Celebrated Indian-born British-American author Sir Salman Rushdie, while speaking to The Telegraph in an interview, revealed that he had a dream that he was being attacked&nbsp;two days before he was stabbed in August 2022. &nbsp;

A man, carrying a knife, attacked Rushdie at a literary festival in Chautauqua, New York. He stabbed him in his eyes and sliced the knife into his face, neck, chest, abdomen, thigh and hand. In the deadly incident, the author lost one of his eyes. &nbsp;

<h2>Rushdie says dream was so 'vivid' that 'I was quite shaken'</h2>

The author said that in his dream he saw that he was rolling around on the floor of the arena and a man - who had a spear in his hand - was trying to stab him as Rushdie&nbsp;frantically tried to save himself.

Also Read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/india-born-author-salman-rushdie-opens-up-on-horrific-stabbing-it-felt-like-710626">India-born author Salman Rushdie opens up on horrific stabbing: 'It felt like...'</a>

He said that the dream appeared so vivid that he started thrashing himself around in his bed violently and his wife Rachel Eliza Griffiths, who is also a novelist, had to wake him up and reassure him.

"I was quite shaken by it," Rushdie said, adding, "and I said to Eliza, I don’t want to go. And then you wake up a bit more, and you think, it’s just a dream, and you’re not going to allow your life to be ruled by something that happened in a dream. And so I thought, I’ll go. It’s a gig."

"Fifteen hundred people had bought tickets. I can’t just not show up because I had a bad dream," said the author.

The author said that he does not believe in prophecy or premonitions.

Watch:&nbsp;Judge rejects 'Top Gun' copyright claim from author's heirs

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Till now, Rushdie has written 14 novels as well as two memoirs. Now, he has written his latest book on the incident which is titled "Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder."

His latest book begins with the incident that changed his life. "At a quarter to eleven on August 12, 2022, on a sunny Friday morning in upstate New York, I was attacked and almost killed by a young man with a knife just after I came out on stage at the amphitheatre in Chautauqua to talk about the importance of keeping writers safe from harm," the book read.&nbsp;

(With inputs from agencies)

Celebrated Indian-born British-American author Sir Salman Rushdie, while speaking to The Telegraph in an interview, revealed that he had a dream that he was being attacked two days before he was stabbed in August 2022.

Celebrated Indian-born British-American author Sir Salman Rushdie, while speaking to The Telegraph in an interview, revealed that he had a dream that he was being attacked two days before he was stabbed in August 2022. A man, carrying a knife, attacked Rushdie at a literary festival in Chautauqua, New York. He stabbed him in his eyes and sliced the knife into his face, neck, chest, abdomen, thigh and hand. In the deadly incident, the author lost one of his eyes. Rushdie says dream was so 'vivid' that 'I was quite shaken' The author said that in his dream he saw that he was rolling around on the floor of the arena and a man - who had a spear in his hand - was trying to stab him as Rushdie frantically tried to save himself. Also Read: India-born author Salman Rushdie opens up on horrific stabbing: 'It felt like...' He said that the dream appeared so vivid that he started thrashing himself around in his bed violently and his wife Rachel Eliza Griffiths, who is also a novelist, had to wake him up and reassure him. "I was quite shaken by it," Rushdie said, adding, "and I said to Eliza, I don’t want to go. And then you wake up a bit more, and you think, it’s just a dream, and you’re not going to allow your life to be ruled by something that happened in a dream. And so I thought, I’ll go. It’s a gig." "Fifteen hundred people had bought tickets. I can’t just not show up because I had a bad dream," said the author. The author said that he does not believe in prophecy or premonitions. Watch: Judge rejects 'Top Gun' copyright claim from author's heirs Till now, Rushdie has written 14 novels as well as two memoirs. Now, he has written his latest book on the incident which is titled "Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder." His latest book begins with the incident that changed his life. "At a quarter to eleven on August 12, 2022, on a sunny Friday morning in upstate New York, I was attacked and almost killed by a young man with a knife just after I came out on stage at the amphitheatre in Chautauqua to talk about the importance of keeping writers safe from harm," the book read. (With inputs from agencies)

Salman Rushdie says he saw himself being stabbed in a dream just before the attack

Many of us have observed our canine companions during sleep, witnessing their noses twitch, legs move as though in a sprint, and even hearing their muted barks. After a day filled with frolics on the beach, romps through the countryside, or exploring the backyard, a lot could be&nbsp;running on their&nbsp;minds as they slumber. Now, a study by Harvard psychologists suggests that your dog's dreams may include you - their human.&nbsp;

<h2>The human-dog bond</h2>

Dr&nbsp;Deirdre Barrett, a clinical and evolutionary psychologist at Harvard Medical School, embarked on extensive research into dogs' sleep behaviour, leading her to the conclusion that they likely dream in a manner similar to humans.

Just like us, dogs dream about their daily experiences, which can often appear creative and somewhat surreal compared to reality, Barret told the&nbsp;People magazine.&nbsp;

It's theorised that dogs don't dream in a logical fashion; rather, they conjure visual experiences related to what captivates them and what they have emotional connections to.

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/science/fathers-who-have-daughters-tend-to-live-longer-says-study-644494">Fathers who have daughters tend to live longer, says study</a>

The alignment of sleep patterns between humans and dogs provides further evidence of their dream-filled slumbers. Both species traverse distinct sleep stages, including deep sleep and Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep. It is during the REM sleep phases that dreams unfold for dogs, just as they do for their human counterparts.

In both human and canine brains, there exists a mechanism that typically inhibits physical movement during sleep to prevent individuals from acting out their dreams. However, there are occasions when this mechanism falters, leading to dream-related movements.

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/india-news/india-and-its-stray-dogs-a-never-ending-tussle-between-dog-lovers-and-dog-haters-595616">India and its stray dogs: A never ending tussle between dog-lovers and dog-haters</a>

For dogs, if this brain mechanism weakens, you might have the delightful opportunity to witness their dream sequences. You may see them enthusiastically chasing that stick you threw for them the previous day or sprinting through fields. Most importantly, while they sleep, they dream of you—your visage and your scent—providing them with immense comfort.

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Many of us have observed our canine companions during sleep, witnessing their noses twitch, legs move as though in a sprint, and even hearing their muted barks. After a day filled with frolics on the beach, romps through the countryside, or exploring the backyard, a lot could be running on their minds as they slumber.

Many of us have observed our canine companions during sleep, witnessing their noses twitch, legs move as though in a sprint, and even hearing their muted barks. After a day filled with frolics on the beach, romps through the countryside, or exploring the backyard, a lot could be running on their minds as they slumber. Now, a study by Harvard psychologists suggests that your dog's dreams may include you - their human. The human-dog bond Dr Deirdre Barrett, a clinical and evolutionary psychologist at Harvard Medical School, embarked on extensive research into dogs' sleep behaviour, leading her to the conclusion that they likely dream in a manner similar to humans. Just like us, dogs dream about their daily experiences, which can often appear creative and somewhat surreal compared to reality, Barret told the People magazine. It's theorised that dogs don't dream in a logical fashion; rather, they conjure visual experiences related to what captivates them and what they have emotional connections to. Also read | Fathers who have daughters tend to live longer, says study The alignment of sleep patterns between humans and dogs provides further evidence of their dream-filled slumbers. Both species traverse distinct sleep stages, including deep sleep and Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep. It is during the REM sleep phases that dreams unfold for dogs, just as they do for their human counterparts. In both human and canine brains, there exists a mechanism that typically inhibits physical movement during sleep to prevent individuals from acting out their dreams. However, there are occasions when this mechanism falters, leading to dream-related movements. Also read | India and its stray dogs: A never ending tussle between dog-lovers and dog-haters For dogs, if this brain mechanism weakens, you might have the delightful opportunity to witness their dream sequences. You may see them enthusiastically chasing that stick you threw for them the previous day or sprinting through fields. Most importantly, while they sleep, they dream of you—your visage and your scent—providing them with immense comfort. WATCH WION LIVE HERE:

Dogs likely dream about their human companions during sleep, says study

Octopuses are masters of camouflage. Amazing shape-shifters, the animals have the capability of deceiving by controlling the size of projections on their skin, they can change colour, and create textures ranging from small bumps to tall spikes. They easily change the way they look and be in disguise which makes them nearly invisible. They often do it while communicating with each other or when they see a threat.&nbsp;

The colour-changing trait is quite unique and shared by almost all cephalopods. But in octopuses, this skill is just breathtaking as they have the highest resolution patterns, and the change is also quick. We have seen their camouflage when they are awake, but do they do it when they are asleep?&nbsp;

A study attempted to shed light on the same and suggested that octopuses can actually dream, just like the way humans do. The researchers say that when the octopuses&nbsp;change colour when they are sleeping, they may be dreaming actually.

The study found that octopuses undergo the same process of skin-change patterns when they are sleeping. The researchers said that the skin patterns may indicate they are capable of something similar to dreaming.&nbsp;

In the study published in the journal Nature, it is mentioned that the colour-changing process could be because they are practising their skin patterns to improve their waking camouflage behaviour.

Or, they are simply dreaming. It means, they could be re-living and learning from their waking experiences, which they have already faced.

To carry out the study, the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) studied the brain activity and skin patterning in octopuses while they sleep. The study was done in collaboration with the University of Washington.&nbsp;

As quoted by media houses, Professor Sam Reiter, who is the senior author of the study, said: "In this sense, while humans can verbally report what kind of dreams they had only once they wake up, the octopuses' skin pattern acts as a visual readout of their brain activity during sleep."&nbsp;

"All animals seem to show some form of sleep, even simple animals like jellyfish and fruit flies. But for a long time, only vertebrates were known to cycle between two different sleep stages," Reiter added, who leads the Computational Neuroethology Unit at OIST in Japan.&nbsp;

Researchers found that the octopuses closely resemble brain activity and skin patterning behaviour seen when awake after checking whether or not the octopuses were actually asleep, and also tested how the octopuses responded to a physical stimulus.&nbsp; 
 
&nbsp;

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Octopuses are masters of camouflage. Amazing shape-shifters, the animals have the capability of deceiving by controlling the size of projections on their skin, they can change colour, and create textures ranging from small bumps to tall spikes.

Octopuses are masters of camouflage. Amazing shape-shifters, the animals have the capability of deceiving by controlling the size of projections on their skin, they can change colour, and create textures ranging from small bumps to tall spikes. They easily change the way they look and be in disguise which makes them nearly invisible. They often do it while communicating with each other or when they see a threat. The colour-changing trait is quite unique and shared by almost all cephalopods. But in octopuses, this skill is just breathtaking as they have the highest resolution patterns, and the change is also quick. We have seen their camouflage when they are awake, but do they do it when they are asleep? A study attempted to shed light on the same and suggested that octopuses can actually dream, just like the way humans do. The researchers say that when the octopuses change colour when they are sleeping, they may be dreaming actually. The study found that octopuses undergo the same process of skin-change patterns when they are sleeping. The researchers said that the skin patterns may indicate they are capable of something similar to dreaming. In the study published in the journal Nature, it is mentioned that the colour-changing process could be because they are practising their skin patterns to improve their waking camouflage behaviour. Or, they are simply dreaming. It means, they could be re-living and learning from their waking experiences, which they have already faced. To carry out the study, the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) studied the brain activity and skin patterning in octopuses while they sleep. The study was done in collaboration with the University of Washington. As quoted by media houses, Professor Sam Reiter, who is the senior author of the study, said: "In this sense, while humans can verbally report what kind of dreams they had only once they wake up, the octopuses' skin pattern acts as a visual readout of their brain activity during sleep." "All animals seem to show some form of sleep, even simple animals like jellyfish and fruit flies. But for a long time, only vertebrates were known to cycle between two different sleep stages," Reiter added, who leads the Computational Neuroethology Unit at OIST in Japan. Researchers found that the octopuses closely resemble brain activity and skin patterning behaviour seen when awake after checking whether or not the octopuses were actually asleep, and also tested how the octopuses responded to a physical stimulus. WATCH WION LIVE HERE You can now write for wionews.com and be a part of the community. Share your stories and opinions with us here.

Do octopuses dream? Study suggests they do as they change colour during sleep

A man in Illinois is facing firearms charges in a freak case after he accidentally shot himself in the leg while in sleep. He reportedly was dreaming about a burglary that led to the episode, NBC News reported.

A man in Illinois is facing firearms charges in a freak case after he accidentally shot himself in the leg while in sleep. He reportedly was dreaming about a burglary that led to the episode, NBC News reported. The incident took place on April 10, when deputies said they responded to a report of a Lake Barrington resident with a gunshot wound. When deputies arrived at the site, they found 62-year-old Mark Dicara with a gunshot wound on his leg, the Lake County Sheriff's Office said in a release. A tourniquet was immediately applied to Dicara's leg, as there was significant amount of blood loss. When cops interrogated him, they found that Dicara had a dream about someone breaking into his house. In the dream, he shoots at the burglar with his .357 Magnum revolver. But, what unfolded was bizarre. Dicara shot himself instead reportedly and woke up in pain, the release stated. He was later rushed to a local hospital for treatment. ''The round discharged from the firearm went through Dicara's leg and lodged itself into the bedding. Fortunately, the round did not travel through a shared wall with Dicara's neighbours,'' the release said. The police also confirmed during the interrogation that an attempted burglary did not take place at Dicara's residence, and there was no intruder in his property. Also read | Japanese soldier opens fire at colleagues at military base, two dead Dicara was arrested on a warrant on Monday (June 12), and was released after signing $150,000 bond, the sheriff's office said. He was additionally charged with possessing a firearm with a revoked Firearm Owners Identification, and reckless discharge of a firearm, the sheriff's office said in a statement. The state of Illinois mandates gun owners to have a Firearm Owners Identification card to legally keep firearms or ammunition, according to state police. He is expected to appear in court on June 29 next. Also watch | Denver shooting incident: Gun violence continues to polarise the US US gun killings compared with other countries Data from the CDC shows that homicides accounted for 19,384 deaths in 2020 or 43 per cent of all deaths. The statistic indicates a 75 per cent rise over the previous ten years and a 34 per cent increase from 2019. The statistics show that in the US, a firearm claims close to 53 lives per day. The research also reveals that 79 per cent of homicides were committed using firearms. Rise in mass shootings in the US Data from Washington-based Gun Violence Archive shows that there were more than 600 mass shootings in the United States in 2022 alone, more than twice the 336 mass shootings that were reported four years prior. As defined broadly, a mass shooting is any occurrence in which four or more people—excluding the shooter—are shot or killed. WATCH WION LIVE HERE:

Freak case: US man accidentally shoots himself in sleep while dreaming about burglary, charged

If you’ve slept, perchance you have dreamed about an ex and woken up wondering, “What was that&nbsp;all about?”

The good news for chronic analysers: An intense dream about a person you cared about months or even decades ago doesn’t mean you’re secretly pining for them. Deirdre Barrett, a dream researcher at Harvard University and author of “Pandemic Dreams” and “The Committee of Sleep,” who has a doctorate in clinical psychology, said a number of factors can spark a dream about an ex-partner.

“Triggers can include an anniversary of a death or a breakup or a divorce decree,” she said. “But dreams can also be a reaction to how we feel about our present relationships.”

Instead of looking at dreams about exes as a sign of still being hung up on them or as a signal to look them up on social media, Barrett said to think of them as a chance to examine your current emotions and how you’re coping with them.

“The whole idea that we process deaths or breakups in an ‘all or nothing’ way is deceptive,” Barrett said. “Life is a continuous ‘getting over it.’ These things never fully disappear.”

Here, Barrett and another expert parse the takeaways from three such dreams. To protect the privacy of both parties, we are using first names only for the dreamers and not naming their exes.

An ex-spouse reappears

Andrew, 47, had been divorced for three years when he had a dream about his ex-wife that stuck with him. At the time, Andrew, who is now in another relationship, had been considering reaching out to his ex, to whom he had been married for 10 years, to catch up.

In the dream, he was meeting his sister at his parents’ house for dinner, and they arrived to find his ex-wife in the backyard, sitting calmly at a picnic table. He and his family then went inside the house and looked through a window at his ex-wife.

Andrew said he woke up feeling like he had “dodged a bullet,” and later decided that contacting his ex would be a bad idea.

That Andrew’s dream provided enough insight to change his course of action, Barrett said, supports what is commonly known as continuity hypothesis: A theory that states that anxieties in our dreams may mirror the ones in our waking life.

“He said he’d been thinking it might be reasonable and even pleasant to start getting together with his ex occasionally,” she said. “But something in his dream made him abandon this plan.”

Ian Wallace, a psychologist in Inverness, Scotland, and author of “Decode Your Dreams: Unlock Your Unconscious and Transform Your Waking Life,” was struck by the placid imagery: the calm face of Andrew’s ex and the picnic table.

“The picnic table could symbolize that he now has the opportunity to make things easier and more pleasant for himself,” he said.

Tap dancing for attention

Five years after Zach, 31, broke up with his on-and-off girlfriend of three years in 2014 because of issues related to dating long-distance, he had a dream about them meeting at what Zach described as a “magic academy,” like the one in the TV series “The Magicians.”

The two were on a great lawn, and Zach heard an old phonograph playing what he said might have been a love song in the distance. He began to tap dance, hoping his ex-girlfriend would see him, but she had fallen asleep on a blanket.

Later, he was in a room inside the academy. “All of the rooms are locked by a magical spell that can only be broken by the occupant of the room,” Zach said. When he heard a knock on the door, he opened it to find his ex-girlfriend there.

Zach, who is in another relationship, said he rarely dreams about his ex-girlfriend and that he woke up wishing that he was at the magical academy.

According to Barrett, “each room being locked with a spell only its occupant can break” could be associated with the issues that Zach and his ex faced by dating long-distance. That Zach woke up wishing he was at the academy could suggest an openness to reconnecting. “I wouldn’t be amazed to see this dreamer give it” another chance, she said.

The dream’s mystical quality, Wallace said, suggests that Zach is seeking a perfect relationship. “In waking life, we can sometimes delude ourselves with magical thinking as we try to idealise a romantic relationship rather than engaging with practicalities,” he said.

Rekindling a relationship

Right around the start of the pandemic, Justy, 34, said she started having one or two dreams a month about her ex-husband, whom she divorced in 2014 after two years of marriage.

In one dream, Justy, who is currently single, arrived at a hotel in the area where her ex grew up. There, she discovered that he was getting married to someone else. Soon she was surrounded by his family and friends, who told her that they wished it was her and him getting married again. Then, Justy and her ex were somewhere else, alone. He was holding her and saying that he wanted to be with her.

Justy said the dream stayed with her because of how emotional it felt, despite the fact that she and her ex-husband no longer share romantic feelings.

“I think a big part of why these dreams started during the pandemic is there’s this nostalgia for when I was married,” she said. “I really liked where my life was at and where my career was going.”

The past two years have changed so much about our lives that past relationships may have an added appeal because new ones are harder to imagine, said Barrett. The dream may be more about a nostalgia for a time that her ex represents, rather than the person himself.

“Past relationships may have an added appeal as brand-new ones are harder to initiate right now” because of the pandemic, she said.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

If you’ve slept, perchance you have dreamed about an ex and woken up wondering, “What was that all about?” The good news for chronic analysers: An intense dream about a person you cared about months or even decades ago doesn’t mean you’re secretly pining for them.

If you’ve slept, perchance you have dreamed about an ex and woken up wondering, “What was that all about?” The good news for chronic analysers: An intense dream about a person you cared about months or even decades ago doesn’t mean you’re secretly pining for them. Deirdre Barrett, a dream researcher at Harvard University and author of “Pandemic Dreams” and “The Committee of Sleep,” who has a doctorate in clinical psychology, said a number of factors can spark a dream about an ex-partner. “Triggers can include an anniversary of a death or a breakup or a divorce decree,” she said. “But dreams can also be a reaction to how we feel about our present relationships.” Instead of looking at dreams about exes as a sign of still being hung up on them or as a signal to look them up on social media, Barrett said to think of them as a chance to examine your current emotions and how you’re coping with them. “The whole idea that we process deaths or breakups in an ‘all or nothing’ way is deceptive,” Barrett said. “Life is a continuous ‘getting over it.’ These things never fully disappear.” Here, Barrett and another expert parse the takeaways from three such dreams. To protect the privacy of both parties, we are using first names only for the dreamers and not naming their exes. An ex-spouse reappears Andrew, 47, had been divorced for three years when he had a dream about his ex-wife that stuck with him. At the time, Andrew, who is now in another relationship, had been considering reaching out to his ex, to whom he had been married for 10 years, to catch up. In the dream, he was meeting his sister at his parents’ house for dinner, and they arrived to find his ex-wife in the backyard, sitting calmly at a picnic table. He and his family then went inside the house and looked through a window at his ex-wife. Andrew said he woke up feeling like he had “dodged a bullet,” and later decided that contacting his ex would be a bad idea. That Andrew’s dream provided enough insight to change his course of action, Barrett said, supports what is commonly known as continuity hypothesis: A theory that states that anxieties in our dreams may mirror the ones in our waking life. “He said he’d been thinking it might be reasonable and even pleasant to start getting together with his ex occasionally,” she said. “But something in his dream made him abandon this plan.” Ian Wallace, a psychologist in Inverness, Scotland, and author of “Decode Your Dreams: Unlock Your Unconscious and Transform Your Waking Life,” was struck by the placid imagery: the calm face of Andrew’s ex and the picnic table. “The picnic table could symbolize that he now has the opportunity to make things easier and more pleasant for himself,” he said. Tap dancing for attention Five years after Zach, 31, broke up with his on-and-off girlfriend of three years in 2014 because of issues related to dating long-distance, he had a dream about them meeting at what Zach described as a “magic academy,” like the one in the TV series “The Magicians.” The two were on a great lawn, and Zach heard an old phonograph playing what he said might have been a love song in the distance. He began to tap dance, hoping his ex-girlfriend would see him, but she had fallen asleep on a blanket. Later, he was in a room inside the academy. “All of the rooms are locked by a magical spell that can only be broken by the occupant of the room,” Zach said. When he heard a knock on the door, he opened it to find his ex-girlfriend there. Zach, who is in another relationship, said he rarely dreams about his ex-girlfriend and that he woke up wishing that he was at the magical academy. According to Barrett, “each room being locked with a spell only its occupant can break” could be associated with the issues that Zach and his ex faced by dating long-distance. That Zach woke up wishing he was at the academy could suggest an openness to reconnecting. “I wouldn’t be amazed to see this dreamer give it” another chance, she said. The dream’s mystical quality, Wallace said, suggests that Zach is seeking a perfect relationship. “In waking life, we can sometimes delude ourselves with magical thinking as we try to idealise a romantic relationship rather than engaging with practicalities,” he said. Rekindling a relationship Right around the start of the pandemic, Justy, 34, said she started having one or two dreams a month about her ex-husband, whom she divorced in 2014 after two years of marriage. In one dream, Justy, who is currently single, arrived at a hotel in the area where her ex grew up. There, she discovered that he was getting married to someone else. Soon she was surrounded by his family and friends, who told her that they wished it was her and him getting married again. Then, Justy and her ex were somewhere else, alone. He was holding her and saying that he wanted to be with her. Justy said the dream stayed with her because of how emotional it felt, despite the fact that she and her ex-husband no longer share romantic feelings. “I think a big part of why these dreams started during the pandemic is there’s this nostalgia for when I was married,” she said. “I really liked where my life was at and where my career was going.” The past two years have changed so much about our lives that past relationships may have an added appeal because new ones are harder to imagine, said Barrett. The dream may be more about a nostalgia for a time that her ex represents, rather than the person himself. “Past relationships may have an added appeal as brand-new ones are harder to initiate right now” because of the pandemic, she said. This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

Why we dream about past loves

The swarm of insects — sometimes gnats, sometimes wasps or flying ants — arrived early in this year of nightmares. With summer came equally unsettling dreams: of being caught in a crowd, naked and mask-less; of meeting men in white lab coats who declared, “We dispose of the elders.”

Autumn has brought still other haunted-house dramas, particularly for women caring for a vulnerable relative or trying to manage virtual home-schooling.

“I am home-schooling my 10-year-old,” one mother told researchers in a recent study of pandemic dreams. “I dreamed that the school contacted me to say it had been decided that his whole class would come to my home and I was supposed to teach all of them for however long the school remained closed.”

Deirdre Barrett, a psychologist at Harvard Medical School and author of “Pandemic Dreams,” has administered dream surveys to thousands of people in the last year, including the one with the home-schooling mother. “At least qualitatively, you see some shifts in content of dreams from the beginning of the pandemic into the later months,” Barrett said. “It’s an indication of what is worrying people most at various points during the year.”

Barrett is editor-in-chief of the journal Dreaming, which in its September issue posted four new reports on how the sleeping brain has incorporated the threat of COVID-19. The findings reinforce current thinking about the way that waking anxiety plays out during REM sleep: in images or metaphors representing the most urgent worries, whether these involve catching the coronavirus (those clouds of insects) or violating mask-wearing protocols.

Taken together, the papers also hint at an answer to a larger question: What is the purpose of dreaming, if any?

The answers that science has on offer can seem mutually exclusive, or near so. Freud understood dreams as wish fulfillment; Finnish psychologist Antti Revonsuo saw them as simulations of pending threats. In recent years, brain scientists have argued that REM sleep — the period of sleep during which most dreaming occurs — bolsters creative thinking, learning and emotional health, providing a kind of unconscious psychotherapy.

Then again, there is some evidence that dreaming serves little or no psychological purpose — that it is no more than a “tuning of the mind in preparation for awareness,” as J. Allan Hobson, a Harvard psychiatrist, has said.

The four new studies are rooted in a more straightforward idea called the continuity hypothesis. This framework holds that the content of dreams simply reflects what people thought, felt and did during the day — the good and the bad, the hopeful and the frightening. In one study, Cassidy MacKay and Teresa DeCicco of Trent University in Canada compared dream journals kept by students in the first two weeks of the spread of the coronavirus in North America with the journals of students logged before anyone had heard of COVID-19.

The researchers categorized each image, using a standardized measure, into types such as body parts, animals, food and medical objects. The differences in the early pandemic logs jumped out.

“People were clearly thinking about coronavirus-related events, like waiting in grocery lines, and had heads in their dreams, the body part associated with catching and spreading the virus,” DeCicco said.

People with persistent waking anxieties also tended to play out scenarios involving future work, relationships and life generally in their heads over the course of a day. Previous research has correlated this pattern to scene-shifting in dreams: the frequent changing of the setting, from indoors to outdoors, city to country, mountains to coast. MacKay and DeCicco found that dreamers during the first phase of the pandemic recorded far more such shifts in their REM mini-dramas.

“These are classic anxiety dreams,” DeCicco said.

In another of the studies, Barrett recruited nearly 3,000 people online to track, describe and write about their dreams. She assessed the content of those essays, using a language-analysis algorithm that maps words onto categories like “anger,” “sadness,” “body,” “health” and “death.” These dreams, too, had all the hallmarks of heightened waking anxiety, but emotions like anger and sadness were much more prevalent among women than men.

“I wasn’t expecting this, but the findings suggest to me this idea that men are mainly experiencing fear of getting sick and dying, health fears,” Barrett said. “Women have been weathering more secondary effects; they tend to be the ones nursing sick family members, more often than males, for instance.”

Not all the dreams, in either study, were infused with darkness and fear, and many were pleasant, involving reunions with friends or family, or featuring the containment and elimination of the virus. They included wishes and threats, healthy measures and mistakes, and adjustments to news of the spread: learning and emotional processing. There were also periodic injections of hope.

In short, the studies suggest that dreaming does not serve just one purpose but many.

For everyday dreamers during the pandemic, it may be enough to know that COVID-19 nightmares, like any others, tend to be emotionally over-the-top. “It was scary in the dream, but you wake up and it’s funny,” Barrett said. “The crisis is smaller than you thought.”

The whole class of schoolchildren isn’t invading your house. The hazmat suits aren’t standing outside the door. We may get through this after all.

 
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The swarm of insects — sometimes gnats, sometimes wasps or flying ants — arrived early in this year of nightmares. With summer came equally unsettling dreams: of being caught in a crowd, naked and mask-less; of meeting men in white lab coats who declared, “We dispose of the elders.

The swarm of insects — sometimes gnats, sometimes wasps or flying ants — arrived early in this year of nightmares. With summer came equally unsettling dreams: of being caught in a crowd, naked and mask-less; of meeting men in white lab coats who declared, “We dispose of the elders.” Autumn has brought still other haunted-house dramas, particularly for women caring for a vulnerable relative or trying to manage virtual home-schooling. “I am home-schooling my 10-year-old,” one mother told researchers in a recent study of pandemic dreams. “I dreamed that the school contacted me to say it had been decided that his whole class would come to my home and I was supposed to teach all of them for however long the school remained closed.” Deirdre Barrett, a psychologist at Harvard Medical School and author of “Pandemic Dreams,” has administered dream surveys to thousands of people in the last year, including the one with the home-schooling mother. “At least qualitatively, you see some shifts in content of dreams from the beginning of the pandemic into the later months,” Barrett said. “It’s an indication of what is worrying people most at various points during the year.” Barrett is editor-in-chief of the journal Dreaming, which in its September issue posted four new reports on how the sleeping brain has incorporated the threat of COVID-19. The findings reinforce current thinking about the way that waking anxiety plays out during REM sleep: in images or metaphors representing the most urgent worries, whether these involve catching the coronavirus (those clouds of insects) or violating mask-wearing protocols. Taken together, the papers also hint at an answer to a larger question: What is the purpose of dreaming, if any? The answers that science has on offer can seem mutually exclusive, or near so. Freud understood dreams as wish fulfillment; Finnish psychologist Antti Revonsuo saw them as simulations of pending threats. In recent years, brain scientists have argued that REM sleep — the period of sleep during which most dreaming occurs — bolsters creative thinking, learning and emotional health, providing a kind of unconscious psychotherapy. Then again, there is some evidence that dreaming serves little or no psychological purpose — that it is no more than a “tuning of the mind in preparation for awareness,” as J. Allan Hobson, a Harvard psychiatrist, has said. The four new studies are rooted in a more straightforward idea called the continuity hypothesis. This framework holds that the content of dreams simply reflects what people thought, felt and did during the day — the good and the bad, the hopeful and the frightening. In one study, Cassidy MacKay and Teresa DeCicco of Trent University in Canada compared dream journals kept by students in the first two weeks of the spread of the coronavirus in North America with the journals of students logged before anyone had heard of COVID-19. The researchers categorized each image, using a standardized measure, into types such as body parts, animals, food and medical objects. The differences in the early pandemic logs jumped out. “People were clearly thinking about coronavirus-related events, like waiting in grocery lines, and had heads in their dreams, the body part associated with catching and spreading the virus,” DeCicco said. People with persistent waking anxieties also tended to play out scenarios involving future work, relationships and life generally in their heads over the course of a day. Previous research has correlated this pattern to scene-shifting in dreams: the frequent changing of the setting, from indoors to outdoors, city to country, mountains to coast. MacKay and DeCicco found that dreamers during the first phase of the pandemic recorded far more such shifts in their REM mini-dramas. “These are classic anxiety dreams,” DeCicco said. In another of the studies, Barrett recruited nearly 3,000 people online to track, describe and write about their dreams. She assessed the content of those essays, using a language-analysis algorithm that maps words onto categories like “anger,” “sadness,” “body,” “health” and “death.” These dreams, too, had all the hallmarks of heightened waking anxiety, but emotions like anger and sadness were much more prevalent among women than men. “I wasn’t expecting this, but the findings suggest to me this idea that men are mainly experiencing fear of getting sick and dying, health fears,” Barrett said. “Women have been weathering more secondary effects; they tend to be the ones nursing sick family members, more often than males, for instance.” Not all the dreams, in either study, were infused with darkness and fear, and many were pleasant, involving reunions with friends or family, or featuring the containment and elimination of the virus. They included wishes and threats, healthy measures and mistakes, and adjustments to news of the spread: learning and emotional processing. There were also periodic injections of hope. In short, the studies suggest that dreaming does not serve just one purpose but many. For everyday dreamers during the pandemic, it may be enough to know that COVID-19 nightmares, like any others, tend to be emotionally over-the-top. “It was scary in the dream, but you wake up and it’s funny,” Barrett said. “The crisis is smaller than you thought.” The whole class of schoolchildren isn’t invading your house. The hazmat suits aren’t standing outside the door. We may get through this after all.

What we dream when we dream about COVID-19

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