I have had insomnia since my early twenties. Not the dramatic kind where I stare at the ceiling all night — the kind where I take 45-90 minutes to fall asleep, wake up 2-3 times during the night, and get maybe 5.5 hours of actual sleep on a good night. I have tried melatonin (marginal help), magnesium glycinate (helps slightly), prescription sleep aids (zolpidem worked but the side effects scared me), and Delta-9 THC edibles (effective but gave me vivid, disturbing dreams and next-morning fog).
A coworker who also struggles with sleep told me she had been using HHC gummies and sleeping better than she had in years. I was skeptical but ordered a bag of 10mg gummies from a tested brand.
Week 1: Started with 10mg about an hour before bed. The first night, I fell asleep within 20 minutes of lying down — a significant improvement over my usual 60+ minutes. Sleep felt deeper but I had some difficulty waking up in the morning. Increased water intake before bed to counter the dry mouth.
Week 2: Increased to 20mg. This has been my sweet spot. I consistently fall asleep within 15-25 minutes, and my middle-of-the-night awakenings decreased from 2-3 per night to 0-1. I started wearing a sleep tracker and my deep sleep percentage increased from my baseline of about 12% to approximately 18-20%.
Weeks 3-6: Continued at 20mg nightly. The sedating and sleep-promoting effects have remained consistent without needing to increase the dose, though I suspect tolerance is slowly building. Notably, HHC suppresses my dream recall almost completely — I went from vivid, sometimes distressing dreams to remembering essentially nothing. Whether this means HHC is suppressing REM sleep (as THC is known to do) is something I worry about, because REM suppression has long-term cognitive implications.
Downsides: On nights when I skip HHC (I try to take 1-2 nights off per week), my insomnia is somewhat worse than it was before I started — classic rebound effect. The dry mouth is persistent and annoying. And there is a slight next-morning grogginess that coffee resolves but is noticeable.
My sleep doctor does not know I am using HHC because I frankly do not know how that conversation would go given the legal ambiguity. This is not ideal. I would prefer to be making this decision with medical guidance, but the absence of clinical research means there is no evidence-based medical guidance to offer.
Six weeks in: HHC is the most effective sleep aid I have used with the fewest next-day side effects. The unknowns — long-term safety, REM impact, dependency trajectory — are real concerns that I am choosing to accept for now because the alternative of chronic sleep deprivation has its own well-documented health consequences.