What Now

PURELY FOR THE SAKE OF SCIENCE

I'm sure I mentioned it a while ago, but for those of you not in the know, I have discovered an actual negative aspect to eating chocolate: Nightmares. *excuse me for a moment while I regain my composure*

Ahem.

Anyways, I had almost forgotten about this because I haven't had any plain chocolate candy (like candy bars or boxes of chocolates) in the house for a while, or at least none that I was eating close enough to bedtime to expirence this side effect. However, on my recent trip out to San Francisco, I was fortunate enough to be able to visit a magical place called Ghirardelli Square. Other chocolate lovers will recognize this name immediately as the second best producer of chocolate in the world (the first being, no surprise, Godiva.) As we were walking down the street, we were handed Ghirardelli coupons that would entitle us to 15% off of any purchase in the official store. Of course, I was not going to be content until I got to go in. It was like Charlie visiting the chocolate factory, without the added bonus of Johnny Depp, but that didn't make it any less wonderful. Of course, Mr. Lee being the generous guy that he is, loaded us up. Since we've returned, we have this chocolate lying about and I can't insult Mr. Ghirardelli by not eating it (even though I had to finally restrict myself to only one square after dinner so that I wouldn't go into sugar shock).

But I digress.

For the past three nights, I have had various levels of nightmares that made me remember that eating chocolate too late in the day plays havoc with my subconcious. Now, luckily, these aren't the kind of nightmares that trouble me all day. These are just mildly disturbing ones that bother me for a moment after I wake up and then start to fade immediately. Well, except for the breif edge-of-sleep one I had two days ago about the children in the Donner Party, but that is another post all together. At any rate, relizing this has given me a desire to preform an expirement to see what kinds of dreams different kinds of chocolate make me have. I know, I know, you're probably thinking that it is very gallant to sacrifice myself in such a way, but I'm willing to do this so that others may benefit from it. Heeheehee. Yeah, right. However, I am actually curious if it is true of all kinds of chocolate, or just the better grades of it, or what. If any of you can give me some chemical information about different grades of chocolate, I'd truly appreciate it. Darn it, Jim, I'm a chocolate lover, not a scientist!

So far, I have gathered this information in which I have placed the chocolate on the Kelly's Nummy Scale and it's dream inducing effects:

***
Godiva - A 10.5 on the nummy scale. Causes violent nightmares that not only scare the poo out of me, but follow me all the way through the day. Has not, however, scared me enough to stop eating it. I can't imagine anything less than finding a roach in one would do that.

Ghirardelli - A 9.5 on the nummy scale. Causes mild nightmares that are somewhat troubling, but start to fade as soon as I wake up.

After 8 Chocolate Mint hot chocolate - An 8 on the nummy scale. Didn't so much give me nightmares as made me have dreams that made me mad. Also, made me feel like I had a hangover when I woke up. Not quite sure why.
***

Next I shall be working with the Scherfin-Berger Nibby Bar. I can't see that this will be too bad. Just saying Nibby Bar makes me laugh! : )

I'll keep you updated!