Word nightmare come from

Last Update: Jan 03, 2023

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Asked by: Prof. Wilmer Flatley

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Etymology. The word nightmare is derived from the Old English mare, a mythological demon or goblin who torments others with frightening dreams. The term has no connection with the Modern English word for a female horse.

Where do the nightmares come from?

Nightmares can be triggered by many factors, including: Stress or anxiety. Sometimes the ordinary stresses of daily life, such as a problem at home or school, trigger nightmares. A major change, such as a move or the death of a loved one, can have the same effect.

What the word nightmare means?

1 : an evil spirit formerly thought to oppress people during sleep. 2 : a frightening dream that usually awakens the sleeper. 3 : something (such as an experience, situation, or object) having the monstrous character of a nightmare or producing a feeling of anxiety or terror.

What do nightmares mean spiritually?

Common nightmares and their meanings include: Being lost: confusion or conflict that you need to address. Someone chasing or attacking you: too much stress in your life. Being trapped: feeling powerless in a situation.

What is worse than a nightmare?

Mallory/Adobe Stock. When it comes to comparing night terrors and nightmares, you might assume that they’re both bad dreams of varying intensities. But night terrors (also known as sleep terrors) are more than just super-intense nightmares.

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Not to be confused with Night terror, a sleep disorder resulting in a state of panic.

A nightmare, also known as a bad dream,^[1] is an unpleasant dream that can cause a strong emotional response from the mind, typically fear but also despair, anxiety, disgust or great sadness. The dream may contain situations of discomfort, psychological or physical terror, or panic. After a nightmare, a person will often awaken in a state of distress and may be unable to return to sleep for a short period of time.^[2] Recurrent nightmares may require medical help, as they can interfere with sleeping patterns and cause insomnia.

Nightmares can have physical causes such as sleeping in an uncomfortable position or having a fever, or psychological causes such as stress or anxiety. Eating before going to sleep, which triggers an increase in the body’s metabolism and brain activity, can be a potential stimulus for nightmares.^[3]

The prevalence of nightmares in children (5–12 years old) is between 20 and 30%, and for adults is between 8 and 30%.^[4] In common language, the meaning of nightmare has extended as a metaphor to many bad things, such as a bad situation or a scary monster or person.

Etymology[edit]

The word nightmare is derived from the Old English mare, a mythological demon or goblin who torments others with frightening dreams. The term has no connection with the Modern English word for a female horse.^[5] The word nightmare is cognate with the Dutch term nachtmerrie and German Nachtmahr (dated).

History/Folklore[edit]

The sorcerous demons of Iranian mythology known as Divs are likewise associated with the ability to afflict their victims with nightmares.^[6]
The mare of Germanic and Slavic folklore were thought to ride on people’s chests while they sleep, causing nightmares.^[7]

Signs and symptoms[edit]

Those with nightmares experience abnormal sleep architecture. The impact of having a nightmare during the night has been found to be very similar to that of insomnia. This is thought to be caused by frequent nocturnal awakenings and fear of falling asleep.^[8] Nightmare disorder symptoms include repeated awakenings from the major sleep period or naps with detailed recall of extended and extremely frightening dreams, usually involving threats to survival, security, or self-esteem. The awakenings generally occur during the second half of the sleep period.^[9]

Classification[edit]

According to the International Classification of Sleep Disorders-Third Edition (ICSD-3), the nightmare disorder, together with REM sleep behaviour disorder (RBD) and recurrent isolated sleep paralysis, form the REM-related parasomnias subcategory of the Parasomnias cluster.^[10] Nightmares may be idiopathic without any signs of psychopathology or associated with disorders like stress, anxiety, substance abuse, psychiatric illness or PTSD (>80% of PTSD patients report nightmares).^[11] As regarding the dream content of the dreams they are usually imprinting negative emotions like sadness, fear or rage.^[4] According to the clinical studies the content can include being chased, injury or death of others, falling, natural disasters or accidents. Typical dreams or recurrent dreams may also have some of these topics.^[12]

Cause[edit]

Scientific research shows that nightmares may have many causes. In a study focusing on children, researchers were able to conclude that nightmares directly correlate with the stress in children’s lives. Children who experienced the death of a family member or a close friend or know someone with a chronic illness have more frequent nightmares than those who are only faced with stress from school or stress from social aspects of daily life.^[13]
A study researching the causes of nightmares focuses on patients who have sleep apnea. The study was conducted to determine whether or not nightmares may be caused by sleep apnea, or being unable to breathe. In the nineteenth century, authors believed that nightmares were caused by not having enough oxygen, therefore it was believed that those with sleep apnea had more frequent nightmares than those without it. The results actually showed that healthy people have more nightmares than sleep apnea patients.^[14]
Another study supports the hypothesis. In this study, 48 patients (aged 20–85 yrs) with obstructive airways disease (OAD), including 21 with and 27 without asthma, were compared with 149 sex- and age-matched controls without respiratory disease. OAD subjects with asthma reported approximately 3 times as many nightmares as controls or OAD subjects without asthma.^[15] The evolutionary purpose of nightmares then could be a mechanism to awaken a person who is in danger.

Lucid-dreaming advocate Stephen LaBerge has outlined a possible reason for how dreams are formulated and why nightmares occur. To LaBerge, a dream starts with an individual thought or scene, such as walking down a dimly lit street. Since dreams are not predetermined, the brain responds to the situation by either thinking a good thought or a bad thought, and the dream framework follows from there. If bad thoughts in a dream are more prominent than good thoughts, the dream may proceed to be a nightmare.^[16]

There is a view, possibly featured in the story A Christmas Carol, that eating cheese before sleep can cause nightmares, but there is little scientific evidence for this.^[17]

Severe nightmares are also likely to occur when a person has a fever, these nightmares are often referred to as fever dreams.

Treatment[edit]

Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung seemed to have shared a belief that people frequently distressed by nightmares could be re-experiencing some stressful event from the past.^[18] Both perspectives on dreams suggest that therapy can provide relief from the dilemma of the nightmarish experience.

Halliday (1987) grouped treatment techniques into four classes. Direct nightmare interventions that combine compatible techniques from one or more of these classes may enhance overall treatment effectiveness:^[19]

• Analytic and cathartic techniques
• Storyline alteration procedures
• Face-and-conquer approaches
• Desensitization and related behavioral techniques

Post-traumatic stress disorder[edit]

Recurring post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) nightmares in which traumas are re-experienced respond well to a technique called imagery rehearsal. This involves dreamers coming up with alternative, mastery outcomes to the nightmares, mentally rehearsing those outcomes while awake, and then reminding themselves at bedtime that they wish these alternate outcomes should the nightmares reoccur. Research has found that this technique not only reduces the occurrence of nightmares and insomnia,^[20] but also improves other daytime PTSD symptoms.^[21] The most common variations of imagery rehearsal therapy (IRT) «relate to the number of sessions, duration of treatment, and the degree to which exposure therapy is included in the protocol».^[22]

Medication[edit]

• Prazosin (alpha-1 blocker) appears useful in decreasing the number of nightmares and the distress caused by them in people with PTSD.^[23][24]
• Risperidone (atypical antipsychotic) at a dosage of 2 mg per day, has been shown in case series to remission of nightmares on the first night.^[24]
• Trazodone (antidepressant) has been shown in a case report to treat nightmares associated with a depressed patient.^[24]

Trials have included hydrocortisone, gabapentin, paroxetine, tetrahydrocannabinol, eszopiclone, xyrem, and carvedilol.^[24]

See also[edit]

• Bogeyman
• False awakening
• Hag § In folklore
• Horror and terror
• Mare (folklore)
• Night terror
• Nightmare disorder
• Nocnitsa
• Sleep disorder
• Sleep paralysis
• Succubus
• Incubus
• A Nightmare on Elm Street, 1984 film

References[edit]

Further reading[edit]

• Anch, A. M.; Browman, C. P.; Mitler, M. M.; Walsh, J. K. (1988). Sleep: A Scientific Perspective. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall. ISBN 9780138129187.
• Harris, J. C. (2004). «The Nightmare». Archives of General Psychiatry. 61 (5): 439–40. doi:10.1001/archpsyc.61.5.439. PMID 15123487.
• Husser, J.-M.; Mouton, A., eds. (2010). Le Cauchemar dans les sociétés antiques. Actes des journées d’étude de l’UMR 7044 (15–16 Novembre 2007, Strasbourg) (in French). Paris: De Boccard.
• Jones, Ernest (1951). On the Nightmare. ISBN 978-0-87140-912-6.
• Forbes, D.; et al. (2001). «Brief Report: Treatment of Combat-Related Nightmares Using Imagery Rehearsal: A Pilot Study». Journal of Traumatic Stress. 14 (2): 433–442. doi:10.1023/A:1011133422340. PMID 11469167. S2CID 44630028.
• Siegel, A. (2003). «A mini-course for clinicians and trauma workers on posttraumatic nightmares».
• Burns, Sarah (2004). Painting the Dark Side : Art and the Gothic Imagination in Nineteenth-Century America. Ahmanson-Murphy Fine Are Imprint. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-23821-3.
• Davenport-Hines, Richard (1999). Gothic: Four Hundred Years of Excess, Horror, Evil and Ruin. North Point Press. pp. 160–61. ISBN 9780865475441.
• Hill, Anne (2009). What To Do When Dreams Go Bad: A Practical Guide to Nightmares. Serpentine Media. ISBN 978-1-887590-04-4.
• Simons, Ronald C.; Hughes, Charles C., eds. (1985). Culture-Bound Syndromes. Springer.
• Sagan, Carl (1997). The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark.
• Coalson, Bob (1995). «Nightmare help: Treatment of trauma survivors with PTSD». Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training. 32 (3): 381–388. doi:10.1037/0033-3204.32.3.381.
• «Nightmares? Bad Dreams, or Recurring Dreams? Lucky You!». Archived from the original on 19 March 2012. Retrieved 8 December 2015.
• Halliday, G. (1987). «Direct psychological therapies for nightmares: A review». Clinical Psychology Review. 7 (5): 501–523. doi:10.1016/0272-7358(87)90041-9.
• Doctor, Ronald M.; Shiromoto, Frank N., eds. (2010). «Imagery Rehearsal Therapy (IRT)». The Encyclopedia of Trauma and Traumatic Stress Disorders. New York: Facts on File. p. 148. ISBN 9780816067640.
• Mayer, Mercer (1976). There’s a Nightmare in My Closet. [New York]: Puffin Pied Piper.
• Moore, Bret A.; Kraków, Barry (2010). «Imagery rehearsal therapy: An emerging treatment for posttraumatic nightmares in veterans». Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy. 2 (3): 232–238. doi:10.1037/a0019895.

External links[edit]

• Night-Mares: Demons that Cause Nightmares

People awakening from a «nightmare» often have the sensation that they can’t breathe. Not surprising: That’s where the word «nightmare» comes from.

The Oxford English Dictionary traces the first used of «nightmare» in English to around 1300, as «a female spirit or monster supposed to settle on and produce a feeling of suffocation in a sleeping person or animal.»

Other folk etymology traces the «mare» of the night in some similar linguistic form all the way to our earliest languages as humans. We’ve always had evil spirits.

Since we experience most «nightmares» at night, and with the perception that death and other bogies haunt the darkness, «night» was naturally paired with «mare,» which traces in English to before the 12th century. A «nightmare» soon came to mean any bad dream, whether accompanied by that suffocating feeling or not.

Unfortunately, «nightmares» don’t just happen at night, or just during sleep. A tie-up on the freeway can cause a «nightmare» commute, and a difficult boss can be a «nightmare» to deal with. The stiffer-upper-lip British OED calls those uses «colloquial» and «weakened use,» but American dictionaries are fine with it.

While some think that a «nightmare» took the form of a female horse, or that the evil spirit «mare» was somehow related to the horse, they actually developed separately. «Mare» was originally a horse of either sex; it soon became the female of any equine, including zebras, donkeys, and mules. The «mare» of «nightmare» had a distinct meaning, though you can forgive people for not recognizing the difference. After all, we can have a «mole» on the skin, and a different kind of «mole» digging in the yard.

English, after all, is a «mare’s nest» of contradictions and mysteries.

That «mare,» though, has nothing to do with evil spirits. Most people use «mare’s nest» to mean a muddle or tangle, such as a complicated story line in a book or movie, or red tape. That «mare» is the female horse, whose «nest» is an untidy pile of straw.

But wait, you say, horses don’t have «nests,» do they?

Well, no. And that’s a clue to the original meaning of «mare’s nest»: a misperception, specifically «a hoax or fraud or some other nonexistent or illusory thing that seems at first to be very wonderful and full of promise but that ultimately brings ridicule on those deceived by it,» as M-W puts it.

As explained by the wonderful Phrase Finder blog: «The earlier ‘misconception’ meaning has been in use since at least the 16th century.» But, of course, the blog says, «mares don’t make nests — the allusion was meant to be comically ironic. That humour is reflected in several of the early citations of ‘mare’s nest’ (or horse’s nest, as some early references have it), which refer directly to laughter.»

The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, published in 1811, for example, has this entry: «He has found a mare’s nest, and is laughing at the eggs; said of one who laughs without any apparent cause.»

The sense of a «mare’s nest» to mean a complicated tangle did not arise until the mid-19th century, the OED says. Many etymologists attribute it to its similarity to a «rat’s nest,» said to be untidy and perhaps even unsafe.

Of course, a «rat’s nest» is no more untidy than anyone else’s nest. So perhaps the belief that a «rat’s nest» is a bad thing is a «mare’s nest,» in the original sense.

Time to rein it in, we think, before we get further entangled.

As we have seen in the previous blog, How knowing other languages can help you learn English, there are many words in the English language ??which come from other countries. Some of these words do not only come from another language and you may not know it, but they also have an origin which you probably couldn’t have imagined. 10 interesting English words

In today’s blog we’re going to take a look at 10 interesting English words whose origin will surprise you. We even actually use some of these words in our daily life when speaking or writing, and they really have strange and unique origins that are unknown to us. You might even find funny the origins of some of these words!

1. Sandwich

The word sandwich ? makes reference to a very popular kind of food, made out of two slices of bread and some other food we put in the middle of it (such as cheese, ham, turkey, etc.).

What we don’t know is that this food was named after the 4^th Earl of Sandwich, an English nobleman from the 1800s. It is believed that he used to eat his food between two pieces of bread so he could keep on playing on his gambling table, and his friends started asking the servants for “the same as Sandwich” and finally just “a sandwich”.

2. Clue

The word clue ? comes from the Greek word ‘clew’, used in the Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur. In this myth, Theseus used a ball of yarn or a ‘clew’ given to him by Ariadne so that he could find his way out of the labyrinth and not get lost.

A ‘clew’ is something that you use to guide your path, and it ended up becoming something that offers you guidance in your search to discover a truth. The spelling also changed a bit over time, becoming the word we use nowadays: ‘clue’.

3. Hooligan

Hooligan ? is a word used to describe a person who likes causing trouble for other people. The origin of the word is not completely clear, as there are many theories about it. If you look for the meaning in the Oxford English Etymology Dictionary, the name comes from an Irish surname (Houlihan) mentioned in an old song in the 19^th Century.

The other most popular theory is that its origin goes back to the Jacobite Rising in the 18^th Century, when a commander from the English army misheard the word for the insect midge in Scottish Gaelic, and created the word ‘hooligan’ to describe anyone and anything which was as frustrating as a midge.

4. Nice

The word nice ? is commonly used by students learning English, which has a positive meaning and is used to describe a good or pleasant person. But the word actually has a negative origin, as it is said to come from the French ‘nice’ which comes from the Latin ‘necius’.

At first it was used to describe a person who over-dressed in an absurd way but it finally (somehow) came to have the positive meaning that it has nowadays.

5. Shampoo

The word shampoo ?, which we normally use to refer to that soap we use to clean our hair, comes from the Hindi language and it means ‘to massage’. It was introduced into the English language and it ended up changing its meaning to something we use to ‘wash the hair’.

6. Nightmare

The word nightmare ? comes from joining two different words which are ‘night’ and ‘mare’. We know that the meaning of night is the period between sunset and sunrise, when we usually go to sleep. But the word mare (which shouldn’t be confused with mare = yegua) refers to a female goblin ? which suffocates you and tries to introduce bad thoughts into your head while you sleep.

7. Tattoo

Tattoos ✒️ are a really popular thing that many people get done nowadays, but few people know that the word comes from the Polynesian ‘tatau’ which means ‘a mark made on the skin’, which is the same as the meaning we have for the English word.

Before introducing this word into the English language, tattoos in England (which were done before the Polynesia was discovered) were referred as a form of painting, and they weren’t seen as badly as they are nowadays by older people.

8. Ketchup

Ketchup ?, which is one of the most popular sauces in the entire world, was first used in the 17^th Century and comes from the Chinese word ‘kôe-chiap’ which used to refer to a mix of pickled fish and spices. In the English language it was first used at the end of the 17^th Century and it was spelt ‘catchup’.

9. Checkmate

Checkmate ♟️, which is used in English to refer to a chess move in which the figure of the king doesn’t have any moves left to escape and is completely trapped, comes from the Persian word ‘shāh māt’ (which translates to ‘the king is helpless’). It can also be traced to the Arabic language, in which the word ‘māta’ means dead (the king is dead). 10 English words

10. Robot

Robot ? normally refers to a machine which is capable of carrying out many different actions in an autonomous way. But the word robot comes from the Czech word ‘robota’ which actually means ‘forced labour’.

It is funny, as robots are ‘forced’ to do things for us and they cannot choose to not do it, so we could say they are forced to work for us.

Now I would like to know which of these words’ origins did you find most interesting. Did you already know any of their origins? Do you know any other words in the English language which have a strange or funny origin? Let us know in the comments section below!

Estefanía