Dream On

Julie recently saw an article about how people are reporting more vivid and strange dreams during this pandemic crisis. Researchers, of course, are interested in this and one theory is that we aren’t out having a lot of experiences for our brains to process, so our brains are processing all kinds of things from the past. Another theory is, that as with all dreams, our subconscious is trying to make sense of our day. Phoebe read that Big Brother, aka Google, tracks our searches collectively and over 75% of dream inquiries on that little Google search bar, are something about vivid dreams and this pandemic. We found that fascinating! We are really having a subconscious collective experience in our REM sleep cycles during this time of isolation.

Julie has been having a lot of strange and vivid dreams herself and her kids have also been waking more in the middle of the night, having nightmares, and appearing in her bed in the middle of the night. She’d been wondering about this because consciously they are not scared of “the virus.” She’d been thinking that their sleep disturbances and need to sleep with her rather than alone was related to their visceral absorption of the stress and tension around them. While we do continue to believe this is contributing, we find the dream theory rather fascinating and relevant.

Phoebe has been woken up by dreams of shadowy figures wandering through a house she is in, or dreams of crowds where she is trying to help or save people. Unfortunately, whatever the threat is, is simply overwhelming for her to help everyone. With her slow-to-rise kids these days, two barely schooled adolescents, she can hear their dreaming voices in the early morning when she is up. It seems like both are wrestling with some darkness. They are both fortunate to spend their days in the safety of a supportive home surrounded by food, heat and endless hours to connect with friends virtually. But just the experience of being home when they should be at their school, is so different it is anxiety producing. These feelings have started to heighten as their home is close to a recent hot spot for the virus.

So let’s look at these dream themes. We dream at night of what we can’t think of or feel during the day. Dreaming gives us a chance to work things out. They can be symbols and metaphors. People have reported having murky stranger dreams which experts have said could be this invisible virus threatening us. Dreams of large gatherings and trying to save it or being unprepared to be in a large group is another common theme. Another type of dream recently reported are dreams of a Survivor type game. Battling against others to win or survive. A Darwinian take on who is most prepared with things to fight the Virus, or has the most toilet paper!

Dreams typically happen during REM sleep (there, apparently, is some evidence that during this pandemic crisis our sleep cycles are being disrupted and dreams may be happening in other stages of sleep as well, but that is more than we can take on for this particular post!). Serotonin is released and our smart, logical prefrontal cortex is turned off allowing our subconscious to take over and work through a myriad of things. This is a cathartic healthy process. Good dreams always feel that way. One gets to fly or to luxuriate to discover amazing worlds. Bad dreams can be frightening, terrifying but they are all parts of us. They are simply reactions to our thoughts and feelings. Sometimes that can be comforting to know. You can sometimes take charge of your dreams. I forgot to do that recently, or at least attempt that! Tonight, when the murky virus guy wanders through that amazing house I am in, (I’ve been watching some HG TV so it was a really nice house!) I plan to confront him and with a magic wand shrink him down to a cute little bunny which will just hop away.

Sleep well all. We are in this together. Awake and asleep.

Note: this post reflect our first effort at writing a post together. What started as some ideas Julie threw down after reading an article took life when Phoebe read them. Important to note because while the author is stated as Julie, Phoebe really wrote most of the post and deserves most of the credit.