Dreams and nightmares during the pandemic.
Severin Ableidinger, Franziska Nierwetberg, Brigitte Holzinger
Somnologie: Schlafforschung und Schlafmedizin 2022 DOI: 10.1007/s11818-022-00351-x (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstractAbstract
The pandemic caused by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) had a huge impact on public mental health. This was also reflected in dreams. Not only did people start to remember more dreams, but dream content changed as themes like sickness, confinement, and-in the English-speaking world-even bugs began to dominate. This also led to an increase in nightmare frequency. There are various factors that contributed to this change in the dream landscape. Some people have started to sleep more and hereby spend more time in REM sleep, which is known to increase dream recall and further lead to bizarre and vivid dreams. On the other hand, stress and poor mental health had an impact on sleep, and sleep quality thus dropped in many individuals. Poor sleep quality can also lead to an increase in dream recall. Dreams are known to regulate mood, so the rise in dreams and the change in dream content could also reflect a reaction to the overall rise in stress and decline in mental health. Recent studies have shown that as the pandemic progresses, further changes in mental health, dream recall, and dream content arise, but data are still scarce. Further research could help understand the impact the pandemic still has on mental health and dreams, and how this impact is changing over the course of the pandemic.
Comparable studies
Other narrative reviews on dreaming, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| The cognitive neuroscience of lucid dreaming | 2019 | Review | |
| Sleep and dreaming are for important matters | 2013 | Review | |
| Nightmare Disorder and Isolated Sleep Paralysis | 2020 | Review | |
| My Dream, My Rules: Can Lucid Dreaming Treat Nightmares? | 2019 | Review | |
| Dream Recall: State or Trait Variable? Part I: Model, Theories, Methodology and Trait Factors | 1996 | Review |
Citations in the library
Cited by 3
- The cathartic dream: Using a large language model to study a new type of functional dream in healthy and clinical populations Journal of Sleep Research February 9, 2025
- A graph theory approach to chart the architecture of dream and mind-wandering reports Communications Psychology October 11, 2026
- Lucid Dreaming: Not Just Awareness, but Agency. Journal of Sleep Research April 1, 2026
Cites 15
- Factors of home dream recall: a structural equation model Journal of Sleep Research May 12, 2003
- Metaphor and hyperassociativity: the imagination mechanisms behind emotion assimilation in sleep and dreaming Frontiers in Psychology August 18, 2015
- Dreaming and the COVID-19 pandemic: A survey in a U.S. sample. Dreaming September 1, 2020
- Dream Recall: State or Trait Variable? Part I: Model, Theories, Methodology and Trait Factors Imagination, Cognition and Personality October 1, 1996
- Structural differences between REM and non-REM dream reports assessed by graph analysis PLoS One July 23, 2020
and 10 more in the library