Thursday, April 24, 2008

The Dreams of My Cheese, Part 2: Electric Boogaloo


Photo credit: arbyreed

Before I begin, allow me to apologize for the lack of updates these past few days. Things have been a bit hectic, school-wise.

The last time I checked in, I mentioned that I would conduct my own cheese and dreams experiment. True to my word, I had a slice of Swiss cheese (Sargento brand to be exact) every night before bed for three nights in a row, and then proceeded to record any dreams I might have had.

Before I disclose my findings, I should probably offer this disclaimer: For as long as I can remember, my dreams have always been fragmented, little snippets that have no relation to what came before or what is to come after. Now that you know, be aware that the dreams I'm about to describe won't be elaborate yarns but rather nonsensical bits that my sub-conscience was kind enough to cook up while I slept. Now, on to the dreams:

Night 1: One minute I was at school, then I was at work, and then finally I was reading a hybrid novel/comic book in which one of the characters looked just like John Krasinski.

Night 2: My dream on this night was rather meta in that I was telling a family member how different cheeses can affect what dreams you have. Weird.

Night 3: I got into a catfight with some unknown gal in a backstage dressing room, and fittingly enough, J. Alexander from America's Next Top Model made a small appearance. Shortly afterwards I found that one of my front teeth had grown to the point where it was four times the size of all of my other teeth. To make things even worse, it was threatening to fall out, which would in turn leave a massive gap between my front teeth.

So what have we learned? To be honest, the only things I took away from this experiment were that my dreams are either really banal or really fantastical, and that Swiss is not consistent compared to the cheeses used in the British Cheese Board study. But I will say this: Before doing this test, I hadn't had a dream in weeks, but as you can see, I found myself dreaming of something for all three nights during which I had some cheese before bedtime. If anything, this upholds the hypothesis that there is a connection between cheese and dreams, even if the cheese doesn't serve as a reference as to what your dreams will entail.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow, that's weird. I wonder if it works with any other foods, or just cheese. Kind of makes me want to try it out with differnt kinds of cheese, although my dreams are weird enough without it.

Anonymous said...

I find eating any substantial amount of any kind of protein late at night (especially steak) leads to KRAZY dreams.

I hope you continue with your experiments trying the cheeses noted in the British study.