Why Eating Dairy, Especially Late In The Day, Could Trigger Intense Nightmares

(© Antonioguillem – Stock.adobe.com)

New research shows that desserts, spicy foods, meat and cereals can also lead to bad dreams.

Montreal – Have you ever woken up a bizarre nightmare and blame it on this midnight snack? You might be on something. New research shows that there is a real science behind the secular belief that certain foods can spoil your dreams, and everything comes down to what is happening in your stomach.

An in -depth study of more than 1,000 students revealed that people with lactose intolerance are much more likely to live nightmares, dairy products ranking as the second most common food blamed to disturb dreams. Research shows that gastrointestinal symptoms such as bloating, cramps and gas can be the missing link between what you eat and what haunts your sleep.

Published in Borders in psychologyThe results offer the first solid proof that food sensitivities can have a direct impact on the content of dreams thanks to very real physical mechanisms in your digestive system. Among the participants who reported that food had affected their dreams, dairy products came to second after desserts and candies as the most frequently blamed culprit.

The Lactose-Nightmare connection

Almost 22% of food affecting dreams were dairy products, participants specifically citing milk, yogurt, cheese and other dairy products. Interestingly, people with lactose intolerance have obtained a significantly higher score on nightmare and gravity frequency scales.

Researchers from the University of Montreal have discovered that gastrointestinal symptoms seemed to fill this relationship. Essentially, it is not the cheese itself causing nightmares, but rather the physical discomfort that your body experiences when it cannot digest it properly.

These results give new credibility to the hundred -year -old comic strip “Rreambit rarebit fiend”, where the caricaturist Winsor McCay has represented characters blaming their bizarre nightmares on the consumption of rare -rare -room Welsh (essentially melted on toasted bread) before going to bed. McCay could have been on something, or perhaps he would say a personal experience with an unmatched lactose intolerance.

Foods spoiling with sleep

While dairy products have dominated the nightmare titles, desserts and candies dominated the list of foods charged to dream disorders, representing almost 30% of all the foods cited by the participants. Spicy foods, meat and cereals have also listed troublemakers.

On the other hand, participants who declared a better quality of sleep generally indicated fruits, vegetables and herbal teas. These observations are aligned with existing research showing that certain foods can promote or disturb the quality of sleep, and poor sleep is a trigger known for nightmares.

Food allergies have also played a role. People with food allergies were more than twice as likely to point out that food affected their dreams, even when researchers controlled other factors. This indicates the responses of the immune system to problematic foods contributing to the disturbances of dreams beyond digestive discomfort.

When you eat, also count

The study also examined timing, not just food choices. Food at the end of the evening and evening snacks were strongly associated with both poor sleep quality and increased nightmare frequency. Your digestive system needs time to treat foods before lengthening, and eating near bedtime can disrupt the natural sleep cycle.

Participants who were committed to the “Night of the Night” – get up in the middle of the night to snack – showed particularly strong associations with the nightmarish occurrence. Evening food was linked to more negative dream emotions and higher scores on the measurements of nightmarish disorders.

How your intestine speaks to your brain

Researchers have proposed several mechanisms to explain how food could influence dreams. The most convincing implies the intestinal axis, which is the complex communication network between your digestive system and your brain. When you eat foods that cause gastrointestinal distress, these uncomfortable sensations do not only disappear when you fall asleep. Instead, they can infiltrate your dreams as disturbing or bizarre content.

The study revealed that the symptoms of anxiety and depression partly explained the relationship between digestive problems and nightmares, which means that physical discomfort creates psychological stress which then manifests in the content of dreams. The quality of sleep has also played a mediation role, as foods that disrupt normal sleep habits can increase the probability of waking up during paradoxical sleep, when dreams are the most lively and memorable.

For anyone with frequent nightmares or disturbed sleep, these results offer practical solutions. Rather than looking for sleep drugs, examining your diet – in particular your evening eating habits and your potential sensitivities on food – could provide a more natural approach. People with lactose intolerance could potentially reduce the frequency of nightmares by managing digestive symptoms by food changes or lactase supplements.

“We must study more people of different ages, from different backgrounds and with different eating habits to determine whether our results are really generalized to the wider population,” explains the main author of the study, Dr. Tore Nielsen of the University of Montreal, in a press release. “Experimental studies are also necessary to determine if people can really detect the effects of specific foods on dreams. We would like to conduct a study in which we ask people to ingest cheese products compared to certain control foods before sleeping to see if it changes their sleep or their dreams. “

Although these observations show a correlation rather than on a final causality, and the study has concentrated exclusively on students, research validates what many people have suspected for centuries: what you eat can really affect what you dream. Sometimes the path to better dreams really cross your stomach, and be careful what and when you eat may be the more peaceful night key.