Zombies are all the rage this time of year. You’ll probably see them out trick-or-treating, and you’ve undoubtedly been spooked by these monsters on “The Walking Dead” or “World War Z.” But there’s a different sort of zombie on the loose that’s not so fun, and it sticks around well beyond Halloween.

Meet the Bath Salt Zombie. Watch him at the video here!

This is the creature who emerges when people get high with bath salts. This phenomenon is relatively new within the past few years. Bath salts have become a popular way to get high because they are easily accessible, cheap and available to people of any age. The term bath salts can encompass more than 100 different chemical drugs, and no, these are not the same things you toss in the tub for a relaxing soak at the end of a long day.

The Effects of Taking Bath Salts

The side effects of snorting, inhaling or shooting up this drug include extreme highs and lows. When you first take them, bath salts make you feel energized and euphoric. But as the dopamine stays trapped in your brain’s synapses, other feelings will take over. You may feel paranoid, fearful and cloudy. This may lead you to behave, in effect, like a zombie.

The chemicals surging through your brain will inhibit sleep. Your mood will fluctuate from happy to sad to angry. Your heart rate will jump, blood pressure will rise, and anxiety will overtake you. You will begin to sweat as hyperthermia sets in, creating more heat than your body can efficiently dispose of.

These side effects cause immense stress to your body, which make your body think that it is under attack. When our bodies need to defend themselves, they release stress hormones. Unfortunately, this will further inhibit your judgment. You’ll start to experience delirium, and your paranoia levels will fly off the charts.

The next level of side effects may be hallucinations, dark and troubled imaginings that leave most bath salt users quivering on the floor. Your body still thinks it’s in danger, and while it’s trying to protect you, there’s no actual threat around, which leads to further confusion in your head.

The dopamine overload will also give you what may appear to be superpowers – you’ll feel impervious to pain – which can actually be quite dangerous. When we don’t feel pain, we take risks we might otherwise avoid for fear of the consequences. In fact, there’s a real risk of hurting yourself while in this state, because you’ll still be causing harm to yourself, you just won’t feel your pain censors telling you to stop causing pain.

On Halloween, feel free to impersonate a zombie with a costume. But remember that Bath Salt Zombies are the scariest creatures of all: In 2011, nearly 23,000 people went to U.S. emergency rooms because of bath salts. For 2013, do everything you can to ensure you have a safe and happy Halloween experience. The video was brought to you by Clarity Way Rehab, Happy Halloween!

-Guest post by Courtney Gordner. Courtney is a journalist/blogger with a passion for…everything! Read more from her on her own blog, www.talkviral.com