Get unlimited access to everything VICE has to offer.

Turn off all ads on VICE.com

Exclusive New VICE Documentaries

Member Exclusive Features & Columns

Turn off all ads on VICE.com

Exclusive New VICE Documentaries

Member Exclusive Features & Columns

Turn off all ads on VICE.com

Exclusive New VICE Documentaries

Member Exclusive Features & Columns

4 Magazines Delivered to Your Door

We independently evaluate all of our recommendations. When you buy through our links, we may earn an affiliate commission. Learn more here.

The Seriously Weird Things Ambien Does to Sleepers

One woman allegedly bought a car. Another woke up covered in chewed gum. Others have cooked meals, had sex, and even driven while asleep. The side effects can get seriously bizarre.

Share on X (Opens in new window)X

Share on Facebook (Opens in new window)Facebook

Share using Native toolsShareCopied to clipboard

Most sleep aids promise you’ll wake up feeling refreshed. Ambien, on the other hand, occasionally promises something else entirely. The prescription insomnia drug, known generically as zolpidem, has been helping people sleep since the early 1990s. But over the years, it has also become the source of some of the strangest side-effect stories you’ll ever read. We’re talking about people eating entire meals, shopping online, leaving their homes, having sex, driving cars, and carrying on conversations—all while technically asleep and with little or no memory of what happened afterward.

The stories became serious enough that in 2019, the FDA required Ambien and similar insomnia medications to carry a boxed warning, the agency’s strongest warning, after reports of serious injuries and deaths tied to what it calls “complex sleep behaviors.”

Here are some of the wildest Ambien stories ever reported to date…

People Have Literally Driven Cars While Asleep

Most Ambien stories sound funny until you get to the sleep-driving. According to a 2008 study from The American Journal of Medicine, plus other news reports, people have gotten behind the wheel and operated vehicles while not fully awake more often than we’d like to hear. According to the reports, some people had no memory of the event after waking up. Included on the warnings to medications like Ambient and Zolpidem are sleep-driving, sleepwalking, and other activities performed while not fully awake, which could result in severe injury or death.

People Have Had Sex While........

© Vice