Posted on 08/19/2025 1:25:28 PM PDT by Red Badger
For more than a century, folklore and cartoons have warned us: eat cheese before bed, and you’re in for a strange night. Winsor McCay’s 1904 comic strip Dream of the Rarebit Fiend famously turned the spicy cheese toast called Welsh rarebit into a portal for surreal, unsettling dreams. Now, a new study suggests McCay may have been on to something.
Researchers led by Dr. Tore Nielsen at the University of Montreal report a striking link between certain food sensitivities (especially lactose intolerance) and experiencing nightmares. Drawing on a large survey of over a thousand university students, the study uncovers how what we eat, when we eat it, and how our bodies respond may all conspire to shape the landscapes of our dreams.
The team surveyed 1,082 undergraduate students, asking about sleep patterns, diet, food sensitivities, and dream content. Nearly a third of participants reported frequent nightmares. Around 40% believed food affected their sleep, and about 5.5% said specific foods impacted their dreams.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
“You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an undigested potato. There’s more of gravy than of grave about you...”. Scrooge says this to Jacob Marley’s ghost..................
If I cut the cheese in bed, my wife has nightmares.
MSG and garlic do that for me.
“Scrooge says ...”
I thought about this too.
I enjoy nightmares.
Makes my existence a tiny bit more enjoyable..
If I cut the cheese in bed, my wife has nightmares.
Especially when you put the covers over her head.
Another stupid article.
One of the leading causes of death in seniors are falls, secondary to among other things sarcopenia, ie muscle atrophy.
The very best thing you can do as a senior or anyone for that matter, is to eat casein protein before bed, ie cottage chees, greek yogurt, cheese etc.
Great find in classic literature.
One of the technothrillers in the early 1990s (maybe by Dale Brown??) had the hero going into a hangar to see a captured experimental enemy aircraft:
“It looked like something Tom Clancy would have seen in a nightmare after eating a bad burrito.”
If you drink a soup spoon full of olive oil after you eat the cheese just before going to bed it will help it slip and slide on through the plumbing.
Turns out most "lactose intolerance" is actually a reaction to casein A1 proteins, which is indigestible in humans, found most commercially available dairy products. Guernsey cows, goats, and sheep do not share this property having casein A2 protein instead.
It turns out that GMO Holsteins to make casein A2 milk have been developed and are now available. Hence my guess is that "lactose intolerance" as we know it will soon be history.
Japanese food is the worst. It caused Robert Hartley to have a crazy dreams of eight seasons of being a hotel owner in New Hampshire or something.
I believe this. I really like blue cheeses like Stilton, but if I eat them in sufficient quantities before bedtime some pretty far-out dreaming typically follows. Clearly some psychoactive substances are lurking in there somewhere.
Cheese is what I eat all the time.
Interesting. I eat dinner very late and dessert even later. Almost every night it’s black rtaspberry nonfat Greek yogurt from Trader Joe. No other store near me has nonfat yogurt and TJ is within walking distance. Sleep well most nights.
It probably gives my wife more nightmares when I eat cheese before bed. /lol
Gotta fluff the covers. The ultimate. 😎
I remember a Dilbert cartoon where Dogbert was running a “bad advice” radio talk show. In the last frame he said “...and those are just some of the benefits of an all cheese diet.”. I tried to find it but I couldn’t.
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