Thread: Chronic herb smoking and dream recall

For me personally, I don't experience a great hindrance in dream recall when I ingest weed as opposed to a day where I haven't smoked even once. In fact, smoking (moderately. i.e 1-2g) up to 3-4 hours before bed can produce very vivid dreaming for me, increased awareness within said dreams, which in-turn leads to a very easy recollection. (Also helps a lot for WILD induction, too)

Again for me, It becomes a matter of how physically and mentally tired I become though out the day. If I work my ass off for 10 hours one day, and blaze though that day as well, I'll probably have bad awareness within the dream, and a hard time recalling what happened once I wake up. However, If I take in the same amount of weed on another day, but I'm only sitting around the house not doing anything extensive physically/mentally, I'll most likely have a rather vivid, recall-able dream.

As for quitting and how it effects your dreaming; If you do quit, you'll probably experience a spike in your dream vividness. An 'REM Rebound' as it's called is usually what takes place in people who begin to wean off the usage of THC products. This is usually because in most people who've been chronically smoking - their sleep is dominated by a stage of sleep where your body isn't ready for REM sleep just yet, it's in the repairing (delta) phase if you will. It's restoring your energy and preparing you for the next day basically. Weed, combined with a persons mental fatigue, will suppress REM sleep, and keep you in the Delta or restoration phase of sleeping. So, once you begin to wean off, those REM cycles are able to rise up again due to their suppression being removed. Thus, you get to have some vivid and maybe even lucid producing dreams.

Originally Posted by Validus

For me personally, I don't experience a great hindrance in dream recall when I ingest weed as opposed to a day where I haven't smoked even once. In fact, smoking (moderately. i.e 1-2g) up to 3-4 hours before bed can produce very vivid dreaming for me, increased awareness within said dreams, which in-turn leads to a very easy recollection. (Also helps a lot for WILD induction, too)

Again for me, It becomes a matter of how physically and mentally tired I become though out the day. If I work my ass off for 10 hours one day, and blaze though that day as well, I'll probably have bad awareness within the dream, and a hard time recalling what happened once I wake up. However, If I take in the same amount of weed on another day, but I'm only sitting around the house not doing anything extensive physically/mentally, I'll most likely have a rather vivid, recall-able dream.

As for quitting and how it effects your dreaming; If you do quit, you'll probably experience a spike in your dream vividness. An 'REM Rebound' as it's called is usually what takes place in people who begin to wean off the usage of THC products. This is usually because in most people who've been chronically smoking - their sleep is dominated by a stage of sleep where your body isn't ready for REM sleep just yet, it's in the repairing (delta) phase if you will. It's restoring your energy and preparing you for the next day basically. Weed, combined with a persons mental fatigue, will suppress REM sleep, and keep you in the Delta or restoration phase of sleeping. So, once you begin to wean off, those REM cycles are able to rise up again due to their suppression being removed. Thus, you get to have some vivid and maybe even lucid producing dreams.

Thanks for the detailed response, Validus.

I must agree that the degree of mental fatigue heavily influences the consciousness.
Don't you notice though, that if you smoke a potent strain after it has worn out you feel exhausted regardless of what you have done during the day? Hash seems to be much more clear and less "messy" for me but it's pretty heavy on the lungs when used daily. Here in holland the weed is often too strong to smoke 1-2g and still be able to memorise dreams. If you'd smoke that much 3-4 hours before bed you'd feel pretty hungover and mentally drained the next day. It's leaning more towards a drugs than a tool for mindfulness here nowadays, sadly.. (15-25% THC)

Don't you notice though, that if you smoke a potent strain after it has worn out you feel exhausted regardless of what you have done during the day?

^ Yes very much so, even with mid-shelf strains I most definitely get burned out and feel mentally and even physically fatigued too. However, this is not a true fatigue, at least for me. Once the high is beginning to ware off, I may feel like my mind has been extensively working, thinking lots and contemplating for at least a full days worth of semi-intensive thought processes and problem solving (ex. Work ), even though it hasn't. And in the end, it's just that. It's rather illusionary. My mind just hasn't been under the stress that it would need to endure for me to notice a significant downfall in my recall/vividness.

The feeling of drowsiness and such is only temporary. When it comes down to my sleeping stages, I still cycle through and enter nREM & REM stages as per usual, as my mind and body aren't truly tired or in need of a deeper sleep caused by the green I've smoked.

However, this is only me. And experiences with weed & how it effects others dreaming are probably quite vast. I would say though, that it's quite common for people that are high to effect their sleep as a result of being high. The increased awareness (usually) and heightened senses lead to one's mind skipping across various subjects, questions, etc within their mind. It may only be for 5 hours, but this could be more brain stimulation then they may even get on a regular basis though out an entire day sober. Thus, they would definitely become much more tired, and mentally exhausted - producing a deeper sleep, longer nREM phases, and a downfall in recall as a result.

Originally Posted by Hypertrophy

How did cannabis/hash influence your recall?

completely obliterated my recall for the better part of a year

Originally Posted by Hypertrophy

I'm curious to hear your experiences about how it affected your dream awareness after quitting!

3 weeks after quitting I had my first lucid in about 1.5 years (with decent amounts of practice, of course)

Originally Posted by CJC

3 weeks after quitting I had my first lucid in about 1.5 years (with decent amounts of practice, of course)

Congrats on the quitting mate.



Major update

After my break of a few years from lucid dreaming I was on quite a big dry spell with poor poor recall.
For the last 2 weeks I've been reading books about awareness and lucid dreaming and I have been practising it daily since then. My practise consisted of 2 little things, living in the present throughout the day (being aware of the now, my senses and observing my thoughts) and writing down a few keywords I could remember after waking up. I also did a little bit of meditation before going to sleep every day. During this all I still smoked atleast 1 joint on a daily basis, and a maximum of 3. I can now proudly say that tonight I had 2 lucid dreams with magnificent recall and awareness in my dream. That's the 3rd LD since I've started my practise in 2 weeks.

I can now confirm that you can smoke moderate amounts and still get excellent results but whenever I smoked I forced myself to practise my awareness even more. The bottom line is: if you can keep your thoughts from carrying your mind away after smoking I see no harm, this won't happen without conscious effort though!

I do think quitting completely gives even greater recall and awareness though for most people.

i have recently picked up smoking again, im realy happy to read that im not going to loose all the lucidity ive been building up! thanks for the post its realy helpful for me.
i also do the same while getting high i practice my lucidity even stronger, it actually makes the high more fun and interesting, its kind of hard lol but still i try to recall all my last action through the day and and everything, think if i am dreaming.

thanks again