Does anyone here have any experience with this?

My son is a college athlete (D3! we try to keep life in perspective!). One of many supplements I have heard about by being on the fringe of this world is a supplement referred to as ZMA.  It is a mixture of zinc, magnesium, and B-6. It is taken before going to bed to help aid in muscle recovery. (I worry about the zinc as the zinc lozenges for sore throat say to not take too many for too long; not sure what the limits for zinc zre).

One of the reported side effects of this supplement are an increase in dream activity for the person taking it. You can search on the web for ZMA and dreams to see posts about this. My son reports that when he takes ZMA, is dreams are more real. I asked him to elaborate on that. He said that it was like something that happened in waking life instead of being something dream-like, such as flying.

There are no warnings on the bottle, only a statement that it works better if you avoid taking it in conjunction with calcium-containing foods.

I haven't tried it yet and I wondered if anyone else here had.

Lucy,

Zinc is a important mineral and generaly it's hard to get it from normal nutrition (in my case).  

Those who do sport need more mineral...  Zinc can be toxic if we take too much of it.  Generely for a man, 50 mg is the optimal and maximun amount to take.   From what I see, ZMA has around 30 mg of Zinc... so it sound safe.

I would look for "hidden" stuff in it.  It's often the case in sport supplement.

Thanks for theinfo.

There is only one way to check this out, anfd that is to take ZMA myself.

My son is so sure it helps him dream (or recall dreams) but he says they are not fantastic dreams of things like flying but things that could be, as he says, "real." He claims he definitely did not recall dreams before, and now he does. That in itself is interesting. I have often talked with him about this topic and I can recall when he claimed he didn't dream at all. Then he only remembered the really crazy type dreams. Why zinc/magnesium would help recall dreams is a mystery.

I think the stories on the internet are of more fantastic dreams, but I will have to search again. And maybe it has to do with recall rather than stimulus of any type of dream. Or maybe it is the power of suggestion?

So I have tried this a couple of nights and I can't say I experienced anything extra-ordinary. I randomly recall dreams anyway. The first night, I didn't recall any dreams. But the one I had last night was pretty ordinary. Yes it was something that could have happened. I dreamed about an event at MIT, but the place in my dream did not physically resemble any place at MIT I know of. Something in an old school-type building built in a certain era. They all feel the same. The person I dreamed about is a real person and not at MIT, though she is on the faculty at a state university. She recently, in "real" life, emailed me that she might be in the area this summer, so I guess I incorporated that into the dream. She had another friend there in the dream who was correct for her interests but not the actual correct person. She was singing in a performance; she doesn't sing (but lecturing is a performance, is it not?). So I am mixing facts with symbols, but I'm not at all sure what this dream means to me. However, I would class it as something that could happen in C1.

Hi Lucy,

this may sound strange but you might encourage your dreaming by saying to your 'dream-maker' that you really enjoyed that show and that you'd like to have more !
By 'anthropomorphizing' the part of our minds that create dreams, we're doing something similiar to what has been done in naming a 'perceiver' and an 'interpretor.' -- It gives us a focus and so helps direct our thoughts.
Of course you'll never know if it's the zinc or your encouragement that increases your dreaming, but at this point, that's not so important as opening this dream-making channel.   :)  Once you get that channel open, you can move on to lucid dreaming and to 'the afterlife'.

Bets