Perfect Sunshine of Ambient Mind

So now it's come out that people are sleepdriving while on Ambien. This comes as no shock to those of us who have been using the long white pill as a sleep aid. For years, as a casual Ambien user, I have found the most fascinating side effect to be sleepwalking. And sleepdancing, sleepeating, sleepcheckwriting and even sleepfucking.

In 2000, there was a two-day dance marathon at Roseland. I went home, took an Ambien and went to sleep. Several hours later, I apparently got dressed, walked the 12 blocks to Roseland (including navigating my way around Columbus Circle) and danced for 45 minutes before walking home, taking off my clothes and going back to bed. I know this because people later told me they saw me there. I don't remember any of it.

Another time, I had tickets to a party. Two friends came over, gave me the money, and I gave them the tickets. The next day, I asked them why they never came over. They had to tell me where I had put the money. Freaked out that I was suffering from dementia, I called a friend, a prominent psychiatrist at Bellevue, and told him what happened. "Oh, everyone in the profession knows about Ambien," he said. "It's in over the literature." It's true that Sanofi-Aventis, the manufacturer, posts a warning about this possible effect. And it's also true that, whenever I do take an Ambien (which isn't often, by the way), I do a Neely O'Hara cocktail-Ambien with a few shots of straight vodka. Not too smart maybe, but, as Nelly says (in the film Valley of the Dolls), "They work faster that way."

But the capper happened last year when my boyfriend told me that we had had the best sex ever. Phenomenal. Kafkaesque, as Shelly Duval in "Annie Hall" might have said. Only problem was, I couldn't remember anything about it.

Now, I don't know about you, but for me, the memory of a great sexual encounter-nostalgie de la boue, you could say-is an integral part of the whole megilla. You take out the memory, you're left with nothing but soiled sheets and an angry partner.

Sometimes, it's just better when you're awake. Wait a minute: Let me sleep on that.