A preliminary study has found that taking Vitamin B-6 may not only give people more vivid dreams but also help in remembering them the next morning.
While we supposedly all have 4-6 dreams a night it is often hard to recall them, especially in their entirety.
Vitamin B-6, which is found in meats, whole grains, vegetables, nuts and bananas, has long been thought to help recall dreams and enhance their lucidity but this was based on theory rather than a concrete study.
However, a small study done back in 2002 has come to light which seemingly goes some way to proving the familiar theory.
In the study twelve university students were given varying amounts of the vitamin over a period of five days.
Four participants were given 100 mg, four were given 250 mg, while the remaining students were given a placebo.
The participants who were given the biggest dose of Vitamin B-6 had a higher rate of dream salience as determined by vividness, bizareness, emotionality, and color.
It is believed that Vitamin B-6 has this effect because it converts amino acids into serotonin, which wakes the brain up during Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep, a stage of sleeping where our dreams are most vivid.
But hold back on those bananas as too much of the vitamin can mean you won’t get to sleep at all as it can cause insomnia, as well as heart palpitations, cramps, high blood pressure, and panic attacks.
While this study into dreams was just preliminary, supplements of Vitamin B-6 have been given to treat nausea and vomiting in the early stages of pregnancy for decades.
