Weird Pandemic-Era Dreams? You’re Not The Only One!
Imagine this:
You’re engrossed in a book when you suddenly feel something crawling on your arms and legs. That’s when you realize you’re covered in ants!
You scramble out of your chair, barrel down the hall, jump into the shower, and turn on the faucet full force to get rid of the ants.
Once the ants have all swirled down the drain, you shut off the water, and pull back the shower curtain only to find your bathroom has been invaded by black widow spiders! Your heart’s racing because there’s no way out and just then...you wake up, drenched in sweat.
Sound familiar?
Bizarre pandemic-era dreams intensified during the height of lockdown, as Covid spread like wildfire.
Dreams are a continuation of waking life, and our waking life lately has been Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride!
1 of the reasons pandemic-era dreams were so bizarre may have to do with the fact that when we shut down our outside life, our inner life (our subconscious) springs to life.
Wondering if you were the only 1 with trippy dreams during Covid?
Not by a long shot.
Here’s what we’ll cover to help you make sense of your strange dreams during the pandemic:
What’s With Weird Pandemic-Era Dreams?
Pandemic-Era Dream Stats
Covid Dream Themes
What Could Your Dreams About The Pandemic Be Telling You?
7 Steps To Understanding What Your Weird Dreams Mean
WHAT’S WITH WEIRD PANDEMIC-ERA DREAMS?
Did you have wild dreams during the height of the pandemic? Or maybe as lockdowns loosened, but you still weren’t free to go to work, have your class reunion, or a family get together?
Yes? You’ve got lots of company.
Reports of pandemic-era dreams included whales swimming in backyard pools, being swarmed by killer bees, and of course, apocalyptic-themed dreams.
Remember, dreams are a continuation of waking life, as told through metaphors — Pandemic life wasn’t “normal,” so our dreams weren’t either.
As your life intensifies, your dreams will too.
Just as the pandemic exposed the cracks in the external systems we’ve come to rely on (like the health care system), it also exposed the cracks in our internal support systems.
We neglected to cultivate the tools necessary to steady our inner equilibrium through rough times. We took care of our families, jobs, and responsibilities (hello, adulting!).
But we quietly ignored our own mental self-care.
When you’ve developed your inner self, you’re more equipped to handle it when life gets wonky. Once you know how to acknowledge your feelings, give them shape and a name, you’ll find yourself more centered, balanced, and your boat won’t get rocked when the storm hits.
However, If you can’t articulate your feelings any better than saying, “I’m drowning in anxiety,” you’re going to struggle.
No doubt the pandemic brought along a boatload of stress and anxiety, but the root of those feelings, the shape these anxieties took, was personal to each person who experienced them.
Why were YOU feeling anxious?
**Spoiler alert** Odds are it’s NOT the same reason as your brother, your best friend, or your bothersome neighbor.
So, how do you get to the root?
It’s called dream work, friend.
Tapping into your dreams can reveal more about yourself than any other self-reflection practice. Stay tuned to see the proof!
PANDEMIC-ERA DREAM STATS
The pandemic provided a heap of dream data to analyze, and the stats don’t lie. Dreams were deeply affected by the pandemic, just as much as your waking life was.
Dream recall was up — Kelly Bulkeley, a psychologist of religion and director of the Sleep and Dream Database, conducted a YouGov survey of 2,477 American adults in March 2020. Bulkeley’s 3-day poll revealed that 29% of Americans recalled more dreams than usual that month, particularly adults in their mid 30’s and younger.
Bulkeley attributes this trend to the fact that younger people were heavily impacted by the economic and social consequences of COVID-19.
Pandemic dreams were a thing — Elizaveta Solomonova and Rebecca Robillard of McGill University and the Royal’s Institute of Mental Health Research in Ottawa surveyed 968 people and found that 37% of people had dreams with clear connections to pandemic life. Many were marked by themes of insufficiently completing tasks (such as losing control of a vehicle) and being threatened by others.
Our dreams were affected by lockdown — In a network analysis of dream content during the lockdown, crowdsourcing (CS) was used to analyze how COVID-19 lockdown affects the content of dreams and nightmares. The CS took place on the 6th week of lockdown, and over the course of a week, 4,275 respondents assessed their sleep, and 811 reported their dream content.
Here’s what they found — 55% reported more stressful dreams, 50.7% reported more vivid dreams, and 42.2% reported more nightmares than usual (more women than men reported having nightmares).
COVID DREAM THEMES
During the pandemic, life was disrupted, and so were people’s dreams. There were reports of wild dreams and nightmares based on people’s waking life having been turned upside down.
Your waking life directly affects your sleep and your dreams.
For example, in May 2020, Sleep Standards surveyed 1002 healthcare workers and found:
41% of healthcare workers in the U.S suffered from insomnia during the COVID-19 pandemic
27% of U.S healthcare workers report that they had nightmares, while 21% do not experience any sleep disorders
U.S healthcare workers who experienced narcolepsy and other sleep disorders represent 5% and 6%, respectively
During the pandemic, dreams seemed to have a few dominant recurring themes. Dream researcher Deirdre Barrett’s book, Pandemic Dreams covers specific categories she found in her pandemic dream survey.
In March 2020, she conducted an online survey and compiled more than 9,000 dreams from over 3,700 dreamers. Here are some recurring themes:
I’ve got the virus!
“I’m taking a COVID-19 test. But it’s a sit-down multiple-choice exam, and I can’t figure out any of the answers. They tell me I failed, and I have the disease.”
A common category of pandemic-era dreams was, of course, catching the virus. During the height of the pandemic, talk of Covid was everywhere. TV, newspapers, social media, and podcasts were flooded with all things related to Coronavirus.
Once again, our waking life directly impacts our dream content.
Invisible monsters
“… It was right behind me, breathing in low heaves and grabbing with invisible long fingers and hands. It was a dark, violent and hungry entity.”
Another creature unique to Covid dreams was the invisible monster. Was it because there was so much unknown about the virus? Your subconscious mind was painfully aware of how much was not known and couldn’t seem to be controlled.
So many bugs
“There was a tarantula that was somehow also COVID-19 coming thru the mail slot. (I have no mail slot)”
Our dreaming mind is intensely visual, so when it feels an emotion like fear, it searches for an image to match the feeling. And to many of us, bugs represent our feelings about Covid — a creepy invader that we don’t want anywhere near us.
Dierdre Barrett also referenced the possibility that we refer to a virus as a “bug” that could have translated into our dreams in America.
Messages from the dead
“My mother and grandmother are deceased. At the beginning of the outbreak, they both came to me in my dream. I was totally surprised and happy to see them again. I asked why they were there, and they said in unison, “We are here to get you.” I knew what that meant and asked, “Now?” To which they both nodded yes. I said, let me pack first, they smiled at each other, laughed, and said, “you won’t need anything.”
But they let me pack anyway. Instead of clothes, I picked up a photo frame that was showing movies of my life and memories with them. I laughed and cried and realized, it’s been a good life, but I was still hesitant to leave. They slowly walked out of the room and faded away. I knew I was supposed to follow them and headed for the door. I haven’t dreamt about them or the virus since. I hope it was my fears manifesting themselves and not a sign of what is coming.”
Lots of pandemic dreams were about deceased loved ones. The prolonged isolation and missing connection with other people uncovered hidden emotions about those we’ve lost.
Other pandemic era dream themes
According to a dream survey of over 5,000 people conducted by Wakefully in May 2020, 33% of dream content was apocalyptic themed (end of the world, total destruction…), and 47% dealt with fears related to uncertainty, manifested in dreams of being estranged (loved ones behaving like strangers, home feels like a strange place).
The study also analyzed emotional aspects of pandemic-era dreams and found 66% felt the frequency of bad dreams and nightmares increased significantly over the pandemic and 67% [in the dream] felt helpless, anxious, confused, or afraid.
It’s amazing how your subconscious weaves your deep-rooted emotions right into your dreams.
WHAT COULD THOSE DREAMS ABOUT THE PANDEMIC BE TELLING YOU?
Experts believe your dreams help you process your emotions and resolve your issues.
In human speak, while you sleep, your mind is working through the day’s events, and your subconscious is searching for a resolution to the various issues you’ve got going on.
And suppose you haven’t done the mindful work of strengthening your inner systems (tapping into your subconscious, acknowledging your emotions, and stewarding your story to become more self-aware)?
When life gets intense, you’ll find you may lose your balance.
Dream work is an excellent way to take a deep dive and reconnect with your mind at the deepest level — the subconscious.
5 STEPS TO UNDERSTANDING WHAT YOUR WEIRD DREAMS MEAN
Establish a good bedtime routine — Make sure your bedroom is at a comfortable temperature and turn off screens 30 minutes before bedtime to help your mind and body prepare for sleep.
Set Your Intentions — Before you go to sleep, spend a few minutes setting your intentions to remember your dreams. Always begin with repeating, “I will remember my dreams.” People who implemented this 1 step experienced an increase dream recall. Hat tip to Napoleon Hill’s Principle #3 of auto-suggestion from Think and Grow Rich to kick off the auto-suggestion party.
Wake slowly & reflect on your dream — As soon as you wake up, try not to move or open your eyes just yet. Instead, try to conjure up images from your dream. What was the space or environment like in your dream? What happened? What was the gist of it? How do you feel about your dream?
Title the dream — This helps you get to the gist of your dream to do some deeper meaning exploration.
Ask yourself good questions — How does my dream relate to my life? Think
YOUR PANDEMIC DREAMS REFLECT THE REAL Y.O.U.
Pandemic dreams showed us, yet again, how our subconscious uses dreaming to sort through and process our waking life.
And this is really just a strong, in-your-face indication that your dreams reflect your day-by-day fluctuating emotional and mental states… and dreams are always weird!
Ready to move toward emotional clarity and begin your own dream work?
Try Wakefully’s AI dream coach to help you personalize your dream analysis and unlock your story today!