This study analyzes the responses of 3,031 U.S. adults who, in early May of 2020, completed an online survey regarding their dreams and the COVID-19 outbreak. The results indicate that those people most strongly affected by the pandemic also reported the strongest effects on their dream life (heightened dream recall, more negatively toned dreams, and pandemic-related dreams). Pronounced negative effects of the pandemic on dreaming were also found to be more likely among women and people with higher levels of education. These findings support the notion that changes in the frequency, tone, and contents of dreaming can help identify specific people who may be most at risk for mental health problems during the COVID-19 outbreak.
This article presents the results of an analysis of a large set of dream reports (N ϭ 5,208) using the Linguistic Inventory and Word Count (LIWC) system of Pennebaker, Boyd, Jordan, and Blackburn (2015). The findings indicate that, in comparison with other kinds of texts studied by LIWC, dream reports are distinctive in having high frequencies of the following language categories: focus on the past, first-person singular words, personal pronouns, authenticity, dictionary words, motion, space, and home. The dream reports have relatively low frequencies of these LIWC categories: informal language, focus on the present, assent, positive emotions, clout, second-person references, affective processes, and quotation marks. In addition, the LIWC analysis was able to identify and distinguish between the key content features of recent dreams, nightmares, and lucid dreams. These results confirm earlier findings of McNamara (2008) and Hawkins and Boyd (2017) and support the further use of LIWC in dream research, in coordination with other empirical methods of study.
We present a theory of the creativity of dreams as well as psychopathology of religious delusions with respect to production of fundamental forms of religious cognition—specifically supernatural agent (SA) cognitions. We suggest that dream cognitions are particularly efficient at producing highly memorable and impactful experiences with SAs because dreams involve three processes that are prerequisites for the generation of god concepts: (1) mental simulations of alternative realities, (2) theory of mind attributions to the extra-natural dream characters and divine beings, and (3) attribution of ultimate value (exemplified by ‘good spirit beings’), and dis-value (exemplified by demonic monsters) to the supernatural dream characters. Because prefrontal cortex is deactivated during rapid eye movements (REM) sleep agentic impulses and internally generated ideas are not reliably attributed to Self or dreamer. Instead an exaggerated degree of agency is attributed to these supernatural dream characters who are then embedded in stories in dreams and in myths of waking life which explain their supernatural abilities. These dream-based SAs are salient characters that are processed in sleep-related memory systems according to rules of Lleweelyn’s ancient art of memory model and therefore more easily remembered and reflected upon during waking life. When REM sleep intrudes into waking consciousness, as is the case with some forms of schizophrenia, religious delusions are more likely to emerge.
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