Why Does CBD Give Me Nightmares? Here’s What’s Known So Far

There have been small numbers of anecdotal reports of people experiencing bad or troubling dreams after using CBD, but let’s start with the bottom line: there’s no research of any sort concluding that CBD causes nightmares.

However, many users do say that they seem to have more vivid dreams, some of them bizarre, after taking CBD. So it would make sense to look into the possible effects that cannabidiol (the full name of CBD) might have on sleep and dreaming.

CBD isn’t an approved prescription medication for insomnia or sleep difficulties. Preliminary research, however, has shown that cannabidiol appears to help those suffering from insomnia and sleep quality issues by helping them sleep longer and, for the most part, better.

Smaller studies have reported that CBD seems to affect REM sleep (when the most vivid dreams occur) and non-REM sleep differently, that it might lower episodes of anxiety during REM sleep or even suppress it, and that cannabidiol may help reduce the occurrence of nightmares suffered by those with PTSD.

But none of that research fully explains an increase in frequency or severity of bad dreams after using CBD, and it might argue that nightmares shouldn’t be a regular occurrence.

For those who do experience those dreams after cannabidiol use, “that shouldn’t happen” isn’t much help. The best guess is that those users are already more susceptible to nightmares, and CBD’s possible effect of extending REM sleep periods might contribute to periods of more vivid, more troubling dreams.

One other theory is that people with a history of poor sleep may rarely reach those REM periods of deep sleep, making the intense dreams they experience after taking CBD an unusual experience that alarms them — causing them to believe they’re having nightmares.

For those who do notice an increase in bad dreams after using cannabidiol, taking CBD earlier or later than usual, or temporarily trying a higher or lower dose, might mitigate the problem. Other than that, unfortunately, there’s not enough research to explain the issue or suggest a definitive solution.

Interested in learning more? Read on.

What Does CBD Do in the Body?

Before discussing how it works, we first have to talk a little about CBD.

What is CBD?

Cannabidiol is a plant compound known as a cannabinoid. More than 100 cannabinoids are found in cannabis and hemp plants; CBD and psychoactive THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) are the most important. Both appear to provide important medical benefits, although evidence of cannabidiol’s effectiveness has only been shown in preliminary research.

CBD is extracted from hemp, which contains large amounts of the compound. Hemp also contains very little THC, meaning that the plant and its byproducts don’t alter users’ consciousness. Cannabis, of course, is rich in the THC that makes marijuana users high, but it has very low levels of CBD so there’s no sense in trying to extract cannabidiol from cannabis.

Most Western nations legalised the sale and use of CBD in the late 2010s, so a huge variety of CBD products have hit the market. CBD oil is the most popular, but consumers can also choose from CBD vapes, capsules, edibles, and topical products. Topicals only provide their apparent benefits externally, but the rest deliver full-body effects after being consumed.

The Endocannabinoid System

Less than 40 years ago, researchers made an important discovery: the endocannabinoid system (ECS). This network of receptors extends throughout the human body (and for that matter, the bodies of all mammals) and governs an enormous number of crucial functions including thinking and memory, sleep and pain, immunity and inflammation, and many more.

Neurotransmitters called endocannabinoids work as ECS messengers, moving between the receptors and the body’s organs and systems to receive and deliver control messages. What’s most important for our purposes is that the endocannabinoids produced internally are almost identical in chemical structure to cannabinoids like CBD.

And that’s how cannabidiol provides its apparent benefits to users. It’s able to interact with ECS receptors to send its own control messages or alter ones that are being sent. As you probably noticed in the first paragraph of this section, sleep is one of the functions governed by the endocannabinoid system — so cannabinoids like CBD could play a role in how users sleep.

Sleep and Dreaming

To better understand CBD’s possible effect on dreaming, let’s briefly look at what happens when we fall asleep.

There are four stages in a normal sleep cycle. Three of them are called non-REM (NREM) sleep, and one is characterized by rapid eye movement that indicates increased brain activity and dreaming. The latter is known as REM sleep.

1. The first 1-7 minutes after falling asleep is known as light sleep. The brain starts to slow down and the sleeper can be woken up easily.
2. During the next 10-25 minutes, the body relaxes. Heart rate and breathing slow, eye movement almost stops, and there’s very little brain activity.
3. The next 20-40 minutes are deep sleep, with the body relaxing and recovering. Heart rate slows even more, and the brain is believed to focus primarily on creative or insightful thinking.
4. The body enters REM sleep, breathing accelerates, brain activity is at its peak as are creative thinking and learning, and muscles stop moving — with one exception. The eyes move around quickly (even though they’re closed), with the rapid eye movement indicating a period of vivid dreams.

As the sleep period continues, the amount of time spent in each part of the sleep cycle changes; less time is spent in NREM sleep and more in REM sleep. In early cycles, REM sleep may last just a few minutes but can last for as long as an hour later in the night.

Dreams can occur during any sleep stage but they’re more common and more intense during REM sleep, which is the stage crucial for a “good night’s sleep.” Those with sleep disorders like sleep apnea have trouble reaching deep and REM sleep, while people with insomnia don’t get enough sleep to be rested the next day.

CBD and Sleep

It would make sense that CBD would have an effect on sleep patterns, and possibly, dreams. The sleep-wake cycle is governed by the endocannabinoid system — and as discussed, CBD interacts with ECS receptors to send or alter messages delivered by the system.

And CBD does appear to affect sleep. One encouraging sleep-quality study reported that among patients using cannabidiol, more reported better sleep than worse sleep, and other research has reached similar conclusions.

However, very few studies have examined cannabidiol’s effect on dreams (and nightmares). Research has focused primarily on CBD’s apparent ability to ease insomnia and sleep difficulties, and the information gleaned from that research sheds little light on why CBD seems to promote better sleep.

Here’s the common belief: cannabidiol appears to help resolve issues that may prevent users from getting proper sleep.

• In preliminary research, CBD seemed to ease stress, anxiety, and depression, all of which can be linked to an inability to get to sleep or sleep through the night. In one study, about four-fifths of people taking cannabidiol reported that their anxiety levels decreased significantly, with 65 percent of them also saying that they were able to sleep better.
• CBD also appears to lessen chronic pain caused by inflammatory and anti-immune diseases and shows promise for other types of pain. Most research shows that cannabidiol seems to provide a “significant analgesic effect.” Since many sleep difficulties are caused by pain that causes insomnia or wakes people prematurely, pain relief could mean better sleep.

The small amount of research into CBD’s effect on the sleep cycle doesn’t help clear up the picture, either. Conflicting studies report that cannabidiol appears to lengthen non-REM sleep or shorten it; one study concluded that CBD may reduce incidents of anxiety during REM sleep, but another found that sleep improvement in those using CBD seemed to decrease over time.

It’s also been shown that cannabidiol appears to increase the presence of one endocannabinoid known as GABA, and high levels of GABA in the brain appear to control the “fight or flight” response that could cause anxiety during sleep. CBD has also been shown to interact with the body’s serotonin receptors, which could boost mood during sleep.

None of that research does much to definitively explain how CBD affects sleep, though. The one thing all researchers agree on is that more studies must be conducted to fully understand why cannabidiol appears to help people dealing with sleep issues.

What About CBD and Dreams?

There has been almost no research on the type of dreams people have when using CBD. One of the only studies involved patients with PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) who regularly suffered from nightmares, and the results showed that most of them had fewer troubling dreams after consuming cannabidiol.

However, no evidence shows that taking CBD can cause nightmares, even though some users do report the phenomenon occurring. What’s more, there’s no solid evidence that CBD can affect dreams at all, although many other anecdotal reports cite an increase in more vivid and sometimes weird or unusual dreams.

It’s not out of the question, though. Experts say that cannabidiol’s possible effect on the sleep cycle could result in people spending more time in REM sleep, where they’re more likely to experience vivid dreams.

If users are more susceptible to strange dreams, bad dreams, or nightmares, that might increase the number or severity of the dreams they have. And if they’re not accustomed to getting much REM sleep due to sleep difficulties, the dreams they experience when CBD normalizes their sleep cycle could seem alarming or scary.

There’s one final possibility. It could be that the relatively small number of people who report having nightmares after taking CBD were going to have those nightmares anyway, and CBD wasn’t the cause at all.

After reading this article, you know almost as much as the experts do when it comes to CBD, dreams, and nightmares. No studies have shown a correlation between bad dreams and taking CBD, and most of the available research argues that nightmares shouldn’t be a common occurrence.

They apparently do happen for some users, though — and perhaps further studies will help explain why.

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