I have accidentally stumbled upon something that affects my dream recall.
I’ve been filling out Ed Kellogg’s form every night before going to bed, and one thing he makes you right down is what you ate that night and at what time.
Now I pretty much always have good dream recall, but occasionally I wake up with zilch! I’ve always wondered what the cause could be for that.
Now the other day I really got this sweet tooth, and I made some double dark chocolate brownies with pecans and sweetened cranberries in it. Hmmmm delicious!
I could not stop my self from having at least 3 squares a day. I did that for a few days, and had absolutely no dream recall those days. It was then that I drew a correlation between the brownies and my dream recall. So to test it out I decided to skip sugar all together (except for a teaspoon in my coffee in the morning).
I went to bed very lightheaded (sugar withdrawal?) and fell asleep instantly. I ended up having a ton of dreams, woke up on my own at 3 AM, wrote them down, and had some more before I woke up at 6:30.
Does anyone that has hardly any or no dream recall eat a lot of sugar during the day up till night time? Please let me know. Would you mind trying a few sugar free days, and let me know if you notice a change?
Thanks 
i’m having trouble remembering my dreams in the morning. eating sugar might be the reason. i’m not gonna eat any sugar for a few days now to see if i can get a better dream recall. 
thanks for noticing this 
I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of sugar would affect your DR. After all, I remember my mother telling me eating sweets before bed would give me nightmares, so it may not be good for dreaming in general.
Ironically, sweet fruits like a pear or apple before bed help me out a lot. Maybe it’s the difference between natural sugar and corn syrup/other artificial sweeteners.
Yes I think you are right.
I wonder if this processing uses some sort of chemical, an addictive one at that, seeing as so many people are hooked on sugar, but not as many on pears or apples.
I have cut out sugar and sugary foods/drinks completely by now 
(since some months)
Refined sugar is worse than that in fruits and aliments in general because it does not come with all the additional components that help with assimilating it and putting it to good use. We are not machines, it’s not like you can just send raw fuel down people’s throats XP Man has adapted over the millennia previous to the agricultural revolution to a diet of what Nature offers (and arguably meat), so that’s what does best to us.
I’ll have to try this out. I’ll often have some sugar related snack before bed, so skipping that may indeed improve my recall (which is actually pretty good as it is).
I may actually have to eat something healthy now .
For a long time (around 4-5 years) Ive been aware that I never remember dreaming when I wake up, and have always wondered why. I did a bit of searching online and came across this post today and had to comment.
I have been working on getting fitter and improving my diet the past year. My diet wasn’t great and have been making changes gradually and about 2 weeks ago decided to cut ALL refined sugar from my diet.
This past week, every morning I wake up I’m suddenly aware of having lots of dreams and wondered why the big change all of a sudden.
Its the only thing thats changed for me, so I personally I see a direct link to sugar intake and increased dream recall. Looks like there are two benefits to not eating sugar - health benefits and dream recall!
Sugar makes it hard to focus so yeah. It problably helps to cut down on it. And welcome to LD4All! 
Are you really sure about what you’re writing? I ask because on many forums peoples are saying that eating chocolate has a very good impact on dreams vividness, recognizing dream signs ergo lucid dreaming… A lot of people confirmed that in their own experiences. There was even a time when I was eating chocolate before dream and I could saw improvement in my dreams’ vividness and so on 
I don’t know if this explains my dream recall but I can’t eat sugar anyway because I’m carb sensitive. I also quit smoking 12 years ago. So when I lucid dream the first thing I want to do is eat ice cream and smoke. In my dreams my cigarette is usually about a foot long. You know the funny part? I can always materialize cigarettes but I have a hard time finding a lighter.
Anywho.
Like stated on my profile, the next time I lucid dream I’m eating a ton of Ramen noodles. I really miss those things.
Mattata: Well, there is more to chocolate than just sugar … what about the caffeine part? In small amounts, caffeine helps some with recall. Maybe chocolate has other chemicals that will help … it’s sugar is more natural than other ‘treats’ - depends on the type … hmmm.
Sounds great haven’t remembered a dream for over 2 weeks now I can go 110% sugar free for around a week and share my results.
Kevin: I haven’t really thought about it but you’re right, chocolate contains anandamide which helps during sleeping and relaxing, as well as endorphines and other… maybe that’s a little secret of a chocolate. Haven’t thought about it before. About the sugar, maybe it doesn’t have much negative influence as the foregoing substances, I mean, all in all we can only observe the positive influence Thanks, you made me reconsider it again
Well sugar free is harder than I thought but I did get a slightly better recall but it assalotalot. But will try for one last time tomorrow and post some better results