Overview

• Over 1,000 Canadian undergraduates reported on their sleep quality, eating habits and dream patterns, confirming a robust link between self-reported lactose intolerance and nightmare severity.
• Participants with lactose intolerance who experienced gastrointestinal symptoms such as bloating or cramps reported more frequent and distressing nightmares.
• Women in the study were nearly twice as likely as men to report food intolerances and they also reported poorer sleep quality and more nightmares.
• Beyond dairy, respondents commonly blamed sweets and spicy foods for disturbing or bizarre dreams, underscoring multiple dietary triggers.
• Building on these correlational findings published in Frontiers in Psychology, the team will conduct controlled trials comparing cheese ingestion with neutral foods to test causal effects on sleep and dreaming.