can vitamins cause bad dreams- or was it something i ate?

[ms.shell]

So last night I had bad dreams all night long. I dont usually have particularly vivid dreams unless i am pregnant, which i am not. The dreams last night were very vivid and mostly bad- one was maybe the scariest dream i have ever had, the others were more... just disturbing.
it just really seemed very much out of the ordinary and i am trying to figure out what caused them. I had organic black beans with (non organic) pork sirloin cooked in them for dinner. The only thing different was that i forgot to take my vitamins in the morning like usual, remembered in the evening and took them not more than a couple of hours before going to bed. I take a natural multi vitamin and mineral supplement, a Cal-Mag-Zinc, folic acid, B6, sublingual B12, niacin, and i also took some garlic pills and 500mg vitamin C, as my older DS has been mildly ill and i was trying to prevent me and baby getting whatever he has. I am thinking that one of the vitamins or minerals MUST have been the culprit- it HAD to be something, because these dreams were just so intense and bad and different from my norm. What do you think? is it not advised to take vitamins before bed? I am kindof afraid to go to sleep tonight, lol.

[mama1803]

Originally Posted by ms.shell

So last night I had bad dreams all night long. I dont usually have particularly vivid dreams unless i am pregnant, which i am not. The dreams last night were very vivid and mostly bad- one was maybe the scariest dream i have ever had, the others were more... just disturbing.
it just really seemed very much out of the ordinary and i am trying to figure out what caused them. I had organic black beans with (non organic) pork sirloin cooked in them for dinner. The only thing different was that i forgot to take my vitamins in the morning like usual, remembered in the evening and took them not more than a couple of hours before going to bed. I take a natural multi vitamin and mineral supplement, a Cal-Mag-Zinc, folic acid, B6, sublingual B12, niacin, and i also took some garlic pills and 500mg vitamin C, as my older DS has been mildly ill and i was trying to prevent me and baby getting whatever he has. I am thinking that one of the vitamins or minerals MUST have been the culprit- it HAD to be something, because these dreams were just so intense and bad and different from my norm. What do you think? is it not advised to take vitamins before bed? I am kindof afraid to go to sleep tonight, lol.

B6 does this to me. I almost never have dream recall, which can be a sign of being deficient in B6 (I have other symptoms of low B6 as well). Within the first few days of supplementing B6 I started having these really vivid, scary dreams. I'd wake up almost in a panic, go back to sleep and the scary dream would continue. I actually contemplated stopping the B6 because I had the creeps about going to sleep at night. Eventually, though the scary dreams stopped and now I have rather run of the mill boring dreams.

[JessicaS]

Have you been getting less sleep lately? Your body requires a certain amount of REM and if you haven't been sleeping well it will spend more time in REM other nights to make up for it.



The previous poster is correct though, there has been a preliminary study of B6 that showed that it might increase the vividness of our dreams or dream recall.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11883552

[ms.shell]

Have you been getting less sleep lately? Your body requires a certain amount of REM

well, the baby has been waking up MANY times in the night. I just get up to pick him up out of the crib next to my bed and put him in bed with me and go right back to sleep, but probably waking up even briefly disturbs the rem cycle or something.
that is interesting about B6, and my dad just told me that magnesium is associated with lucid dreaming. so i think my intuition was correct that the bad dreams were caused by taking vitamins so close to bedtime. I guess if i forget them again I will just skip that day- or take the multi but skip the Bs and the cal/mag/zinc.
i slept just fine last night- well, except for the baby waking up a dozen times- but i didnt have any bad dreams. i think, anyway; i cant remember dreaming at all, which after the night before is just fine.

[tanyalynn]

I was going to guess your B vitamins as well. I've noticed I remember my dreams or don't based on how close to the evening I take my multivit which has my Bs. Since Bs are water soluble and levels go up and down quickly, I think I should be taking smaller doses more spread out over the course of the day.

[naturalmom08]

Some vitamins and minerals can definitely cause vivid and lucid dreams. They wouldn't necessarily cause bad dreams, but they could result in them being particularly vivid. B vitamins can result in vivid dreams, as can magnesium. So I would say the culprits are you B vitamins and your cal-mag-zinc supplement. A good B-complex will also give you added energy, which is not something you want right before bed. So that's another reason not to take your vitamins in the evening. It's probably best to stick to taking the vitamins in the morning