The original nightmare
The most pitiful thing in the world is my wife having a nightmare.
Her whimperings are the most heartbreaking thing you’ve ever heard, and they’re always accompanied by a thrashing that resembles an infant fighting to roll onto its stomach. Fortunately for her, I’m a light sleeper so I usually snap to attention quickly and ride to the rescue.
The latest one involved her being a target of Michael Myers. I told her watching Halloween before bed was a bad idea, but I suffer from the husband-doesn’t-know-anything syndrome that’s so common in marriages so, you know.
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Our situation aside, an estimated 50% to 85% of adults report having the occasional nightmare, with women reporting nightmares more often than men. Maybe they watch Halloween before bedtime, too.
An approximated 3 to 7% of the U.S. population suffers from nightmares which are a real problem. For some, the result is sleep paralysis, which is a condition involving a person waking up but being temporarily unable to move. Doctors at the Cleveland Clinic say it involves a disruption in that transition between REM sleep and waking; the person is consciously waking up, but that protective paralysis from REM sleep hasn’t fully subsided yet.
They have an interesting term for it — a “sleep demon.”
The reference likely comes from the Old English term, “mære” which in Germanic and Slavic folklore referred to an evil entity that came at night and walked/sat on people’s chests while they slept, paralyzing them with fear. Thus came the word “nightmare” or “night demon.”
I wish I could tell you such things aren’t real, but the scary thing is, night demons aren’t always imaginary.
When nightmares become real
I’ll bet you didn’t know that all the sickening atrocities now being committed by Hamas against the people of Israel originate from a nightmare.
The founder of Islam, Muhammad, grew up in Mecca and was a member of a tribe called Quraysh. Back in his day, historians estimate there were nearly 400 different gods and idols being worshipped in that geography.
Concerning idol worship, Paul tells us, “[Is] an idol is anything? No, but I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God; and I do not want you to become sharers in demons” (1 Cor. 10:19-20). Historical evidence suggests Muhammad, whether willingly or unwillingly, became a “sharer in demons.”
Around 600 A.D. when he was 40, Muhammad started having nightmares. Bad ones.
He began receiving frightening revelations in his sleep, accompanied by violent paralysis and seizures. While Muhammad actually suspected his nightmares were evil in nature, his wife persuaded him to submit to the revelations and so for the next 20-plus years, he continued getting those nightmares.
The result of those “night demons” is a false religion that terrorist groups like Hamas utilize to justify their barbaric actions against the Jewish people and others who oppose their beliefs. The body count produced by Muhammad’s nightmares has been predictably and horrifically high.
In addition to the countless singleton acts of terrorism carried out by Islamic radicals that have claimed innumerable lives, historians Philip and Axelrod’s three-volume Encyclopedia of reveals that, while religiously-motivated wars have only accounted for a mere 7% of all conflicts, Islamic-inspired warfare represents over half that number, leaving all other religions accountable for about 3% of all wars.
It's clear from history that Muhammad’s “night demons” were genuine, resulting in an evil that engulfed the world and culminated in the largest false religion on the planet.
Those entities that came to Muhammad were inspired and directed no doubt by the original nightmare who can appear as an angel of light (2 Cor. 11:14) when he chooses. The “angel Gabriel” that Muhammad thought he was dealing with was anything but the Gabriel spoken about in the Bible; it was instead just the opposite of a messenger sent by God.
So, while my wife’s nightmares of Michael Myers were a figment of her imagination, the nightmares experienced by Muhammad came from a very real, but evil source. Maybe this is why God included a strong warning about false dreams in Scripture: “If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and [says] ‘Let us go after other gods (whom you have not known) and let us serve them,’ you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams” (Deut.13:1–3).
Good advice. If only Ishmael’s descendants had listened back then.
Robin Schumacher is an accomplished software executive and Christian apologist who has written many articles, authored and contributed to several Christian books, appeared on nationally syndicated radio programs, and presented at apologetic events. He holds a BS in Business, Master's in Christian apologetics and a Ph.D. in New Testament. His latest book is, A Confident Faith: Winning people to Christ with the apologetics of the Apostle Paul.
