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Category: Project

Description: Inspired by the work of Charlotte Beradt who analysed dreams of people in the Third Reich and considering that dreams mirror to some extent everyday experiences, we have collected dreams of Poles (N=102) during the outbreak of war (March 2022). We wanted to identify which emotions conveyed through the dreams of Poles during those anxious times were the most intensive. Moreover, we wanted to investigate differences not only in the intensity of different emotions in the dreams but also content of the dreams between people with high level versus those with low level of anxiety and closely related depression. Most prevailing emotions carried through dreams were surprise, fear and sadness. Interestingly, dreams of participants with higher levels of anxiety did bear less surprise than dreams of the comparison group. In the group with higher level of depression dreams were assessed as conveying more sadness than in the comparison group. In order to better understand the meaning and content of dreams we referred the idea that dreaming is a psychological process of internal analysis of everyday experiences (Gabbard & Ogden, 2009) and that it brings unconscious or unthinkable issues from our memories (Freud, 1901/2012), fuelling our thinking processes (Bion, 1962).