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Comment by olyjohn | Hacker News Reader

THC interferes with the REM cycle. This is why when heavy smokers quit, they have crazy dreams for a few weeks. That's probably why you feel so groggy the next day when you take higher doses. You were asleep, but not getting good sleep.

Pot helps you fall asleep, but it does not help you get good quality sleep.

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I feel the cannabinoid and terpene profiles determine these REM cycle disruptions and grogginess just the same as they affect the onset of being sleepy. I sleep great on indica based land races, but terrible on most modern strains that have a higher THC percentage or hybrids of sativa strains. Hopefully in the future we can break down these differences in the profiles of each strain rather than having blanket studies and opinions that might be neglecting that these profiles can be significantly different in their effects, especially regarding sleep and medical use.

Before I started on MMJ I slept in 2 hour shifts, every 12 hours or so, due to neuropathic pain. Now I sleep for 8 hours - once I get to sleep. It seems that daily use does make it a bit harder to fall asleep (racing mind?) but at least I'm not just getting the bare minimum anymore.

Note that taking CBD reduces the negative effects of THC use, at the cost of less stoned. If using for medical reasons that's not a big deal. If recreational use it probably is.

I'm sure to someone getting little to no sleep, not-great sleep would sound like a huge improvement.

Correct. I understand it is "less good", but as someone with Restless Leg Syndrome THC is the only "medication" I have found that stops the electric feelings in my legs almost immediately. Luckily RLS does not flare up every day any more, and my ADHD medication I take right before bed helps a ton. I recall the worst ever period I had of RLS was 36 hours of no sleep when I finally just blew a fuse over the issue.

Thanks for this, that was exactly my experience, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39786167. In the long run I think THC made my insomnia issues worse, or at least prevented me from addressing the root cause sooner.

I would bet that was strain related as mentioned in this thread, it took me going through 30 strain’s before realizing this for myself.

Weirdly, since I started using low doses of THC + CBD flower before bed it has increased my dreaming (or at least recall of it) substantially. For many many years now I would always wake up in the middle of the night out of breath, sweaty and sore whenever I'd have intense dreams, possibly due to trauma. Now I stay asleep through the most vivid and intense dreams, and wake up reasonably relaxed and well rested at normal times. Has been going on for several months now ever since I started using tiny amounts of cannabis intermittently again (no more than 4x per week, often less, and below 0.05g per "dose").

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