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How I Dream During the Day and Have Nightmares During the Night.
How the rise in seemingly random dreams of “unwanted intruders” could hold the key to understanding what we’re going through (and how to get through it)
Antonieta Contreras, LCSW-R, CCTP-II, BCN
I have lived by myself in NYC for many years. Spending time unaccompanied is familiar and comfortable for many of the more than 300,000 single households in Manhattan. Even though I love people, I often retreat in order to recharge, so I never thought that the solitary nature of the lockdown was going to have an impact on me. But hearing from how others are suffering from the isolation has helped me recognize that I was wrong: it’s affecting me.
I’m a therapist, and many of my clients have shared with me that they have been having vivid dreams of people they haven’t seen — or thought of — in years, and about nightmares of events that they had not remembered in a long time. Their accounts made me notice that their dreams shared many similarities, and that I also was having comparable experiences. I’ve been having dreams about very random people and events that I had basically forgotten.
The “coincidence” piqued my curiosity and I pushed myself to do some digging to find an explanation. It’s well-documented that the current crisis has had an impact on our dreams — but…
