Health - Effects of Benzodiazepines on Dreaming?

[truestbet]

I have been prescribed xanax and xanax XR for anxiety, and can't get past the nightmares from both of them. All benzo's do to me anymore if make me tired and give me nightmares. Very scary nightmares that freak me out and cause me to sleep longer. Usually the regular give me nightmares for 1-2nights and the xtended release gives me nightmares for 3-5 nights, i guess because of the longer half life. Do you think something with a shorter half life like ativan would be better, or something with a longer half life like valium would be better on the nightmares and tiredness. thanks in advance.

[Lehendakari]

SWIM thinks weed by itself can be a great vivid-dream inducer so it might not work if you take mj off the equation.

MJ behaves very weird in SWIM neurochemistry. If swim smokes before going to bed he usually wakes up not remembering a damn thing about dreaming or just a few details which forgets minutes after. But if swims smokes in the afternoon and takes a nap he has the most bizarre dreams with lots of false awakenings and OOBE's.

MJ seems to have the capacity but I think it needs a boost or catalizer to affect dreaming.

[Psych0naut]

A dream is the recall of mental activity that has occurred during sleep. Using polysomnography, sleep can be divided into stage 1 (sleep onset), stage 2 (light sleep) and stages 3 and 4 (deep sleep)--the non­rapid-eye-movement (REM) stages. REM sleep occurs cyclically every 90 minutes during the night in association with high brain activity, rapid spontaneous eye movements and suppressed voluntary motor activity. Dreaming occurs in all stages of sleep. It is reported by 80 percent of persons who are awakened during REM sleep and sleep onset (stages 1 and 2), and 40 percent of persons who are awakened from a deep sleep.
Patient reports about the content of their dreams vary based on the sleep stage from which they are awakened. Patient reports of dreams experienced during REM sleep tend to be bizarre and detailed, with storyline plot associations. In contrast, dreams experienced in deep sleep are more diffuse (e.g., dreams about a color or an emotion). The dreams of stages 1 and 2 are simpler, shorter and have fewer associations than the dreams of REM sleep. The ability to recall dreams may reflect the dream's accessibility or distance from awake thought; the highest recall seems to occur during sleep stages with electroencephalographic patterns that are most like those in the waking state.1
Some researchers believe that dreams have no function. Others think that dreams are the nocturnal continuation of conscious thought processing during the day or a reprogramming of the central nervous system for the next day's conscious functioning.2 Evidence suggests that dreaming, like most other physiologic events, is important for learning and memory processing, gives cognitive feedback about a person's mental functioning and helps a person adapt to emotional and physical stress.3

Source:American Family Physician
The R.E.M.(rapid eye movement) sleep is the sleep in which lucid dreaming accurs, benzodiazepines partially supress R.E.M. sleep.
SWIM has experience it himself, as well as others, that cannabis smoking before sleeping sometimes causes really lucid dreams.
Though the benzodiazepines slightly supress R.E.M. sleep, the cannabis will probaly stimulate lucid dreaming, but it's definately not a synergistic action between the temazepam and cannabis that creates those lucid dreams.

Reputation Comments on this post:

Really helpful and interesting info. Thanks.

[Powder_Reality]

SWIM has heard that cannabis can cause vivid or lucid dreaming for some people, but he has personally never experienced this. Although he has had some vivid dreams after smoking cannabis, they were no more intense than when he had vivid dreams without smoking cannabis. SWIM has just noticed that he usually has particularily vivid/lucid dreams after taking benzodiazepines.

Thanks Psych0naut, the information you retrieved from American Family Physician definately helped SWIM understand why he may experience lucid/vivid dreams after taking benzodiazepines.

[Lehendakari]

Anyone else have lucid dreaming when on xanax??

SWIM has been using xanax lately, taking breaks to avoid tolerance and sometimes when he takes a large dose and goes to bed he has the most amazing dreams, very lucid and he can think very clearly and see everything in perfect detail.

The most amazing thing is how rational he can think. Last night he was dreaming and got aware he was dreaming and started observing all around him and was amazed how detailed the dreamland looked like, he was in an unknown house walking, he was with people around, but he was only interested in not waking up, he kept thinking thinks like "you will remember this when you wake, this is too real to forget."

There was a moment he saw a window, and he instantly thought about flying. Then he thought better and said, "let's just stay here and see what I can do" eventually he thought: "ok I'm bored let's fly" and on he went. Flying feels very good but there was a point were there was water and he was falling, he couldn't fly anymore and he thought: "let's see how cold water feels like in a dream" and he kind of felt the water but right then he woke, he thinks, cause I don't recall anything else besides seeing my dark bedroom.

The thing is that the memory of the dream is fuzzy and he wishes he could remember better. So SWIM gets this incredible dreams after doing xanax and a little bit of MaryJane, but when he wakes he looses many of the details, he just remember the dream was very real and the thinking very rational but even when he tries to memorize when he is dreaming he just can't.

[Spare Chaynge]

Swim was presribed xanax for a while. At first your dreams are like that but soon you wont remember much at all and probally will be so out of it that you wont even notice the lack of dreams your having.