Bad dreams increase and awakenings intensify. In people who are infected, nightmares are even more frequent, a typical symptom of PTSD
Betrayals, baldness, muggings: the dream catalog of the last two years looks like a horror film. The Covid-19 pandemic has influenced the dream contents and many say they have had more bad dreams than usual, especially those who have been infected: has the coronavirus really infected even our dreams? If asked Luigi De Gennaroprofessor of sleep psychophysiology at the La Sapienza University of Rome, who compared the dreams of just under 600 infected people of SARS-CoV-2 with those of as many not infected from the virus. The data, which are part of the International Covid-19 Sleep Study (Icoss) with which we are trying to understand the impact of the pandemic on sleep and dreams, show that we all have more nightmares than in the pre-pandemic period and above all that contracting the virus generates an increase in restless nights.
Altered dream experience
The pandemic resulted in a increase in sleep disturbances and in parallel the dream experience is altered
, explains De Gennaro. We remember dreams more, because sleep has become more fragmented, disturbed, superficial, and waking up more often increases the likelihood of remembering dreams.
And the nightmares have increased
which, in addition to being the dreams we remember best because they frighten us, are also among the typical symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder
: the pandemic is a sort of collective trauma that has also revealed itself in the dream life, which has literally become a nightmare, especially in younger people and women. When we then analyze the dream experience of those who contracted the virus, the phenomenon multiplied: Patients had even more dreams, even more nightmares and the extent of Covid-19 disturbances was linearly associated with this increase. In other words: the worse the Covid was, the more (many) bad dreams were had.
Sindrome da long Covid
Something similar also seems to be expected for those with the syndrome
long Covid, or those who, at least two months after recovery, still have three or more symptoms
including fatigue, difficulty breathing, cough that doesn’t go away. De Gennaro and the other experts of the Icoss project are studying the phenomenon, the data will be available in the coming months but as anticipated by the psychophysiologist s
it appears that the relationship may be similar, that is, patients with long Covid may have more dreams and nightmares than those who once resolved the infection did not have any aftermath. to understand it very complex, also because the galaxy of the long Covid is still poorly defined and for the studies on dreams we had to exclude those among the persistent symptoms who had sleep disturbances, which are frequent in long Covid but are themselves associated with an activity. altered dream.
The use of sleeping pills increases by 30%
The pandemic has taken us away from sleep and not a play on words: the effects have been variable, but there is no doubt that in the last two years the nights have become more agitated. L’International Covid-19 Sleep Studyborn to understand the consequences of the pandemic on rest, has shown that
during the first lockdown of spring 2020 50-55 percent of the population complained of sleep disturbances, especially insomnia.
That phase entailed a sort of collective pathology, linked to the confinement to which we were forced, observes the professor of sleep psychophysiology at the La Sapienza University of Rome. In the first lockdown the limitations and fear of contagion have caused anxiety and stress
which compromised the quantity and quality of sleep: even those who, at home from work, could sleep more actually rested less, waking up often. Also in the following waves, due to worries about work, the uncertainty of the future and the continuous exposure to anxious news, the negative effect on sleep prevailed, which proved to be particularly evident, in all the pandemic phases, in those infected with the virus (the prevalence of sleep disorders has been estimated to be up to 75% in patients).
Now we are looking for a new normal and, as De Gennaro explains: Sleep disorders have decreased, but we have not returned to the pre-Covid situation. A hard core of ailments remained and the 30% increase in demand for sleep drugs also demonstrates it and the increase in the use of supplements to promote rest.
February 24, 2022 (change February 24, 2022 | 11:55)
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