It can be pretty frustrating when you wake up in the morning with the full knowledge that you definitely had tons of dreams throughout the night, but no matter how hard you try to remember the details, your mind just goes blank. Remembering your dreams can seem nearly impossible for some people, but there are certain things you can do to help boost your memory, so you can finally tell your friends just how much you and Beyoncé partied throughout the night. For example, there are certain foods that help you remember your dreams more than others, as well as snacks that can actually help you dream more vividly than if you hadn't eaten anything at all.
Of course, many aspects of dreams, in general, are still totally unknown. For one thing, we still don't really know for certain why we dream at all, or what it tells us about our unconscious state, or whether we should even read into these things as much as we do. If you've had some especially gnarly dreams about snake pits or Kanye West tweeting at you, then you're probably unwilling to believe that this has a serious psychological connection to your daily life. But if you're able to influence your dreams by the way you eat, then there must be some connection between consciousness and unconsciousness, right?
Again, the answers to those questions are still very much up for debate, but for now, science says these five foods just might help you remember your dreams, or better yet, make them more vivid.
Let's get this one out of the way: Cheese is not only jam-packed with tryptophan, but it's also been blamed as the source of nightmares and bad sleeping for decades, Bustle reports.
Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), there doesn't appear to be any truth behind the connection between cheese and dreaming — but there is some validity to the notion that cheese makes you fall asleep faster, due to all that tryptophan. Hey, any excuse to eat cheese before bed (or really, at any time of day) is good enough for me.
Bananas are full of vitamin B6, which might just help you remember your dreams more clearly, according to a new study from the University of Adelaide in Australia. In this research, people who took vitamin B6 supplements were better at recalling their dreams, although the dreams themselves apparently weren't more vivid. Study author Dr. Denholm Aspy, of the University of Adelaide's School of Psychology, explained the findings:
Our results show that taking vitamin B6 improved people's ability to recall dreams compared to a placebo. Vitamin B6 did not affect the vividness, bizarreness or colour of their dreams, and did not affect other aspects of their sleep patterns.
This kind of seems like the ultimate happy medium, right? With vitamin B6 in your system, you might have an easier time recalling that one dream about being back in your old high school and opening your locker to have a bunch of giant spiders fall onto you, but apparently it won't make the sensation of those creepy-crawlers on your skin more vivid or more realistic — phew.
Avocado is another food that's high in B6, according to SELF, comprising 20 percent of your daily suggested intake of the vitamin.
What's more, avocado toast might be a perfect pre-bedtime snack not just because that B6 may boost your ability to remember your dreams, but also because the carbs in the toast are the ultimate snack to keep you feeling full throughout the night without interrupting your digestion.
A regular serving of salmon will get you 30 percent of your daily B6 requirement, plus it'll serve a whole host of other health benefits along the way on your journey toward better dream retention: According to Dr. Axe, DNM, DC, CNS, a doctor of natural medicine, chiropractor, and clinical nutritionist, vitamin B6 can positively affect your serotonin production (aka one of your "happy hormones") and suppress inflammation in your joints. What's more, Dr. Axe's website reports, this vitamin has even been linked to the treatment of mood disorders. Bottom line: Regardless of how it affects your dreams, your body clearly responds well to this vitamin, so eat up, girl.
There's nothing better than a heaping bowl of mashed potatoes, right? Not only are those spuds incredibly delicious, but they'll also give you 25 percent of your daily requirement of vitamin B6, according to SELF Nutrition Data, and you can add in the one-two punch of dairy with a little bit of cream or shredded cheese to up the taste and dream-retention factors.
Of course, if you don't want to eat any of these foods before bed, you could always take a vitamin B6 supplement, which will take all of the guesswork out of this whole thing and answer, once and for all, who bit Beyoncé — in your dream, that is.
