A fire growing at an incredible rate. A wave that floods houses and streets. Frightening video calls from superiors and other breathtaking dreams. How does the background stress of our lives affect dreams? What stories are most common and what do they mean?
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Many people began to dream more often after the start of the pandemic. And although the interpretation of dreams is not an exact science, experts believe that this phenomenon has psychological causes.
“During a crisis, dreams often become more vivid. Which is understandable, because during such periods we are in tension all day and are generally more emotional. Most of these dreams are, of course, full of anxiety,” explains psychologist Deirdre Barrett, professor at Harvard Medical School and author of Dreams During a Pandemic. In addition, many now work from home, which allows them to get better sleep and sometimes sleep during the day – and better remember dreams.
Since the start of the pandemic, Barrett has been collecting information about dreams related to the coronavirus. Most of the respondents reported that dreams related to the topic of work were more often negative – for example, those associated with dismissal or some kind of danger.
Plots of dreams-“horror”
Fire
“If you have nightmares about a fire in your office, you are not alone,” says certified dream psychoanalyst Lauri Quinn Levenberg. “After the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, many of my clients began to have similar dreams: a fire starts in the office, which spreads quickly – just like a virus,” he says.
Flood
A nursing home delivery woman had a recurring dream in which the building of the institution was flooded, the lights went out, and some monsters crawled in the corridors. She tried to conscientiously fulfill her duties, but everything turned into a real horror movie with all the stamps of this genre.
Failure of ventilators
It is not uncommon for healthcare workers to dream that ventilators in a hospital are failing, and the reasons for the failure can be both realistic and downright fantastic.
The call
Remote work could also provoke unpleasant dreams. One woman had a nightmare in which she communicated with her boss via video link. In real life, this communication caused her severe stress, she was always afraid of losing her job.
Work
“Finding yourself in the office naked, failing at work, having sex with your boss are just a few of the common work-related dream scenarios. However, this does not mean at all that you subconsciously want it. If your colleague appears in a dream, he may actually reflect some kind of unresolved internal conflict, ”explains Lauri Quinn Levenberg.
“Dreaming about having an intimate relationship with your boss may simply mean that you are attracted to some of his qualities. Ask yourself, do you lack initiative and confidence in a particular area of your life? the expert advises.
The Notebook
If you set out to uncover the secret meaning of your dreams, Levenberg recommends keeping a diary in which you will describe the experiences and difficulties during the day and the stories that you saw at night. This will help to understand the relationship between what is happening in a dream and in reality.
“If similar dreams are often repeated, try to understand what emotions are most manifested in them. Stress? Fear? Anger? sadness? What causes similar experiences in real life and especially at work? If you constantly dream of some terrible scenarios related to her, do not take them as prophecies. First of all, ask yourself how realistic this is at all, ”says Levenberg.
Sometimes dreams help us solve the problems we face. In a 2010 study, 99 subjects were looking for a way out of a virtual maze. During the break, some participants went to bed for an hour and a half, while others remained awake. With the continuation of the experiment, the best results were shown by those subjects who dreamed of a labyrinth during sleep.
Threat Simulator
Another theory is that dreams can act as a “threat simulator,” helping us stay alert and learn to deal with danger. This explains why nightmares and bad dreams are so common.
“Take the classic bad dream scenario: you’re going to an exam and you forgot your pen. In sleep, we process our worries, and this encourages us to take additional precautions: set another alarm, check everything once again, and so on. In addition, after such dreams, similar situations in real life are no longer perceived as sharply, and we are better able to keep our cool and show good results, ”explains science journalist Alice Robb, author of Why We Dream: How Our Night Travels Can Change Us.”