Editing Nightmare (section)

==Etymology==
The word ''nightmare'' is derived from the [[Old English language|Old English]] {{lang|ang|[[mare (folklore)|mare]]}}, a mythological [[demon]] or [[goblin]] who torments others with frightening dreams. The term has no connection with the Modern English word for a [[Mare|female horse]].<ref>{{Cite book |title=Word Origins And How We Know Them |last=Liberman |first=Anatoly |author-link=Anatoly Liberman |year=2005 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford |isbn=978-0-19-538707-0 |page=87 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sMiRc-JFIfMC&pg=PA87 |access-date=29 March 2012 }}</ref> The word ''nightmare'' is cognate with the Dutch term {{lang|nl|[[:nl:nachtmerrie|nachtmerrie]]}} and German {{lang|de|[[:de:Albtraum|Nachtmahr]]}} (dated). 

Originally, "mare" or "nightmare" referred more specifically to [[sleep paralysis]], in which an experience of terror and paralysis during sleep can be associated with a sense of pressure on the chest and the dreamed presence of entities often pictured as demons, sometimes sitting on the chest. The words also referred to such a "demon," which was also referred to as a [[hag]] and the experience as being "hag-ridden." The meaning of "nightmare" had generalized from sleep paralysis to any bad dream by 1829.<ref name="OEtymD" /> In other languages, the word for "bad dream" similarly evolved in sense from words for "sleep paralysis," often with senses related to the pressure on the chest. For example, French ''cauchemar'' (the first element from old French ''chauchier'' "to press, trample," the second related to "mare"); Spanish ''pesadilla'', from ''pesada'' "weight"; or Hungarian ''lidércnyomás'', from ''nyomás'' "pressure."