Chewing different materials affects the brain and a new study found that chewing on wood (wooden tongue depressors), compared to chewing gum, led to a significant increase in a natural brain antioxidant called glutathione, and better performance on memory tasks.

[u/mvea]

https://www.psypost.org/chewing-wood-may-boost-memory-and-brain-antioxidants-study-finds/

[u/Tanukifan]

Their conclusion was:

Chewing moderately hard material elevates brain antioxidant levels such as GSH, potentially influencing cognitive function.

So its not specifically wood that gives the effect, even if they tested it with wood.

[u/eliminating_coasts → u/Tanukifan]

If only they'd tested carrots, we could have much less strange immediate recommendations.

[u/roamingandy → u/eliminating_coasts]

Not sure they'd work as you're eating carrots rather than chewing on them for a prolonged time like wood or gum.

[u/eliminating_coasts → u/roamingandy]

I think if chewing is the thing that causes the effect, there's not much harm in eating a vast quantity of uncooked and peeled but unchopped carrots - they're not particularly energy dense, high in fibre and vitamins etc. so you probably could just keep munching carrots like a horse for hours without having a significant negative effect.

[u/TheArmoredKitten → u/eliminating_coasts]

Total anecdote, but my dog's favorite treat is a big ol carrot right out of the dirt. I'll go to the farmer's market and buy a couple of em, because even one keeps her busy for at least an hour. Any time in the summer when she starts being a pain in the ass I just toss a cold carrot at her and she just hangs out in a sunny spot and obliterates it.

[u/powerhammerarms → u/TheArmoredKitten]

One summer when I was about 8 my cousin and I ate carrots out of my aunt's garden. At first we were rinsing them off under the garden hose but then we really got into it and just started eating them with the dirt.

We ate all the carrots and started in on some of the other vegetables. We got super sick and my aunt was pissed. I was so sick on their couch throwing up in an ice cream bucket waiting for my mom to pick me up that I had a hallucination that I had stood up to walk to the bathroom and I fell on their coffee table and broke it.

I was laying on the couch throwing up and crying feeling bad about the coffee table. And my aunt and my mom are like what are you talking about?

TL;DR I'm part dog

[u/30FourThirty4 → u/powerhammerarms]

I wonder if the garden had some nightshade and you got a small taste from touching leaves? Crazy to get sick and hallucinate like that, that's call poison control bad.

[u/waitwuh → u/30FourThirty4]

My bet is they just ingested at least one nasty bacteria from the dirt that made them sick. That could cause a fever and/or throwing up as their body tries to clear the infectious agent. A high enough fever and/or severe enough dehydration can cause hallucinations.

Kids are generally more prone to hypnogogic hallucinations. Similar to why kids sleep walk, their brains sometimes get mixed up with the “settings” and activity and stage coordination related to sleep. In a hypnagogic hallucination, it’s happening because part of the brain tries to jump into the REM sleep stage (which is when you dream) too early, before the whole brain is really ready and you’re still partly conscious/awake. It’s sometimes called a “waking dream.” It can happen with or without something else called sleep paralysis, which is when the voluntary muscle control gets turned off before you’re all the way asleep so you feel “stuck.” In sleep walking, by contrast, the brain didn’t cut off the voluntary muscle control to prevent acting out dreams / walking before the REM cycle started. Hypnogogic hallucinations and/or sleep paralysis are probably just as common in kids as sleep walking, it’s just that sleep walking is more obvious to the outsider observers ie. parents so we know and hear about it more. As kids grow older they usually grow out of these experiences because their systems figure things out and settle into more proper patterns.

Probably related to that, kids seem to be more prone to having fever and dehydration related hallucinations. I remember getting bad stomach bugs a few times as a kid, and also fevers with or without those, and having weird dream/hallucinations. I have one especially vivid memory where I was shivering from cold but sweating profusely and I lifted my bed sheets and a bunch of cats ran out from under the covers, one after the other, like a clown car situation. We didn’t even have any cats. My parents had to take me to the hospital a few times for IVs because I would get so sick I couldn’t keep any fluids down. Just fun childhood stuff.

[u/30FourThirty4 → u/waitwuh]

You're honestly right I'm sure. You didn't know this but I was trying to think of non bacteria reasons it happened. Plus nightshade took over my thoughts and I couldn't stop.

[u/BertMcNasty → u/waitwuh]

You could absolutely be right, and this is obviously anecdotal, but as a kid I regularly ate unwashed carrots from our garden and also literally ate dirt by the spoonful (I think I was low on iron or something). I don't think either one of those things ever made me sick, at least not the vomiting kind of sick.

[u/Wtyjhjhkhkhkf → u/waitwuh]

I like to induce sleep paralysis in order to meditate after the altered state of consciousness it provides.