Nightmare content during a COVID-19 pandemic: the impact of COVID-related stress and sleep disturbances in the United States.

First published: August 18, 2021 https://doi.org/10.1111/jsr.13439

Commentary

This study investigates how the COVID-19 pandemic affected the content of nightmares. 419 U.S. adults completed an online survey about their experiences with sleep and COVID-19.

Participants were asked about the extent to which they agreed with statements linking greater stress and worse sleep, and more midnight insomnia, to the COVID-19 pandemic. They were also asked if they had experienced nightmares related to various themes during the pandemic.

Logistic regression analysis examined the content of each nightmare as a predictor of increased stress, worse sleep, and midnight insomnia as a result, adjusting for age, gender, and race/ethnicity.

Those who reported more general COVID-related stress were found to be more likely to have nightmares about confinement, failure, helplessness, anxiety, war, isolation, totalitarianism, illness, death, COVID, and the apocalypse.

Those who reported worsening sleep were more likely to have nightmares about confinement, oppression, failure, helplessness, disaster, anxiety, evil forces, war, domestic abuse, separation, totalitarianism, disease, death, COVID, and the apocalypse, and those who reported worsening midnight insomnia were more likely to have nightmares about confinement, oppression, failure, helplessness, disaster, anxiety, war, domestic abuse, separation, disease, death, COVID, and the apocalypse. They were more likely to have nightmares about totalitarianism, illness, death, COVID, and the apocalypse.

These results suggest that increased pandemic-related stress may induce negative dreams. Future studies are needed to determine whether this symptom is indicative of the action of emotion regulation mechanisms or the failure of such mechanisms.