OUR PANDEMIC DREAMSCAPE

2020

I am a very active dreamer.  Throughout the COVID-19 lockdown, I felt that my dreams became more frequent, and sometimes felt more significant.  As it turns out, I wasn’t the only one.  This ongoing crisis - its fears, pressures, and hardships but also its silences and new tempos - are impacting all of our dreams, as well as our waking lives (see this article for reference). 

In an effort to gain insight into our experience of the pandemic from an emotive, non-rational angle, I invited anyone who wished to share their pandemic-related dreams with me. Many people mentioned feeling that their dreams were more frequent, more memorable, and/ or stranger. Common themes included the need to protect others, the need to escape, storms and other dangerous outdoor events, encompassing indoor spaces, social distancing, masking, and feelings of anxiety, powerlessness, fear of proximity to others, and (fear of) isolation and loneliness.

You can access the survey via the link below. I have also included an excerpt of anonymized responses, alongside a redacted version of the full survey results. Although survey participants are not indicative of a well-balanced sample, they nonetheless offer a fascinating partial view onto the interiority of the early pandemic consciousness.

Below: anonymized responses to a couple of the survey’s questions, and a full pdf (personal info redacted) of responses to date: