Covid Dreams

One of the great things I am discovering with drawing is that it is providing another outlet to express my fears and anxiety. While anxiety manifests itself differently in people, mine usually results in insomnia, and then vivid dreams leaving me anxious until I get into starting the day. Since the start of the pandemic, my recurring dream is finding myself in a crowd of unmasked people not being able to find my way home, or find Ken. 

Another dream is that I am returning to work where none of the covid precautions in place are being followed. Nobody is wearing a mask. I am speechless and angry in the dream. I wake up relieved. I don’t see myself as overly neurotic, but I guess we internalize a lot of stress that we aren’t always aware of. I can be mildly amused by some of the craziness in dreams, but not the one I am about to recall.

This dream is far from amusing, and was the most intense yet. I am in another country (it’s not clear where possibly the UK) trying to get home back to my husband. I wake up in dormitory-style accommodation.  I quickly realize that I am in a hospital ward. Some people are laying in bed wearing metal masks, and what seems like long tubes out of them. The people look terrified. I try to comfort one of them; a youngish woman. A nurse instructs me to leave her alone, and to stay away. I ask her what the fuck is going on, and why am I near these people if they have covid... The nurse in a light green uniform tells me I have to stay inside. I said, it is better that we are outside in fresh air away from these people. I tell her to let me the fuck out, but somehow I leave desperately trying to reach one of my brothers to pick me up... 

I awake. All I see in my mind’s eye are the metal masks and tubes. I still feel a frantic urgency to get out. I get up, shower and head out for a much needed run which dispels my waking anxiousness. Few people are around. I pull down my mask, and breathe. 

“Covid Nightmare” charcoal. I drew the eyes staring, big and wide - expressing fear. The lone tear is the pressing want for this to end - she wants to live again. The hair disheveled, long and unkept kind of like the leadership we have had through this. The tube leads to nowhere as we don’t know when this nightmare will end. The jet black mask is nothingness. Death.