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Cannabis use leading to psychosis/paranoia in later life

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lodaweed

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Jun 27, 2013
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Hey everybody, this post is directed specifically towards anybody currently researching the field but I'd be happy to hear anyone else's opinion.

I was reading up about Sigmund Freud, and read one of his theories was that we release all the repressed subconscious feelings we get during the day (eg. inexplicable anger towards someone in the street, not automatically raping a hot girl you see... basically all the things that make us civilized vs. being animals) in our dreams, i.e. the subconscious world.
Where this ties up with cannabis is, as I'm sure many of you have noticed, you don't dream if you are a regular user.
(This is to do with the decrease in R.E.M sleep that you get while the THC is present in your body, but that doesn't matter here.)

Anyway, as some people who have been heavy users during their life experience mental disorders such as psychosis, paranoia etc... in old age, I have hypothesized that this might be due to the unhealthy amount of suppressed subconscious impulses, that are not being released through dreams. (Paranoia and psychosis both being disorders brought on by the subconscious i.e. no distinction between imagination and reality.)

Thanks for reading, please leave any feedback you may have. It is my understanding that nobody really knows why some users suffer these diseases in older life, and I Googled around and didn't find anyone else making this link.

Cheers,
Lodaweed
 
From what I've read schizophrenia (ie true paranoid delusions and psychosis) doesn't usually begin in old age it usually begins earlier. Also it is generally inherited then triggered by environmental stressors. Cannabis and other drugs could be included in that group.

Anxiety seems to be a more common reaction but I'm not sure how it would relate to dreams. I found a literature review on the topic somewhere if you are interested.
 
Eh. I know plenty of people that dream when they smoke. I smoke every night and I know I dream but I have a hard time remembering them. So if Freud is right, then the question is do we not dream, or do we not remember our dreams when we smoke?
 
freehugs said:
Eh. I know plenty of people that dream when they smoke. I smoke every night and I know I dream but I have a hard time remembering them. So if Freud is right, then the question is do we not dream, or do we not remember our dreams when we smoke?
Click to expand...

Really? Cos I know I never dream, and there's loads of other threads saying the same thing. Again though, maybe it affects some peoples sleep patterns differently than others, which could explain why only some people get these diseases?
 
When you have THC in your body you don't dream period, it's not that you don't remember them. This is because THC inhibits REM sleep and increases stage 4/SWS sleep (blood directed away from the brain into the muscles)

"Smoked marijuana and oral Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) reduce REM sleep. Moreover, acute administration of cannabis appears to facilitate falling asleep and to increase Stage 4 sleep."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18313952
 
To prove that there's a definitive link (causation) between weed smoking and developing any kind of mental disorders later in life, you'd have to finish a double-blind study that took several years or decades.

Has that been done?
I don't know, but I seriously doubt that anyone has done it thus far.

In the absence of that kind of study, there are all kinds of "researchers" willing to "prove" that cannabis causes mental disorders, so they can make money by shoving them into their Betty Ford Centers and treating them like they're some kind of aliens (which they might actually be in effect, that is: alienated from the "straight" crowd).

If a substantial percentage of people that are prone to consume cannabis are also the ones that are prone to mental disorders for other reasons than not causation, well, it just throws the whole rationale out the window. I'm inclined to this hypothesis.

My modest proposal:
a) smoke that shit up.
b) feeling better? -> keep doing it
c) not feeling better? -> stop it and/or get other kinds of help

As far as judging Freud, he was a stepping stone in understanding the human psyche. A slippery stone, but firmly planted in the river's bed.
 
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Interesting thought :)

Generally, illnesses like schizophrenia come on earlier in life, in the mid-late teens through the 20's. I'm not yet sold on cannabis causing schizophrenia, but smoking too much can cause psychosis or worsen existing mental health problems, but unless someone suddenly starts smoking (or smoking more) weed in later life, I don't know that weed could cause any kind of 'deferred' psychosis. Have you seen any particular papers or reports about people getting these kind of illnesses as they get older?

Also, I smoke loads, and I dream every night. My similarly weird theory about dreams is that they are a very clever way of letting the unconscious mind know if the sleeping body is in danger, since fire taking place in the waking world, danger, people trying to wake you up etc, sometimes blend with dreams, just before you wake up.
 
Maybe that explains why I haven't had dreams for the past 2 or 3 years, I pretty much smoke every night before bed since then. Makes sense. If THC inhibits REM sleep, then I may want to try to not smoke at night any more. Are there any known effects for not experiencing REM sleep?
 
J.Wallace said:
If THC inhibits REM sleep, then I may want to try to not smoke at night any more. Are there any known effects for not experiencing REM sleep?
Click to expand...

I was wondering this too. I had a search and turned up this article http://sfprg.org/control_mastery/docs/Sampson1966.pdf

It's pretty old and I feel like in the study in that paper, its pretty hard to distinguish between just plain tired and REM sleep deprivation specifically. I haven't finished reading the article quite yet, but it's proving to be an interesting read.

I am getting confused by something though. Everything I have found suggests that REM sleep doesn't start for a few hours, and I've always heard of it being discussed as occurring in the last few hours of sleep, but I have definitely (actually quite frequently) had dreams during quite short naps, less than an hour long.
 
J. Wallace, not smoking before bed won't change anything as it's not being high that inhibits REM but the THC and it's metabolites being present in your body. That's why if you stop using, it'll take 3-4 days for your dreams to come back, and when they do they're incredibly vivid.
 
Midnitecruiser dude I'm not trying to prove a causal link between cannabis and psychosis, this is just something that crossed my mind in Spanish class (I'm 16). Also don't get me wrong I smoke all the time and I hate these 'researchers' that try and put you into addiction clinics (my cuz was court ordered to go to one- It was that or jail time). This is just an area that interests me
, because I think that if my theory is right you could be able to stop people from getting these disorders maybe by avoiding certain strains... Again, just a thought, I'm not a doctor.
 
Re: J.Wallace
The mental chronology of events seems to get screwed around when you smoke before bed every night. Every day seems the same and something that happened months ago might seem like it happened two weeks ago and vice versa. That was my experience anyway.
 
Alcohol also suppresses REM sleep, tbh practically every drug messes with your sleep in some way.
 
Yep drinking is awful for sleep patterns. I've managed to alter my whole sleep cycle through regular drinking. Hopefully I can change it back. I still dream but not as much, or at least I don't remember them. Usually I will wake up after 4 or 5 hours then if I manage to get back to sleep I will sometimes have dreams in the morning.

No psychosis for me though. Just lethargy and fatigue.
 
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