The stuff that nightmares are made of: Israeli dreams in times of the Israel-Hamas war

Abstract

This qualitative study explored the mortality salience effect as it manifested in the dreams of Israelis in the aftermath of the Hamas terror attack on October 7, 2023, and during the ensuing war. Over a two-month period, a sample of 242 dreams was collected via an online survey. Two forms of thematic analysis, namely, inductive and deductive, were utilized. Viewed through the theoretical lens of terror management theory, the findings suggest that exposure to the attack’s horrors and the resulting strong mortality salience were reflected in the participants’ dream contents. This indicates that the anxiety-buffering roles of the three psychological coping mechanisms—cultural worldviews, self-esteem, and close personal relationships—have been compromised. The examination of collective dream content offers a glimpse into subtle human psychic processes and how they might be affected during times of national trauma that necessitate robust psychological mechanisms to cope with the heightened mortality salience.