COVID Nightmare: Scientists Investigate the Strange Pandemic Experience

A study by a cross-disciplinary team of scholars from Australia, the United Kingdom, and Finland is currently investigating how COVID-19 is affecting the dreams of people.

According to senior research fellow in philosophy, Dr. Jennifer Qidnt from Monash University, there were definitely various "lines of evidence that inspired this project.

Windt, who will also work on this so-called "COVID Nightmare" or "pandemic dream" project with the England-based University of Cambridge and Finland-based University of Turku researchers also said, people, seem to have reported weird dreams but generally too, they appear to have claimed to be "dreaming more."

Unfortunately, the people, according to reports, frequently have more unfavorably "toned dreams and nightmares" and thus, that was part of it.

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'COVID on Mind'

Respondents involved in the "COVID on Mind" study, which the authors said, would remain anonymous, would keep a record of their dreams, and undertake a so-called "mind-wandering task" for a two-week period.

However, initially, the said participants will be asked to complete answering a set of wellbeing questions that evaluates their mental condition, and particularly, COVID-19-related concerns to provide the study authors with some gauges of how people are doing, how much they worry about the pandemic and changes linked to the virus in their respective day-to-day life.

This cross-disciplinary project engages cognitive neuroscientists and psychologists. It also involves sleep and dream researchers, most of whom are studying how dreams are reflecting the mental conditions of people while they are awake.

Widnt said, they have people in their team, who have "done a lot of work on emotion and dreams." More so, this senior research fellow added, this global health crisis appears to be "an ideal opportunity to study that."

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Dreams Linked to Depression and Anxiety

According to Widnt, a body of research already exists, suggesting that "negatively toned" dreams are linked to certain conditions such as "anxiety, depression and wonders."

She also specified that her team is "not interested in interpreting dreams in any sense." This, she added, "Is indeed quite a different technique" that attempts to obtain objective numbers.

Rather, it is indeed, about measuring "changes in emotion" and associating them with gauges of "waking thought and feeling."

The study authors are presently recruiting study volunteers and any individual who is aged 18 and above and is residing in the UK, Finland, or Australia who can take part in the project.

This particular research will be open for a maximum of 12 months and the resulting set of data will comprise more than a thousand dreams and daydreamers.

Curious About People's Dreams During Lockdown

Windt also shared, she is specifically curious about people's "mind-wandering and dreams" during the lockdown.

It is obviously dreadful, she explained, what's currently happening in Melbourne. However, she also said she does not think it is a specifically interesting course to get people engaged, not to mention, the manner their dreams are linked to changing external conditions.

The senior fellow author's own study as a philosopher, she described, focused on both "cognitive science and consciousness." More so, she is specifically interested in the study's mind-wandering components.

Lastly, a large body of research that presents, people are spending from 50 to 50 percent of "waking life mind-wandering," Windt elaborated.

This particular study proposes that for the greater part of waking life, study authors said, one is totally not in control of his thoughts and attention and that, Windt said, "Is really interesting as a philosopher.

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