Dreams and nightmares during the pandemic

Abstract

The pandemic caused by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) had a huge impact on public mental health. This was also reflected in dreams. Not only did people start to remember more dreams, but dream content changed as themes like sickness, confinement, and—in the English-speaking world—even bugs began to dominate. This also led to an increase in nightmare frequency. There are various factors that contributed to this change in the dream landscape. Some people have started to sleep more and hereby spend more time in REM sleep, which is known to increase dream recall and further lead to bizarre and vivid dreams. On the other hand, stress and poor mental health had an impact on sleep, and sleep quality thus dropped in many individuals. Poor sleep quality can also lead to an increase in dream recall. Dreams are known to regulate mood, so the rise in dreams and the change in dream content could also reflect a reaction to the overall rise in stress and decline in mental health. Recent studies have shown that as the pandemic progresses, further changes in mental health, dream recall, and dream content arise, but data are still scarce. Further research could help understand the impact the pandemic still has on mental health and dreams, and how this impact is changing over the course of the pandemic.

Dreaming about the pandemic: A thematic content analysis of COVID-19-related dreams during the outbreak in Portugal.

“…Sickness, death, inefficiency, and work-related concerns were the main dream themes reported by the respondents of the present study. The threat of deadly contagion, atypical work schedules and settings, and life plans put on hold (Ableidinger et al, 2022;AVCI, 2022;Kennedy & Grandner, 2021;Solomonova et al, 2021) seem to have directly affected dream content, which is consistent with theories that claim that dreams reflect waking-life challenges (Nielsen & Lara-Carrasco, 2007;Revonsuo, 2000).…”

“…In 2019, a new respiratory disease was discovered in China and spread rapidly worldwide, leading the World Health Organization to declare a public health emergency of international concern in the first months of 2020 (Ableidinger et al, 2022). The COVID-19 pandemic, as it became known, was considered a threat to human life, compounded by the uncertainty of when the state of emergency would end.…”

Sleep During the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…In addition to that, oneiric activity was also modified during the pandemic. Higher frequency of nightmares and increased dream recall were observed, a fact that was related with parasomnia [ 74 , 75 ]. Dream content also changed, becoming more negative (i.e., dreaming about diseases, war, and death) [ 74 ].…”

“…Higher frequency of nightmares and increased dream recall were observed, a fact that was related with parasomnia [ 74 , 75 ]. Dream content also changed, becoming more negative (i.e., dreaming about diseases, war, and death) [ 74 ]. Gorgoni et al reported that dream frequency, vividness, bizarreness, lucid dreams, and emotional load reduced after lockdown [ 76 ].…”

The Mental Health of Frontline Chinese Healthcare Workers During the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Most participants mentioned pressure from work, which agreed with previous studies. Stress is prevalent in the daily work and the dreams of frontline HCW (Qi et al, 2020;Ableidinger et al, 2022), supporting the dream-continuity hypothesis that waking concerns and thoughts are reflected in dreams (Barrett, 2020;Marogna et al, 2021). Under enormous work pressure, participant 4 dreamed about her dead grandfather, who came to help her with the laundry at the quarantine site.…”