# Sleep and Dreams > Research >  >  Mangoes Increasing Dream Vividness and Lucidity

## RareCola

For a long time I've been considering the power of mangoes when it comes to lucidity and vividness of my dreams, whenever I eat mango before bed I tend to either have really vivid dreams, if not a lucid dream.

*Why is this?* Well, from what I've researched mangoes contain more B6 than even apples, and therefore probably more than apple juice. This vitamin is the reason many people recommend apple juice for dream recall.

Mangoes are also high in Tryptophan, which is a precursor to Serotonin. I'm sure many of you have heard of the benefits of Melatonin for sleep, Serotonin is the opposite of that and the reason why Wake Back To Bed is beneficial. During a Wake Back To Bed you reduce Melatonin in your body and replace it with Serotonin, making you more aware and therefore also more aware when you go back to sleep.

I've also recently discovered that many people eat mangoes to boost their marijuana highs, this happens due to the Myrcene chemical they contain which helps the psychoactives cross the blood-brain barrier. Maybe the Myrcene has an affect on dreams also?

So if anyone's willing to try it, I've been eating mangoes about 60 minutes before bed and receiving benefits. I'm sure you could boost that benefit further if you could fit it into your WBTB. Maybe a mango smoothie?

I'd love to hear anyone else's experience with mangoes and dreams.

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## YourDreamingNow

I will surely try this the next time I have mangoes in my house. 
I think that the B6 supplement would be more effective than mangoes.
But anyone who doesn't want to take pills than mangoes it is. I heard that even bananas contains a good amount of tryptophan.

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## CanisLucidus

Sounds cool!  I'm glad to hear that you're getting results from it.  Particularly impressive is that these results sound like they're competitive with the results you got from apple juice, which I know were pretty amazing.  (Got me to try it!)   ::D: 

My understanding here is that if the mangoes help produce higher levels of seratonin in the brain, we'd expect REM suppression in the early part of sleep, and a vivid period of REM rebound in the morning, right?

I don't know if I understand the mechanism as well for how mangoes would help during WBTB.  Does this mean there's something more you're going for beyond REM rebound?

Anyway, totally going to scout for mango's during this weekend's grocery trip.   :smiley:   Thanks for the idea!  I'll report back when/if I find some and chow down on em before bed.

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## RareCola

> Sounds cool!  I'm glad to hear that you're getting results from it.  Particularly impressive is that these results sound like they're competitive with the results you got from apple juice, which I know were pretty amazing.  (Got me to try it!)  
> 
> My understanding here is that if the mangoes help produce higher levels of seratonin in the brain, we'd expect REM suppression in the early part of sleep, and a vivid period of REM rebound in the morning, right?
> 
> I don't know if I understand the mechanism as well for how mangoes would help during WBTB.  Does this mean there's something more you're going for beyond REM rebound?
> 
> Anyway, totally going to scout for mango's during this weekend's grocery trip.    Thanks for the idea!  I'll report back when/if I find some and chow down on em before bed.



Well, I'm no scientist so all of my thoughts are purely speculation. I've had plenty of benefit with mangoes before bed, so I assume a REM rebound is possible. My theory behind the WBTB consumption is that people who use mangoes to boost their marijuana highs take them shortly before (or during) the high.

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## Alyzarin

> I've also recently discovered that many people eat mangoes to boost their marijuana highs, this happens due to the Myrcene chemical they contain which helps the psychoactives cross the blood-brain barrier. Maybe the Myrcene has an affect on dreams also?



Hmm, maybe.... Probably not directly though. Myrcene has opioid properties, which suppress REM. Helping things cross the blood-brain barrier also has no implications on dreaming.





> So if anyone's willing to try it, I've been eating mangoes about 60 minutes before bed and receiving benefits. I'm sure you could boost that benefit further if you could fit it into your WBTB. Maybe a mango smoothie?



Because of the myrcene thing, and because of the tryptophan too actually, I'm guessing that it probably works best before originally going to bed, and possibly hinders with a WBTB.





> Mangoes are also high in Tryptophan, which is a precursor to Serotonin. I'm sure many of you have heard of the benefits of Melatonin for sleep, Serotonin is the opposite of that and the reason why Wake Back To Bed is beneficial. During a Wake Back To Bed you reduce Melatonin in your body and replace it with Serotonin, making you more aware and therefore also more aware when you go back to sleep.







> My understanding here is that if the mangoes help produce higher levels of seratonin in the brain, we'd expect REM suppression in the early part of sleep, and a vivid period of REM rebound in the morning, right?



This is correct, but needs a little more information I think. Tryptophan and melatonin are actually synonymous in this case. Your brain will convert serotonin to melatonin and melatonin to serotonin depending on the time of day. If you take tryptophan before bed it will be converted to serotonin and then to melatonin, and the melatonin will then suppress REM. Then, later on, you will get REM rebound, which is how melatonin itself works. Tryptophan, though, does have the benefit of passing through N-acetylserotonin on its way to melatonin which adds some antidepressant effects.





> Well, I'm no scientist so all of my thoughts are purely speculation. I've had plenty of benefit with mangoes before bed, so I assume a REM rebound is possible. My theory behind the WBTB consumption is that people who use mangoes to boost their marijuana highs take them shortly before (or during) the high.



People take it before smoking because it has opioid effects and it helps transport cannabinoids to the brain. Like I said, it's unlikely to do much besides hurt a dream when taken immediately beforehand. However, it's possible that it has some REM rebound effects of its own to add to the tryptophan.

Interesting thread, I'm looking forward to seeing some results.  :smiley:

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## RareCola

Thanks for the in-depth response!

I've never tried it during a WBTB, but from what you've said and what I've experienced I guess we can pretty go ahead and say that it's better before bed.

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## CanisLucidus

> This is correct, but needs a little more information I think. Tryptophan and melatonin are actually synonymous in this case. Your brain will convert serotonin to melatonin and melatonin to serotonin depending on the time of day. If you take tryptophan before bed it will be converted to serotonin and then to melatonin, and the melatonin will then suppress REM. Then, later on, you will get REM rebound, which is how melatonin itself works. Tryptophan, though, does have the benefit of passing through N-acetylserotonin on its way to melatonin which adds some antidepressant effects.



Outstanding post!  Thanks for all of that great background info.  I'm duly impressed!

Do you have a favorite set of resources for studying up on some of the finer points (or, er, in my case _kinda basic_ points) of brain chemistry?

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## Alyzarin

> Thanks for the in-depth response!
> 
> I've never tried it during a WBTB, but from what you've said and what I've experienced I guess we can pretty go ahead and say that it's better before bed.



You're welcome.  ::content::  And that's my guess as to how it'll be, though for the sake of research I'd say don't let that stop you from giving it one or two tries.  :smiley: 





> Outstanding post!  Thanks for all of that great background info.  I'm duly impressed!
> 
> Do you have a favorite set of resources for studying up on some of the finer points (or, er, in my case _kinda basic_ points) of brain chemistry?



Thank you! And you're welcome.  :smiley:  Well, if you're just looking to start out then I recommend using Google Scholar for specific searches on research, and for just learning about different categories of things I would recommend Wikipedia. Yes, I know what you're thinking, but it's a much more useful resource than people make it out to be. You can use it to find other websites specializing in the type of information you're looking for for fact checking against the articles, and in scientific articles you can find source links on just about anything. They're the numbers in brackets that link to things at the bottom of the page, and those links down there will take you to the articles. There are some better resources to use than that too, but I would definitely start out with that. The addiction factor of Wikis and how easily workable they are makes it so that you'll find all kinds of things to read deeper into very quickly.  :tongue2:

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## xXxArtistxXx

*Looks at thread*

>o_O

>*RUNS TO STORE TO GET SUM MANGOES*

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## Marm

One of those small joys of life:

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## CanisLucidus

My mango experiment was a success!  I recalled 7 dreams (most of them wonderfully weird), and had a short but very vivid lucid dream: The Poolside Pyramid - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views

We hadn't talked dosages yet, so I just decided that "eat one whole mango" was as good of a dosage as any.  My cutting technique was pure crap (if I trusted my 3-year-old son with knives, I believe he could have done better) but I managed to get almost all the meat off of it in the end.  (Oh, and I'm pretty sure that it wasn't ripe.)  I consumed the whole mango right before bed.

Interestingly, I'd already had 3 solid dreams by the time I woke up naturally after 3.5 hours of sleep.  So if there was any REM suppression going on at the beginning of the night, I must have surely been past it.  I stayed up for about 30 minutes before going back to sleep.

I had an additional waking after 6.5 hours of sleep, repeated my induction technique, and hit the DILD within about 45 minutes, give or take.

All in all, this worked great!  Lots of dreams, some lucidity, and none of the stuff I was vaguely worried about (such as, uh, gastric distress)  I'll be incorporating one of these at least once per week!  Great job with this latest addition to the Oneironaut's cookbook, RareCola.   :smiley:

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## CanisLucidus

I have a rather horrible unfortunate update (and warning) on my mango experiment!  In spite of awesome results, I'm afraid that I'll have to stay away from mangos from now on.

It turns out that mangoes are a close relative of _poison ivy_ and if you're highly sensitive to that (as I am), coming into contact with mango skin will give you the bumps, itching, and unpleasantness of poison ivy right on yer face.   :Oh noes:   Here's a little info on mango mouth: allergic reaction like poison ivy around mouth and swollen lips mango  I had never heard of any of this!

So yeah, I'm a little itchy right now.  Lesson learned, though.  I dunno, considering that it got me lucid I'm not gonna complain too much about a little itching.   ::D: 

Looks like my next experiment will be pre-bed Benadryl.   ::lol::   Anyway, my advice is to just be a little careful with the skin and core if you're a sensitive-skin sissypants like myself!

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## RareCola

Only just noticed your post, glad it worked for you! Shame about the allergic reaction though, that sucks! Haha.

If it's just the skin, you could always get pre-prepared mango, or get someone to cut it up for you.

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## CanisLucidus

Yeah, I bet that pre-prepared would be just fine!  I know that I've eaten mango in the past with no problem whatsoever.  I really think that getting too much contact with the skin and my special poison ivy sensitivity were the whole cause.

I imagine that just not diving into it face-first like a freaking barbarian would have been enough to save me.   ::D: 

Perhaps I'll see whether I can get apple juice + a hunk of cheddar cheese to act as a mango-like substitute for me, heh heh... double-edged for me as it was, this was still a very cool experiment for me!

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## RareCola

Hahaha, don't worry, the whole fun of a mango is diving into it and acting like you're a caveman. Probably not the best if you're allergic to the skin though! I guess this is why they suggest washing a mango before slicing it, I assume the poison ivy-like skin would contaminate the fruit as your knife went through.

You could also try a mango juice. In the UK you can buy an apple & mango juice combined. I've yet to try it out but I assume that could be quite good, combining the two lucid super fruits.

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## Marm

> In the UK you can buy an apple & mango juice combined.



Tropicana apple and mango from Sainsbury's?

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## RareCola

I was actually referring to Innocent Apple & Mango. Better than the Tropicana crap!

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## Marm

Good. Tropicana claims that their juices are not from concentrate and they don't add artificial sweeteners or sugars, but it doesn't have the same natural taste Innocent juices have.

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