vitamin b6 and dream recall

Weird Dream

July 12, 2022 — Pat Bertram

I had a weird dream last night.

Well, that was a silly thing to say. Isn’t it the nature of dreams to be weird? That’s why I dislike them so much — they leave me feeling queasy and uneasy. When I found out that vitamin B-6 in the evening can help you remember your dreams, I immediately revised my vitamin-taking schedule to make sure I don’t ingest B vitamins in the evening. And it helped.

[In checking to make sure I was right about the specific vitamin that helps with dream recall, I noticed that all the articles were based on “new research” done in 2018, but I’d stopped taking the vitamin at night decades before that, so that “new research” was actually rehashed old research.]

What also helps is that if I do remember a dream when I wake, I immediately put something else in my head.

This morning, however, something banged against the house on the other side of the wall where I have my bed, and it woke me with a start. And somehow the dream stayed with me.

In the dream, I was visiting with my sophomore-year high school English teacher, and I decided to give her my latest book. My dreaming self could clearly see the published book, though when I went to get it, I couldn’t put my hand on it, and I realized the book hadn’t yet been published because I no longer have a publisher. And then . . . bang!

In that first moment of waking, I decided to go ahead and self-publish the book so I could give it to her, then it dawned on me that I hadn’t even written it yet. Didn’t even have a clue as to what the book would be about. Would never give that teacher a book of mine if I ever happened to see her.

The dream seems rather banal, now that I think about it. It was the bang at that precise moment that seemed weird, especially since I couldn’t tell if the bang waking me up was a real-life sound or a dream-induced sound.

Another odd thing is that this particular dream had its roots in a decades-old incident. That particular teacher once told me that she’d saved papers from every one of her students she thought would one day become a writer, then she looked directly into my eyes and said, “But I never saved anything of yours.”

I have no idea what she thought she was accomplishing by that statement, though it seems another example of how fellow students often thought I was “teacher’s pet,” but that teachers generally hated me. (In both cases, now that I think about it, it had to be due to my always knowing the answer. I was one of those silly students who read the schoolbooks the first few days of school, and then had nothing left to learn the rest of the time. I did get smart, though. When I realized some teachers refused to call on me anymore, I stopped listening to them.)

I clearly remember leaving my third-grade classroom at the end of the year. The teacher was sobbing and telling each student in turn how much she would miss him or her. Then it was my turn. She glared at me briefly without saying anything, then turned to the girl behind me and continued her sobbing good-byes.

And then there was my senior-year high school English teacher, who got a horrified look on her face when I walked into her class after everyone was already seated. (The advanced class I’d signed up for had too many people, and instead of being fair and eliminating the last to sign up, the teacher drew a name out of a hat — the only time in my life I ever “won” a drawing.) I’d had that horror-stricken teacher for freshman English, and she hadn’t liked me . . . not at all. And so we were stuck with each other for another year. (Though not really. I asked her if I could take the class independently — teaching myself, in other words — and she jumped at the opportunity.)

But this is getting far from the dream. I have a hunch the dream was more about writing and publishing than anything that happened so many decades ago.

I won’t ever go through the process of trying to find an agent or publisher again, and both my previous publishers have had very little luck with my books, so that leaves only one option — to self-publish, which is something I never wanted to do. Because of the confounding situation, it’s easier to not write at all (except for this blog).

Still, the dream seems to indicate either that I’m not through with writing yet or that writing isn’t through with me. Or conversely, it could indicate I took a B vitamin way too late in the evening.

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Pat Bertram is the author of intriguing fiction and insightful works of grief.

Posted in life. Tags: bad dream, mean teachers, remembering dreams, teacher's pet, vitamin b-6 and dreams, vitamin b6 and dream recall. 4 Comments »

Dreaming of Our Dead

December 11, 2019 — Pat Bertram

A friend told me the other day that she reads my blog, and she agrees with all I say about grief, but that I never mention one thing: dreaming of our dead.

The truth is, I hate dreaming. I don’t like the feeling of weird and inexplicable things happening, I don’t like the feeling of being out of control, and mostly I don’t like being controlled by any nightmarishness. Researchers say that to aid in dream recall, one should take Vitamin B6 before bed. When I read that, I immediately stopped taking any B vitamins before bed, and that certainly aided in my ability not to recall dreams.

That being said, I have the impression I do dream of Jeff, though mostly as a reflection of my everyday thoughts. He is seldom far out of mind, so it makes sense that he would appear in my dreams as a nebulous character.

There were times, though, that I had specific dreams about him, and those were terribly upsetting. One dream, for example, seemed to be about the end of his life when he was so often disoriented. He was trying to cook something, and he continued pouring whatever it was into the pan after the pan was filled, getting the food all over the stove, him, the floor, even me. I tried to catch his attention so he’d stop, and when I couldn’t, I slapped him to bring him back to reality.

I woke feeling ashamed. I’d never raised a hand to him, never even raised my voice, and yet, in the dream, I did both, and I couldn’t bear it.

Dreams about the dead seem inordinately real. Sometimes they feel like a visitation. Once I dreamt that he came into my room, stood at the foot of the bed and touched my blanket-covered feet, then climbed onto the bed, on top of the covers, and cuddled up to me. He was in his underwear, and in the dream, I knew he’d come from where he’d been sleeping, though I had the impression he’d been with someone, as if he had another life. He said, “I miss you.”

When I woke, I felt as if he’d come to see me one last time, though I have no idea what is true when it comes to life, death, and especially dreams.

Even when we know it’s a dream, what happens in the dream affects our waking life. Once I dreamt we were going somewhere on foot, and I realized that it would be cold before we got back, so I went inside to get a coat. In my closet were two of his coats — a jacket and a trench coat, which I have in fact kept. As I was pulling the jacket off the hangar, I remembered that I had gotten rid of most of his things after he died, and I panicked, wondering how to tell him that his stuff was gone. I left the room, and met one of the moderators of the grief group I had attended. He asked how I was, so I explained the situation, then I added, “It’s a good thing this is a dream, otherwise he would be really angry.”

When I woke, I was still glad I didn’t have to tell him his things were gone even though I had done what he wanted me to do with his stuff. The reason I still have his coats is that he wanted me to keep them since coats are always a good thing to have.

The most powerful dream came at about six months. After a restless night, I finally fell asleep in the early morning hours, and I dreamt.

I dreamed that Jeff was dead, but I woke to find him alive and getting well. It was wonderful seeing him doing so much better. I could feel the tension of grief seep from my body, and a quiet joy seeped over me.

I started to wake. In the seconds before full consciousness hit, I continued to feel the joy of knowing he still lived. And then . . .

Wham!

The truth hit me. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. Then, like an aftershock, came the raw pain, the heartbreak of losing him . . . again.

I’d been feeling a bit smug that I was getting a grip on my grief so early in the process, and the dream caught me unaware. In the depths of my being, I believed that he hadn’t died.

It took me weeks to regain the equilibrium that the dream cost me.

When it comes to grief, it seems as the dreams are a facet of our reality. What we feel in the dream continues into our waking state. There is no separation. Even if in a dream we act a way we would never act, we still have to deal with the effects of those acts once we wake. If the deceased in the dream acts in a way they would never act, we are left to deal with that, too.

Although I would love to visit with Jeff once more, if only in a dream, I’m just as glad it never happens. Except for an occasional brief episode of grief, I am in an okay place, both physically and mentally, and any sort of visitation would upset that equilibrium.

Maybe that’s why he never visits me in my dreams. Or, perhaps more accurately, it’s why I never dream of him.

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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.