Does Cheese Cause Nightmares? It Might If You Have This Condition

Some “old wives’ tales” have turned out to be true (for instance, people who are pregnant with girls really are more likely to experience severe nausea). But what about eating cheese before bed? Does that really give you nightmares? 

A 2020 review of studies found no strong evidence to support the theory at that time, and even suggested dairy products could improve sleep quality. 

However, a new paper published in Frontiers in Psychology has found that for those with lactose intolerance, eating dairy before bed may be a nightmare in more ways than one.

Dairy consumption “robustly associated” with bad dreams among lactose-intolerant participants

The researchers asked 1,082 students about their dietary and sleeping habits.

A third of participants said they had “regular” nightmares, while 40% thought that eating later at night affected their sleep for better (20.1%) or worse (24.1%).

Only 5.5% believed that what they ate affected how scary (or happy, or sad, etc) their dreams were.

But when researchers compared students’ sleep quality, nightmare prevalence, food habits, and intolerances, they learned that lactose intolerance was associated with gastrointestinal symptoms, nightmares, and worse sleep. 

Only sweets and desserts seemed to have a stronger link (31% vs 22%).

“Nightmare severity is robustly associated with lactose intolerance and other food allergies,” Dr Tore Nielsen, the study’s lead author, told Frontiers.

“These new findings imply that changing eating habits for people with some food sensitivities could alleviate nightmares. They could also explain why people so often blame dairy for bad dreams!”

Does this mean cheese definitely gives you nightmares?

No. “We need to study more people of different ages, from different walks of life, and with different dietary habits to determine if our results are truly generalizable to the larger population,” Dr Nielsen said.

“Experimental studies are also needed to determine if people can truly detect the effects of specific foods on dreams.” 

But the researchers said they hope this can be a jumping-off point for future studies. 

“Findings open new avenues of research on food-dependent dreaming by suggesting dairy-induced gastrointestinal symptoms as one plausible basis for bizarre or disturbing dreams,” the paper noted.