Inspired by reports of unusually vivid dreaming during the first Covid-19 lockdown, a small group of postgraduate students at the UCL Psychoanalysis Unit began collecting Lockdown Dreams. This series of three films is inspired by some of the 500+ dreams submitted by the public. In this first instalment we look at some of the common themes and feelings expressed across the collection, and the parallels to Sigmund Freud’s own experience of World War 1 and the 1918 influenza pandemic, and how these traumatic experiences shaped his thinking on why we dream.
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NARRATOR: "I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space - were it not that I have bad dreams." (Hamlet)
The experience of the pandemic has made the unruliness of the human mind harder to ignore. In this time of enforced confinement for some and frightening exposure for others, our dream lives proliferated. And the dreams were unusually vivid, so much so that on waking it was a common experience to wonder whether the events in the dream had actually happened.
Sigmund Freud believed that dreams opened a unique window on the workings of our minds. Initially, he maintained that our dreams allowed us to represent forbidden wishes as fulfilled albeit in a disguised way. However, his own experience of the trauma of World War I and the influenza pandemic in which he lost his beloved daughter led him to think that perhaps when we find ourselves in very challenging situations, our dreams reveal how our minds are striving to make sense of them and help us regain a sense of mastery.
Many of our dreamers found themselves in situations where they were trying frantically to do something seemingly simple, eventually waking with feelings of frustration and anxiety. Whilst uncomfortable, such dreams are also reminders of the ability we have to struggle against being overwhelmed and patch together solutions to seemingly insurmountable problems. Residues of our waking experience are always found in our dreams. Perhaps not surprisingly, many people dreamed of canceled journeys and grounded planes, of face masks that were inadequate or missing, and of crowded places where social distancing rules were being broken. The people who shared their dreams with us commonly reported feeling anxious, disturbed, and confused, but many also said they felt interested about what their minds were producing. They felt their dreams must mean something, even if they didn't know what. It made them want to share them with us.
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