Does cheese give you nightmares

Does Cheese Give You Nightmares? (Find Out!)

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There is no evidence that cheese directly leads to nightmares, or bad dreams. The best explanation we have is that, because cheese is so difficult to digest, it keeps your body slightly awake during the night. This makes dreams much more vivid and sometimes unbearably so.

 

So, it’s not true that eating cheese gives you bad dreams or nightmares as a matter of course.

There may be good reason to believe eating cheese before bed will mean your body is overall more awake as it attempts to digest the food, but this doesn’t necessarily mean nightmares.

It just means you will remember your dreams.

Let’s look further into this.

Does cheese give you nightmares

 

 

Can cheese cause bad dreams?

It depends on your understanding of cause’, really, but the simple answer is no.

While dreams have very individual character, the simple fact is that we dream every night more or less constantly.

We dream most strongly during REM sleep.

Our sleep goes through cycles each night, and REM is one of the deepest, and where we usually dream.

What eating cheese will do before bed is cause your digestive system to be working overtime when it should be resting.

Any dairy product, even for those who are not lactose intolerant, is not easy for your gut to break down.

That extra effort is going to make it harder for you to sleep.

That added level of stress could, in turn, cause unpleasant dreams.

But it’s not really the cheese that is the root cause.

You’re being kept awake.

The other thing to stress, as I mentioned, is the fact that you probably aren’t going to be in a deep sleep if you’ve eaten cheese before bed.

Your body will be slightly awake.

This causes you to remember your dreams more clearly.

What about night terrors?

 

Can cheese cause night terrors?

This is somewhat of an open question, as there is something of a link to be shown.

Dairy contains an amino acid call tryptophan, which can interfere with the hormone that aids in sleep, serotonin.

Many have indeed reported more frequent night terrors when they are regularly eating cheese at night.

That said, this is exclusively in people who are already inclined to night terrors.

Night terrors are quite a unique phenomenon, and there is almost definitely more going on in a case of night terrors than bad late night eating habits.

Ultimately, if you experience night terrors, eating cheese at night is probably a bad idea.

 

Why shouldn’t you eat cheese at night?

Even if it doesn’t cause bad dreams, eating cheese at night is likely to interfere with your proper sleeping pattern.

As I said, the fact is that for anyone, cheese is difficult to digest, especially in large quantities.

Your body usually expects you to sleep several hours after eating.

So, if you eat cheese at night, then your body is going to have to work hard to digest it while you’re asleep.

Digestion is obviously not a conscious process, but nonetheless even if you feel as though you have fallen asleep, your body will still be awake and you will not feel so well rested.

Are there any specific types of cheese to avoid, then?

 

What type of cheese gives you nightmares?

Again, the important thing to stress is that there is no direct link between eating cheese and having nightmares—it’s just about how cheese affects your ability to sleep soundly.

That said, stilton has been commonly named as the cheese which produces the strangest and most unusual dreams.

The vividness is often the big factor, too, as particularly vivid dreams can be scary in their own right.

Ultimately, though, you shouldn’t eat any cheese before bed.

 

So, there is no scientific or empirical reason to believe that eating cheese specifically causes or leads to bad dreams as such.

The thing to remember is that we dream every night, but it’s whether we remember those dreams that is important.

If you wake up many times in the night, as you’re likely to do after eating a lot of any dairy product late at night, you will remember those dreams more clearly.

That’s really all it comes down to.

 

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