Mefloquine Dreams

written March 21, 2007


Malaria is endemic in Senegal, so Peace Corps started us all on mefloquine (except for those who can't take mefloquine for one reason or another, and then they got a different drug), which is supposed to prevent us from getting malaria. A common side effect of mefloquine is supposed to be very vivid dreams. So the first night after taking it, I was a little nervous about going to sleep, afraid i would have some crazy nightmare. But nothing happened. And nothing happened the night after that. So I figured I was pretty much in the clear. But about four days after starting the mefloquine, I had a very weird dream about green zombies. Which wouldn't be particularly out of the usual for me, except that I woke up, and the green zombies seemed to be just as real in my mind as actual reality. And then I went back to sleep, and the green zombies were still there. No idea what happened with them in the dream, but they were there. So maybe that was my first mefloquine dream. At least it wasn't very scary.