Dreams and Nightmares in the Age of Coronavirus

Scary and surreal — a new survey chronicles our dreams during the pandemic

“I Can’t Wake Up” digital painting by Deirdre Barrett

Last night, I saw a naked figure prowling in my backyard. Peering through the French doors, I thought it might be a disoriented neighbor and cracked the door a bit. The bald figure bounded for the door, and I could see from a closer view “they” had no genitalia. I flipped the lock back, but they began to dismantle it with a desperate efficiency, and in no time, pulled out the entire mechanism. They were getting in.

It was only a dream. But a dream in the age of coronavirus, where our nighttime journeys are now viewed through the dark lens of the pandemic. Where will our dreamscape take us now that our waking life has become a nightmare? To a comforting time before the outbreak — a realm oblivious of the spreading virus? Or to a white-knuckle theater of our fears aligned to the new reality, and spinning out into surreal terror?

I recently surveyed the CoasttoCoastAM.com audience, asking them to share their dreams and nightmares during these tumultuous times. In just under ten days, I detected movement from symbolic accounts to more realistic and medically oriented stories, perhaps reflecting our entrenchment in the COVID-19 miasma.

One of the first respondents, Asher G., wrote on March 30th, 2020: I was visiting with a friend in my backyard. We were sitting next to the fire pit and she said to me, “do you see that thing attached to you?” I looked down and coming from my stomach was a misty, grey entity, about the size of a toddler. I freaked out. My friend told me that this isn’t going to work out and she left. The entity became invisible but I knew it was there.

I went inside my house, which was exactly like my real house, and I could feel its presence following me up the stairs to my bed. I lay down in fear and pulled the covers up. At this point I awoke crying and was so scared I had to wake my wife. I turned all the lights on and told her my dream. The creepiest part is that it felt like I was actually walking around my house. In the morning, I smudged [burned sage in] every room.

We don’t need to drag out our dream dictionaries to decipher that in the context of the pandemic, his entity could represent the virus, just as my bald, sexless “neighbor.” Although everyone’s dream symbols carry their own interpretations, as our shared reality is subsumed in confinement, isolation, and illness, our dreams and their possible meanings may become more closely aligned with each other.

The Trauma Room

This dream came from a 72-year-old male nurse named Bob R., who due to age and medical conditions, has been in quarantine and unable to assist in clinical care. He wrote on April 6th:

I was back in my ER in Ohio — same setting and same co-workers that I recognized vividly. None of us were wearing masks! We were in Trauma Room 1 and they wheeled in an adult male DOA covered with an old blanket. We were discussing transferring him to a morgue cart rather than contaminating our ER bed when I noticed his western boots. I commented — those are some very nice boots. I have a pair just like them. I walked to the head, pulled back the blanket and it was ME on the gurney. I woke up.

Dream interpreters have often cited how death represents change or transformation, but with COVID-19 in the air, one wonders if Bob’s symbology was chipped bare. At least he died with his boots on.



And we can’t deny that sleep itself has a whiff of death about it, as we fall into private realms cordoned off from sensory data — in the bloodlines of Greek mythology, Thanatos (Death) is the twin brother of Hypnos (Sleep).

A medical setting was also featured in a report from “Dr. Chris” on April 5th: I was taken to a facility where I was stretched out on a table. Hands and feet tied down. I was wearing only boxer shorts… The table then lifted me into a vertical position and proceeded to move me forward into what appeared to be a mold of a human body. I heard what seemed like doctors or medical staff talking to each other on the other side of the wall/mold about how they didn’t know how to test people and were referring to a diagram map. That if they inserted a needle-like microscope into the flesh, they should see blue if the person was positive.

I remember getting stuck in the right arm biceps, into both leg shins, and finally one person mentioned to take a core sample by removing a chunk space of my center, thus exposing my heart and vital organs. They then put the needle inside my core and I woke up immediately thinking it was really happening. I knocked over my bed lamp during the process…

The purpose of dreams has long been debated, but a recent theory poses that they can serve as a kind of threat rehearsal, where the mind war games different simulations as a way to prepare. Cold comfort, perhaps, that some of our harrowing nightmares are endowed with a function beyond just scaring the bejesus out of us.

In Watery Depths

As the rising pandemic trickles down into our subconscious, it’s not surprising that natural disasters take the metaphorical stage in some reports. Naomi S. wrote of an earthquake followed by a tsunami engulfing the beach (April 6th): It was growing and heading toward the apt. buildings on the side of a steep hill. The ground started to spit and crack and I ran as fast as I could to get to the apt’s embedded in the hill. I was freaking out and panicking and so was everyone else! I made it inside an apt. and everyone was opening their back egress windows to escape, clearing out everything in the way to get out. They were very small windows… pretty soon there was a group of us congregating and we all tried to figure out how to get to a safe place while the foam was all around us. After that it was about saving the animals and our most important items.

Brittany H.’s dream (which she recorded on March 11th) also featured a tsunami — the government warned people a killer wave would hit at 4:44 AM. Her four-story home toppled, and as she crawled out of it, she looked up. 30 feet away was a giant cruise ship on land that had been brought in by the huge wave. All of the windows were full of people just standing there staring, expressionless and motionless.

A cruise ship fared even worse in Anjanette G.’s dream (reported on April 5th). The passengers were so rampantly infected that the government deliberately sank the cruise liner. I could see it from above through crystal blue waters. A tomb for thousands.

In Roma W.’s dream (which took place on March 23rd), she found herself driving a vintage sports car along a winding coastal road when the steering wheel suddenly froze, and the car nosedived into the sea. Still trying to process what had happened, I looked around and was surprised at how deep the ocean was and how rapidly I was descending. I saw another unwilling traveler whose journey had ended on a shallow shelf closer to shore. As I passed him on my way down I wondered how long he had been there, and whether anyone knew or cared.

The temperature dropped and the light grew dimmer. I needed a plan. Should I roll down the window and try to swim? Is there too much pressure? Could I even hold my breath for that long? And if I made it to the surface would I die of hypothermia before reaching the shore?

Maybe someone had seen me go over. Should I wait for rescue? How airtight is this car? How much time do I have before the air runs out or it fills with water? Is it better to suffocate or drown? I woke before hitting the bottom, terrified.

Water has been said to represent the unconscious in dreams, but here the fears of inundation are so palpable you might draw a connection to the deadliest effect of coronavirus — lungs filling up with fluid (and the questionable availability of a ventilator). A sense of impending doom was articulated in Jane K’s (April 4th) dream too, in which she saw through a basement window thousands of animals racing past, as though they were escaping from something, as she felt an invisible force tugging at her shirt.

Deirdre Barrett, a psychology professor at Harvard Medical School and longtime dream researcher, also had a recent dream of a catastrophe raging outside a window, as she sat in a cozy, well-appointed library. The dream inspired her digital painting (accompanying this article) of a plague doctor wandering amid the virus particles. Barrett is conducting her own survey of COVID-19 dreams for analysis and comparison, and has so far collected more than 500 accounts.

Premonitions of Doom and A Trump Imposter

Can our dreams portend the future? Certainly, there is illustrious lore dating back to ancient times of prophecy and premonitions arriving in the form of dreams. In the curious realm of the sleeping mind, consciousness may stray out of linear time, and peek into future probabilities.

Emily H. suffers from autoimmune and kidney disease and has long been plagued by nightmares involving suffocation. On March 30th, she wrote: Months before the virus erupted, I had dreams about disaster, including one in which I saw a flock of black swans. I paid attention and did what I could to stock up on basic necessities. Because of that I had a good supply of things like bathroom tissue, hand sanitizer, food, etc. and have been able to avoid participating in the mad shopping dashes.

In recent times, the “black swan” theory has received wider recognition, signifying a rare and surprising event that can alter the course of history, and impact or destroy financial markets.

Sandra F., a trucker based on the East Coast, recorded a dream on March 26th (and shared with me on March 30th) that was so disturbing to her she was unable to return to sleep.

So many people were dying that services were no longer functioning, our government and President Trump, his advisors [like] Kellyanne Conway were no longer being seen on TV or even heard from at all. People were missing from newscasts, Facebook, TV shows. Those that were on TV had red glassy looking eyes and I knew they had it even if they didn’t…

President Trump was no longer being seen on TV and he was only heard via radio or sound bites. In my dream, it didn’t sound exactly like him anymore, like they put a ‘sound-alike’ in his place and he seemed cold and distant.

He was saying there’s nothing more we can do, it has overtaken us and there is no stopping it and in so many words, good luck, and the feeling that overcame me was pure absolute panic because I realized this felt like there was no chance for those alive, especially if all government continuity was gone. I’ve watched hundreds of apocalyptic and disaster movies and nothing has ever put this much fear in me as this dream did.

An eerie portent of what’s to come, or the psychic residue of binge watching “Contagion,” “Outbreak,” and “The Day After Tomorrow” just before bed? Come to think of it, we haven’t seen Kellyanne on TV in some time…

Isolation Nation

The backdrop of business closures and isolation has cast a creeping shadow into the dream terrain as well. Cynthia N. of Houston described finding herself in an “uneasy” section of an unknown town (March 31st):

The streets were so deserted and quiet, I swear I could hear nothing. No birds, no insects. Nothing. A cluster of small businesses, like doctor’s offices, surrounded me — completely devoid of any movement or life. Everything seemed gray. Monochromatic and dull and totally still.

…I motored over to a vacant parking space — they were all vacant actually, like a ghost town — in front of a small business that looked like a former 1950s bungalow converted, in its last hurrah, to a local dentist’s office…I found myself, for some inexplicable reason in this dream compelled to get out of my car — to look to see what was ahead down the desolate road. (To look for what?)

A chill tickled my neck, waltzing down to rest between my shoulder blades, causing me to shudder. It felt as though a cat had walked upon my grave, as Momma used to say…I had no clue where I was and no one to turn to. Forsaken. Would someone come to save me, or some THING come to GET me first?

Now that is a question for these times. Does a VACANT sign at an abandoned motel flicker if there is no one to see or dream it? Beyond the closed restaurants and hair salons, what of the COVID-19 patients isolated from their families and loved ones? They may die alone, but damnit, we’ll keep their neon burning.

Parasomnias & Phantasms

Because of the ongoing stress and sense of foreboding, odd parasomnias and fractured dream states (as written about in my book Nightmareland: Travels at the Borders of Sleep, Dreams, and Wakefulness) may be more common at this time.

76-year-old Kathy O., “a not easily frightened” nurse since 1984, wrote on April 6th: About a week into the “shelter in place” decree I began waking up around 3 AM feeling like I wasn’t alone in bed. I’m divorced & live alone so that’s a scary thought. At first, I sloughed it off as my imagination, but the same thing happened a couple days later. This time I decided to quietly turn my head & see if anyone was there. Unfortunately, there was.

The room was very dark but because I have a window on that side I saw a dark outline of a person laying on their side facing me. I didn’t feel threatened, but definitely scared. I quickly turned my head back so if they opened their eyes I wouldn’t see them (in case they were shiny or red) & I didn’t want them to see me looking at them. I waited for what seemed like forever to see if they were going to make a move & fell back to sleep. This has happened 5 or 6 times since March 9th & although nothing threatening has happened, it’s the uncertainty of it that frightens me the most. I’ve considered everything from the Angel of Death to my Guardian Angel giving me comfort.

Were they episodes of sleep paralysis or hypnagogic (in between sleep and waking) hallucinations? Those actually suffering from COVID-19 have reported feverish visions. “I noticed that when I got the coronavirus it seems to have opened a portal of sorts and my abilities to see and communicate with the dead have increased dramatically,” author Robert Davis shared with me on April 1st. “I see and hear dead relatives and friends every time I go to sleep and even when awake and have a wide plethora of sleep disorders on a regular basis. Old Hag Syndrome, Demonic attacks, OOB’s, Near-Death experience. I even have a witness to me levitating.”

CNN anchor Chris Cuomo, while battling coronavirus with a fever of 103, had a waking hallucination of the Governor of New York at his bedside. No, not his brother Andrew, but his dead father, Mario.

Murder & Bug Invasions

Susan C. offered this haunting account (April 1st): I’m lying in bed and am jolted awake. There is a man above my bed…his face is very close to mine. I feel like I am suffocating and realize he plans to kill me. He does; I believe he strangles me.

I did not want to see this so have left my body and am hovering above…observing the scene. Not only has he murdered me but has decapitated and dismembered my body. He stuffs all of my body parts in a large, sack and heads out of my apartment complex towards his car.

I follow, above. He comes across two men who are obviously breaking into another apartment. At first all three are startled but then the men notice the bag. My killer nods at them and they relax. A murderer acknowledging the thieves. The bag slips slightly in his hands, and the body of Gus, my dog who died at least 10 years ago, falls out of the bag on the sidewalk. I wake up.

Nightmares in adults often superimpose archaic childhood fears, like being chased, attacked, or mutilated onto recent situations and disturbances — in this case, the pandemic. “Whether the dreamer is threatened by an ancient demon, a vampire, a lobster, a fairy story monster, a robot, or an atomic ray, his experience is in each instance like that of a helpless child confronted with powerful forces,” wrote the late psychiatrist Dr. John Mack (who would later achieve notoriety for his studies of alien abductions). During the sleep state, the parts of the prefrontal cortex governing logic and reasoning are tamped down, while emotional centers are heightened.

Jeff M. shared this thinly veiled nightmare on March 31st: I was camping…and woke up in this dream to millions of ants crawling near my wife and I. I remember shouting to her to get away as I desperately back-crawled away from the swarm. My wife went on the wrong path and was quickly overrun. She was screaming. I started feeling the sting as I too became covered.

“The dreams have all kinds of metaphors for the pandemic,” Prof. Barrett told me of her survey sample. “I’ve gotten at least seven bug dreams — swarms of flying, stinging bugs, worms or maggots, and an attack by a huge mass of varied insects. There have been some monsters and zombies. A giant gun shooting from the sky.”

It was a beautiful, sunny day filled with people, and we are sitting and chatting on a bench, Barrett’s correspondent wrote. Suddenly we hear a noise and we see up in the sky a giant revolver — maybe the size of the zeppelin — flying very fast, changing directions suddenly and targeting people to create a fire explosion and killing them. It aims at us and I start running and try to hide.

Oprah & Joe Exotic

Equally surreal was a dream Barrett collected where the writer found themself in a gymnasium with hundreds of people spread out on mattresses. Addressing the crowd on a microphone was none other than Oprah Winfrey, jubilantly announcing that all gathered will receive an amazing ‘happy ending.’ A car or one of her other lavish giveaways? Not in the age of coronavirus — like Shiva, the Destroyer, she pulls out a buzzing circular saw, and points it at the crowd. The dreamer wakes up in sheer terror.

No doubt, the media we consume has a way of impregnating our dreamscapes. Netflix’s kooky over-the-top docuseries “Tiger King,” released just as we all began to ‘swelter’ in place, seems inextricably linked to the pandemic. Or so it was for one of Barrett’s responders:

I dreamt that I was so out of luck (I’ve lost all my bookings/business/money through this), that my only option was to go and work for Joe Exotic and sleep in those filthy, filthy, cabins and eat out-of-date Walmart food. I was so glad to wake up.

Alas, now we’re finding out that even tigers are not immune from coronavirus. Haven’t they been through enough?

As we pass along the pandemic’s trajectory, our dreams may mutate in unpredictable ways. And though we may feel out of control, our nightly voyages provide us with an outlet for processing strong emotions and fears.

I wish to thank the Coast to Coast audience for their generous participation in this piece. In addition to Barrett’s survey, people can share their further nocturnal odysseys on Erin Gravley’s I Dream of Covid site, and via the Twitter hashtag #pandemicdreams. Here’s Sarah Schachner’s tweet: “In my dream, I called an Uber, but a hearse showed up instead.”

As we live in uncertain times, so shall we dream.