I have recently stopped smoking marijuana after many years of heavy use. It still appears in my dreams lucid and non lucid. I have abstained from using it even in my dreams. My question is…can using drugs in the dream state produce the same flood of dopamine and other chemicals associated with smoking it in waking life and if so can it produce the same negative effects and inhibit recovery in addicts?
I don’t think there has been any study on this, since you have to take samples from the brain to find out if the chemicals are there in such and such quantities. However, dopamine is always present in the brain, and haveing too little floating around in there in certain areas cause all kinds of problems, such as parkinsons.
The brain itself has cannabinoid receptors which is why marijuana is psychoactive. The dream doesn’t produce any cannabinoids for sure. And the release of dopamine to your reward centre and whatnot is not dangerous in itself. It happens ever so often during a normal day for all kinds of reasons. See the problem arises when you become dependent on a certain thing to produce this effect. Because when you think about it you don’t care what happens in terms of chemicals, it’s the way you feel that matters. And if something makes you feel good then you want to repeat it.
So smoking weed in a dream can actually make you feel high, but you don’t know why. Chemicals or no, the effect is still there. If that feeling makes you go out and smoke drugs then you know inhibits recovery. But if it on the other hand works as a replacement for waking life drugs, because you realize you don’t need them to get high then it’s a wonder treatment. It’s better to be hooked on dream weed than real weed right?
Whether the dream smoke has any negative effects on the brain is not researched at all I reckon. But I have a problem believing the body actually would release harmful chemicals to the brain on account of what happens in a dream. I suspect that it doesn’t need to replace the cannabinoids to produce certains sensations that you attrbute to the marijuana intoxication. Such as sometimes the extremities can get a bit tingly from it, or you feel all mellow. That’s not hard to reproduce right? Although I have noticed that the effects go away awful fast in the dreams on account of them being so fickle.
A funny thing I noticed when I quit smkoing cigarettes is that I would smoke in my dreams, which I never did before. Every now and then I dream that I pick up smoking again. I do get the feeling that it may not be such a bad thing to buy a pack of smokes so maybe it’s not very good for the recovery when you get right down to it. You need to get it out of your HEAD all together before you’re done with it.
There is a recent topic about this in Adventures Here. Topic locked. 