Lucidity and diet--specifically vegetarianism

[rrrrocketrick]

Hi everyone. I'd really like to hear from experienced lucid dreamers who either became vegetarians or gave up vegetarianism (or both) during the period of time they were regularly lucid dreaming. I recently became vegetarian, and I'm wondering how this will affect my dreaming (I hope positively). It would be helpful if you could say what sort of vegetarian you are when you respond: fruitarian; vegan; eggs and dairy but no fish or other meats; fish but no other meats; etc. As for my own diet, I'll eat eggs and diary products but no fish or other meats. I'll occasionally use chicken or beef bouillon cubes in cooking for flavor, though I'm cutting down on that. I have a policy that I'll eat meat whenever someone who doesn't know I'm vegetarian or doesn't care (e.g., my family doesn't care) serves it to me. So far that means I've had a very small amount of meat twice in 2.5 months--a total of a couple ounces. I use olive oil somewhat liberally. I eat a lot of beans, grainy bread, raw veggies, cooked veggies, a daily fruit, some pasta, and I usually have an egg or two a day. I don't usually eat much rice. I grew up in a meat-and-potatoes family and I'm very new to vegetarianism--about 2.5 months--so I'm still rather limited in the dishes I know how to prepare. I'd really appreciate help from any nutritionist who could help me ask my question better. I can't say yet how vegetarianism has affected my own dreaming. Thanks everyone!

[outrae]

This is interesting! I'd love to hear some experiences.

[rrrrocketrick]

This is interesting! I'd love to hear some experiences. Great! Just to clarify, I'm not really looking for posts like "vegetarianism makes me dream about eating meat"--haha. I'm really wondering if people notice an increase (or decrease) in clarity, control, lucidity, dream frequency, recall, precognition, OBE-type experiences, etc. But of course the thread will (hopefully) develop in it's own direction. I'm just saying what I'm especially interested in.

[~Dreamer~]

I've been vegetarian for about 5 months, vegan for the last two. The frequency of my LDs has decreased, but I'm sure that has more to do with my intentional effort to stop doing reality checks & writing DJs temporarily as part of an experiment. I'll try to remember to post here again when I'm back to my usual routine. There are plenty of vegetarian foods that are high in tryptophan/B6 (which are said to help induce lucid dreams) including various green veggies, beans & soy products, some nuts & seeds, bananas, rice, wheat, eggs, milk & cheese.

[Sensei]

My sister has been a vegaterian her whole life. She uses lucidity to wake up from nightmares and intentionally induced one once. One try. That is all the info I have on it. I also got it my first try as well though, and I eat meat every day (just ate some a second ago).

[rrrrocketrick]

Thanks, that's helpful.

[imfivebyfive]

I've been a vegetarian for over 12 years. I am basically vegan although I still do eat eggs and occasionally milk in coffee. I have had no issues practicing or having lucid dreams due to my diet. Hope that helps

[~Dreamer~]

I've been vegetarian for about 5 months, vegan for the last two. The frequency of my LDs has decreased, but I'm sure that has more to do with my intentional effort to stop doing reality checks & writing DJs temporarily as part of an experiment. I'll try to remember to post here again when I'm back to my usual routine. There are plenty of vegetarian foods that are high in tryptophan/B6 (which are said to help induce lucid dreams) including various green veggies, beans & soy products, some nuts & seeds, bananas, rice, wheat, eggs, milk & cheese. Sorry for the necro here, I'm going back through my subscribed threads to clear some out, and remembered that I said I'd post an update about this. So I've been veg for a couple of years now, and strictly vegan since Jan 2013 (although I didn't stray much from a vegan diet in the months before that, either.) I can now definitely say that my diet has not had any negative effects on my dreaming. As I mentioned in my first post, I was taking part in an experiment that required I stop my regular dream practices for a while, to test the efficacy of supplements without other forms of incubation. Now that I've returned to my regular induction practices, I'm having great success with both frequency and dream control, so I'm certain that my dietary changes did not play a part in my temporary dip in lucidity. I'm not sure if the OP is still active (I see they logged on fairly recently though) but I was asked about lucid nutrition recently by someone else, so I thought this might still be relevant. I won't mind if the thread gets locked though.

[FryingMan]

If anything, people who are vegetarian/vegan/etc tend to me more health conscious, and I think this leads to better sleep and thus better dreaming.

[goldy101]

I'm a vegetarian and i don't think that food helps in attaining lucidity as i am trying really hard to induce an LD any tips anyone

[Danquebec]

I’m vegan since 5 years. At first I was going to answer that I don’t think diet influence on chances of lucid dreaming (I thought that idea to be surprising), but someone in the thread said that B6 helps. Oh well. @goldy101 Start your own thread for people to help you. Also, add some precisions that can help people help you (how much time you’ve been trying, with what technique, etc.)

[Verre]

As I mentioned in my first post, I was taking part in an experiment that required I stop my regular dream practices for a while, to test the efficacy of supplements without other forms of incubation. Were there any supplements that you found especially efficacious?

[DreamBliss]

I'll throw in my two cents... When you eat something, you don't just eat physical matter. You also eat energetic and subtle aspects of the food. So if you have chicken from a bird that was kept in a tight place, beak and wings clipped, you will be eating the negative energy of the animal. On top of those energies you eat your feelings and thoughts about your food. So if you have guilt about eating the chicken, or you are tired of chicken, those energies are taken in as well. Also meat makes you heavier, energetically. At least that is how I understand it to be, and how it has been explained to me. That is why if you go to a country like India you will find most of the truly holy and spiritual people are vegan. You will also discover that America is against the norm, as most people in the world in other countries are vegetarian. That said I went vegetarian for a few reasons, among them I wanted to astral project and lucid dream easier and I wanted to loose weight. My results? No difference at all in astral projection and lucid dreaming. My dreams do seem to be even more detailed than usual, but that could just because I am working with them and translating them more regularly. I have also been gaining weight. So I am discouraged. Still I have been vegetarian (not vegan) for a few months now and will not be quitting. The diet agrees with me I think. There has been an increase in my spiritual growth. I seem to be happier, at least when crap like my stuff getting stolen isn't happening. I have been able to hear what I call the voice inside, what Christians may refer to as the Holy Spirit. For me this is the voice of the Source, my name for others call God. I was not tuned in before, unable to hear it. I can't say definitively that this changed because I stopped eating meat. But it seems likely. Note that I have made no regular attempts to astral project or lucid dream. I rarely do DC and have not sat back and practiced projecting for quite a while now. Maybe, were I to put in serious effort and time into these activities, I would succeed far more regularly than I did before, when I was a meat eater as well as a Christian. I will certainly share anything I learn about this should I start applying myself to these tasks.

[Verre]

You will also discover that America is against the norm, as most people in the world in other countries are vegetarian. I don't think this is quite true, except insofar as historically many people could not afford to eat meat on a regular basis. But the countries where people are predominantly vegetarian—by choice—are actually quite rare. At the other end of the spectrum, there are plenty of cultures whose people have traditionally survived on a diet that consisted primarily of meat and animal products, like the Mongolians, the Maasai, and the Inuit. A lot of people have the impression that Buddhists must be vegetarian, which is understandable given that one of the main precepts of Buddhism forbids killing. However, while vegetarianism became a popular option among Chinese Buddhists, intriguingly, it was not required (or practiced!) by the Buddha himself or his early followers in India, and is not even practiced today by most Buddhists outside of China (and maybe America). People ascribe all kinds of spiritual attainments to Tibetan Buddhists, but many of them eat meat! Even in those countries of Southeast Asia that practice Theravada, the school of Buddhism that adheres to the earliest set of texts (i.e., closest to what the Buddha taught), vegetarianism is rare among both laypeople and monastics. In part this derives from the fact that monks and nuns traditionally relied on donations for their food items, and you know what they say, "beggars can't be choosers." A monk is not allowed to instruct a layperson what to put in his almsbowl, and is moreover discouraged from having any food preferences at all— serious practitioners are supposed to mix all the food they've received, no matter what it is, and eat the mixture without discrimination. But it is also a consequence of the nature of Buddhist ethical prescriptions, which are heavily dependent on intention: if someone was not personally involved in butchering an animal, they are not considered culpable for its death. Thus it was forbidden for a monk to eat an animal that was killed specifically to feed him, and of course he may not kill the animal himself, but if some meat is put in his bowl, he's pretty much obliged to eat it. The Buddha himself is said to have died from eating a bad bit of pork, because that's what someone gave him! Curiously, there actually are foods that the early Buddhist monks were not supposed to eat—garlic and onions being on the list, if I remember correctly, though I would want to doublecheck my sources. I don't have the book at hand that goes into this, but there is a whole chapter on food rules for monks in Mohan Wijayaratna's Buddhist Monastic Life (1990). Sorry to go all geekrant here! I'm fascinated by this topic and couldn't resist. I'm certainly not trying to discourage your vegetarianism, as I think it is an admirable form of ethical self-discipline. However, I did feel compelled to correct what I perceived as a slight misapprehension about the eating habits of the rest of the world. We have a common tendency to try to locate spirituality somewhere "out there," whether in another country or person, but years of scrutiny have convinced me that this is very rarely justified, and by no means necessary for the pursuit of our own spiritual path.

[DreamBliss]

I was quoting from the book, "Being Vegetarian For Dummies" I don't remember the specifics, but that was the gist of what they said. Still I guess take it with a grain of salt. I don't know a thing about economics and other countries. This link seems to support what you said: http://www.raw-food-health.net/NumberOfVegetarians.html I can tell you something else that the book pointed out... Being a vegetarian is better for the environment! Something about it takes 8 pounds of grain to feed 1 pound of cow: http://www.peta.org/issues/animals-u...ral-resources/ So in America we have had to tear down our forests to make fields for raising cattle to provide meat for all the Americans who eat loads of steak, hamburgers, ham and bacon!

[Nfri]

My gluten-free diet helps me with motivation and energy, but this works for my organism because I'm gluten sensitive. Few years ago I try to be vegetarian and I found out that's the most stupid thing you can do. I believe that quality meat in a reasonable extend is very healthy approach.

[Verre]

I can tell you something else that the book pointed out... Being a vegetarian is better for the environment! Something about it takes 8 pounds of grain to feed 1 pound of cow: Meat Production Wastes Natural Resources | Animals Used for Food | The Issues | PETA So in America we have had to tear down our forests to make fields for raising cattle to provide meat for all the Americans who eat loads of steak, hamburgers, ham and bacon! You're definitely right that it's more sustainable! And healthy, too, as long as you take care to get enough proteins and fats. When I'm cooking for myself I very rarely use meat (it's kind of a hassle and it goes bad too quickly), but on the other hand I don't ever think I could bear to give up cheese, yogurt, or ice cream, so no veganism for me!

[zewiur]

Yes, it has minimal impact on LD. I am also a vegetarian.

[Gusto]

I'm vegetarian for 5 years, and I don't think it change anything matter with lucid ability. But I'm sure that not eating after 6 PM, will increase your chances to have a good sleep and lucid dreams. Also, I know someone who can have lucid dreams whathever conditions, without any control on diet, so maybe it's purely about conditionning your mind on "what work best for you" as a placebo effect or "psychosomatic" thing.