Quarantine/Pandemic and Dreams

[cassiopea]

This is just a little bit of casual interest, curiosity and chit cat. There seems to be quite a few articles popping up and social media posts of people having more intense/vivid or stressful dreams during the pandemic and quarantine. Whether dreams relating to the quarantine itself (Being trapped, chased, old life habits, family fears, the grocery store, work place or hospital etc) or something completely different but still unsettling, memorable or strange.


How about you? Do you feel like you are experience more vivid or nightmarish dreams? Or sleeping less or more than usual in general? Or not much change overall?



I've always been a bit of a heavy dreamer with many peculiar or recurring dreams, so don't feel that has changed *too* much. However, because I have been working as an Essential Employee I've been getting the odd dream where I am in my workplace and managing all the customers coming in and out. Also I did get one dream about the temporary seasonal loss of the dance school I taught at. In the dream, some of the classes were coming back, but I wasn't told about it so I was missing some classes and hadn't had time to prepare for the others. Anyhoo, I was extremely overdramatic, frustrated and yelling at my dance boss for it, and she reacted by completely ignoring me and disregarding my lack of info and input on the situation (In real life she is very professional and an absolute doll). Guess I have some underlining stuff going on in my head

But altogether, I have been sleeping quite well.

 

[Furballsmom]

... about the same

 

[Elphaba09]

I take medication for C-PTSD to help me sleep and to reduce my nightmares, so, as long as I take my medication, I sleep okay, just odd hours. I, like cassiopea , have peculiar and reoccurring dreams, or, at lease, reoccurring themes. Nothing seems to have changed in that aspect.

 

[Katie M]

My dreams haven't been too bad, but I'm definitely having more dreams about large crowds. That can't be a coincidence.

 

[MoonstoneWolf]

I seriously have to laugh that the media is posting this. As one who has a passion for dreams, lucid dreams, astral projection and dream interpretation, I have had vivid, intense dreams for all 64 years I've been alive. A lot have been weird. A lot have been chasing dreams. A lot have been scary. Some downright stupid. But I really do not believe that dreams are tied into a pandemic or something. I think that people are just more aware of their dreams because of being more at home, learning to become comfortable with their own company and not rushing all about with 50 million errands a day.

As far as nightmares: I love them. I use them to get a start of a short story (think Stephen King). I also look forward to sleep paralysis because it helps me induce either a lucid dream and/or astral projection. This is something I learned way back in 1972 on my own.

Oh and I'm sleeping much better (even with the dreams) since this started because there are no rude and noisy neighbors outside throwing parties til 2 am.

 

[aliceneko]

I have pretty vivid dreams anyway, so I haven't really noticed a difference, but I remember reading an interesting article about how people are having nightmares more frequently now in quarantine and the same increase can be compared to French citizens during the 2015 terrorist attacks.

 

[mani]

I have recurring flying dreams.. Lately I'm rather concerned about getting tangled up in overhead wires when I take off...
Make of that what you will.

 

[NY cat man]

I really don't know whether I dream or not, as when I wake up in the morning, I have no memory of anything that may have transpired during the night. Who knows what may be rattling around in my head in those hours. I sure don't.

 

[Xraystyle]

Because we haven't had the stress most countries have, this hasn't affected my dreams. I think I'm too tired these days to dream about anything interesting. I just dream about talking to the people I'm too nervous to talk to in real life (haha, in my dreams we can all understand the same language)

The last time I had bad dreams was right after Trump took office and things with North Korea really heated up. Like, we all kind of had go-bags half-prepped. We even had bombing drills. I had my plan set on how I'd get out of the city and where I'd go if war really did break out. I had only a couple of dreams then, but they were mostly about me being out in the city somewhere and seeing flashes, then looking up and seeing fighter jets and bombers. The thing was, I wasn't scared. The overwhelming feeling I got was "this is inconvenient."


Oh, I have had dreams that affected my outlook on life though! I had this reoccurring dream where I'd be somewhere and all of the sudden there would be just the most brilliant sunset you've ever seen. The colors were so vibrant and lush. I'd go "I should get my camera!" and scurry inside to find my camera and by the time I got back out, the sunset was over. It made me stop being so concerned with capturing the moment and be more concerned with living the moment. I see people at concerts all the time who basically watch the whole thing through the viewfinders on their cameras or their phone screens and I'm just like...but it's happening...right now, right there! Right in front of you! Once I even saw a girl filming her boyfriend's phone as he was filming the singer! I don't have those dreams anymore, although I do miss those vibrant colors.

 

[LTS3]

There's a Twitter feed on this very topic. It's We Dream of Covid-19 (@IDreamofCovid19) | Twitter

 

[Mia6]

I've been having more vivid dreams, more intense, and I remember them which is unusual. I had a dream over a week ago about my mother, Nicole and I and I keep thinking about it. We were staying at a friend of Nicole's parents house and no one was supposed to
be home. We had just arrived and I said "I don't feel right about this" and that in itself is odd because my dreams are usually
silent. My mother replied, "Oh, it will be ok." We hadn't brought our luggage in and the garage door was open.The dad of Nicole's friend drove into the garage, got out and asked who we were, blah, blah blah. He was annoyed at first but calmed down. I have had 2 other dreams about him and we like each other romantically. He is much younger than me.

I've also been having dreams about Hugh Laurie, who played Greg House on tv. I've always thought he was handsome and I liked his character. In my dreams we are together but he is Hugh Laurie not Greg House. I hink those are just wishful dreaming, hee, hee