Thread: Vegetarian & Vegan Dream Recall.

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?

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

Originally Posted by 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

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

...?

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

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

Originally Posted by Ghost3DE

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

They're not required in the least.

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 . 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.

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.

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

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 <.<

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.

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

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.

Originally Posted by Cacophony

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.

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

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)

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

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.

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.

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

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