Nightmares
There are many different kinds of nightmares: from the scary bogy man waiting to devour you under the bed, to worry nightmares where you dream that you are at work and fail at an important interview or task. The meaning of nightmares varies depending on the context. This section examines nightmares and their meaning.
What is a Nightmare?
A NIGHTMARE, Incubus, Ephialles, consists in a horrible dream, the terror being inspired by a sense of weight or oppression referred to the pressure of mountains, giants, hags, serpents, upon the breast. It is attributed to acceleration or irregularity of the circulation in the chest or in the brain. It has been traced backward to plethora, posture, heavy suppers; and forward as a prognostic of heart disease or hydrothorax.
Nightmares differ from ordinary dreams in possessing always the same characteristic of fear of some object in contact with the body, in a recognized inability to move or speak while there is a strong desire to do both, and in the presence of a semi-consciousness of the real source of the apprehension. The affection is recorded to have been epidemic; and modern instances have occurred where large communities have been agitated by night panics.
Sponsors:
A regiment of French soldiers, quartered in a ruined monastery, were awakened, at the same hour in two successive nights, by a black dog leaping on the breast of each. These veteran warriors, inured to danger, inaccessible to superstition, could not be prevailed upon to make a third trial. Such frightful impressions occur during the day, and during mere somnolency or drowsiness, but more generally at the moment of awakening during the night. The time, the distinct recollection retained of the circumstance, and the bodily perturbation which remained when consciousness was re-established, all conspired to convert these visions into the objective hobgoblins, the omens and supernatural revelations of past ages; and which still linger as matter of belief where the temperament or situation of the individual resembles those of our ancestors. In a very large number of instances such dreams represent, or are continuations of, the previous waking thoughts and emotions. They are so far voluntary that indigestible food or excess may induce them. Fuseli, for artistic purposes, created “ chimeras dire ” in sleep by supping on pork chops.