The extended unconscious group field and metabolization of pandemic experience: dreaming together to keep cohesion alive.
Cristina Marogna, Chiara Masaro, Vincenzo Calvo, Simona Ghedin, Floriana Caccamo
Research in psychotherapy December 29, 2022 DOI: 10.4081/ripppo.2022.646 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Qualitative study Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Population | Members of six social dreaming groups conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic |
| Intervention | Social dreaming |
| Duration | Six sessions |
| Topics | Dreaming |
| Key findings | Argues that sharing dreams in groups allows members to develop meanings that help process the painful experience uniting them. Thematic analysis of six social dreaming sessions identified three themes: nightmares linked to the COVID-19 pandemic; loss of control during the unexpected outbreak, framed as a learned helplessness context with environmental mastery as an emergent issue; and childhood recollections as continuity-makers within a continuity-breaking present. |
Abstract
Working with dreams in groups allows an understanding of phenomena that characterise the unconscious as a total unity. The dreamer becomes the vehicle of emotions, fantasies, and anxieties that dominate the group at a given moment, allowing them to be understood and processed. The analysis of shared dreams can further our understanding of emotional concerns related to the COVID-19 pandemic and its psychological repercussions. Six sessions of social dreaming were conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic period. Our aim was not to investigate differences between and within groups: the analysis was performed by identifying the core themes encompassing the contents of dreaming sessions, as products constructed by and within groups that are informative of society's collective unconscious more broadly. The narratives were transcribed and thematic analysis was performed with the support of Atlas.ti software. Three main themes were identified: i) nightmares' descriptions and the links with the COVID-19 pandemic; ii) loss of control within the unexpected outbreak: the pandemic as a learned helplessness context and environmental mastery as an emergent psychological issue; and iii) recalls of the child-past as continuity-makers within the continuity-breaking pandemic present. Through the qualitative analysis of dream narratives, we identified the links between individuals and the shared field. It is arguable that, by sharing dreams, the members of the group develop meanings useful to process the painful experience that unites them, as the three main themes show.
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
Cites 6
- Dreaming during the COVID-19 lockdown: a comparison of Italian adolescents and adults Research in Psychotherapy Psychopathology Process and Outcome August 12, 2021
- Dreaming during COVID-19: the effects of a world trauma Research in Psychotherapy Psychopathology Process and Outcome August 24, 2021
- Lockdown dreams: Dream content and emotions during the COVID-19 pandemic in an italian sample. Psychoanalytic psychology September 27, 2021
- Stuck in a lockdown: Dreams, bad dreams, nightmares, and their relationship to stress, depression and anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic. PLoS One 2021
- How our Dreams Changed During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Effects and Correlates of Dream Recall Frequency - a Multinational Study on 19,355 Adults. Nature and Science of Sleep 2021
and 1 more in the library