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Dreams Drawer” Analysis of Dreams DuringLockdown in the It
1. “Dreams Drawer”: Analysis of Dreams During
Lockdown in the Italian Population
Silvia Monaco, Tiziana Citti, Benedetta Gaudio, Rachele
Mariani,
and Michela Di Trani
Department of Dynamic, Clinical and Health Psychology,
Sapienza University of
Rome
The COVID-19 pandemic has indiscriminately involved the
whole world, pro-
ducing a collective trauma that may have activated socially
shared mental processes.
It was hypothesized that the content of dreams could reflect a
change in the way peo-
ple are conceptualizing relationships, their environment, and the
world in general af-
ter the emergency and the lockdown. We used data from “Dream
Drawer,” a free
online forum where people could read about others’ dreams or
write about their own.
Our sample consisted of 68 participants and 90 dreams. Most of
them were students,
and 85% of the participants were facing lockdown at home with
families. To identify
how dream content could reflect the impact of lockdowns,
dreams were analyzed
with the emotional text mining methodology. The analysis
created a factorial space of
2 factors: “Relationship With the Outside” (between the
containing and the losing)
2. and “Relationship With the Inside” (between the processing and
losing yourself).
Each factor presents a symbolic and reflective dimension. In
this space, there are 3
clusters (“holding,” “refind the other,” and “anguish defense”).
The findings demon-
strate that home isolation, which is portrayed in dreams as an
extraordinary and
novel event, appears to be the aspect of the pandemic that the
unconscious has most
exploited, detecting the activation of collective mental
processes in dreams.
Dreamwork could be the first step in beginning to process this
collective catastrophic
experience. The results of this research may be useful in
determining collective
changes in anxiety and distress.
Keywords: text analysis, dreams, COVID-19, defense
mechanisms, symbolizations
The COVID-19 is an acute respiratory syndrome that began to
rapidly spread
fromWuhan City of Hubei, in China, to the rest of the world in
December 2019. As
a result of the growing cases, the World Health Organization
declared a state of
This article was published Online First April 14, 2022.
Silvia Monaco https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6838-7537
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to
Silvia Monaco, Department of
Dynamic, Clinical and Health Psychology, Sapienza University
of Rome, via degli Apuli 1, 00185, Rome,
Italy. Email: [email protected]
7. people were only
permitted to travel to work, and all retail businesses, with the
exception of grocery
stores and pharmacies, were closed (DPCM n. 62, March 9,
2020). Although some
spent the quarantine period with their families, others were on
their own and strug-
gling with loneliness (Tagupa, 2020). This first lockdown lasted
until May 18, 2020, for
a total of 69 days. COVID-19 and the related containment
measures tested the mental
health of the entire population (Mazza, 2020), creating new
research questions on the
collective elaboration of this particular kind of collective
traumatic experience.
From Individual to Collective Trauma
“A traumatic event is one in which a person experiences a
genuine fear of death
or injury for themselves or others” (Jetten, 2020). It is clear that
a pandemic meets
this criterion and can be safely classified as a traumatic event
similar to natural disas-
ters, terrorist attacks, and civil wars, situations that involve
plurality of people. This
being the case, we know that the COVID-19 pandemic has had
the capacity to nega-
tively impact both an individual’s psychological functioning
and the communities’-
collective well-being. The pandemic is a unique and
unpredictable event that has
indiscriminately involved the whole world; we have collectively
considered the dam-
age it has caused, its phenomenology, and its cure (Masiero et
al., 2020). One impor-
8. tant point is how people perceived social support: Mariani et al.
(2020) explored
these issues with the aims of creating psychological
interventions for the general
population during the postemergency period and directing
health policies to con-
sider the psychological health of citizens. It is possible that the
trauma related to the
COVID-19 pandemic may have activated collective mental
processes that are
observable in different dimensions of people’s lives, such as in
dreams.
Dreams and Collective Trauma
The role of dreaming in individual trauma is well understood —
repeated
dreams portraying dangerous scenarios are a significant sign in
the diagnosis of post-
traumatic stress disorder (Miller et al., 2017)—but how do
dreams work when the
trauma is collective? In the literature, there are many references
to collective trau-
matic events that had similar effects on the dream contents of
individuals who did
not experience the trauma themselves. For example, during
World War II, German
civilians reported monotonous and boring dreams as a
consequence of living in an
environment so oppressive that it repressed the dreams
themselves (Beradt, 1985).
Valli et al. (2005) reported that children living in war zones
mostly reported dreams
depicting threatening events. A study conducted years after
World War II found
that a collective trauma such as war persists in the dream
9. content, even in the gen-
eral population who did not participate in the war themselves,
for many years
(Sandman et al., 2013). The peculiarity of dreams following
collective traumatic
events lies also in the fact that the many people in the affected
population may have
similar images in their dreams that are not directly related to
the event itself. New
Yorkers, after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001,
reported nightmares in
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13. which they were robbed and/or swept away by a tidal wave
(Hartmann & Brezler,
2008).
Fitting the New Reality
The traumatic experience of COVID-19 resulted in different
responses; how-
ever, literature thus far has highlighted various social
consequences that have been
shared among different people. In fact, many studies have
investigated the impact
of COVID-19 on people’s habits. The Lancet Psychiatry (Pan et
al., 2021) published
an interesting study that examined the side effects of quarantine
in a population of
60,000 people. Results suggested that one of the major impacts
was on sleep quality,
mostly related to insomnia. An Italian study (Marelli et al.,
2021) demonstrated the
significant alteration of sleep and psycho-emotional well-being
of Italian students.
In particular, the study shows low quality of sleep and poor
sleep hygiene during
lockdown and symptoms related to insomnia. Related to this,
many people reported
increasing frequency of strange dreams, connoted by worries,
stress, and anxieties
during the quarantine (Gorgoni et al., 2021). Freud (1900) wrote
that the activities
we perform during our time awake create a sort of “diurnal
residue” that influences
the content of dreams. A recent study (Š�cepanovi�c et al.,
2022) demonstrated how
the content of dreams, during the pandemic, was continuous
14. with the dreamer’s
waking experiences: The participants reported typical COVID-
19 symptoms (e.g.,
cough and fever) in their dreams, suggesting that oneiric life
reflected people’s real-
world experiences. Similarly, dream’s research found that
dreams during the pan-
demic have in common the tendency to replace the fear of the
virus with other meta-
phorical elements, such as insects, zombies, natural disasters,
monsters, and mass
shootings (Barrett, 2020). An Italian study proves the negative
impact of the restric-
tion measures on oneiric life regardless the age, underlying that
both adults and ado-
lescents reported dreams related to the home confinement
marked by negative
emotions (Sommantico et al., 2021). The huge presence of
COVID-19 elements
inside dreams can be seen as the presence of unmetabolized
daytime elements,
showing a traumatic experience (Marogna et al., 2021). Finally,
in the pandemic ex-
perience, dreams content and specific traumatic pattern can be
predictor of depres-
sion and resilience, demonstrating how dreams can be a valid
tool to understand the
experience of the collectivity (Borghi et al., 2021).
In light of these insights, we can say that the quarantine and the
virus have
caused a collective trauma, due to the strong effects it inflicted
on the collectivity. So
it seems appropriate to research how threatening and traumatic
collective events,
such as a pandemic, might influence the content of dreams to
15. capture the shared and
unconscious processes, found in dreams, among the population
during the lockdown
period.
Aims
According to the literature, the elaborative processes to cope
with a traumatic
event are traceable in dreams, a phenomenon that would be seen
in recurring
themes and emotions (Caviglia, 2021). Assuming that texts can
be analyzed to
explain inner communicational processes (Greco & Polli, 2020)
and considering
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that dream content can reflect a change in the way of imagining
relationships, the
environment, and the world in general (Mota et al., 2020), this
study aims to under-
stand which kind of symbolization had been activated in dreams
during the lock-
down experience in the Italian population. This study focuses
on unconscious
processes shared by the group of citizens, rather than having an
individual point of
view. The study also investigates the influences of
sociopersonal factors (see the
Measure section for the complete list) on the production of
specific representations
in response to the traumatic experience of lockdown.
Method
The “Dream Drawer” is a forum created and administrated by a
group of stu-
dents at La Sapienza Università di Roma. The forum was born
as a free space in
which people could share dreams by writing them or simply
read about others’
dreams. Because COVID-19 trauma may have activated some
collective mental
processes, the group of students wondered if those processes
could be traced in
dreams.
Procedure
20. The “DreamDrawer” was launched on April 18, 2020, in the
middle of the Ital-
ian lockdown and was closed at the end of it in mid-May 2020.
The forum was acces-
sible to anyone via an Internet link that was disseminated by the
administrators and
by word of mouth. At the time of registration, participants had
to fill out a question-
naire with sociopersonal information and were asked to give
consent to the treat-
ment of the data and material reported for research purposes,
respecting privacy
regulations. In fact, the site’s Rules of Procedure allowed users
to register with a
nickname that would not be connected to their real name to
protect their anonym-
ity. To this end, it was also required that they not use their
actual names in the
description of dreams but rather initials or symbolic names
(e.g., my cousin, the sis-
ter of my best friend, etc.) and, ideally, remain ambiguous in
the description of loca-
tions. Each participant was able to read and write dreams
throughout the whole
period depending on their own desires and capacity to
participate during such a
complex and traumatic situation. A request that they participate
within specific time
constraints could have been unproductive and dangerous to
participants. There
were no limits in writing dreams, and participants could write
how many dreams as
they wanted.
The study was carried out in accordance with the code of ethics
21. of the World
Medical Association (Declaration of Helsinki) for experiments
involving humans.
Ethical approval was granted by the ethics committee of the
department affiliate to
Silvia Monaco (protocol number 0000323).
Participants
The sample consisted of 68 participants who filled out the
sociopersonal ques-
tionnaire, for a total of 90 dreams. The sex variance in the
sample is skewed in favor
of women (22 male [32%] and 46 female [68%]). Most
participants (42 out of 68;
62%) were under the age of 26 and most were students (44 out
of 68; 65%,),
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although three people did not respond to the question asking if
they were students,
workers, or other. Marital status is homogeneous: 34 people
single (50%) and 34
people engaged (50%). Fifty-seven participants (85%) were
facing lockdown at
home with their families, 10 were not (15%), and one did not
respond.
Measures
Each participant who shared a dream was asked to complete a
sociodemo-
graphic questionnaire, specifying their nickname, age, sex,
education level, marital
status, occupation, and if they were still working during the
lockdown. If they
responded in the affirmative to the last question, they were
asked to specify if they
were working at home or in an office. They were also asked to
indicate their city of
residence, if they were spending the lockdown alone or with
family, or in company
of roommates, and if they had any disability or pathology. They
were asked if they
were undergoing psychotherapy or if they had in the past. The
survey included ques-
tions about their experience with COVID-19 and the lockdown,
specifying if they
26. knew someone who contracted the virus, their average amount
of sleep, average
number of dreams per week, and if their dreams had changed
during the lockdown.
If so, they could indicate the nature of those changes. Finally,
they were asked to
indicate how stressed they felt personally in the context of the
lockdown on a scale
from 1 to 10.
Data Analysis
To identify how dreams could reflect the impact of the
lockdown in this global
state of emergency, we used the emotional text mining (Greco,
2016) methodology
through the software T-Lab (Lancia, 2017). Emotional text
mining is a textual anal-
ysis technique that includes statistical competences, adopting a
psychodynamic and
symbolic-cultural model to understand human behavior and, in
particular, the anal-
ysis of language. In a communication, we can find two
processes (Matte Blanco,
1981): the conscious one, explicating the manifest content, and
the unconscious one,
which can be inferred through how it is communicated, (i.e., the
words chosen and
their association within the text).
The 90 dreams were inserted individually on T-Lab as separate
files through
the corpus builder’s option, then the sociopersonal information
was added. At this
stage, dreams were collected in a unique corpus composed of
20,852 tokens (the
27. amount of all the words contained in the text) and 4,298 types
(the different words
used). To determine the lexical richness of the corpus, we
calculated the type–token
ratio, a lexical index that indicates the average number of times
in which a word
appears in a text, which in this case was 0.2. The Hapax
percentage—obtained by
dividing the type–token ratio by the number of types—was 60%.
Usually, the per-
centage should be around 50%, but given the small dimensions
of the corpus, litera-
ture accepts higher values (Cordella et al., 2014).
T-Lab performs a normalization of the text to process data; the
software seg-
ments the corpus following the statistical criteria. Then, a
lemmatization is carried
out, during which words with the same root are gathered in a
unique word. Then,
the keywords are selected: The adverbs were excluded as were
all the words that
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appeared fewer than three times, and the remaining words were
gathered in several
lexemes (Cordella et al., 2014).
To point out the links that connect the words and to deduce the
symbolic ma-
trix that determines their coexistence in the text, we used
correspondences analy-
sis and analysis of the clusters through the bisecting K-means
algorithm (Savaresi
& Boley, 2004), which is designed to highlight the similarities
and differences
between the context units and to verify how words of the corpus
are organized,
regrouping them in function of a statistical link (Carli et al.,
2007). Clustering val-
idation measures were taken into account to identify the optimal
solution: the
Calinski–Harabasz, the Davies–Bouldin, and the intraclass
correlation coefficient
indices.
In this way, a map of corpus content was constructed according
to the keywords
32. that share the same elementary context units. The bisecting K-
means clustering
technique uses a computational procedure based on the results
of previous corre-
spondence analyses, based on the coordinates of the lexical
units of the factorial
axes (Lancia, 2017).
The analysis creates a factorial space, which is a space in which
the corpus
moves, based on the occurrence and proximity of words in the
corpus. The words
are arranged in factors, which have two polarities: one positive
and one negative. It
is necessary to point out that positivity and negativity are only
indices that indicate
that the factor is a single dimension characterized by these two
polarities, one going
toward one direction and one toward another, the opposite; they
do not present,
therefore, a qualitative meaning. The clusters, which are cores
of representation,
are positioned inside the factorial space with real coordinates.
The interpretation takes place by reading the individual words
of each polarity,
of all factors, and for each cluster, and going through free
associations, keeping in
mind the reference context. The words are arranged in order of
percentage of abso-
lute contribution for factors and context unit’s percentage for
clusters: Some words
are more representative than others and therefore have a greater
weight than
others.
33. First, the various factors and their two poles, positive and
negative, are inter-
preted to identify the symbolic matrix that communicates the
corpus. Once this step
has been completed, the clusters are interpreted on the basis of
their positions in the
factorial space and based on the words that characterize them.
The interpretation is
carried out by at least four judges, and it is necessary to
evaluate the agreement
among them. It is therefore associated with a dimension, a
general representation
that can collect the meaning that those words are transmitting.
Using the interview’s
fragments, parts of elementary context were sorted by weight.
This function is
referred to an analysis made by T-Lab, in which a score is
applied for relevance to
each word present in the cluster. The final score is calculated by
the term frequency-
–inverse document frequency of Salton (1989), crucial to
estimate the importance of
lexical units in a text. Following the interpretation, the judges
assign labels to each
cluster and factors, polarization included.
For the analysis of the variables, we performed a x2 test on the
contingence
table cluster for variable, and we calculated the standardized
residuals to under-
stand if the clusters showed differences considering these
dimensions. Five main
variables emerged through the review: changes in dreams, the
knowledge of a
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person who contracted COVID-19, occupation, marital status,
and the level of
perceived stress.
Results
Through the interpretation and the data analysis, two factors
and three clusters
were identified. Each factor represents a general dimension of
meaning according to
unconscious logic, elicited by the latent connection of each
word collected inside the
38. factor. Each factor is characterized by a positive and negative
pole.
The first factor (Table 1) has been labeled as “Relationship
With the Outside.”
At its positive pole, we find the function of containing and at
the negative pole the
function of losing. The two poles are considered as two
different experiences along
a continuum. The function of the “Dreams Drawer” was to
create a space in which
it was possible to narrate one’s fears at the moment of waking
up and thus contain
the dimension of anguish linked to losing. This factor relates to
the function of the
forum itself because the forum became a “drawer” in which
contain the anguish of
losing the relationship with the outside.
The negative pole “losing” refers to a sense of anguish over not
finding what
has been left behind. For example, several dreams describe
scenes in which the
dreamer could not find their car or in which they cannot help or
see their grandfa-
ther. It can also be extended to the loss of a larger concept,
namely, the “normal”
life that is out of reach during the quarantine.
The positive pole—“contain”—expresses the function of the
“DreamDrawer,”
which is holding: the possibility of using a space that can
contain the anxieties
related to the situation of the lockdown. The factor highlights
the anguished rela-
tionship with what happens outside.
39. The second factor, “Relationship With the Inside” (Table 2), is
divided into
lose yourself (negative pole) and process (positive pole), and it
describes two modal-
ities through which individuals came into contact with the
lockdown experience.
The negative pole, lose yourself, calls to mind a house’s
structure, represent-
ing the inside dimension of the lockdown. Associated with that
pole, we find
words such as “room,” “corridor,” “balcony,” “building,” and so
forth The struc-
ture of the house seems to represent the same foundations that
constitute the
state of mind of the individual, according to Freud’s (1900)
conceptualization.
Table 1
Factor 1 “Relationship With the Outside” and Its Polarities
Factor 1
Negative pole: Lose Positive pole: Contain
Keyword
Absolute
contribution (%) Keyword
Absolute
contribution (%)
Take: “Prendere” 2.34 Dreams:“Sogni” 12.72
Bring: “Portare” 1.50 Wake up: “Svegliare” 6.61
40. Find: “Trovare 1.27 Listen: “Sentire” 1.64
Grandfather: “Nonno” 1.22 Scare: “Impaurire” 1.19
Leave: “Lasciare” 1.20 Tell: “Raccontare” 1.12
Row: “Fila” 1.14 Man: “Uomo” 1.11
Car: “Auto” 1.13 Reality: “Realtà” 1.02
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44. “new” and
“strange” location where, even if you know the structure, you
can “lose yourself.”
In addition, we can observe a phobic dimension to this pole,
suggested by the
words “spider” and “to hide.”
On the positive pole “process,” there is a dimension of hope and
memories. It
seems to be the pole that mostly reflects the request made to the
forum participants,
that is, to share their dreams (bring, memory, dreams, know,
collect, and wake up).
In addition to the dreams collections, the “Dreams Drawer”
gathers the pandemic
experience, that from the waking up, it allows to process the
inner world and
brought it to the consciousness through the insight, suggested
by the word “sud-
denly.” In this factor, the relationship with the outside is lost;
the relationship with
themselves, fears, distress, and hopes prevails.
The analysis produced three clusters positioned inside the
factorial space as
shown in Table 3.
The first cluster (Table 4), named “holding,” is placed on the
pole of contain in
the Relationship With the Outside and on the pole of process in
the Relationship
With the Inside.
This cluster is evocative, and it recalls the image of a worried
infant that wakes
up from a nightmare and runs to hismother to tell her the dream.
45. The mother has the
function of holding (Winnicott, 1965) as does the “Dream
Drawer” in this case. The
forum was established, in fact, as a place where, once awake,
everyone could share
Table 2
Factor 2 “Relationship With the Inside” and Its Polarities
Factor 2
Negative pole: Lose yourself Positive pole: Process
Keyword
Absolute
contribution (%) Keyword
Absolute
contribution (%)
Room: “Stanza” 4.07 Bring: “Portare” 1.77
Big: “Grande” 3.26 Memory: “Ricordo” 1.49
New: “Nuovo” 2.37 Dreams: “Sogni” 1.44
Corridor: “Corridoio” 2.23 Suddenly: “Improvviso” 1.43
Centre: “Centro” 2.10 To know: “Conoscere” 1.15
Building: “Palazzo” 2.00 Car: “Auto” 1.10
Garden: “Giardino” 1.71 Head: “Testa” 1.10
Table 3
Cluster Placed in Factors and Percentage of Related Context
Unit
Cluster CU (%)* Label
Factor 1:
46. Relationship With
the Outside
Factor 2:
Relationship With
the Inside
1 37.73 Holding Contain Process
2 30.09 Refind the other Lose Lose yourself
3 32.18 Anguish defense Lose Process
* CU = context units.
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their dreams and “blow off some steam,” releasing the anguish
they might experi-
ence from the dream.
The alleged teacher in my dream was my friend’s mother, and I
was worried about her judg-
ment and behaviour, because when I was younger, I used to
make fun of my friend. In the
same dream, I dreamed that I woke up and told myself: this is
not possible because my friend’s
mother isn’t a teacher, and I don’t go to school anymore, and I
don’t even have lessons at the
university. Now I callmy friend and I tell her. [SCORE: 65,942]
La presunta prof.ssa del sogno era la mamma di una mia amica,
della quale temevo il suo
giudizio e il suo comportamento, perché da piccolo ero solito
prendere in giro la mia
amica. Sempre nello stesso sogno, sognai che mi svegliai e
dicevo tra me e me: non è possi-
bile tutto questo perché la mamma della mia amica non è una
prof.ssa, io non sono più a
scuola e nemmeno seguo più lezioni all’università. Ora chiamo
la mia amica e glielo
racconto.
The second cluster, “find the other” (Table 4), moves between
lose and lose
yourself. The special feature of this cluster is a fairy-tale
dimension that calls to
mind the princess who needs to be saved, imprisoned in the
tower, waiting for some-
51. thing almost religious or mystical.
Getting out, I find out that this place isn’t a small clothes shop
as it used to seem before,
but it’s a kind of a huge shopping center even if, due to how the
big corridors were (by the
lighting and the feeling they aroused), I would have considered
it more like a museum.
These big corridors are empty, quiet, and there aren’t many
people around. [SCORE:
22,663]
Uscendo, scopro che questo posto non era un piccolo negozietto
di vestiti come sembrava
prima, ma una specie di enorme centro commerciale anche se,
da come erano fatti i grandi
corridoi (dall’illuminazione e dal feeling che davano), lo
accosterei più ad un museo.
Questi grandi corridoi sono abbastanza vuoti, silenziosi e non ci
sono molte persone in
giro.
The third cluster, “anguish defense” (Table 4), corresponds to
the pole lose of
Factor 1 that represents the Relationship With the Outside and
the pole elaborate of
Factor 2, the Relationship With the Inside. This cluster is
almost exclusively charac-
terized by words that refer to action. The continuous sense of
movement (“find,”
“take,” “return,” “bring,” “leave,” “start”) gives a sense of
frenzy, a reference to a
manic defense (Klein, 1940), which focuses the anxiety on the
action, with the aim
of defending the person from emotionality and fears.
52. Sto cercando di prenderli dal mio portafoglio ma gli altri mi
mettono fretta e alla fine riesco a
prendere un pezzo da 10, due monete da 2 euro e vedo che me
ne casca una a terra da 5cent
che avrei voluto raccogliere ma che alla fine lascio lì. Poi siamo
per strada e decidiamo di
Table 4
The Three Clusters
Cluster 1: Holding Cluster 2: Find the other Cluster 3: Anguish
defense
Keywords CU* Keywords CU Keywords CU
Dreams: “Sogni” 75 See: “Vedere” 48 Find: “Trovare” 38
To feel: “Sentire” 50 House: “Casa” 40 Take: “Prendere” 30
Wake up: “Svegliare” 39 Room: “Stanza” 26 Arrive: “Arrivo”
28
Memory: “Ricordo” 32 People: “Persone” 22 Car: “Macchina”
24
Reality: “Realtà” 28 Big: “Grande” 18 Return: “Tornare” 16
Mother: “Mamma” 23 Little: “Piccolo” 18 Bring: “Portare” 15
Finish: “Finire” 16 New: “Nuovo” 17 Sudden: “Improvviso” 15
* CU = context units.
DREAMS DRAWER 119
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andare almare, andiamo a farci il bagno, ma la corrente è forte e
ci spinge lontano su un’altra
spiaggia. [SCORE: 12,773]
I'm trying to take them from my wallet but the others are
rushing me, and eventually, I man-
age to take a 10 piece, two 2 Euro coins, and I see that I drop
one 5 cent coin on the ground
that I wanted to pick up, but in the end, I leave it there. Then
we are on the street, and we
decide to go to the beach, we go for a swim, but the current is
strong and pushes us far away
on another beach.
One of the variables investigated concerns the person’s dream
themes or ability
to remember them once awake changed compared with before
the lockdown. Par-
ticipants who observed a change in their dream themes
presented in the dreams
57. themselves a predominance of Cluster 2 “refind the other” [x2
Cluster 2 = 11.45;
p , .01]. Because this latter is the cluster that most closely
resembles the feeling of
loneliness caused by the lockdown, it is likely that the dreams
have changed con-
tents as a result of the new experience.
Those who reported an increase in the extent to which they
could recall their
dreams, on the other hand, have a strong presence of Cluster 3
[x2 Cluster 3 = 3.73;
p , .05], “anguish defense,” in their dreams. In fact, the abili ty
to recall dreams is
supported by a defense mechanism that allows a sequence of
contents to be brought
to consciousness.
The disparity that is found instead in people who reported
meeting at least one
person in their waking lives who tested positive for COVID-19
is also interesting [
x2 Cluster 1 = 4.4; p , .05]. Their dream narratives contained a
large amount of
Cluster 1 [ x2 Cluster 1 = 4.4; p, .05], “holding,” and a
significant lack of Cluster 3,
“anguish defense.” The fact that they experienced the state of
emergency directly,
rather than passively, could have increased the need for
reassurance through con-
tainment such as in a relationship while simultaneously
decreasing the need to use
an “anguish defense.”
Workers’ dream narratives contained a high presence of Cluster
1 [x2 Cluster
58. 1 = 10.06; p , .01], “holding,” and a low presence of Cluster 3,
“anguish defense.”
Workers, unlike students, continued to leave home for work-
related purposes, rais-
ing the risk of infection and hence the need to be reassured,
perhaps finding that se-
curity in the house to which they returned. It is hypothesized
that the low level of
“anguish defense” content is due to the lack of the need to
implement manic defen-
ces, constant acts that shift the anguish on the acted.
Single participants’ dream narratives were extremely high in
Cluster 3 [x2 Clus-
ter 3 = 7.64; p , .01], “anguish defense.” Given that this cluster
was much lower in
people in relationships, this could be a consequence of a deeper
anguish in single
people. In addition to the general fear linked to the moment,
there was also the fear
of meeting new people because doing so could increase the risk
of contracting the vi-
rus. For some, this was a reason to give up looking for a
partner. People in relation-
ships had dream narratives that were significantly high in
Cluster 1, “holding”
content, probably because they were able to find “holding”with
their partners.
Conclusion
The world changed in December 2019 when nations everywhere
were hit with
an acute respiratory syndrome, SARS-CoV-2 or COVID-19,
resulting in the World
Health Organization declaring state of emergency. Most of the
59. world enforced
120 MONACO, CITTI, GAUDIO, MARIANI, AND DI TRANI
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restriction strategies and lockdowns. The pandemic has been a
unique and unpre-
dictable event that has indiscriminately involved the whole
world, making it a collec-
tive trauma. This may have activated collective mental
processes that could be
measurable through various dimensions of human experience
and communication.
Increasing interest in the possible consequences of this unique
63. moment has been the
driving factor in the development and execution of this study.
The “DreamDrawer”
was launched to investigate the creation of mental
representations in dreams during
the lockdowns. The purpose of this study was to capture
unconscious processes,
assuming that dream content could demonstrate people’s images
and understanding
of the emergency and the lockdowns.
Because dreams are an expression of the unconscious, they
should have a wide
range of themes. The fact that a thematic dichotomy emerged
from the dreams, we
gathered indicates that it may be a direct consequence of the
quarantine. It should
be kept in mind that the dreams were not made of a group of
people living their lives
normally, and the “Dreams Drawer” was not only a
drawer/container for dreams,
but it was also an expression of the pandemic itself. Because of
the unprecedented
historical period in which the dreams were written, the lack of
variability and imagi-
nation should not be interpreted negatively but rather as a sign
that we were all
experiencing the same dimension of anguish.
The factors uncovered present both symbolic and reflective
dimensions but
their substantial difference lies in their focus. The event itself is
the subject in Factor
1 “Relationship With the Outside,” almost in collective terms,
whereas the subjec-
tive dimension of the event, how it has affected the participant,
64. is the subject in Fac-
tor 2 “Relationship With the Inside.” The dichotomy is
particularly strong in the
positive poles, which have been dubbed “lose” and “lose
yourself,” respectively.
Factor 1 describes the anguish of missing and not finding the
other, the reality left
“outside,” whereas Factor 2 describes the fear of losing yourself
inside a new and
strange home, which is a representation of the psychic interior
relationship. The
“home theme” seems to remember the house’s function posited
by Freud (1900).
For Freud, the house had the task of providing security and
shelter, functions that
are also carried out by the mother. This is the same mother who
has the function of
“holding,” the one you can run to when you have a nightmare
and the same one
who can “contain” the anguish to return it in more sustainable
terms (Bion, 1967).
In both factors, therefore, the same anguish of losing is present
but in two dif-
ferent ways. In “Relationship With the Outside,” there is the
anguish and the effort
to contain it in the other; in “Relationship With the Inside,”
there are both the an-
guish itself and the attempt to rationalize it. The findings
outlined here demonstrate
how catastrophic events can be expressed in dream life, in line
with dream continu-
ity theory and psychoanalytic thought. Home isolation, which is
portrayed in dreams
as an extraordinary and novel event, appears to be the aspect of
the pandemic that
65. the unconscious has most exploited.
These findings may be useful in exploring collective changes
during stressful sit-
uations. It may be fruitful to compare these results with future
studies in the post-
pandemic period to describe how emotional and representational
processes related
to the COVID-19 pandemic develop. Dreamwork could be the
first step in begin-
ning to process this collective catastrophic experience.
It is possible that dream content continues to change as the state
of emergency
progresses and based in part on each country’s response to it.
Future studies should
DREAMS DRAWER 121
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y.
examine this progression to track changes in dream content
compared with the
images that were associated with the lockdown and the virus at
the beginning of the
pandemic. It is important to carry out an intensive awareness
campaign on the part
of health authorities and to make psychological assistance
services available by pub-
licizing access to these services as much as possible.
There are some limitations in our research. One limitation is the
small number
of participants, which consequently produced few dreams—90—
thus creating a
small corpus to be interpreted. Moreover, most of the
participants were students,
which is probably due to the fact that the forum was made
known by the students
themselves, hence reaching mostly peers and colleagues from
the university. In
addition, most of the participants lived in central Italy; a wider
sample of people
from all over Italy would have been more representative of the
overall emotional
dimension.
Another limit is that some participants have reported more than
one dream in
the forum. Even if the dreams carry different representations, it
would have been
70. more appropriate to avoid including more than one dream of the
same person.
Nevertheless, this does not affect the result of our work, being
ours an explorative
qualitative study.
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DREAMS DRAWER 123
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![and “Relationship With the Inside” (between the processing and
losing yourself).
Each factor presents a symbolic and reflective dimension. In
this space, there are 3
clusters (“holding,” “refind the other,” and “anguish defense”).
The findings demon-
strate that home isolation, which is portrayed in dreams as an
extraordinary and
novel event, appears to be the aspect of the pandemic that the
unconscious has most
exploited, detecting the activation of collective mental
processes in dreams.
Dreamwork could be the first step in beginning to process this
collective catastrophic
experience. The results of this research may be useful in
determining collective
changes in anxiety and distress.
Keywords: text analysis, dreams, COVID-19, defense
mechanisms, symbolizations
The COVID-19 is an acute respiratory syndrome that began to
rapidly spread
fromWuhan City of Hubei, in China, to the rest of the world in
December 2019. As
a result of the growing cases, the World Health Organization
declared a state of
This article was published Online First April 14, 2022.
Silvia Monaco https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6838-7537
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to
Silvia Monaco, Department of
Dynamic, Clinical and Health Psychology, Sapienza University
of Rome, via degli Apuli 1, 00185, Rome,
Italy. Email: [email protected]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)