Does Cheese effect our dreams?

Something i'm always being told by my folks don't chhese before you go to bed you will dream well I did a little reserch myself!

The stronger the cheese the more vivid the dreams!

Mild:

Creamy white stilton.

Strong:

Mature blue stilton.

A little video diary about the effects of cheese on dreams.

Colour in dreams.

	Color	Effect	Healing
	Violet	coolant	Brings spiritual peace. Heals insomnia, tumors of the brain. Calms highly-strung, excitable people.
	Indigo	coolant	Develops psychic perception, intuition, Heals eyes, ears, nose and mental problems.
	Blue	coolant	Fights infections. Heals throat, fevers, etc.. Gives peace of mind.
	Green	balances energies	Creates balance of energy. Heals the heart, circulatory system. Helps you overcome fear of giving, sharing, adaptability.
	Yellow	stimulant	Heals nervous system, elimination, liver, intestines, pancreas. Balances adrenal glands, heals skin troubles, diabetes. Stimulates intellect
	Orange	stimulant	Help digestion, assimilation of new ideas, removes repression and inhibitions. Broadens the mind, helps you cope with life and career.
	Red	stimulant	Heals the creative, reproductive systems. Stimulates circulation of blood and flow of adrenaline. Energizes, gives confidence and courage.

Dream Drug.

Choline Bitarate
This is a lucid dream supplement that I found on the internet.
Choline is a B vitamin (essential vitamin)

Can be found in:
Beef
Chicken 
lettuce


It improves Intelligence, mood and memory.

This in turn can improve Dream Recall.


Dreams in all have more clarity and more lucidity. Can be bought in most vitamin stores.

Understanding our Dreams is the key to realising them.

When we sleep our brain is effectively organising and filing information that we have received throughout the day and filtering this through our subconscious mind. This information can be anything something we have seen thought or learned. Our brain absorbs then edits this information storing it away making it accessible later to our conscious mind.

            Your subconscious mind receives information much quicker than your conscious so this is where the real potential of dreams can be realised. Dreams are all about now, whats happening at the moment any thought you have if it be a momentary thought is imprinted on your subconscious before it even becomes an issue of any relevance in your waking world. So if we can understand our dreams we can effectively solve problems before they present themselves to us.

So.....

         If we look at our own personal dreams using simple points of entry, then we can begin to understand how dreams work. A dream is almost always about some event that occurred the day before this can be something we acted out we saw or simply thought of, fear, anxiety an unresolved issue can play out in a complex world with no apparent substance. This however is far from true we can resolve our problems by simply learning the language within them. Although this may not appear to be clear at first the more we think about dreams and record them the more we start to see patterns this in turn boost our awareness.

 Looking at my personal dream.

I believe you will achieve something if you put it to the front of your mind. I started to record my dreams instead of ignoring them i applied some basic self analysis and began to look at dreams differently by asking myself some leading questions. I found that from one question i was able to find more. Along with constantly comparing the events of my day with that of the dream if you look closely they start to match.

Basic Dream analysis.

1. Ask yourself what did i do yesterday, where was i who was i with what did i watch etc, this could be ANYTHING that featured in that day. Then relate this to the dream, so i.e does that person feature in the dream? Always remember, that person or place does not have to be a direct representation, they can appear symbolically in i a dream i.e if that person is dependant on you they mite show up as a baby!

2.  The next step is to establish the feeling of the dream how you felt in that dream scared, relaxed, anxious etc. Or how the person makes you feel or the place.

3. Key Words. Reflect on the dream, write down the first words that come to your head. Then reflect the same way on the previous i.e the person you thought of. Think fast shout out write down the first thoughts the key words you associate with both.

4. Reflection keep relating back to the dream constantly compare the dream and the day. You may find there are certain issues you have that are represented in the dream. Remember dreams are visual representations, they have no clear form.

My dream...

                   I went for the day to the beach i drove there in my Nissan Micra. When it as time to leave i went back to my car there was an identical car parked next to it. I knew which car was mine but in my curiosity i tried my key in the other car and to my shock it opened. I got in the car and sat down inside, it was much nicer than mine with better seats and a more plush dash board. It was also a 1.4 mine was a 1 litre. Before i knew it i was driving this car back home leaving mine where it was. On the drive home i was always thinking "what will my dad say about this, what will his reaction be, what would he do in this situation". I thought up a solution to the problem that i would tell him that i did not realise i was driving the wrong car till i got near home and by this time it was too late. While i was driving i found the acceleration of the car really thrilled me but the breaks did not work so well and this late stopping scared me. Anyway i got home went in the house my dad said nothing he just got in the car and drove it into a wall.

Applying the techniques mentioned previously i was able to find some logic.

I asked myself what i had done the day before the truth was not much the only stand out memory was that i had watched Darren Brown's hero a three thousand miles, this program was all about a guy that took no risks and therefor had an uneventful life. 

             This guy reminded me in part about myself, whilst watching the program a distinctly remember a moment of personal reflection, i thought to myself i need to take more risks. This key word was the trigger to realising my dream. Me taking the other Micra was me actively taking a risk by taking this risk i got the rewards that came with it the 1.4 engine the luxurious interior. I drove the car home thought nothing of it and risk felt good. The fact the car was fast and exciting was everything i like about the idea of risk but the breaks were a constant reminder of my overriding fear that i might lose control. 

             The very reason i was thinking about my dad this whole time is because he is part of the reason i don't take risks he always looks at the worst case scenario so him getting into the car and driving it into the wall he was reminding me of what could have happened.

The above is not directly relevant to the subject of lucid dreaming but, demonstrates an important point. This being the only way to actively lucid dream is by putting the idea of dreams to the front of the mind. This conscious awareness and understanding of dreams is key.

A short tutorial on how to decode dreams I found this really useful in my research.

Why do we sleep?

Well the anser to this question has never realy been fully ansered until the 20th century when scientists discovered that the brain is highly active during sleep. It has been found that when we sleep everypart of the brain is alive apart from the logic centre, this goes some way to explaining why our dreams apear so random and provides the reason as to why we so eacyly forget dreams. During REM twise as much blood passes through the brain and a chemical called aseytal coline is sucreated amobalising our movement. We will spend on average 6 years dreaming in our lifetime.

But why do we sleep?
Sleep Cycles.

In the human brain (in fact - in all mammals and birds) sleep has two phases:

• Rapid Eye Movement a.k.a. REM sleep
• Non-Rapid Eye Movement a.k.a. NREM sleep or Slow Wave Sleep

Each phase has its own physiological (body), neurological (brain) and psychological (mind) features. They flow together to form sleep cycles.

In the late 1960s two scientists, Rechtschaffen and Kales, defined a typical sleep cycle, displaying varying levels of consciousness. Below.

A complete cycle lasts around 90 to 110 minutes. So eight hours of sleep will give you around five of these sleep cycles per night.

Notice how we are in NREM sleep for the most part. REM sleep only lasts for about 10 minutes at the end of the cycle. However, as the night goes on, some NREM cycles get shorter and REM sleep increases.

Dreaming is more common in REM sleep, although it does also occur during NREM sleep. 

Below features of a sleep cycle.

STAGE 1 NREM: LIGHT SLEEP	Your brainwave frequencies descend from relaxed alpha waves (8 to 12 Hz) to dreamy theta waves (4 to 7 Hz). You begin to lose muscle tone, causing twitches and hypnic jerks. You have hypernagonic hallucinations and lose self awareness.
STAGE 2 NREM: LIGHT SLEEP	Your brainwaves show sleep spindles (12 to 16 Hz) and K-complexes. You lose nearly all muscle tone in what is known as sleep paralysis
STAGE 3 NREM: SLOW WAVE SLEEP	Your brainwaves descend to delta waves (0.5 to 4 Hz) - the lowest frequency marking a deep sleep. This is the stage where sleepwalking occurs.
STAGE 4 NREM: SLOW WAVE SLEEP	Your delta waves are more pronounced as you enter deep slow wave sleep. The deepest form of sleep.
REM SLEEP	Your brainwave frequencies jump to highly active beta waves (12 Hz). You have bursts of Rapid Eye Movement and muscle twitches. The most vivid dreams happen during REM sleep.

Circadian Rhythms. (body clock)

Your sleep cycles are controlled by the Circadian clock. This is an internal timekeeping device that the human brain uses to control body temperature and release certain chemicals (called neurotransmitters) at the right time.

When your brain releases a neurotransmitter called adenosine at night, you begin to feel sleepy and your body temperature falls. Similarly, in the morning when the Circadian alarm bell rings, your brain releases other neurotransmitters to wake you up.

That is why early risers often find it difficult to sleep in. Their bodies have already been stimulated with wake-up juice. The fact that Circadian rhythms exist tells us that regular sleep is key to our survival.

A diagram demonstrating an average Circadian Clock.

Functions of Sleep

To find out why we sleep i started to look at various animals and how long they sleep on average. I find these variations fascinating.

Bats........................20 hours
Lions......................13.5 hours
Laboratory rats......13 hours
Domestics cats.......12.5 hours
Baboons.................9.5 hours
Humans..................8 hours
Pilot whales............5.5 hours
Asian elephants......3 hours
Roe deer.................3 hours
Giraffes...................2 hours

The above has inspired some evolutionary theories of sleep. One theory is that animals who are lower in the food chain sleep less - because they are more vulnerable to attack. However, a conflicting theory suggests that sleep protects us from predators, since we are curled up in a quiet place out of harm's way.

However, both theories have gaps. If we are deprived of sleep, our bodies eventually force us to regain some of that lost sleep - even at the risk of attack by a predator. Why do we sleep at such high risk?

Sleep theories:

To rest:

All day long, we are zipping around in a highly active anabolic state. This is marked by the constant growth and repair of the body's immune and nervous systems, as well as our muscles and bones.

Because this requires so much energy, being awake may only be a temporary state. We use this time to feed and reproduce. That's all. So why do we sleep? Simply: to gain relief from this hyperactive state.

To heal:

Sleep also allows us to heal our bodies. In a study on rats, sleep deprevation actually slowed down the healing process of burns. Besides the immune system (our ability to fight disease) sleep deprivation affects our metabolism (our internal chemical reactions). It may also help us save energy for when we most need it.

However, animals in hibernation actually have to catch up on sleep when they emerge. Simply resting in a dark, quiet place does not fulfil their need for sleep if they don't shut down their concious brain. Something critical happens to the mind during sleep. This may hold the key to psychological reasons why we sleep.

To learn:

Sleep may help the human brain get better organized - by filing away important memories and discarding unwanted information.

In a study by Turner et al, 40 people were allowed only 26 minutes sleep per night. They were given cognitive tests which showed their working memory deteriorated by 38% over four days. Without REM sleep, they found it much harder to complete memory tasks and solve problems.

Other sleep experiments have shown that "procedural memory" (your ability to perform certain skills) is dependent on REM sleep. Similarly, "declarative memory" (your knowledge of facts) relies on Slow Wave Sleep

"That, if then I had waked after a long sleep, 

will make me sleep again;

and then, in dreaming, the clouds me thought would open and show riches ready to drop upon me; that, when I waked I cried to dream again"

William Shakespeare

To Dream:

Dreaming appears to be a by-product of REM sleep. So is it possible that the the main reason why we sleep is to dream?