I have recently been looking for a sleep drug that would solve the problems I've been having due to use of methamphetamine and other psychostimulants. After thorough research and testing of different substances, I am convinced trazodone may be one of the most underappreciated and most useful sedatives that exists.
Trazodone
Well-documented
Well-documented
Multiple authoritative sources agree on dosing and effects.
- 4 corroborating sources
- 1 ROA with full dose ladder
- duration data present
- PubChem toxicity data
Well-documented
Multiple authoritative sources agree on dosing and effects.
- 4 corroborating sources
- 1 ROA with full dose ladder
- duration data present
- PubChem toxicity data
Aliases: Trazon, Desyrel, Oleptro, Donaren, Raldesy
Summary
Trazodone is primarily prescribed as an antidepressant and for its anxiolytic and sedative properties, with widespread off-label use for insomnia at lower doses (25-100 mg). Common side effects include drowsiness, orthostatic hypotension, dry mouth, and dizziness. Rare but serious side effects include priapism (prolonged erection requiring immediate medical attention), serotonin syndrome when combined with other serotonergic drugs, and QT interval prolongation.
Dose Information
| ROA | Light | Common | Strong | Heavy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oral | 25-50mg | 50-100mg | 100-150mg | 150mg+ |
Light
Common
Strong
Heavy
Sources
Oral
Dose ladder — dose.wiki, PsychonautWiki, TripSit
☠ at 6.45 g oral
Fatal overdose reported
“A fatal overdose has been reported after ingesting 6.45 g of trazodone.” — toxicity literature
Onset, Duration & After-effects
| ROA | Onset | Comeup | Peak | Offset | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oral | 30-60 min | 1-2 hrs | 1-3 hrs | 3-6 hrs | 6-10 hrs |
Tolerance
Build-up
develops over 1–4 weeks of regular use
Reset
days to weeks depending on duration of use
Tolerance Decay
Half tolerance
3d
Baseline
~14d
Clinically, hypnotic efficacy may diminish over weeks if used nightly for sleep; robust, quantified tolerance models are not established. Antidepressant effects require chronic daily dosing and are not considered tolerance.
Effects
Aggregated from 42 single-substance Erowid experience reports; 18 Erowid reports where another drug was taken too are left out
Each bar shows the share of analyzed reports whose text mentions that effect — a mention is not always a first-hand experience (fear of an effect or something witnessed can count). Mentions saying the effect did not happen are left out; that check reads keywords, so it can miss some. The shaded band on a bar, and the small range after its number, is the 95% interval: where the share could plausibly be with other reports of the same kind. Fewer reports, wider band. Tap or hover any number for details. The second value is the Bluelight extractor's per-effect confidence; a dash means the row is Erowid-derived, which has no confidence measurement.
Effect glossary — · full glossary
Positive Effects 3
40.5% (95% interval 27 to 56 percent)
–
35.7% (95% interval 23 to 51 percent)
–
19.0% (95% interval 10 to 33 percent)
–
Adverse Effects 5
19.0% (95% interval 10 to 33 percent)
–
16.7% (95% interval 8 to 31 percent)
–
11.9% (95% interval 5 to 25 percent)
–
11.9% (95% interval 5 to 25 percent)
–
7.1% (95% interval 2 to 19 percent)
–
Also reported in combinations. In the 18 Trazodone reports where another drug was taken too, 2 mention hospital, emergency services or an overdose, 1 a seizure and 1 psychosis (too few reports for percentages). In the 42 single-substance reports: 9.5%, 2.4% and 0.0%. These are not in the figures above: they cannot be put down to Trazodone alone, and a mention is not always something that happened to the writer.
Combinations
Cross-Check Trazodone with another substanceWritten here, not TripSit data: the MAOI entry follows trazodone's US label and the tramadol entry follows tramadol's.
Community Trip Reports
Anecdotal first-person accounts from Reddit, Erowid, Bluelight, and Dose.wiki. Click a source to expand. Reports are harm-reduction context, not medical guidance. Tags summarise each author's own verdict — how reports are classified.
Erowid 8 reports 3 neutral 5 cautionary visit
Holy Trazodone So this was my first time using trazodone as a recreational drug, and let me tell you it was not the best experience I have ever had. About 1 hour after the first dose, I felt very very drowsy, I felt like if I fell asleep I would deffinaltely fall into a coma so I had my friend keep me awake with load m...
I am prescribed 10mg of Adderal XR and 60mg of Propanolol XR, both taken in the morning. Neither of my prescribed medicines have caused me any problems thus far. I am 180 pounds and average height, so I have a bit of a fat belly that might alter how chemicals interact and metabolize with my body.
Before the tablets were taken, I had eaten a Wendys Bacon Cheddar Melt with a Biggie size fry and a Biggie size drink. The directions on the bottle say to take this medication with food. All of the four 50MG tablets (200MG all together) were taken orally at 1:40 PM EST on Monday, August 16, 2004.
Back when I was in art school I was on various anti-depressants, one of which was Trazodone. I found a half finished bottle of it in one of my boxes of 'stuff I haven't unpacked yet' and remembered it could help me sleep.
I've been battling depression and anxiety for years, but this month was especially terrible. After losing my job, ending a serious relationship, and dropping all of my college classes, I was finding it nearly impossible to fall asleep. The past few night Ive been up until 6am crying.
I take lamictal for depression. It's a new drug for me something I have only been on for 3 months. Everything has actually been great with one caveat. I cannot sleep. When I do sleep my dreams are extremely disturbing and vivid. This is new for me as I usually don't even fully remember my dreams upon waking.
During the time I was having a horrible benzodiazepine withdrawal (from Klonopin or clonazepam, to be exact) I was looking for any way to calm the tremors/shakes/insomnia without having to spend any money.
Bluelight 1 thread 1 cautionary visit
100 mg trazodone, oral ROA + 300 mL strong black tea Taken ~25 mins before boarding a flight from the Midwest to the PNW. It ended up being roughly 4 hrs in the air. This occurred yesterday. Background experience with this substance is quite extensive.
Pill Identifiers
32
known pill identifiers on record — view imprints, colors, shapes, and images
→
Trazodone's nerd page
Pharmacology, chemical data, effect profiles, and more
→
Helpful Links
Add to PsychonautWiki Journal
The PsychonautWiki Journal logging app doesn't include every substance. To track Trazodone there, start adding an ingestion, search for the name, and choose to add it as a custom substance. Paste these values:
⬇ Download import file
Import this file as custom substances
and you get "Trazodone (Substance Search)" with every
route's full dose ladder and timeline, no typing. Works on iOS and
Android (v15+); the format is confirmed by the app's
developer. The manual values below work for older
versions.
Name
Trazodone
Unit
mg
Description
Trazodone Source: SubstanceSearch (substancesearch.com) Oral dose (mg): light 25-50 · common 50-100 · strong 100-150 · heavy 150+ Oral duration: onset 0.5-1h · come-up 1-2h · peak 1-3h · offset 3-6h · total 6-10h · after-effects 12h Note: ranges are harm-reduction guidance, not a prescription. Start low, go slow, and test your substances.
Tip: for quicker logging you can also add a Custom Unit in the app, e.g. common dose ~ 75 mg (Oral).
The app keeps custom substances simple, so the full dose ranges live in the description text above. Ranges are harm-reduction guidance, not a prescription.
Report an issue or suggest an edit
Spotted incorrect or dangerous information, have a correction, a new study, or a useful addition for Trazodone? Let us know. Reports are reviewed by moderators — this is not posted publicly.