Can Indigestion Cause Nightmares?

Can Indigestion Cause Nightmares? (Helpful Content!)

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Indigestion can indeed lead to nightmares, in an indirect sense. If you are suffering with indigestion as you try to go to sleep, it will make your night’s sleep less restful. This means you are more aware when you’re dreaming. Indigestion doesn’t strictly cause the nightmares—but it does make you more aware of them.

 

Dreaming is still a poorly understood part of our lives, but we do know that how much we feel we have dreamt on a given night is more to do with how well we remember those dreams.

Let’s find out more.

Can Indigestion Cause Nightmares?

 

Does indigestion lead to nightmares? 

Indigestion can certainly lead to nightmares indirectly.

Virtually anything that disturbs the deepness of your sleep can lead to nightmares.

Indigestion can be particularly bad, as few everyday conditions like this can have so profound an effect on our ability to get to sleep.

In this sense, there is an important distinction here that it’s worth understanding.

Indigestion does not “cause” nightmares in and of itself.

What indigestion causes is a lack of restful sleep, meaning you aren’t in quite as deep as sleep as you would normally be.

The basic mechanism of dreaming is that it relates to the cycles of our sleep.

Every night we go, several times, through multiple cycles of sleep.

The deepest cycle, REM sleep, or rapid eye movement, is where most dreaming occurs.

When this deep part of sleep is not as deep as it ordinarily is, because of something like indigestion, then we are more aware of our nightmares—and thus they can feel worse than they would otherwise.

Indigestion negatively affects sleep, then, which in turn leads to increased retention of nightmares.

This is not quite the same as saying it causes nightmares, and while it may seem like an extraneous distinction, it’s helpful for you to understand the basic root cause of excessive nightmares.

Whatever specific nightmares you may have had while suffering with indigestion may well have happened anyway if your sleep was disturbed by something else.

Not to mention that indigestion is likely going to be made worse by lying down in bed.

The crucial thing really is to avoid, as much as you can, eating before bed—but more on that later.

Can indigestion more generally lead to vivid dreams?

 

Does indigestion cause vivid dreams?

Indigestion certainly can lead to vivid dreams in the same way it can lead to nightmares.

It often depends on the individual where dreams end and nightmares begin.

Even if you are not prone to uncomfortable nightmares, then indigestion will most likely at the least lead to vivid dreams through disturbed sleep.

This may be more or less of a problem for you.

In any case, though, it does reflect that your sleep is disturbed and you aren’t resting as deeply as you might be—or ought to be.

This will make you more aware of the dreams and thus make them feel more vivid, as opposed to actually causing the dreams themselves.

For some of us, it can be hard to strike the right balance in terms of eating in the evening.

We want to avoid indigestion but we also don’t want to feel hungry when going to bed—this can be just as bad.

So, is it bad to eat before bed?

 

Is it bad to eat before bed?

Generally it is not a good idea to eat before bed.

Even if this doesn’t directly lead to indigestion as such, your body is still going to be working hard breaking down the food as you go to sleep.

This will not be as bad as full blown indigestion, but it will still have an effect.

This puts into perspective how bad indigestion before bed can be.

This is why you want to avoid eating before bed so that you can give your body chance to start the initial digestion process and gives you time to get over any indigestion that may arise.

Indigestion in itself can be a debilitating condition, so it’s worth investigating what the triggers are in your diet that causes it.

Keep a food diary or even speak to a dietician and you’ll be able to pinpoint what your triggers are, so that you can avoid them in future.

What about night terrors?

 

Can indigestion cause night terrors?

Indigestion is very unlikely to lead to night terrors in anyone that is not already predisposed to them.

Night terrors are not very common in adults, though they are certainly not limited to children.

Indigestion is certainly likely to be a trigger and make worse night terrors in someone who already suffers with them—especially children.

Beyond that, though, you are not under very much danger of night terrors from indigestion.

They are a rather different phenomenon, not triggered in the same way.

Again, though, if you are already someone who suffers from night terrors, then indigestion at bedtime is almost certain to make the problem worse.

 

You just always need to give your body the best chance of restful sleep in order to avoid nightmares.

Eating too late at night can be a very common cause of poor sleep which can, in turn, lead to increased nightmares and dreams.

Try not to eat, or at least not eat anything heavy or fatty, for three hours before going to sleep.

This gives your body a chance to break it down before you need to sleep so you are not disturbed.

 

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