Do bananas give you nightmares

Do Bananas Give You Nightmares? (Answered!)

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Because bananas contain melatonin, they have sometimes been associated with bad dreams. However, this is only really likely in people already producing enough melatonin to have the dreams in the first place. They aren’t necessarily nightmares, either—just vivid dreams. There’s no specific connection to nightmares.

 

So, there are some ways in which eating a banana late at night might not be the best choice for you.

However, there’s no direct scientific data to suggest that bananas lead directly to nightmares.

They can, indirectly, lead to heightened awareness and vividness in dreams, but that’s more complex than it sounds.

Let’s look into it.

Do bananas give you nightmares

 

Can bananas give you nightmares?

Directly, no, bananas cannot give nightmares to just anyone.

There are some reasons they might cause particularly vivid dreams in general, but there is no real empirical way to say that they lead directly to nightmares.

In a general sense, bananas are fairly simple, but not the easiest thing to digest.

Your body’s digestion is usually at its peak between 10am and midday.

Many of us don’t realise that the strength of your body’s digestive process changes throughout the day, but by nightfall, your body really isn’t expecting food at all.

So, when you eat something as complex as a banana, your body is going to have some trouble digesting it over the next few hours.

This extra energy expended on digestion will keep you awake.

This will lead, in turn, to you more clearly remembering dreams you would have had anyway.

That’s the other important distinction.

You are always having dreams; you just don’t always remember them.

So, while bananas are not a good idea before bed, they don’t necessarily lead directly to nightmares.

What about night terrors?

 

Can bananas give you night terrors?

Night terrors are a different phenomenon entirely, and need to be considered on their own terms.

The simple answer is that bananas, however late you eat them, will not lead to night terrors in people who do not already suffer from them.

Indeed, night terrors are usually a specific condition, or there is at least a specific cause in the person’s body.

You really can’t induce night terrors by eating food.

That said, for anyone who is predisposed to night terrors, you may well end up making them worse by eating bananas before bed.

Indeed, any complex food that interferes with your ability to sleep is likely to be problematic.

But one thing that does seem to be true is that bananas can make one’s dreams feel stranger or more vivid.

Why is that?

 

Why do bananas produce weird dreams?

Again, the important point to stress is that your dreams only feel stranger and more vivid when you remember them clearly.

This is, more often than anything else, caused by waking up in the night, or restless sleep in general.

Bananas make it harder to sleep, in that sense.

However, one very specific feature of bananas is the concentration of melatonin.

It has been shown that people producing excess melatonin often do have more nightmares.

Again, though, bananas only contain enough to exacerbate such problems in people already producing too much melatonin.

 

Are bananas good for dreams?

If you are seeking to induce weird dreams, then eating complex foods like bananas before you sleep could help, in a roundabout way.

Again, you’re more likely to be kept up at night, and your digestive system working harder can produce strange dreams.

What you can do, that’s a bit simpler, however, is just drink lots of water.

As you wake up repeatedly to go to the bathroom throughout the night, you are more likely to remember the dreams you were having before you awoke.

Finding a way to wake up in the night, if you are really determined to make your dreams as vivid as possible, is the best way to do so.

 

So, in a roundabout way, it might well be the case that bananas cause strongly vivid dreams or even nightmares in some people.

There is some information we know which may line up with this idea.

However, it is not as simple as saying bananas give you nightmares.

Bananas cause your digestive system to overrun at night, which in turn makes you more awake.

Aside from that, the amount of melatonin present can exacerbate issues of bad dreams in people already predisposed to bad dreams.  

 

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