 Hey, what's up guys? So this is a very interesting question and this has been sitting in my inbox for a while I haven't really answered it. So I'm gonna answer a few now This is a question from our buddy called Tyler and he says hey Stefan I'm in my 20s and like most 20 year olds in the US. I like to partake in the occasional alcoholic drink before bed I also smoke marijuana cannabis My dreams are very vivid about very short. I feel like I don't have time to realize I'm dreaming in them I've been doing my reality checks regularly for two weeks now Plus keeping a dream journal I think I'm at a place where I should be realizing that I'm dreaming, but I'm not Is it possible that the alcohol and regular marijuana smoking are affecting my dreams? Now this is a slightly complex question, but hopefully I'll simplify the answer for you It starts with REM sleep Okay, now REM sleep if you don't already know is rapid eye movement and it's the stages of sleep That happen about four times a night four or five times once every sleep cycle Sleep cycle being about 90 minutes long. So four or five REM REM stages every night. Okay, and the REM stages are the stages where you usually have most of your dreams Specifically the the one or two stages before you wake up in the early morning This is where lucid dreams and OBs are much more likely. Okay, so To answer your question alcohol and marijuana are what's known as REM suppressants Okay, so they will suppress and reduce the REM periods of your sleep Meaning that you'll either have no dreams or much less dreams and you're much less likely to become lucid in them Okay, but this is not all bad news because if you want to continue Taking alcohol and marijuana. I'm not gonna judge, you know, that's not my place to say but It helps to be better informed as to how they work and how they affect your sleep so that you can sort of structure your Your plan if you would like to pursue lucid dreaming to include alcohol and marijuana. So I'm gonna start with Cannabis marijuana. Okay. Now marijuana is a REM suppressant however and This goes for alcohol as well when you Stop taking the substance you get what's known as REM rebound And this is where your body makes up for the lost REM sleep in your in your night When you've stopped taking a substance and every substance will affect every person differently As to sort of how long you need to wait, but generally speaking with a cannabis marijuana waiting one or two days So go one or two days without taking any And you will get a crazy sort of REM rebound where you'll have very vivid potentially lucid dreams that are going to be much longer and more vivid than Before and you'll likely remember them as well So it may be an idea to limit your smoking to maybe three or four days a week And then have a gap and then sort of have crazy lucid dreams at the weekend and Then continue like this instead of smoking it all the time because if you smoke it all the time You're likely never gonna have a decent lucid dreaming life because it's just gonna constantly suppress your REM sleep So moving on to alcohol. It's more or less the same however with alcohol the half-life is slightly different and it sort of Eliminates itself from your body a bit faster, which means that you can get to that REM rebound stage a lot faster as well So say for example, if you go out for a night of heavy drinking When you get back in to bed Let's assume that you don't go clubbing and you just go you go home at about 12 or one one in the morning Okay, when you get home have a lot of water so that you don't get a huge hangover in the morning And then don't set an alarm as such because you'll find that after about Maybe eight to ten hours The alcohol should be leaving your system and your experience REM rebound so I've had nights when I've gone out drinking and Come back and had crazy lucid dreams in the morning But if you go too far if you drink too much then it will destroy your whole nights REM sleep And you'll maybe get the REM rebound the next night So it's slightly easier to have lucid dreams just taking alcohol But of course if you're taking marijuana as well, there's also Effects that happen between the alcohol and marijuana. I'm not going to go into that because that's another topic That's not really the question you asked, but hopefully this is allowed you to structure your sort of pattern if you will and Allow you to decide what you're going to do with lucid dreaming if you want to pursue it Then I would suggest you take the advice I've given you and sort of be aware of this REM rebound stage that can happen With marijuana the REM rebound Think I forgot to mention is 24 to 72 hours. So yeah about one or two days And then you'll experience a REM rebound. So I hope this has helped if you have any questions Please do send them into the channel and once again if you would like to support me if you enjoy these videos Please go to my patreon link, which I'll put in the description. It's patreon.com forward slash how to lucid patreon is spelled P A T R E O N It's a put it's a way in which you can support me maybe donate one or two dollars or pounds a month Whatever you can afford at the smallest amount really does still make a difference if Enough of you to do it. So I would really appreciate that if you do enjoy these videos and yeah, I'll see you in the next video