In his study, Stickgold said that you can infer how well you're processing a traumatic event by looking at your dreams. "If, in your dreams, you are still seeing specific traumatic images... then it means that these stressful events are not being adequately processed," he explained. In other words, when Serena dreamt that she was developing COVID-19 symptoms and being ostracised as a result, that's a red flag for ongoing stress."If you’re seeing tangential events in your dreams, it indicates that your brain is trying to make sense of the trauma and that you are coping successfully," he adds. If Serena's dreams shift to scenarios where she comes down with something other than COVID-19, for instance, or winds up in a hospital but isn't sick herself, that could be a sign that she's moving on.