Pandemic anxiety that turns dreams into nightmares, research show

(CN) — For many, the Covid-19 pandemic has turned 2020 into a figurative nightmare. Now, Finnish scientists have discovered that the new coronavirus is also a literally bad dream, with pandemic images appearing in most of the reported bad dreams.

so Paper published on Thursday In the journal Frontiers in Psychology, researchers compiled data from about 1,000 respondents explaining their dreams during the Covid-19 lockdown. Among them, 55% reported bad dreams consisting of pandemic-specific images and content.

Multiple reports of themes such as social distance failure, coronavirus transmission, personal protective equipment, dystopia, and apocalypse, such as accidentally hugging others, getting caught in a crowd, or being unable to shake hands. Appeared in.

“I was thrilled to observe the recurring dream content associations between individuals that reflected the apocalyptic atmosphere of the Covid-19 lockdown,” said the head of the Sleep and Mind Research Group at the University of Helsinki. One lead author, Anukatrina Pessonen, said. “The results made it possible to speculate that dreams in extreme situations reveal shared visual images and traces of memory. Thus, dreams are shared minds among individuals. It can show some shape of the landscape. “

During the sixth week of the Covid-19 blockade in Finland, the research team crowdsourced sleep and stress data from more than 4,000 people. About 800 respondents also provided information about their dreams at the time. Many have revealed common anxieties about pandemics.

Researchers have used AI-assisted analysis based on computational linguistics to find patterns in dream stories and image reports. The team transcribed the Finnish dream content into an English word list and entered the data into an AI algorithm. This algorithm scanned for frequently occurring word associations.

Computers have built what researchers call dream clusters from “small dream particles” rather than whole dreams. Then, from the dream cluster, a pattern of themes and images emerged.

“The idea of ​​shared images reflected in dreams is intriguing,” Pesonen said.

The study also provided insights into sleep patterns and stress levels in people during a pandemic blockade. For example, more than half of the respondents reported sleeping more than before the self-quarantine period, but 10% struggled to fall asleep and more than a quarter reported more frequent nightmares.

Not surprisingly, more than half of the study participants reported increased stress levels. This is associated with patterns such as proper sleep and bad dreams. Those who reported being the most stressed also had pandemic-specific dreams. This study may provide valuable insights for assessing the effects of coronavirus on mental health.

“Repeated intense nightmares can refer to post-traumatic stress,” Pesonen explained. “The content of the dream is not completely random, but it can be an important key to understanding the essence of the experience of stress, trauma and anxiety.”