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    It Was All A 'Pandemic Dream': New Book Captures Visions Of Bugs, Whales, Polar Bears

    Dream researcher Deirdre Barrett has collected thousands of COVID-19 related dreams online and published a number of them in her new book.
    Jul 09, 2020 5 minutes
    Pandemic dreams... or nightmares? Researcher Deirdre Barrett has collected thousands of COVID-19 related dreams. (Getty Images)

    The combination of a global health crisis and stay-at-home orders creating more time to sleep makes this an extraordinary time in the history of dreaming.

    Harvard dream researcher and psychologist Deirdre Barrett makes the case in her new book “Pandemic Dreams,” a collection of vivid COVID-19-related dreams accompanied by her advice for practical exercises to control stress and anxiety while asleep.

    Barrett gathered thousands of dreams through an online survey and found many people dreamed about catching the coronavirus, spiking a fever and experiencing shortness of breath.

    She also noticed metaphors for COVID-19 popping up in dreams.

    “Bug attacks have been a really common cluster of metaphors for the virus,” she says. “I think partly because we use the slang term I’m getting a bug to mean I’m getting a virus.”

    People are also envisioning getting far

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