Dreaming of the Forbidden

When I first started the diet I would have seriously crazy dreams about eating all sorts of sweets. Mind you, during my waking and lucid hours I was completely committed to this diet and didn't even crave illegal sweeteners. But when I went to sleep I would eat all sorts of things; Reeses Peanut Butter Cups, Sixlets, chocolate cup cakes with lots of frosting and sprinkles on top. Then I would wake up in a panic because the dreams seemed so real. I would spend up to a whole minute retracing my steps from the previous day to see if what I just experienced was a memory and I had really ingested all those sugars, or if it was just a dream and no such memory existed from the previous day. It was very confusing and so real.

As it turns out, this kind of dreaming is completely normal for people with IBD experiencing bacteria die off. It has something to do with neurotoxins being released, apparently. I had no idea this sort of thing is normal. There is a topic going on the forums I read for SCD, and it's pretty crazy the kind of dreams people are having. Like me, most people dreamt about things they weren't tempted by during waking hours. Eventually my nightmares went away, but once they were gone and I started sleeping through the night I stopped sleeping as much as I used to. I used to need 8 or 9 hours a night. Now I get somewhere between 5 and 7 hours and feel fine.