Thread: Does lucid eating result in physiological changes?

Wow. I've never thought of this. Yeah, I've definetely heard about this phenomenon. I've heard that even thinking about food can get the enzymes going because, well, we tend to think about food just before eating it! I expect that in a dream, if we eat food, our stomach will secrete those enzymes...

But how does circadian rhythm fit into all this? Would our digestive system shut down this response, as it 'knows' that humans don't really eat at night?

I don't know the answer. But I agree--there should be a study!

Ha, that's one of the better 'reality check' signatures I've seen. xD

You'd think it would make sense for us to shut down the pathways between our brains and our stomaches while asleep, because I'm certain in the rough-and-tumble environment where we evolved food was constantly on our mind. For that reason I don't suspect that normal dreams would do anything, they're just too typical for the body to risk screwing up its biochemistry every time we have donut dreams. But lucid dreaming seems to recover a lot of the faculties that we otherwise "put under" while sleeping, so it does seem feasible that if we have a safety lock against reacting to dream food that it might be unsprung when we go lucid. Plus, with lucid eating you're actually tasting the food whereas in (most peoples') normal dreams eating is a visual stimulus but rarely a gustatory one.

I'm only guessing with the sig since I've never been lucid to know what shifting text "looks" like, if anything, but I figured a real reality check alert is sure as hell not going to look so simple in a dream.

I wouldn't be surprised if there are physiological changes, because as you mention even artifical sweeteners cause insulin release. On the CRON site a while back there were a lot of posts flying around about some research that indicated that even smelling food can cause reactions that make you gain weight.

Great. I hadn't even thought about this. That had become my favorite lucid activity, too.

Does that mean I can't even sniff coffee grounds anymore without gaining weight? Coffee is negligibly caloric, so I should hope I could still have that one last dirty little pleasure left to me.

Man, sorry to ruin your nighttime feasts. IIRC LaBerge (or someone) reported that people eating forbidden foods in their dreams really did lose the cravings for them in real life, which just gives more credence to the idea that there's a real physiological process going on there - I don't know about you, but I can visualize about carrot cake all day and it'll just make me hungrier for it, so the fact that dreaming the case makes the cravings go away suggests it's doing something above and beyond what the imagination can... which is good for your tastebuds, not so good for your everything else.

Dammit! That really sucks. It's gotta be better for you than a real (whole) carrot cake or cheese cake (or two, if they're small); so of those two alternatives, I guess I'll keep trying to dream about it.

Thanks for ruining my last pleasure in life.

That's a dilly of a pickle, isn't it? "Look Spotto is drooling in his sleep!" Pavlov's dreaming dogs? I do recall waking up after having dreamt of eating potato chips and it really felt like I still had the taste in my mouth when I awoke. I hadn't eaten any previously either, not like the taste was repeating on me or anything. I wondered about that when it happened. Just how (dis)connected is the physical/psychological, is it a 2-way street? Can the brain send signals to the tastebuds? A little bit bass-akwards, nonetheless.

Kind of like when you hurt yourself in a dream, and you wake up with that body part hurting. That might be the other way around tho; maybe the body part hurt first and then you dreamed about it. I know what you mean about the taste; but I guess it's all in your brain anyway, even when you taste something IRL.