Marijuana's effect on lucid dreaming.

[Electronegative]

2 things I would like to say before making my original post 1. I am NOT a druggie!! I live in California and smoking is a very common pastime. 2. I KNOW there are a lot of theads on this forum (as well as on the internet in general) but I'm starting this thread because I wanted to insert my own experience and have a direct discussion with the community on this subject myself OK so I know the orthodox opinion is that THC inhibits lucid dreaming, or makes it "tougher" to achieve. And I agree with that. However, "under the influence", people's minds generally tend to be substantially more creative, imaginative, etc etc... which can be extremely helpful in coming up with dream scenarios, and vividness of your imagination (if that makes sense). Last night I smoked with friends, and then went to sleep on my friends couch (I had to unwind from that damn 3 hour bio Exam ).. anyway I slept right away but woke up a couple of hours later (I was still "half-high"), I was then like "HEY I can try to lucid dream".. so I tried to stay still and.... SLEEP PARALYSIS!!!! ... horrible horrible sleep paralysis (it was terrifying). It felt like it lasted for HOURS AND HOURS. Holy crap I even would fall into these weird dreams (non-lucid) and then back to S.P. I swear I went from sleep paralysis to non-lucid dreams like at least 10 times. I was so mentally exhausted when it was all over, I drank some milk and went back to sleep. Although I hated that episode, I was thinking that maybe if I smoked again, and tried again, I could achieve it.. and could use the effect of marijuana to my advantage. OK so your thoughts, personal stories, and opinions please!

[ShadowOfSelf]

I use to smoke it, had great hypnagogic(whatever its called) episodes before sleep. Had some rather bizarre dreams, woke up and felt like shit. I felt so dead in the morning after smoking the night before, to the point where it was a real struggle to remember dreams or even have motivation to remember them. After coming off it my dreams are somewhat more 'normal', i dont get hypnagocic images before bed (probally cause im not as relaxed as when high) but i sleep more natually. So I would say it has its advantages, but with most things also has its disadvantages. Not to mention ive had atleast one dream a week smoking weed, just last night some DC's left 3 blunts pre rolled on this table and we went and smoked one up. A couple of times ive actually felt the effects of being high in the dream, I never had these experiences whilst i was smoking it in real life though, only once i came off. Its personal opinion at the end of the day, I found weed to sporadic for dreams, its nice to know im sleeping naturally now, and dont wake up so heavy headed the next day.

[Alsroge]

Hi Electronegative. I try to pop up anytime somebody brings this topic up. ' That's an interesting experience you had. It sounds like you had a fun night of hypnagogia, and transitioning back and forth between conscious and subconscious thought. First, you need to realize that if you're not waking up at the right time, you can be waiting through hypnagogic hallucinations for a long time. This has partly to do with the time you've been waiting and level of relaxation, and partly to do with the type/frequency of your brain waves, as they go between different stages as you sleep. If you are not at the right type of frequency, you are not going to enter into a dream. So, you could have been waiting a very long time, indeed, to get past these hallucinations. Moreover, if you were going in and out of sleep, you could have been waiting in between dreams. Normally, the longer a person is sleeping, the less they are going to go through the sleep paralysis episodes or early NREM stages of sleep. I'm betting your paralysis happened more toward the beginning of your night. As for the cannabis, it affects each person completely differently. Generally, THC suppresses the REM stage of sleep, which is the primary dreaming stage. That said, your dream episodes were probably short that night, and because your REM was suppressed, you probably spent a lot more time in sleep paralysis than normal. Cannabis can also be temporarily detrimental to your short-term memory, making it harder to remember dreams upon waking. And they fade even quicker after being up for a minute.... But the positives can be quite pleasant. Cannabis boosts your creativity and imagination abilities, as you said, and your conscious thought can be a lot more fun and exciting. With an increased imagination potential, your dreams will likely be more exciting altogether, and I have found that my dreams are very enjoyable when I'm high, if I can remember them. It sounds like you did a good job keeping your attention to your sleep paralysis, and transitioning into the dream. Remember to keep the focus while you are fading into a dream so you can stay lucid. Then when you wake back up, don't move, and transition straight into another. Had you been able to do that, you could've had ten lucid dreams (WILDs/WBTBs) last night! Good luck next time. My tips to you are not to smoke 3 hours before going to bed – this provides generally a little relaxation when falling asleep, and by the time you wake up 5 1/2 hours or so later to perform a WBTB/WILD, you will probably be in a good place. Try a mantra (MILD): I remember my dreams.

[Graves]

Smoking weed actually enhances lucid dreaming, and doesn't tend to hinder its occurrence. However!!!!!!!!!!!111111111111one11111111111111111 11eleven11111111111111111111 (this is a big however) if you smoke weed, you might as well not bother trying to remember your dreams, as having THC in your system tremendously decreases recall. Besides the fact it slowly turns you mental, this is why I stopped doing it - completely.

[Arch]

It usually hinders recall, although some seem unaffected.

[Graves]

It usually hinders recall, although some seem unaffected. Perhaps those who haven't been using it long-term?

[auburnDistrict]

Make a declaration that is immediately contradicted. GO 1. I am NOT a druggie!! I live in California and smoking is a very common wat Countless dreamers have stated that MJ negatively affects your recall, in addition to the fact that inhaling smoke of any kind is obviously harsh on your lungs and detrimental to your health in general. It is not surprising however that it can increase the vividness of a lucid dream. Be advised - using this substance to achieve a higher dream state may in turn cause you to become dependent (ahueahueahue) upon it once you reach a certain threshold - that is to say not using it may negatively affect your LD abilities once you are "dependent" on it. Can anyone who uses confirm or deny? I am interested.

[Butterflies88]

I smoked everyday all day for five years and recently quit when I first started smoking it helped me dream but the more regular I smoked I either stoped dreaming or couldnt remember them but when I stoped I had the wildest dreams but now I sleep better started dreaming again I feel rested and have more energy in the mornings

[smouse]

I've been blazing every day, all day, (except at work) for years. I still got into lucid dreaming quickly and have made tons and tons of progress in a little amount of time. My dreams are extremely vivid and easy to remember. If anything, it helps me relax, and it makes it waaaay easier to get to sleep :p Dont be scared of sleep paralysis. I love it because its so easy to get to a lucid once your in SP.

[melanieb]

Moved to Lucid Aids.

[JackRN]

sorry to bring this thread back but I vaporize marijuana almost every night and don't really try to dream recall those nights but those nights I dont vaporize I remember my dreams really clearly. I definitely have a large amount of THC in my system but I'm going on a little break and remember my dreams really well as long as I don't go to sleep high.

[cmind]

You potheads don't even know how to use your favourite drug. Weed is not meant to be used daily -- that negates many of the benefits of smoking it. You need to give your brain at least a few days between uses to return to baseline. If you do that, you'll find that weed has NO negative effect on memory or cognition and will be much more intense when you do use it. - slightly edited by melanieb

[melanieb]

I seem to recall that this thread is about Marijuana's Effect on Lucid Dreaming. If you have information or opinions pertinent to that topic and the opening post please do share. If not, this thread will fade away.

[solpic]

All I have to contribute here is that since I started using weed, during last summer, I probably had two to three lucid dreams. I stopped about a month ago and as soon as I started sleeping normally again, which took about two weeks, at first because of stopping marijuana but then because of stress and other factors, I have been lucid dreaming a lot. In the past two and a half weeks I've had eight lucid dreams already. Weed definitely affects your recall, but if you sober up before you go to bed you'll have a better shot, however I still have noticed that even if I wait to sober up before I go to bed I still have terrible recall, but not quite as bad as if I go to bed high.

[DeletePlease]

From what I've heard, heavy marijuana use cuts down on your REM cycles so you don't dream as much or recall them as easily afterward. Very light marijuana use might have the opposite effect, I think. I find that WILD's are much easier after a small hit or two. You potheads don't even know how to use your favourite drug. Weed is not meant to be used daily -- that negates many of the benefits of smoking it. You need to give your brain at least a few days between uses to return to baseline. If you do that, you'll find that weed has NO negative effect on memory or cognition and will be much more intense when you do use it. - slightly edited by melanieb Some what true. But smoking daily won't negate the benefits in and of it self, not if you keep a few things in check. If you're smoking or eating bud daily, you have to keep your mind stimulated. During the first few days of a heavy "binge," you won't be all there because you're haven't fully slid into that "other" frame of mind. You process information and piece together your thoughts in an entirely different way when you're high, so the problem arises when you're "high self" tries to operate and function like it's "sober self." You get mixed up and sloppy. But if you're disciplined enough and are experienced with the high enough to be able to control it, daily use can do wonders for you... if, and only if, you keep yourself mentally stimulated. The more you smoke/eat, the more mental prep. is required to keep your mind sharp. For me, music works best. I've noticed that specific types of tones and compositions affect people in certain ways when they're high. For some reason, string instruments (cello's especially) are the most effective when it comes to keeping someone's cognitive abilities at 100%. eg. Classical compositions, Baroque, etc. I've tested this on myself and on two of my younger cousins by recording our conversations or writing down whatever goes through each of our heads while listening to a piece like this: Astor Piazzolla - Oblivion - Gidon Kremer HD - YouTube And then doing the same tests without music. There's a marked difference, significant enough that I think it's something the scientific community needs to look into. Jazz pieces have a different effect, and something like this: BURUNDI (war)DRUMS (old recording) (1) - YouTube Hits you an entirely different way. There's this sort of shared response we all have to each genre. I think it's partly due to the way we've sort of been conditioned to react to certain sounds (eg. We hear tribal drums in movies/cartoons before an intense action scene or a revolutionary act, classical music during moments of genius, jazz plays when the super smooth/suave character walks in or goes into his hazy, somber soliloquy, etc). And as a result, when we listen to these pieces, we all react to them in a specific, almost pre-determined way. Throw marijuana in the mix, and the you get a much more intensified reaction. And going back to the little experiments I've done with my cousins, our conversations/notes seem to reflect that theory. The odd thing though, is that you get a similar reaction from people who haven't been culturally conditioned to these sounds/compositions as well. My parents don't watch tv, aside from a few Indian shows every now and then. Yet there's a significant difference between the quality of conversation when there's classical music playing in the background, or when there's something like country or no music at all. I think we're just built to react to certain sounds a certain way. Granted, I haven't looked too far into it, but I have a hunch that with enough discipline, tolerance for the herb, and the right music, regular marijuana use can be used to greatly increase your cognitive abilities. I really strayed off topic but I think I was trying to say that you don't have to worry about losing cognitive ability or short-term memory as long as you keep your mind stimulated (listening to certain kinds of music, reading, doing math problems, etc). Or something... idk. .-.

[solpic]

I don't think it's the loss of cognitive ability or short term memory that's the problem, for me it was because every time I smoke I can't remember my dreams and I sleep very heavily; usually I'm a very light sleeper because of my LD training. I heard somewhere that smoking releases a ton of melatonin, which for me makes it more difficult to wake up from my dreams and consequently more difficult to remember them.

[Universal Mind]

Look at your bathroom mirror. That is your brain. Now take a very steamy shower and let steam get all over the mirror. That is your brain after smoking weed too many days in a row. I am almost completely incapable of having lucid dreams if I have fogged my brain up with a pot marathon. If I do get lucid, I can't hold onto it for more than a few seconds. What I like about pot is that it makes things seem a bit dreamy when I am lucid because I am awake, but it is an enemy of true lucid dreaming. That's pretty ironic.

[DanGeek]

I've been blazing every day, all day, (except at work) for years. I still got into lucid dreaming quickly and have made tons and tons of progress in a little amount of time. My dreams are extremely vivid and easy to remember. If anything, it helps me relax, and it makes it waaaay easier to get to sleep :p Dont be scared of sleep paralysis. I love it because its so easy to get to a lucid once your in SP. My experiences were like yours, smouse. Of course I wasn't blazing away every day -- maybe once a week, if that. Like you, I did it primarily to relax (had a stressful job); also always late at night and always alone. In those days (mid '60s) I think weed was not as potent as it is now, and in any case I usually only needed a few puffs of the stuff to feel high. Then I would just lie down and hallucinate for a while. Eventually I would start snoring. That was interesting, and turned out to be the first stage of sleep paralysis. I didn't mind being paralyzed because the hallucinations continued but my sense was I was still awake even though I was paralyzed and snoring. What I've described may have happened 4 or 5 times over a period of several months and then one night my hallucinations underwent an instantaneous context shift. I became a fox; my first act was to jump over a stream and then trotted off into dreamland. That was my first lucid dream. After that, for another 4 or 5 sessions over maybe 2 more months, I would lucid dream all night and wake up feeling spacy, which made it hard for me to do my job so I would only do it Friday or Saturday night. But I loved it, and generally could remember a lot of what would happen. Really fascinating perspective on what happens when we sleep (both during REM and dreamless sleep). I didn't even know it was called "lucid dreaming" at the time. It all came to an end when I had another unexpected result: instead of the context shift into lucid dreaming, I had a sort of death and resurrection experience. I think this actually happens to all of us occasionally when we are exhausted and simply let go of our cellular moorings, but we don't remember it. The weed made it possible because weed gets all your brain cells going so you can have several dreams going at once -- which is the essence of what a lucid dreams is: one watching and one dreaming. So it was like my daytime dream was tired of being active all day and let go and collapsed, but another dream was conscious of what happened it when the other one collapsed. I won't describe what that like, but apparently once you've had one of those experiences you can forget about lucid dreaming because other things happen when you get high which are much more compelling. Also, that experience changes your life -- a good thing for me, as it has turned out looking back from 50 years later. I got married not long after that and my wife made me give up weed. Every 5 or 10 years someone will turn me on, however, and the experience picks up right where it left off. I just love it!

[AniBaggins]

I was a regular smoker for about a year. Stupidest thing I've ever done. I It took me a whole year to realize that I couldn't remember my dreams as vividly as I did before (if I remembered them at all). At best I got two or three fragments That's when I decided to stop. Of course cannabis effects people differently, and it may be beneficial for some people. I would not recommend it. I like to dream way more than cannabis, and the feeling that follows a great lucid dream beats getting high any day!

[DanGeek]

I was a regular smoker for about a year. Stupidest thing I've ever done. I It took me a whole year to realize that I couldn't remember my dreams as vividly as I did before (if I remembered them at all). At best I got two or three fragments That's when I decided to stop. Of course cannabis effects people differently, and it may be beneficial for some people. I would not recommend it. I like to dream way more than cannabis, and the feeling that follows a great lucid dream beats getting high any day! What interests me about those early lucid/cannabis experiences of mine is that they lend support to the idea that dreams call other dreams into existence in a recursive manner (the progression of dreams is recursive in its form, while the content of the dreams themselves will be entirely different). The top-level dream seems to be daytime consciousness. Cannabis morphs the consciousness experience, and in this state you may be able to consciously watch a dream spontaneously start up at the next level (top minus one) of remove. There is a nice example of this in "The Tale of the Hashish Eater" in the "Arabian Nights" (not the tale of "The Two Hashish Eaters" which is less nuanced but even more entertaining). In this story you see the guy having a dream within a dream. In Arabia, in those days, apparently cannabis (which hashish is made of) was cheap, and a readily available escape for the poor. The "dream within a dream" phenomenon was commonly understood well enough so that Scheherazade was able to get away with using it in her story (as you may know, her life depended on being able to hold the Sultan's attention). How about your lucid/non-cannabis experience?...does it support the notion of recursion, or do you think of your (lucid) dreams as a linear progression?

[DarkFlatTop]

While there have been some very interesting posts on this thread, the ignorance of others has compelled me to post. And by ignorance i mean; weed "slowly turning you mental" , and us "potheads" not knowing how to use our favorite drug. Firstly, cannabis does not turn you mental; in fact it helps with things such as depression, and even prevention of Alzheimers. Secondly, cannabis is such a multipurpose drug that their is really no wrong way to use it. Of course if the aim is for predominately strong visuals, one should elect to smoke/eat copious amounts of sativa, on occasion (once a week). And if the aim is to experience those revelations that do frequently occur under the influence, then the cannabis should be smoked while alone (atleast in my experience). Now back on track; as to why cannabis affects some people's dream recall. Through 4 years of weekly - daily smoking, i've come to realize that there is SOO much that goes on in the mind while high, so many ideas, revelations, images, and even instantaneous perception of fully formed scenarios (visions?). So every time a person smokes they are inundated with meaningful information, just like a dream. And just like dreams it is very easy to trivialize the experience (even accidentally) and forget most of what occurred. We may remember our physical actions while high, for example today i was sitting on my stool under the influence, but i cant recall what it was that was going on in my mind at the time. So the cannabis smoker is faced with multitudes of internal experiences, where he/she makes little to no effort in remembering what the experience actually entailed. This acts like a deconditioning of the efforts we make by writing in our dream journals. Think of it as 'dreams' that go unrecorded every time we get high. EDIT: This is just my observations on the matter. One thing that i recommend to all the smokers out there, is to try having some sessions where the general activity is remembering past life experiences (while blazed of course). You will be surprised by how much is remembered and how far you can take it in regards to detail. Its like stretching a muscle, slowly and surely the memories will come. One time, i remembered a lunch time back in high school so clearly, that it felt like i was in a dream reliving the experience.

[DanGeek]

While there have been some very interesting posts on this thread, the ignorance of others has compelled me to post. And by ignorance i mean; weed "slowly turning you mental" , and us "potheads" not knowing how to use our favorite drug. ...(skipping over several paragraphs)... One thing that i recommend to all the smokers out there, is to try having some sessions where the general activity is remembering past life experiences (while blazed of course). You will be surprised by how much is remembered and how far you can take it in regards to detail. Its like stretching a muscle, slowly and surely the memories will come. One time, i remembered a lunch time back in high school so clearly, that it felt like i was in a dream reliving the experience. DanGeek's comment: I agree with you DarkFlatTop. I've had the same experience (re-living the distant past in a dream). It only happened to me once, but interestingly the time-frame that came back was when I was a baby. The dream's clock started to speed up at some point, and about the time I was three I realized the scene was the house where my family lived when I was that age. As soon as I realized that, the dream's continuity started to break up into a series of montages -- each one stepping forward in the record of my early life. Before long, about when I was 5 or 6, the dream broke up altogether. The extraordinary character of this recall of long forgotten information puzzled me for years after that because I was unaware that perfect comprehensive recall is possible outside of "being blazed." But then I stumbled across an article about eidetic memory. Here's a link to a similar article 6 Real People With Mind-Blowing Mutant Superpowers | Cracked.com which describes various abnormal "mega-savants" such as Kim Peek who (this article states) could accurately recall 98% of everything he ever experienced, including the texts of 12000 books. Of course people like that bring skeptics out of every corner (especially corners of academia), but my reaction was to speculate that normal animals (and people) are evolved to stay glued to the present as a survival trait. Tripping off into the past is a recipe for being eaten by your hungry neighborhood tiger or python. But to the degree we normal people are able to remember, we probably access the same comprehensive four-dimensional experience envelope that Peek connects to, but in tightly constrained bite-sized servings that can be recalled and digested more or less instantly, without significantly distracting us from the continuum of the present. That last sentence could expand into a nice theory of words and language, where each word is an entry point to your previous experience of that word's concept in your four dimensional memory. Seems plausible to me since physics now is telling us we live in a non-local universe (look "non-local" up, as it's too complicated for me to explain!).

[bigsticker]

Hi, I recalled my dreams 2 years ago very well, could recall several dreams a day, had several lucid dreams and was really fascinated by the unconscious mind and the science of "Sleep". Then i switched jobs and had a night shift 1 week in a month and a huge amount of stress. This made my interests in the dreaming world fade.. i had trouble sleeping i smoked MJ before sporadically, but with that job my use increased. Now i have stopped my use, switched jobs and started recalling dreams again, cause it just doesn't fit in my lifestyle anymore. MJ is a fun drug if u use it with care i think. And people saying that it only benefits you psychologically are imo not 100% correct. In my case, it made my emotionally "tough" like i lacked emotions, or how strong my emotions were. I think marijuana can mess with your head if you are weak minded, but if you are weak minded i don't think you should do drugs at all :p. I am not breaking down the use of it, I believe it has medical benefits for sure. This is just my experience with it. Now that i stopped I have to train my mind all over again. The recalling is very very hard. My focus is not that good too, (might be caused by my ADHD). Slowly the recall is getting back and i'm starting to remember my dreams more vivid. But when i smoked for days every night and then take a "T" (tolerance) break, I had the most crazy dreams and remembered them very detailed. So maybe if you control your use and take the necessary breaks it might enhance your dreaming experience. just my opinion on it cheers, Big

[DaGreenMan]

hey, I am a guy from Belgium and i smoke almost everyday. Altough, i quited for a few days and than smoked a joint and that night i dreamed so intense dude it was sick, i also remembered quite alot of it, so yesterday i smoked a joint again a couple of hours before going to bed and i had the most intense dream ever, altough i didn't noticed i was actually dreaming, which is quite sad . It happend real weird, so I gave my old 'Dead Island' to my brother about 2 months ago, because i don't play it anymore. So yesterday i had nothing to do so i smoked a j and listened some music, but i was quite bored and I wanted to play Dead Island, but realised I gave it to my brother, and I was very disappointed. And so i went to bad with the tought: 'I want to play DI', and so i dreamed that night quite intense about a zombie appocalypse. I stil remeber almost everything of my dream. So my question now is, to smoke, or not to smoke? because i hadn't dreamed in a long time because of smoking weed, but when i quit some days and than smoke i dream crazy, this is not the first time tough

[jimmyipp]

2 things I would like to say before making my original post 1. I am NOT a druggie!! I live in California and smoking is a very common pastime. 2. I KNOW there are a lot of theads on this forum (as well as on the internet in general) but I'm starting this thread because I wanted to insert my own experience and have a direct discussion with the community on this subject myself OK so I know the orthodox opinion is that THC inhibits lucid dreaming, or makes it "tougher" to achieve. And I agree with that. However, "under the influence", people's minds generally tend to be substantially more creative, imaginative, etc etc... which can be extremely helpful in coming up with dream scenarios, and vividness of your imagination (if that makes sense). Last night I smoked with friends, and then went to sleep on my friends couch (I had to unwind from that damn 3 hour bio Exam ).. anyway I slept right away but woke up a couple of hours later (I was still "half-high"), I was then like "HEY I can try to lucid dream".. so I tried to stay still and.... SLEEP PARALYSIS!!!! ... horrible horrible sleep paralysis (it was terrifying). It felt like it lasted for HOURS AND HOURS. Holy crap I even would fall into these weird dreams (non-lucid) and then back to S.P. I swear I went from sleep paralysis to non-lucid dreams like at least 10 times. I was so mentally exhausted when it was all over, I drank some milk and went back to sleep. Although I hated that episode, I was thinking that maybe if I smoked again, and tried again, I could achieve it.. and could use the effect of marijuana to my advantage. OK so your thoughts, personal stories, and opinions please! I enjoyed reading your post because I agree with your "research". I have not been able to lucid dream while within the influence of weed. And I too have experienced Sleep Paralyisis,,and here all this time I thought is was the acid I'd taken as a kid ! They warned us about flashbacks! I thought thats what I was experiencing during Hellish S.P. ! But Maybe its the fucking weed!