The pandemic has haunted our lives for two years, but also our nights. The fear it engenders has seeped into our brains to such an extent that it “brought up nightmare themes of its own.”
Imagining oneself cloistered with no way out, having the impression of suffocating, reliving an injection or a screening test in a dream: the pandemic has taken hold in our lives even in our sleep, has found a study in which the Professor Célyne Bastien, from the School of Psychology and the CERVO Research Center.
This research published in the journal Journal of Sleep Research reveals that in addition to these bad dreams in truly pandemic forms, several “themes” of nightmares have experienced a marked increase.
“The frequency of certain themes differs from that observed in a non-pandemic period. This is the case of separation from loved ones and death, ”explains Célyne Bastien. Choking nightmares, once a reality for people with sleep apnea, are now also more prevalent.
Moreover, a similar study conducted in Canada indicates that the pandemic is the theme of nearly 40% of dreams.
People who have suffered from COVID-19 would experience more episodes of nightmares, according to another international study. In the latter, the increase was about 50%, while it was about 35% in the control group. The researchers also noted that patients who had moderate or severe COVID-19 fell more easily into a nightmare than those who had only the mild form of the disease.
These dreamed anxieties are explained by anxiety during wakefulness, according to Professor Bastien. “Dreams are a continuation of waking life,” which means that a stressful life is bound to cause restless sleep. Thus, the study notes that out of 419 respondents, 86% experienced an increase in their level of stress due to the pandemic. About 61% of them felt that the quality of their sleep had deteriorated and 44% had difficulty falling asleep.
However, some nuances are in order. “Studies show that external codifiers tend to find more negativities in the dreams of others than the dreamers themselves,” says Bastien, meaning the negative interpretation of dreams is amplified by the research itself. .
The science of dreams indicates that our dreams contain “generally as much positive content as negative content”, emphasizes Célyne Bastien. The anxiety and uncertainty experienced over the past two years would also reinforce this “bias” which causes us to remember our nightmares more than our beautiful dreams.
This text is taken from our newsletter “Coronavirus mail” of February 28, 2022. To subscribe, click here.