Dream food.

It isn't clear how exactly some foods got the reputation of causing weird dreams. We all recall how Ebenezer Scrooge told a ghost he was a bad dream brought on by something he ate: "You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There’s more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!" 

Winsor McCay used this for his fantastic comic strips, explaining that they happened to people who ate Welsh rarebit. (Welsh rarebit is basically cheese toast; the nickname may have come Welsh being associated with cheapness or poor quality -- this "Welsh rabbit" being too poor to have actual meat. Well, I love cheese toast, so fie on you, Welsh-haters!) McCay's Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend was a hugely popular strip; it even was made into a short silent film in 1906. 

McCay later introduced Little Nemo, his famous boy dream adventurer, into the strip; he was later spun off into the gorgeous and brilliant Little Nemo in Slumberland, which has yet to be made into a really top-notch film. (Please, no one tell Disney.)

In 2015, authors of a study in Frontiers of Psychology explained that some people still believe that foods are linked to vivid dreams. "Three hundred and ninety six students completed questionnaires evaluating sleep, dreams, and dietary habits and motivations. Items queried whether they had noticed if foods produced bizarre or disturbing dreams and if eating late at night influenced their dreams. The perception of food-dependent dreaming had a prevalence of 17.8%; with dairy products being the most frequently blamed food category (39–44%)." 

Aha! Cheese toast again! 

The authors concluded that while the idea that food caused weird dreams may have begun jokingly, as a means of expressing the dinner's indigestibility, there might actually be something to it: "The impact of food on dreams may, however, be deserving of more serious consideration."

More on this topic tomorrow. Questions for the viewers: Do you associate any foods with vivid dreams? Should Cheese Toast use by regulated by the FDA? What's with the Welsh, anyhow? All these and other questions are flying around like a rarebit fiend's bed -- they need answers!