What we talk about when we talk about emotions
Cannabis is a psychoactive substance: it alters brain processes and, with them, the mental experience. If the brain is the physical hardware, the mind is what runs on it, with self-awareness—the ability to reflect on oneself—as its most sophisticated expression. It is precisely there, at the intersection of body, emotion, and consciousness, where it is interesting to ask what role this plant might play.
Emotions serve a basic function: to mobilize the organism’s resources toward an end. They are tools for survival and social regulation, imprinted in our biology; as long as we are alive, we will react to our environment, whether external (someone insulting us) or internal (the fear of losing our job).
We usually speak of six basic emotions: fear, disgust, joy, sadness, surprise, and anger. Each has its own logic. Fear prepares us for flight or submission in the face of immediate danger (distinct from anxiety, which anticipates more diffuse threats). Disgust turns us away from the harmful, whether it is a rotten smell or an idea that clashes with our values. Joy binds the group together and weaves bonds. Sadness, so often misunderstood, causes the organism to withdraw to reorganize attention inward and adapt to a major change. Surprise orients the senses toward the new and lasts for an instant. Anger mobilizes us for attack when a boundary is crossed. Built upon these basic emotions are more complex ones—guilt, shame, pride—kneaded with social norms and personal biography.
How an emotion is cooked: the filters
Understanding the path of an emotion helps to locate where cannabis might intervene. It is useful to imagine two successive filters.
The first filter has two components. Evaluation is unconscious and automatic: the brain analyzes information before it reaches consciousness, based on its novelty and its positive or negative tone (hence that feeling of starting to feel “weird” in a conversation without knowing why). Appraisal, on the other hand, is conscious and voluntary: it depends on the meaning the situation has for us and what we believe we should do about it.
The second filter is formed by learning—our history of behaviors and possibilities—and culture, which dictates which responses are desirable. Almost all of this happens in milliseconds and outside our control. Only when the emotion emerges into consciousness does the feeling appear: the part of the process that we can actually perceive.
The body keeps the score: somatic markers
The neurologist Antonio Damasio popularized the idea that emotions leave a bodily imprint—the “somatic marker”: that knot in the stomach, the racing pulse, the tension in the neck. When we experience something, we put a verbal label on it (“I like this,” “this hurts”) and that label becomes associated with the physical sensations that accompanied it. Later, it is enough to relive the situation, even if only in our heads, for the body to reactivate those responses.
Think of someone who enters a hostile and competitive workplace. They begin to perceive the environment as a threat and their body responds with palpitations and tension. The meaning (“danger,” “harm”) and the bodily signifier (tachycardia) become welded together, so that the physical response can be triggered even at night, in bed, with no one around.
Where cannabis might fit in
By modifying the input of stimuli, their processing, and their expression, cannabis can alter the emotional process at several points. Where it pushes it is impossible to predict: it depends on the person, their prior state, and their way of managing emotions. With that caution in mind, several avenues have been proposed:
On one hand, it could reduce physiological activation by influencing cortisol, the stress hormone, whose high or prolonged production causes wear and tear. On the other, it seems to make it easier to mentally experience conflictive situations without the chain of associated bodily responses firing with the same intensity, which would open a margin to observe the problem instead of being dragged along by it.
There is also a hypothesis regarding memory. In stressful situations, cortisol hinders the hippocampus—responsible for episodic and “cold” memory—and reinforces the amygdala, which records the experience through its emotional cues. A lower release of cortisol could, in theory, attenuate that emotional recording and favor a more narrative memory that is less loaded with bodily response. Along these lines are the trials by the Israeli military with cannabinoids in post-traumatic stress disorder, aimed at making it harder to fix painful memories and allowing them to be re-experienced with less associated reaction.
It is best to read all of this in the conditional: these are plausible mechanisms and open lines of research, not closed conclusions. Cannabis can also produce the opposite effect—anxiety, paranoia, dullness—and its impact on memory is not always desirable.
The trap of avoidance and self-medication
Here, a key concept of clinical psychology appears: avoidance of exposure. Faced with discomfort, many people dodge it by any means necessary. The executive who stays working late to avoid going home avoids the discomfort and, on top of that, obtains rewards (promotions, salary). The behavior is repeated, but the problem is not solved: the negative emotion remains there, conditioning their life.
The self-medication hypothesis describes something similar with substances: consuming relieves the discomfort, that relief reinforces the consumption, and a circle of discomfort–consumption–relief is closed, which can consolidate into dependence. The difference between a use that serves a purpose and one that only perpetuates the loop lies in transfer: if what is learned under the effect of the substance is not transferred to the moments when one has not consumed, there is no personal development, only need. That is why each person should ask themselves, before and not after, if the consumption benefits them in that specific moment.
Metacognition: turning the gaze inward
The use proposed here does not seek to nullify emotion—something impossible except in psychopathic conditions—but to identify the feeling, understand its meaning, and act with awareness, maintaining a manageable level of activation that leaves room to think instead of reacting. The simple act of directing attention toward oneself—metacognition—already modifies the mental phenomenon and is the first step of self-knowledge. It occurs in levels: “I think that I think,” “I think that you think,” “I think that you think that I think.” Any tool that favors this reflective turn, with or without substances, points in the same direction.
Critical reading
Much of what has been presented comes from solid psychological frameworks (Damasio’s somatic marker theory, emotional processing models, the emotional intelligence popularized by Goleman) and reasonable hypotheses about cortisol and memory. But the leap from “this mechanism exists” to “cannabis uses it to my benefit” is not proven and depends enormously on the individual, the situation, and the context.
Some honest warnings: cannabis can amplify anxiety or rumination just as much as it can reduce them; its effect on memory also impairs the consolidation of neutral learning; and regular consumption to manage emotions is precisely the gateway to the pattern of dependence described above. In people with a history of psychosis or in the midst of adolescence, the risks are greater. This text does not propose cannabis as a treatment nor does it replace psychological or medical support: when there is trauma, sustained anxiety, or overwhelming distress, professional intervention is the path. Useful psychonautics begins with the uncomfortable question, not the substance.
