Pandemic Nightmares: COVID-19 Lockdown Associated With Increased Aggression in Female University Students' Dreams

Frontiers in Psychology

Leela McKinnon¹  Noor H. Abbas¹  David R. Samson¹  Erica Kilius² 

[1] Sleep and Human Evolution Lab, Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto Mississauga, Mississauga, ON, Canada;null;

关键词: COVID-19;    dream content analysis;    sleep;    dream recall;    nightmares;    threat simulation;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2021.644636

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

The COVID-19 pandemic and its associated stressors have impacted the daily lives and sleeping patterns of many individuals, including university students. Dreams may provide insight into how the mind processes changing realities; dreams not only allow consolidation of new information, but may give the opportunity to creatively “play out” low-risk, hypothetical threat simulations. While there are studies that analyze dreams in high-stress situations, little is known of how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted dreams of university students. The aim of this study was to explore how the dream content of students was affected during the university COVID-19 lockdown period (March–July, 2020). Using online survey methods, we analyzed dream recall content (n = 71) using the Hall-Van de Castle dream coding system and Fisher's exact tests for sex comparisons. Preliminary results indicate that female students experienced more nightmares as compared to male students. Dream analysis found that, relative to normative American College Student (ACS) samples generated pre-COVID-19, women were more likely to experience aggressive interactions in their dream content, including increased physical aggression. Results indicate that university students did experience changes in dream content due to the pandemic lockdown period, with women disproportionally affected. These findings can aid universities in developing support programs for students by bringing forth an understanding of students' concerns and anxieties as they process the “new normal” of social distancing.

【 授权许可】

CC BY