As clear as day is the previously noted jump in sleep troubles as the pandemic began. While this fluctuated through 2020 and into 2021 levels stayed significantly above pre-pandemic levels.

This changed in the latter half of 2021 as numbers sharply dropped off in September. By the beginning of November things were nearly where they were before Covid-19 upturned our lives. But after a modest rise we got the seasonal January spike, and now levels aren’t far below where they were in summer of last year.

What’s clear is that our sleeping habits are yet to fully recover.

To sleep, perchance to have a horrific nightmare

Even when we can get to sleep, it can often be disrupted by nightmares. In our last analysis, we also found a spike in nightmare reports when the pandemic began. Here’s what the picture looks like now.

While reports of nightmares remained high throughout 2020, we can see there was a gradual decrease across 2021. We then get a January 2022 spike, with nightmare levels not coming down since that point. Although nightmare reports are down 11% for the 2021/22 Feb to March compared to 2020/21, as of last week, we’re seeing the biggest numbers in months.

What’s going on?

While previously it was easy to link Covid and the March 2020 spike, the world is in a very different place now. Sure, Covid-19 will still have an effect, but we’re better equipped to live with it now, both medically and mentally.

Instead we could be seeing a mixture of anxieties causing issues. It would be hard to argue that inflation and the rising cost of living isn’t unsettling people, for example. To get a better idea of what’s causing sleepless nights, we’ve looked at the kinds of nightmares people have reported.

The top three in terms of mention volume, death, school, and falling, have held these same spots over the last three years. This is no surprise with these being incredibly common themes for nightmares no matter what’s going on in the world. Let’s take a closer look at how report levels have changed compared to last year.

War, unsurprisingly, saw the biggest year-on-year increase. The Russo-Ukrainian War has dominated headlines, social media, and attention since February.

Less easily explained is the increase in nightmares involving supernatural beings, such as vampires, ghosts, and demons. The most commonly featured being was the latter. This could be linked to sleep paralysis, which often has sufferers reporting seeing a demon in their room and being unable to move.

Now let’s look at the themes which are less common this year.

Covid-19 nightmares saw the largest fall, which makes sense if we consider the increasing number of people who are vaccinated. On top of that, while Covid-19 is far from gone, we’re far more used to it as a fact of life now.

School and exam related nightmares also saw a sizable drop. We might have expected the opposite with more students attending in-person classes compared to last year, but maybe this has helped reassure them about their performance.

Generally these drops will mostly be explained by the overall fall in nightmares, so we can’t take too much from them though we’re happy fewer people are losing sleep over their teeth. Let’s hope the recent uptick in sleep trouble is short lived too.

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The Brandwatch Bulletin team