Talking to other people about dream life, mine seems very vivid, or else I just remember it better. I've got a very good memory in general. I usually have two dreams a night, because I wake in the middle of the night, given my age. But none of the dreams are at all happy. I don't think I've ever had a happy dream. They're usually very unpleasant, and I'm very worried and anxious in them. Other people seem to have happy dreams. But it’s been like that as long as I can remember, for about the last ten yrears. I can't really remember what it was like before then, although that's very odd, isn't it? We don't remember our early dreams. And yet we remember our early life much better as I grow older.

My dreams last—not all of the dream, but elements of them last—for about an hour after I've woken up. I’d really like to get rid of them.

I have noticed changes [since the pandemic began]. The format is more or less the same. It's boringly similar night after night, so much so that when I'm in the dreams, I'm often thinking I've been in this place before. And yet I still can't remember how to get out or wherever. But now what’s happened before was that objects in the dreams weren't necessarily objects in my daily life. So, for example, in my dreams before COVID, I am never wearing glasses and yet I had worn glasses all my life. Whereas now what happens in the COVID dreams is that the objects and the dreams are definitely COVID objects. I dream about masks. Not every night, but often. And the other people are now actually quite disturbing. Proximity. Numbers in proximity, lots of strange people.

In my anxiety dreams, I play a much more major role. I mean, in dreams, we're always ourselves. But in dreams, we seem to need to go beyond ourselves in order to get out of where we are or in order to accomplish something. And we seem to lack that power, and that's what the dream's about. Whereas now in my dreams, I don't feature in such a major way. These other people are there more often now. I'm still pretty powerless in my dreams as I was. But before it was always my problem. Now, it's other people.

The one the COVID dream that was most disturbing, I suppose, was one of my usual dreams, which is that I'm trying to get home, usually from somewhere that I don't know particularly well. This is usually where I've given a conference paper or somewhere I've been invited to go. So, all the arrangements have been made by other people, hotels and travel and so on. So now I'm in this place, which I don’t know and I'm trying to get home. And for some reason, I'm trying to get home on buses. And that involves changing buses, one route to another route. This is the extra complication, and I don’t know the numbers, and I don’t know whether the buses will stop where I think they ought to stop, and so on.

That's a very common dream, but I was managing. And now it involves being very worried because I have to stop at a bus stop where there're going to be lots of people quequing to get on the buses. And I have to then change to another bus, where there’s going to be more people quequing

to get on the bus. And I can't find any space for me that is secure enough on the buses, let alone that I don't even know if I'm on the right bus to get home. And then I usually wake up. Thank goodness.

Sometimes I might be on some kind of train and before the difficulty would be, for example, the train would go through water. Like, I was on a fairground ride and the water would come all over the train. In those dreams, it was very reassuring to be sitting alongside someone, you know, to have someone near me. But now it's not reassuring. The source of comfort becomes the source of fear and contagion.

They're never people I know, but in the dream, I seem to have met them at the conference perhaps. It's as if I'm supposed to know them. Names don't seem to come up, but faces, I sort of recognize. But now that's not the case. Now they're not wearing masks. That's the worrying thing. Or whether I'm wearing a mask or I've lost it.

I have this feeling in the dream that I must say something. That's the other thing: in my dreams, generally, I'm not really able to talk very well, if at all. And that's odd because I'm actually very good at talking strangers. And in my dreams, I’m really not. It's very, very difficult. And now of course it's ten-times worse. What I want to say is, “Where's your masks?” And I want say, “Can you help me with the bus numbers?” But somehow I can’t talk to them. I'm actually pretty good at telling people to put their masks on in my daily life.

Sometimes in my dreams, I think “I've been here before. I should know the way out.” Or if I'm trying to find a particular place, I think, “I should remember this because I've been here before.” There's definitely double consciousness. As I'm coming out of the dream, as I said, remnants are still there, but I can actually see the room I'm in. I can see the light, and I sort of know I’m in this weird halfway place and I want to go back to the dream. Really, I want to go back to sleep because I wake early. And so, I try, but not usually successfully.

The places are a bit different and the embarrassment of things happening in them before Covid was always sort of slightly different each time. Sometimes I'm half undressed, which is absolutely classic. I'm usually missing my bottom half, so I have to then hide in some way. You know, take off a jacket and put it on the bottom half of me or something like that.

I never know whether these things are my fault, but I feel they're my fault in the dream. It's because I haven't looked after my handbag properly that I can't find it now. If my phone and my credit cards and everything are missing, or if I'm not adequately dressed, it's something to do with me. It's my fault. There's guilt there and shame, which again, I think is supposed to be very common.

I don't think I've had the dream about being half naked since COVID, but you know it might be because I don't go out—because I'm isolating. So, I'm not actually dressing to meet with other people. There could be all sorts of obvious good reasons for that, but I don't dream about being half dressed anymore. I do dream about having to get home, but I can't get out.

Last night for example, I had a dream where I was in a room in a strange house. I'd been put there. It wasn't unpleasant—it was quite a pleasant room. I'd been put there. It had been booked for me by somebody. And I now had to get home, and I packed my bag, and I was dressed and so on. And then I looked down at myself, and my clothes [were] shabby. I was wearing slippers, and I hadn't got my mask. And so, I unpacked my bag, and I tried to find this mask, and it wasn't there. And I opened the door, and I couldn't get out of the room. I was completely stuck on the threshold of the room, because I hadn't got my mask, I suppose. And there was an element of shame because I hadn't got the mask.

It is a bit like other dreams where you lack this power. You are yourself in the dream, but you somehow lack a power to move on, to get where you need to go. It was a hotel. I was conscious it was a hotel in my dream. But I have no idea why, particularly, except the room was fairly bare. It was just a bed. And a wardrobe. I was ready to leave but I was not able to get across the threshold. I tried to call out, but I couldn’t. I can never call out in my dreams. I can't make any noise, so I just couldn't leave. I couldn't leave the room at all. I couldn't get over the threshold. Anyway, then I woke up.

I could see a different colored carpet on the other side of the threshold. I do have color in my dreams a lot, which I think is not necessarily true of everyone.

I've never been psychoanalyzed. I've never had a single session. Everyone I know has, but I just haven't needed to. It may account for my dreams, actually. I mean, the fact that I don't get depressed in daily life ever. I mean, I get fed up, but not the kind of depression where people are unable to get out of bed.

I think anxious people don't realize how anxious they are, or the extent. And in fact, it's only my partner who says I'm very anxious. And now that he's pointed out all of these anxiety things, I know I am anxious, but before I just thought they were perfectly natural: the fact that I always get to meetings early, the fact that I always get to appointments early. I thought was good practice. But actually, why do I get to a film half an hour before it starts? I’m told now that actually that's quite an anxious person, but that never occurred to me before.

I've just written my first novel, and in that novel, the character, my hero becomes more and more like me, which apparently is totally standard for first novels. She's actually a very anxious person and people who've read the novel have said, “Oh, she's an anxious person,” but actually she's just like me. Except it's an historical novel. I make very good lists. I am always on time. I'm incredibly organized, so I never need to be anxious. I hold it off. I keep it at bay. And so, I suppose it comes out in dreams. I become the thing in the dreams, my inability to control the anxiety, all the anxiety and helplessness and lack of control. It's all there.

No one talks about their dreams. Most people find it very boring to listen to other people's dreams, so this is quite special for me. Thank you. Of course I say, “Oh, I had this dream last night” and then you can see whoever you're talking to is trying to be nice but they're really bored. This is actually very nice to talk about dreams. It would also be nice if I can be rid of them this way. So maybe by just talking about them tonight I might have a happy dream. That would be lovely.