Young People Are Tripping on Benadryl—and It’s Always a Bad Time

There is a figure who can greet you during intense Benadryl journey.

Faceless, shrouded in black, with red eyes and a top hat, he lurks ominously in the corner. The “man in the Benadryl hat” is a common and recurring hallucination reported by people taking dozens of antihistamines at once. The figure shown in halloween costumes, Benadryl Trip POV MemesAnd Walmart Graphic T-Shirtshas become a symbol of a new drug trend in which young people deliberately take large doses of the drug not to prevent allergies, but to get high.

John, a 21-year-old college student who was traveling on Benadryl, had never seen the Man in the Hat. Still, he says, “I could imagine how it could happen. [Benadryl] delve into the depths of your brain to find what scares you. So if you're afraid of the Man in the Hat, I'm sure you'll see him.” This search for the unpleasant, although it sounds terrible, is actually the purpose of recreational use of Benadryl. (John doesn't want his real name used for fear his friends will find out.)

When used in high doses, diphenhydramine, an ingredient in Benadryl, acts as a deliriant, a hallucinogenic class of drugs that appears to be increasingly popular among youth for non-medical purposes. Unlike psychedelics or other hallucinogens, delusions have no real potential. According to the people I've talked to, every ride is bad, every ride is brutal, and that's what it's all about.

In 2020 “The Benadryl Challenge”” gained traction on TikTok, encouraging participants to take at least 12 Benadryl tablets for an intense journey. floats to the surface Every few years, attention was paid to the psychoactive effects of deliriums. “One day I saw a video about it on TikTok and realized it could be used for entertainment purposes,” one user told me.

With little to no harm reduction information available about high levels of consumption, problems began to grow. In May 2020 three Texas teenagers were treated for a Benadryl overdose in just a week, one of them was only 14 years old and took 14 pills. The 14-year-old recovered and returned home the next day. In August 2020, a 15-year-old died for a seizure after a drug overdose in Oklahoma. In September 2020 FDA issued a warning to parents to hide and lock up supplies of Benadryl, warning of the potential risk of heart problems, seizures and, less commonly, coma and even death. Despite the warning, the trend appears to be continuing. In 2020, 4,618 cases of Benadryl use were reported to U.S. poison control centers; That number rose to 5,960 in 2023, according to the study. study published in Pediatrics Open Science in August. Benadryl and delusional drugs in general have become a staple among marginalized American youth – a cheap and easy way to get screwed. WIRED has reached out to Benadryl maker Kenvue for comment. A company spokesperson said, “This behavior is extremely alarming and dangerous” and urged consumers to “carefully read and follow label directions and contact their healthcare professional if they have any questions.”

John began taking Benadryl recreationally in November 2024, when he was 20, after using it to sleep and then hearing about the opportunity to travel online. He was depressed at the time and took 12 pills during a big trip several times a day, with each trip lasting four to six hours. Instead of the Hat Man, John saw eyelash mites, small bugs that cluster at the base of the eyelashes, as well as “shadows that run around the periphery of your eyelashes.” Travel was also tactile; John saw and felt spiders all over his body, describing a feeling of “anticipatory tingling.”