In 2020, as we grappled with our first lockdown, many of us started to have strange dreams. We all dream roughly five times per night and unless we’re disturbed in the process, the vast majority are forgotten by the time we’ve woken. But as fears regarding the global pandemic started to trickle into our sleep cycles, our dreams suddenly became far more vivid.
Reports of bizarre ‘Covid dreams’ started popping up across social media, and researchers took note. It was an unprecedented opportunity to study one of the most universal and yet elusive phenomena of human existence: dreaming.
For Harvard University sleep psychologist Deirdre Barrett, author of the book The Committee of Sleep, these pandemic dreams were further confirmation of one of the leading hypotheses on the purpose of dreams, which is that they serve to help us better function in our waking lives, allowing us to play out feelings, fears, experiences and emotions in a safe space. When we’re experiencing something as unprecedented as a pandemic, it’s perhaps not surprising our dreams take it up a notch, too.
“I view dreams as just our brain
