Sleep Paralysis and Hypnagogic Hallucinations
Archives of General Psychiatry July 1, 1967 DOI: 10.1001/archpsyc.1967.01730250090013 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Citations | 32 |
| Key points | The text asserts that nightmares produce horrors beyond imagination or adequate description, and vividly describes a dreamer's encounters with serpents, demons, apparitions, and a malignant presence whose icy breath and glaring eyes are felt face to face. |
Abstract
Imagination cannot conceive the horrors it [The Nightmare] frequently gives rise to, or language describe them in adequate terms . . . Everything horrible, disgusting or terrifying in the physical or moral world is brought before him in fearful array; he is hissed at by serpents, tortured by demons, stunned by the hollow voices and cold touch of apparitions . . . . At one moment he may have the consciousness of a malignant demon being at his side; then to shun the sight of so appalling an object, he will close his eyes, but still the fearful being makes its presence known; for its icy breath is felt diffusing itself over his visage, and he knows that he is face to face with a fiend. Then, if he looks up, he beholds horrid eyes glaring upon him, and an aspect of hell grinning at him with even more hellish malice. Or, he may have