Can CBD Cause Nightmares?

Can CBD Cause Nightmares? (Helpful Content!)

by
CBD alone is unlikely to cause nightmares. There’s no research to suggest there’s a direction connection. That said, how we dream and have nightmares is largely bound up with how well we sleep. If CBD causes deeper or indeed more restless sleep, then this could indirectly lead to greater memory retention of dreams.

 

CBD cannot really affect your dreams in its own right, as far as we know.

There are certainly indirect ways that it can influence how we sleep, and thus how we dream.

However, there’s likely something else that needs to be addressed if you are getting frequent nightmares while taking CBD.

Let’s find out more.

Can CBD Cause Nightmares?

 

Does CBD make you have nightmares?

The simple answer is that CBD cannot make you have nightmares.

There is no direct relationship between taking CBD and having nightmares.

The science of dreaming has come on in leaps and bounds over the last few decades, but we still don’t fully understand the mechanism of dreaming itself.

So, to say this or that is the direct cause of nightmares is always a little tentative.

 

What we can say, though, is that how much we feel we have dreamt is based largely on how much we remember our dreams.

This, in turn, is generally based on how deep our sleep is.

Every night, we go through cycles of sleep multiple times.

The deepest of these, REM sleep, is where most dreaming occurs.

If you are, for some reason or another, struggling to settle properly into REM sleep, or indeed if you are sleeping very deeply, then this can make you more conscious of your dreams.

 

So, the simplest answer is that CBD oil might “cause” nightmares only in the loosest sense.

It might make you sleep more deeply, or indeed it might have the opposite effect for some people.

All of this can influence how keenly we remember our dreams, and thus can lead us to think that CBD is what caused the nightmares in the first place.

But the fact is that anything could have been keeping you up and getting in the way of your sleep, and you would have most likely had the same nightmares.

CBD, you might say, is a kind of an innocent bystander in this case.

That said, you can always still cut out the CBD if it is consistently getting in the way of a good night’s sleep.

This could help the nightmares to subside.

What about dreams in general?

 

Does CBD cause vivid dreams?

There is no evidence that CBD can cause vivid dreams.

The same is true of dreams in general as it is of nightmares.

There’s no direct correlation between, really, anything you ingest and the dreams you have.

If there is any such connection, then we have not been able to observe it in any peer-reviewed studies as of yet.

That said, the same applies to nightmares on the inverse.

CBD won’t cause vivid dreams in and of itself, but it may lead to more or less restful sleep, either of which could lead to you remembering your dreams better.

You may have heard it said that humans dream every night, we just don’t always remember them.

With some caveats this is essentially true.

How much we feel we have dreamed on a given night is more influenced by whether we were waking up at night, or were only ever in a light sleep to begin with.

So, of course, CBD can affect that, but that still does not make it the direct cause of vivid dreams.

It essentially just helped you remember them.

Does CBD negatively affect sleep, then, if it can lead to more restless sleep?

 

Can CBD negatively affect sleep?

In general, the idea of CBD is that it should aid your sleep—and in most cases this is what it will do.

That said, it doesn’t always work the same way for everyone.

It is generally a good sleep aid, but you’ll just have to try it out for yourself before you can decide if it works for you.

There’s not really much reason why it should affect your sleep negatively.

After all, it is becoming widely prescribed as a sleeping aid even in cases of insomnia.

But, again, not everyone is the same, so it could indeed negatively affect your sleep in some cases.

 

Can CBD help with nightmares?

CBD certainly can help with nightmares for some people, yes.

It can help you have a deeper, more restful sleep, which for some people will certainly lead to reduced dreams and nightmares.

Sleeping aids in general should curb nightmares, but again, there are many different kinds of aid and not all of them work the same for everyone.

Where CBD should help in most cases, to some extent, with nightmares, it can’t be guaranteed to do this every time.

Again, the only way to make a judgement for yourself is to discuss with a doctor, see if it might be right for you, and then try it.

If it doesn’t work out, there are plenty of other sleep aids you can try!

 

So, there’s no direct connection between your nightmares and CBD.

With that said, there are certainly a couple of ways that CBD can influence your sleep, and thus, your dreams.

Usually, though, persistent nightmares will have some root cause in our waking life that you must identify and address.

It won’t be as simple as removing CBD or indeed as simple as starting to use it.

 

More in nightmares

Was this helpful?

Thanks for your feedback!

Leave a Comment