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.
 
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.
 
I haven't eaten cheese for nearly a year and it hasn't made any difference to my very odd dreams.
 
I'm sure I've seen some research that says it is not cheese specifically that can have this effect but rather protein generally that makes the bowel work harder during sleep and can result in more extreme dreams.

Steak supper?
 
If I eat cheese. like cheese on toast, any time after about 6pm I have a terrible nights sleep of constantly waking up and dozing off again and usually with lots of dreams that I can never remember.
 
Has anyone really done research into this? I mean, checking cheese against other milk products/other forms of protein/other hard to digest foods? I would think that it's not cheese per se but any food that might cause digestive disturbances - not so much for causing vivid dreams but causing disturbed sleep which would mean that dreams are more likely to be remembered?
 
I and probably most of the world likes cheese but it has been a long time joke.

Cheese causes constipation and stops you up.

Medically I don’t know if this is true ?
 
catseye said:
Has anyone really done research into this? I mean, checking cheese against other milk products/other forms of protein/other hard to digest foods? I would think that it's not cheese per se but any food that might cause digestive disturbances - not so much for causing vivid dreams but causing disturbed sleep which would mean that dreams are more likely to be remembered?
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Being an ex Hare Krsna I go by Avurveda. Modern cheese for some reason is virtually impossible to digest. I don't know why. I did watch this whole Avurveda video as to the reasons but I fell asleep half way through it.

That, from what bits of the film I watched, mixed with my own experiences made me decide to not ever again eat hard cheese.

I actually don't miss it.

I did try cheese sandwiches with onion or other stuff but I always felt bloated afterwards so during December, or was it January, I forget which, I knocked eating hard cheese on the head and I haven't missed it ever since.
 
charliebrown said:
I and probably most of the world likes cheese but it has been a long time joke.

Cheese causes constipation and stops you up.

Medically I don’t know if this is true ?
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I think it does cause constipation. I noticed after a few slices of cheese on toast, for the next few days, my number two's weren't the normal. You know, get up in the morning, sit on the bog, bomb doors open and bombs away. After eating cheese the day before, it was bomb doors open and the bombs don't drop.

Than after two or three days, the pressure would build up and then suddenly, it was carpet bombing.

There's something unspoken that is timelessly enjoyable about carpet bombing the loo. You sit there and ahhhhh. I needed that. No matter the state of the loo, and no matter how bad the splatter paint job is, flush, and it's all gone as if by magic.

And for really excessive carpet bombing that goes out of control, bleach is one of the greatest inventions of the modern age. As are rubber gloves.

Sorry to be graphic.
 
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kesavaross said:
I think it does cause constipation. I noticed after a few slices of cheese on toast, for the next few days, my number two's weren't the normal. You know, get up in the morning, sit on the bog, bomb doors open and bombs away. After eating cheese the day before, it was bomb doors open and the bombs don't drop.

Than after two or three days, the pressure would build up and then suddenly, it was carpet bombing.

There's something unspoken that is timelessly enjoyable about carpet bombing the loo. You sit there and ahhhhh. I needed that. No matter the state of the loo, and no matter how bad the splatter paint job is, flush, and it's all gone as if by magic.

And for really excessive carpet bombing that goes out of control, bleach is one of the greatest inventions of the modern age. As are rubber gloves.

Sorry to be graphic.
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maximus otter
 
I often have a big Sunday dinner on Sunday evening and the resultant 'digestive distress' can cause me to toss and turn a bit. It seems that I remember my dreams better when I'm waking and sleeping. When (like last night) I've been at work and I fall into bed shattered, I know I dream but I don't remember so well. That's why I made the connection between digestion and dream recall. I don't eat cheese very often. although I love it, whenever I start eating it my brain can't disconnect from thinking 'you are shoving slabs of solid fat into your face.' But that's my previous eating disorder trying to sabotage me!
 
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