Vitamin B-6 can help you have more dreams.
When you’re learning about nutrition, it’s hard to distinguish one B vitamin from another. That’s probably because of how they’re presented to the learner: all in one group. They all sound alike.
They’re distinct, however; biochemically separate. As B vitamins they’re grouped by function. It’s an attempt to organize information understandably. All of the B vitamins play a role in making your various cells run.
As one of the B vitamins, B-6, also known as pyridoxine, has been studied over the last couple of decades for its relationship to sleep.
It does so much more than that.
Vitamin B-6 helps to regulate homocysteine. Levels of that amino acid go up when the levels of B-6 and B-12 goes down. Having a high level of homocysteine increases your risk of heart disease, heart attacks, and strokes.
Vitamin B-6 also plays a role in helping nerve cells produce neurotransmitters. These hormones help one cell communicate with another. The neurotransmitters help regulate the sleep cycle.
This vitamin is found naturally in whole-grain cereals, beans, bananas, avocados, milk, cheese, eggs, red meat, liver, and fish.
Researcher Denholm Aspy of the University of Adelaide School of Psychology is the name most commonly associated with this vitamin as it relates to sleep.
In a 2018 study, 100 participants in a double-blind study found that 240 mg of pyridoxine increased the amount of information remembered from their dreams. Contrary to earlier, smaller studies, the larger study found that it didn’t increase the vividness, bizarreness, emotionality, or color. Those earlier studies included only 12 participants, so this may be true for some people.
Supplements help to increase cortical arousal during the REM stage of sleeping, researchers believe.
How can you use this information in your dream journaling practice?
If you find it hard to remember your dreams, it might be something you want to consider. You could do a mini-study on yourself by trying supplementation for several consecutive nights and then try dream journaling for several consecutive nights without it.
In my self-study, I found no appreciable difference, but I typically eat a healthy, well-balanced diet. You’re probably not deficient if you’ve been eating a healthy diet with a variety of foods. Realize, too, that there’s a difference between level and deficiency. Just relying on what you get in your diet might not cause the effect of increased cortical arousal to the point that it would affect your dreams. But with a healthy diet, you wouldn’t necessarily be considered deficient in Vitamin B-6.
At the same time, 240 mg of pyridoxine is a lot. In comparison, one men’s multivitamin, for example, has 4.3 mg of pyridoxine. That’s 253% of the recommended daily allowance. Even though it’s used in over 100 chemical processes in the body, you absolutely only need a bit. Nutrition studies don’t take into account the optimal remembering of dreams.
Take notes about the effects in your dream journal. Maybe make a notation on a night you supplemented and another night when you didn’t. Realize there are a lot of factors that come into play when it comes to dream recall. For example, the day before, you might have had an especially physically taxing day and gone to bed overtired. That can definitely affect dream recall.
For more on other sleep and dreaming topics:
How to have a clarifying dream
The Edgar Cayce Legacy: Evidence vs. Anecdote
How to decide if you’re “crazy” or not
James Cobb, RN, MSN, is an emergency department nurse and the founder of the Dream Recovery System. His goal is to provide his readers with simple, actionable ways to improve their health and maximize their quality of life.
We use some affiliate links. If you click on a link and make a purchase, we may receive a commission from the sale. This does not affect our opinions.