The Austin Chronic: Your Dreams Die With Marijuana

What is my smartwatch telling me about getting high before bed? (image by Kevin Curtin / Getty Images)

My girlfriend bought me an Apple Watch. I thought the gift represented something so sweet: that she didn’t want me to die. Because now if I get struck by lightning while joyriding my bicycle in a rainstorm, my smartwatch will summon an ambulance. Turns out, it was actually a ploy to bring order to my comically disorganized life.

The last time I had a wearable tech device strapped on me it told my probation officer if I left the house at night. Turns out, I really enjoy wearing this watch and I think it enjoys wearing me as well. I use it as an instrument tuner and a metronome and the faces cycle through portraits of writers and musicians that inspire me. There are just two things I dislike:

– It’s constantly alerting me when the surrounding volume is over 100dB, like “No shit, you think I don’t know I’m at band practice?”

– It turns me into one of the modern world’s most insufferable archetypes: “guy who just got a smartwatch.” It’s tragic. You’re getting all this fascinating data from the activity trackers, but you can’t tell a soul, because – believe me – no one at a party gives a shit that you’ve taken 12,000 steps today.

Perhaps the only revolutionary impact it’s had on my life is taking account of my sleep – or lack thereof. I’ve long had a complicated relationship with the Sandman. Early in my life, my active mind wrestled with insomnia. Later, the aftershocks of trauma made me wake up hyperventilating. Eventually I settled into a minimalist sleep routine, five to six hours, often aided by a cannabis nightcap.

I’d been scared of what the babysitter on my wrist would tell me, but my sleep ratings have been surprisingly positive. It appears as though I fall asleep almost instantly, rarely wake up, and have “quality” sleep almost the entire time.

So I was boring the ears off my bandmates the other night, theorizing how edibles, tinctures, and late-night bong rips have made me an efficient sleeper, when the drummer burst my bubble with an observation: “but weed makes you stop dreaming because it reduces REM sleep.”

Damn, he’s right. I almost never dream. And I recall when I used to do observational studies testing pharmaceuticals, I’d frequently report the side effect of vivid dreams. Later, I realized I was only dreaming because I couldn’t smoke weed.

I checked my ratings on the sleep app, referenced them against healthy sleep stats, and confirmed my REM times were shorter than average. It kind of shook me. The ancient Greek thinkers saw dreams as big stuff: divine messages, dirty tricks, and valuable missives from hidden aspects of your psyche. I began to wonder if I’m an incomplete human because marijuana has deleted my dream world. An even more alarming thought: Could smoking down my REM cycles be hurting my cognition? I couldn’t dial the number of a sleep specialist quickly enough.

I explained my concerns to Dr. Zachary Wassmuth, an otolaryngologist who’s published research on obstructive sleep apnea, and he was reassuring.

“For the most part, as long as you don’t have sleep apnea, sleep is sleep,” he informed me. “And if you’re getting good sleep without obstructions and desaturations, the REM sleep and the deep Stage 3 sleep is similar – you can’t really control it anyway.”

Dr. Wassmuth allowed that having an imperfect REM-to-deep sleep ratio probably makes minor differences in how you feel during the day and says that one of the only ways to try to get that balance is adjusting your medication ... including cannabis. Still, he points out, cannabis use is not a common causation of sleep problems among his patients.

“Sleep apnea is the big problem,” he says, noting it elevates risk of heart attack and stroke. “If I see 100 patients, 98 have sleep apnea and 2% have something else.”

That was comforting to me, but I still decided to cut out cannabis for a few days to chart its impact on my sleep. Indeed, after three days, my REM sleep time had increased, but something less expected also happened: I had a dream.

An incredibly stupid dream.

“How did you grow those sideburns so fast?” a dream version of my girlfriend asked me. I looked in a mirror, startled to see whiskers à la John Lennon in ’69. Repeatedly, I went to the bathroom and shaved, only for the sideburns to rapidly grow back before my eyes into different styles – Lemmy Kilmister, Wolverine, Wilhelm the King of Prussia. I woke up sweating, touching my face in the dark.

Getting out of bed, I sat on the porch and smoked a bowl, my allure of the dream world dissipating, and thinking: If marijuana kills my dreams, it’s no big loss.

Puff, Puff, Pass

Barbecue pits aren’t the only thing smoking in Lockhart, where a cannabis decriminalization bill will be voted on in November. Progressive advocates Ground Game Texas and Mano Amiga led a push to get enough signatures to put the Lockhart Freedom Act on the ballot, then cried foul when City Attorney Brad Bullock dissected it into 13 different ballot measures. On Aug. 6, Lockhart City Council voted in favor of restoring it as one ballot item. Bastrop also has a decriminalization bill up for vote, while Austin, Elgin, Denton, and Killeen have already passed them.

Olympians were once again barred from using cannabis at the 2024 games. Top U.S. anti-doping official Travis Tygart blasted the policy in a Yahoo Sports interview, stating hilariously, “I think we should all just be open and upfront about marijuana’s lack of performance-enhancing benefits.” I guess he’s never watched that equestrian dressage event where you ride a horse that’s doing step-dancing. In seriousness, Olympic athletes deserve access to cannabis for muscle rest and stress reduction – and the World Anti-Doping Agency now has four years before the Olympics hit the stoner metropolis of L.A. with Snoop Dogg carrying the torch.

Tim Walz, the Democratic VP pick, has a strong and well-rounded legislative record on cannabis reform, including sponsoring the Industrial Hemp Farming Act and the VA Medicinal Cannabis Research Act as a congressman and signing a legalization bill last year as Minnesota’s governor. Harris and Walz are the first party-leading ticket to support cannabis legalization.