Sleep aids

Does taking a sleep aid disturb your dreaming? I find doing almost anything out of the ordinary before I sleep will cause me to not be able to remember my dreams in the morning, and almost certainly prevent any LD. Even if I have two beers that will effect my sleep. I cannot get to sleep before midnight, and I want to get at least two more hours… But I dont want taking a sleep aid to ruin my dreaming, that would defeat the purpose.

hmm… I dunno. the only suggestion i have is illegal and varies in the effects it has on dreaming. But for me, occasionaly I will smoke marijuana and it will get me so relaxed that i will become sleepy and it makes it easier for me to fall asleep. And it never effects my dreaming.

i occasionally take valerian extract tablets. i find it makes me sleep much deeper and have longer, more involved dreams, but the lack of vividness and recall when i wake up seems to be much higher than when i don’t use it.

nic, i also smoke marijuana before sleep and in the morning if i want to get back to sleep just have a small smoke and can get back to sleep :smile:

and it doesnt affect dreams or dream recall…

but it is illegal and might not sit well with everyone here, so i dont know :smile:

smoking pot ruined my dream recall. I gave it up for good over a month ago (i had a daily habit) but I always felt as long as i was smoking all the time i could never concentrate on mind exploration, which should be more important to me. so now i meditate and read lots of books. i feel a lot better about everything. im not saying you should too, i just felt it necessary in my life. i find the only way for me to have lucid dreams is naturally w/o any sort of drugs or alcohol. thats why i want to know if sleep aids will screw me up.

Pot ruins my dream recall but i dont smoke it hoping to have better dreams, i just smoke it to get HIGH. As for the sleeping pills… i took a gram of diphenhydramine and had no memory of the dreams and very little memory of reality. It felt like reality was the dream and the dream was nothingness, but that is only because i chose to take 20 pills.

so this is the bottom line
____________________ <---------- the awesome bottom line

You took twenty pills? That can’t be healthy. I’m not surprised that marijuana helped in dreaming, but it wouldn’t be good for dream recall as your short term memory is poor while under the effects. I’v found, for myself anyways, that shrooms are good for dreaming. They don’t affect dream recall, but they do make your dreams much more vivid, colorful, and interesting. Though I wouldn’t suggest shrooms to anybody unless you research it first.

[Sounds a bit arrogant and ignorant of me saying “That can’t be healthy” and then promoting shroom usage, I know, but they really are quite physically harmless, though they can have serious mental side effects in persons already suffering, even unkowingly, from a mental condition. I recommend: erowid.org/plants/mushrooms/mushrooms.shtml]

yeah im a daily smoker and have been for quite a long time and it doesnt affect my dream recall as long as i actually try to remember it when i wake up… which is what it always is… doesnt affect me personally like that…

i just use it to get back to sleep in the morning because i have a problem after i first wake up.

it doesnt affect my dreams at all either…

shrooms DID :happy:

Lol. How so? Couldn’t remember them at all or just wierd dreams?

just very very vivid and they were of a place very very near the mushroom field we went picking in, and i woke up feeeling very different (From the experience of the night before mostly) but the dreams were VERY VERY vivid…

dream recall as usual…

dont take any sleeping pills, or pills that help u to relax, or pills that makes ur nerves calm down. believe me, i took some beofre my exams coz i couldn’t sleep for a week. and it isn’t healthy when ur tired before exams. the brain has to recover, to remeber all the stuff that uve lernt. the effect was that i didn’t remeber what i d learnt bofore taking pills, i didn’t remeber any dreams. what is worse i had the black hole memory effect the next day- the day of my exam, so i didn’t know what to write, i didn’t know why should i take that exam. terrible. just forgotten everything. sleeping pills cause ur brain to switch off, so u dont dream. its sth like beyond the dream, like a black hole. i dont recommend taking sleeping pills…really… i had only problems. NEVER EVER…

You can get melatonin(if its sold over the counter where u live)- it does not ruin REM like most of other poills do in long run.Apart from it its just healthy,melaton is called also youth pill cuz it helps with memory and all stuff you get from healthy sleep.
take care:)
Ps.It also helps dreams to be more vivid(or works good for recall,same thing might be).

In which countries melatonin is forbidden ? Why is it forbidden?? Are there any side effects ???

Dont know about all but i.e Usa or Norway have restrictions on it.It is forbidden due to general "forbidding"policy of such countries:).propably it will change in time but till then one can still see a doc and tell he has sleeping problems.

Some sleeping tablets, such as barbiturates suppress REM sleep.

I just took two Tylonol PM last night which has benadryl (sp?) and only remebered two dreams and those hardly at all, one about some guy getting angry at me because I was playing a guitar riff I made up wrong and another about finding something in some steps made out of mud

Something that helps your dream is the good old fashioned Milk + Honey drink. I havent read all the thread, and I dont know if its mentioned. But basically, pour a glass of milk, add honey, warm. Drink