Charles Teves
People recently have been going on blogs and social media saying the pandemic is making them have lucid dreams.
Dreaming is normal for most people, but there are those that feel so realistic yet unbelievable.
#WednesdayThoug This unique time is leaving me with really messed up dreams. anyone else? #CoronaDreams
— Elizabeth Humphrey (@lizhump77) April 29, 2020
https://twitter.com/SiouxsieW/status/1247983766179434496?s=20
Adults should get 7 to 9 hours of sleep a night, as recommended by experts.
People go through cycles such as rapid eye movement (REM) which happens during the second half of sleeping where the eyes move rapidly.
Dreaming can happen during the light and deep sleep but vivid dreams are more likely to appear during the REM.
REM dreaming is cut into several periods, but it is difficult to remember what has appeared during the process of sleeping. Researchers say REM has certain properties that regulate our mood, performance, and cognitive functioning.
Some would say dreams are just defense mechanisms that help people deal with real life when certain situations arise.
The pandemic can directly affect sleeping, and negative or positive effects will increase the probability of recollecting dreams.
Studies from China and the UK are now saying people during this pandemic are having a heightened state of anxiety and are having shorter or more disturbed sleep.
Thinking about the pandemic, or just hearing about it on the news or media before bedtime can affect the quality of sleep.
Sleep deprivation increases the pressure for REM sleep which causes a rebound where dreams are more vivid and emotional.
Interestingly, other studies are suggesting people are sleeping more and moving less during this pandemic.
Working or learning from home is easier since commuting is not needed. Heightened dream recall has been linked with longer sleep periods as well as waking more naturally from a state of REM sleep.
The pandemic allows the sharing of dreams in the morning with people at home, and this reinforces the memory of them. Dream recalling also increases when this happens.
Dreaming helps in coping mentally with real life and reflecting on certain concerns.
During this pandemic where changes are made constantly, the brain has more work during sleeping and dreaming. When one is feeling anxious or stressed about the pandemic, family, or work, then they are more prone to stressful dreams.
This could be the reason more people are reporting of dreaming about fear, embarrassment, social taboos, occupational stress, grief and loss, unreachable family, as well as more literal dreams around contamination or disease.
Had my first #CoronaDreams last night.
It was a sequence of maze-like events trying to get from PointA to PointB in the real-world (note: that’s my usual stress dream) but now there’s the added feature of trying to avoid all the UNmasked ppl in my path 😳😤😭— Kate Ertmann (she/her) (@GOK8) April 25, 2020
Today’s #CoronaDreams – Was jogging with my brother @theboxsurfer and then we saw what looked like a dead tiger hit by a car. Went close and then it jumped up and started chasing us. We ran into a nearby park only to find it filled with lions, tigers and ligers. Sigh
— tyro (@DoubleEph) April 17, 2020
Seriously these weird dreams are too much. A monkey has just tormented me at the top of a bungee jump in Vegas cause I was taking a minute to go. Come on….. #CoronaDreams
— Nicole Geddes (@nicolegeddes7) May 5, 2020
Dreamt about being attacked like physically chased by this person's mother as I'm stuck in a maze like the fucking shining. I hate sleeping now as much as I hate being awake.#coronadreams
— ⚰️⚰️⚰️ (@BebeOso_) May 5, 2020
I’ve had lots of vivid #CoronaDreams but none had actually featured the virus until now. Had my first nightmare about going to the grocery store and realizing once inside that I forgot to wear a mask. So weird that this is what life has become. 😳😷
— Renee Robinson (@reneeyrobinson) May 3, 2020
The increase in vivid or peculiar dreams is common especially when something normal abruptly changes, such as the attacks on the twin towers, or natural disasters, or war.
People suffering from anxiety disorder should expect significant changes in their dreams. These changes are also common with those who witness events such as 9/11.
A theory suggests dreams are there to process the emotional demands of the day, commit experiences to memory, solve problems, adapt, and learn.
The reactivation of the brain’s areas during REM sleep and the consolidation of neural connections allow this to happen.
The brain’s areas responsible for emotions, memory, behavior, and vision are reactivated during the REM phase.
The dreamer’s activities while awake and stressors guide the connections when they are dreaming.
The neural activity has been said to combine learning and memory, and is responsible for dreams to appear, which people try to perceive in a logical perspective when the last moments of brain’s attempts in catching up and reasoning with the activity on waking.
If unusual dreams and disrupted sleep is a problem, then it is best to consider one’s behavior and sleep schedule prior to the pandemic.
Deirdre Leigh Barrett, an assistant professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School did a dream survey confirming that vivid dreams are on the rise.
Other studies say experiencing anxiety throughout the day increases the chances of having bad dreams.
Stress and anxiety can make dreams more memorable since they disrupt sleep.
Michael Nadorff, the director of the clinical PhD program at the Mississippi State University psychology department and an expert on the link between nightmares and mental illness, says people wake up several times a night after every 90-minute cycle.
The human brain takes about 5 minutes to encode memory after a person wakes up, said Nadroff.
Courtney Bolstad, a graduate student at Mississippi State who works as Nadorff’s research assistant, pointed out that the increase in vivid dreams is caused by the changes brought by the pandemic.
“Social rhythm theory says that the rhythms we have during the day, what time we get up, whether we see our friends, can influence our circadian rhythm,” Bolstad says. “If you aren’t doing the things you typically do during the day, that could mess with your circadian rhythm which could mess with your sleep.”
