If you want to remember your dreams the next day - eat a vitamin found in bananas, avocado, chickpeas and tuna before bedtime, a study found.

Taking high doses of vitamin B6 before you nod off helps you recall your dreams throughout the day.

It also did not significantly affect dream vividness, bizarreness, or colour nor lead to poorer sleep quality.

In fact those not taking the supplement not only had difficulty remembering their dreams but said they had poorer sleep quality and significantly higher tiredness on waking.

Vitamin B6 known as pyridoxine occurs naturally in various foods, including whole grain cereals, legumes, fruits such as banana and avocado, vegetables such as spinach and potato, milk, cheese, eggs, red meat, liver, and fish.

Levels range from 0.84mg in 75g of tuna, 0.43 in a medium banana, 52mg in an avocado pear, and 0.84 mg in three quarters of a cup of chickpeas.

In the study half of the participants took 240mg of vitamin B6 immediately before bed for five consecutive nights - the equivalent of 558 bananas.

Visiting Research Fellow Dr Denholm Aspy, from the University of Adelaide's School of Psychology said: "Our results show that taking vitamin B6 improved people’s ability to recall dreams compared to a placebo.


"This is the first time that such a study into the effects of vitamin B6 and other B vitamins on dreams has been carried out on a large and diverse group of people."

Anecdotal evidence suggested moderate to high doses of vitamin B6 can enhance dreaming and a poor dream recall could be a sign of a deficiency in the nutrient.

Previous research also suggested the vitamin increased dream vividness and recall, and make dreams appear more colourful.

It was also suggested vitamin B6 helps convert a dietary amino acid to a precursor of serotonin - a neurotransmitter that has a good influence on mood, emotion and sleep.

It was also suggested elevated serotonin during the first few hours of sleep suppresses REM sleep, the sleep stage associated with the greatest dream recall rate, but causes a subsequent REM-rebound effect in the last few hours of sleep, characterised by greater REM sleep and intensified dreaming activity.

An alternative to the serotonin synthesis theory is that vitamin B6 causes disrupted sleep and more awakenings that provide opportunities for short term memories of dream content to be recalled and transferred into long-term memory.

So the study set out to investigate the effects of vitamin B6 supplementation on dreaming and sleep.

It enrolled 68 healthy Australian women, 31 men, and one transsexual aged 18 to 40.

Before the study many rarely remembered their dreams, but they reported improvements by the end of the study.

The researchers used the most sensitive measure of dream recall, the Dream Quantity measure that quantifies the amount of content recalled from each individual dream.

It found those who took the B6 supplements recalled a statistically significant 64.1 per cent more dream content than those who took a placebo.

One said: “It seems as time went on my dreams were clearer and clearer and easier to remember. I also did not lose fragments as the day went on."

Another added: “My dreams were more real, I couldn't wait to go to bed and dream!"

Dr Aspy added: "The average person spends around six years of their lives dreaming.




“In order to have lucid dreams it is very important to first be able to recall dreams on a regular basis.

"This study suggests that vitamin B6 may be one way to help people have lucid dreams."

“Further research is needed to investigate whether the effects of vitamin B6 vary according to how much is obtained from the diet.

"If vitamin B6 is only effective for people with low dietary intake, its effects on dreaming may diminish with prolonged supplementation."

Vitamin B6 helps the body to use and store energy from protein and carbohydrates in food and form haemoglobin – the substance in red blood cells that carries oxygen around the body.

The NHS said the daily amount of vitamin B6 adults aged 19 to 64 years need is about 1.4mg for men and 1.2mg for women which can be got from a normal diet.

But it warns taking more than 200mg a day for a long time can lead to a loss of feeling in the arms and legs known as peripheral neuropathy.

People should not take the supplement over 10mg unless advised to by a doctor

The study was published in the journal Perceptual and Motor Skills.

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