Weed and Depersonalization: When Reality Feels Unreal

If you are reading this because the world suddenly feels fake, because you looked at your own hands and they did not feel like yours, because you feel like you are trapped behind glass watching your life happen to someone else, you need to hear this first: you are okay. What you are experiencing has a name, a biological explanation, and an endpoint. It is called depersonalization/derealization, and while it is one of the most frightening things a person can go through, it is not dangerous and it does not mean something is permanently wrong with your brain.

This article is going to walk you through exactly what is happening, why cannabis triggers it, and what you can do to get through it.

What Depersonalization Feels Like

Depersonalization is the sensation of being detached from yourself. Not in a philosophical way. In a visceral, alarming way that makes you question whether you are real.

You might look at your hands and feel like they belong to someone else. You might catch your reflection and not recognize it, or feel a strange disconnect between the face in the mirror and the person experiencing it. Your own voice might sound distant, like you are hearing it through a wall. You might feel like you are watching yourself from the outside, as if your body is on autopilot and "you" are somewhere behind it, observing.

Some people describe it as feeling like a robot. Others say it feels like their memories happened to a different person. The common thread is a loss of the feeling of ownership over your own experience. You know intellectually that you are you. But the felt sense of being you is gone, and that gap between knowing and feeling is what makes it so disturbing.

What Derealization Feels Like

Derealization is the companion experience. Where depersonalization is about feeling detached from yourself, derealization is about feeling detached from the world around you.

The world might look flat, two-dimensional, like a movie set or a video game. Colors might seem muted or oversaturated. Familiar places might look strange, as if you are seeing your own living room for the first time. People around you might seem like actors, or like they are not quite real. You might feel like there is a pane of glass between you and everything else, like you can see the world but cannot quite reach it.

Some people describe it as a dreamlike state they cannot wake up from. Others say it feels like the volume has been turned down on reality. Everything is slightly muffled, slightly off, slightly wrong in a way that is hard to articulate but impossible to ignore.

Depersonalization and derealization often occur together, which is why clinicians refer to them collectively as DPDR. You can experience one without the other, but they share the same underlying mechanisms and the same recovery path.

Why Cannabis Triggers DPDR

Cannabis is one of the most commonly reported triggers for depersonalization and derealization. This is not a coincidence. It is a direct consequence of where and how THC acts in your brain.

THC binds to CB1 receptors, which are densely concentrated in the temporal lobe and the parietal lobe. These are not random brain regions. The temporal lobe is involved in memory processing, emotional regulation, and your sense of self-continuity, the feeling that you are the same person who existed five minutes ago. The parietal lobe handles sensory integration and spatial awareness, the process of stitching together input from your senses into a coherent experience of reality.

When THC floods these receptors, it can disrupt the normal integration process. Your brain is still receiving sensory input, but the part that labels it as "mine" and "real" is being chemically interfered with. This is why people sometimes feel "spacey" or detached while high. In most cases, the effect is mild and passes when the high fades. But for some people, particularly during intense experiences or high-THC products, the disruption is significant enough to trigger a full DPDR episode.

Daphne Simeon, one of the leading researchers on depersonalization disorder, identified in her 2004 work published in CNS Drugs (a peer-reviewed journal covering central nervous system pharmacology) that substances affecting cannabinoid and serotonergic pathways can trigger or worsen depersonalization states. Cannabis directly activates the cannabinoid system, making it a particularly potent trigger.

DPDR From a Specific Cannabis Experience

Many people can trace their DPDR to a single event: a panic attack while high, an edible that hit too hard, or a session with a high-THC strain that pushed them into a terrifying psychological space.

Here is what happened neurologically. During that experience, your brain's anxiety system went into overdrive. Your amygdala fired a massive threat signal, and in response, your brain did something protective. It dissociated. It pulled back from the experience in order to limit the psychological impact of what felt like a life-threatening event. Dissociation is not a malfunction. It is a defense mechanism, one of the brain's oldest strategies for coping with overwhelming input.

The problem is that sometimes the defense mechanism persists after the threat is gone. Your brain flipped a switch during that experience, and the switch has not flipped back yet. You are no longer in danger, but the dissociative buffer is still active. This is why DPDR can continue for days, weeks, or even months after the triggering event. Your brain is stuck in protective mode.

This is especially common when the triggering experience created a fear of DPDR itself. You became afraid of the feeling, which generated anxiety, which reinforced the dissociation, which generated more fear. Understanding this loop is the first step toward breaking it.

DPDR During Cannabis Withdrawal

DPDR does not only come from a bad experience while high. It is also a recognized withdrawal symptom that can appear when you stop using cannabis after regular use.

During cannabis withdrawal, your brain is recalibrating every system that THC was affecting. This includes the temporal and parietal lobe circuits responsible for self-perception and reality processing. When you remove the THC that was binding to CB1 receptors in these regions, there is a transitional period where these systems are not functioning at baseline yet.

Your brain has been processing reality through a THC-altered filter for months or years. When that filter is suddenly removed, the raw signal can feel wrong, not because reality has changed, but because your brain's processing of reality is temporarily uncalibrated. It is like removing a pair of tinted glasses you have been wearing so long you forgot they were there. The world looks different, and the difference feels alarming.

DPDR during withdrawal also ties directly into the broader anxiety response that characterizes cannabis withdrawal. Your nervous system is in an excitatory state from the GABA/glutamate imbalance, your cortisol is elevated, and your amygdala is running at full sensitivity. All of these conditions prime your brain for dissociative responses.

The Anxiety-DPDR Feedback Loop

This is the mechanism that keeps DPDR going, and understanding it is critical to recovery.

DPDR is fundamentally an anxiety-spectrum phenomenon. Mauricio Sierra and German Berrios, whose research on DPDR neuroscience published in Neuropsychiatry (a journal focused on the intersection of neurology and psychiatry) has been foundational, proposed that depersonalization is the brain's response to anxiety reaching a threshold where it becomes overwhelming. The brain essentially dampens emotional processing to protect itself, but the side effect is that everything, including your sense of self and reality, feels flat, distant, and unreal.

Here is where the loop forms. DPDR creates its own anxiety. The feeling of unreality is terrifying, so your brain generates more anxiety in response to it. That anxiety pushes the dissociative response further. Which creates more unreality. Which creates more anxiety. Each feeds the other, and without intervention, the loop can sustain itself indefinitely.

This is why DPDR often persists long after the initial trigger. The trigger might have been a single panic attack while high, or the first few days of withdrawal. But the feedback loop between anxiety and dissociation becomes self-sustaining. Breaking that loop, rather than waiting for it to burn out on its own, is the most effective path to recovery.

Timeline: How Long Does DPDR Last

For withdrawal-related DPDR, the timeline generally follows the broader withdrawal timeline.

Days 1 to 7: DPDR may appear alongside other withdrawal symptoms. It can be intermittent at first, coming and going throughout the day. You might have stretches of normalcy followed by sudden waves of unreality.

Days 7 to 14: If DPDR is going to peak, this is usually when. The combination of peak anxiety, disrupted sleep, and neurological recalibration creates ideal conditions for dissociative symptoms. This is also when many people start catastrophizing about DPDR, which feeds the loop.

Weeks 2 to 4: Gradual improvement for most people. The episodes become shorter, less intense, and less frequent. You start having longer stretches where reality feels solid again. The overall recovery process includes the normalization of these perceptual symptoms.

Beyond week 4: For the majority of people with withdrawal-related DPDR, the symptom has resolved or reduced to a mild, manageable level.

For DPDR triggered by a specific cannabis experience (rather than withdrawal), the timeline can be more variable. Some people recover within days. Others experience symptoms for weeks or months, particularly if they are caught in the anxiety-DPDR feedback loop. The good news is that the prognosis is the same: DPDR resolves. The brain does not stay in this state permanently.

What DPDR Is Not

This section matters because the fear of what DPDR might mean is often worse than the symptom itself.

DPDR is not psychosis. In psychosis, a person loses the ability to distinguish between what is real and what is not. With DPDR, your reality testing is intact. You know the world is real. You know you are you. It just does not feel that way. That distinction is enormous. The fact that DPDR distresses you is actually evidence that your mind is working correctly. You recognize that the feeling is wrong, which means your higher cognitive functions are fully intact.

DPDR is not brain damage. THC does not destroy the brain regions responsible for self-perception and reality processing. It temporarily disrupts their function. When the THC clears and your receptors recalibrate, these systems return to normal. Your brain is not broken. It is buffering.

DPDR is not permanent. Even in cases where depersonalization persists for months, it resolves. The brain does not maintain dissociative states indefinitely. It requires energy to sustain them, and without the ongoing trigger (THC, or the anxiety loop), the system returns to baseline.

Coping Strategies That Work

These techniques directly target the mechanisms driving DPDR. They are not about distraction. They are about interrupting the dissociative loop at its source.

The 5-4-3-2-1 Grounding Technique

Name 5 things you can see. 4 things you can physically touch (and touch them). 3 things you can hear. 2 things you can smell. 1 thing you can taste.

This technique works for DPDR specifically because dissociation pulls your brain away from sensory processing. By deliberately engaging every sensory channel, you force your brain to reconnect with its environment. You are overriding the dissociative buffer with direct sensory input. Do this every time a wave of unreality hits. The more you practice, the faster it works.

Cold Water and Temperature Change

Hold ice cubes in your hands. Splash cold water on your face. Step outside into cold air. Take a cold shower if you can manage it.

Cold activates the dive reflex, a mammalian survival response that immediately shifts your nervous system from sympathetic (fight or flight) to parasympathetic (rest and recover). It also provides intense sensory input that is difficult for your brain to dissociate from. Cold is real, immediate, and impossible to ignore. That is exactly what you need when reality feels distant.

Physical Movement

Walk. Run. Do pushups. Jump up and down. Anything that creates strong physical sensation and proprioceptive input (your body's sense of where it is in space).

Dissociation often involves a disconnection from your physical body. Movement forces your brain to process body-related signals, which counters the depersonalization component directly. Exercise also reduces the anxiety that drives the DPDR loop, addresses the dopamine deficit common during withdrawal, and produces endorphins that stabilize mood.

Reduce Screen Time

Screens are a DPDR amplifier. The flat, two-dimensional nature of screens reinforces the "everything looks flat and unreal" quality of derealization. The passive consumption of content allows your brain to drift further into dissociation. And the blue light disrupts sleep, which worsens both anxiety and DPDR.

During the acute phase, limit screen time aggressively. Prioritize real-world, three-dimensional, multisensory experiences. Go outside. Cook something. Talk to someone face to face. Your brain needs real sensory input to recalibrate its reality-processing systems.

Manage the Anxiety Underneath

Since DPDR is driven by anxiety, anything that reduces anxiety will reduce DPDR. Breathing exercises (4-7-8 breathing, box breathing) directly activate the vagus nerve and shift your nervous system toward calm. Regular sleep helps, since sleep deprivation worsens both anxiety and dissociation. Caffeine reduction removes an unnecessary excitatory input from an already overstimulated system.

The anxiety article covers these strategies in detail, and they apply directly to DPDR because the underlying mechanism is the same.

Stop Checking

This one is counterintuitive but critical. Many people with DPDR develop a habit of constantly monitoring their perception. "Do I feel real right now? Is the world still looking weird? Am I still dissociated?" Every time you check, you are reinforcing the loop. You are directing attention toward the symptom, which amplifies it.

Try to let the feeling be there without interrogating it. It is uncomfortable, but it is not dangerous. The less attention you give it, the less fuel the loop has. This is not about ignoring it. It is about refusing to give it the anxious attention it feeds on.

When to Seek Professional Help

DPDR from cannabis withdrawal resolves on its own for most people. But there are situations where professional support is appropriate.

Seek help if DPDR persists at full intensity beyond 4 to 6 weeks with no improvement. Seek help if it is interfering with your ability to work, maintain relationships, or complete basic daily tasks. Seek help if the anxiety surrounding DPDR is producing suicidal thoughts or a feeling that you cannot continue living in this state.

A therapist experienced in dissociative symptoms can help you break the anxiety-DPDR feedback loop much faster than you could on your own. Cognitive behavioral therapy has the strongest evidence base for DPDR treatment. Some psychiatrists may also consider short-term medication to reduce the anxiety that is driving the dissociation.

Other withdrawal symptoms may be compounding the experience, and a healthcare provider can help you address the full picture rather than one symptom in isolation.

SAMHSA's National Helpline is available at 1-800-662-4357. It is free, confidential, and available 24 hours a day. If you are in crisis, you can also text "HELLO" to 741741 to reach the Crisis Text Line.

You Are Still Here

The most frightening thing about DPDR is the feeling that you have lost yourself. That the version of you who felt real and present has disappeared and might not come back.

That version of you has not gone anywhere. Your brain is running a temporary protective program that mutes the felt sense of reality. It is uncomfortable beyond what most people can imagine. But it is temporary. Your temporal lobe is recalibrating. Your parietal lobe is restoring its integration processes. Your anxiety system is settling. And as each of these systems returns to baseline, the world comes back into focus, your hands feel like yours again, and the glass between you and reality dissolves.

You are not going crazy. You are not permanently altered. You are a person whose brain is doing exactly what brains do when they are overwhelmed: pulling back to protect itself. And when the threat passes, which it will, your brain will come back online fully. The DPDR fades. Reality returns. And you will be standing in it, solid and present, wondering how something so temporary ever felt so permanent.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can weed cause depersonalization and derealization?

Is depersonalization from weed permanent?

Is depersonalization the same as psychosis?

How do I stop depersonalization from weed withdrawal?

When should I see a doctor for depersonalization after quitting weed?