South Africans are dreaming about divorce, Google data shows

South Africa is among the top five countries in the world where the Google search for “divorce dream” has been conducted.

That’s the word from dream insights platform ThePleasantDream.com, which recently analysed Google data and found a rise in the search for “divorce dreams”.

ThePleasantDream says the data revealed a 50% rise in the search query of “divorce dream”.

“The sudden spike of the query shows that people might be thinking about divorce and getting dreams about the same,” said ThePleasantDream in a statement.

Google trends data shows South Africa, the US, UK, Canada and India as the top five countries where the search query for “divorce dream” was high in the past 12 months.

However, Stats SA data showed a decrease of 32.1% in the number of divorces processed in 2020 compared to the previous year. In 2019 Stats SA received and processed 23,710 divorce forms, while in 2020 it received and processed 16,097.

The decline has been attributed to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Psychiatrist Dr Nereida Gonzalez-Berrios said: “Our relationships are closely knotted to our emotions, subconsciously affecting our minds and resulting in dreams and nightmares.

“A divorce is a stressful, traumatising event that can disrupt one’s sleep and dream patterns.

“Divorce dreams represent a mental state that is completely opposite to the scenario of a harmonious marital relationship. It symbolises one’s fear of being cheated, fear of confronting a cheating partner or being involved in adultery.

“A person might be fearful that their partner is getting bored of them and might soon leave them.

“Divorce dreams reflect the deep insecurity that someone’s partner is cheating on them or is attracted to someone else. It may also symbolise that the person is aware that their partner has cheated on them.”

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