Painajakogemusest rääkimine internetifoorumites

People who share nightmare experiences on Internet forums are not typically active carriers of a consistent nightmare tradition, yet their discussions creatively combine elements from older Estonian folklore, New Age literature, horror movies, and medical explanations. Forum participants are connected by similar experiences and emotions, and their communication processes—including disputes about defining experiences and protective measures—resemble those in classical lore communities. Unlike older archival texts where narrators firmly identified the cause of their supernatural experience, present-day forum posts show hesitation in defining the experience and its causes. Contemporary nightmares are almost exclusively depicted as anthropomorphic, while older lore featured animal shapes. Forum discussions also include parallel scientific and medical discourses, though the main emphasis remains on magical and supernatural explanations.

Study at a glance

Abstract

The article focuses on sharing nightmare experience on Internet forums. The author discusses how people, who, as a rule, are not active carriers of a consistent nightmare lore, speak about this phenomenon, how and on the basis of which sources they define and interpret their experience, and which dynamics become manifest in solving ideological arguments. One of the objectives of the article is to find out if we could, in spite of the fact that nightmare forum users are rather random and with very different backgrounds, regard them as a lore community, who, in their interaction, verbalise and interpret an individual’s experience as consistent with the existing tradition. Also, the material obtained from the forums is compared with older nightmare texts, in order to highlight the features inherent in present-day material. In light of the forum material concerned with nightmare lore, we could agree with Susana Arroyo Redondo (2006: 2), researcher of culture and literature, who has stated that old legends, protective phrases, evil spirits and deities have evolved in the same rhythm as new technologies, and the Internet has provided them with a privileged circulation platform (Redondo 2006: 2). As nightmare experience is intensely perceptible both physically and mentally, it is hard to ignore. Discussions about nightmares on Internet forums abound in references to a number of different belief and cultural traditions (older Estonian folklore, New Age literature, horror movies, medical explanations), which are creatively combined within forum discussions. The discussants are connected by means of a similar experience and related emotions, as well as exchange of information and disputes about defining their experiences and protective measures, and the wish to free them from this experience, which is regarded as abnormal and morbid – so, communication processes on the forums can be compared to those occurring in classical lore communities. Yet, the folklorisation process of present-day nightmare experiences is influenced by explanation versions with many more motifs and a multicultural background, and the variability of helpful measures is much higher (for example, self-created incantations and protective measures borrowed from other cultures). Archival texts mainly reveal the narrator’s firm understanding of what kind of being caused their supernatural experience, whereas present-day forum posts show ample hesitation in defining the experience and its causes. The shapes in which the nightmare appeared were also different. While in older lore the nightmare could have appeared in the shape of an animal, then the contemporary nightmare is almost exclusively depicted as anthropomorphic. It could be noted that even if many motifs known from older Estonian lore were repetitive in forum conversations, the specificity of forum conversations created a novel group dynamics (for instance, certain patterns in opposing other users). Unlike older texts, forum discussions present also parallel discourses of modern science and medicine; however, the main emphasis still lies on magical and supernatural nightmare experience.