Nightmare Recently, I went through a period of having nightly dreams that were so vivid and frightening that I will think hardly about the dream during the day and eagerly want to know the meaning behind it. Having a nightmare is so not fun. Based on research, it is said that spicy or fatty foods can give you nightmares, but the link between food and sleep goes beyond that. Vivid dreams are a symptom of a vitamin B6 (pyridoxine) excess in the body. Besides, low blood sugar is another cause of vivid dreams. When the brain senses that glucose levels are low, it will do strange things to get stored glucose into the blood stream. One way it does so is through adrenaline spurts. Anxiety and stress, often as the result of a traumatic life event, are another cause of nightmares and bad dreams. Illnesses that include fever, such as the flu, also can trigger nightmares. Though it is a common thing nightmares and bad dreams happen throughout life, but is there anything we can do to prevent the bad things from creeping into our sleep? Firstly, try to avoid the things in the causes stated before and to stop thinking negatively before going to sleep. And for us, a Muslim, we believed that praying before going to sleep is the best method to avoid nightmares.