Referential Processes in Dreams: A Brief Report From a COVID-19 Dreams Analysis

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a collective trauma for the world population. Psychoanalytic literature has long proposed that dreams are a key point of access for understanding the deepest functioning of the mind. Using the multiple code theory (Bucci, 1993) as a framework, this study aims to explore the emotional and cognitive responses of the general population to COVID-19 through their dreams. A total of 613 dreams were collected in an online survey. Linguistic measures of referential process and a cluster analysis were performed, then one-way analyses of variance explored the differences in content among dreams' clusters according to the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC). Analysis suggested three dream clusters: Cluster A (N = 255) defines an arousal activation; Cluster B (N = 121) defines a phase of symbolization; Cluster C (N = 237) defines a phase of reflection/reorganization. The content analysis of LIWC presents significant differences among the three clusters (p < .05): Cluster A, compared to Cluster C, included less use of the term "we," more frequent reference to others, and more frequent use of words denoting certainty; Cluster B included more words of negation and more use of both the present tense and the verb "to have"; Cluster C included less use of words referring to wishes and illusions. These results show differentiated functions of dreams in response to the pandemic experience, underlining the importance of dreams in the processing of this collective trauma.