Talk:Nightmare

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[edit] How to avoid nightmares in the 19th century

From the 1881 Household Cyclopedia.

Great attention is to be paid to regularity and choice of diet. Intemperance of every kind is hurtful, but nothing is more productive of this disease than drinking bad wine.Of eatables those which are most prejudicial are all fat and greasy meats and pastry.These are needed to be avoided, or eaten with caution. The same may be said of salt meats, for which dyspeptic patients have frequently a remarkable predilection, but which are not on that account the less unsuitable.

Moderate exercise contributes in a superior degree to promote the digestion of food and prevent flatulence; those, however, who are necessarily confined to a sedentary occupation, should particularly avoid applying themselves to study or bodily labor immediately after eating. If a strong propensity to sleep should occur after dinner, it will be certainly bettor to indulge it a little, as the process of digestion frequently goes on much better during sleep than when awake.

Going to bed before the usual hour is a frequent cause of night-mare, as it either occasions the patient to sleep too long or to lie long awake in the night. Passing a whole night or part of a night without rest likewise gives birth to the disease, as it occasions the patient, on the succeeding night, to sleep too soundly. Indulging in sleep too late in the morning, is an almost certain method to bring on the paroxysm, and the more frequently it returns, the greater strength it acquires; the propensity to sleep at this time is almost irresistible. Those who are habitually subject to attacks of the night-mare ought never to sleep alone, but should have some person near them, so as to be immediately awakened by their groans and struggles, and the person to whom this office may be entrusted should be instructed to rouse the patient as early as possible, that the paroxysm may not have time to gain strength.

[edit] Nightmare Pictures

It's kind of misleading that there are pictures of people experiencing sleep paralysis when the topic is in fact nightmares. Though the two are similar, they're quite different.

As originally defined by Dr.Johnson ih his Dictionary and understood by Erasmus Darwin, Henry Fuseli, and others, they are the same phenomenon. Jclerman 01:17, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

With all due respect, I have experienced nightmares, night terrors, sleep paralysis, lucid dreams, regular dreams, and a large combination of the above. I have researched dreaming, lucid dreaming, nightmares and insomnia for my psych university studies (as well as for personal interest), read countless articles pertaining to dreams and dream related material, and can tell you that sleep paralysis and nightmares are uncategorically different and that empirical psychological studies recognise them as such. The terms 'sleep paralysis' and 'nightmare' may indeed have had the same meaning at some point in the distant past, but a lot of advances have been made in the area of dream research over the past 15 years. I really can't stress how incredibly inaccurate it is to use the terms 'sleep paralysis' and 'nightmare' interchangably. In addition, I'm fully confident that our understanding and definition for these two terms have altered somewhat since their initial conception in, what... the 1700's? --Rathilien 02:54, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

1: I don't believe the terms are currently used interchangably without qualification. If you find it to be otherwise please quote the place/source for correction/clarification.
2: Please quote references for your other statements, in order for the information to be incorporated into the article.
Jclerman 18:49, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Why two ?

Why are their two different versions of the same painting? raptor 13:22, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Because the artist painted two different versions. 69.9.28.7 13:29, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
Come on, this is not the article for the painting, we dont need a second one. Removed it. 99boy (talk) 05:29, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Removed sections

I have removed the following sections, because they are copyvios taken from this site. If someone wants to rephrase them to aviod the ©-violation – be my guest. I also added a link to the site, as it was very informative. --Salleman 16:22, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Etymology

The "mare" in "nightmare" is not a female horse, but a mara, an Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse term for a female spirit that sat on sleepers' chests, causing them to have bad dreams.

A nightmare is called a mareridt in Danish, a cauchemar in French, a pesadilla in Spanish, and an Alpdruck or Alptraum in German. The Alp is a demonic being which presses upon sleeping people so that they cannot utter a sound. These attacks are called Alpdrücke (nightmares). In Italian, the word incubo recalls the Incubus, a demon supposed to lie upon sleepers, especially women, and rape them.

[edit] Folk remedies

A folk remedy has it that by stopping up the keyhole, placing one's shoes with the toes facing the door, and then getting into bed backwards one can protect oneself against nightmares or "Mortriden." [mare rides]. Or one can put something made from steel, for example an old pair of scissors, in one's bed straw. A third remedy suggests that a person suffering from nightmares should urinate into a clean, new bottle, hang the bottle in the sun for three days, carry it—without saying a word—to a running stream, and then throw it over one's head into the stream.

[edit] Categorization

I don't want to keep clashing with [User:Jclerman|Jclerman]] here, but categorizint nightmares into Category:Neuroscience is just too broad. In essence, just about any human event can be categorized into "neuroscience". I recategorized this into the more specific Category:Sleep disorders. Semiconscious (talk · home) 09:34, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

The nightmare (and its "menagerie" of hag, mara, incubus, succubus, and hundred of other "entities" appear to dreamers during episodes of the "nightmare (in the original, i.e. older meaning of the term as used by Johnson, Erasmus Darwin, and Fuseli)" which has been called, by Mary Shelley, "waking dream". It is considered only in a few cases a sleep disorder. Thus the entry under "notes" in the article. Jclerman 10:20, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
See references in the Hag article. Jclerman 13:44, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
Clearly we disagree. I'm not sure why you continue to reference Mary Shelley as though she is an expert on the matter of neuroscienctific principles. The papers you reference do not have anything to do with the folkloric creature "Nightmare". I've taken this to arbitration, so it's a moot point now. I'm sorry I'm not explaining my self in such a way as to make you truly understand what I'm trying to express. Semiconscious (talk · home) 07:43, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

I must agree with Semiconcious here. There is a fair amount of neuroscientific research into dreaming and nightmares, but if there is a more specific category available it should go there. I don't disagree with making the category Sleep disorders a subcategory of Category:Neuroscience. JFW | T@lk 16:28, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

  • Category:Psychology also makes much more sense than Neuroscience. They are different topics entirely, and this article would be more appropriate there. Semiconscious (talk · home) 20:28, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Scientific information? - Article not about its subject

There's not enough scientific information here about nightmares.

there's hardly any important information it seems.


I agree
I am absolutly astounded by how bad this article is. It has almost nothing to do with its subject. Mostly it talks about sleep paralysis (which I probably spelled wrong) which is a totally differant thing (noticable from the fact that it is called sleep paralysis and not nightmares). This article could be almost entirly scrapped and started over.--Matt D 19:32, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
Couldn't agree more. As noted above, the article is mostly about Sleep paralysis, which already has its own article, and mentions almost nothing about actual nightmares . I vote for getting that tag on the page that says the article needs an expert (Sorry, I don't know wikipedia enough to know the term...), and having said expert rewrite most if not all of the article. --Devnevyn 10:35, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
Yet another voice saying this article is complete garbage. Who had the bright idea that the article about "Nightmare" should be about its usage 1-2 centuries ago? The only thing in the entire article that actually talks about nightmares (current usage) is the introduction! Beyond the etymology of the term, which we will want to keep, the historical usage is the least significant part of any reasonable article. Any other votes for scrapping this article? I'm thinking dropping it completely would be appropriate. Is there another version out in Wikipedia-land somewhere that might provide real information?


—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 129.2.106.74 (talk) 22:32, 1 March 2007 (UTC).

nightmare defined by the M-W online:
nightmare
One entry found for nightmare.
Main Entry: night·mare
Pronunciation: 'nIt-"mer
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from 1night + 1mare
1 : an evil spirit formerly thought to oppress people during sleep
2 : a frightening dream that usually awakens the sleeper
3 : something (as an experience, situation, or object) having the monstrous character of a nightmare or producing a feeling of anxiety or terror
Jclerman 05:11, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
I put it there. --Shay Guy 03:28, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree also. In a roundabout way, it discusses something quite different and dated. The whole article is unfocused (at this point-29 Dec 07). Plus the little linguistic foray in one paragraph which has no place here. I've seen similar things like that be put into other articles and then removed almost unanimously very quickly. Wikipedia is not a translator....

"This type of waking dream is called mora in Greek, mareridt in Danish, nachtmerrie in Dutch, malson in Catalan, noćna mora in Croatian, cauchemar in French, mardraum or mareritt in Norwegian, pesadilla in Spanish, Albdruck, Albtraum (from Álf, Old Norse for Elf) or Nachtmahr (older) in German, incubo in Italian, mardröm in Swedish, painajainen in Finnish, luupainaja in Estonian, pesadelo in Portuguese, èmèng in Mandarin, gawi in Korean, karabasan or kabus in Turkish , kanashibari in Japanese, ngok mung in Cantonese, bakhtak in Persian and bangungot in Tagalog."

I'm removing this paragraph but leaving it here for later reference if needed. I think this whole article should be scrapped too.... Chris b shanks (talk) 18:26, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Nonsense. The M-W online is not 200 yrs old. The ethnic minorities use those names when describing the waking dreams to their physicians, to their social workers, to the police, etc. The anthropologists use those "translations" when describing the phenomenon in different contemporary cultures. Deleting the article would be a gross mistake. If you can't write a better one, wait for an expert to do it. Jclerman (talk) 11:57, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
Nonsense? It is impolite to address someone that way on Wikipedia. (1) Please see Wiki Policy 'Wikipedia: Wikipedia is not a dictonary,' (and read it) especially the part where it explains, with respect to Wikipedia, "Articles are about the people, concepts, places, events, and things that their titles denote. The article octopus is about the animal: its physiology, its use as food, its scientific classification, and so forth." In contrast, Wikipedia is not (but Wiktionary is) "about the actual words or idioms in their title. [In Wiktionary] the article octopus is about the word "octopus": its part of speech, its pluralizations, its usage, its etymology, its translations into other languages, and so forth." (2) Furthermore, if the reader wants to see what a 'nightmare' is in other languages, they could just CLICK on that language on the left-hand side of the screen then read the title of the article. (3) I have seen such a paragraph get removed from another article with nearly unanimous support (sorry, but I honestly can't remember at this point which article that was) as it is quite unencyclopedic. (4) This is not a specialty 'anthropological' encyclopedia, nor is it an etymological dictionary. (5) Wikipedia is a reference for the average reader, not specifically physicians, social workers, and police looking for translations. (6) If such translations are necessary and important for such professionals using Wikipeida, why does a heavily edited/trafficked page such as rape not have a list of translations into every conceivable other language, which would most definitely be used on a more frequent basis by 'physicians,' 'social workers,' and 'police?' (7) Checking this article's history, other editors have made the same move, only to be reverted by you (e.g. SweetNeo85 on 23 Sept 2006, "Removed unneeded translations"). (8) Finally, on your comment about waiting for an expert--the history also records that you simply remove request for expert tags if they're put up (e.g. 17 July 2007), when this article is desperately in need of such help (I don't claim that I'm an expert). Chris b shanks (talk) 02:18, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
As there is no response, I'm removing it again. If we still disagree, we should do a request for comment. Chris b shanks (talk) 06:34, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Nightmares: one of the bodies defence mechanisms?

In the instant that i am woken by a nightmare, my first sensation besides panic, is of excessive heat. This has become such a noticable occurance that I can only conclude that the purpose of the nightmare was to wake me up to prevent damage to my body or brain. The cause of the heat was not illness but external factors, i.e. too many blankets, the heating left on, the cat sleeping on me! Thus after being woken and feeling hot, I removed the cause of the heat and returned to peaceful sleep. Are nightmares warnings that our brains are overheating? Is it a biological safety device? The thought intrigues me. Could we be causing the nightmares of our children and babies by trying too hard to keep them warm and tucked in at night? Any thoughts? 144.134.135.148 02:02, 11 March 2006 (UTC) Anne.

While intriguing, this is known as "Original Research" and is not appropriate to include in Wikipedia. If you can get this idea published in a mainstream journal on psychology or neuro-science and if it then becomes notable, then someone else (not you!) could reference it in the article.

[edit] Dying in a dream?

"(although not proven, many people believe that dying within a dream is an impossible feat, as there have never been any cases of a person reporting the feelings of the wound or disease that killed them in their dreams)"

I'm not sure what exactly counts as dying in a dream, but I once had a dream in which somebody shot me in my head (good thing it's not a premonition, yet), followed by a brief yet intense pain in my head, after which I began to faint, and my senses weakened rapidly, as if fleeing my body. I don't remember anything afterwards, which pretty much makes me good as dead. Does anybody else have a similar experience?

Maybe because we don't know what dying is like so our subconcious can't replicate it?

[edit] This article...

...is bad. Someone fix it.

[edit] Rewrite paragraph

The paragraph under the "Historic Use of term" section that lists the translation of nightmare in 17 different languages is poorly written as just listing information in a paragraph is of bad form. Also the information to me is arbitrary. In an article that is talking about nightmares, there doesn't need to be translations of the word into multiple languages. So either this info should go, or it needs to be placed in a small table.
Gonzo fan2007 talk ♦ contribs 01:58, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Style is in the brain of the beholder. Moreover, the translations should stay. They are not language translations but anthropologic translations, i.e., they are not strict equivalents but they name the particular regional and/or cultural dependent demons. Jclerman 03:42, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ghost?

Hi I would just like to know if anyone knows of, or has experienced a ghost pinning them down and not being able to move? Because this morning I woke up at about 5am but I didn't bother checking the time because for some reason lately I've been waking up at that exact time alot. So I just rolled over and tried to go to sleep, which was weird because it felt like I got to sleep straight away. Then when I think I was changing positions, all of a sudden I couldn't move, and I was in a uncomfortable position but I was just stuck. I could only move my eyes and maybe head slightly, and as I was all paralysed I could see a weird round light skim across the roof of my bedroom. It was like a bright blueish-white colour and from my position looked about the size of a tennis ball. So in this time of me trying to move I could see it skimming to directly accross my head, but as soon as I breathed out a help, I felt a release and I could move again and I was awake. This was really weird for me and scary as I could remember every vivid detail and it did not even felt like I had gone to sleep, and when I woke I figured out that this would have happenned in no less than 10 minutes of me waking the 1st time. Also the way I tried crying out for help felt like I was being choked, which I could tell from the sound of my own voice. And I also remember conciously thinking at the time as soon as I saw the light of aliens or ghosts, which made it feel like I was awake. I'm still not sure wether I was awake or asleep during this experience. I don't have alot of nightmares, I can't even remember the last time I did and I didn't watch any scary movies the night before. Can anyone help? TeePee-20.7 08:49, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

You describe the classic nightmare, now usually called sleep paralysis with hypagogic hallucinations. The term used by Mary Shelley in the intro to Frankenstein is more descriptive: waking dream. You were both awake and dreaming at the same time. See the articles linked above and the references you'll find in them. It's nothing paranormal but normal physiology. Only it it happens too frequently it might reflect one of the hypersomnias sleep disorders Jclerman 19:53, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
Oh ok cool, thanks heaps yeah it sounds like I had one of them. TeePee-20.7 06:03, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
But there is only one thing that bugs me. When you first told me about this type of nightmare after reading the information and seeing that I fitted the criteria of these and had many of the symptoms, I chose to believe that. Not only because I showed the symptoms, but mainly because I was scared and wanted to believe it was this. But just tonight I was watching TV and the channel I was watching had a documentary on aliens, and one of the experiences was very similar to mine which made me remember my own. And which also made me remember the one thing that I chose to ignore and forget about my experience. Why did this all end when I cried my breathless help?
TeePee-20.7 (talk) 16:33, 3 January 2008 (UTC)