"Ayenst trauelynge fendys by nyghte": Simple Medicines, Practical Innovation, and the Premodern Conceptualization of the Nightmare
Preternature Critical and Historical Studies on the Preternatural August 24, 2022 DOI: 10.5325/preternature.11.2.0225 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Historical analysis Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Dreaming |
| Key points | Argues that premodern remedies for sleep paralysis, including hot herbs like peony and the mineral gagate, were understood within humoral theory as rebalancing the cold, heavy vapors believed to cause nightmare attacks, and that even seemingly magical apotropaic practices were rational within that framework. |
Abstract
abstract:Sleep paralysis, as it is known today, was one of the most remarked-upon maladies in premodern medicine. The feeling of being choked during sleep was usually seen by physicians as being caused by an abundance of melancholic humors. Others interpreted the experience as a supernatural attack. However, the distinctions between medical and "superstitious" remedies against nightmares were rarely so clear cut, especially given the belief that demons were able to manipulate the bodily humors. In this article I will chart the various substances—plant and stone—that were traditionally believed to assuage the symptoms of the nightmare. I will examine how "hot" herbs, such as peony, and minerals with occult heating properties, such as gagate, could rebalance the dangerously cold and heavy vapors that provoked a nightmare attack. It will be seen that even seemingly "magical" apotropaic practices were entirely rational within the milieu of humoral theory.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on dreaming, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dreaming: a conceptual framework for philosophy of mind and empirical research | 2016 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Metaphor and hyperassociativity: the imagination mechanisms behind emotion assimilation in sleep and dreaming | 2015 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Varieties of Lucid Dreaming Experience | 2000 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Experimental Research on Dreaming: State of the Art and Neuropsychoanalytic Perspectives | 2011 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| The Neurobiology of Consciousness: Lucid Dreaming Wakes Up | 2009 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
Citations in the library
Cites 2
- Medical Condition, Demon or Undead Corpse? Sleep Paralysis and the Nightmare in Medieval Europe Social History of Medicine March 4, 2015
- Hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations during sleep paralysis: neurological and cultural construction of the night-mare. Consciousness and Cognition September 1, 1999