Lockdown dreams: Dream content and emotions during the COVID-19 pandemic in an italian sample.
G. Giovanardi, Alice Fiorini Bincoletto, R. Baiocco, Martina Ferrari, Daniela Gentile, Mauro Siri, A. Tanzilli, V. Lingiardi
Psychoanalytic psychology September 27, 2021 DOI: 10.1037/pap0000385 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Cross-sectional survey with quantitative and qualitative analysis Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 598 |
| Population | Italian adults aged 18–70 years |
| Topics | Dreaming |
| Key findings | Dreams during the lockdown predominantly contained negative emotions, especially fear and anxiety, and themes of relationships, environment, and COVID-19, supporting the continuity hypothesis. |
Abstract
Beginning in March 2020, the Italian population was subjected to a lockdown lasting approximately 3 months due to the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) emergency. Drawing on a quantitative and qualitative analysis of dream data, the present study aimed at exploring the effects of social isolation and the lockdown on Italian people's dreams, focusing on content and dominating emotions. An online survey was administered to 598 participants who aged 18-70 years (M = 30.9, SD = 10.9). In the survey, participants were asked to: (a) write down two dreams they had during the lockdown and (b) provide data on demographic and socioeconomic factors;sleep quality before and after lockdown;and levels of anxiety, depression, and rumination. Questions also explored participants' perceived fear of contagion, dream recall frequency (DRF), and dream vividness. Participants' dream transcripts revealed a majority of negative emotions-particularly fear/fright/terror and anxiety/anguish/preoccupation. Moreover, several themes emerged from the content analysis, including relationships, the human and natural environment, and COVID-19. The results deepen our understanding of the dominant dream emotions of people experiencing a collective stressful event, such as the social isolation necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Further, the findings support the continuity hypothesis, which holds that dreams tend to reflect the emotional concerns of the dreamer and help to integrate intense or disruptive emotions experienced during waking life. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved)
Comparable studies
Other qualitative studies on dreaming, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Other as a Nightmare: The Israeli-Arab Encounter as Reflected in Children's Dreams in Israel and the West Bank Jewish and Arab fifth to seventh graders living in various settings in Israel and the... | 1989 | Qualitative content analysis | n = 212 |
| Nonwaking Responses to Waking Stressors: Dreams and Nightmares1 Men from the cohort eligible for military duty during the Vietnam Conflict, varying in... | 1990 | Survey interview study | n = 442 |
| Communing with the Gods: The Dreaming Brain in Cross-cultural Perspective | 2011 | Phenomenological study | |
| Partial memory reinstatement while (lucid) dreaming to change the dream environment. Lucid dreamers | 2020 | Qualitative study | |
| Strange themes in pandemic dreams: Insomnia was associated with more negative, anxious and death‐related dreams during the COVID‐19 pandemic Global survey participants | 2022 | Longitudinal mixed-methods study | n = 2,240 |
Citations in the library
Cited by 8
- Strange themes in pandemic dreams: Insomnia was associated with more negative, anxious and death‐related dreams during the COVID‐19 pandemic Journal of Sleep Research June 14, 2022
- Viral simulations in dreams: The effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on threatening dream content in a Finnish sample of diary dreams Consciousness and Cognition February 8, 2024
- Lucid dreaming increased during the COVID-19 pandemic: An online survey. PLoS One 2022
- Dreams Shared on Social Networks during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Tower of Babel or Noah’s Ark?—A Group-Analytic Perspective International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health February 17, 2023
- The Value of Subjectivity in the Study of Dreams: An Alternative Methodology in a Quantitative Field American Journal of Qualitative Research January 3, 2023
and 3 more in the library
Cites 20
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- Characteristics of the memory sources of dreams: A new version of the content-matching paradigm to take mundane and remote memories into account PLoS One October 11, 2017
- Incorporation of recent waking-life experiences in dreams correlates with frontal theta activity in REM sleep Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience May 29, 2018
- Appropriateness of dream feelings to dreamed situations Cognition & Emotion March 1, 1988
and 15 more in the library