What Are Nightmares Made Of?
The Nightmare (1781) by Henry Fuseli, a Romantic-era painting of a demonic creature perched on a sleeping woman’s chest[1]. In earlier centuries, a “nightmare” meant not just a bad dream but the night-mare itself, a malevolent spirit (the Old English mære or mare) that sat on the sleeper’s rib cage[1]. Samuel Johnson’s 1721 dictionary even defined it as “a disease when a man in his sleep supposes he has a great weight laying upon him”[2]. Writers and artists capitalized on this idea: Fuseli’s iconic painting (and a later engraving by Thomas Burke) explicitly visualize the incubus-and-hag scenario of sleep paralysis. Science now tells a more physical story, the brain weaving fear-inducing images during REM sleep, but folklore’s image of a ghoul crushing the chest lives on in language and legend[1][2].
Section Index
Folklore of the Night
Across cultures, nightmare beliefs fall into two broad patterns: spirits that visit and beasts that devour. In the Norse/Scandinavian saga of the mara, a cursed woman’s ghost rides sleeping men, causing suffocating dread[3]. British and American settlers had an “Old Hag” sitting on the chest, too[4]. In East Asia, Japan’s kanashibari (literally “bound in metal”) is the term for sleep paralysis blamed on a looming demon, a living nightmare[5]. The same syndrome is karabasan in Turkey, explained by a Jinn strangling the victim (Turks pray verses from the Qur’an for relief[6]). Africans have the Popobawa, a winged bat-thing from Zanzibar folklore; it typically surfaces in times of social unrest, attacking villagers at night[5].
Other cultures imagine guardians of dreams. In China and Japan the baku is a benevolent chimera, part bear, part elephant, part everything, that consumes nightmares if summoned[7]. Children recite “Baku-san, come eat my dream” upon waking, hoping it will swallow the bad dream[8]. The Ojibwe and Lakota introduced the dreamcatcher, a web of willow in which morning light is said to kill all nightmares that become ensnared[9]. Even in the Philippines there’s a nightmare demon: the batibat is an obese female spirit of an uprooted tree, said to suffocate sleepers and haunt their dreams[10]. (“Bangungot” in Tagalog literally became the word for nightmare.) Remedies often involve ritual: in Albania, a woman tormented by the spirit Makthi can seize the demon’s fez and bind it, granting her a wish[11]. In Turkey, reading Al-Falaq and An-Nas (Qur’anic protections) is the cure for Karabasan. Countless folk cures, garlic, charms, dream nets, testify that humans have always sought to outwit these night terrors.
For more information on They Sold Nightmares check out the production’s official page.
The Nightmare Market
Nightmares have even entered modern storytelling and commerce. Hugo Lunny’s dark fantasy They Sold Nightmares (2019) imagines an underground market where two rival “dream merchants” sell customized terrors. One character, Abdelaziz Subaghra, literally “sells the final sale of nightmares” to deep-underground clients who have “given up something invaluable to punish the recipient”[12]. Inspired by the Popobawa and kanashibari lore, Lunny’s world posits a literal economy of fear, illustrating the idea that nightmares can be weaponized, negotiated or even tailored[5]. Its tagline, “Not all nightmares are the same”[13], hints at the myriad forms these dreams take. Lunny is hardly alone: from Stephen King’s novels to Hollywood (Nightmare on Elm Street to Inception), popular culture feeds on the nightmare motif. But Lunny’s work is notable for explicitly weaving folkloric nightmare-creatures into a modern setting, reminding us that what we call “nightmares” have long been treated as tangible forces.
The Brain in Dreamland
Science paints a different picture. Nightmares, by clinical definition, are vivid, disturbing dreams that wake the sleeper with terror[14]. They are quite common: perhaps 3-7% of U.S. adults suffer frequent nightmares[14], and they peak in early childhood. As Deirdre Barrett of Harvard notes, children between 3 and 6 are especially prone, perhaps an evolutionary leftover, since small children are more vulnerable to threats[15]. Nightmares occur predominantly during REM sleep (the phase of rapid eye movements and brain activation). In REM, recent experiences and deep memories are woven together, and just before awakening the brain consolidates these images into memory[16]. This means the grotesque images of a nightmare are more likely to be remembered, we tend to wake in the last REM period.
It helps to distinguish nightmares from night terrors. Night terrors strike in deep non-REM sleep, causing screaming or thrashing without a coherent dream. The sleeper often doesn’t remember a story, just a sense of panic[17]. Nightmares, by contrast, have narrative; the brain’s “default mode network” is highly active[18] and the person usually recalls a frightening sequence. In other words, nightmares come from the brain’s highest processing levels (amygdala, prefrontal cortex, hippocampus) in REM, whereas terrors arise from the most primitive sleep centers.
Scientists report that post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is perhaps the most notorious nightmare trigger. About 80% of PTSD patients experience nightmares[19]. In Vietnam veterans, for instance, over half had recurring nightmares, vs only ~3% of civilians[19]. These dreams often replay traumatic events almost verbatim (the brain’s fear circuits, especially the amygdala, become hypersensitive[20]). Intriguingly, a Penn State research team recently won a Keck grant to study how nightmares and mental illness interact[21]. They even plan to use a drug (mefloquine) known to induce nightmares in soldiers, to provoke nightmares in mice and then map the neural changes[22]. As one researcher put it, “Most people believe that nightmares are a consequence of having PTSD, but there is also the possibility that nightmares could exacerbate symptoms or even cause [mental] disorders”[23]. In short, the brain science of nightmares is advancing: modern imaging is beginning to locate which neurons and circuits fire during that predawn scream.
Don’t forget to check out “They Sold Nightmares” Behind The Screenplay page for more information on the writing inspiration and process. If you’re inclined, you can also purchase the screenplay too.
Common Nightmare Motifs
Despite cultural differences, studies find surprisingly consistent nightmare themes. Cross-cultural dream surveys show that many people report being pursued or attacked, losing control, or experiencing something awful happening to a loved one. As psychologist David Samson notes, common nightmare contents include “losing one’s voice, teeth falling out, or being chased by a threatening being”[24]. In simpler terms:
- Threat and attack: Being chased by an animal, intruder, or monster, a universal symbol of fear[24].
- Helplessness: Falling endlessly, being unable to move or scream, reflecting loss of control[24].
- Physical change: Teeth falling out, going blind, or bodily malfunction, often tied to anxieties about illness or aging[24].
Even across wild cultural divides, these basic patterns recur[24]. What differs is how they resolve: a Hadza tribesman’s nightmare of falling into a well ends with a friend pulling him out, a hopeful, social ending. A Western war vet’s nightmare of death is more likely to end in despair[25]. Such findings suggest dreams may be guided by our daily lives: small-scale communities tend to dream up social solutions, whereas Westerners more often amplify anxiety.
Decoding Nightmares
Why do we experience such horrors at night? From a psychological standpoint, many theories have been proposed. Freud famously called dreams the “royal road” to the unconscious; nightmares, to him, often represented thwarted wishes couched in anxiety. Jung saw them as confrontations with the Shadow, the dark parts of ourselves. Modern cognitive theory suggests nightmares might serve an adaptive function. Perhaps dreams (even bad ones) simulate threats so we can rehearse dealing with danger; this “threat simulation theory” has some support. As Samson notes, humans sleep less but spend more time in REM than any other primate[26], hinting that dreaming might have been evolutionarily important. If nightmares force us to face our fears while safe in bed, they might conceivably strengthen survival instincts.
Culturally, nightmares have always been loaded with meaning. Many peoples interpret them as omens or messages from beyond. An ancient Chinese might see a snake in a dream as a portent, a Norseman might see it as a visit from fate. Today some therapists analyze nightmare content for personal symbolism (e.g. what does the falling or drowning represent). Others note that universal fears (death, isolation, pain) are at work, with the mind using dream-logic to dramatize real stresses. One thing is clear: what nightmares are made of is not just physiology, but also our hopes, fears and cultural myths. The same brain that invents demons can also find meaning in them.
Warding Off the Night
If nightmares trouble us, we have developed remedies both ancient and modern. Traditional cultures devised all sorts of rituals: hanging amulets, chanting prayers, or using dream catchers as described above[9]. Even simple acts, like scratching at night (as in African Devil on your Back lore) or biting a thumb (Philippines), were believed to break the spell[10]. Religions advise invoking protective words: as we saw, a Turkish sleeper might recite Qur’anic verses to banish the Karabasan demon[6]. In our time, psychology offers techniques. Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for nightmares (CBT-N) often uses Imagery Rehearsal Therapy: the person writes down a recurrent nightmare, then “rewrites” it with a less scary ending, and rehearses this new version before sleep[27]. Over weeks this can reduce how often the old nightmare reappears. Medically, some doctors prescribe low doses of prazosin (an old blood-pressure drug) for PTSD-related nightmares; it blunts the adrenergic ‘charge’ of REM sleep and has shown effectiveness[28]. Ultimately, both faith and science are searching for a way out of the dark.
Sunrise on the Nightmare
Nightmares are woven of fear, memory and myth. They were once “made of” monsters and curses, the mare on your chest or the bat that eats dreams[7][1]. Today we know they are patterns firing in the brain’s night, but the feeling is no less real. Yet just as dreamcatchers let the morning sun kill bad dreams[9], we now have ways to dispel them. We can treat trauma and rewrite our dreams in waking life. Science peels back the veil on REM sleep and fear circuits, and even global dream research suggests our cultural bed is safer than it seems. In understanding nightmares, their origins, stories and biology, we reclaim a bit of calm as dawn breaks. When we ask “what are nightmares made of,” the answer turns out to span history and humanity: from ancient folklore to modern neuroscience, from the personal psyche to the shared myths that all humankind sows beneath the dark.
