Doxycycline is an anti-malarial which we were given back in the day, when we were in a seriously high risk malaria region. On my latest trip I passed through various high risk places, and while a lot of travelers don't bother with anti-malarials due to the possible side effects outweighing the benefits, because I had a known history with Doxy and was getting off the beaten track a bit my doctor and I decided I may as well go back on it, better safe than sorry.
Doxy is not the worst of the anti-malarial drugs, but they all have possible side-effects. Some, like the one some Dutch guys I met were put on, can be pretty nasty. I forget the name but it is actually banned in many countries, and they found within two days of starting to take it they were actually hallucinating and one of them didn't sleep a wink for three days... they quickly decided to discontinue that one. Doxy also has a wide range of possible effects depending on the taker. Some people are fine and have no issues, others have lots. The one thing that has always perplexed me (and I have checked everywhere) is the one major side effect that I and many, many people taking it with me experienced is not actually listed or explained anywhere... I wonder if they think it is best not to tell people... It simply says in big letters that Doxy should be taken with food and water early in the morning, and the only reason I can think of for this is because of the phenomenon widely known as Doxy dreams.
Back in the day before we went away we were told by quite a few people to expect them. They said we would dream like never before, and they were indeed right about that. I am not usually much of a dreamer, I don't sleep that long but I sleep very deep so any dreaming I do is forgotten. Except on Doxy. Doxy dreams are like nothing else. They are vivid, they are long, and they seem to take whatever you usually dream about and multiply it by a factor of ten. Or twenty. It is ok if you know it is coming. Getting back onto Doxy for this trip I lay back on the first or second night and waited for the ride to begin. And did it what... The first night I had what you can only call a night terror, like the ones on the documentaries on TV, the full on big-black-presence-at-the-end-of-the bed, thinking you are awake, crushing pressure, unable to move... I knew what was going on but it's still not the greatest feeling. The weird thing is I was sure I was thrashing around violently, I was really fighting it, but when I finally woke I was on my back, sweating, and the bedclothes were not even disturbed.
From there the dreams just kind of rolled on every night and I rolled with them, nothing too nasty (although I do have to apologise to a couple of people at home about the incident with the chainsaw), but everything so vivid and so real you have to spend some minutes after waking thinking about whether the things you remember actually happened the day before or just in your head overnight. Other people I know aren't so lucky, the ones I felt the most sorry for back in the day were several who had children at home and repeatedly dreamed of them dying in vivid detail.
Someone once said that on Doxy you have two lives, the one where you are awake and the one in your sleep. It certainly makes life interesting.
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