Covid spurs dreams of social distancing fails, contagion & PPE, especially among women

NEW DELHI: The pandemic has not only sparked health concerns, anxiety and a new crop of insomniacs, it’s also spurring negative

dreams

and

nightmares

— especially among

women

who have had to bear the burden of caregiving, homeschooling and job loss. In many cases, the dreams have shared imagery and revolve around common themes of coronavirus

contagion

, solitary confinement, failures in

social distancing

and even personal protective equipment (PPE), experts have found.


While wars, natural disasters and terrorist attacks are known to increase anxious dreams, psychiatrists said the same is true for Covid-19 as well. Dr Ravi Gupta, additional professor, department of psychiatry and division of sleep medicine at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (Rishikesh), who is also part of the Indian Society for Sleep Research (ISSR), said there has been a spike in people reporting anxious dreams since the pandemic. “About five to 10 patients are coming to us every week with complaints of bad dreams since the pandemic,” he told TOI.

Dr N Ramakrishnan, senior consultant & director, at Chennai-based Nithra Institute of Sleep Sciences, said they are now seeing cases of people reporting nightmares daily. “There has been an increase in people with no history developing sleep problems and patients are experiencing bad dreams, especially if they got sick or know someone who got infected or died,” he said.

Among the reasons for increase in disturbing dreams could be stress. “The brain goes through a de-arousal when we sleep, preventing us from recalling dreams. But stress, such as that from the pandemic, can interfere with this process and lead to partial arousal even while sleeping. This allows people to form memories while sleeping and they are able to recount their dreams,” said Gupta.

Later bedtimes also play a role. “People are going to bed late. This causes an increase in REM sleep (where we dream) and this could be another reason for increased dreaming.”

International research has uncovered similar patterns. In a paper published in journal Frontiers in Psychology last week, scientists in Finland used artificial intelligence to help analyse the dream content of 800 people and found similar themes across the dreams. Lead author Dr Anu-Katriina Pesonen, head of the Sleep & Mind Research Group at the University of Helsinki, told TOI people were dreaming of failures in social distancing, coronavirus contagion and even PPE.

“We identified dreams that potentially prepare the dreamer for negative events that may take place and replicate those events that are observed during waking,” said researchers in the study.

Four studies published last week in the journal Dreaming by the American Psychological Association found that the pandemic is infusing more anxiety and negative emotions into dreams.

One study of more than 3,000 adults in the US found that those who had been strongly affected by the pandemic, such as those who had gotten sick or lost their job, and women reported the strongest effects on their dream life. In another study with 796 Italian participants, 20% of the dreams included an explicit reference to Covid-19. Women reported higher emotional intensity and a more negative emotional tone in their dreams, as did participants who knew people affected by Covid-19.

Deirdre Barrett, editor of Dreaming and assistant professor of psychology in the department of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, also found that women’s dreams have been more negatively affected by Covid-19 than men’s dreams. In a study of 2,888 participants, including those from India, Barrett asked online survey respondents to recount their dreams about the pandemic and then compared the responses to a database of dreams from before the pandemic.

“Men’s pandemic dreams showed slightly higher levels of negative emotions, anxiety and death than in pre-pandemic dreams, but the effects were less pronounced than they were for women,” said Barrett.

Barrett, who has authored a book ‘Pandemic Dreams’ on the topic, said women have ended up with the burden of caregiving and homeschooling of children. “They are also overrepresented among those who have lost jobs since the pandemic started. This can be a reason I found that men’s dreams had equally high rates of fear and themes of death but women’s dreams had high rates of sadness and anger. The effect is even more pronounced in patriarchal societies.”

Barrett also found people dreaming of attacks by bugs and animals which she said appeared to be symbolic of the pandemic. “In one of the dreams recounted by an Indian who lives in New York, the person was in a house full of snakes, another Indian had dreams about being attacked by pigeons. During the early phase of the pandemic, dreams about catching the virus were frequent. Later, there were more dreams about forgetting precautions, such as wearing masks. Dreams also contained what seem to be metaphors for the lockdown — being thrown in solitary confinement in prison or being sent off to live on Mars alone.”