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The Effect Of Cheese Upon Dreams

The best, most noticeable cheese dream experience I have had was with some standard medium cheddar. We had taken it camping for a couple of nights so by the time we got home it was really soft, sweaty and oily, having been out of a fridge for ages. I put it back in the fridge but got it out again later to make some cheese on toast before we went to bed. We both had a whole night of the weirdest freaky dreams.
 
Maybe it does cause nightmares.

Cheese contains a chemical found in addictive drugs, scientists have found.

The team behind the study set out to pin-point why certain foods are more addictive than others.

Using the Yale Food Addiction Scale, designed to measure a person’s dependence on, scientists found that cheese is particularly potent because it contains casein.

The substance, which is present in all dairy products, can trigger the brain’s opioid receptors which are linked to addiction.

The authors also found that processed foods were more associated with addictive behaviour, with fatty foods being the most difficult to put down.

In addition, they found that the top-ranking foods on the addiction scale were those containing cheese.

To make their findings, researchers asked 120 undergraduates to answer the Yale Food Addiction Scale, and were asked to choose between 35 foods of varying nutritional value, TechTimes reported.

http://www.independent.co.uk/extras...brain-as-hard-drugs-study-finds-a6707011.html
 
Interesting. It's a self reported scale mind.

I did read a bit back that cheese and red wine both stimulate norepinephrine, a brain stimulant, which might explain sleep problems (Mrs Coal is not addicted to cheese, oh no. Just a bit tired that's all...).

I wonder if the fungi in cheese, especially those veined cheeses might not have some trace of psychotropic compounds, not completely unheard of in fungi.
 
We seem to have learned in recent years that our gut and intestinal flora might influence our minds. Considering the bacterial menagerie in cheese, I wonder if there might be a direct link between cheese and nightmares. That the weird imagery is our gut trying to make sense of the information brought in by the new bacteria.
 
This was a question/topic on QI a few years ago. Apparently cheese will help you get a good nights sleep (can't remember why) as opposed to giving you nightmares.
 
Cheese is high in tryptophan used by the body to produce serotonin.
 
Well then, I'm all for it.
 
I've come to this thread via Nightmares and just wanted to add that there is a well-known neuropharmacological condition commonly known as the 'cheese effect'. When neurotransmitters released by neurons have crossed the synaptic gap and done their thang with the intended receptors, they must be removed and inactivated as quickly as possible. Left hanging around, neurotransmitters tend to wander off activating receptors in a very cavalier and imprecise manner. The main transmitters (dopamine, 5H-T [US serotonin], noradrenaline [US norepinephrine]) are broken down by the MAOs (Monoamine Oxidase) enzymes. From the 1950's in the US there was an increase in use of MAO inhibitors as a means of treating depression by letting the transmitters hang around for longer with increased receptor activation, an approach still used today but with different drugs. But the MAOs also metabolise an amino acid derivative called Tyramine which can cause an increase in blood pressure, so taking MAO inhibitors (MAOI) also increases the level of Tyramine. Mature cheese contains an abundance of Tyramine (probably due to microbial action) so eating mature cheese on top of MAOIs can lead to death, but usually just dreadful headaches and weird shit and is a definite no no.
I'm not saying that eating cheese gives you nightmares, I just wonder if this association may have entered the collective consciousness as a result of horror stories concerning cheese and anti-depressants in the 1950s onwards.
 
Cheese....? Seriously...?
Well.....I eat a lot of cheese and ice cream also...
:rollingw:
 
My father - a chef - used to claim there was no such thing as 'off cheese'. He used to eat it mould and all. Maybe he had some bloody good dreams?
 
I had a friend who was lactose intolerant, as we would call it today. Yet he would make an exception for blue cheese and cooked cheese, which he seemed able to digest. I don't know if it was connected but his party-trick was skin-writing. Very light pressure was enough to bring a rapid response on his bared arm. It does suggest a hair-trigger histamine reaction. I never asked about his dreams. :rolleyes:
 
I had breakfast yesterday morning (06.30) then nothing until I got home due to being mega busy at work. Mrs T63 and I don’t eat evening meals usually, way too heavy for us, so I misappropriated 6No. Jacobs crackers then grazed through Blacksticks, Eppoises, Goat Camembert, Montagnolo (x2) and Reblochon. I can now see why gluttony is a sin. The most fitful nights sleep since time started and horrendous indigestion. Never again...well not until the next time.
 
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I like cheese.
I like sleeping.
I always have vivid, full colour and sensation dreams.

I've never managed to induce the latter with the former, irrespective of the extremity of cheese used.
 
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