Weird Dreams Anyone?

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Early_Riser
Early_Riser Posts: 127 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Okay, so typically I can never remember dreams. Until last week. Every night I have had the weirdest, craziest, scariest dreams, ever. I can only gather it is from exercising, losing weight, and changing diet, as that is the only thing I have been doing differently. Has anyone else experienced this??

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  • Meerataila
    Meerataila Posts: 1,885 Member
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    Yes. When I went low carb I had guilty dreams that I'd gone and bought a dozen doughnuts and eaten them all.

    When I'm trying to come down with a cold or something I always have weird dreams.

    When I'm stressed (including about my diet and exercise) I have weird dreams. Last night I dreamed I went back to low carb. I know that is because I'm stressing over not having as much control over my appetite as I want to have with my current diet.

    I do intermittent fasting, and sometimes on fast days I have a hard time sleeping and have weird dreams when I do get to sleep. Although this doesn't happen as often as it used to.

    When I used to eat chips, some brands and flavors would even give me weird dreams if I ate them just before bed.
  • KarenJanine
    KarenJanine Posts: 3,497 Member
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    I have weird dreams if my hormones are out of whack or if I've eaten cheese before bed.

    I dream about food if I'm hungry.
  • Gawanne
    Gawanne Posts: 105 Member
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    Never have nightmares. Last night I dreamt I was in a closet in an empty room. Some unseen force slowly was closing the door. I tried to push it open but the weight on it wouldn't let me. It closed to about an inch when I woke up somewhat shaken but otherwise ok. Part of dieting? Usually my dreams are sunny!
  • earlnabby
    earlnabby Posts: 8,171 Member
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    I have weird dreams all of the time. They usually are not scary or anything, just mundane but crazy slices of life. I seem to get left out of things a lot. In one dream, I was in a hotel room with a few people and we were going to have an orgy. Everybody left before anybody got to "entertain" me. I get fired from jobs a lot in my dreams too.
  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
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    Our brains always seek out causal explanations for things even when a cause does not exist. Most likely you are just randomly having a serious of bad dreams and you are seeking something in your life to explain it and latching onto weight loss because that is what is on your mind these days. I don't see really how exercising or weight loss would cause bad dreams.
  • Meerataila
    Meerataila Posts: 1,885 Member
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    Our brains always seek out causal explanations for things even when a cause does not exist. Most likely you are just randomly having a serious of bad dreams and you are seeking something in your life to explain it and latching onto weight loss because that is what is on your mind these days. I don't see really how exercising or weight loss would cause bad dreams.

    I see how. Because we are consciousnesses that arise out of a soup of chemical reactions, some of which exercise and diet can affect.
  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
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    Our brains always seek out causal explanations for things even when a cause does not exist. Most likely you are just randomly having a serious of bad dreams and you are seeking something in your life to explain it and latching onto weight loss because that is what is on your mind these days. I don't see really how exercising or weight loss would cause bad dreams.

    I see how. Because we are consciousnesses that arise out of a soup of chemical reactions, some of which exercise and diet can affect.

    A bit hand-wavy don't you think? What you are saying basically is "our brains are complicated and influenced by anything therefore anything can cause bad dreams". Sure, okay...but that isn't evidence of causation that is just basically saying "anything can happen". What I meant was not that it is impossible for your life to influence your dreams, what I meant was that there is no reason to think that weight loss and exercise just cause bad dreams by default.
  • earlnabby
    earlnabby Posts: 8,171 Member
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    Our brains always seek out causal explanations for things even when a cause does not exist. Most likely you are just randomly having a serious of bad dreams and you are seeking something in your life to explain it and latching onto weight loss because that is what is on your mind these days. I don't see really how exercising or weight loss would cause bad dreams.

    One possible way is, if you are feeling hungry, you don't spend as much time in NREM sleep (the really deep non-dreaming stage). If you spend more time in REM sleep, you dream more.

    The best description I ever heard about why you dream what you dream is that dreams are "the woofer and tweeter of the subconscious". Basically, whatever is being mulled over in your brain, whether you are totally aware of it or not, will frequently come out in your dreams. This gets adjusted by some external factors like when I dreamed that some good looking guy was nibbling on my ear and woke up to realize it really was my cat trying to pull an earring out.
  • Meerataila
    Meerataila Posts: 1,885 Member
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    Our brains always seek out causal explanations for things even when a cause does not exist. Most likely you are just randomly having a serious of bad dreams and you are seeking something in your life to explain it and latching onto weight loss because that is what is on your mind these days. I don't see really how exercising or weight loss would cause bad dreams.

    I see how. Because we are consciousnesses that arise out of a soup of chemical reactions, some of which exercise and diet can affect.

    A bit hand-wavy don't you think? What you are saying basically is "our brains are complicated and influenced by anything therefore anything can cause bad dreams". Sure, okay...but that isn't evidence of causation that is just basically saying "anything can happen". What I meant was not that it is impossible for your life to influence your dreams, what I meant was that there is no reason to think that weight loss and exercise just cause bad dreams by default.

    I didn't say 'anything' I said chemical reaction. But it's true that can be caused by an awful lot of different things. A few occurrences of strange dreams after exercise and diet changes isn't enough data, but I've been going through this over half my life. I know my dreams are affected. Your results may vary.
  • PotatoCatMouse
    PotatoCatMouse Posts: 3
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    Ever since I was little I've had crazy dreams.
    There's this one repeating dream I've had since I was a toddler where I step into my backyard and a shark falls out of the sky and kills me.
    Another really weird (repeating) one is 2D. A bunch of black dots on a blue background, just bouncing happily, when all of a sudden they collide together. I wake up really freaked out, crying and sweating most of the time.
    This other one is where I'm a performer at one of those peep shows and my grandmother starts watching me.
    Oh! There was also that one dream where my sister, my mom and I were next to this cliff with water on the bottom. We all decide to skinny dip off the cliff. When I come up to the surface of the water, my mom and my sister disappeared and I'm in this pool in a room. There's tons of people I know in the pool, and various torture devices surround it, each with a person inside of them. Then I wake up.
    I have weird dreams.
  • Gawanne
    Gawanne Posts: 105 Member
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    Next question. How do we stop nightmares etc. especially claustrophobic ones, please!
  • dpwellman
    dpwellman Posts: 3,271 Member
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    I have weird, repetitive dreams when I'm sick-- fever. Usually completing a task like assembling an abstract model or traversing a maze, , having to start over continuously. It's annoying.
  • BootCampC
    BootCampC Posts: 689 Member
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    I hardly ever remember a dream when I drink, but if you want more vivid dreams I have a few herbs which will help , that's all
  • Swiftlet66
    Swiftlet66 Posts: 729 Member
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    Occasionally, I'll have very vivid, very weird dreams. I notice it happens more frequently when I eat lots of sugary stuff before bed. One of them, I dreamt I laid an egg and an alien baby boy popped out. I was scared of him but took care of him anyways. He grew up very smart and intelligent and when he was around 5 years old, he started traveling around the world on a jeep with a mysterious stranger/man. Another time, I had a dream about meeting a mad scientist who introduced me to a giant epic robot and the robot came to life, picked me up and we went around the world fighting gigantic monsters. In the end, we went into outer space in order to travel to the ends of the universe. Talk about weird?
  • techgal128
    techgal128 Posts: 719 Member
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    I had a dream last night I was being attacked by a monster only to wake up to my cat attacking my feet.
  • GothyFaery
    GothyFaery Posts: 762 Member
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    Ever since I was little I've had crazy dreams.
    There's this one repeating dream I've had since I was a toddler where I step into my backyard and a shark falls out of the sky and kills me.

    Sharknado must terrify you!

    sharknado_poster.jpg
  • MinnieInMaine
    MinnieInMaine Posts: 6,400 Member
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    Could be the hot weather? I know when I'm warm I have a hard time sleeping and that tends to bring on odd dreams. Kind of like those weird ones you get when you fall back asleep an hour before the alarm goes off and wake up thinking "what the F was that about?!". They say this is actually why for most (I know there are plenty of exceptions) it's a bad idea to exercise before bedtime because once your temp is raised, it can make it hard to get to sleep and/or have a restful night's sleep.

    Most of the time though, I can attribute weird dreams to hormones or the new moon (call me an astronomy flake if you must, it's happened too many times to dismiss).

    Anyone ever had a dream in black and white? That's only happened once that I can remember but it was a mind blower.
  • Early_Riser
    Early_Riser Posts: 127 Member
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    Guess it was a fluke. It's cut back now :)
  • runitskat
    runitskat Posts: 30
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    Ever since I found out I was gluten intolerant and stopped eating it, I have constant dreams about being force to eat gluten. It's weird.

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