Dreaming During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Narrative Review

According to several influential models, dreams can be affected by state- and trait-like factors, sleep features, anddiurnal experiences. The COVID-19 pandemic globally affected daily habits, emotional experiences, and sleep.Previous studies suggested an influence of collective traumatic events on dreaming. Starting from these premises,several studies assessed the effect of the pandemic on dreams. This paper aims to review findings concerning theoneiric activity during the COVID-19 pandemic. We report pandemic-related changes in dreams and nightmares,and we consider the possible factors associated with dreaming. Moreover, we provide results about changes inthe oneiric activity in different phases of the pandemic. The reviewed findings suggest a pandemic-relatedenhancement of dream and nightmare frequency, emotional intensity, and distressing contents, modulated bymodifications in restrictive measures and associated with diurnal experiences, emotional status, and sleeppattern. We highlight several methodological issues and a large heterogeneity in the present literature, limitingresults’ generalizability. However, we provide possible interpretations of the most consistent findings in light ofthe main theoretical frameworks about dreaming.