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The Effect Of Cheese Upon Dreams

Damn, I'd already started forming a hardcore UK folk/bluegrass crossover band, just so I could use the above name. :(
 
Welll.. A Christmas Carol was published in 1843, and has a frightened Scrooge trying to rationalise away Marley's ghost by telling him:

"You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, A CRUMB OF CHEESE, a fragment of underdone potato. There;s more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!"
 
I've had a run on bad dreams this week, which is pretty unusual for me these days, am fairly sure though it's down to a very long few weeks at work and a friend having some massively not good news re a serious illness.

I wonder how we isolate the alleged effects of cheese from other things that are going on in a person's life that might be more significant in contributing to poor sleep?
 
Well, as I've done... by testing the substance in question on alternate or random nights when the only difference from the preceding or succeding night is the consumption of cheese!

But remember it's meant to - and appears to - improve your sleep, not make it poorer.
 
I thought I read somewhere that eating cheese doesn't so much cause vivid dreams as give you indigestion, which in turn makes it more likely you will wake up during the night and therefore remember more of your dreams than you normally would.
Gattino, I think you mentioned waking and looking at your clock.

As for the posters on here who don't eat / like cheese.....What the hell do you do on pizza night? :shock:
 
I love cheese of all types and often used to eat doorstep-sized cheese and onion sandwiches at bedtime. Can't STAND being hungry at night!

Can't say I ever had any weird dreams from it though.

However, last night after cheese on toast for tea I had a rotten night's sleep. Probably needed more ketchup.
 
davidplankton said:
As for the posters on here who don't eat / like cheese.....What the hell do you do on pizza night? :shock:
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Well yes, I do eat pizza - but that's usually made with Mozzarella, which is fairly tasteless once it's been cooked. It's the smelly cheeses I don't like (e.g. mature cheddar).
Strangely, I do like cheesy crisps and stuff like that, probably because they don't have the horrible smell along with the taste.
 
I always stir in the night.. I don't count it as interrupted sleep...its when I fetch the little recorder from under the pillow to recount the last dream, if I'm in a mood to. I look at the clock, as I assume most people do, to see if its time to get up, given the mornings are so dark.
 
Mythopeika: I have a similar relationship with onion. I adore the flavour, but can't abide the texture/substance/sight of it. I always think of flies wings.


Onion salt in a stew, never those wretched gossamer slithers.
 
OK I'm off to bed soon and I happen to have a spare piece of Grana Pandano in the fridge. ( Much cheaper and virtually indistinguishable from Parmesan by the way )

I'll eat it just before retiring and report back tomorrow.

The only cheese I ever tried and didn't like was Taleggio. Under the grill it smelled like someone had stood in dog poo. It would be interesting to find out if more rancid cheeses produced wackier dreams.
 
I always seem to experience more frantic dreams after having eaten raw fish -.tuna in particular. What do blue cheese and tuna have in common?

I always supposed it was my stomach working hard on something less-easily digestible.
 
Last night I had no cheese, so can make an immediate comparison of hte differences from the nights when I did.

I certainly had dreams in the earlier part of the night. But after recordign them (I do so in the dark, eyes still closed btw), return to sleep consisted of reciting the details or other general conscious thinking in a lazy way for a good while...as opposed to cheese ngihts, when I've found I would immediately lapse straight back into dreaming. Later dreams, even in the first instant of stirring, were much more fragmentary in my abilityto recollect them at all.
 
Last night ate the piece of cheese and went to bed. Didn't wake up during the night and I didn't dream anything particularly vivid. Did remember a dream about sentient tornados living in a vast desert and being revered as gods. A bit odder than my usual dreams of being on public transport, I'll admit.
 
Nothing to do with the cheese subject, but I'm always dreaming of being on trains especially lately, or else rushing to catch buses and planes.

My other endlessly repeated theme is being in shop browsing through comic books.
 
davidplankton said:
Did remember a dream about sentient tornados living in a vast desert and being revered as gods.
Click to expand...

Ooh, good one! :D

Does fake powdered cheese count? Yesterday we had a long journey by car, and the only thing I had to eat were some generic cheez-balls that my mother-in-law had given us. Got home and fell asleep. Had a dream that I was a student at what I thought was a school for sign-language, but really turned out to be a knife-fighting academy for killer marionette clowns.

I'm never eating cheez-balls again. :(
 
They may well do.... The precog dream chap whose obsevation got me curious to test it, had noticed the apparent increase in his experiences since starting a job of delivering pizzas! and was curious to see now he'd changed jobs again whether they would decrease. He never made clear how delivering them should affect his own dreams, but I assumed he meant he was snacking on the things rather than just breathing in their vapours....

Either way one doesn't normally associated the cheese on pizzas with high quality french dairy produce, much more than you do with cheese balls...


As for me I need to move the test on and finally remember to buy something more exotic than cheddar. And a bit of the blue stuff meant to creat vivid and weird dreams tonight, if I remember.
 
Perhaps this requires an effort from the rest of the board.

And the ideal season for it too... fortean synchronised blue cheese dream induction, man :madeyes:
 
Sadly read this thread after shopping, so I'm willing to do my bit with Philly on toast tonight.
 
I've just been trying to consume blue cheese (stilton?)...its the vilest, bitterest thing I ever did taste. yeeeeeck. Whatever happens in my dreams, I shan't be repeating it.
 
I LOVE blue cheese, especially Stilton. :D
Smelly cheese of all types is ace.

Many years ago, Techy's older brother once reeled in drunk in the early hours carrying a lump of stinky cheese, which he proceeded to grill on toast.

The stink woke up the whole family. The house was evacuated and he was nearly evicted from home on the spot. :lol:
 
Well I suffered for science.. I can still smell my own breath. I won't repeat the stilton so any observations on dream effects don't amount to much evidence of anything, but for what its worth...

The only discernible difference I noted (there seems to always be a conscious analytical part of my mind which is paying attention and making notes through the night) is that there appeared to be much more rapid or frequent turn over of scenes and imagery. That is one moment I'm here with X then I'm there with Y. Beyond that once again nothing I'd describe as extraordinary in content...all dreams are extraordinary.
 
I had a jacket potatoes with some ripe ol' brie last night. When I say 'ripe', it was a few days past the use-by date...but cheese is already off right? By definition?

Anyway....nuffink. Zero dreamage.

And the brie was lovely too.
 
Well, following the Philly on toast supper, I did wake from a dream at some point in the night and thought to myself, remember '*****' as a way to remember my dream and promptly fell back to sleep.

Now, if I could remember '*****' it would probs bring the dream to memory, but I don't think it was a freaky dream.

Sorry, I'll take pen and paper to bed tonight. :oops:
 
I'd happily volunteer for such a trial, but I'd be limited to goats' cheese or lactose-free cheddar, which I can't imagine having much effect, Also, for the sake of scientific accuracy, I'd probably have to cut out all evening alcohol, which frankly I'd need to be paid to do.

I can reliably verify the dream-related effects of running out of Venlafaxine just before a bank holiday weekend, however. They were almost worth the accompanying inability to walk, talk or look at things while awake. Almost.
 
Alcohol and strong cheese works just fine, for the purpose of dream-induction. Stilton, Roquefort or mature Cheddar recommended.

Note - this diet does not assist in chatting up the ladies.

I unfortunately am also limited on my cheese intake these days, having somehow become lactose intolerant.
 
I tend to lay off of dairy too as it messes with my sinuses, however I have a wedge of Sainsbury's basics english blue ready to do my bit for science later this evening.

:lol:
 
That sounds lovely! :D

What're you having it with? I've been going for the Ryvita/cheese/chutney combination a lot lately.

Used to have cheese on toast with lumps of onion on, or cheese and onion sarnies, last thing but it was bit fattening. Those hot sandwich makers are good too.
 
I got some nice bread while I was in Sainsburys, the sort that's only that nice the same day.

Should do me for supper. :miaow:
 
I'll confess to trying this two nights running, earlier in the week, and not getting much of a result.

Had some blue cheese with mince pies and tea both nights, don't remember dreaming about anything in particular, though have a vague notion I probably was on one of the nights.

Certainly have had worse dreams lately that I'd put down to other, food unrelated things.
 
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