Does cheese cause nightmares? Some people blame it for their troubling dreams

It is said that cheese lovers see strange dreams: some return to their past, others meet celebrities, others communicate with animals. How is it connected with the consumption of dairy product?

PhD in Psychology

Cheese contains a lot of tyramine – a rather dangerous substance that has a very strong excitatory effect on the nervous system.

So, 85% of respondents noted that they saw strange and vivid dreams after eating Stilton cheese. Someone, for example, dreamed about a vegetarian crocodile and an elevator going sideways (15 years ago it was beyond imagination). Those who ate Red Lester cheese before bed dreamed of their past. Another variety, Brie, fulfilled the subjects’ fantasies: one participant dreamed of popular chef James Oliver over a romantic dinner. In 2018, Burger King fueled rumors that cheese is to blame for bad dreams. The manufacturers released a cheeseburger for Halloween called the Nightmare King, which supposedly increases the chances of seeing something weird in your dreams by 3.5 times. They attributed this to the fact that the combination of protein and cheese interrupts the REM phase of sleep.

Alexander: The fact is that cheese contains a lot of tyramine – a rather dangerous substance. And the more aged the cheese is, the more tyramine it contains. It has a strong excitatory effect on the nervous system and in large quantities can cause nightmares, shallow, interrupted sleep. In the body, tyramine is broken down by a special enzyme, but in many people the activity of this enzyme is not high enough to destroy all the tyramine obtained from cheese. That is why one person can eat 300 grams of cheese and feel nothing afterwards. And another person may not feel well even from 50 grams of the product. Symptoms include headaches, rapid heartbeat, difficulty falling asleep, and nightmares. It’s all called “cheese syndrome.”

What other habits, except for eating cheese at night, can badly affect sleep, see in the video “Championship”.

Cheese itself does not cause problems with sleep. If, however, after consuming the product, a person sleeps badly and sees nightmares, this is due to his individual characteristics. For example, with lactose intolerance – it is contained in cheese made from whey. In this case, it is worth choosing hard varieties: cheddar, gouda, parmesan.

But in the case of “cheese syndrome” it is worth reducing the portion of cheese, do not eat hard, aged varieties and with mold – they have a lot of tyramine. Drinking the product with red wine is also undesirable, because the drink also contains this substance. Combining aged cheese with antidepressants is also dangerous – it can lead to a heart attack or stroke, warns the expert.