The impact of the end of COVID confinement on pandemic dreams, as assessed by a weekly sleep diary: a longitudinal investigation in Italy

The Coronavirus 2019 pandemic strongly affected our sleep and dream activity. Manycross-sectionalstudies highlighted increased dream recall frequency, and revealed agreat presence of pandemic-relatedoneiric contents. Here, we present the first prospectivestudy carried out on an Italian sample. One-hundredsubjects were requestedto fill out a web-surveyincluding socio-demographicinformation, and questionnairescollecting sleep and clinical measures during lockdown. A final sample of 90 subjectsparticipated in the longitudinal protocol lasting 2 weeks: (a) the first week (April 28–May4) of full lockdown; and (b) the second week (May 5–May11) of easing of restrictions.Subjects were asked to record at home their dream experiences, and completea sleep-dreamdiary each morning. Statistical comparisons showed that participantshad higher numbers of awakenings, lower ease of falling asleep, higher dream recalland lucid dream frequency during lockdown than post-lockdown.Further, subjects reportedmore dreams, including “being in crowded places” during post-lockdownthanlockdown. The poorer sleep quality during lockdown is quite consistent with previousfindings. The relationship between traumatic events and dream recall frequencyconfirmed the idea of pandemic as “collective trauma”. Also, we hypothesized thatthe greater presence of lucid dreams during confinement could reflect the attempt tocope with the waking pandemic-experiences.Finally, the presence of crowded placesinto dream scenarios during the second week of our protocol appears consistent withthe continuity-hypothesis,as the possibility to access places frequented by other peoplecould represent a relevant experience after a long period of confinement.