Nightmares in People with COVID-19: Did Coronavirus Infect Our Dreams?
Serena Scarpelli, Michael R Nadorff, Bjørn Bjorvatn, Frances Chung, Yves Dauvilliers, Colin A Espie, Yuichi Inoue, Kentaro Matsui, Ilona Merikanto, Charles M Morin, Thomas Penzel, Mariusz Sieminski, Han Fang, Tainá Macêdo, Sérgio Mota-Rolim, Damien Léger, Giuseppe Plazzi, Ngan Yin Chan, Markku Partinen, Courtney J Bolstad, Brigitte Holzinger, Luigi De Gennaro
Nature and Science of Sleep 2022 DOI: 10.2147/nss.s344299 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Observational cohort Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 1,088 |
| Population | COVID-19 participants and matched controls from the International COVID-19 Sleep Study (ICOSS) |
| Topics | Anxiety Dreaming PTSD |
| Keywords | Covid-19 severity Pandemic Sleep |
| Key findings | COVID-19 participants reported significantly higher nightmare frequency than controls during the pandemic. |
Abstract
A growing number of studies have demonstrated that the coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) pandemic has severely affected sleep and dream activity in healthy people. To date, no investigation has examined dream activity specifically in COVID-19 patients. As part of the International COVID-19 Sleep Study (ICOSS), we compared 544 COVID-19 participants with 544 matched-controls. A within-subjects comparison between pre-pandemic and pandemic periods computed separately for controls and COVID-19 participants were performed on dream recall and nightmare frequency (DRF; NF). Also, non-parametric comparisons between controls and COVID-19 participants were carried out. Further, we compared psychological measures between the groups collected during pandemic. Ordinal logistic regression to detect the best predictors of NF was performed. We found that people reported greater dream activity during the pandemic. Comparisons between controls and COVID-19 participants revealed a) no difference between groups concerning DRF in the pre-pandemic period and during the pandemic; b) no difference between groups concerning nightmare frequency in the pre-pandemic period; and c) COVID-19 participants reported significantly higher NF than controls during pandemic (p = 0.003). Additionally, we showed that a) anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress-disorder (PTSD) symptom scores were higher in COVID-19 participants than controls; and b) quality of life and health as well as wellbeing (WHO-5) scores were significantly higher in controls than COVID-19 participants. Finally, ordinal logistic regression indicates that DRF (p < 0.001), PTSD (p < 0.001), anxiety (p = 0.018), insomnia (p = 0.039), COVID-19 severity (p = 0.014), sleep duration (p = 0.003) and age (p = 0.001) predicted NF. Our work shows strong associations between increased nightmares in those reporting having had COVID-19. This suggests that the more that people were affected by COVID-19, the greater the impact upon dream activity and quality of life.
Comparable studies
Other observational and cohort studies on dreaming, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lucid Dreaming: a State of Consciousness with Features of Both Waking and Non-Lucid Dreaming Student volunteers trained to become lucid and signal lucidity with horizontal eye... | 2009 | Observational study | n = 6 |
| Nightmare Prevalence, Nightmare Distress, and Self-Reported Psychological Disturbance Young adults with a mean age of 20 years | 2002 | Prospective observational study | n = 116 |
| Long-term effects of extreme situational stress on sleep and dreaming Survivors of traumatic events who complained of sleep disturbances, compared with... | 1987 | Case-control study | n = 11 |
| The relationship of nightmare frequency and nightmare distress to well‐being Adults who reported dreams | 2004 | Observational cohort | n = 147 |
| Dreaming in NREM Sleep: A High-Density EEG Study of Slow Waves and Spindles Healthy human subjects | 2018 | Observational cohort | n = 14 |
Citations in the library
Cited by 19
- What about dreams? State of the art and open questions Journal of Sleep Research April 13, 2022
- The role of sleep and dreams in long‐ COVID Journal of Sleep Research November 18, 2022
- The relationships between insomnia, nightmares, and dreams: A systematic review Sleep Medicine Reviews April 16, 2024
- Has the COVID-19 Pandemic Traumatized Us Collectively? The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Mental Health and Sleep Factors via Traumatization: A Multinational Survey Nature and Science of Sleep August 1, 2022
- Converging theories on dreaming: Between Freud, predictive processing, and psychedelic research Frontiers in Human Neuroscience February 16, 2023
and 14 more in the library
Cites 18
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- Dreaming during the Covid-19 pandemic: Computational assessment of dream reports reveals mental suffering related to fear of contagion PLoS One November 30, 2020
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- Dreaming in the time of COVID-19: A quali-quantitative Italian study. Dreaming September 1, 2020
- Spotlight on dream recall: the ages of dreams Nature and Science of Sleep 2018
and 13 more in the library