Coronavirus dreams and nightmares

[planetgeli]

Is anyone else finding they are having more unusual or vivid dreams and/or nightmares since coronavirus became a very real thing? Because I am.

There was an article in the Guardian about it which I'm not even going to link because it was rubbish but the fact they had such an article is indicative of this being 'a thing'. A friend has also been in touch completely independently asking me the same question as he's having dreams about lost pursuits. Mine are noticeable a) because they're nightmares and b) many involve my parents who died 40 years ago and who I never dream about usually. Like a handful in 40 years. Now I'm dreaming about them virtually every other night.

Vague pop psychology and speculation welcome. It's beginning to bug me. Because of 'underlying medical conditions' I am genuinely scared of the consequences of getting the virus so I can see how a threat to my immortality might produce weird things in my subconscious at nighttime.

Or is everyone sleeping soundly/no different than before March 23rd?

 

[Orang Utan]

I wish I could sleep to dream. Haven’t really slept in 3 weeks, when I ran out of weed. Have to get drunk to sleep so I’ve only done that a few times as it’s not really a good idea and the sleep is crap anyway

 

[Epona]

I've always had lucid and/or very vivid dreams (a mix of both, they aren't the same thing iirc), but the proportion of them that are nightmares are very much higher than usual. Many of them involve my cat who had to be put to sleep back in January just a bit before this all started, I think my brain has equated my grief about that with worry about what is going on now and it all gets welded together in nightmares about medical stuff that involve my cat dying or the others becoming ill or injured and not being able to see a vet.

 

[Yu_Gi_Oh]

The other night I dreamed that a virus broke out across the whole world, leading to lockdowns. My dream brain is very literal.

 

[May Kasahara]

I am certainly having a lot of very vivid and intense dreams, not all nightmares but a higher percentage of those. Actually (for me anyway) I think as much as anything it's the impact of the slowdown in life - rushing around reduced to almost zero, better quality sleep and more time to think and process during daylight.

 

[Kevbad the Bad]

Mrs K woke me up in the middle of last night to ask was it OK to put the light on, as she had to look for a mosquito the size of a small bird. Then she went back to sleep.

 

[baldrick]

I very very rarely dream, or at least don't remember when I wake up. Lately however I've been dreaming all kinds of crazy, unsettling stuff. A definite air of menace happening which lingers when I wake

Weirdly, I think my quality of sleep has improved. I certainly have less trouble waking up and then getting up, without an hour long struggle of feeling crushingly tired, napping desperately and finally hauling myself reluctantly out of bed just in time not to be late for work.

 

[weepiper]

Yes, wild dreams all night every night. Last night it was zombies. One night I dreamt that a sort of mad Max biker gang drove up to my dad's farm and shot him in the chest. It's not always nightmares but lots of really vivid dreams all the time.

 

[Epona]

Today's funeral was clearly on my mind when I went to bed last night - I dreamed that I tuned in for the stream only it wasn't a funeral for my real uncle, it was apparently for "Uncle Theo" who was a teenager who had died of Coronavirus (I have no idea who this is supposed to be, completely imaginary as far as I know).

Anyway there was a massive funeral procession with a white hearse that was some sort of very flash and lovely '50s American car with tailfins and everything, but the coffin itself was in a white horse drawn carriage pulled by 2 white ponies. The procession moved off, the camera that it is being streamed from is in a vehicle behind the horse drawn carriage, and I watch in horror as the ponies panic and bolt off down the road, skidding all over the tarmac... after about 100m the entire thing turns over, ponies and all, and the coffin (also white) comes out of the back of the carriage.

Everyone I can hear on the web stream is falling about laughing, I can hear people crying with laughter, and I am sitting screaming pointlessly at my screen that it isn't funny, the ponies are hurt, someone needs to get help for them...

And then I woke up.

 

[Yu_Gi_Oh]

I dreamed I got tested and diagnosed with the virus and I felt so ill, but I had my dad here with me in China and I had to take care of him. I was trying so hard not to breathe on him, but it was futile.

He left something on a train and he had to run back to get it, but he tripped and fell over, and he was too far away for me to help him.

My two main concerns, getting the virus and transmitting it, and the welfare of my lovely dad, both mashed together in one dream.

 

[SheilaNaGig]

Goodness me, Epona and Yu_Gi_Oh Those are really full on dreams.

Epona as I’m sure you know, Theo means god. That seems like it might be significant....?

I am certainly having a lot of very vivid and intense dreams, not all nightmares but a higher percentage of those. Actually (for me anyway) I think as much as anything it's the impact of the slowdown in life - rushing around reduced to almost zero, better quality sleep and more time to think and process during daylight.

I think this must be a significant factor here. Not being distracted all day long by work, commute etc must leave extra space to dwell and mull and ponder. Not being rattled out of sleep by the alarm clock also makes a difference. I seem to do my most powerful dreaming when I don’t have to get up suddenly. Obviously there are loads of people who are still being governed by the alarm clock and external schedules and obligations but so many of us are far freer now to ease into the day.

It makes me think about how modern humans are not only sleep deprived but also dream deprived.

Mrs K woke me up in the middle of last night to ask was it OK to put the light on, as she had to look for a mosquito the size of a small bird. Then she went back to sleep.

This is so similar to the dream I had two nights ago. Or was it last night? Anyway, very recently. I was in a long hall, like a Norse feasting hall, and bird flew in, except it wasn’t a bird it was something that was like a bird. It was flyin uo and down the hall from end to end and couldn’t find a way out. It was beating its wings so fast I couldn’t see them, like a hummingbird. I had an awful feeling of being trapped. I wanted to help the creature, trap it in a jar and release it outside but it wouldn’t settle. Woke up with the sheets all tangled.



Kevbad the Bad I’d be really interested to know more about what the mosquito was like.



As I’m writing, I realise that this refers back to something the Venerable Bede said:

A sparrow's flight through King Edwin's great hall at Gefrin

British history posts by authors of British historical fiction.

englishhistoryauthors.blogspot.com

I thought my dream was about stuff in my personal past, but I see now that it’s also about the pandemic. The brief life, the outer tempest and the inner safety and protection, except that the inner protection is now a place of panic and unrest.

 

[Kevbad the Bad]

Kevbad the Bad I’d be really interested to know more about what the mosquito was like.

I’m afraid Mrs K can’t remember. She often has dreams where she wakes me up to tell me something, still half asleep, and then goes back to sleep and forgets it all.

 

[SheilaNaGig]

I’m afraid Mrs K can’t remember. She often has dreams where she wakes me up to tell me something, still half asleep, and then goes back to sleep and forgets it all.

clever way to outsource her dream memories. I have to write them in a bloody notebook.

 

[Epona]

I've had a terrible couple of nights. I am barely sleeping. When I do sleep it is just endless dreams about my cat dying on a fucking repeating loop over and over and over.

Although it was probably due overall to cancer and brain tumour, because one of his diagnoses at the time of death was FCoV/FIP (Feline Coronavirus in a form that results in Feline Infectious Peritonitis - different coronavirus but not dissimilar to the way COVID-19 attacks the lungs and other body function in serious cases in humans) I just constantly link it in my dreams with what is going on, and I cannot stop the awful nightmares about Coronavirus and my poor cat dying. I just see it over and over, I went through his death at least 10 times last night and all the worry about what is going on and I need to get a fucking break from it and get some rest.

 

[Mation]

I've had a terrible couple of nights. I am barely sleeping. When I do sleep it is just endless dreams about my cat dying on a fucking repeating loop over and over and over.

Although it was probably due overall to cancer and brain tumour, because one of his diagnoses at the time of death was FCoV/FIP (Feline Coronavirus in a form that results in Feline Infectious Peritonitis - different coronavirus but not dissimilar to the way COVID-19 attacks the lungs and other body function in serious cases in humans) I just constantly link it in my dreams with what is going on, and I cannot stop the awful nightmares about Coronavirus and my poor cat dying. I just see it over and over, I went through his death at least 10 times last night and all the worry about what is going on and I need to get a fucking break from it and get some rest.

That must be really distressing, Epona What a horrible link in it being a coronavirus, too.

Has articulating the dreams helped? Hope you've managed to get some rest x

 

[platinumsage]

Was in a big Nisa-style local grocery shop last night, it was cramped and there were lots of people around the tills. They were running a system where you had to ask the cashier for items and they would go and get them, one by one.

I said “a tin of sardines please”, “huh what’s that?”, “it’s tinned fish”, “hmm i don’t think we have that, let me go and have a look”, “i saw it on the shelf as i went past, it’s next to the El Paso Mexican wraps”.

I wait and wait, and see her going around doing stuff and talking to other customers until she finally walks back to the tills with some grey furry kitchen towels. “what about my sardines?” I asked. “oh give me a minute I’ll go and look for them”. Meanwhile I am being jostled by adjacent customers so after prevaricating another couple of minutes I walk out.

 

[Chilli.s]

Dreamed that I had to change some settings for something on the internet, and the kids were hogging all the bandwidth so I got on the Xbox but chrome wasn't working on that and everyone was sniggering from the sofa as they had games running on their ipads as I scrabbled around on the carpet in front of the telly.

 

[May Kasahara]

I've had a real run of them the last few days, pandemic stuff tied up with some other stuff that's going on in my personal life. Can't remember the details now but many and varied and tiring have they been. Not nightmares, but complex life stuff with an added element of surreality. I'd quite like a couple of nights of pure escapism please!

 

[platinumsage]

Having been cutting my own hair since March, I had to go for a checkup with the barbers (like a dental checkup), just so he could inspect my hair and give it the ok. I was late, and fearful of missing the appointment which would have meant possibly being deregistered. Private barber checkups were £750 a time, but I would have had to find the money from somewhere because without having my hair checked I risked something terrible happening (not sure what but it would have been bad).

 

[frogwoman]

I had a dream about nazis sending us horrifying posters and breaking into the house the other day

 

[platinumsage]

I got hold of some GSK vaccine at a vaccination event in a sports hall. You had to administer it yourself as they were so busy. It didn't need injecting though, but was a paste in a squeezy tube, and I had to scratch my finger with a paperclip and then apply the paste to the scratch. There was enough left in the tube for 99 more doses, so instead of throwing it away as instructed, I took it home.

 

[Miss-Shelf]

I got hold of some GSK vaccine at a vaccination event in a sports hall. You had to administer it yourself as they were so busy. It didn't need injecting though, but was a paste in a squeezy tube, and I had to scratch my finger with a paperclip and then apply the paste to the scratch. There was enough left in the tube for 99 more doses, so instead of throwing it away as instructed, I took it home.

Isn't that the method Jenner used with cowpox vaccination/inoculation? Probably didn't have a squeezy tube and paperclip though