LUCID dreams?

[theroost]

First post. Glad to be here! Anyway, I smoked two packs a day of marb lights for ten years and was feeling the effects hard. I started vaping one day after research here and instantly quit smoking. its only been about a week and I feel SO much better already. I don't wheeze anymore ether!

Anyway, after the first full day of vaping I have been having crazy intense dreams. They haven't been pleasant either. I barley ever dreamed when I was smoking. However, I haven't slept so good, or felt so rested for YEARS! Every night since I started vaping (a week) I have been having these lucid dreams, that i can remember perfectly when waking up.

For example, tonight I had this dream where i was riding in a car with my girl friend. She started spacing out with a blank stare in her eyes as she was started driving faster. I kept asking her what was wrong, but all she said was "im sorry". I looked straight ahead at the road but there was no road. Just a giant cement wall 15 feet ahead. We smashed straight into it and all that could be heard was shattering glass before starting the same exact dream over and over until I woke up.

I almost NEVER had "bad" dreams like this until I started vaping. Is this common with vaping? Will it go away? I ask because I want to have my girlfriend stop smoking and start vaping instead but if she was to start having this lucid dreams it would be a deal breaker on that. Due to child abuse when she was young just about every dream she has right now is a bad nightmare that results in her waking up screaming. Luckily it only happens once in a while.

So is there a way to stop this or make it go away ect? Right now I am vaping what i assume to be cheap Chinese juice called "puff". Its all the store had until the online order comes in. 18mg strength. Could it be from this cheap sheet? Thanks!

vaping has saved my life.

 

[Nuggit]

Get good usa juice. Then start making your own. Use ........ IF IT'S LEGAL IN YOUR STATE.I don't recommend anyone break the law. Big pharma sucks that's all.

 

[Newportlocal]

Try lowering your nicotine down to 12mg.

 

[Warpigs]

Welcome to ECF!

 

[Rickajho]

Hi

You have two different things going on here at once: Quitting smoking and starting vaping. Some times it takes sorting out to figure out which one is causing what. For what you are going through? No easy explanation:

Quitting smoking means putting your brain and body through withdrawal from all that "stuff" that comes along with smoking. This isn't just about replacing nicotine with nicotine. It's not a simple process and one of the things people can go through when quitting are sleep disturbance problems. That can impact your REM states and some people get insomnia out of it, so vivid dreams wouldn't be a surprise either. If it's quit smoking related you just have to ride it out and it will pass with time.

The other possibility is too high a nic level from vaping can produce similar problems. You could try lowering your nic level, or at least specifically during evening hours before bed time and see if that makes any difference.

None of this is a long term thing. I had pretty bad quit smoking withdrawal and my sleep pattern was messed up for two months when I quit smoking. (Significant insomnia in my case.) It wasn't about getting too much nicotine for me.

 

[Noble Gas]

When you say 'lucid' dreams, do you mean that you are conscious and aware that you are dreaming while the dream is happening? Or do you mean that the dreams are exceptionally vivid? In a truly lucid dream you are conscious of being asleep and having a dream - your awareness will be divided between feeling your face on the pillow and being completely immersed in the dream; and with a little practice you can take complete control of the imagery. There have been many books on the subject of lucid dreaming, most notably those of Stephen LaBerge, the Stanford sleep researcher.
At any rate, the cause of your intense dreams is likely to be the cessation of smoking. When you change a long-standing habit, the brain can react in profound ways, and a change in the intensity and content of your dreams is a common one. Recovering drug addicts, for example, often have intense dreams of using drugs and wake up feeling ashamed and wracked with guilt over breaking their promise to stay clean. This is an extreme example. A milder example would be, supposing you are normally right-handed, using your left hand to write with for an entire week. Or even taking a diferent route home from work suddenly after going the same way for many years. Our brains really like routine, and breaking routines can cause all sorts of psychological tumult while the brain is sorting things out, because the brain's response to this stimuli is to form new pathways for the neurons to travel. This is the basis for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy - helping the brain to grow new neural pathways and subsequently change behavior and reactions. Interestingly, many traditions of religion and mysticism rely on this very thing - the breaking of routines to highten awareness or creativity.
You can sometimes change the content of your dreams by repeating a simple directorial phrase to yourself as you go to sleep. Like, 'When I dream, I will dream of [pleasant things]' The [pleasant things] can be any specific or non-specific topic of your interest. If it's a place, your favorite park for instance, picture that park in your mind while you repeat to yourself 'When I dream, I will dream of the park'. Try to imbue this phrase and the image in your mind with feelings of happiness and joy. It will feel a little ridiculous at first, because the brain will naturally try to resist. But after a few nights of this it will be more accepted and become less strange and awkward. This is a kind of simple self-hypnosis, basically a cue to your subconscious, like planting a seed.
I'm not sure that changing to a better juice will alter your dreams at all, but it certainly couldn't hurt. Cheap e-juice is cheap for a reason. Lower standards of quality control and shortcuts in ingredients are the main ones, and those things can make a big difference in the vape. Check out online vendors for lower prices than you'll find in stores.

Good luck!
If you want to get into some considerably wilder territory, try telling yourself 'When I start to dream, I will look at my hands'. Finding and looking at your hands in your dreams can produce a conscious state, and give you complete control over what you see and experience in your dream. Also, it will feel as real as your waking life, and you will have an enormous amount of control over the content.

 

[doctadrea]

Hey there,
Just wanted to throw my 2 cents in there. I always get lucid dreams (I'm aware and conscious of the fact that I'm dreaming and can control and change things) when I quit smoking, so yea... it happens to some people. If you remember that you're in control, it can be super fun. I like to fly around, maybe dive deep into the ocean, etc. Good luck.

 

[gandymarsh]

This is a quote from Nicotine patch: Indications, Side Effects, Warnings - Drugs.com

If you begin to have vivid dreams or other sleeping problems, remove the patch at bedtime (after wearing it for about 16 hours). Put on a new patch when you wake up the next day.

I remember reading this when I tried using the patch to quit smoking many years ago.

 

[Bunnykiller]

the dreams you are having is part of quitting the ciggies, not the vaping. I have tried to quit the ciggies several times ( gum, patches, inhalers etc) and each time I tried, I would have some of the wackiest dreams.

 

[Maestro]

You always dream. You just don't remember them unless you wake up during them. So all the dreaming just means you're not sleeping well and you're waking up often. A change in sleep patterns is normal when you quit smoking.

 

[Scy123]

I don't have lucid dreams from vaping, but when I started taking some new medication, I had crazy lucid dreams, so I know how you feel. It was soooo good, too bad it went away.

 

[mkbilbo]

First post. Glad to be here! Anyway, I smoked two packs a day of marb lights for ten years and was feeling the effects hard. I started vaping one day after research here and instantly quit smoking. its only been about a week and I feel SO much better already. I don't wheeze anymore ether!

Anyway, after the first full day of vaping I have been having crazy intense dreams. They haven't been pleasant either. I barley ever dreamed when I was smoking. However, I haven't slept so good, or felt so rested for YEARS! Every night since I started vaping (a week) I have been having these lucid dreams, that i can remember perfectly when waking up.

For example, tonight I had this dream where i was riding in a car with my girl friend. She started spacing out with a blank stare in her eyes as she was started driving faster. I kept asking her what was wrong, but all she said was "im sorry". I looked straight ahead at the road but there was no road. Just a giant cement wall 15 feet ahead. We smashed straight into it and all that could be heard was shattering glass before starting the same exact dream over and over until I woke up.

I almost NEVER had "bad" dreams like this until I started vaping. Is this common with vaping? Will it go away? I ask because I want to have my girlfriend stop smoking and start vaping instead but if she was to start having this lucid dreams it would be a deal breaker on that. Due to child abuse when she was young just about every dream she has right now is a bad nightmare that results in her waking up screaming. Luckily it only happens once in a while.

So is there a way to stop this or make it go away ect? Right now I am vaping what i assume to be cheap Chinese juice called "puff". Its all the store had until the online order comes in. 18mg strength. Could it be from this cheap sheet? Thanks!

vaping has saved my life.

It's probably transient and will pass. I had exactly the same thing a few weeks in. And when I commented here about it, had tons of "me too!" replies.

There are just THOUSANDS of other chemicals in modern tobacco products and vaping only shares one: nicotine. It's probably a kind of withdrawal from some other chemical you're no longer getting.

I was lucky, I didn't remember the dreams. I only knew they were so awful, I sometimes got up REAL early so they'd stop. I didn't want to fall back asleep.

You're not alone. Lot of people have this one. No idea why. Seems temporary though. I'd say grit your teeth and give it some time.

(At least nightmares can't give you lung cancer, smoking can. So... could be worse I guess?)

 

[jshorty1219]

I've always had vivid dreams, but they got even weirder when I was using the patch. Try lowering your nicotine level, as the continuous nicotine (if you're chain vaping), rather than with smoking where you get your nicotine in spurts, is likely the culprit. (I'm a nurse). They say when using patches to remove them at night if you have vivid, strange dreams, so you could also try not vaping for an hour or so before bed. Hope it gets better!

 

[Double Helix]

... so you could also try not vaping for an hour or so before bed. Hope it gets better!

This is the advice I'd go with. Either stop vaping all together a couple hours prior to sleep or lower your dosage about 50%. I also had sleep issues when I first began vaping.

 

[Noble Gas]

I love it when I spend like twenty minutes on a reply and have like ten paragraphs and then I hit 'post' and see that, while I was busy writing and editing, three other people wrote and posted perfect, two-sentence replies that said everything I said only better. Man, I gotta work on my brevity.

 

[DingerCPA]

I love it when I spend like twenty minutes on a reply and have like ten paragraphs and then I hit 'post' and see that, while I was busy writing and editing, three other people wrote and posted perfect, two-sentence replies that said everything I said only better. Man, I gotta work on my brevity.

{giggle} I've been there too, Noble....

I was curious about this thread, and amazed at the responses - I don't recall the "creepy" dreams when I first quit smoking, so I guess I'm one of the lucky ones. However, this is all good information, as I'm trying to help some other folks quit smoking. If they comment, I'll at least have some ammunition with which I can help them....

 

[jdeedler]

I had a bad dream the first week after I switched straight from smoking to vaping. I started out with the higher 24 mg nicotine which is probably why. It only happened the one time, but is was a heck of nightmare....to say the least.

 

[Rickajho]

{giggle} I've been there too, Noble....

I was curious about this thread, and amazed at the responses - I don't recall the "creepy" dreams when I first quit smoking, so I guess I'm one of the lucky ones. However, this is all good information, as I'm trying to help some other folks quit smoking. If they comment, I'll at least have some ammunition with which I can help them....

Here, you can stick this in your ammo magazine. May be some things in there that will help too. => http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/fo...hen-quitting-tobacco-changing-ecigarette.html

We go through this a lot here. It's scary some times the things people jump to attributing to vaping. Sadly, for a few people the act of quitting smoking has serious medical consequences.

 

[DingerCPA]

Thanks Rickajho

Sent from.... ooh look! Something shiny!!!

 

[AndriaD]

Hi

You have two different things going on here at once: Quitting smoking and starting vaping. Some times it takes sorting out to figure out which one is causing what. For what you are going through? No easy explanation:

Quitting smoking means putting your brain and body through withdrawal from all that "stuff" that comes along with smoking. This isn't just about replacing nicotine with nicotine. It's not a simple process and one of the things people can go through when quitting are sleep disturbance problems. That can impact your REM states and some people get insomnia out of it, so vivid dreams wouldn't be a surprise either. If it's quit smoking related you just have to ride it out and it will pass with time.

The other possibility is too high a nic level from vaping can produce similar problems. You could try lowering your nic level, or at least specifically during evening hours before bed time and see if that makes any difference.

None of this is a long term thing. I had pretty bad quit smoking withdrawal and my sleep pattern was messed up for two months when I quit smoking. (Significant insomnia in my case.) It wasn't about getting too much nicotine for me.

This is one of, if not THE best, explanations I've read of what is happening; that it really is 2 different things happening, stopping smoking and starting vaping. When I first was just sharply decreasing my cigarette intake when I first started vaping, hadn't even fully quit yet, I got the insomnia, but I've always tended to that state anyway, so no huge change, it just got worse. And I had this enormous forum to educate, inform, and entertain me in the wee hours, so that was a definite plus.

But, after the cigarettes were finally gone, I think I started sleeping more deeply -- I would wake in the exact same position in which I fell asleep, and at first, almost no dreams at all, which is a bit odd for me, and reinforces that I was sleeping more deeply and not waking after REM cycles as I normally would.

I also have to correlate all this with my asthma, which I believe is one reason I've been a very light sleeper for more than 30 years; asthma doesn't let you sleep too deeply, because the central nervous system is always awake and doesn't let your brain go too deeply into sleep, and wakes you immediately if there is any shortness of breath -- during a real asthma attack, sleep is utterly impossible because the CNS is at "full alert," no sleeping allowed. I think removing the smoke from my lungs started helping my asthma right from the very start, so less vigilance was necessary from the CNS.

Now, on my 2nd go-round, I'm still getting rid of what remains of that month of smoking after my illness, and my sleep is back to "normal" -- I wake about every 90 mins (about the length, roughly, of a REM cycle), coughing and hacking, I remember dreams, and having those aggravating "smoking" dreams, which I didn't experience the first time I quit, I think because it seemed to almost happen accidentally, whereas this 2nd time it was more of an act of will.

Depending on how long you smoked, it's a huge change for the body, so it's not surprising that there are so many different kinds of symptoms; adding the vaping, which is giving you not just nicotine but also at least 2 other chemicals to which your body is not accustomed, at those kinds of high levels. It took me several months of pain and aggravation to be able understand that my body had gotten seriously dehydrated, because of the vaping, and that this had led to severe electrolyte imbalance; then I had to figure out how to fix it! It's a journey, and a metamorphosis, and definitely an opportunity to learn a great many new things.

Andria