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Previous research indicates that the COVID-19 pandemic has affected dreaming negatively. We compared 1132 dreams collected with prospective two-week dream diary during the pandemic to 166 dreams collected before the pandemic. We hypothesized that the pandemic would increase the number of threatening events, threats related to diseases, and the severity of threats. We also hypothesized that dreams that include direct references to the pandemic will include more threatening events, more disease-related threats, and more severe threats. In contradiction with our hypotheses, results showed no differences between pandemic and pre-pandemic samples in the number of threats, threats related to diseases, or severe threats. However, dreams with direct references to the pandemic had more threats, disease-related threats, and severe threats. Our results thus do not suggest a significant overall increase in nightmarish or threatening dream content during the pandemic but show a more profound effect on a minority of dreams., CC BY 4.0 DEED© 2024 The AuthorsCorrespondence Address: V. Loukola; Department of Psychology and Speech-Language Pathology, University of Turku, Turku, Assistentinkatu 7, FIN-20014, Finland; email: vitalo@utu.fi; CODEN: COCOFThis work was supported by research grants from Signe and Ane Gyllenberg Foundation (grant numbers 5306 and 5774), TOP Foundation (grant number 20210206) and Turku University Foundation (grant numbers 080985 and 081199) (V.L).

Previous research indicates that the COVID-19 pandemic has affected dreaming negatively. We compared 1132 dreams collected with prospective two-week dream diary during the pandemic to 166 dreams collected before the pandemic. We hypothesized that the pandemic would increase the number of threatening events, threats related to diseases, and the severity of threats. We also hypothesized that dreams that include direct references to the pandemic will include more threatening events, more disease-related threats, and more severe threats. In contradiction with our hypotheses, results showed no differences between pandemic and pre-pandemic samples in the number of threats, threats related to diseases, or severe threats. However, dreams with direct references to the pandemic had more threats, disease-related threats, and severe threats. Our results thus do not suggest a significant overall increase in nightmarish or threatening dream content during the pandemic but show a more profound effect on a minority of dreams., CC BY 4.0 DEED© 2024 The AuthorsCorrespondence Address: V. Loukola; Department of Psychology and Speech-Language Pathology, University of Turku, Turku, Assistentinkatu 7, FIN-20014, Finland; email: vitalo@utu.fi; CODEN: COCOFThis work was supported by research grants from Signe and Ane Gyllenberg Foundation (grant numbers 5306 and 5774), TOP Foundation (grant number 20210206) and Turku University Foundation (grant numbers 080985 and 081199) (V.L).

Previous research indicates that the COVID-19 pandemic has affected dreaming negatively. We compared 1132 dreams collected with prospective two-week dream diary during the pandemic to 166 dreams collected before the pandemic. We hypothesized that the pandemic would increase the number of threatening events, threats related to diseases, and the severity of threats. We also hypothesized that dreams that include direct references to the pandemic will include more threatening events, more disease-related threats, and more severe threats. In contradiction with our hypotheses, results showed no differences between pandemic and pre-pandemic samples in the number of threats, threats related to diseases, or severe threats. However, dreams with direct references to the pandemic had more threats, disease-related threats, and severe threats. Our results thus do not suggest a significant overall increase in nightmarish or threatening dream content during the pandemic but show a more profound effect on a minority of dreams., CC BY 4.0 DEED© 2024 The AuthorsCorrespondence Address: V. Loukola; Department of Psychology and Speech-Language Pathology, University of Turku, Turku, Assistentinkatu 7, FIN-20014, Finland; email: vitalo@utu.fi; CODEN: COCOFThis work was supported by research grants from Signe and Ane Gyllenberg Foundation (grant numbers 5306 and 5774), TOP Foundation (grant number 20210206) and Turku University Foundation (grant numbers 080985 and 081199) (V.L).

Previous research indicates that the COVID-19 pandemic has affected dreaming negatively. We compared 1132 dreams collected with prospective two-week dream diary during the pandemic to 166 dreams collected before the pandemic. We hypothesized that the pandemic would increase the number of threatening events, threats related to diseases, and the severity of threats. We also hypothesized that dreams that include direct references to the pandemic will include more threatening events, more disease-related threats, and more severe threats. In contradiction with our hypotheses, results showed no differences between pandemic and pre-pandemic samples in the number of threats, threats related to diseases, or severe threats. However, dreams with direct references to the pandemic had more threats, disease-related threats, and severe threats. Our results thus do not suggest a significant overall increase in nightmarish or threatening dream content during the pandemic but show a more profound effect on a minority of dreams., CC BY 4.0 DEED© 2024 The AuthorsCorrespondence Address: V. Loukola; Department of Psychology and Speech-Language Pathology, University of Turku, Turku, Assistentinkatu 7, FIN-20014, Finland; email: vitalo@utu.fi; CODEN: COCOFThis work was supported by research grants from Signe and Ane Gyllenberg Foundation (grant numbers 5306 and 5774), TOP Foundation (grant number 20210206) and Turku University Foundation (grant numbers 080985 and 081199) (V.L).

Previous research indicates that the COVID-19 pandemic has affected dreaming negatively. We compared 1132 dreams collected with prospective two-week dream diary during the pandemic to 166 dreams collected before the pandemic. We hypothesized that the pandemic would increase the number of threatening events, threats related to diseases, and the severity of threats. We also hypothesized that dreams that include direct references to the pandemic will include more threatening events, more disease-related threats, and more severe threats. In contradiction with our hypotheses, results showed no differences between pandemic and pre-pandemic samples in the number of threats, threats related to diseases, or severe threats. However, dreams with direct references to the pandemic had more threats, disease-related threats, and severe threats. Our results thus do not suggest a significant overall increase in nightmarish or threatening dream content during the pandemic but show a more profound effect on a minority of dreams., CC BY 4.0 DEED© 2024 The AuthorsCorrespondence Address: V. Loukola; Department of Psychology and Speech-Language Pathology, University of Turku, Turku, Assistentinkatu 7, FIN-20014, Finland; email: vitalo@utu.fi; CODEN: COCOFThis work was supported by research grants from Signe and Ane Gyllenberg Foundation (grant numbers 5306 and 5774), TOP Foundation (grant number 20210206) and Turku University Foundation (grant numbers 080985 and 081199) (V.L).

Despite a surge of studies on the effects of COVID-19 on our well-being, we know little about how the pandemic is reflected in people's spontaneous thoughts and experiences, such as mind-wandering (or daydreaming) during wakefulness and dreaming during sleep. We investigated whether and how COVID-19-related general concern, anxiety, and daily worry are associated with the daily fluctuation of the affective quality of mind-wandering and dreaming, and to what extent these associations can be explained by poor sleep quality. We used ecological momentary assessment by asking participants to rate the affect they experienced during mind-wandering and dreaming in daily logs over a 2-week period. Our preregistered analyses based on 1,755 dream logs from 172 individuals and 1,496 mind-wandering logs from 152 individuals showed that, on days when people reported higher levels of negative affect and lower levels of positive affect during mind-wandering, they experienced more worry. Only daily sleep quality was associated with affect experienced during dreaming at the within-person level: on nights with poorer sleep quality people reported experiencing more negative and less positive affect in dreams and were more likely to experience nightmares. However, at the between-person level, individuals who experienced more daily COVID-19 worry during the study period also reported experiencing more negative affect during mind-wandering and during dreaming. As such, the continuity between daily and nightly experiences seems to rely more on stable trait-like individual differences in affective processing. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)., Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Pilleriin Sikka, Department of Psychology, Stanford University, 450 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford, CA 94305, United States. Email: sikka@stanford.edu