Research Output
The Terrors of the Night: Charms against the Nightmare and the Mythology of Dreams
  This article takes a semiotic and structuralist approach to understanding the characteristic nightmare package of imagery, or image-constellation, which appears also in charms, curses and lullabies to do with disturbed sleep. Elements of the nightmare package – its mythos – is related to a spectrum of charms and related belief-narratives. Charms against the nightmare are investigated, as are sleep charms as representative of the nightmare narrative of threat coming close to fruition. Detail is provided on spiritual beings believed to attack the sleeper, as well as on charms as methods to ward off such attacks. Psychological explanations are considered, such as the nightmare antagonist being a disguised avatar of the self.

  • Type:

    Article

  • Date:

    31 December 2017

  • Publication Status:

    Published

  • Publisher

    Estonian Literary Museum of Scholarly Press

  • DOI:

    10.7592/incantatio2017_6_milne

  • ISSN:

    2228-1355

  • Library of Congress:

    B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion

  • Dewey Decimal Classification:

    154 Subconscious & altered states

  • Funders:

    Historic Funder (pre-Worktribe)

Citation

Milne, L. S. (2017). The Terrors of the Night: Charms against the Nightmare and the Mythology of Dreams. Incantatio : An International Journal on Charms, Charmers and Charming, 6, 78-116. https://doi.org/10.7592/incantatio2017_6_milne

Authors

Keywords

Body; dreams; dream imagery; lullabies; mara; metaphor; nightmare; sleep; spells

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