Vitamins

Quest for Lucidity
1

I’d just like to add my little piece of knowledge that I’ve recently discovered.

I have recently found, that by taking Vitamic C & Zinc tablets before bedtime, my dream recall is fantastic! For ages, I could hardly ever remember any dreams. Then I read somewhere that poor dream recall could be a symptom of Zinc deficiancy. I realised I had some tablets containing 500mg Vitamin C and 5mg Zinc. Last night I took two of these tablets shortly before bed, and remembered a really detailed wonderful dream almost completely.

2

That’s interesting stuff.
I have read a whole lot about nutrition recently. Most people eat a little less zinc than recommended, although perhaps not enough to be harmful.
Have you had only one try so far? Anyone else tried?

I’ll see wether we got any zinc tablets at home

tapir

3

No, I’ve tried it quite a lot. Last night I did the same thing, but didn’t remember my dreams quite as much. But on the whole, when I take Vitamin C & Zinc before bed I remember my dream the next day.

I didn’t eat so well yesterday evening like I normally do. I only had a jacket potato with salad for dinner, and then munched on other things not long before going to bed, and therefore it was harder to get to sleep. That could have had something to do with it.

One good tip: don’t eat late. Eat a good healthy meal about 6pm, then a snack an hour or two later, but don’t eat anything less than 2 hours before going to bed, otherwise you could have trouble getting to sleep, that’s what my nutrition book says.

So I tend to have a meal at normal time, then a snack about 7:30 or 8pm (usually oat cakes with an apple, and perhaps a few nuts), and then I go to bed about 10:00pm.

If anybody here is really interested in learning more about nutrition, I highly recommend two books by Patrick Holford: Optimum Nutrition For The Mind and The Optimim Nutrition Bible. He mentions the importance of dreaming in the “…For The Mind” book, and explains the relationship between various nutrients and sleep.

Patrick Holford is the founder of the Institute For Optimum Nutrition, and a lot of what he says in those books make a lot of sense.

For more information, go to: www.patrickholford.com

He even has his own supplement range. I take his Advanced Optimum Nutrition Multivitamin & Mineral Formula, which is designed by him and made by Higher Nature. It includes a lot of vitamins in higher doses than most other formulas, because most most formulas just have everything at 100% RDA, whereas Patrick points out in his books that RDA is the minimum, whereas the “Optimum” level of a lot of nutrients is actually considerably higher.

If you’re interested, check it out. Any changes that I’ve made in accordance with his book have made me feel great.

4

B6 plus B-complex definately gave a more vivid dream and better recall.

5

I just thought I’d mention, that I have discovered that the vitamins that help with dreams, do not have to be taken immediately before bed. For the last few days, I have been supplementing 100mg B6 and 15mg Zinc in the morning with my breakfast, and I have woken up and remembered a dream each following morning.

It seams that Zinc & B6 are the best for dream recall. Those are the ones that have “poor dream recall” listed as defeciency signs in my nutrition book.

6

Ok, since I don’t have any B vitamins or zink at home, I’ve researched a little about where you can find it naturally.
So… here are some lists, in order from most containing to least containing:

Vitamin B6
-wheat germs
-enriched breakfast flakes
-wheat bran
-sunflower seeds
-frog’s legs :content:
-liver
-soy beans

Vitamin B12
-Liver
-Kidney
-Pikes
-oysters
-roe
-chicken
-milk

Zink
-Oysters
-wheat germs
-reindeer meat
-linseed
-sesame seeds
-pork
-Liver
-salmon
-Soy beans

It’s quite the same food for B1 and B2.

So… I suppose you all can’t wait till night to guzzle on oysters, frog’s legs, liver and linseeds. :content:

7

It’s actually bad for your sleep to eat too close to bedtime. According to Patrick Holford, you shouldn’t eat any later than 2 hours before going to bed. This is because the body doesn’t do much digesting whilst asleep, so having lots of food in your stomach might keep you awake whilst it digests the food.

This is actually very true, because any days where I’ve eaten just before going to bed, I have definately had a lot mroe trouble falling asleep compared to days when I eat earlier. A considerable amount of peoples’ sleeping problems could probably be solved by following sensible eating habbits.

So in summary: if you have chosen certain foods which you think will help your dreaming experience, eat them a few hours before going to bed, NOT immediately before going to bed. Your body needs time to digest them before it can use them.

8

The ones I can recall for now: vitamin B12 and especially B6, mint tea (or some exotic yogic tea if you can find them), cheese, milk, …
They mostly help with dream recall. You can find more of them in this topic, especially herbs. If you’d ask me to pick one of them, I’d say vitamin B6. It gives you extremely vivid and long dreams.