The science behind cannabis cessation and vivid dreams

[nativenick]

I took a break from weed over the summer for mental health reasons but eventually I fell off the wagon in October and started getting high on the daily again.

Anyways during my breaks I've noticed my dreams get super realistic. Like last night for instance I dreamt I was in my highschool bedroom drinking a dreamt up bud light spicy pineapple tobasco beer called burning bush lol) and I shit you not It felt so real I could taste it. Everything about this dream seemed super realistic. I even remember talking to my mom saying you have to try this beer. Everything from the taste to the sounds to the convo seemed super realistic.

So I'm curious does anyone here have an explanation or a theory for why cannabis cessation causes better dream recall and more vivid dreams as well. I've experienced this numerous times before when I've taken a break and i have also heard anecdotally from people as well the same theme.

I figure it must be do to with cannabis and it's effect on memory but I'd like to hear the nitty gritty details.from you experts.

 

[nativenick]

I should also mention the heavier I blaze the worse my dream recall and vividness is. sometimes even as little as a gram or more a day gives me close to bupkiss for dream vividness and dream recall and I do love dreaming just as much, if not more than I love smoking weed .

 

[elgoucho9]

I don't know why it happens, but from both conversations i've had with people IRL and online fhis does seem to be tbe case.

Most people who take a tolerance break even report they experience much more vivid dreams after stopping. I only smoke now and again these days but when i do i notice i don't remember anything from my dreams, and they're much less vivid. I too would love to know the scientific explanation for this.

Another strange phenomenon is your dreams after taking pregablin. I swear they are like 100x more vivid. And i remember everything to the point i can tell others exactly what happened in my dream the next day.

I often wonder as adults who smoke and have other bad habits is that why our dreams are no longer vivid. Compared to say someone who never touched alcohol, drugs, coffee, would they still have the same vivid dreams as a child and remember everything?

 

[Burnt Offerings]

THC definitely interferes with dreams IME. Even as little as a single hit of marijuana subdues them almost completely, for me anyway. I don’t miss dreams, though…they’d always just materialize as bizarre, disjointed and sometimes unpleasant or nightmarish narratives for me personally

The only drug that produced INTENSE vivid, even lucid dreams was trazodone, which I was briefly prescribed as a sleep medicine patient. It had sexual side effects so I had to quit it but goddamn I have never experienced anything like that drug regarding its effects on dreams

 

[BK38]

I don't know why it happens, but from both conversations i've had with people IRL and online fhis does seem to be tbe case.

Most people who take a tolerance break even report they experience much more vivid dreams after stopping. I only smoke now and again these days but when i do i notice i don't remember anything from my dreams, and they're much less vivid. I too would love to know the scientific explanation for this.

Another strange phenomenon is your dreams after taking pregablin. I swear they are like 100x more vivid. And i remember everything to the point i can tell others exactly what happened in my dream the next day.

I often wonder as adults who smoke and have other bad habits is that why our dreams are no longer vivid. Compared to say someone who never touched alcohol, drugs, coffee, would they still have the same vivid dreams as a child and remember everything?

My understanding is that Cannabis use suppresses the REM portion of your sleep, often thought to be the state in which you are dreaming. Cessation of Cannabis use causes REM-rebound as your body is always looking for homeostasis. This is what could be responsible for the more vivid dreams as your brain seeks equilibrium and increases your amounts of REM sleep. Anecdotally, I can say this is true and I always get more intense/vivid dreams after cessation of Cannabis use.

 

[elgoucho9]

My understanding is that Cannabis use suppresses the REM portion of your sleep, often thought to be the state in which you are dreaming. Cessation of Cannabis use causes REM-rebound as your body is always looking for homeostasis. This is what could be responsible for the more vivid dreams as your brain seeks equilibrium and increases your amounts of REM sleep. Anecdotally, I can say this is true and I always get more intense/vivid dreams after cessation of Cannabis use.

Yeah that's exactly it supresses REM sleep. And another reason smoking weed contrary to popular belief among many stoners (myself included at one point), is probably not good for you. Your body needs REM sleep to repair itself properly and recover.

I noticed i progressed more quickly from my workouts when i quit using weed daily. Probably down to a combination of recovering better from a better quality of sleep, and not eating so much unecessary food at night.

 

[someguyontheinternet]

THC definitely interferes with dreams IME. Even as little as a single hit of marijuana subdues them almost completely, for me anyway. I don’t miss dreams, though…they’d always just materialize as bizarre, disjointed and sometimes unpleasant or nightmarish narratives for me personally

The only drug that produced INTENSE vivid, even lucid dreams was trazodone, which I was briefly prescribed as a sleep medicine patient. It had sexual side effects so I had to quit it but goddamn I have never experienced anything like that drug regarding its effects on dreams

Nicotine patches also can produce incredibly vivid, intense dreams if left on overnight. Scary intense sometimes

 

[elgoucho9]

Nicotine patches also can produce incredibly vivid, intense dreams if left on overnight. Scary intense sometimes

The most scary dreams possible come with sleep paralysis. Overdoing the MDMA in Ibiza and coming home then staying in a hotel for one night me and 2 friends all had the exact same dream someone standing over us with a knife then you couldn't move or do anything. You only wake up when they stabbed you. Scary stuff.

 

[crazyhairman]

I take Delta 8 sometimes before bed. Usually causing me to eat a ton and play videogames for extended periods before bad.

But sometimes I will have extremely vivid long and intricate dreams. Dreams that uplift me even after I wake up the next day.

 

[Foreigner]

Cannabis suppresses REM (dream) sleep while you're using it, leading to lower quality sleeps, which is why a lot of cannabis users sleep more hours: the body is trying in vain to get some REM. When you stop cannabis, the body has REM rebound, so REM occurs more frequently and for longer during a sleep cycle, creating the impression of longer, crazier dreams.

It turns out that dreaming is a necessary part of the healthy brain. When you suppress it, the body rebounds harder with it at the first opportunity that suppression is removed.

The mechanism is probably related to the endocannabinoid system, which regulates sleep, as well as GABA, adenosine, and other neurotransitters. Cannabis has both stimulant and depressant properties. The depressant aspect acts on GABA.

My intuition (not scientific) is that the sleep cycle requires a balance of activity vs. sedation, so you'll have parts of the cycle that the body is heavily sedated and then others when the body is closer to wakefulness (REM) that requires less neurotransmitter restriction. Cannabis probably prevents this dance from happening properly.

 

[JackARoe]

Here is where I think more science is needed like the title of the thread says. I have been a cannabis smoker all my life. I use to remember my dreams even when smoking when I was younger. These days I can not remember my dreams UNLESS I get woken up right in the middle of one. A few times I awoke in the midst of a vivid dream that I for sure would have forgotten had I slept through it. So maybe it is a recall issue and not an actual dream issue.

Eh, I listen to very little on the science of cannabis and dreaming here in 2024 until we study more but how can we even do that? Too many people take too many things. And as the other posters said so many other substances that we as a society take can and do affect dreams.

Now if a drug prevents the deep sleep I think there could be a problem with rest. Makes me wonder if there is a drug that lets one dream but never lets one get to deep sleep.

Just an opinion. I still think you can be a cannabis smoker (as well as take numerous other drugs) and still be well rested whether a person dreams or not. If not we as a society will be tired all the time. Which we are, or we would not have a need for energy drinks.

I don’t miss dreams, though…they’d always just materialize as bizarre, disjointed and sometimes unpleasant or nightmarish narratives for me personally

I do know a lot of people that do not like to dream and when they do it is unpleasant. With cannabis it had been speculated the day dreams cover for the night dreams. But yeah, I don't think we know squat about dreams and cannabis. I trust the opinions here to be more on point. The dream intensity does come back with quitting for a short period for me.

 

[Skorpio]

Cannabis suppresses REM (dream) sleep while you're using it, leading to lower quality sleeps, which is why a lot of cannabis users sleep more hours: the body is trying in vain to get some REM. When you stop cannabis, the body has REM rebound, so REM occurs more frequently and for longer during a sleep cycle, creating the impression of longer, crazier dreams.

It turns out that dreaming is a necessary part of the healthy brain. When you suppress it, the body rebounds harder with it at the first opportunity that suppression is removed.

The mechanism is probably related to the endocannabinoid system, which regulates sleep, as well as GABA, adenosine, and other neurotransitters. Cannabis has both stimulant and depressant properties. The depressant aspect acts on GABA.

My intuition (not scientific) is that the sleep cycle requires a balance of activity vs. sedation, so you'll have parts of the cycle that the body is heavily sedated and then others when the body is closer to wakefulness (REM) that requires less neurotransmitter restriction. Cannabis probably prevents this dance from happening properly.

I looked up a review on THC and sleep, and figure 1 shows graphs of sleep of normal, acute thc, chronic thc, and thc withdrawal and it is a little more complex than suppression of REM sleep.

Acute THC decreases on average the number of REM sleep instances from 4 to 3. Chronic use increases the amount of REM sleep instances back to the normal number of 4, but increases the chance of waking up briefly after these REM instances.

As the effect of cannabis on dreaming is so penetrant, I don't think that a reduction to 3/4 is enough to explain the absence of recalled dreams. I would expect that to be explained by differences in memory generation around REM sleep rather than simply quantity of REM.

 

[Foreigner]

I looked up a review on THC and sleep, and figure 1 shows graphs of sleep of normal, acute thc, chronic thc, and thc withdrawal and it is a little more complex than suppression of REM sleep.

Acute THC decreases on average the number of REM sleep instances from 4 to 3. Chronic use increases the amount of REM sleep instances back to the normal number of 4, but increases the chance of waking up briefly after these REM instances.

As the effect of cannabis on dreaming is so penetrant, I don't think that a reduction to 3/4 is enough to explain the absence of recalled dreams. I would expect that to be explained by differences in memory generation around REM sleep rather than simply quantity of REM.

Interesting take. The endocannabinoid system does also relate to learning and memory. Hard to know how dream cycles are impacted exactly without knowing the mechanisms. There's a lot we don't understand about dreaming too. It could simply be a matter of neurochemistry up- or down-regulating related to circumstance. i.e. during chronic use, a new equilibrium is established that is not present during acute yes, hence acute use showing reduced REM.

Just to be clear though... I am mostly talking about vivid dreams and dream recall, as opposed to REM, and I brought up REM because it's related to dreaming. I think, observationally, even cannabis users have REM sleep. We can't survive without it. But the question is -- how is quality of REM affected by cannabis? It seems to negatively impact it.

When I used to use a lot of cannabis, I found it emotionally numbing... and it turns out that the limbic system is intimately related to the formation of memory, such that memory and emotions are intertwined. So I find it interesting that cannabis has a dulling effect on emotions, memories, learning, and dreams.

 

[klfiend]

Damn...I could go for a burning bush right now...sounds purdy dang tasty...it would be a mistake not to try your dream beer concoction