold illegally, but that’s different.
[QUOTE=JoeSki]
Did you mean to make the word “Here’s” a hyperlink?
And I’m suprised and confused to hear that there’s no over the counter sleeping pills.
[QUOTE]
Joe- I didn’t say there aren’t any OTC sleeping pills.
And here’s you’re link: http://slate.msn.com/?id=2062791
Oops. Misread your first post. Sorry 'bout that 
.
Diphenhydrdamine is Benadril(sp) or the other way round. and it puts me out for many hours.
Spelling and grammer subject to change without notice.
I take Benadryl a couple times a week when I break out in hives and it never makes me drowsy. 
Some years ago I was suffering from a severe allergy attack at work. One of my co-workers kindly offered me a couple of antihistamines tablets, which I took. After a while I was so drowsy that I was in imminent danger of falling asleep on my feet. To counter this effect, I bought and guzzled two 16-oz bottles of Mountain Dew.
Hooboy. The nearest equivalent I can think of to the way I felt was the last day finals my junior year in college. I went through an entire week on about 10 hours of sleep and only a double espresso got me through the last one. Mind you, I normally drink coffee only at gunpoint.
My eyes were completely dried out, as was my mouth, and yet trying to drink water made me feel ill. I was wide awake, but physically exhausted. Any muscles that might have been prone to slight aches and pains were throbbing mightily. Several co-workers thought I was stoned. I had to retrieve the tablet wrappers and soda bottles from the trash to satisfy one of the company gossips.
That’s as far as my substance experimentation has ever gone, and it’s an experience I won’t be repeating any time soon.
Benadryl has a website with the different types of products. Strangely, none of them mention anything about whether or not they put you to sleep, although I know first hand that it can knock you out pretty well with one or two pills. I suspect that different types of Benadryl vary in whether or not they put you out, but the website doesn’t say anything more other than what types of symptoms it cures. All appear to have diphenhydramine.
I’m not sure about the legality of this, but if you take a bit more than the recommended dosage, you won’t get sleepy at all - you’ll actually stay up all night hallucinating.
I have a severe allergy to shellfish. I also have the tendency to eat at ethnic restaurants where I am exposed to bits of shrimp that were not disclosed upon ordering. Once I had the pleasure of an injection by an Epi-pen. The feeling this produced is much like what Kizarvexius describes. I was on the stretcher in the hospital and I wanted desperately to get up and run around. My body had no intention of obeying those commands and I could only move with great effort. I am not sure exactly what is in an Epi-pen, but the reaction was nothing I have ever felt before.
An epi-pen has epinephrine in it, which is the first-line drug used for anaphylaxis (severe allergic reaction). The other name for it is adrenaline, which is a naturally secreted hormone in the body responsible for the “fight or flight” response. More info here: adrenaline/epinephrine
As for diphenhydramine (brand name Benadryl), I really think it depends on the person as to how it affects them. The very first time I took it was when I was 12 and had horrible hay fever that year–eyes swollen shut, watery eyes, sneezing. I acted like I was stoned out of my mind. That’s the only time it ever affected me that way. Since then it makes me only sleepy. And if I take it too often, it doesn’t affect me at all. In contrast, I work with a woman who, if she takes only 1/4 of the dose that I usually do, it will literally (and I mean literally) knock her out for two days.