How Does Weed Impact Dreams

Many stoners have long noticed the effects that weed has on their dreams. Many go as far as to say that they do not actually dream when they become habitual users. And many psychopharmacologists and psychiatrists also believe that frequent marijuana use can have a deeply profound effect on a person’s ability to dream.

Sleep and cannabis use has long been a vague area as far as science is concerned, and results from studies have largely been unable to be replicated to allow for a definitive answer either way.

What Happens When You Sleep?

Before you can fully understand the effect regular smoking weed, such as the weed on sale in weed store Vernon, will have on your dream, you need to understand what happens when you go to sleep fully.

The sleep-wake cycle is divided into four phases, each repeated many times during the night.

• Stage 1 – is the lightest and shortest stage of sleep, accounting for just 5% of the overall sleep period. With heart rate and the temperature dropping,
• Stage 2 – signifies a transition into a deeper slumber. In stage 2, approximately half of the sleep is done.
• Stage 3 – The third stage of sleep is the deepest. You’ll feel groggy and cognitively impaired for up to an hour if you’re woken up during this process. In stage 3, tissue repair and development, as well as immune system strengthening, take place.
• Stage 4 – REM sleep, also known as dream sleep, is the fourth level. Rapid eye movement, or REM, is a form of dreaming that happens while you are awake. Every night, up to two hours are spent dreaming.

Most people experience each cycle four to six times per night, but this isn’t the same for each person. Each stage and each cycle is essentially making sure you get a good and well-rested night’s sleep. Our bodies use this time to repair and to evaluate events, feelings, and trauma you have experienced during the previous day.

Without this ability to have meaningful full REM sleep, it is thought that a person’s physiological and emotional behavior could be affected, thus negatively impacting social skills, anxiety levels, and potentially short-term memory retention.

How Does Weed Affect Sleep?

There have been many studies over the years on exactly how cannabis affects periods of sleep, and to this day, the answer still isn’t clear-cut. What is known is that regular consumption does suppress the REM cycle of your sleep, which is when your dreams happen. Whether or not the lack of sleep is a good thing or a bad thing remains to be seen.

More studies are being conducted around cannabinoids to determine a pattern in how THC, the psychoactive ingredient in cannabis, suppresses REM sleeps and dreams. Results were still largely inconclusive on the long-term effects on users who lack REM sleep each night.

Can My Dreams Come Back If I Stop Smoking Weed?

Users who take a break from cannabis consumption have regaled how the dreams come back, and they experience REM dream sequences much as non-cannabis users do. The only difference being the dreams are more vivid and bizarre in cannabis users when compared to those who don’t consume weed regularly.

This phenomenon is often referred to as REM rebound. The rebound occurs when heavy users take a break from weed consumption for a 3-day window. Users have reported that dreams are more intense, nightmares are more prolific, and the intensity and length of dreams seem to be longer and more concentrated.

Does Every Cannabis User Lose Their Dreams?

Typically occasional users of cannabis and those with more recreational habits instead of being a heavy user don’t experience the same type of loss of dreams as heavier users will do. Prolonged use plays a big part in whether or not weed affects dreams, and if you enjoy smoking weekly occasionally, you may not even experience a lack of dreams.

But even non-cannabis users can have nights where they don’t appear to dream or cannot recall if they had a dream or not, meaning the odd night or so falls within the realms of what can be considered a normal sleeping pattern.

Long-term heavy use of cannabis isn’t recommended, and while users may take breaks, the effects for the long term are yet to be established.

Buying Weed in Vernon

Buying your weed from a weed store, Vernon is your one-stop-shop for all your needs, including equipment and accessories, along with advice on the type of cannabis available for beginners or those looking for the best weed in Vernon.