# Lucid Dreaming > Attaining Lucidity > Dream Signs and Recall >  >  How long for marijuana to cease affecting dreams?

## Alucinor XIII

I realize that the consensus for smoking pot and dream recall/lucid dreaming is that it inhibits it (and as of my recent comeback to LDing, I'd have to agree)

Does anyone know what the general wait time is for pot to stop affecting dreams? A day, two, a week? Just curious.

----------


## XeL

A few days. If you're serious about LDing you should quit.

----------


## Alucinor XIII

I have little intention of quitting altogether (I realize it has some adverse effects, but I believe it's reasonable payoff. Besides, somethings gotta kill me) but I'm going to make it a once or twice a week thing. Trying to figure out how to best compromise, perhaps only in the mornings/midday of Friday and Sunday..

If worse comes to worse, maybe only a few times a week. LD interest has returned with a passion.

----------


## Irken

For me, as long as I am no longer high I can have somewhat increased dream recall, however this is after smoking weed. It seems to make my dreams weird, and my friends have also said that they dream when they're high so it obviously affects everyone differently.

----------


## WolfIsCat

I recently went from smoking several times daily to stopping abruptly for 5 days, and I found that within a few nights I was suddenly having incredibly vivid and intense (and occasionally disturbing) dreams. I concluded then that weed was messing up my dream recall. However, last night I got really lit after not smoking for nearly a week and I had the longest sustained lucid dream I've ever had. This might have been a complete fluke but I'm thinking now that it might not be the drug itself but merely your state of mind under its influence.
 I was consciously making it a point not to forget the critical aware state of mind that I try to maintain, and to go through my personal affirmations with an equal (if not greater) frequency...that made me realize that more than anything, weed just makes me zone out and forget my intentions for too long and I think this has more to do with its affect on recall than anything. Time will tell me if this is true.

----------


## Alucinor XIII

I can definitely see how that works, Wolf. Hah. I've decided that I'm just gonna go for a few weeks of extremely light smoking (if any) until I build my recall and dreaming abilities back up and then experiment. 

I think the best means of testing would be first smoking a bowl at various times throughout the day, and then increasing it to two or three at that time. It seems the two primary factors are either A.) Time at which you smoked (or if you were high when you went to sleep) and/or B.) how much.

----------


## mcwillis

I do know that the psychoactive ingredients in hashish or marijuana can give a posistive result in a urine test up to 30 days after cessation of use.

----------


## ninja9578

About 3 days for me to start remembering dreams again, a full week to get back to normal.

----------


## Irken

> I do know that the psychoactive ingredients in hashish or marijuana can give a posistive result in a urine test up to 30 days after cessation of use.



30 days? That's not right.

----------


## DuRoLuRo

> 30 days? That's not right.



It is right. Remains of THC even stay in the body for up to 3 months.

----------


## KushyBear

In my experience, if you smoked earlier in the day and got a full nights sleep, you can still remember a dream or two and even go lucid xP I've had a lucid on the few nights that I had smoked. Very short and not too vivid though. Hope this helps!

----------


## Ippo

I'm just posting my experience.

I had been trying to lucid dream for some weeks without any effort, then I basically stopped trying because I saw no improvement.
Then one night I was out with friends, we smoked some hashish, and bam!, lucid dream, without even trying or practicing for months before.

----------


## mcwillis

> I'm just posting my experience.
> 
> I had been trying to lucid dream for some weeks without any effort, then I basically stopped trying because I saw no improvement.
> Then one night I was out with friends, we smoked some hashish, and bam!, lucid dream, without even trying or practicing for months before.



Cannabis destroyed my dream recall.  I didn't recall a dream for nearly two years.  I wouldn't recommend cannabis to anyone wanting to lucid dream.

----------


## Ippo

I don't know, I think it varies from person to person. On you it had terrible effects, while on me it seemed to work even better than training ^^

----------


## elucid

I think it depends on the factors of amount smoked and how long you have been smoking, if you are a regular smoker, the effect should not last that long. Just from my experiences.

----------


## Cethulsus

Not long. But you should quit, your liver is probably a piece of shit by now.

----------


## darkrom

> Not long. But you should quit, your liver is probably a piece of shit by now.



I know this is a dreaming forum and not a cannabis forum but this is nothing short of misinformation. Either you confused alcohol and cannabis or you are posting your misinformed belief as a fact.  I am trying not to be disrespectful since that is not my intention. Please only post things as fact when you are sure.  Rest assured I mean no disrespect when I say humbly that you are wrong.

----------


## BenTheDream1018

Yeah man smokin weed doesn't help with your dream recall. You can barely remember things you did in waking life while you were high. So it's not very likely that you'll remember your dreams.

----------


## darkrom

Idk about you personally but I am 100% functional while high.  I am a daily user. I use it medicinally. It sure beats taking addictive prescriptions with nasty side effects. It also beats mild OCD and Terrible anxiety. I have no memory issues with cannabis. I do have issues with dream recall if I use it late at night, but overall I remember stuff just as easily with or without marijuana. Sometimes I have an increased sense of focus. I built a pc lately and got frustrated that it wasn't booting properly. Extra frustrating since I work in IT. I vaporized a small amount of cannabis and went back to work on it. I was more focused and was able to find the very simple thing I had overlooked.

----------


## KristaNicole07

I quit smoking weed when I became interested in LDing again. I realized how much I missed remembering my dreams and being able to become lucid (dreaming has always fascinated me). It absolutely killed my recall of both waking life activities AND dreams. I must say, it's probably the best decision I've made in awhile. I only quit recently, about a week ago, but I've already noticed that my recall is drastically improving, and I finally had an LD for the first time in a very long time a couple of nights ago.

Everyone's different, but if you're really serious about LDing, I'd call it quits on the smoking.

----------


## darkrom

I find that I still have a dream I recall every single night as long as I don't vaporize after 7ish. If I do then it's a sure thing that I'll have no dream at all. If I stop by my cutoff time I'll always have a vivid dream. As interested as I am in lucid dreaming, I would not be able to sacrifice my medicine all day for it.   I am trying to find a balance between my love for dreams and the most beneficial medicine I've ever used.  I've just followed this dream schedule by imposing my cutoff time. Lately I've been recalling dreams every night. Previously I have not recalled a dream once in about 8 years. This is all very exciting to me!

----------


## aLucidSkater

That's weird. My friend told me he's able to recall dreams when goes to bed high. Does It affect people differently??

----------


## Wiz

Took me about a week to start remembering my dreams after I quit smoking.

----------


## darkrom

I dream vividly if I go a few hours before bed without cannabis. 

As far as being different for each person...yes

Also you need to factor in amount, strain, frequency of use, tolerance, method of consumption, and too many other factors to list.

----------


## Imt

It's probably not best to say marijuana is completely bad for LDing. In my experiences my dreams tend to be more vivid and lively and apart from the memory rep. it has I can remember a good amount of dreams simply from writing down key words from my dreams. It effects everyone differently and in my case really well. But I can see how it can adversely affect other people to the point where LDing is near impossible. To answer the main question though I'm sure a full day after taking the last hit of marijuana the effects of it to dreams would seem to go away, though it could also probably take the same amount of time as it does to leave the body, it's probably more based on how marijuana stays in your body as an individual.

----------


## zelcrow

I've read the half-life (half-life meaning how long it takes for half of it to be out of your system) of marijuana depends on how much is in your system.  For a heavier smoker I think it is around five days or so for half of it to be out of your system.  For a less frequent smoker a couple of days approximately is what I remember off the top of my head.  As far as how long it dampens your dream recall, it is hard to say.  One positive of stopping marijuana for dreaming is that since THC suppresses REM sleep, you will experience REM rebound when you stop or take some time away from it.

----------

