 Horror/Scary: April 24, 2024 Issue [#12520] |
This week: In your wildest nightmares Edited by: Arakun the twisted raccoon  
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Quote for the week:
“Walls have ears.
Doors have eyes.
Trees have voices.
Beasts tell lies.
Beware the rain.
Beware the snow.
Beware the man
You think you know.
-Songs of Sapphique”
― Catherine Fisher, Incarceron
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A nightmare is a disturbing or frightening dream that causes the dreamer distress and usually awakens them. Even though the second syllable of the word "nightmare" sounds like the word for a female horse, the word origin has nothing to do with horses. The Old English word "maere" actually referred to an evil spirit from Germanic or Slavic folklore that was said to walk on people's chests as they slept, causing them to have bad dreams.
The maere was said to torment both humans and animals in their sleep which left them exhausted and covered in sweat. The evil spirit was said to tangle the dreamer's hair resulting in "marelocks."
In other folk tales, the nightmare spirits were witches who took the form of animals when they went into a trance and sent their sprits out. The animals included frogs, cats, dogs, birds, horses, oxen, birds, bees, or wasps.
In Croatian folklore the nightmare spirit was called a mora. The mora was said to enter the room through a keyhole, sit on the sleeper's chest, and try to strangle them. To repel moras, people would sleep facing the window, make the sign of the cross on the pillow, place a broom upside down behind their door, leave their belt on top of the sheets, or recite an elaborate prayer or poem before going to bed.
Occasional bad dreams are a normal occurrence, but some people suffer from frequent nightmares that disrupt their sleep and interfere with their work or other daytime activities. Both children and adults who have had frequent nightmares might begin to fear going to sleep.
Nightmares are an excellent subject for horror stories, because everyone has had them and can identify with the terror they bring.
In the "Nightmare on Elm Street" series of movies, the child murderer Freddy Krueger was burned alive by his victims' parents after he was acquitted on a technicality. Freddy's vengeful spirit returns from the grave to stalk other members of the community in their dreams.
In Neil Gaiman's "Sandman" graphic novels and the TV series based on them, Morpheus, the personification of sleep and dreaming is captured by an occult ritual and held prisoner for more than 100 years. During the time of his captivity, the world suffers from an epidemic of "sleeping sickness."
Something to try: Write a horror story that includes dreams or nightmares. |
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