The Dreamer Without a Dream: The Patterns of Displaced Localization of Subjectivity in Somatic Patients (Based on the COVID-19 Pandemic)

DOI: 10.33876/2311-0546/2023-4/207-216

Abstract

In recent years, one of the most striking manifestations of public interest in the topic of dreams on the part of so-called modern cultures has been COVID dreams which dreamers consider to be significantly different from their usual oneiric patterns. Dreamers themselves, as well as dream social researchers, attribute these changes which became widespread during the COVID-19 pandemic, both to increased manifestations of stress and anxiety due to social restrictions and quarantine measures, and to the direct effect of the virus on brain activity. The author identifies the latter as a key characteristic of COVID dreams and the numerous stories that appeared in mass media, social networks and dream blogs in the early 2020s, and concludes that social situations of dream sharing facilitate social identification but implicitly shift the locus of subjectivity of the dreamer. Thus, the corona-infected dreamer and dream-teller find themselve in a paradoxical position in which their own dream does not fully belong to them.