‘All of Europe is dreaming of Merkel’: How coronavirus is affecting our dreams

Psychologists collecting people’s dreams during the pandemic share some of their strange discoveries with Adam Forrest

People are reporting dreams about the virus itself, political figures and illegal lockdown parties (EPA/CDC/Reuters/AFP/AP/iStock)

The coronavirus won’t leave us alone. Not content with stealing our waking thoughts, the illness has chased us into the dream world, haunting our sleep by appearing in a series of strange and often disturbing guises.

People all over the world have been reporting especially intense and vivid dreams, recalled with an unusual amount of clarity, since the beginning of the pandemic.

Dream researchers – fascinated by an event so huge it has embedded itself in the planet’s collective unconscious – are busy collecting all these virus-related reveries. And the sleep detectives have already spotted some interesting patterns.