Eating Before Sleep Can Cause Some Scary-Arse Nightmares

Warbsywoo

Warbsywoo

Hellodia.
Veteran
Joined
Apr 15, 2007
Messages
4,891
Age
34
Location
California
Gil
1
It's true. It happened to me again last night. xD
I ate a bit heavily for dinner and then 3 hours I later I was in bed and BOOM I'm in nightmare central.



I don't remember much, but I'm sure it started out with me just annoyed that the train wasn't to the station on time. A few minutes later, the whole thing crashed, it was the middle of the night, and nightmarish alien monsters (ala Doom) kept roaming around. I remember having a gun the first time around, but it disappeared later on. :(
I remember someone died 'cause they tried to go up the vent 'cause they couldn't quite fit through this tiny window and they got eaten and everyone was sobbing or whatever.
I think it ended when we got to the 'library', and I don't remember much else, but it was pretty scary stuff...to me. >.>

Anyone else had this happen?
Might sound funny, but I'm ad-libbing.
 
Yeah I have heard of this before, but I think it's more of a random thing than anything, but I know this do happen to some people. Take my uncle for instance. He has a habit of eating A LOT before he sleeps and he's had a few nightmares after. Is it because he ate too much before sleeping? Who knows, maybe, maybe not. But I know one time he ate a bucket full of KFC all by himself, slept right after and for awhile my family couldn't wake him up but he was definitely having a bad nightmare due to his thrashing and moaning around.

This hasn't happened to me before. I always try to avoid eating before going straight to bed. One, it's not healthy. Most of your body shuts down when you're asleep and now you've packed on extra things to metabolize. And since your body is working slowly and not expending energy, the caloric intake is not being utilize as a source of immediate energy but instead it becomes a fat store, primarily adipose tissue. And now as to specifically why it would give people nightmares, I am not 100% sure. It obviously is related to the REM state, but how that correlates is beyond me.
 
I've heard about this but I haven't noticed it in myself really.
Was it a full meal you ate? As in like a massive amount of food? I've eaten hours before I've gone to bed, like pasta or whatever, but not amazingly huge quanities of food I don't think.

But yeah I've heard of this, and it sounds like it must have been a scary experience for you. :O Monster-aliens on trains? That should make a movie! :D Perhaps this is how folks come up with new movie ideas. They eat just before sleeping, have a hell of a weird nightmare, then record it in the morning. Instant script and plot, and no work to be done. :D

I would try it, just to experience it, but I'm not sure I want to encourage nightmares... I'll be a little scared in case the nightmare experience goes too far, as with some people, and I get the "old hag", or "imp", or "nightmare demon" come to me at night, me powerless to move, and sit on top of my chest and strangle me. That must be the single most scary experience anyone can ever go through while semi-awake. People have woken up with actual marks on their necks from struggling and straining against the "old hag" to breathe (when in reality, its just a very real feeling nightmare).
 
I always eat huge amounts of food before I go to sleep, but if I don't eat very much I have dreams of food! Yea I really don't have bad dreams.
 
Hmm, I guess it depends on the person. I know the handful of times I've gone to bed full it was a sure guarantee of having bad or sad dreams (yeah I'm pretty sure I've had some dreams that were pretty sad [good friends dying, etc. etc.]). I know I said to myself last night that I'd have one and sure enough...

Gotta research this stuff.

And I gotta agree with Argor on this one. Instant movie plots. The dream takes stuff out of your own life (which makes sense, it IS your own brain that's doing it), so it's pretty weird dreaming this stuff up. >.>
 
OoohI wonder if this is why I have been having a lot of nightmares recently...al those late nifght takeaways...could be onto something there, I didnt have any nightmares last night, but I did the night before when Id ordered a pizza

It was something to do with zombies I think, Ive been having zombie related dreams a lot recently, used to be vampires...... I can't really remember much about it now though. However, Il make a mental note to stop ordering pizza so often ad so late >_>
 
Wikipedia said:
Eating before bed, which triggers an increase in the body's metabolism and brain activity, is another potential stimulus for nightmares.
Click to expand...

Here's a source. I asked my mom too (doctor) and she said eating does have a chance to cause some weird dreams.
 
That makes sense. The brain is definitely a powerful tool, even when you are asleep. An example is when I am having a nightmare, for some reason I can take control of my dream and make it turn out so that any of my loved ones who is about to die...can be saved by me altering the dream a little. It takes a lot of concentrating though, and I think by then I am half-awake but the dream is still there. Probably the reason why I am able to alter what the outcome was supposed to be into something else on my favor.

Has that ever happened to anyone...? I'm thinking it just similar to when people are having nightmares and they force themselves to wake up. Most of the time you succeed, but even then the scary aura is still lingering in your brain.
 
I think I do, and I know what you mean about being able to somehow control your dream even when you feel you're half-awake. It's really weird.
 
Your lifestyle affects it the most. If you are prone to eat a lot then being full won't cause nightmares, but when you are hungry you will dream of what you want. Also if you live with risks then your dreams will coenside with it. I have had times when I lived with very little activity and my dreams were showing my worst fears. there are other things that effect it as well but that is the main thing.
 
See i always thought this one of em stories yer ma would tell you to stop you eating. I was told eating cheese after 8.00 gave you nightmares, but i dont think ive ever had a nightmare caused by this, they're usually random. I quite enjoy nightmares aswell actually. Also i always eat my meal as soon as i come home from work which is at like 5ish so that could be why it doesnt work ;)
 
I have known for some time that eatting before going to bed can cause dreams to occur. I wouldn't say I get nightmares after eating a snack before bedtime but I do get alot of weird dream. I think I need to lay off on the popcorn because for the past two nights I ended up having these weird dreams that involved Amy Lee teaching at my school and something that had to do with a DW character name Sun Jian having a headache or dying last night. Yeah... I don't know why he was in my dreams to begin with but he was and it was interesting. o.o
 
The only time I get nightmares is when I have a stomah full of sugar.
and even then they are seriously meesed up.
 
Just out of curiosity, what are we defining as a "nightmare"? I have multiple dreams every night and I almost never forget one. However, every night, at least once, I have a falling dream. It's almost every night. I'm not sure if it counts... but I don't always eat before bed. Then again, I never go to bed on an empty stomach either. Hmmm...
 
I had a horrible nightmare just recently after eating before I went to bed. Somehow, my best friend got kidnapped, and I, for some stupid reason, decided the best way to save her was to get myself kidnapped as well by the same person. Knowing my bad luck though, I got kidnapped instead by some phscho murderer and I woke up just as he was about to hack my arms off with a saw :gasp:

There have been a few others besides this one as well that occured after I had a hefty midnight snack. I guess it all just depends on the person though.
 
Stella, your dream just reminded me of something I also wanted to bring up when it comes to nightmares. Not that long ago, I dreamt that some abortionist was using a big-ass knife to cut my leg. o_O Now, I was laying face down in my dream, and he was just hacking away with that knife of his on my left leg, pushing the knife deeper and going down the path.

...The freakiest thing is that I felt it. >.> It hurt and I was cringing from the pain, and when he was about to switch to my other leg, that's when I really forced myself to wake up.

This has happened quite a few times already, where I've felt the pain in my dream. I'm sure it's not as painful in real life, but still physical pain nonetheless...
 
Wow, that's kind of a like a variation of the 'falling' dream, but with actual hurt. o_O
Never heard of that happening, and I'm half about to say you were probably having a leg cramp or something when you were having the dream (as it's happened to me loads of times) and the dream just coincided with it, but I dunno.

I've known dreams can intersect with real-time events, like when some weird noise comes in during the dream, it could be that your alarm-clock is just ringing in real life. >.>
 
That's actually really interesting. I've never had physical pain in a dream before. I have had a lot of very real sensations but I've never felt actual pain. Probably the closest I've come is one time I dreamed I was stuck in a hall of mirrors and poison darts kept flying out of the wall when I accidentally hit tripwires. I remember thinking the darts were actually hitting me and looking down to see them sticking out of my skin... but I don't recall experiencing pain in the dream.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top