Nightmare

Nightmare (pronounced nahyt-mair)

(1) A terrifying dream in which the dreamer experiences feelings of helplessness, extreme anxiety, sorrow etc.

(2) A condition, thought, or experience suggestive of a nightmare.

(3) A monster or evil spirit once believed to oppress persons during sleep.

1250–1300: From the Middle English nightmare, from the Old English nihtmare, the construct being night +‎ mare (evil spirit believed to afflict a sleeping person).  It was cognate with the Scots nichtmare and nichtmeer, the Dutch nachtmerrie, the Middle Low German nachtmār and the German Nachtmahr.  Another Old English word for it was niht-genga.

Night was from the Middle English nighte, night, nyght, niȝt & naht (night), from the Old English niht, neht, nyht, neaht & næht (night), from the Proto-Germanic nahts (night), from the primitive Indo-European nókwts (night).  It was cognate with the Scots nicht & neicht (night), the West Frisian nacht (night), the Dutch nacht (night), the Low German & German Nacht (night), the Danish nat (night), the Swedish & Norwegian natt (night), the Faroese nátt (night), the Icelandic nótt (night), the Latin nox (night), the Greek νύχτα (nýchta) (night), the Russian ночь (nočʹ) (night) and the Sanskrit नक्ति (nákti) (night).  Mare had a second etymological track from the sense of the female horse (mare from the Old English mīere).  The sense of “nightmare, monster” is from the Old English mare from the Proto-Germanic marǭ (nightmare, incubus) and can be compared with the Dutch dialectical mare, the German dialectical Mahr from the Old Norse mara which produced also the Danish mare and the Swedish mara (incubus, nightmare).  The ultimate root was the primitive Indo-European mor (feminine evil spirit).  The English and European forms were akin to the Old Irish Morrígan (phantom queen), the Albanian merë (horror), the Polish zmora (nightmare), the Czech mura (nightmare, moth) and the Greek Μόρα (Móra); doublet of mara.

The original meaning (incubus, an evil female spirit (later often called a goblin) afflicting men (or horses) in their sleep with a feeling of suffocation) dates from the thirteenth century, with the meaning shift from the incubus to the suffocating sensation it causes emerging in the mid sixteenth century.  The sense of "any bad dream" is recorded by 1829; that of "very distressing experience" is from 1831.  Nightmare and nightmarishness are nouns, nightmarish is an adjective and nightmarishly an adverb; the noun plural is nightmares.  The adjective nightmaresque is non-standard but use is not infrequent.

Bad dreams

Waking from a bad dream, Lindsay Lohan in Scary Movie 5 (2013).

Nightmares are regarded by mental health clinicians essentially as part of the human condition.  In this they differ from night terror (sometimes called sleep terror), a disorder inducing panic or feelings of morbid dread, typically during the early stages of non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep and usually brief in duration, lasting no more than 1-10 minutes.  Sleep terrors appear most often to begin in childhood, decreasing (usually) with age but their frequency and severity can be affected, inter alia, by sleep deprivation, medications, stress, fever and intrinsic sleep disorders.  Evidence does seem to suggest a predisposition to night terrors may be congenital and there may be an increase in prevalence among those with first-degree relatives with a similar history but the link to inheritance is dismissed by some academics as "speculative".

The Nightmare (1781), oil on canvas by the Swiss-English painter John Henry Fuseli (Johann Heinrich Füssli; 1741-1825), Detroit Institute of Arts.  It's a popular image to use to illustrate something "nightmare related".

When the political activist Max Eastman (1883–1969) visited Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) in Vienna in 1926, he observed a print of Fuseli's The Nightmare, hung next to Rembrandt's  (Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn; 1606-1669) The Anatomy Lesson.  Although well known for his work on dream analysis (although it’s the self-help industry more than the neo-Freudians who have filled the book-shelves), Freud never mentions Fuseli's famous painting in his writings but it has been used by others in books and papers on the subject.  The speculation is Freud liked the work (clearly, sometimes, a painting is just a painting) but nightmares weren’t part of the intellectual framework he developed for psychoanalysis which suggested dreams (apparently of all types) were expressions of wish fulfilments while nightmares represented the superego’s desire to be punished; later he would refine this with the theory a traumatic nightmare was a manifestation of “repetition compulsion”.  The juxtaposition of sleeping beauty and goblin provoked many reactions when first displayed and encouraged Fuseli to paint several more versions.  The Nightmare has been the subject of much speculation and interpretation, including the inevitable debate between the Freudians and Jungians and was taken as a base also by political cartoonists, a bunch more nasty in earlier centuries than our more sanitized age.

The current diagnostic criteria for sleep terrors

The fifth edition of the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM–5, 2013) revised the diagnostic criteria for sleep terror disorder, requiring:

(1) Recurrent periods where the individual abruptly but not completely wakes from sleep, usually occurring during the first third major period of sleep.

(2) The individual experiences intense fear with a panicky scream at the beginning and symptoms of autonomic arousal, such as increased heart rate, heavy breathing, and increased perspiration. The individual cannot be soothed or comforted during the episode.

(3) The individual is unable or almost unable to remember images of the dream (only a single visual scene for example).

(4) The episode is completely forgotten.

(5) The occurrence of the sleep terror episode causes clinically significant distress or impairment in the individual's functioning.

(6) The disturbance is not due to the effects of a substance, general medical condition or medication.

(7) Coexisting mental or medical disorders do not explain the episodes of sleep terrors.

Incubus & Succubus

Incubus (pronounced in-kyuh-buhs or ing-kyuh-buhs)

(1) In medieval folklore, a mythical demon or evil spirit said to be a figure appearing in nightmares and (when in explicit male form) known to descend upon sleeping women, engaging in sexual intercourse.

(2) Used loosely, sleep paralysis; night terrors, a nightmare.

(3) Some thought weighing upon one, oppressing one like a nightmare, especially if an obsession which prevents or interrupts sleep.

(4) By extension, a yoke, any oppressive thing or person; a burden.

(5) In entomology, one of various parasitic insects, especially the sub-family Aphidiinae.

1175–1225: From the Middle English incubus, from the Medieval Latin incubus (a nightmare induced by such a demon), a noun derivative of the Latin incubāre (to lie upon; to incubate), from the Latin incubō (nightmare, one who lies down on the sleeper; to lie upon, to hatch), the construct being in- (used in the sense of “on”) +‎ cubō (to lie down).  From the Latin the word was picked up also by Dutch (incubus), French (incube), German (Incubus), Italian (incubo), Portuguese (íncubo), Romanian (incub), Russian (инку́б (inkúb)) and Spanish (íncubo).  Incubus is a noun; the noun plural is incubuses or incubi.

Succubus (pronounced suhk-yuh-buhs)

(1) In medieval folklore, a mythical demon in female form, said to have sexual intercourse with men in their sleep.

(2) Any demon or evil spirit (historically, almost always in female form).

(3) A woman of loose virtue; a strumpet; a whore, a prostitute (archaic).

1350–1400: From the Middle English succubus, from the Medieval Latin succubus, a variant of the Latin succuba (a harlot), from the Latin succubāre (to lie beneath), the construct being sub- (used in the sense of “under”) + cubāre (to lie).  The alternative form was succuba.  Succubus was coined to describe a female form of a fiend on the model of incubus.  The verb succubate (have carnal knowledge of a man (as a succuba) came from the Latin past participle where succuba (a harlot) was use of a woman of human flesh and blood with no suggestion of the supernatural.  The transferred sense of succuba in the Classical Latin was “a supplanter; a rival”.  Succubus & succuba are nouns, succubine is an adjective and succubate is a verb; the noun plural is succubi. 

Lindsay Lohan with bottle of Mountain Dew water leaving an Incubus concert, Hollywood Bowl, Los Angeles, 13 July, 2009.  Incubus is a four or five piece rock band described as “part metal, part funk, part jazz and part hip-hop”.

The incubus was a male demon said to engage in sexual activity with sleeping women, depicted often in situations in which the victim was unable to resist and the subtext was less one of the demon’s desire than a wish to drain energy or life force.  Historically, the visitation of incubi was blamed for causing nightmares and in pre-modern medicine they were attributed as the source of sleep paralysis.  The succubus was a female demon, aid to seduce men, visiting in their dreams and engaging in sexual activity.  In folklore, the notion of unwillingness among the “victims” was not always present and often the succubus depicted as a temptress who exploits human desires, one sub-text being men were really not to blame for falling for her “irresistible” charms.  Despite that, priests would use the succubus to illustrate the dangers of masturbation, linking the demon’s nocturnal visits with the practice.  This association with themes of temptation, sin and the dangers of uncontrolled lust was one of the reasons “succubus” was by the mid-sixteenth century used to mean “a strumpet; a woman of loose virtue, a prostitute”, echoing the earlier Latin succuba (a harlot); the English language has proved endlessly productive in coining terms with which to denigrate women.  The essential distinction was that succubi were depicted as alluring and seductive, whereas incubi were portrayed as invasive and terrifying, themes familiar for thousands of years.  It’s notable that in many folk narratives, it was monks who were said to be especially vulnerable to the ways of the succubi, their sexual skills such that they would draw from the clerics so much energy the unfortunate men could barely sustain themselves, some succumbing to exhaustion and even death.  In Antiquity, although the specific terms incubus (a male demon which rapes sleeping women) and succubus (a female demon which seduces men) were not used, similar ideas do appear in Greek and Roman mythology and in the Christian tradition of the incubi & succubi the ancient beliefs in spirits, demons and seduction were blended and infused with Biblical influence.

The Greek demons

There was Empusa (Ερπουσα), one of the creatures in Hecate's entourage who belonged to the Underworld and filled the night with terrors.  Empusa could assume various shapes and appeared particularly to women and children; feeding on human flesh, she would often assume the form of a young girl to attract her victims.  Lamia (leɪmiə) was a daughter of Poseidon and mother of the Libyan Sibyl.  She was a most terrible monster who was said to steal children and was a terror to nurses.  In one account (in mythology there are many strains), Lamia was the daughter of Belus and Libya and enjoyed an affair with Zeus but on every occasion she gave birth to a child, Hera would arrange for it to die.  All this affected Lamia and she became depressed, in her despair secluding herself in a cave where she became a monster with an obsessive jealousy of mothers more fortunate than herself; she would seize and devour their children.  To punish her more, Hera denied her the ability to sleep so she appealed to Zeus who gave her the power to take out her eyes, replacing them whenever she wished.  The tale of Lamia influenced writers and some other female spirits which attached themselves to children in order to suck their blood were known as Lamiae.

Sirens and the Night (1865), oil on canvas by William Edward Frost (1810-1877).

Hecate (hɛkəti) was another demon where the details vary in different tales.  The poet Hesiod (active 740-650 BC) portrayed her as the offspring of Asteria & Perses and a and a direct descendant of the generation of Titans.  She had some virtues in that when she extended hr goodwill to mortals, variously she could grant material prosperity, eloquence in political assemblies and victory in battle & sporting events.  She had the power to fill the nets of fishermen, make the fields of farmer fecund and fatten their cattle but her reputation suffered because, as a goddess of witchcraft, ghosts, and magic (big things at the time), her retinue included ghostly women or phantoms who preyed upon men in the manner of a succubus.  The Sirens (Σειρῆνες) were deadly creatures who used their lyrical and earthly charms to lure sailors to their death.  Attracted by their enchanting music and voices, the seduced seafarers would sail their ships too close to the rocky coast of the nymph's island and there be shipwrecked.  Not untypically for the myths of antiquity, the sirens are said to have had many homes.  The Romans said they lived on some small islands called Sirenum scopuli while later authors place them variously on the islands of Anthemoessa, on Cape Pelorum, on the islands of the Sirenuse, near Paestum, or in Capreae.  All were places with rocky coasts and tall cliffs.  It was Odysseus who most famously escaped the sirens.  Longing to hear their songs but having no wish to be shipwrecked, he had his sailors fill their ears with beeswax, rendering them deaf.  Odysseus then ordered them to tie him to the mast.  Sailing past, when he heard their lovely voices, he ordered his men to release him but they tightened the knots, not releasing him till the danger had passed.  Some writers claimed the Sirens were fated to die if a man heard their singing and escaped them and that as Odysseus sailed away they flung themselves into the water and drowned.  The idea of the sirens persists in idiomatic use:  The "siren sound" is used to refers to words or something which exerts a particular compelling attraction but a "siren call" can be used of something not directly audible such as the thoughts evoked by a painting or even a concept, populism, fascism & communism all described thus at times.

The Roman demons

The strīx (στριγός) was a bird of ill omen, the product of metamorphosis, infamous for feeding on human flesh and blood.  That behavior saw the name adopted for witches but again the tales vary.  Some claimed the strīx did no harm to mortals while other damn them as vampiric, owl-like creatures,  man-eaters who were the terror of any community upon which they would prey, a notion much pursued by later Medieval writers, always happy to recount takes of bloodthirsty women, the strīx blamed for much child-eating, sometimes with an undertone of seduction or spiritual corruption.  The witches were unconnected with the word Styx.  Styx (Στύξ) was a river of the Underworld and as told by Hesiod, Styx was the oldest of the children of Oceanus & Tethys but the Roman writer Hyginus (Gaius Julius Hyginus (circa 64 BC–17 AD) aid she was one of the children of Nyx & Erebus.  Muddying the waters further, she featured amongst Persephone's companions in the in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, but there was also a tradition according to which she was Persephone's mother.  Styx was the name of a spring in Arcadia which emerged from a rock above ground, then disappeared underground again.  Its water was poisonous for humans and cattle and could break iron, metal and pottery, though a horse's hoof was unharmed and supposedly, it was waters from this spring which poisoned Alexander III of Macedon (Alexander the Great, 356-323 BC).  The water of the Styx was in some stories said to possess magical powers and it was into its flow that Thetis dipped Achilles (holding by the heel) in order to confer invulnerability.  The satyrs (σάτυρος) were demons of nature which appeared in Dionysus' train, represented often with the lower part of the body resembling that of a horse and the upper part that of a man (sometimes the animal half was that of a goat).  They had a long, thick tail (like that of a horse) and a perpetually erect penis of truly heroic dimensions.  In many stories, they were depicted as enjoying dancing & drinking with Dionysus and pursuing the Maenads & Nymphs.  Over time, the bestial almost vanished as their lower limbs became human with feet rather than hooves with only the full tails remained as a reminder of the old form.  Although infamous for their lascivious behavior, they were not malevolent in the same way as demons although they pursued women and nymphs with as great an enthusiasm as any incubus.

Hypnopompic

Hypnopompic (pronounced hip-nuh-pom-pik)

Of or relating to the state of consciousness between sleep and becoming fully awake.

1897: The construct was hypno-, from the Ancient Greek ὕπνος (húpnos) (sleep) + the Ancient Greek πομπή (pomp(ḗ)), (a sending away) +‎ -ic.  The -ic suffix was from the Middle English -ik, from the Old French -ique, from the Latin -icus, from the primitive Indo-European -kos & -ḱos, formed with the i-stem suffix -i- and the adjectival suffix -kos & -ḱos.  The form existed also in the Ancient Greek as -ικός (-ikós), in Sanskrit as -इक (-ika) and the Old Church Slavonic as -ъкъ (-ŭkŭ); a doublet of -y.  In European languages, adding -kos to noun stems carried the meaning "characteristic of, like, typical, pertaining to" while on adjectival stems it acted emphatically; in English it's always been used to form adjectives from nouns with the meaning “of or pertaining to”.  A precise technical use exists in physical chemistry where it's used to denote certain chemical compounds in which a specified chemical element has a higher oxidation number than in the equivalent compound whose name ends in the suffix -ous; (eg sulphuric acid (H₂SO₄) has more oxygen atoms per molecule than sulphurous acid (H₂SO₃).  The word was coined in the sense of “pertaining to the state of consciousness when awaking from sleep” by Frederic WH Myers (1843-1901), the construct being from hypno- (sleep) + the second element from the Greek pompe (sending away) from pempein (to send).  The word was introduced in Glossary of Terms used in Psychical Research, Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, vol. xii (1896-1897 supplement), an organization founded by Myers.  Hypnopompic & hypnopompia were thought to be necessary as companion (in the sense of “bookend”) terms to hypnagogic & hypnagogia (Illusions hypnagogiques) which are the “vivid illusions of sight or sound (sometimes referred to as “faces in the dark”) which sometimes accompany the prelude to the onset of sleep.  Hypnopompic is an adjective and hypnopompia is a noun; the noun plural is hypnopompias.

Frederic Myers was a philologist with a great interest in psychical matters, both the orthodox science and aspects like the work of mediums who would “contact the spirits of the dead”, the latter, while not enjoying much support in the scientific establishment, was both taken seriously and practiced by a remarkable vista of “respectable society”.  Mediums enjoyed a burst in popularity in the years immediately after World War I (1914-1918) when there was much desire by grieving wives & mothers to contact dead husbands and sons and some surprising figures clung to beliefs in such things well into the twentieth century.  In the early 1960s, a reunion of surviving pilots from the Battle of Britain (1940) was startled when their wartime leader and former head of Royal Air Force (RAF) Fighter Command, Hugh Dowding (1882–1970), told them: “regularly he communicated with the spirits of their fallen comrades”.  Myers also had what might now be called a “varied” love life although it’s said in his later life his interest was restricted to women, including a number of mediums, all reputed to be “most fetching”.

In the profession, while acknowledging the potential usefulness in things like note-taking in a clinical environment, few psychologists & psychiatrists appear to regard hypnopompia & hypnagogia as separate phenomena, both understood as the imagery, sounds and strange bodily feelings sometimes felt when in that state between sleep and being fully awake.  In recent years, as the very definition of “sleep” has increasingly been segmented, the state in some literature has also been referred to both as “stage 1 sleep” & “quiet wakefulness” although the former would seem to be most applicable to falling asleep (hypnagogia) rather than waking up (hypnopompia).  Still, the distinction between what’s usually a late night versus an early morning thing does seem of some significance, especially that most in the discipline of the science of sleep (now quite an industry) seem to concede wake-sleep & sleep-wake transitions are not fully understood; nor are the associated visual experiences and debate continues about the extent to which they should (or can) be differentiated from other dream-states associated with deeper sleep.

Waking in a hypnopompic state: Lindsay Lohan in Falling for Christmas (Netflix, 2022).

One striking finding is that so few remember hypnopompic & hypnagogic imagery and that applies even among those who otherwise have some ability to recall their dreams.  What’s often reported by subjects or patients is the memory is fleeting and difficult to estimate in duration and that while the memory is often sustained for a short period after “waking”, quickly it vanishes.  An inability to recall one’s dreams in not unusual but this behavior is noted also for those with a sound recollection of the dreams enjoyed during deeper sleep states.  What seems to endure is a conceptual sense of what has been “seen”: faces known & unknown, fragmentary snatches of light and multi-dimensional geometric shapes.  While subjects report they “know” they have “seen” (and also “heard”) more fully-developed scenes, their form, nature or even the predominate colors prove usually elusive.  Despite all this, it’s not uncommon for people to remark the hypnopompic experience is “pleasant”, especially the frequently cited instances of floating, flying or even a separation from the physical body, something which seems more often called “trippy” than “scary”.

For some however, the hypnopompic & hypnagogic experience can be recalled, haunting the memory and the speculation is that if “nightmarish” rather than “dream-like”, recollection is more likely, especially if associated with “paralyzed hypnogogia or hypnopompia” in which a subject perceives themselves “frozen”, unable to move or speak while the experience persists (for centuries a reported theme in “nightmares).  Observational studies are difficult to perform to determine the length of these events but some work in neurological monitoring seems to suggest what a patient perceives as lasting some minutes may be active for only seconds, the implication being a long “real-time” experience can be manufactured in the brain in a much shorter time and the distress can clinically be significant.  For this reason, the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) regards hypnagogia & hypnopompia as something similar to synaesthesia (where a particular sensory stimulus triggers a second kind of sensation; things like letters being associated with colors) or certain sexual fetishes (which were once classified as mental disorders) in that they’re something which requires a diagnosis and treatment only if the condition is troubling for the patient.  In the fifth edition of the DSM (DSM-5 (2013)), hypnagogia anxiety was characterized by intense anxiety symptoms during this state, disturbing sleep and causing distress; it’s categorized with sleep-related anxiety disorders.

The Nightmare (1781), oil on canvas by the Swiss-English painter John Henry Fuseli (1741-1825), Detroit Institute of Arts.  It's a popular image to use to illustrate something "nightmare related".

When the political activist Max Eastman (1883–1969) visited Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) in Vienna in 1926, he observed a print of Fuseli's The Nightmare, hung next to Rembrandt's  (Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn; 1606-1669) The Anatomy Lesson.  Although well known for his work on dream analysis (although it’s the self-help industry more than the neo-Freudians who have filled the book-shelves), Freud never mentions Fuseli's famous painting in his writings but it has been used by others in books and papers on the subject.  The speculation is Freud liked the work (clearly, sometimes, a painting is just a painting) but nightmares weren’t part of the intellectual framework he developed for psychoanalysis which suggested dreams (apparently of all types) were expressions of wish fulfilments while nightmares represented the superego’s desire to be punished; later he would refine this with the theory a traumatic nightmare was a manifestation of “repetition compulsion”.  The juxtaposition of sleeping beauty and goblin provoked many reactions when first displayed and encouraged Fuseli to paint several more versions.  The Nightmare has been the subject of much speculation and interpretation, including the inevitable debate between the Freudians and Jungians and was taken as a base also by political cartoonists, a bunch more nasty in earlier centuries than our more sanitized age.

Goblin

Goblin (pronounced gob-lin)

(1) In folklore, a small grotesque supernatural creature (depicted often as elf or sprite, regarded as mischievous and malevolent towards people.

(2) In modern fiction, one of various hostile supernatural creatures, in fantasy writing often depicted as malicious, grotesque and diminutive humanoids (sometimes also described as trolls or orcs.

1300–1350: From the Middle English gobelin & gobelyn (a devil, incubus, mischievous and ugly fairy), from the Middle French, from the Old Northern French gobelin (the source also of the Norman goubelin and the Walloon gobelin), perhaps a blend of the Old Dutch kobeholdo (goblin) (related also to the Dutch kabouter, the Middle High German kobold and the German Kobold) and the Late Latin cobalus (mountain sprite), from the Ancient Greek κόβαλος (kóbalos) (rogue, knave; goblin).  It displaced the native Old English pūca and was later picked up by some Easter European languages including Polish and Serbo-Croatian.  Goblin is a noun; the noun plural is goblins.

Curiously, in the twelfth century, there was also the Medieval Latin gobelinus, the name of a spirit haunting the region of Evreux, in chronicle of Orderic (Ordericus in the Latin) Vitalis) (1075-circa 1142) which etymologists say is unrelated either to the Germanic kobold or the Medieval Latin cabalus, from the Greek kobalos (impudent rogue, knave) & kobaloi (wicked spirits invoked by rogues), of unknown origin; it’s speculated it may be a diminutive of the proper name Gobel chosen for some reason (even as an in-joke) by the author.  Orderic’s Chronicles have been extensively cross-referenced against other primary and secondary sources and historians regard them as among the more reliable Medieval texts.  His other great work was the Historia Ecclesiastica, written in the last twenty years of his life (the bulk of the text composed between 1123-1132).  One interesting aspect of the history noted by etymologists was that although the French gobelin seems not to have appeared for over two centuries after the word emerged in English, it does appear in twelfth century texts in Medieval Latin and it’s thought few people who in some way adhered to folk magic used Medieval Latin.  John Wycliffe (circa 1328–1384) must have thought the word sufficiently well-known to use it in his translation of the Bible (published 1382-1395) intended to be read by (or more typically read to) a wide audience.  Psalms 91:5: Thou schalt not drede of an arowe fliynge in the dai, of a gobelyn goynge in derknessis.  Unfortunately, in the King James Version (KJV; 1611), the passage was rendered as the less evocative: Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day.

A goblin shark (left) and a 1962 Dodge Dart station wagon (right).

The horrid looking goblin shark (Mitsukurina owstoni, also knonw as the elfin shark), goblin shark a calque of its traditional Japanese name tenguzame (tengu a Japanese mythical creature often depicted with a long nose and red face).  The last survivor of ancient lineage and one that retains several "primitive" traits, it's been called a "living fossil" and despite the fearsome appearance, dwelling at great depth, there have been no reports of attacks on people.  There's nothing to suggest Dodge's stylists were in the early 1960s influenced by the sight of a goblin shark; within Chrysler, it was just their time of "peak weirdness".

The system works: A goblin shark eats a fish.  Things didn't work out so well for the 1962 Chryslers which received some hasty re-styles to achieve a more conventional look. 

Folklore (and latter-day fantasy writing) has produced a number of derived terms including gobbo, goblette, gobioid, gobony, goblincore, goblinish, goblinize, goblinkind, goblinry, goblinesque & goblinish.  The history of the goblin’s depiction as something grotesque attracted some in zoology who named the goblin spider (which doesn’t look much more frightening than most arthropods) and the truly bizarre goblin shark which does live up to the name.  The noun hobgoblin dates from the 1520s, the construct being hob (elf), from Hobbe, a variant of Rob (short for Robin Goodfellow, an elf character in German folklore) + goblin.  Hobgoblins & goblins are all supernatural and all regard humans with malicious intent.  Traditionally, they are depicted as human-animal hybrids with an appearance tending to the former and they were said to assail, afflict and generally annoy folk before retreating to their haunts under bridges on in secluded spots in forests; Shakespeare’s contrast being: “Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn'd,” (Hamlet, act I, scene 4).  Gremlins are a more modern creation and are especially prevalent in machinery, breaking things and disrupting production, their cousins in software being bugs.

Goblins from Texas en masse (left) and the one-off Goblin, Perth, Australia, 1959.

Although there have been Demons and Ghosts, no car manufacture seems ever have been tempted to build a Goblin although one Texas-based operation does offer a minimalist kit-car with the name and an enterprising Australian in 1959 chose it for a home-made special.  The Antipodean Goblin was the bastard offspring of unpromising origins: the chassis of a 1928 Essex, the drive-train from a wrecked Holden 48-215 (aka FX, 1948-1953).  Unusually for the era in which aluminum or fibreglass was preferred by small-scale producers, the body was all steel and apparently recycled from the donor Holden (although the grill components appear borrowed from the later FJ Holden (1956-1956), re-shaped with lines which owed something to both the MGA and AC Ace, later to become famous as the Shelby Cobra.  Its fate is unknown but, in the ways of such things, survival is unlikely.

1974 AMC Gremlin X.  Despite the ungainly look, it was a commercial success.

There was however a Gremlin, built between 1970-1978 by American Motors Corporation (AMC) (production in Mexico lasted until 1983 under AMC's Vehículos Automotores Mexicanos (VAM) subsidiary).  Created in the AMC manner (in a hurry, at low cost), the Gremlin was essentially a shortened AMC Hornet (1970-1977) with a kammback tail and was a successful foray into the sub-compact (in US terms) market, something well-timed given the importance the segment would assume during the difficult decade the 1970s became.  Purchased almost exclusively on the basis of cost-breakdown, the Gremlin did however attract the interest of the ever imaginative drag-racing crowd because, although AMC never fitted anything more powerful than a distinctly non-powerful (malaise-era) 304 cubic inch (5.0 litre) V8, because (like Pontiac), AMC used much the same block size for all second-generation V8s, fitting their 401 (6.6) to the Gremlin was simple.  Many were produced, some in small runs with factory support and, being relatively light and small, the performance was more than competitive with some of the notably more expensive competition.

De Havilland Goblin jet-engine schematic (left) and prototype Gloster Meteor (DG207G) with Goblin engines, de Havilland airfield, Hatfield, Hertfordshire, 26 October 1945.

The origin of the jet engine lay in designs by French and German engineers which in principle would have worked but, as the authorities at the time realized, the metallurgy of the time hadn’t advanced to the point where alloys light enough to be viable and able to withstand the temperatures to which they’d be subjected, hadn’t been developed.  Progress however was made and in 1931 an English engineer was granted a patent for what was the first recognizably modern jet engine although, bizarre as it seems in hindsight, the Air Ministry allowed the patent to lapse and it was the German Heinkel company which first flew a jet-powered aircraft when the He 178 took briefly to the air in August 1939.  Fortunately, the Luftwaffe high-command was as short-sighted as the Air Ministry (“the bloody Air Marshals” Lord Beaverbrook (1879-1964) called them while minister for aircraft production (1940-1941)) and, knowing their immediate need was for a capable, reliable fighter force within two years, declined to fund development of a project which would absorb at least three years of expensive development to be battle-ready.  The British however by then saw the potential and in June 1939 ordered production of experimental airframes and engines; it was these which would become the basis of the Gloster Meteor, powered by the de Havilland Goblin.  Both would enjoy surprisingly long lives, the Goblin in series production between 1944-1954 while the Meteor, although by then obsolescent, served with the Royal Air Force (RAF) until 1955, while in overseas service, some militaries didn’t retire their last planes until 1974.

Lindsay Lohan in goblin mode.

“Goblin mode” is a neologism for rejecting societal expectations and living in an unkempt, hedonistic manner without regards to self-image and Oxford University Press (OUP), publishers of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), recently announced “goblin mode” as their 2022 word of the year.  Ignoring (as in the past) criticism from pedants they had picked a phrase rather than a word, OUP also provided a mini-usage guide, suggesting the most popular forms were “I am in goblin mode” or “to go goblin mode” and the meaning imparted was “unapologetically self-indulgent, lazy, slovenly, or greedy”.  This year’s award differs from OUP’s usual practice in that it was chosen by public vote from a choice of three selected by their lexicographers.  Unlike some recent elections, there can be no suggesting this one was “stolen”, goblin mode winning in a landslide with 318,956 votes, 93% of the valid ballots cast.  While it can’t be proven, the margin of victory might have been greater still had those already in goblin mode not been too lazy to bother voting.

The win has provoked some comment because, despite having been used on-line since first appearing (apparently on twitter) in 2009, it’s hardly been popular and some have speculated its success can be attributed to it being the one which most appealed to an audience with memories of COVID-19 lockdowns still raw, a goodly number of voters probably recognizing it was goblin mode into which many had lapsed during isolation.  The other choices OUP offered were “Metaverse” and #IStandWith”, both probably more familiar but, lacking novelty and the quality of self-identification, clearly less appealing.  OUP also noted the suggestion there may be in the zeitgeist, something of a rebellion against “the increasingly unattainable aesthetic standards and unsustainable lifestyles exhibited on social media”.

The Nightmare (1781), oil on canvas by the Swiss-English painter John Henry Fuseli (1741-1825), Detroit Institute of Arts.  It's a popular image to use to illustrate something "nightmare related".

When the political activist Max Eastman (1883–1969) visited Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) in Vienna in 1926, he observed a print of Fuseli's The Nightmare, hung next to Rembrandt's  (Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn; 1606-1669) The Anatomy Lesson.  Although well known for his work on dream analysis (although it’s the self-help industry more than the neo-Freudians who have filled the book-shelves), Freud never mentions Fuseli's famous painting in his writings but it has been used by others in books and papers on the subject.  The speculation is Freud liked the work (clearly, sometimes, a painting is just a painting) but nightmares weren’t part of the intellectual framework he developed for psychoanalysis which suggested dreams (apparently of all types) were expressions of wish fulfilments while nightmares represented the superego’s desire to be punished; later he would refine this with the theory a traumatic nightmare was a manifestation of “repetition compulsion”.  The juxtaposition of sleeping beauty and goblin provoked many reactions when first displayed and encouraged Fuseli to paint several more versions.  The Nightmare has been the subject of much speculation and interpretation, including the inevitable debate between the Freudians and Jungians and was taken as a base also by political cartoonists, a bunch more nasty in earlier centuries than our more sanitized age.

Hooptie

Hooptie (pronounced hoop-dee or whoop-dee (contested))

In slang, an old, worn-out car.

Circa 1960s: The slang hooptie is used to describe an old, battered car.  The origin is uncertain but it’s thought to have originated in African American urban vernacular sometime in the second half of the twentieth century.  The most common explanation is that the word is a phonetic adaptation from Coupe de Ville, a model of Cadillac produced 1949-2005 (although the factory used the syntax Coupe De Ville only from 1959; prior to that they were Cadillac DeVilles with coupe bodies).  Coupé was from the French couper (to cut), from the Old French coper & colper (to cut off), probably from cop (blow) or colp (which endures as the modern coup), with sense derived from the notion of “cutting off with a blow”.  It may correspond to a Vulgar Latin verb colpāre, a syncopated form of colaphāre (blow, cuff), from the Latin colaphus (a blow delivered by a fist).  The alternative etymology suggests a link with the Vulgar Latin cuppāre (to behead), from the Latin caput (head) although this has never received much support.  The term de ville was from the French phrase de la ville which translated literally as de (of) la (the) ville (city) and in the eighteenth & nineteenth centuries a “sedanca de ville” was a type of small, horse drawn carriage popular for use in the tight streets of cities.  The carriages featured an enclosed compartment for usually two-three passengers while the driver sat outside.  That configuration was adopted in the early coachwork of some automobiles and although production declined as fully-enclosed bodies began to prevail, the style remained on the lists of many coachbuilders until the outbreak of World War II (1939-1945).  In the post-war years there was the odd sedanca de ville which coachbuilders would build on special request by the 1970s the style was thought extinct, a feeling which Bentley’s quixotic semi-revival with the production of a few dozen Continental Sedanca Coupés (SC) in 1999 did little to dispel.  The SC was actually just an appropriation of the name and really a variation of a targa, the rear passenger compartment covered but not enclosed.

Lindsay Lohan assessing her hooptie: Herbie: Fully Loaded (2005).

There have been five alternative theories for the etymology: (1) One suggests both hoopdie & hooptie were both used in the African American community in the 1920s to describe a run-down or dilapidated house (a use perhaps derived from “hovel”) and over time the term came to be was applied to old cars in some advanced state of disrepair.  There is little support for this.  (2) It may be onomatopoeic and a reference to the tortured sounds which emanate from a defective machine in need of repairs.  There is little support for this. (3) It may be related to the phrase “hope I die”, the anthropomorphic notion being the car would sooner be crushed than continue in its dilapidated state.  There is no support for this.  (4) It may be from Hupmobile, a popular brand of car early in the twentieth century, the linguist progress being from “Hupmobile” to “hup” and finally to "hoop", the theory being the use was originally specific to neglected Hupmobiles and later generalized.  There is little support for this.  (5) Hooptie may be from the West African Wolof xub (broken down), the connection being many African Americans are descended from those brought to the US during the slave trade.  It’s thought not impossible but linguistic anthropologists seem unconvinced.  The link with the Cadillac Coupe DeVille (Cadillac followed the usual US practice and never spelled Coupé with the l'accent aigu (acute accent) on the final "e") remains most convincing because for decades, the model was a byword for automotive prestige in the US and it (and similar long cars from the era) is still used in music videos by African Americans.  The song My Hooptie by Sir Mix-a-Lot (stage name of Anthony L Ray (b 1963)) was released in 1989 and included on his album Seminar.  The alternative spellings are hooptee & hoopty.  Hooptie is a noun; the noun plural is hoopties.

Peak Cadillac Coupe DeVille is probably the 1968 model which, uniquely, combined the classic 1960s styling with the stacked headlamps with the new 472 cubic inch (7.7 litre) V8 which in the 1970s would grow to 500 cubic inches (8.2 litre) before shrinking in the post oil-shock world.  When, in 368 cubic inch (6.0 litre) form it was retired in 1984, it was the last of the old “big-block” V8s available in a passenger car.

Reflecting the etymology, the original use of coupé was to describe a horse-drawn carriage cut down to a smaller size to provide for greater speed & agility but by the time Cadillac released the Coupe de Ville in 1949, coupe had come generally to mean a two door car and DeVille was appended because it was known to be suggestive of something expensive or exclusive although presumably few were well acquainted with the literal translation.  That was probably just as well because the big Cadillacs weren’t ideal for use in densely populated and congested cities, even those of the late twentieth century US where the parking meters were further apart.  Adopting Cadillac’s usual conventions of nomenclature, the companion four-door models were called Sedan DeVille (It began in 1949 as de Ville and Cadillac published material with the spellings de Ville, De Ville & DeVille before standardizing the later) and the convertibles received no separate designation, labeled also Coupe DeVille.  Surprisingly, the two and four-door were the same length which must have helped with production-line rationalization.

My Hooptie by Sir Mix-a-Lot (Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group)

My hooptie rollin', tailpipe draggin'
Heat don't work an' my girl keeps naggin'
Six-nine Buick, deuce keeps rollin'
One hubcap 'cause three got stolen
Bumper shook loose, chrome keeps scrapin'
Mis-matched tires, and my white walls flakin'
Hit mickey-d's, Maharaji starts to bug
He ate a quarter-pounder, threw the pickles on my rug
Runnin', movin' tabs expired
Girlies tryin' to dis 'n say my car looks tired
Hit my brakes, out slid skittles
Tinted back window with a bubble in the middle
Who's car is it? Posse won't say
We all play it off when you look our way
Rollin' four deep, tires smoke up the block
Gotta roll this bucket, 'cause my Benz is in the shop
My hooptie - my hooptie
Four door nightmare, trunk locks' stuck
Big dice on the mirror, grill like a truck
Lifters tickin', accelerator's stickin'
Somethin' on my left front wheel keeps clickin'
Picked up the girlies, now we're eight deep
Cars barely movin', but now we got heat
Made a left turn as I watched in fright
My ex-girlfriend shot out my headlight
She was standin', in the road, so I smashed her toes
Mashed my pedal, boom, down she goes
Law ain't lyin', long hairs flyin'
We flipped the skeez off, dumb girl starts cryin'
Baby called the cops, now I'm gettin' nervous
The cops see a beeper and the suckers might serve us
Hit a side street and what did we find?
Some young punk, droppin' me a flip off sign
Put the deuce in reverse, and started to curse
Another sucker on the south side about to get hurt
Homey got scared, so I got on
Yeah my group got paid, but my groups still strong
Posse moved north, headin for the CD
Ridin' real fast so the cops don't see me
Mis-matched tires got my boys uptight
Two Vogues on the left, Uniroyal on the right
Hooptie bouncin', runnin' on leaded
This is what I sport when you call me big-headed
I pot-hole crusher, red light rusher
Musher of a brother 'cause I'm plowin' over suckers
In a hooptie
It's a three-ton monster, econo-box stomper
Snatch your girly, if you don't I'll romp 'er
Dinosaur rush, lookin' like Shaft
Some get bold, but some get smashed
Cops say the car smokes, but I won't listen
It's a six-nine deuce, so the hell with emissions
Rollin' in Tacoma, I could get burned
(Sound of automatic gunfire) Betta make a you-turn
Spotted this freak with immense posterior
Tryin' to roll smooth through the Hilltop area
Brother start lettin' off, kickin' that racket
Thinkin' I'm a rock star, slingin' them packets
I ain't wit' dat, so I smooth eject
Hit I-5 with the dope cassette
Playin' that tough crew hardcore dope
The tape deck broke
Damn what's next, brothers in Goretex
Tryin' to find a spot where we could hunt for sex
Found a little club called the N-see-O
Military, competition. You know.
I ain't really fazed, 'cause I pop much game
Rolled up tough, 'cause I got much fame
"How ya doin' baby, my name is Mixalot"
"Mixalot got a Benz boy, quit smokin' that rock"
Ooooh, I got dissed. But it ain't no thing
Runnin' that game with the home made slang
Baby got ished, Bremelo gip.
Keep laughin' at the car and you might get clipped
By a hooptie
Runnin' outta gas, stuck in traffic
Far left lane, throwin' up much static
Input, output, carbeurator fulla soot
"Whatcha want me to do Mix?"
Push freak, push
Sputter, sputter rollin' over gutters
Cars dip low with hard core brothers
Tank on E, pulled into Arco
Cops on tip for Columbian cargo
We fit a stereotype, that's what he said
Big long car, four big black heads
Cops keep jockin', grabbin' like 'gators
'Bout stereotypes, I'm lookin' nuthin' like Noriega
Cop took my wallet, looked at my license
His partner said "Damn, they all look like Tyson"
Yes, I'm legit, so they gotta let me go
This bucket ain't rollin' in snow
It's my hooptie