“Has anyone else stumbled onto possible evidence that the universe possesses a finite metaphysical infrastructure occasionally detected by the subconscious?”
—Caity Weaver, The New York Times
More and more it seems the line between dreams and waking life is blurred. The surreal quality of our current, collective waking life experience makes it feel like we are living in a dream, or perhaps awakening into the dream that is this collective reality we are now more actively sharing thanks to the pandemic.
There is a provocative quality to this globally shared experience that, while keeping us physically distant, is also inciting us to connect in intangible yet undeniable ways.
A considerable number of us is waking up, consciously or unconsciously, to this common experience. We are actively or passively, inevitably finding out the latest news of the virus spread and its effects, consciously or unconsciously tapping into a more accessible collective experience that dissipates the illusion that we are solely discrete and separate.
We are waking up to find out the latest number of deaths from the virus, consciously or unconsciously tapping into a more tangible collective experience that reminds us that we are more equal than different, that we are all people who are going to die.
We are all going to die, and we tend to believe in general that only if we “expose ourselves to risks” might we die. We tend to forget that we could die at any moment, in our homes, while sleeping, eating, taking a shower, whatever. When it is our time to die, we are going to die. We are “at risk” of dying simply because we are alive.
The pandemic is not just happening out there, to someone else out there; it is coming to our countries, to our cities, to our towns, to our neighbors, to our loved ones, right to us. The pandemic is driving death home. At a time of social distancing, we sense death at our arm’s length. The current joint experience is putting us all the more in touch with this fact: death will happen to me.
Perhaps we are beginning to deeply recognize death walks hand-in-hand with us always, and loss offers us a practice of dying fundamental to being alive.
Considering and contemplating death in all its forms—change, loss, disconnection, distance, isolation, transition, inconsistency, insecurity, uncertainty, the unfamiliar, the unknown—and becoming more comfortable and at ease with what it evokes in us, is the antidote to our knee-jerk resistance to and denial of it, and is a powerfully transformative practice that greatly enriches our life.⠀
Collectively, at this disquieting time, our dreams are attempting to facilitate just that. We can no longer turn away; the generalized anxiety provoked by the pandemic is infiltrating and manifesting in our dreamtime.
Adapting to restrictions on our mobility and physical proximity to others, our capacity and possibility for presence and connection beyond those limits is noticeably expanding. Our pandemic dreams and related nightmare themes remind us that we are connected.
“[dreamers] replaced fear of the virus with a metaphoric element, such as bugs, zombies, natural disasters, shadowy figures, monsters, or mass shooters. . . . ‘Except for the [dreams of] health-care workers, we don’t see vivid visual imagery of people struggling to breathe on the ventilator. The virus is invisible, and . . . that’s why it’s transformed into so many different things.’”
— Rebecca Renner, National Geographic
Let us not forget that dreams come in the service of our greater health and wholeness, and dreams do not come to tell us what we already know.
Every human dreams. In every cycle of 90 minutes of sleep we dream. We just don’t always remember. During the pandemic, a considerable number of us is waking up to remembering dreams and nightmares with similar themes reminiscent of our waking life ordeal.
We are waking up from our dreams and we are remembering more, noticing more, paying more attention. And we are more impulsed to share our dreams more, to talk about them more, to explore them and marvel about them more.
We may not always be sleeping soundly and thus waking up more, which makes us remember more. We may have less urgency to get out of bed to an alarm and have more time and mental space to remember our dreams and dwell in the memory of them. We may prefer to remember our sleep dreams rather than face the current reality.
It is our dreams’ strangeness that makes them memorable, so that we might pay attention to them, so that we might discover and bring to conscious awareness something that was as of yet unknown.
Nightmares achieve this more readily by scaring us awake and leaving that unshakeable sensation lingering within us for hours or even days. While a strange dream nudges us for our attention, a nightmare startles us into an inescapable confrontation with something that we would rather avoid.
Could this be reversed? Could we be awakening from our waking nightmare into our sleep, with lingering, unshakeable sensations seeping through into our dreams?
As much as we wish we could avoid the discomfort and distress that change and insecurity bring, that death in all its forms inevitably forces us into, it would seem that the atmosphere insists we don’t.
Very particular elements from our waking life appear in our dreams to represent the sensations that the unconscious is inviting us to explore, to evoke the deeper, as of yet unknown elements that we need to recognize and face in order to grow and evolve.
Dreaming about the pandemic, or substitutes that elicit our generalized anxiety about the unknown persuades us to get to know, become familiar and develop greater ease with our challenging feelings and sensations. Our dreams are collectively prompting us to transform our relationship to our vulnerability, inevitable impending loss, and ultimate end.
“Covid-19 has rudely pulled us into a lucid dream in which we’re enrolled in a course on Contemplating Death we never signed up for. . . Daunting as the situation is, for those willing to do the work, the lessons may be both enlightening and immediately applicable. . . Facing one’s deepest fears can bring new freedom. Unwanted as it is, this crisis provides an opportunity to take stock and reinvest in what matters most.”
— Dr. Ira Byock
Indeed the surreality of the Great Pause blurs the lines between sleep and waking dreams, and brings into focus our frail and beautiful human condition. With most of what we were used to now deemed unessential, it would seem like this is a perfect time to get more acquainted with and connect with others through our dream life, our psyche, the collective unconscious, and our collective dreamscape.⠀
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