Re: colorless green ideas

 --- Philippe Caquant <herodote92@...> wrote:
> By the way,  I would very much like to know the
> origin
> of the english word: "a nightmare". I find it very
> strange and evocative.
<http://www.dictionary.com/search?q=nightmare>
provides:
  [Middle English, a female demon that afflicts
  sleeping people  : night, night; see night + mare,
  goblin (from Old English. See mer- in Indo-European
  Roots).]
and
  [Night + mare incubus. See Mare incubus.]
(Which are basically the same, except that I think
Incubi are male.)

(BTW: When citing nouns in English, you don't give
them articles, so: 'nightmare'. A 'to' is optional
before verbs, though probably preferred if there's
ambiguity and you want a specific one: 'dream'~'to
dream'.)

<http://www.bartleby.com/61/roots/IE326.html>, which
describes the the I.-E. root *mer-, provides more
information.

> One of the worst experiences I know is when, yet
> half
> sleeping, you feel suffocating, or oppressed, and in
> the same time completely paralyzed. A part of your
> brain seems to work, and another one is just like
> disconnected. This is awful. Life is full of
> terrible
> things.
Yeah, that sounds more-or-less like what I
experienced, so I would think it's ASP. Except I
wouldn't say my any part of brain felt disconnected
(though a part, at least, of my brain did seem to
work, because it was able to liken what I was
experiencing to something I'd read in an article from
a psych journal some months before).

--
Tristan.

> --- Steg Belsky <draqonfayir@...> wrote:
> > On Apr 9, 2004, at 10:55 AM, Tristan McLeay wrote:
> > > It's impossible to toss and turn and mumble
> > (angrily
> > > or otherwise) while having a nightmare (or any
> > other
> > > dream). You become paralysed. (As far as your
> > brain
> > > knows, the dream is real life, so if you weren't
> > > paralysed, you'd be running away from the
> monsters
> > in
> > > your dream etc. etc. etc.) On the other hand,
> > night
> > > terrors would make you look like what people
> would
> > > think you look like when you're having
> nightmares,
> > > except that you aren't dreaming while having
> them.
> > > (It's possible to have sleep paralysis while
> > awake,
> > > though, and based on some accounts, I seem to
> have
> > > experienced just that last week. It was
> > terrifying: I
> > > thought there was someone in my room trying to
> > > suffocate me.)
> > > Tristan.
> >
> > Did you feel a pressure on your chest, as if a
> Black
> > Cat (tm) or Evil
> > Witch (tm) were sitting on it trying to suffocate
> > you and steal your
> > breath?  I think it used to be called (maybe still
> > is?) a "night hag"
> > experience for that reason.
> > Unless what you had was similar but not exactly
> the
> > same.
>
>
> =====
> Philippe Caquant
>
> "High thoughts must have high language."
> (Aristophanes, Frogs)
>
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