Has there ever been any demonstrable connection established between eating certain foods/having bad eating habits and having nightmares? The usual specific condition (fitting my own experiences, if they are to be trusted)[sup]*[/sup] is that it’s most often undigested food that is troublesome.
This certainly seems to fall under traditional common knowledge, but, as this is The Straight Dope, if there’s truth behind the folklore it should be known here. I wouldn’t expect that the mechanism, if there is one, would be understood (who can say that the bit of pickle in your stomach is the 40-foot snowman chasing you off a cliff?) But perhaps there has been, just for knowledge’s sake, an empirical study comparing the sleep, or even the dreams, of those who’ve digested their food and those who haven’t.
[sup]*[/sup] I should make it clear that I do believe the connection between the two to exist as I’ve had bad dreams that I could attribute to what I’d eaten/left undigested. I’ve also eaten food before going to sleep many times, and had bad dreams many times, without correlation, so I am a bit skeptical of my belief.
For the definitive write up of this notion I refer you to Dickens’ passage in “A Christmas Carol” when Scrooge first encounters the ghost of Marley.
Get a copy of the book or the old video and check it out. It’s really quite funny.
Sometimes I have bad dreams after eating human flesh, but then again it could be the Mountain Dew I wash it down with.
The cartoonist Winsor McKay, best known as the creator of “Little Nemo in Slumberland,” did an adult variant called “Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend.” In it, you would watch a nightmare progress from bad to worse until the final panel, which was always a man or woman waking up in bed, moaning and swearing never to eat a Welsh rarebit again.
Back when the strip ran (c. 1905), melted cheddar cheese over toast was considered a reasonable thing to eat shortly before bedtime. The Dover Books volume collecting the strips had a hilarious frontispiece also written and drawn by McKay, a humorous history of the dish.
(Incidentally, I am one of those folks who insists on calling it “Welsh Rabbit.” I hate the term “rarebit,” but that’s what McKay called his work, and he’s dead so I can’t argue with him.)
Here’s a link to an example of "Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend:
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Hills/3874/silas1.html
Well, anecdotal evidence points to a correlation. Freshman year at Georgetown I decided a medium pizza and six of Coke would be an ideal late-night snack. It was so ordered, then eaten, upon which I turned in for the night. And had dreams about nuclear war and shooting my dog.
A more recent incident followed a comfort food pig-out between me and Mrs. O - don’t remember the dream itself but it was enough to wake me and keep me up for a while.
One counter-point was an mega-chow episode at an Ethiopian restaurant. No dreams, but that was because I’d eaten so much I couldn’t get to sleep at all.