COVID in Mind is an ambitious research project aimed at understanding the effects of the Coronavirus pandemic on dreaming and mind-wandering. This study also seeks to gain insight into the interplay between dreaming, mind-wandering, and mental wellbeing beyond the pandemic. We are currently engaged in a large scale, international data gathering effort, collecting dream and mind-wandering reports from Australia, Finland and the United Kingdom. Our ever-expanding group of researchers is made up of scientists and philosophers spread across 4 different continents. 

See here for an in-depth discussion about the project by Dr Jenniffer Windt.

Click here if you wish to be a volunteer in this study.

People

Tristan Bekinschtein is a biologist, Master in Neurophysiology and PhD in Neuroscience, Buenos Aires University. In 2011 he founded the Consciousness and Cognition Lab at the Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge. He is a Wellcome Trust Fellow and a Turing Fellow. Tristan works on the cognitive neuroscience of consciousness, primarily on the fragmentation of cognition as we lose consciousness while falling asleep or getting sedated; on the cognitive and neural differences between conscious states; and on the interaction between attention and consciousness in health and disease.

Alejandro Ezquerro-Nassar recently completed a PhD in Psychology at the Consciousness and Cognition Lab, University of Cambridge (2021). His research involves the use of EEG and statistical modelling techniques to investigate the neural-cognitive dynamics of the sleep onset period as well as the phenomenology of hypnagogic states. He also serves as Research Impact Manager for Dream in Cosmos, generating and maintaining collaborations between researchers and artists. He currently supervises the knowledge transfer and public engagement activities for the Dream in Cosmos group.

Manuela Kirberg is a PhD candidate in the Philosophy & Cognition Lab at Monash University (Melbourne, Australia). Her research focuses on spontaneous offline cognition, especially identifying differences and common features of phenomenal consciousness in dreaming and waking mind wandering. Where most research assumes sharp wake-sleep differentiations and distinctions between conscious states, Manuela’s work investigates the extent to which spontaneous mental activity is state-independent, cutting across the behavioural states of wakefulness and sleep as commonly defined.

Natalia Mota is Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro. She has pioneered methods in computational psychiatry, applying graph theory to narrative analysis for clinical evaluation, and as cognitive markers for typical development. She applies computational analysis to dream reports and their neural mechanisms. She was shortlisted by Nature as an Inspiring Scientist in 2019, and is the recipient for the 2018 Abril & DASA Prize for Medical Innovation, and 2017 SUS – Brazil’s Ministry of Health Prize.

Valdas Noreika is Lecturer in Psychology at Queen Mary University of London. His research centres on neurocognitive processes occurring during the transition between different states of consciousness, such as wakefulness, sleep, dreaming, and sedation. He largely focuses on auditory and time perception, and in addition to altered states of consciousness his other research interest is time processing in ADHD and autism. More recently, Valdas started working on religious and environmental beliefs.

Antti Revonsuo is Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at University of Skövde, Sweden, and Professor of Psychology at University of Turku, Finland. The central idea in his work has been that both dreaming and consciousness are “world-simulations” constructed by the brain (Revonsuo 2006, Inner Presence). He has developed dream theories about the evolutionary function of dreaming as simulation of threatening events (Threat Simulation Theory, Revonsuo 2000) and as simulation of social perception and interaction

Pilleriin Sikka is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Psychology at Stanford University, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Psychology at the University of Turku (Finland), and a senior lecturer in cognitive neuroscience in the Department of Cognitive Neuroscience and Philosophy at the University of Skövde (Sweden). Pilleriin has received several prestigious research (e.g., Postdoctoral Reseach Award from the Finnish Foundations' Post Doc Pool) and teaching awards as well as national and international research grants (as PI).

Jarno Tuominen is a PhD student at the University of Turku. He is also senior researcher in the CLIMATE-NUDGE STN project: Nudging for climate: Using behavioral sciences for steering communities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and fortify carbon sinks. His areas of expertise include consciousness, dreaming, social interaction, subjective time, and behavioural insights.

Katja Valli is an adjunct professor of psychology at the Department of Psychology and Speech-Language Pathology, University of Turku, Finland, and an associate professor of cognitive neuroscience at the Department of Cognitive Neuroscience and Philosophy, University of Skövde, Sweden. Her research focuses on altered states of consciousness, mainly sleep, dreaming, and anesthesia. She has served as the president, vice-president and board member of the International Association for the Study of Dreams, and as a treasurer of the Finnish Sleep Research Society.

Jennifer Windt is a senior research fellow in philosophy at Monash University. Her research focuses on spontaneous thoughts and experiences including dreams and mind wandering. She investigates similarities and differences across sleep and wakefulness to address questions in philosophy of mind and consciousness science. She is the author of Dreaming (2015, MIT Press) and co-founder and editor-in-chief of the open access journal Philosophy and the Mind Sciences. Her research is funded by the Australian Research Council and the National Health and Medical Research Council.

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