Dreaming during a pandemic: Low incorporation of COVID-19-specific themes and lucidity in dreams of psychiatric patients and healthy controls.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, pandemic-related themes were incorporated into dreams, but such incorporation was rare. Psychiatric outpatients and healthy controls did not differ in how often their dreams included pandemic content, and incorporation was unrelated to psychiatric symptoms or loneliness. Loneliness was, however, linked to threat-related dream content, suggesting it is a risk factor for bad dreams but not for crisis-specific incorporation. Lucid dreaming core dimensions—insight, control, and dissociation—were similar between outpatients and controls during lockdowns. Compared to a pre-pandemic sample, scores for control and dissociation were lower, while insight was not. The authors propose that REM sleep intensified during lockdowns for emotional consolidation, making the mental state less hybrid and thus less lucid.

Study at a glance

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.