Drinking three cans of beer before bed

**SuperFob** · 07-15-2011 05:12 PM

Let's say a 180 pound , 5 foot 10 man 20 year old man drinks three cans of beer half an hour to an hour before bed. He has barely drunk alcohol at all in his life. How much will this suppress his dreams if he sleeps for 5.5 hours? Will it get rid of them completely? Will he only have 50% as much dream activity as he would've had otherwise. What do you think?

**SystemsLock** · 07-17-2011 06:51 AM

Alright, let's look at this mathematically. Blood alcohol can be calculated by the total amount of alcohol consumed divided by the total amount of water in the body. The alcohol content in beer ranges from 2%-15% volume averaging about 5%. A can holds 12oz. That's an average of 0.6oz of alcohol per can. In 3 cans it's 1.8oz of alcohol. In general, men have a higher percent of water (58%) than women (49%). So for you, at 180 pounds, that's 104.4 pounds of water. 15.35 fluid ounces of water weighs one pound. Which gives you 1602.5oz of water. 1.8oz of alcohol divided by 1602.5oz of water is a blood alcohol level of 0.112 (over the legal driving limit in the states). Lets assume it takes you a full hour to consume the beer then go to sleep. However, absorption can take a good 30 minutes. So we'll average the difference and look at your BAC 6.75 hours from peak absorption. Unlike most psychoactive substances with a half-life (exponential decay) alcohol decays at a constant rate. The normal body will metabolize between .015 percent and .020 percent BAC per hour. We'll use a conservative .016 percent BAC per hour. Meaning that by the time you wake up you will of burned through 0.108 of your BAC, which is just about all of it (0.004 BAC remains).

Yay for math! However I didn't really answer your question. The real answer is far less concrete. Technically yes, your dreams will be somewhat suppressed during the 6 or so hours after drinking those beers. However towards the end of your sleep the little alcohol remaining will likely have little effect. And, ironically, you may find yourself dreaming more than usual via the REM rebound effect. After suppressing your REM sleep for most of the night your brain leaps at the opportunity as soon as it can. Giving you longer, more vivid dreams towards the morning.

I hope that helped.

**ninja9578** · 07-17-2011 02:17 PM

Yes, alcohol will suppress REM, but 3 of them wont. I've had some intense REM rebounds, but only after being really drunk. Not a good way to induce a dream. They are better ways to REM rebound.