The Sleep Demon

In Henry Fuseli's The Nightmare, a sleeping woman is crushed by a dark creature sitting on her chest while a horse's head surges from the curtains. The painting exploits an ancient belief: the idea that a nocturnal demon causes suffocation and sleep paralysis during the night.

Painted in 1781, The Nightmare quickly became one of the most famous and disturbing images of European Romantic painting.

A woman dressed in white rests in an abandoned posture while a dark creature, called incubus in certain traditions, settles directly on her thorax. The scene corresponds to a real physiological experience known today as sleep paralysis. During this intermediate state between sleep and waking, certain people feel an oppressive presence accompanied by a weight on the chest.

Before modern neurological explanations, these sensations were often interpreted as nocturnal demonic attacks. The horse surging from the curtains adds an even stranger dimension. The English word nightmare historically associates oppressed sleep with a demonic figure called mare. Fuseli thus mixes folklore, sexuality, and nascent psychology.

The painting also shocks through its implicit eroticism. The woman's abandoned body and the demon's invasive posture create a very unusual tension for the time. The Nightmare announces several themes of dark Romanticism and even certain modern explorations of the unconscious. Fear no longer comes from a visible exterior danger, but from mental space itself.