# Lucid Dreaming > Attaining Lucidity > Dream Signs and Recall >  >  Vegetarian & Vegan Dream Recall.

## IndigoGhost

Heres the theory.

I became a vegan a little while ago and before i could get a DJ keep it for a week or so and be able to remember 2 dreams a night alright.

Now i am a Vegan, and i find it very very very hard to remember dreams. My theory is that people with a Vegan/Vegetarian diet will lack the B12 found in meats or be lacking some mineral that it needed for good dream recall.

Anyone have any ideas on this?

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## Abra

You're not doing it right~

Obviously, you aren't getting enough of /some/ vitamin. I'd talk with a nutritionist rather than a forum--I have little advice for vegans. :x

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## IndigoGhost

> You're not doing it right~
> 
> Obviously, you aren't getting enough of /some/ vitamin. I'd talk with a nutritionist rather than a forum--I have little advice for vegans. :x



Probably haha, Its a pain to have ideas to be a Vegan. To be honest i don't think there is much wrong other then a lack of B12 because as far as i know there's no other place but meat to get it from other then yeast.

I am perfectly healthy otherwise, I was just highlighting a fact that some Vegan/Vegetarian members might have problems with recall and be confused why  :smiley:

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## no-Name

...?

B12 isn't some magic memory vitamin. It doesn't fuel your bodies memory, and it certainly isn't required to remember things.

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## IndigoGhost

All the B's in general help with brain function.

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## no-Name

> All the B's in general help with brain function.



They're not required in the least.

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## nyrawake

Oh wow, you haven't been a vegan for long have you. Ok let me explain to you how the body works. First of all the human body requires only 2-3 micrograms of b12 a day. NOT milligrams as is commonly mistaken. Second if you have only been a vegan for a short time you have nothing to worry about. Roughly 70% of the b12 that is in our blood stream is reabsorbed by the liver and will be stored until the body needs more of it. Again, the body needs very little of it so it's not like the liver has to store very much to get way ahead of itself. Given all the information above it's estimated that if you had a healthy intake of b12 for only a couple of years then it would take more then a decade (10 YEARS) for a deficiency to develop. Again that was 10 YEARS!!!! Of course if you take time to read most of the labels on things you eat, even the stuff that's vegan, you will find that a sh*t load of them are laced with b12 and other vitamins. 
So what does all this mean? It means unless you go strictly and i mean STRICTLY organic, no meat, and don't take any kind of vitamin and mineral pill you would still have years before your b12 reserves would fall into the uh oh zone.
Hope this helps

Now lets eliminate any other doubts you might have about veganism and dream recall. 
Vegans get less protein then they should?.....Nope, in this case it's the other way around, most people who eat mean get WAY more protein then they need. We only need 2-3% of our diets per day to satisfy our bodies needs, but i doubt protein would have much to do with your dream recall.

What about iron? Well, again, it's in a great deal of stuff we eat, unless you eat again, the more organic and unprocessed sprecterum. In this case vegans can easily get iron from cereals, grains, legumes, dates, prunes, raisins and green vegetables. It is recommended that you take a vitamin C pill with these foods to help the absorbtion of the iron because the iron found in plants is different then the iron in meat and needs a bit more help. But remember that our bodies don't require truckfulls of this stuff, precisely the reason dr's are very cautious about recommending any kind of iron pill.

Next is zinc...look up ^^^^^....zinc and iron are in a lot of the same foods. But i really really really want to stress that you don't need to get stressed out to much about these things if you eat a great deal of processed food, cause it's just full of the stuff. Ever looked at the nutritional facts on the side and look below the protein, cals, carbs. There is usually a long list of vitamins and minerals that are added to the product.

As for calcium... I LOVE rice milk, i use to drink a lot of soy milk, but if you take your time to do some research you would find that people aren't exactly sure if soy is nearly as good as people think it is. The hard part is that you have so many opposing people it's hard to know the truth. So i figured better safe then sorry. 

Omg-3's, now this can be a bit more of a challenge if you don't drink soy milk or rice milk. Then you could always just grind up a Tablespoon of Flax seeds a day with some fruit or do what i do and sprinkle them in your morning cereal. But make sure to grind them to a dust of they just tend to go right through ya. 

And finally Vitamin D. Go outside once in a while dude. Our body make V-D when we are in the sun...yippie. Can't then, take a vitamin pill, but you probably won't need it cause again this is one of those vitamins that is fortified into just about everything. Seriously don't think this much stuff is added to our food, read the label and make sure to close your jaw when your done. 

all the other stuff you need for your body is easy to get as a vegan. the above is the stuff that is most commonly associated with veganism and how it's evil and will kill us all  :tongue2: . I was very uncertain about becoming a vegan so i went to see a nutritionist that helped me with the change and gave me the info i needed for when i went grocery shopping. 

So if you dream recall is starting to go down the drain then perhaps it's cause your doing something wrong. I doubt it has to do with your diet to much if you just recently became a vegan though. The body has plenty of stock piles on stuff it takes time for them to go down hill severely.

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## IrisRavenstar

Here are symptoms of B12 deficiency from webmd.com:

Symptoms
If your vitamin B12 deficiency anemia is mild, you may not have symptoms or you may not notice them. Some people may think they are just the result of growing older. Symptoms develop slowly over years, as the amount of vitamin B12 absorbed by the body decreases and the vitamin B12 stored in your body is used up.

As the anemia becomes worse, you may have:

Weakness. 
Fatigue. 
Lightheadedness. 
A pale appearance. 
A sore, red tongue or bleeding gums. 
Loss of taste and appetite with weight loss. 
Diarrhea or constipation. 
A rapid heartbeat or chest pain. 
Shortness of breath upon exertion. 
Low levels of vitamin B12 cause damage to the brain and nerve cells. The symptoms this causes may be the first ones you notice. They can include:

Numbness or tingling in the fingers and toes. 
Poor balance and coordination. 
Forgetfulness. 
Depression. 
Confusion. 
Difficulty thinking and concentrating. 
Impaired judgment and poor control of impulses. 
A decreased ability to sense vibration. 
Ringing in the ears (tinnitus). 
Dementia, a decline in mental abilities that is severe enough to interfere with daily life. 

I had iron deficiency anemia a few years ago from a bleeding ulcer that was caused by aspirin and Aleve in excess, prescribed by the doctor, following a car accident.  Anemia of any kind is no fun!  I went on a vegetarian diet for two and a half years, which was dream guided and monitored.  I think that a vegan diet is very difficult to maintain and never went that far, though I did limit dairy intake to just a few favorite items, and used Silk and soya American cheese.  I ate eggs and honey, so it was ovo-lacto-vegetarian.  The ulcer healed.  I still need to take a lower dose iron supplements though, in order to get enough iron, and I now do eat some meat, sometimes, but not near as much as I used to.  I don't think any of it affected my dream recall.

But anyway, what I wanted to say was, if you must go Vegan, which can be an extreme change for your body to get used to, at least take supplements for Iron and B-12, as both are very difficult to get adequately on a Vegan diet, and the Iron is difficult on Vegetarian diet.  

And, you know, there are health sections down yonder...

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## nyrawake

> Here are symptoms of B12 deficiency from webmd.com:
> 
> Symptoms
> If your vitamin B12 deficiency anemia is mild, you may not have symptoms or you may not notice them. Some people may think they are just the result of growing older. Symptoms develop slowly over years, as the amount of vitamin B12 absorbed by the body decreases and the vitamin B12 stored in your body is used up.
> 
> As the anemia becomes worse, you may have:
> 
> Weakness. 
> Fatigue. 
> ...



Oh i really hate when people say that going vegan is some kind of extreme and that it will put the body through some sort of ordeal. I went seamlessly from meat eater to vegan in one day. Just decided to stop eating meat and i did. I live in a small town and started a vegan group and have talked with many other people who have done the same thing and not gotten sick at all. Most people who get sick from going vegan aren't going vegan they're going some kind of f-ed up way that just resembles vegan but is seriously lacking in some part of their diet. Or like in your case it wasn't being vegetarian that made you anemic it was a predisposition cause by pain relievers.

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## IrisRavenstar

> Oh i really hate when people say that going vegan is some kind of extreme and that it will put the body through some sort of ordeal. I went seamlessly from meat eater to vegan in one day. Just decided to stop eating meat and i did. I live in a small town and started a vegan group and have talked with many other people who have done the same thing and not gotten sick at all. Most people who get sick from going vegan aren't going vegan they're going some kind of f-ed up way that just resembles vegan but is seriously lacking in some part of their diet. Or like in your case it wasn't being vegetarian that made you anemic it was a predisposition cause by pain relievers.



It wasn't anything to do with a "predisposition."  N-Saids quite literally eat out your stomach lining causing ulcers.  I was told to take Aleve and aspirin alternately every two hours following a serious car accident.  Bad advice, given that both are N-Saids.  I no longer take any N-Saids, despite having osteoarthritis and fibromyalgia.

And going vegan from being a carnivore IS an extreme change, probably all the more so the longer you've been eating meat, which I had been doing for over 50+ years.  My dreams guided me step by step in the change.  I know the right way to do it, thank you.  But a lot of people out there who do it, do NOT do it the right way.  They figure French fries are Vegan, for gosh sakes.  Potato chips are Vegan.  Or they eat only vegetables and nothing else, never having before eaten legumes and whole grains, so they don't know they need them to get their protein.  If you knew the flack I got from some members of my family just for going Ovo-Lacto Vegetarian, you might understand where I'm coming from.  And I eat legumes and whole grains.  No white bread, white rice, or white milk, really.  

In any case, there's no reason to get nasty and rude about it, is there?  I only came into this section because the subject line caught my eye, and I had some considerable and possibly helpful experience in this.  

Have a nice evening.

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## nyrawake

> It wasn't anything to do with a "predisposition."  N-Saids quite literally eat out your stomach lining causing ulcers.  I was told to take Aleve and aspirin alternately every two hours following a serious car accident.  Bad advice, given that both are N-Saids.  I no longer take any N-Saids, despite having osteoarthritis and fibromyalgia.
> 
> And going vegan from being a carnivore IS an extreme change, probably all the more so the longer you've been eating meat, which I had been doing for over 50+ years.  My dreams guided me step by step in the change.  I know the right way to do it, thank you.  But a lot of people out there who do it, do NOT do it the right way.  They figure French fries are Vegan, for gosh sakes.  Potato chips are Vegan.  Or they eat only vegetables and nothing else, never having before eaten legumes and whole grains, so they don't know they need them to get their protein.  If you knew the flack I got from some members of my family just for going Ovo-Lacto Vegetarian, you might understand where I'm coming from.  And I eat legumes and whole grains.  No white bread, white rice, or white milk, really.  
> 
> In any case, there's no reason to get nasty and rude about it, is there?  I only came into this section because the subject line caught my eye, and I had some considerable and possibly helpful experience in this.  
> 
> Have a nice evening.



I am sorry i didn't mean to come off as being rude or mean. It's just saying that it's an extreme change bothers me cause it's sooooo easy to misunderstand it. Yes, psychologically and habitually it is a big change. You cut a good portion of things out of your diet (unless you make them urself) and have to change many habits. But biologically there isn't much of a change if you eat the right foods. Your body can't really tell the difference between where the food is coming from, only that it got there. Saying it is an extreme change make people think your gonna send you body into some kind of meat shock if you go a couple days without a slab of beef, at least in my experience this is the reaction. 

And by predisposed i meant that you were predisposed to have low iron before you became a vegetarian, by the pills (sorry about that by the way, some doctors  ::roll::  ) not that you were predisposed in some genetic way or anything. 
again didn't mean to be snippy. Have a nice evening urself  ::D:

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## IrisRavenstar

Thank you, nyrawake,

For ME, and I know for others I've met as well, it really IS an extreme change.  There's a lifetime of habits to break.  I had about three ounces of pork last night (my dog, Lily, was thrilled to get the rest, including the bone!), and my energy level is way better this morning, so I really do need to eat some meat on occasion.  But I don't eat much anymore.  I used to eat two pork chops for a meal.  Now I had just the little center medallion part.  And I hadn't had any meat for over a week.   I'll eat the other one I cooked tomorrow, and have an egg for my protein today.  I have hypoglycemia too, which is low bloodsugar, so being just Vegan would be too many carbs for me, and I'd be low energy and depressed all the time, and people with hypoglycemia are at high risk for diabetes, which I don't want to contract.  We all have to listen to our bodies and change at our own pace.  And educate ourselves so we don't screw ourselves up when we really are trying to get healthier.

I don't think it's true that my body can't tell the difference where the food is coming from either.  It has certain requirements that let themselves be known, both through food cravings and through dreams that are very clearly pointing to a needed food or even supplement.  We need to pay attention to these things!

And yes, I know well the reactions some people have to any kind of vegetarian eating, and try telling them you're using herbs instead of drugs! Wheeee!  But they're kind of dumb about it all, really.  One nosy relative, going through my herb supply, wanted to know how could I be taking both fish oil and flaxseed oil.  In shock, she said it!  I said, well, they're not drugs, they're food supplements.  Can't I eat both fish and flaxseeds in the same day?  Actually, she'd be happy now.  I no longer take the fish oil, because it gives me heartburn, which I definitely don't need!  I occasionally eat only three ounces of fish early in the day, when it's less of a problem.  But it's not because I can't take both in the same day.  Ignorance needs to be educated.  Nosiness too, perhaps.

Anyway, I hope the original poster will consider a vitamin and mineral supplement that contains the minimum daily requirement of both Iron and B-12, and make sure she learns what a balanced Vegan diet is!  That is basically all I was going for here.

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## Baron Samedi

I became an ovo-lacto-vegetarian three months ago. I try to eat beans, grains, and nuts every day for protein, and as much raw food as possible. I also don't eat a lot of sugar, or drink much alcohol.  I limit my dairy and egg intake, and eat as much organic food as I can afford.  Changing my diet has not affected my dreams in any way.

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## mikal_ben_dawid

I was vegan, and it was hard on my body, and there are also many factors of needed nutrition, and believe that our bodies and bloodtypes all make us different, with different physical needs. Both of you were very knowledgeable. If I do not take lots of B vitamins, I do actually go crazy. It stabilizes me, and I know it helps with the whole of my cell's metabolism. I believe it is the most important, alongside magnesium vitamin D and calcium. All of these seem to work together. And if you take vitamin C it actually reduces your B vitamin levels. vitamin C is also an antioxidant needed to remove free radicals in your bloodstream, alongside things like fungus and infections.

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## delaydelaydelay

Im a veggie and recall about 3-4 dreams a night.

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## Hukif

I'm vegetarian and in full nights (Meaning I sleep lol) can remember 7 dreams/night?  I think you are just not eating the right stuff <.<

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## Samael

You might need to let your body get used to the new diet as well. Drastic changes of any sort tend to affect your recall for the worse. Just let it even out, and see what happens.

Also, I'm another ovo-lacto. I have been for a couple of years now, and I'm pretty sure it hasn't worsened my recall.

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## Cacophony

*I've been vegetarian for eight years and have not had this problem. Also, you should take b12 supplements.*

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## menelvagor

I'm WWOOFing right now, been living on a farm for four months, no meat/eggs/dairy at all since I've been here, though before that I had cut out dairy and meat almost completely, over the course of six months. I eat no meat/dairy/eggs, though I do eat honey from the farm I live on use only that for sweeteners in any of my cooking. Also I stopped using any alcohol/smoking in this time. 

So far I have had consistant and vivid dream recall, though no LD's at all [which I have never been able to accomplish], so I can say that switching my diet has had little to no effect on my dream recall/experiences. Though drinking some a few cups of hot tea before bed gives me some magnificent dreams.

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## Mascot

> I've been vegetarian for eight years and have not had this problem. Also, you should take b12 supplements.



Yeah I am not a vegetarian, but I eat very little meat.  I take B12 supplements, they aren't needed but it is something you should probably be taking.

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## Robot_Butler

I eat meat very infrequently, and have never had any problems.  It is a good excuse to improve your diet, though  :wink2:

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## kunfu11

Talk to mancon123...he should help..

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## Samsara

I am a vegetarian and I don't have a problem with dream recall. I tend to recall 2/3 dreams per night and it is improving since I am fairly new to lucid dreaming.


I do however take a vitamin supplement which contains 100% of the B12 and B6 RDA. You can get them fairly cheaply from any supermarket. I get mine from Tescos (as I see you are in the UK)

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## Lost4468

Drink Relentless energy drink, it contains 100% of your daily vitamin b12.

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## ailurophile

I've been a vegetarian for 4.5 years and I've never had this problem but I think it's because I take supplements.  I've read somewhere that an excess of B vitamins can cause vivid dreams and nightmares which can be very dangerous to ones health, so it is likely that if you don't get enough B vitamins it will make it more difficult to remember your dreams.  My advice: Just take some B vitamin supplements and you'll be fine.

Also, congrats on becoming a vegan! I could _never_ do it.

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## lucyoncolorado

Just a quick note- B12 is sometimes added to soy milk, breakfast cereals, granola bars, some breads, some veggie burgers and.  If you are a strict vegan and not even consuming dairy or eggs, you might still be getting it from those other sources.  I recommend that you check your diet first and look at the recommended amount before you start taking unnecessary supplements.

If your diet is affecting your dream recall at all, I doubt it has anything to do with becoming a vegan.  Probably it is just that your metabolism is working differently.  I dream differently  when I stuff myself silly (like around the holidays), for example.

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## ThePreserver

Fortified Soymilk and Almonds have B12 in them.  You can try that or a supplement.

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## Hukif

So far, I keep hearing vegans/vegetarians have good recall, instead of bad recall. There is a thread in here about that actually.

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