2020 Volume 18 Issue 1 Pages 1-6
European and American sleep researchers have reported the coronavirus pandemic dream phenomenon, which showed an increase in the number of people who recalled bizarre and vivid nightmares due to psychosocial stress. The main purposes of this study were to report of coronavirus pandemic dreams in three Japanese females and to analyze them based on a diathesis-stress model of nightmare formation. We examined what level’s nightmares caused by the situational emotional stress derived from self-restraint to prevent infection.
Based on our cases, it was considered that the excessive stressful situations caused by the coronavirus pandemic brought idiopathic nightmares to all research collaborators, regardless of diathesis. Due to the invisible features of the new coronavirus, it was suggested that there was a phenomenon that various kinds of unpleasant images（strange sounds, musty smells, insects, etc.）, masks, ventilators, cleaning tools appeared in nightmares. It was also suggested that image rehearsal about stress coping behaviors in dreams might determine the severity of nightmares at a cognitive - emotional level.
