Eating Dairy Before Bed Can Give You Nightmares, Study Suggests
If you’ve ever had strange dreams after a cheesy bedtime snack, you’re not imagining things. A new study from Canada suggests that eating dairy—especially if you’re lactose intolerant—might be linked to nightmares and disturbed sleep.
Researchers surveyed over 1,000 college students to explore the connection between food and dreams. The results? People who said they regularly have nightmares or poor sleep were also more likely to report food allergies—particularly lactose intolerance.
According to psychologist and study co-author Russ Powell from MacEwan University in Edmonton, “The results confirmed our hypothesis that lactose intolerance is linked to disturbed dreaming and nightmares.”
Why Dairy Could Disrupt Your Sleep
The idea that certain foods—especially cheese—can mess with your dreams isn’t new. As far back as the early 1900s, comics like Dream of the Rarebit Fiend joked about people having bizarre dreams after eating cheesy dishes like Welsh rarebit (basically cheese on toast).
In fact, this same research team conducted a similar survey in 2015. Back then, about 20% of people believed food—especially dairy—was behind their weird dreams. This new study doubled the participant count and dug deeper.
Here’s what they found:
- About 40% of students felt that late-night eating affected their sleep.
- 25% believed their diet made their sleep worse.
- 5.5% said food influenced the content of their dreams—cheese, spicy foods, and sweets were the top suspects.
- Those who reported lactose intolerance also reported more nightmares and worse sleep quality.
- People with other food allergies or poor diets also tended to sleep worse and have more disturbing dreams.
What’s Really Going On?
If you’re lactose intolerant, dairy can cause gas, bloating, and general stomach upset. That physical discomfort might be enough to mess with your sleep—or even creep into your dreams.
“There’s some evidence that GI (gastrointestinal) pain—like from lactose intolerance—can seriously disrupt dreaming,” Powell explained. It’s even been suggested that our brains might trigger nightmares as a kind of internal alarm, especially if we’re feeling unwell in our sleep.
Other conditions, like menstrual cramps, have also been linked to disturbed dreams for the same reason.
What’s Next?
The researchers hope to run clinical trials next—like comparing how people with lactose intolerance sleep after eating dairy vs. avoiding it altogether. They also want to see if food allergies might play a direct role in people who frequently have nightmares.
Since about one-third of Americans struggle to digest lactose (even if they don’t always feel it), this research offers one more reason to think twice about that bedtime bowl of ice cream. Maybe swap it for a dairy-free sorbet instead!
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