Do you like eating cheese? Do you also eat cheese or cheese snack before going to bed? A common piece of folk wisdom is eating cheese before bed gives you nightmares. Let’s find out if its holds some amount of truth or based entirely on fiction.
In 2005, a cheese industry group “British Cheese Board” gave challenge to this old wives’ tale. They asked a team of around 200 people to have a snake of cheese thirty minutes before going to bed and requested them to record their dreams. Any Guesses on the Result?
Contrary to that old wives’ tale, 75% of volunteers had a good night’s sleep and most of these people could remember and report their dream. This helped to conclude the Cheese Board that the essential amino acid in milk (tryptophan) was reducing the stress level and normalizing the sleep pattern of those cheese-eaters. A strange part of this story is yet to reveal. In an interview, the secretary of British Cheese Board ‘Nigel White’ explained a few more facts related to types of cheese and their effect on sleep and dream.
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What Type of Cheese Affects Dreams?
When it comes to vivid dreams or dreams with wacky content in it—Stilton cheese has been liked quite often. It causes crazy dreams but not exactly nightmares. More than 75% men and around 85% women eating Stilton before bed time experienced odd and vivid dreams. A few examples of such dreams were soldiers fighting each other with kittens, falling through the sky, a vegetarian crocodile.
Red Leicester to Meet With Your Old Friends in Dreams
Would you be happy with a star-studded dream then your best bet would be cheddar. A huge majority (almost two-third) of volunteers eating cheddar saw dreams about celebrities, including Johnny Depp, Jordan. If you are seriously missing your old friends and there is no chance of meeting them soon, try Red Leicester. 6 out of 10 volunteers had nostalgic dreams about their childhood friends, school days and past events, eating the cheese. British brie is a type that gave nice dreams to women, while the men had some very odd dreams.
Sleep well with Cheshire
If you just fancy no dreams and a sound good night’s sleep then you can try Cheshire Cheese. Over half of the volunteers eating the type of cheese remain completely dreamless throughout the experiment.
Final Words
PhD director of the sleep research ‘Neil Stanley’ said: it’s a first sleep study that has done on cheese and its effects on dreams. The study suggests that a piece of cheese before bed time actually aid’s a good night sleep. It also seems that one can customize or select a type of dream for coming night by choosing a type of cheese as a bed time snack. Since this cheese and dream study has debunked the myth that cheese causes you nightmare people with take it positively to having cheese before going to bed.
Typo?
They asked a team of around 200 people to have a “snake” of cheese