Typical dreams of Chinese elderly people during COVID-19 pandemic.
Dreaming (New York, N.Y.) April 13, 2023 Dengle Yang, Wenyuan Wu, Yiyun Xia et al.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, dream themes among Chinese older adults were linked to death anxiety. In interviews and questionnaires with 264 participants from four Chinese cities, 48.48% recalled dreams. The most common emotion in dreams was fear. Two dream themes—flooding and seeing oneself die—were more frequent among those with high death anxiety. The findings support the dream continuity hypothesis and threat simulation theory, suggesting dreams may help cope with death anxiety.