Quantitative and qualitative features of dreaming activity during the pandemic

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic has crucially influenced dailyhabits, mental health, and sleep. Several findings reveal that dreams areaffected by waking experiences and sleep patterns. The lockdown couldhave provoked strong modifications in dreaming activity. This study aimedto assess dream features during the Italian lockdown. Furthermore, wealso investigated the impact of the end of COVID-19 confinement on dreamactivity through a longitudinal investigation.Materials and Methods: We used a web survey to collect demographic,clinical, sleep, and dream data during the lockdown. The sample included1091 participants. After filling out the survey, 90 subjects participated inthe longitudinal protocol lasting two weeks: (a) the first week (April28eMay 4) of full lockdown; and (b) the second week (May 5eMay 11) ofeasing of restrictions. Participants were asked to record at home theirdream experiences and complete a sleep-dream diary each morning.Results: Results obtained from the first protocol showed an increase inquantitative and qualitative dream features during the lockdown,compared to a pre-lockdown period. Higher dream frequency and specificqualitative features were found in females and individuals with poor sleepquality, nocturnal disruptive behaviors, and depressive symptoms. Most ofthe dream features collected during the lockdown were predicted by age,gender, depressive symptoms, presence of other people at home, andterritorial area. Sleep duration and several sleep quality indexes were thebest predictors of dream variables. During the lockdown, dreams were alsocharacterized by increased negative emotions, particularly frequent infemales, younger adults, and people with poor sleep quality, nocturnaldisruptive behaviors, anxiety, and depressive symptoms. Regarding thelongitudinal protocol, the analyses showed that participants had highernumbers of awakenings, lower ease of falling asleep, higher dream recall,and lucid dream frequency during lockdown than post-lockdown. Subjectsreported more dreams, including “being in crowded places” during postlockdownthan lockdown.Conclusions: Our results confirm the strong influence of the pandemic ondreaming, supporting both the continuity-hypothesis between wakingexperience and sleep mentation and the view of a key influence of sleeppatterns on dreaming. The poorer sleep quality during lockdown isconsistent with previous studies. The relationship between traumaticevents and dream recall frequency supports the idea of the pandemic as“collective trauma”. Moreover, we hypothesized that the greater luciddreams frequency during confinement