Nightmare

Etymology

Frenchwoman

Nightmare drift of cauquemaire , used at the 15th century. It is made of caucher and pond .

Caucher drift of cauchier ( to press ), which is a probable crossing between the Former French chauchier ( to press, to press ) 12th century, the Latin calcare ( to pursue, to press with the feet ), and forms it Picard E cauquer .
Mare comes from the Picardy word pond , borrowed from the means Dutch pond ( phantom ), with the same German direction in and English.

Nightmare had a different orthography according to the localities and of the times: cochemare 1694, cochemar 1718, cauchemare , cauquemare (Picardy), cauquevieille (Lyon), chauchi-out-of-date (Isere), chauche-old woman (the Rhone), chaouche-vielio (Languedoc), cauquemare , quauquemaire (witch), cochemar . This concept is in direct connection with Genèse VI, 1-14, whose Saint Augustin made a comment in the City of God . This comment was taken again besides during the enquiry by Henri Institoris and Jacques Sprenger in the Malleus Maleficarum, treated Enquiry in 1486. This topic of the childbirth starting from the angels or the demons is not only: it is question in the book of Enoch - chapter 7, in the work of Balthazar Bekker in 1694. Incubates has a very strong sexual connotation. But the product of these unions is quite as important.

Theological considerations, the term incubates passed in the medical field gradually, to indicate the nightmare:

NIGHTMARE. S. Mr. Nom which the people to a certain disease or oppression of stomach give, which makes accept those which sleep that somebody is lying on them: what the ignorans croyent estre caused by malignant Esprit. In Latin Incubus, Ephialtis in Greek. In Dictionary Furetière edition 1690 .

And still Martín Antonio Delrío at the 15th century, while speaking about incubate, Succube S and demons:

oppression however, and quasi suffocation always does not come on behalf of these demons, as well often of a species of disease melancholic person as the Flemings call Mare , the French Coquemare and the Greeks Ephialtes , when the patient has opinion of a heavy burden on the chest, or of a Demon which wants to make force with its pudicity .

In the same way for Ambroise Paré. It is Dubosquet Louis into 1815 which will stick, in his thesis of medicine, to make replace the term incubus by nightmare , and with its continuation, the dictionaries of medicine will use nightmare .

Éphialtès

Hippocrates employed the Éphialtès term (of the Greek: to throw itself, on) indicating the nightmare. It is him which describes the first the manifestations of the nightmare. This term is indicated in the direction of a medical description rather than in that of a superstition. It will be taken again later by the doctor Oribase (4th century), by Macrobe (400), by Caelius Aurélianus, then the Aétius doctor (5th century) and Paul d' Égine. Descriptions of the nightmare by the Greeks are only translations of what was described under the term Éphialtès . It is abandoned in France with the Middle Ages, although, curiously, François Boissier de Sauvages of Lacroix, doctor and French botanist born on May 12th, 1706, uses the term Éphialtès to indicate the nightmare. This term will remain on the other hand in the Germanic literature until the end of the 19th century tells that to come to end from the Giants, there exists a named plant ephialtion (that no mythographe quotes) which is specific nightmares . In the legend of died of Porphyrion and Pallas, two other Giants of first generation, it is always Héraclès, which gives the fatal blow. According to Low registers, it is thus Héraclès which one calls upon when one is in prey with the erotic nightmares which surprise you at any hour of the day .

that pertaining to the late Giants: Éphialtès wire of Poséidon, twin brother and elder of Otos. Always for Robert Low registers, twin brothers, wire of " the surface to beat the blé" by " that which gives strength to the bodies sexuels" , personify to them Incubes or erotic nightmares which choke the women and make them insult during their sleep .

What a nightmare?

The nightmare is a dream with strong anxious load which occurs during the paradoxical sleep and which is different from night terrors which occur during the major slow sleep.

History of the medical concepts

general symptomatology

The object of this chapter is not to count the whole of the designs of the nightmare during the history, but contrary to releasing from them the common points and the principal divergences. It is the same within psychiatry, in particular Jean-Michel Gaillard, doctor of medicine, specialist in psychiatry, in Geneva. DSM-IV in its classification of the sleep disorders opposes the nightmare to night terrors. Within this framework, the nightmare is well far from historical descriptions and adhesive more with initial descriptions ( suffocation , heavy state , heavy truck , squeezing , oppression , strong pressure ). There is like a news change of the definition of the nightmare.

Cauquemare

It is the psychoanalysis which respects more the initial etymology and descriptions of the nightmare. The artists also represented the topic of the nightmare in a rather close form.

night Terror and paralysis of the sleep

Especially, currently, two new entities were done day:

*celle of night Terror: night terror is particular owing to the fact that it is unnamable. The dreamer does not remember it at the time of his alarm clock. It does not seem to be integrated in a history and it is rather made physical characteristics such as perspiration, tachycardia, difficulties of breathing, feeling of weight on the chest, obnubilation, agitation, cries. The return to the normal conscience is more or less long, and the dreamer can fall asleep again as so nothing was.

*celle of Paralysis of the sleep: the paralysis of the sleep is defined as being an awakening (real or hallucinated) for the physiological period of paralysis of the sleep. It generates symptoms of anguish, fear, same order as those of night terrors, but there exists in addition to the related hallucinatory phenomena not described in night terrors (because of amnesia of these last).

These two entities have, we saw it, an unquestionable relationship with the nightmare. But cannot, each one separately, to define the nightmare in its entirety. Amédée Dechambre (French doctor, 1812-1886) saw strong just when he wrote: one gives a nosologic value '' '' to an arbitrarily inattentive symptom of an extremely variable whole of morbid phenomena while speaking about the nightmare.

In conclusion, all occurs as if the nightmare could gather under its term of the concepts as different as bad dream , night terrors and paralysis of the sleep.

Causes of the nightmares

the post-traumatic syndrome of stress: the person revives the event traumatisant in the form of reviviscences, of which it is not able to be demolished.
the weaning or the reduction of the consumption of alcohol or Benzodiazepine S
certain drugs like the Hypnotic S, the Beat-blocking S.
the stress resulting from an identifiable situation of the current life of the dreamer who also causes anguishes in the life waked up, like examinations, the fear of being punished, a made fault, etc
Of other nightmares appears without apparent cause and are not explained either for the dreamer. They are the expression of important internal conflicts which were driven back, such as for example of the individual desires and needs and the obligations and duties imposed or, the conflicts between contradictory goals between which the individual does not manage to choose.

The structure of the nightmare in the child

It is a question here of considering the basic structure of the nightmare in the child and of studying of them his four parties.
It should be noticed that even if certain components all are not present in the nightmare, they follow one another always thus, and are thus ordered according to a hierarchical structure: it is manifest that the sphere of action of the attacker is more and more threatening and door of consequences, one speaks then about Gradient of intensity and the room for maneuver of the victim is more and more réduite.
It should be noted that if the nine components do not appear all, it is that very often the nightmares are lacunar accounts. These gaps explain by Omissions (or degradations of the memory) which were driven back, or by lapses of memory quite simply.
Generally, the elements initial and final are preserved what is explainable by the similarity between various alternatives, the series (or constituent intermediaries) are then " effacées" ; one can also explain the absence of components by the fact that the subject awakes before the fin.
It is also necessary to take into account the defensive actions of the victim seeking to thwart the actions of the attacker.

Constituent initial of the nightmare
The first scene often indicates how victim and attacker meet. This component is constituent essential to the intelligibility of the account: do irruption, approach, continuation or capture?

the attacker makes irruption at the victim : It is necessary to point out from the start that this component can be moderate. There can be only one attacker vis-a-vis several victims (generally that is due to a dissociation of the subject in several people), even several attackers vis-a-vis only one and even victim. In this case, the attacker is dissociated. Generally, the attacker makes irruption in a known place of the victim (its house); or then, the victim enters directly the den of the attacker. It should be noted that the attacker can make irruption in a form disguised in order to divert the attention of the victim or to deaden its mistrust. In addition, another subterfuge, the attacker can hide for better preparing its setting in scène.
the attacker approaches the victim : In addition to the fact that the attacker approaches, it should be announced the possibility that the victim can fall, which facilitates the play of the attacker. The fall generally symbolizes the impotence of the victim to be able to be opposed to the attacker from where the presence of an obstacle supporting the strategy of the agresseur.
the attacker continues the victim : It is to be pointed out that when the attacker makes irruption, the component of the continuation is almost never present in the récit.

Déplacements of the victim by the attacker

the attacker seizes the victim (or a valuable article personified) : one can indicate that if the account puts in scene a capture of the victim by the attacker, there is necessarily an approach of the attacker. Generally, and according to various studies, the reason for removal is in the accounts where the attacker made to irruption at the victime.
the attacker transports the victim in its den : there exists a rather widespread alternative where the victim goes without the knowledge in the den even of the attacker: that can be a forest, or at least in a dark place. In this case of figure, the victim exposes its own initiative to the danger.
the victim releases : so that the victim is released, it is necessary necessarily that there was captures. It can intervene an auxiliary, but, that can not be concretized and the victim can try to be released. In addition, how is the victim should be sought is able to be released, there direct or indirect confrontation with the attacker? Is there use of trick and thus, discrete interventions?
appearance of auxiliaries : in addition to the fact that an auxiliary can help the attacker, he plays a minor part in the course of the account and generally, its appearance is late: an auxiliary always intervenes after the capture or a temporary release of the victim following a capture, a clarification of the danger: fundamental node of the account. A secondary person appearing at the beginning of the account either will be regarded as another victim, or like another attacker: however this matter should be moderated insofar as an auxiliary playing the part of victim can become attacker and vice and poured, or an auxiliary can have a neutral role, either which it does not answer the call of the victim, or that he is not in capacity to help it.

the attacker reduces the victim to the impotence
That can pass by enfermement from the victim in a cellar, symbolizing the prison and thus reducing it to the impotence. One can also regard this enfermement as a minor maltreatment, but stronger than if the attacker forces the victim to take off its clothes (symbol of the integrity of the person which is reduced, but that is less devastator than to be imprisoned). Lastly, more the victim is reduced to the impotence, more it feels to increase its distress, which intensifies the tension of the nightmare correlatively.

Threats/maltreatment/put at dead
The place where that occurs is commonly called the principal scene of aggression, that does not indicate necessarily the den of the attacker, because in certain accounts, the attacker does not transport its victim in its den, and that can be held in the residence of the victim. The symbolic range of the scene of aggression is very symbolic system when the account is not too lacunaire.

the attacker inflicts maltreatment with the victim : before the attacker puts at dead the victim, generally, of the verbal threats are uttered, even more serious the attacker carries out attempted murders not achevées.
the attacker puts at dead the victim : this component is to be moderated. Indeed, the setting with dead can not close the account and the attacker can continue by capturing another victim. It is said that there is dramatic amplification of the account.

The imaginary one of the nightmare

Two topics intermingle with various ways around the concept of nightmare: that of dead and that of the infernal ride. These two sets of themes, most of the time illustrated by the feeling of oppression on the chest, are felt by the dreamer as an association of an extreme anguish and a feeling of impotence, with regard to Other which took the subject like " monture" : the dreamer is taken with the trap by a destiny which it does not control any more, and which is with the hands of another that him.

The Scandinavian Mara

One allotted to will mara the capacity to dematerialize oneself - to be able to pass by a lock or under a door - and it sat down on the bust of his deadened victim, thus causing his nightmares. The weight of will mara could also cause difficulties of breathing, even of suffocations.

One also believed that will mara it could overlap, leaving exténuées mountings and glazes of sweat in the morning. Sometimes it drew the hair from the animal or its human victim, causing baldnesses and itchings. Same trees could to suffer from will mara, which tore off the branches and the sheets to them, which points out the Slavic legend of the roussalkas, demons living in the trees. Moreover, the small coastal fir trees are known in Sweden under the name of “martallar” (fir trees of pond).

He is told, in the Ynglinga saga of Snorri Sturluson:

It was taken of a torpor and lay down to sleep, but it was not a long time that it slept, that he howled and says that the Mara pressed it with the feet. Its men precipitated to help it; but when they seized the head to him, it pressed the legs to him so that they broke almost, and when they seized the legs to him, it choked the head to him, so that he died about it .

And still, in connection with a Swedish book of XVIe century:

That which sleeps on the back is sometimes choked by spirits in the air which harass it with all kinds of attacks and of tyranny and deteriorate blood so brutally to him that the man to lie extremely exhausted, does not manage to seize again himself and thinks that it is the will mara which is overlapping it .

Ride and bite

In the Scandinavian tradition, the ride applies by tradition to the witches, in particular will mara it, female being which overlaps people or animals during their sleep (following the example Succube).
In Scandinavian mythology, deeply magic, the ride falls under the language: to overlap the evening ( kveldrídha ), to overlap in the black ( túnrídha ), to overlap in the form of troll ( trollrídha ), rídha meaning to overlap. According to Governed Boyer, by ride it is necessary to intend to collect and to domesticate the Hugr at hostile ends. However the Hugr is a universal active ingredient which can sometimes be collected by malevolent people to produce harmful effects. The Hugr materializes then with fine utilities and causes in particular diseases, riska , contraction of ridska (of ridha , to overlap).

On the verb bíta , to bite, a whole magic series of evocation rests: hugbit (substantive Norwegian: bite of the hugr ), nábítur (Icelandic: bite what inflicts a corpse), tussebit (Norwegian: bite of a gigantic creature), torsabit (Swedish: idem).

These considerations are illustrated in a formula of sorcery allotted to Ragnhild Tregagas going back to 1325:

I dispatch you the spirit of the magic wand which I overlap (ritt ek); that one bites you (biti) in the back, that second (biti) bites you with the chest, that third turns you towards hatred and the desire .

The imaginary one in the nightmare of child

One could classify certain characters while being based on their only identity, but it is an empirical criterion of which one should not misuse and who is always secondary compared to the morphological determination of the types, i.e. with their classification according to the actions that they exécutent.
Major characteristic of the nightmares of the children, many characters are distributed in two of the types and some in the three. Thus, parents, and other family members, although they are generally regarded as victims, often make function of auxiliary, with a relative frequency and types of interventions which are as the mark of their respective power. In addition, although in very a small number of case, the father or the mother fulfills the functions of the attacker, it should be mentioned. This lability of the elements of the nightmare of the child, which one will find more far from other examples (changes of roles, continuations of actions which is opposed or contradicts) could be put in connection with the nature of the anguish and his expression in the nightmare of the child, who testifies to a world driving and not very sure and from which various elements can cover opposite values. In addition to the description of elements of the nightmare, on which the interpretation of their contents will be able to be based, the typology of the characters suggests a classification of the accounts according to the types of each one of them brings up to date. the animals
That can be elephants, tigers, panthers, dogs, dogs - wolves, bear, spiders, wasps, foxes, lizards, fish, piranhas, sharks, seals, whales, hippopotamuses, toucans, frogs, worms of ground, mouse, ostrich, dogs, cats, cow, lion, bull, crocodiles, etc.
An animal can be malicious and show its teeth, open its mouth or quite simply threaten the victim. Generally, the animals do not carry out a capture, of removal or do not transport the victim in their repaire.
Generally, the animals are auxiliaries. Except the dog, the animals are generally able to be opposed to the attackers, when their intentions are bonnes.
The wolf is a typical attacker. It devours the victim much more often than it does not bite it. But, it can be just satisfied to make impotent the victim with its mouth.

the objects
They often indicate the catch objects: money, jewels, handbags, etc This explains why generally the objects are passive and victims of removals. They can be a substitute of the subject.

the people
The people are distributed in the three categories of the nightmare: victim, attacker or auxiliaire.

fantastic creatures : giant spider, devils or demons, vampires, skeletons, ogres, wizard, dragons, monsters, giants, the “White Lady”, “a man of fire”, a “man-gorilla”, a “savage”, “something with large eyes”, “a giant shoe”, robots, statures, armours, unicorn, etc Generally, the fantastic creature is caught some with the victim. The witches or fairies can be regarded as “nice” and protect the subject in the nightmare, it will be opposed in this case to the other witches, malicious. The reverse can be possible, a fairy can be qualified to be malicious. In this point, one sees how much the identification characters is very often confused.

the family

The projecting feature is the frequency with which the relations of auxiliaries and victims are established inside the family. However, it is noticed that in a considerable number of cases, the subject profits from the intervention of other characters that members of his family: police officers, hunters, animals, human unknown and even sometimes of the witches. This could testify to a certain insecurity of certain children with respect to their close relations.

the image of the father: he is an auxiliary powerful, able to help the victim and to be opposed to the attackers.
the image of the mother: she is generally an auxiliary primarily fulfilling the functions of assistance, when she does not refuse to answer the call of the victim or that she does not need in her turn to be helped.

unknown the

The difference between the labels “men”, “women” and unknown is due only to the fact that in the first both cases the sexual identity of the characters is mentioned by the subject and not in the third. Sometimes, certain features of these characters are mentioned by the account and it is advisable to study them as an attribute of the characters. A malicious lady, will be a woman who will not use the magic to be malicious. In addition, in the presence of lacunar account, of the characters in the nightmare can have an action without consequence and thus be “neutral”.

Vêtus of black or bright colors: as in the methods of the attacker, the darkness and the black color play their part in the attributes that the account their ready. But, this significance are to be moderated, bus of the bright colors can also contribute to a étrangeté.

the robbers gather the characters designated under this name by the subject or like “gangsters”, “gangsters”, etc They are in all the cases human, unknown attackers of the subject.

Their metamorphosis
An individual, altogether with the banal pace or the pace sympathetic nerve, can suddenly transform himself into attacker: a Father Christmas in vampire, for example. This metamorphosis can, in addition, being close to that of the parents in the account, where it is equivalent however seems T it with the failure or a refusal of assistance of their share rather than to their transformation into attackers.

Treatment

For the people suffering from chronic, unquestionable nightmares psychological (Celia Green) recommend the training of the lucid Rêve to learn how to recognize the state of dream and to get rid of its fear.

Peretz Lavie mentions, without more references, than there exist techniques to remember its dreams more, which would help the people suffering from nightmares.

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