Dreaming during a pandemic: Low incorporation of COVID-19-specific themes and lucidity in dreams of psychiatric patients and healthy controls.
Judith Koppehele-gossel, Lena-marie Weinmann, Ansgar Klimke, Sabine Windmann, Ursula Voss
International journal of clinical and health psychology : IJCHP January 1, 2023 DOI: 10.1016/j.ijchp.2022.100364
Summary
The COVID-19 pandemic significantly influenced dream quality, with only 15% of participants incorporating pandemic-related themes into their dreams. A sample of 111 individuals, including 30 psychiatric outpatients and 81 healthy controls, showed no difference in dream incorporation between groups. Loneliness correlated with increased threat-related content, indicating it may heighten bad dreams. Lucid dreaming scores were similar across groups, but control and dissociation levels were lower than those of pre-pandemic healthy controls, suggesting a shift in emotional processing during lockdowns.
Abstract
The present study examined the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the emotional quality of dreams, the incorporation of pandemic-related themes, and the occurrence of lucid dreaming. Dream reports and lucidity ratings of psychiatric outpatients (n = 30) and healthy controls (n = 81) during two lockdowns in Germany were compared to those of healthy controls (n = 33) before the pandemic. Results confirmed previous reports that pandemic-specific themes were incorporated into dreams. Overall, however, incorporation into dreams was rare. Contrary to expectations, psychiatric outpatients did not differ from controls in the frequency of dream incorporation of pandemic-related content. Moreover, incorporation was independent of psychiatric symptoms and loneliness. Loneliness was, however, associated with threat-related content, suggesting that it represents a risk for bad dreams but not for crisis-specific dream incorporation. Regarding lucid dreaming, both groups had similar scores for its underlying core dimensions, i.e., insight, control, and dissociation, during the two lockdowns. Scores for control and dissociation but not insight were lower compared to the pre-pandemic sample. Our working hypothesis is that REM sleep during lockdowns intensified as a means of increased emotional consolidation, rendering the associated mental state less hybrid and thereby less lucid.