# Lucid Dreaming > Attaining Lucidity > Lucid Aids >  >  How apple juice affects your dreams

## ldreamer77

I keep reading and hearing about how apple juice can increase the vividness of dreams and I've been wanting to try it. Only problem is, my family NEVER buys apple juice. We always have apples though...does eating apples have the same affect?

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## OneUp

Honestly Im gonna be honest here, I think its a placebo effect because it has no effect for me. But then again it could depend on the type of apple juice- artificial or natural. Ive only tried artificial apple juice. The reason everyone says apple juice can do this is because of the vitamin  B6 inside of it. If you can find this vitamin in any other drink or food or whatever it will have the same effects as apple juice. Sometimes Orange juice has alot of vitmain B6, but theres plenty of other beverages with the vitamin in it too. And yes eating apples would have the same effect too but you would have to eat alot more than one for it to do that.

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## CanisLucidus

Good question.  Since there's not really agreement on _why_ apple juice works for a lot of people, it's hard to say whether apples will do the trick in the same way.  My best explanation is that the sugar in apple juice indirectly helps facilitate the transport of tryptophan into the brain.  The mechanism would be similar to the Thanksgiving sleepiness you get after a really rich, epic meal.  I go into a little more detail in my reply on this post:
http://www.dreamviews.com/lucid-aids...ml#post2007250

In theory, whole apples wouldn't have quite as strong of an effect as the juice.  But the truth is that apple juice doesn't work for everyone.  It usually works very well for me but for some folks it seems to have very little effect.  Nothing beats a little personal experimentation, so it could be interesting to try chowing down on a couple of apples before bed.  Good luck, and if you try it, let us know how it goes.

And by the way...  ::welcome::

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## DreamyBear

I have tryed apple jucie from time to time. I didn't think it helped anything really, but this is just my experience. A friend asked me if apple juice makes dreams more vivid because he had a really vivid dream after drinking a liter of it while doing some homework. And he dosn't care to much about dreams, but asked me this since he know Im into dream stuff. So by yourself some applejucie or ask your parents to do so. I would recommend trying a spoon of peanutbutter or two. That has worked better in my favor at least. But good luck to you!

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## ldreamer77

Thanks for the help! I've actually been eating apples for the past week to try this out and I haven't noticed a difference. I've only been eating one or two a day though so I probably need to try eating more than that..or just buy apple juice  ::lol::

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## CanisLucidus

> Thanks for the help! I've actually been eating apples for the past week to try this out and I haven't noticed a difference. I've only been eating one or two a day though so I probably need to try eating more than that..or just buy apple juice



Another good thing to look at is the timing.  If I was trying to get apple juice dreams, I drank it directly before bed.  (Of course, brushing my teeth afterward!   ::teeth:: )

That brings me to another point about the apple juice.  When I was using it for LD, I drank quite a lot of it.  That meant that I was going to have to wake up to pee in a few hours.   On top of that, I was getting the tryptophan effects right when I'd need them, just as sleep was beginning.  The higher levels of tryptophan (and then serotonin) would theoretically suppress early evening REM, setting me up for a lot of dreaming throughout the morning.

So I'd wake up to pee, then go back to sleep ready for some tryptophan/serotonin-induced REM rebound.

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## Highlander

Apple juice helps with ACh in the brain.

UMass Lowell research shows benefits of apple juice on neurotransmitter affecting memory

http://www.webmd.com/brain/news/2006...e-boost-memory

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