How the pandemic sabotages sleep: Psychoanalyst explains why you're having vivid dreams amid the coronavirus crisis

For millions of people around the world dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, sleep brings no relief.

The horrors of COVID-19, and the surreal and frightening ways it has upended daily life, are infecting dreams and exposing feelings of fear, loss, isolation and grief that transcend culture, language and national boundaries.

Psychoanalyst Dr. Claudia Luiz joined ABC7 for a discussion of why so many people have reported vivid and sometimes bizarre dreams while experiencing periods of isolation amid coronavirus restrictions.

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Such dreams "come from day residue," Luiz said. "So when you have something in your day that your conscious brain can't process, then you're going to dream about it at night, which is how your mind kind of organizes itself."

Noting that most people's day residue is different from normal, Luiz said "we've got a lot of helpless feelings, we've got a lot of grief and we have a tremendous amount of frustration."

Thus our day residue is collecting matters that we don't typically deal with.

For more on this topic, visit Luiz's website, claudialuiz.com.