Waking up to weird and wonderful lockdown dreams

It was the 1960s. I was a private investigator working the streets of Minnesota.

A man with Boris Johnson-blond hair waved and smiled. On closer inspection, it was Daniel O’Donnell, except it wasn’t, or was it? He invited me to his clapboard house for tea. The place was a topsy-turvy mess, strewn with old newspapers, plates of food and piles of rubbish.

‘Daniel’ offered me tea, except it wasn’t tea, it was brown lemonade. He offered to sing. I said ‘please don’t’. He looked crestfallen. He was wearing high-waisted, stone-washed denim, with an Aran sweater tucked into his belt.

This is just one of the crazy, vivid dreams I have had during lockdown, and seems I am not alone.

Over the last number of weeks, lots of people have reported experiencing strange, trippy, downright bonkers dreams - a new phrase has even been coined to describe them - ‘quarandreams’.

A colleague recalled a recent dream: ‘‘I was about to score a goal for Man City when my daughter woke me. I’d drawn my foot back, the keeper had come rushing out, I was about to curl it into the far corner and then she jumped on the bed and hit me with a cushion. Weird thing is I have no affiliation with Man City. And the game was being played in Moira Demesne.’’

Another football-mad colleague dreamt the captain of Southampton FC was cutting his hair. You don’t have to be a dream expert to work out this fellow is worried about his lengthening locks. But mine? I have no idea why gentle Donegal crooner Daniel permeated my subconscious, but I have been watching a lot of US crime dramas which could explain the detective work.

When it comes to looking for clues in dreams, Co Down counsellor Jimmy Smyth, believes we should leave well alone.

‘‘They will not harm us and are nothing to worry about; however we should take care not to become exhausted by them.

‘‘In the evenings don’t ‘blitz out’ on television; rather quiet your mind, a few hours prior to going to bed, by listening to some soothing music, doing a meditation or a mindful exercise and let these activities give your mind a more positive relaxing focus and temporarily remove it from the crazy world of today.’’

A research project by an independent group of postgraduate psychoanalysis students in London is asking people to fill in an online survey (www.lockdown dreams.com) about the dreams they are having at the moment as part of a project to “collect” dreams and analyse how the Covid-19 crisis is being experienced “unconsciously”.

One of the researchers, Zara Haghpanah-Shirwan, said the group has so far received over 700 dream submissions from the UK and across the world, with ages ranging from early teens through to people in their late 80s.

‘‘The outpouring of dream sharing, we believe, supports our hypothesis that people are dreaming more at this time, and recalling these dreams more vividly,’’ said Zara.

‘‘The interest generated by the project so far shows that people are struggling to make sense of such a destabilising moment in time, if not consciously, then certainly unconsciously, as evidenced by their dreams and their desire to share them.’’

Zara said the dreams range from one sentence of powerful imagery, through to several paragraphs of cinematic plot and detail.

‘‘We can see some themes emerging. Frustration: There’s a real sense of people feeling thwarted in their aims and objectives within the dream, especially at the beginning of lockdown when our physical movement was most restricted.

‘‘Examples include obstacles needing to be overcome as part of a journey or a quest, a sense of there being insurmountable challenges ahead, or not being able to find lost items despite frantic searching, people can’t seem to do what they want to do - or achieve their aims within their dreams.

‘‘Persecution & Anxiety: This is manifesting in being followed, chased or encountering unsavoury and aggressive characters (people or animals) within the dream - for example getting into an extreme argument in a supermarket over shopping, or dreams where people are being taken hostage or are being physically intimidated or threatened.’’

She added ‘regression’ is another powerful theme coming through.

‘‘Examples include ex’s popping up in dreams, school friends or colleagues from the past being present, the action taking place in former places of work or locations - or even appearances of estranged or departed friends or members of the family.

‘‘People are aware that they are ‘themselves - but younger’ in their dreams.

‘‘We have even had examples of bilingual people dreaming in their native language for the first time in many years, which is absolutely fascinating. And then there are some very sad and poignant dreams of people reporting that they dreamed that loved ones they’ve lost during lockdown would return when lockdown was lifted, and waking up extremely upset to find that this is, of course not the case.’’

Zara said there are many different theories around why our dreams may be particularly vivid during lockdown.

‘‘From a sleep science perspective, many of us are waking up later, and more naturally (without an alarm clock) and also sleeping longer. All these things result in more REM sleep, which is widely recognised to be the type of sleep most conducive to dreaming. Waking from REM sleep increases the ability to recall dreams more likely.’’

She added: ‘‘We can’t underestimate the impact of being told to socially distance from our loved ones - for fear of catching a possibly fatal disease - or of infecting them - on our unconscious.

‘‘We’re under assault from an invisible enemy and, despite trying to carry on as best as we can during the day, this is stirring up our most primitive fears and anxieties which are surfacing in our dreams.’’

Mr Smyth added changed times have meant we are going to sleep with ‘new problems’.

‘‘‘‘We are therefore going to bed with an unsettled mind, where unresolved problems will still be waiting for us in the morning: day after day and night after night. During sleep our unconscious mind gets involved and the worlds of fantasy, reality and imagination meet, where all the uncanny, eerie scenarios take shape. Our conscious and unconscious minds are, hard at work, trying to process all types of ideas and solutions.

‘‘Freud said that dreams just really deal with the residue. Well I think that it’s fair to say that, with Covid 19 there is no shortage of residue.’’

A message from the Editor:
Thank you for reading this story on our website. While I have your attention, I also have an important request to make of you.
With the coronavirus lockdown having a major impact on many of our advertisers - and consequently the revenue we receive - we are more reliant than ever on you taking out a digital subscription.
Subscribe to newsletter.co.uk and enjoy unlimited access to the best Northern Ireland and UK news and information online and on our app. With a digital subscription, you can read more than 5 articles, see fewer ads, enjoy faster load times, and get access to exclusive newsletters and content. Visit this page now to subscribe, it is just £1 a month for the first three months. 
Our journalism costs money and we rely on advertising, print and digital revenues to help to support them. By supporting us, we are able to support you in providing trusted, fact-checked content for this website.
Alistair Bushe
Editor