Dreaming in Adolescents During the COVID-19 Health Crisis: Survey Among a Sample of European School Students

Frontiers in Psychology

Annelore Homberg¹  Isabel Nöthen-Garunja¹  Ana Guerrero-Gomez¹  Caterina Bonizzi¹  Cecilia Iannaco¹  Asja Brusić²  Michael Schredl³  Maria Vulcan⁴ 

[1] European Network for Psychodynamic Psychiatry, Rome, Italy;Rijeka 2020 – European Capital of Culture, Croatian Cultural Centre, Rijeka, Croatia;Sleep Laboratory, Central Institute of Mental Health, Medical Faculty, Mannheim/Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany;Timișoara 2021 – European Capital of Culture Association, Timișoara, Romania;

关键词: school students;    COVID-19 health crisis;    lockdown;    dreaming;    nightmares;    emotional distress;    adolescence;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2021.652627

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

According to the continuity hypothesis of dreaming and contemporary psychodynamic approaches, dreams reflect waking life. The aim of the present study was to explore the relationship between the COVID-19 pandemic and dreaming in adolescents. A cross-sectional survey was conducted in Italy, Romania and Croatia involving 2,105 secondary school students (69% girls, mean age 15.6 ± 2.1 years; 31% boys, mean age 15.1 ± 2.2 years; mean age of whole sample 15.4 ± 2.1 years). No substantial differences between countries were found. Thirty-one percent of the participants reported heightened dream recall, 18% noticed an increase in nightmares during the lockdown, and 15% of the provided dreams (n = 498) included pandemic-related content. The results indicate that subjective emotional reactions to lockdown had a significantly higher correlation to dreaming than objective distress (i.e., illness or death of a close one because of COVID-19). These findings suggest that attention to dreams should be included in preventive programs for adolescents with pandemic-related stress.

【 授权许可】

CC BY