In the new study, over 1,000 Canadian students were interviewed about possible connections between different types of dreams and sensitivity to different foods.
When the researchers compared reported sensitivity to certain food with the occurrence of nightmares, they saw that the intake of foods with lactose, such as cheese, was strongly associated with nightmares.
A possible cause is that lactose causes stomach cramps and gas in some people and that it activates nightmares.
Even people who ate unhealthy food in general reported more nightmares in the study.
“The severity of nightmares is strongly linked to lactose intolerance and other food allergies. These new findings show that changed eating habits for people with sensitivity to certain foods can alleviate nightmares," says the study's lead author Tore Nielsen at the University of Montréal, in a press release.
The study is published in Frontiers in Psychology.
