Cheese Dreams
Scientific American Mind recently put out a little sidebar about cheese that I found most interesting.
"In Britain it is a common perception that eating cheese before bedtime gives you bad dreams. To counter this notion the British Cheese Board asked volunteers to eat domestic cheese a half an hour before sleep each night, for a week. The next morning they recorded dreams they had. Few recalled scary encounters. Furthermore, the board reported that Lancashire cheese seemed to prompt apparitions about work, Red Leicester cheese led to nostalgic visions of childhood, and cheddar caused dreams about celebrities.”
I would like to propose a study to see which specific cheese helps ME dream about Raquel Welch. But, the better question could be, “Does a special cheese make you dream about cheese?”
For that matter what are the snacks consumed most before bed? Chips? Ice cream? Deli-meat? Cereal?
Comments
On Jan 3 at 07:19 AM gil gerard said:
What an odd wives tale ...seems as obtuse as the American's myth of not swimming after eating for whatever amount of time.
On Jan 4 at 11:43 PM said:
Much truth in the "myth"...
On Jan 8 at 05:54 AM said:
True, True, everytime I eat cheese before bed(pizza actually) I have dreams about zombies and I think people can relate.
On Jan 11 at 02:54 PM The C said:
Don't eat before swimming: It can and does cause cramping. It's not a myth.
I find cheese gives me strange dreams also, and I recall that the carbohydrate responsable begins with tyros (latin for cheese), but I can't find it when I search, regrettably.
In any case, I think reports of specific dreams for specific cheeses is incorrect. People will probably have dreams relating to their mindset, so anxious people will be more likely to experience nightmares.
Perhaps people who eat cheddar are simply more boring, and thus dream of celebrities more? :P
On Mar 8 at 02:53 PM said:
pish!
go have some cheese!
and enjoy it!
if you so wish...then go to bed!
On Mar 23 at 04:19 PM Margot said:
Yes, indeed! I am 55 and have always been leery about eating cheese right before bed since being constantly warned as a child that this practice would give one bad dreams.I am guilty of perpetuating the myth, having given my kids the same advice.
On Mar 24 at 08:34 PM CR said:
I have noticed that eating cheese before sleep causes me to dream more but the dreams don't seem to be especially good or bad. And eating less than a couple of hours before swimming can cause cramping (obviously depending on how hard you swim).
On Apr 4 at 04:36 AM andie said:
I fed my 9 month daughter cheese for the first time, two days in a row and she woke screaming at 11pm for those two nights only....??
On Apr 12 at 10:53 AM Gael said:
I was searching to find the truth about late cheese nibbles and stumbled across this site...I had the most bizarre dream not really Bad but just extremely wierd the other night and recalled eating primula on celery the night before lol go fugure
On Jul 10 at 03:57 PM hooly said:
ooh i just ate i good few grams of cheddar and am about to go to bed.. i made this decision against years of being warned that cheese before bed gives you nightmares. i love cheese and i'm determined to prove this myth wrong.
On Sep 4 at 05:09 PM said:
I had a large cheese sarnie before bed last night and had three nightmares, the first I've had this year. Probably just psychological though, due to the constant childhood warnings.
On Sep 6 at 12:16 AM Hannah Robertson said:
I love the dreams I have after cheese. Last night I tucked into the Jarlsberg just to jazz things up a little and had some rather enjoyable dreams. I'm a full believer in cheese makes you dream.
On Oct 1 at 06:34 AM said:
i had a very weird dream the other night... and not so much plain weird but it was sooo realistic. not just a dream that was weird and cryptic but i thought it was actually happening to me. quite scarey. when i woke up it took me a while to realise it was just a dream.
i told a friend about the dream the next day at work and the first words out of her mouth were "did you eat cheese last night". My answer? YES!! i am not a big cheese eater but i had knocked off some double brie and the like on a cheese board at my sisters birthday dinner... Coincidence?? I think NOT!!
On Oct 1 at 02:44 PM taylor said:
i have the hardest time trying to find a specific recipie or meal plan that i can eat before a swim meat that will help me
On Oct 8 at 09:03 AM Stu M said:
I was told recently by someone that they had a terrible, terrible nightmare after having cheese before bed, to be honest I didn't really think much of it till a few nights ago..
I had three rather large sandwiches absolutely crammed full of cheese and went to bed, and OH MY LORD! I wasn't even fully asleep and I had a giant spider coming for me, it was GIGANTIC! I absolutely will not eat cheese before bed again, it's highly unwise!
On Oct 24 at 02:53 PM Simon said:
Well, I never dream (or if I do dont remember them) and it used to dissapoint me when people told me their dreams. I had also not heard of this "myth".
Anyway I moved to Switzerland about a year ago and started dreaming a lot. I put it down to new location. However I now also eat cheese but hardly touched it in the UK. Different country different diet.
About a month ago I started connecting dream nights with cheese consumption before bed and tonight Google'd "why does cheese make me dream" and look where it led me.
Myth my arse! I will stop eating cheese at night now because some of the dreams are so wierd I think I am losing it.
On Dec 7 at 10:18 AM nathan said:
cool article
On Dec 13 at 04:37 PM kerri said:
i think it's true also! i had some blue cheese dressing on my salad last night before bed, and had the most horrific dream i've ever had!! it was so bad i felt like if i didn't get it off my chest i woulda had to go to therapy or sumthin! (i have a baby boy and it the dream was about him so that's y it was so bad for me)
On Jan 6 at 06:32 PM said:
Last night i had lots of cheese on toast before i went to sleep and had loads of weird but wonderful dreams. And they were so vivid and i honestly thought they were real. I havn't dreamt like that in ages!
On Jan 17 at 11:45 AM Brent Doucette said:
I'm gonna soo try eating a whack of cheese before bed... I love dreams.. since the only monsters that exist only live in our minds, even if I have a nightmare, I usually wake up all freaked out.. but then go right back to sleep cause monsters arent real.
On Mar 18 at 05:30 PM Russman said:
I went out for tea last night with my girlfriend, we had chicken parmigiana with allot of melted cheese on it. we both had a very bad night sleep with constant weird dreams. They weren't scary just extremely weird and they made no sense. Cheese doesn't necessarily give you nightmares but it does enhance your dreams.
On Apr 26 at 09:39 PM Rin said:
haha. I am gonna try it tonight. I just ate a large chunk of cheddar at 3.30am
On May 21 at 08:13 PM Kettle innit said:
i always have weird, more vivid dreams if i eat cheese before bed. not nesicerily nightmares but definatly odder dreams.
On May 27 at 09:31 AM deb said:
its true! i had an awful nightmare, then called my mom and she asked what i had before bed. i said cheese and pepperoni as a snack. it is true!!
On Sep 30 at 11:26 PM Christa said:
I remember as a child eating cheese and having horrible nightmares. A classmate of mine did a speech in public school on dreams and I asked her if food could be related to bad dreams and she looked at me like I had just fallen off the turnip truck.
A couple of weeks ago I was talking to a friend of mine after a particular scary dream and the first thing she asked was, did you eat cheese before bed? I was dumbfounded.
What is the Correlation?
I just ate some cheese and am going to bed hopefully I will be nightmare free.
On Jan 2 at 11:12 PM said:
come on. warm glass of milk is the best midnight settler.