Published last January in the journal Nature and Science of Sleepthe first international study on the dream activity of people affected by Covid-19 demonstrated that the latter were more prone to nightmares, as reported by the magazine Top Health this Monday.
Carried out between May and July 2020 by specialists in sleep practicing in 14 different countries, this study is the result of a comparative analysis of the frequency of dreams and nightmares in 1,088 people. Half of them, or 544, were infected with the virus. According to the study, this results in a 50% increase in the frequency of nightmares among infected people, compared to 35% for others due to the anxiety-provoking context linked to the pandemic.
A causal link between severe forms and nightmares
Contacted by our colleagues, Professor Charles Morin, researcher at the Laval School of Psychology and co-author of the study, affirms that the severity of the variant contracted can also have an impact on the quality of sleep. In fact, the severe forms being likely to lead to traumatic events such as hospitalization or long isolation, the risk of having nightmares increases: “What happens at night is a direct extension of what we experience during the day”, explains the professor.
According to a Synadiet and Harris Interactive poll published in November 2020, nearly one in two French people said that the quality of their sleep had deteriorated since the start of the pandemic.
