Are We Dreaming or Are We Awake? A Quali–Quantitative Analysis of Dream Narratives and Dreaming Process During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic and the restrictive measures taken against the spread of the contagion can be considered as traumatic events having a major impact on mental health. Dreams after undergoing traumatic experiences could “replay” traumatic scenes or have a para-therapeutic role that facilitates connections between a traumatic event and associated emotions. However, the studies carried out thus far in the field of sleep and dreams during the COVID-19 pandemic have mostly focused on sleep disorders, emotional tones, and contents of dreams. The aim of the present study was to explore, from a qualitative–quantitative perspective, the contents of dreams and the functions of dreaming during the COVID-19 pandemic. A sample of 1,095 subjects who decide to recount their dreams, during the early phase of the COVID-19 outbreak, was involved. A part of the Mannheim Dream questionnaire was also examined, considering both dream recall and the attitudes toward the dreams—both meaningful and transformative—as indicators of the dreaming process. A cluster analysis was performed on dream narratives through the T-Lab software. In all, 4 thematic clusters emerged: Escape From the Threat; The Work of Mourning, Unrecalled Dreams; COVID-19: As Manifest Content. The factorial mapping organized 3 vectors of meaning, representative of the function of dreaming: Remembering, Repeating, and Working Through; From Traumatic Content to Problem-Solving Strategy; From the Safe-Guardian of Sleep to the Safe-Guardian of Dream Waking continuity. The dreaming process shows functions of integration and processing of memories but also that a decrease in dream recall can act as a defense and have a crucial role in mental life. Clinical implications are discussed.