Announcement

**Cannabis Rehab Admin** · 02-24-2011, 09:31 PM

Sleep paralysis and other effects of weed

Hey abiogenesis

Yes it is indeed an interesting one, the sleep and dream thing is something that using and quitting marijuana can definitely affect, a lot of people here certainly report it affecting them in this way, it’s like you say psychoactive drugs can indeed corrupt the mechanisms of our brains and while some people do seem to experience more of a problem with this than others, myself included as you all know from reading my posts it has changed my entire consciousness and not in a good way, and when I think about it my mind was a pretty high risk stake to be playing roulette with, especially when you consider that I have never really properly recovered or not yet anyhow (5 years later), I sure wish I quit while I was ahead but I just didn’t really realise the risk I was taking especially for people with a predisposition to mental health problems. I think one doctor on one cannabis documentary I watched made a good point when he said that it would be great if we could do a test and say to somebody that they probably are or are not more likely to experience a mental health related problem from using marijuana but unfortunately we are still not able to do that yet. I suppose the best somebody who uses it can do is look at their family to see if there are any patterns of experiencing mental health related problems to see if there may be an hereditary predisposition for doing so that runs in their family, but even this isn’t any kind of guarantee, obviously the safest way to protect against it is not to do it in the first place, like they say prevention is better than cure.

Definitely food for thought.

Take care

**SilverMaze** · 02-25-2011, 10:23 AM

i don't understand this, i mean really, do you have to blame EVERYTHING on weed? so if you're having sleep paralysis 8 months sober or mental problems 5 years sober!!! have you ever considered that it will not go away just by waiting and counting sobriety time period? have you considered that it's something wrong in you that need to be fixed separately? even if it was triggered by the drug itself, this is surely an underlying mental problem that just surfaced. sleep paralysis is not known to be related to drug use. in my case i experience very vivid dreams many times nightmares, they take some time to become less intense but they do. remembering a dream is normal we're just not used to it. now, i wake up most of the nights remembering my dreams, but they're no more nightmares, just vivid dreams that may even be pleasant ones.

**Cannabis Rehab Admin** · 02-25-2011, 03:23 PM

Ok this is in fairness a very common response when many hear of this sort of thing, in regards to the situation I have experienced, it’s not so much a case of I am blaming “EVERYTHING” on weed, I think it’s important to try and avoid any particular polarized view from either perspective, which is something that I think is the main problem when it comes to how people view the drug and not really what I have said, I did say that this kind of thing is probably much more of a problem for those who have a genetic predisposition for mental health problems, in which case it is partly the drug use and partly your predisposition. It’s funny a lot of marijuana smokers tend to take the view of oh yes then that isn’t really the marijuana’s fault, you already had a predisposition for been that way any way, I know a friend of mine said it to me, well yes a predisposition, but that’s not the same as actually having the condition, allow me to draw another compression it’s a bit like someone who smokes say 40 cigarettes a day and dies at the age of 40 of lung cancer, people will often say it’s the smoking that killed him, but actually not everybody who smokes 40 a day dies at 40, the chances are he probably had more of a genetic predisposition for lung cancer than most, although even if he didn’t smoke he still could of got lung cancer anyhow, about 10 percent of lung cancers are experienced by non smokers, obviously non smokers can get cancer, obviously people who don’t use cannabis can experience mental health problems, but even though that is true smoking can increase your chances of cancer and it seems cannabis can increase your chances of experiencing a mental health problem, psychoactive drugs can trigger mental health problems in some and even if they are “only triggering” them, the bottom line is that many of these people still wouldn’t have the problem had they not used the drug, I know there are still many people out there who will not accept that marijuana can have anything to do with these sort of things what so ever, which in many cases is based on the fact of because it hasn’t happened to them it can’t happen to anyone and let’s face it you could apply the same logic to smoking cigarettes and lung cancer, in fact many smokers who didn’t want to believe that where in denial of this link for a good many years.

Anyway in a case like mine I am pretty sure it was a combination of a predisposition for mental illness, various symptoms of mental health problems run through my family, I already had certain symptoms of mental illness (mainly OCD) which was partly why I was using it in the first place, I was kind of self medicating, but I was not experiencing the constantly hazy dissociative like symptoms that my the drug use triggered, but I am fairly sure it was partly the way I was to begin with and partly my the drug use which triggered the other symptoms and made my mental health ten times worse all round. So as you can see it’s a combination of a number of factors but I am certain smoking the drug had a part to play, I noticed the difference it made the more I smoked, it got that bad I couldn’t even handle a single joint in the end, even one joint would make me considerably worse, when you get to this stage you do notice the effect it is having on you, you are able to notice how you are before and after that joint, you have to give the people that are reporting it some credit for noticing the effect it is having on them instead of automatically dismissing them because it hasn’t happened to you or isn’t what you want to believe.

In terms of recovering from these things well again you are not automatically guaranteed to recover, some of the mental health problems cannabis can trigger certain people don’t get better from, certain mental health problems whatever the cause or trigger people can live with for the rest of their lives, some of these things like psychosis, dissociative disorders can’t always be “fixed”, there’s no known guaranteed cure for either, even things like anxiety and depression once triggered people can struggle with for the rest of their lives, incidentally I have had plenty of treatment since for the symptoms I have suffered but none of which has fixed me.

In terms of the effect it can have on your sleep again it can affect us all differently, some people do find that using and stopping using marijuana can affect their sleep. I suppose the best thing to compare it to is the list of side effects you get with a prescription medicine, not everybody will necessarily experience them but just because it doesn’t happen to everybody doesn’t mean it can’t happen to anybody.

Anyway my apologies if I seem a little defensive in regards to this issue, but it is a point I feel I ought to defend as people who are vulnerable in this way do deserve to be warned, hopefully it may prevent a good deal many from ending up in this situation in the first place, so I think it’s extremely important to make them aware of the potential dangers, I don’t think many people realise just how bad these sort of mental health problems can be. Obviously proving the link between anything can be difficult, look at how long it has took with all kinds of other things throughout human history, cigarettes, poisoning from things with lead in them, ect, ect, and all we can ever do is look at how people are reacting to something to decide the effect it is having on them, there are plenty of people here who have posted to say how they are when they don’t do it and how they are when they do, plenty of people out there experience that it can have a negative effect on their mental health, even most of the mental health profession are now behind the link between cannabis and mental health problems. But what you are saying is a fair enough point it is not the only element involved, it is indeed a situation where it takes two to tango, but at the end of the day even though both elements may be to blame you can’t choose your genes that’s something we are stuck with whether we like it or not, but you can choose whether or not to use these kind of psychoactive drugs, that’s something we can control, so in many respects when it comes to focusing on how to prevent the problem in the first place it’s probably fair enough to focus on that element more, the safest way to protect against any of the risks associated with drugs is still not to do the drugs in the first place, that’s an approach that has a 100 percent success rate.

Anyway that’s just my take on it, but I appreciate we can all have our own view.

All the best and take care.

**abiogenesis** · 02-26-2011, 06:15 AM

When I read the reply of BFB, I see that he mainly told all the things that I would say in this issue. It's just too easy to judge others while they are the ones who are dealing with the consequencies. I believe that if someone is able to stay sober for 5 years while experiencing this kind of symptoms, this is itself the proof that he is doing his best to deal with his problems. How many of us able to that? As far as I see since 2 years, it's not more than 10 over the hundreds of people who are seeking help in this forum. I didn't read much about sleep paralysis, but it just doesn't make much sense that it can't have any relations with the use of drugs. It might not have been proved yet but this doesn't prove that they can't be related.

All the best,

**Cannabis Rehab Admin** · 02-26-2011, 11:10 PM

My apologies abiogenesis my post has taken this thread a bit off topic, I only meant to use my experience as an example of the very different ways that drugs can affect us not to become the focus of the thread, but anyway there is indeed so much that we still have to learn about the way these kind of psychoactive drugs can affect us, and the way in which one person reacts to them isn’t necessarily any indication of how another may do so, I may experience things like dissociative like symptoms, you may experience things that include symptoms of sleep paralysis and when you consider that most of these sort of things are things that people who haven’t used drugs can experience too it can make it all the more complicated, as there is no absolute way of knowing what would have happened had we not used the drugs, due to the fact that the other situation has not happened we have no comparison to make and that goes for all these kind of situations, just like with people who get lung cancer, like I say there is a 10 percent chance that they would have got it anyway, so specific individual cases never really prove that much, but just like anything else all we can do is look at the overall picture and the overall picture with cannabis these days seems to be linked to an increased likelihood of all kinds of irregular brain activity and mental health problems, I know my particular experience may actually be quite rare, so may yours with the sleep paralysis, if there is indeed a link between what we have experienced and our history for using drugs then I have no idea how many others may have experienced the exact same things, I wouldn’t even like to speculate, but one thing that I am almost certain of is that it is indeed becoming apparent that psychoactive drugs can affect your mind in all kinds of different ways and unfortunately disrupt our brains natural mechanism, I think you are right on the money about that and you and I are not the only ones who think it, like you say the more you read about it the more evidence there is to support it and it’s no surprise that most mental health professionals now are of this view also, in fact everyone I have spoke to over the last few years when I have mentioned about my history with cannabis has been very keen to stress that I should do my upmost to avoid it in the future, these are people who see many many cases and are speaking from experience, I don’t think they have turned against it for no good reason what so ever, they know the effect it can have.

For some reason though and it’s usually amongst those who use the drug it is incredibly hard to get some people to even consider that this may be a possibility, I don’t know why but for some reason marijuana has an almost sacred status with many whereby it can’t be bad mouthed in any way, it’s almost become like the drug that is believed to have no negative side effects what so ever, not saying that silvermaze was arguing this in his lat post, but there are those who think it is some kind of magical exception when it comes to having no potentially negative side effects, I am not sure why it is and maybe it has some kind of political element to it, there are certainly some that are part of a culture that won’t accept the potential risks associated with it, it’s a bit cult like in that respect and to many who use it has become a bit of a religion. Anyway as I always say I don’t advise taking the perspective of either extreme, no it’s not the worst drug in the world but at the same time it’s not the saviour of mankind either, it’s still a drug and just like any other drug can still have negative side effects especially when it comes to the way the mind works and mental health. So in conclusion when it comes to cannabis while I wouldn’t blame everything on it, that doesn’t mean it is blameless or can’t be blamed for anything.

Anyway that’s just how I see it, as always take care folks and all the best.

**SilverMaze** · 03-02-2011, 10:19 AM

i'm sorry if i sounded somehow offensive in my last post, however i was thinking that if someone has been the drug free for 5 years, that there is no way the drug is still affecting him. i am not saying that the drug has no side effects, i actually said that it might have been triggered by the drug but just by counting sobriety days or years is no use now. you are right that it affects every individual differently, i for one have seen very few side effects from quitting, and it only gets easier with time. i cannot imagine still thinking of myself as recovering addict 5 years after quitting. the drug is not anything magical it's just a mild light drug that affects your brain much less than other drugs. i understand you saying that you've seen many people making pot a sacred thing and i'm not, but i too have seen many people talking about it as if it was the devil itself (not you) i've seen wives breaking up with the husband because they "CAUGHT the husband using pot again!" this in fact angers me soooo much i admit. i for one love pot, i am now able to smoke it occasionally with no ill effects at all, last time i smoked was sunday, it's wednesday, i don't know when i will be smoking, but it's been many months now that i have some in my drawer and i don't crave it at all, can keep it there for a month if i had to without touching it, this is not the same with other drugs, thats why i have come to love this plant, but it has to be used responsibly, not abused, much like everything good in life. i dont like the fact that the drug gets such a bad reputation just because some people think it has caused them harm. i was a very heavy smoker 9 months ago, and i mean HEAVY like 15 joints/day, when i first quit i thought i will go insane, was actually worried about my future, thought that i will struggle forever, but it was far from the truth. in couple of weeks i was all fine, and it only got better. any other drug even alcohol, cannot be treated the same, if you were hooked, you could never get back to occasional use, it's either all or nothing, but pot is different, the most forgiving drug there is, but still it's a drug and has some ill effects. i hope this made sense, and good luck to all

**Cannabis Rehab Admin** · 03-02-2011, 03:08 PM

No that’s ok, I have probably rambled on too much about it, I just like to avoid the everything or nothing black or white polarized type perspective and didn’t want it to look as if I was blaming everything on it. I try to keep what I think is a fair and balanced perspective of the drug, although this is probably different to what you would consider a fair and balanced perspective, although neither of us consider ourselves to be at either extreme of the spectrum in terms of our view of the drug, the fact that you say you love pot from my perspective probably makes you leaning fairly towards the pro, but perhaps you see what I have said as leaning towards the anti, there is still probably more of a difference between our views for us to be in complete agreement, you view pot as the most forgiving drug there is, I personally really don’t like to speak in such general terms, it may be the most forgiving drug there is for some, but not for everybody, especially for people with a predisposition to mental health problems, I am afraid I have to stand my ground on that, it’s quite possible that I could have used alcohol heavily for the same amount of years as I did pot and not experienced the kind of damage I did to my mental health, which was the main problem for me.

In terms of the 5 years latter thing perhaps I have gave you the wrong idea in what I am saying, I wasn’t implying that I am still intoxicated from the effects of the drug 5 years later, what I am saying is that it triggered lasting damage to my mental health that 5 years later I have still not recovered from, like I say once a mental health problem is triggered, once that change in the brain has occurred, some people can live with it for the rest of their lives, some people do live a life time with mental illness, there’s lots of people who can’t be cured. Whether you believe that marijuana is capable of triggering a mental health problem that you may have to live with for the rest of your life is another matter, perhaps you are not. Like I say this is possibly the difference in our opinion, perhaps my aim is to look out for people who are vulnerable to mental health problems perhaps yours is the husband who gets caught with pot and doesn’t want to be judged too harshly, which is perfectly understandable, it’s perfectly understandable why many people who love pot don’t like my view of the possible side effects it can have on mental health, it doesn’t exactly help the cause of making pot more socially acceptable, maybe it’s a bit like Richard Dawkins says the rights of one group of people are usually in opposition to another, it’s a shame but perhaps maybe it is true, it’s also not what many users of the drug want to believe, I didn’t either, I really didn’t want it to be the case, I wanted to be able to carry on smoking it without experiencing these effects, but whether I liked it or not I did and had no choice but to recognise it, if I didn’t I would have continued to get worse and worse, like I say it became that noticeable that even smoking a single joint would have a massively significant difference between the before and after, that is just what I experienced, but how you interpret my experience may depend on where you are on the spectrum in your view of the drug. I appreciate we all have our own opinions and interpretations.

Take care and all the best

**SilverMaze** · 03-02-2011, 04:41 PM

yes it is a nice talk

well, i actually told several people in the drug recovery forums that it is better for them that they don't smoke ever, and that was because of how they described the effects it's having on them. i have seen several people who couldn't control their usage effectively the way i have, and that's a personality trait. the addict is a personality, a character. it is also levels, one can have an addictive personality less than another. i was addicted, but i didn't know at first. once i was totally convinced about me being addicted, it didn't take me long to act. i am getting over it slowly and steadily, now 9 months later, and i smoke maybe 2-3 grams a month. that's very light, less than i smoked in a single day. for me it had very few ill effects, my personality pleases me, i like a lot who and how i am now and that's the bottom line for anyone right? i still plan on making it less and less of an occurrence, i guess when i smoke like once every 2 weeks i will be totally at ease with it. i still worry about smoking often, but this worry is becoming less and less as i smoke less. i have seen people who really cannot quit! a friend i know is like 36 now, cannot live happily without it, is a total failure, doesn't function to work, consistently gets ripped off at his business, and he has sold his deceased dad's company and opened a smaller new one which is a complete failure. he lives with his mom and she pays for him and his losses and debts, he literally has to ask for the 50$ from her. all he thinks of is how to get pot. his attitude towards it causes all pot dealers to rip him off, this guy is a disaster has no morals whatsoever, no real friends, just people he can smoke with for free, my God some people are total addicts. if he has no the drug he drinks. as i said before it's a character, addicts are prone to substitute, i never did this, i can never be like him even if i tried, he has serious brain trouble, and i always suggest hopelessly that he quit the drug and alcohol, but theres no use. he also eats tons of junk food has high cholesterol cuz he doesn't move! couch locked really, i understand what you say about some people, such people, anyone who is not feeling right in the head, the drug and alcohol, everything psychoactive, even cigarettes are no good for you.

i think i got carried away with the topic lol i became very interested i addiction due to my experiences and the people i saw around, i had friends addicted severely to heroin and coke, some still are, others are on pills as substitute, and the ones who only smoke, are entirely different. it is obvious to me that marijuana's ill effects are much less than other things. but if you have tried and failed several times, and you have to do it all the time or never, then of course you must never do it.

**Cannabis Rehab Admin** · 03-02-2011, 05:35 PM

Sleep paralysis and other effects of weed

Yes it can indeed affect us all different and we can indeed all be a very different type of user, it’s such a shame that looking out for one type of person that may be involved in the situation may be of harm to the other, the last thing I would want to do is encourage people to persecute those who use marijuana and in my opinion it’s certainly not something people should be criminalised for, I think this kind of drug use should only be a public health issue not a legal one, there are indeed plenty of people who use drug without it been that much of a problem for them, but like you say there are others who really don’t cope well with it at all. That is something we both agree on so perhaps our views are not that far apart after all. I think the more we can look at how the individual is reacting the better, the fact that you have not experienced the kind of withdrawal symptoms that some have experienced here probably means that you haven’t found it that addictive, which is something which is probably significantly affected by our genetic predisposition combined with using the drug over a long enough period of time to trigger it. Anyway I think the main thing is that we both agree that you have to look at how the individual is reacting to it which is something if we all did a bit more without prejudging the situation has to be some kind of progress. Obviously I still have to advise that the best protection against any of these potential problems is not to do it in the first place, but perhaps like us all I have been influenced by my particular experience, whether we want to take these kind of risks is a decision we all have to make for ourselves.

Anyway it has indeed been good to talk and I am glad you now feel you have your own situation under control. Thanks also for the support you are showing others it's really very kind.

Take care and all the best

P.s abiogenesis I hope you don’t mind but I have added “and other effects of weed” to the title of this post as it has sorted of turned into a thread covering a number of different issues, I do sometimes rename the odd title to make it more descriptive and easier for the search engines to find, as you can probably tell I like to include the name of the drug we are talking about in regards to the issue as it helps others find it when searching in Google. My apologies once again for hijacking your thread. It’s funny how a thread can start of on one thing and end up on another, sometimes it’s difficult to stay on topic as all these issues can be relevant to each another, please feel free to repost your bit on sleep paralysis in its own thread if you want to recreate a thread which just deals with this issue. Once again my apologies.

**abiogenesis** · 03-02-2011, 06:30 PM

Hi SilverMaze,

I tottally disagree with your attitude. I believe that you are mistaking the concept of addiction. The basis of my thoughts are also organized by my own experience but I read tens of scientific articles and applied studies on addiction, and I am trying to post some of them in the sticky rehab group useful websites. I believe we should put two things more clearly:

1) Drug addiction is a neurological state of mind which is charactarized by very well studied symptoms, that can happen in some people's brains due to abuse of some substances. With the modern technologies, you couldn't imagine how far the experts go, they image physically this addicted state of mind. As Rehab Admin says, someone might not get addicted and also not damaged by a more evil drug (alcohol i.e), but can be severely damaged by a much safer drug (weed). So at this point we should understand what we mean by safe and not:

2) When people say 'safe' or 'dangerous' about some drug, it's just the result of statistics that make us think in this way. Let's say 99 percent of heroin users get addicted, but 50 percent of cocain users get so, and 5 percent of the drug users let's say. So looking to this statistics someone could say that 'weed is a much safer drug'. But for whom? If the total humanity was a very big one organism, then it is true that the drug gives less harm to this big organism (it affects only 5 percent of this huge body in a bad way). But the affect of it on one single individual is unique, statistics don't say anything about individualistic cases.

So when we think of this two truth in combined, then we can understand better why experts define a disorder called addiction, regardless of the choice of the drug. Because, when they look at all these people who are miserably got addicted to some drug (heroin or cocaine or weed), they clearly see a common underlying neurological mechanism. You could say that most people don't get addicted to weed, true, the severity of addiction changes between people (your addiction was not hardwired in your brain as that badly like your looser friend) but this doesn't make your friend's case a personality trait. It only makes it a more severe neurological case. So isn't there any personality complication? Of course. Isn't there a complication caused by genetics? of course! Social complication? Mental vulnerability? Chilhood issues? Biochemistry? Of course all these and may be 100 other factors are the parameters of the equation. And that's what makes an individual's case so unique. And that's why I really can't understand people who are judging others that easily with their individual experience. Besides, even when we look at the statistics, the drug makes very serious addiction on 5-10 percent of the users. This much be a much nicer value when you compare it to some drug that makes addiction on 90 percent (18 times more addictive) but what is the math if we compare it to people who don't use drugs (5/0=infinity). What I mean is everything is relative to something and it's all based on statistics, and they are irrelevant to one's own case. So the reason that you have many friends addicted to heroin/cocaine but you know only 1 who is a pot looser, doesn't make weed's ill affects much less than others, if you were to know 1000 the drug users, than probably you would see this most terrible affects of the drug on 50 of them and then you would be knowing 50 pot loosers.

Anyway..I'm also sorry if I'm being too offensive but I just can't bear this all irrationalist thought procedure based on one's experience. That's why I'm always trying to encourage people to read. Because only then we could have an understanding of the general picture because the things you would read will not based on 10-20-50 drug users that someone knows, they will be based on millions of cases and thousands of studies. And you will see that drug addiction is a disorder independent of one's drug of choice. So, the drug addiction, heroin addiction, cocaine addiction, i.e.. forget about the name of the drug and focus on the addiction part. One might return from vietnam and recover from his heroin addiction, but you can live all your life while being very seriously addicted to weed.

All the best,

**Cannabis Rehab Admin** · 03-02-2011, 07:35 PM

While I have found some common ground with silzermaze’s perspective on certain things and found his perspective a good deal more receptive to my perspective than a lot of people who love pot, so all respect for that, but when push comes to shove I have to agree with all the points abiogenesis has made throughout this thread, as you can probably tell I think we both see it in the same way really. I too think it’s the generalizations when it comes to a drug like marijuana that lull people into a false sense of security, as abiogenesis says we are indeed not just talking about just one person here, as relatively benign as some people may find there pot use to be, if you are one of the people who it messes up big time the fact that there are many for whom it doesn’t have this kind of effect on isn’t of much comfort, or hasn’t been to me anyhow. Considering how differently the individual can react I too think that these kind of generalisations can be pretty dangerous.

The other thing I feel I ought to say that I especially agree with is that when people do experience addiction it is a neurological condition that now exists in their brain, that’s why some people experience, sweats, shakes, headaches, upset stomach, lack of appetite, anxiety, paranoia, depression, extreme restlessness, insomnia, strong cravings, ect, ect, these are all things that some of the people who are truly hooked can experience, there’s plenty of accounts of them here alone, this is the physiological response of the body in reaction to quitting the drug, that’s what withdrawal is, it’s not something that is a personality trait, for some the addiction to marijuana may just be a psychological one, they may just get used to enjoying the high, but for those that have experienced this neurological change within their brain and experienced the kind of physiological symptoms just listed including the anxiety and depression, which although they are something that may be viewed as psychological, they are withdrawal symptoms that have a physical cause, for people who are experiencing these kind of withdrawal symptoms it’s a similar kind of addiction to any other drug, although obviously the severity will vary depending on the substance, even the worst psychical symptoms that some people here experience from quitting marijuana don’t compare to what people experience when they quit a drug like heroin, but the similarity of them both been caused by the neurological condition of addiction remains the same, I think one of the reasons there is so much confusion as to whether marijuana is a psychological or psychical (neurological) addiction is because not everybody experiences the neurological addiction side of it, with a drug like heroin almost everybody can get addicted in a few months, but drugs like marijuana and alcohol are different, with marijuana it may take many years and even then just like with a drug like alcohol some get addicted and some don’t and when it comes to drugs like alcohol, or marijuana scientists can now prove that a person’s genetic predisposition for addiction is why some people do get neurologically addicted while others don’t, that combined with how much of the stuff they use, obviously if you don’t use it in the first place you can’t get addicted, I personally think it’s this difference in the individuals response which causes so much confusion, again people naturally want to believe the either or scenario, but you only have to look at a drug like alcohol to know that it’s not like that, some get addicted and some don’t. But once neurological addiction occurs you are indeed dealing with addiction whatever the drug, the symptoms that some people that quit marijuana experience are certainly not been imagined.

I also agree that the more we learn on this the better, we are now starting to make some real advancements in understanding how all this stuff works, I sincerely thank abiogenesis for all the information he is helping to share on this subject.

Anyway I think we have had a real good discussion here, I think this thread has covered some important issues, it’s prompted me to start another thread on the pitfalls of viewing marijuana in a relative, comparative and general sense. http://www.forummatters.com/forums/s...juana-argument

My thanks to all of us for taking part.

All the best

**Cannabis Rehab Guest** · 04-21-2011, 10:16 PM

Your problem could be caused by something else. Sleep paralysis could be caused by an abnormal sleeping routine. It is also a symptom of narcolepsy, especially if it happens a lot. Do you ever sleep drowsy or lethargic during the day? I have never herd of sleep paralysis being caused by drug use. I've used to get sleep paralysis almost every night, and after doing days of research, i was able to treat it by simply changing my sleeping schedule. By the way, i do smoke the drug off and on. Every few months i decide to buy some just to relax. When i don't smoke weed, i notice my dream activity does become more vivid, however, when i would smoke weed, i never remembered my dreams. This is because, as we all know, the drug impairs your short term memory which means you won't really remember your dreams. So when you stop smoking the drug and your body starts cleaning out the THC, your brain goes into hard labor to bring your short term memory back. The dreams seem so clear and vivid because this is the first time in a while that you've had a clearer memory.
You should really go see a doctor about your sleep paralysis. It's not harmless but it could be a symptom of another disease. It might also be stress, or simply the way you fall asleep. Also study your own sleep paralysis, figure out what triggers it to happen, and find "escape routes" out of it.

**Cannabis Rehab Admin** · 04-22-2011, 02:31 PM

Hi and welcome,

I have just done a quick search for marijuana and sleep paralysis and I have found other accounts from people that have experienced it when they have used marijuana, if you search Google I am sure you will find some too, then again there are people who say it helps relieve it too, you can get this with a lot of things in regards to marijuana, you will always get those who think it helps and always get those who think it harms.

Anyway I am no expert on sleep paralysis but I have read of a lot of accounts of marijuana affecting a number of thing in regards to people sleep including sleep paralysis, so I like I say it wouldn’t be that much of a surprise to me personally if it can happen, I certainly wouldn’t rule it out, not if there are others who have reported experiencing this effect too.

At the end of the day from what I have read there can be so many effects that can be experienced from both using and quitting marijuana, many of which may not be that common but that’s not to say that they can’t happen to some, we can all react to the stuff so very differently.

Sleep paralysis from what I have read can be a natural phenomenon, that like many things people can experience regardless of whether they smoke marijuana or not, but just like a lot of things that doesn’t prove that using marijuana can’t have an effect on it either, some people can experience all kinds of effects from using marijuana that others may not, I have experienced it myself a few times when growing up and I wasn’t ill or anything, like I say from what I have heard it’s just something that can happen, but that’s not to say it can’t have a cause, if in doubt you should always consult your doctor.

All the best,

**abiogenesis** · 04-23-2011, 06:09 PM

Actually I'm pretty sure that my sleep paralysis is caused by the withdrawals from weed. In the early days of my recovery, I was experiencing it very frequently as well as with the other withdrawals, and it became less and less often by the time and since a few months I didn't experience any. And the thing is, sleep paralysis has been always a symptom of withdrawal for me also in my earlier attempts on quitting weed. So, if I were to smoke again and then try to detox again, I would again experience a lot of sleep paralysis in the early days of soberity and I believe this is the proof that it's related to my the drug use. There might be many other dominating factors for sleep paralysis but as it comes from my experience, drug use/withdrawaling from the drugs can also lead to sleep paralysis.

All the best,

Announcement

If you feel a post is inappropriate

Sleep paralysis and other effects of weed

Sleep paralysis and other effects of weed

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment