They say you are what you eat, but some folks believe that old adage applies even when you're sleeping. For centuries, various cultures have passed down fables about different foods that cause nightmares and sleep terrors. In the past, people have blamed everything from sweet chocolates to dill pickles when they experienced visions of, say, terrifying warehouse chases or great white shark attacks.
On those nights when you wake up in a cold, panic-induced sweat from the monsters of your subconscious, you might wonder what caused you to dream up such holy hell. Well, researchers at the University of Montreal conducted a study that sought to determine if our wildest nightmares can be traced back to any particular late-night snacks. Their findings were published in 2015 in the Swiss academic peer-review journal Frontiers in Psychology, and took its name from a popular comic strip, "The Dream of the Rarebit Fiend," from the early 1900s, which concerned bizarre dreams spawned by the titular (and sophisticated) sandwich.
Researchers surveyed 369 students about their sleep patterns, dreams, and dietary habits and found that about 18% of them felt food had an influence on their dreams. More than 40% of those students blamed dairy products for their nightmares. But the study also found that some of the participants who reported bad dreams also noted that they slept poorly, drank more coffee, and engaged in binge- and emotional stress eating, all of which may have also influenced their dreams.