Ever had a dream so vivid that when you woke up it took you a couple of minutes to realise that it was just a dream? Having an occasional strange dream isn't unusual, even those rare nightmares that leave you frightened out of your wits are generally considered to be normal. However, ever since governments around the world began instituting strict lockdowns in reaction to the COVID 19 Pandemic, there has been a noticeable rise in people reporting frequent vivid dreams. Personally, I began experiencing this phenomenon in my first week of lockdown, and it was only when I spoke to some of my friends about it did I realise I was not the only one. It left me quite curious about how and why we dream in general, but moreover, what is it about being in enforced lockdown that causes such a widespread phenomenon of vivid dreaming? To answer these questions, in today’s episode we will be speaking to Dr Zahid Padamsey, a neuroscientist and post-doctoral research fellow at The University of Edinburgh.