During the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown (March–July 2020), university students' dream content changed. Female students reported more nightmares than male students. Compared to pre-pandemic normative samples, women experienced more aggressive interactions in their dreams, including increased physical aggression. Dreams may reflect how the mind processes stressful realities and simulate hypothetical threats. These findings suggest that the pandemic lockdown period affected students' dream content, with women disproportionately impacted, which can help universities develop support programs addressing students' anxieties about social distancing.
Dreams tend to be more negative and feature more unfamiliar individuals than waking life, supporting the threat simulation theory of dreaming. In a study of 24 undergraduates, dream reports (168) and waking reports (184) were analyzed using the Social Content Scale. Results supported the threat bias hypothesis, with dreams showing more negative social interactions compared to waking life. Partial support was found for the social bias and strengthening hypotheses, but no support for the compensation hypothesis. These findings align with evolutionary theories that dreaming helps rehearse threat-related social challenges.
Dreams in two small-scale forager groups, the BaYaka and Hadza, contain more threat-related content than dreams in Global North populations, yet the Hadza show low negative emotions in their dreams, suggesting emotion regulation through linking threats with non-fearful contexts. The BaYaka display more community-oriented dream content. In contrast, a Global North Nightmare Disorder group shows increased negative emotion content, and a Canadian student sample during COVID-19 shows the highest anxiety dream content. The findings support the idea that dreams in non-clinical populations can reduce anxiety and negative emotions via emotional release, contributing to understanding the evolutionary function of dreaming.
Dreams in two small-scale foraging societies—the BaYaka of the Republic of Congo and the Hadza of Tanzania—show patterns that support an emotion regulation function, contrasting with dreams in Global North populations. Analyzing 896 dreams from 234 individuals, the BaYaka had more community-oriented content, while both foraging groups showed heightened threat dream content. Yet the Hadza displayed low negative emotions in their dreams, suggesting a link between potential threats and non-fearful contexts that reduces anxiety. In comparison, a Global North Nightmare Disorder group had increased negative emotion content, and a Canadian student sample during the COVID-19 pandemic showed the highest anxiety dream content. These findings support the idea that dreams can effectively regulate emotions through catharsis, contributing to understanding the evolutionary significance of dreaming.