Experts say coronavirus anxiety is causing vivid dreams and ruining proper sleep

For millions of people around the world dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, sleep is bringing no relief.

The horrors of COVID-19, and the frightening ways it has upended daily life, is infecting dreams and exposing feelings of fear, isolation and grief, according to a range of psychologists. 

The experts say humanity has rarely experienced ‘collective dreaming’ on such a broad scale in recorded history – and certainly never while also being able to share those dreams in real time.

‘As far as I know, no one has dream samples from the flu pandemic of 1918 – and that would probably be the most comparable thing,’ Harvard University professor Deidre Barrett told the Associated Press on Tuesday. 

‘Now we just all have our smartphones by our bed, so you can just reach over and speak it or type it down. Recording our dreams has never been easier.’ 

Barrett, who previously studied the dreams of 9/11 survivors and British prisoners of war in World War II, has already collected 6,000 dream samples from about 2,400 people during the current coronavirus crisis. 

The samples come from people around the world – with many experiencing remarkably similar dreams, showing that the psychological effects of the virus are transcending culture, language and national boundaries.  

According to Barrett, many people dream they are sick with COVID-19 or are overcome by what seem to be stand-ins for the virus: swarms of bugs, slithering worms, witches, grasshoppers with fangs.

Meanwhile, others dream of losing control. In one such dream, the dreamer was held down by infected people who coughed on her. In another, the dreamer came across bands of people shooting at random strangers.

Most are lower-level anxiety dreams, not trauma-induced nightmares. But that changes dramatically for frontline health workers, Barrett says.

‘The health care providers are the ones who look like a trauma population. They are having flat-out nightmares that reenact the things they’re experiencing and … they all have the theme that “I am responsible for saving this person’s life and I’m not succeeding and this person is about to die,”’ she said.

‘And when they dream about their child or parent getting it, for the care providers there’s always the next step in the dream where they realize… “I gave it to them.”‘

Meanwhile, Cornell University professor, Cathy Caruth, is also analyzing dreams of those experiencing the coronavirus outbreak.  

Caruth says pandemic dreams are reminiscent of the experience of Hiroshima survivors, who worried about invisible radiation exposure, and also of some nightmares described by Vietnam veterans.

‘They seem to be in part about things that are hard to grasp, what it means that anybody can be a threat and you can be a threat to everybody,’ Caruth said. 

While people across the world may be experiencing disturbing and vivid dreams, many Americans are reporting that they are struggling to sleep properly amid the coronavirus outbreak. 

A survey commissioned by SleepStandards interviewed 1,014 Americans about their sleeping patters during the pandemic. .

 It found that 76.8 percent of people reported their sleep has been affected since the outbreak began spreading across the US – with anxiety the most consistent answer about what is keeping respondents up at night.