Numerous studies have shown a relationship between sleep and marijuana, but what is the relationship between marijuana and dreams? Rumor has it that smoking weed will cause you to dream less, what do you think?
Prior to diving into the question at hand, a brief recap on the sleep cycle and brain waves associated with them should be discussed. In sleep studies, an electroencephalogram (EEG) is used to measure the total electrical activity throughout the brain. Through research, neuroscientists have been able to assign a frequency and an amplitude to each one of the five stages in a single sleep cycle.
Stages one through three are the stages that involve the transition of being awake to falling asleep. These stages are associated with beta, alpha and theta waves, respectively. The utmost restorative stages of the sleep cycle are stages four and REM, correlated with delta (deep sleep), and gamma (dreaming) waves. On an average night of eight hours of sleep, a full cycle would be repeated three times.
Now that we refreshed our memory regarding the sleep cycle, is there a relationship between marijuana and dreams?
The research study conducted by Pivik et al. examined the effects of orally administered THC as well as a synthetic ortholog prior to sleep while measuring the subject’s brainwaves to determine the relationship between marijuana and dreams. Brainwaves were also examined during “drug-less” sleep as the control.
The study concluded that although there were relatively minor changes in sleep activity of stages one through three, higher THC increased stage four or the deep sleep cycle while decreasing the REM cycle or dream sleep. In other words, lighting up before bed will help you wake up more rested, as you get more deep sleep while reducing your REM sleep or dreams.
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