ABSTRACT
Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic has crucially influenced daily habits, mental health, and sleep. Several findings reveal that dreams are affected by waking experiences and sleep patterns. The lockdown could have provoked strong modifications in dreaming activity. This study aimed to assess dream features during the Italian lockdown. Furthermore, we also investigated the impact of the end of COVID-19 confinement on dream activity 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 included 1091 participants. After filling out the survey, 90 subjects participated in the longitudinal protocol lasting two weeks: (a) the first week (April 28–May 4) of full lockdown;and (b) the second week (May 5–May 11) of easing of restrictions. Participants were asked to record at home their dream experiences and complete a sleep-dream diary each morning. Results: Results obtained from the first protocol showed an increase in quantitative and qualitative dream features during the lockdown, compared to a pre-lockdown period. Higher dream frequency and specific qualitative features were found in females and individuals with poor sleep quality, nocturnal disruptive behaviors, and depressive symptoms. Most of the dream features collected during the lockdown were predicted by age, gender, depressive symptoms, presence of other people at home, and territorial area. Sleep duration and several sleep quality indexes were the best predictors of dream variables. During the lockdown, dreams were also characterized by increased negative emotions, particularly frequent in females, younger adults, and people with poor sleep quality, nocturnal disruptive behaviors, anxiety, and depressive symptoms. Regarding the longitudinal protocol, the analyses showed that participants had higher numbers of awakenings, lower ease of falling asleep, higher dream recall, and lucid dream frequency during lockdown than post-lockdown. Subjects reported more dreams, including “being in crowded places” during post-lockdown than lockdown. Conclusions: Our results confirm the strong influence of the pandemic on dreaming, supporting both the continuity-hypothesis between waking experience and sleep mentation and the view of a key influence of sleep patterns on dreaming. The poorer sleep quality during lockdown is consistent with previous studies. The relationship between traumatic events and dream recall frequency supports the idea of the pandemic as “collective trauma”. Moreover, we hypothesized that the greater lucid dreams frequency during confinement could reflect the attempt to cope with the waking pandemic experiences. The crowded places into dream scenarios during the second week of our protocol are also consistent with the continuity-hypothesis: the possibility to access places frequented by other people could represent a relevant experience after a long period of confinement. Finally, we believe that investigations on COVID-19 infected subjects experiencing the long-COVID-19 syndrome should be carried out since preliminary findings on COVID-19 patients showed strong associations between increased nightmares and the infection severity. This evidence suggests that the more that people were affected by COVID-19, the greater the impact on dream activity and quality of life.