An extensive investigation by French neuroscientists focused on dreams during the recent period of confinement. The study has just been completed and the researchers are drawing their first conclusions. What happened in the minds of the French during these two months of confinement while they slept?
Perrine Ruby is an Inserm researcher at the Lyon Neuroscience Research Center. She launched a study called "Confinement Sleep and Dream" on April 6, 2020, the objective of which was to understand the impact that the pandemic and the confinement had on sleep and dreams . More than two months later, the scientist was interviewed in the magazine Sciences et Avenir .
According to Perrine Ruby, the survey received a huge number of responses:around 6,500 of which 3,900 were complete. Of these, about 1,500 evoke dreams and nightmares . The amount of data available and their nature persuaded the researcher to share the survey with the French in the form of a book to be published soon.
The researcher indicates that 15% of people respondents had more negative dreams than normal. And 7% of people had more positive dreams than usual. In this last category, the dreams were about sunny parties, family walks or flying over incredible worlds. The most recurring feeling is that of freedom.
Among the negative dreams, which were therefore the most frequent, it was often a question of intrusion into the intimacy emanating from the world of work. In other words, it is the notion of the invasion of work at home . Perrine Ruby also evokes dreams linked to confinement, but also to the notion of injustice. These negative dreams also incorporated the fear of the future, but also of the Covid-19 pandemic. In general, fear was the most present feeling in these dreams, including threats and other pursuits.
For the leader of the investigation, confinement represented a challenge for the brain. Indeed, he was forced to adapt to social isolation. It has also had to endure a kind of reconfiguration in terms of material and societal conditions, all in intense and unprecedented uncertainty . However, the fact is that sleep and dreams have played an active role in this adaptation, whether at the level of memory or emotions.
