A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal
Pandemic dreams: network analysis of dream content during the COVID-19 lockdown
Authors: Pesonen A., Lipsanen J., Halonen R., Elovainio M., Sandman N., Mäkelä J., Antila M., Beckhard D., Ollila H., Kuula L.
Publisher: Frontiers Media
Publication year: 2020
Journal: Frontiers in Psychology
Journal acronym: Front. Psychol.
eISSN: 1664-1078
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.573961
Web address : https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.573961/full
Self-archived copy’s web address: https://research.utu.fi/converis/portal/detail/Publication/48995002
We used crowdsourcing (CS) to examine how COVID-19 lockdown affects the
content of dreams and nightmares. The CS took place on the 6th week of
the lockdown. Over the course of one week, 4275 respondents (mean age
43, SD=14 years) assessed their sleep and 811 reported their dream
content. Overall, respondents slept substantially more (54.2%) but
reported an average increase of awakenings (28.6%) and nightmares (26%)
from the pre-pandemic situation. We transcribed the content of the
dreams into word lists and performed unsupervised computational network
and cluster analysis of word associations, which suggested 33 dream
clusters including 20 bad dream clusters, of which 55% were pandemic
specific (e.g. Disease Management, Disregard of Distancing, Elderly in
Trouble). The dream association networks were more accentuated for those
who reported an increase in perceived stress. This CS survey on
dream-association networks and pandemic stress introduces novel,
collectively shared COVID-19 bad dream contents.
Downloadable publication This is an electronic reprint of the original article. |  |
