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Origins of English: Nightmares

In many cultures, dreams are considered part of the spiritual world. Dreams are a time when human souls can talk directly with all of creation. In many traditional animistic cultures, dreams are a time for learning, a time for understanding the past, present, and future. In many cultures, prophecies come from dreams.

Not all dreams are pleasant: dreams can sometimes be uncomfortable, perhaps even terrifying. In English we often use the word “nightmare” as a designation for these dreams. At first glance, “nightmare” seems to be composed of two words: “night” and “mare.” “Night” seems appropriate, but what about “mare” which usually refers to a female horse?
The etymology of the “mare” in “nightmare” shows that this is not the “mare” that refers to a horse. Instead “mare” in this context comes from the Old English “maere” (also spelled “moere”) which refers to a female spirit who visits sleepers and sits upon their chests causing feelings of anxiety, suffocation, and/or oppression.
The Old English “maere” is a bit different from the Latin “incubus” which comes from the verb “incubare” meaning “to lie upon.” “Maere” is a female spirit while an “incubus” is a male spirit. They both sit upon sleeping people, but the “incubus” seems to be more interested in sexual intercourse, often for the purpose of fathering a child. In Latin, “succubus” is the female counterpart of incubus.
In Old English, the “maeres of the night” brought about disturbing visions and this evolved into our modern “nightmare” referring to dreams which are unpleasant, disturbing, and/or frustrating.
The modern English word “night” comes from the Old English “niht” (West Saxon “neaht” and Anglian “naeht”) which comes from the Proto-Germanic “*nakht” which comes from the Proto-Indo-European “*nekwt.”
Note: the * indicates that the Indo-European or prehistoric word has been reconstructed by historical linguists.