Henry Fuseli (1741-1825) was a Swiss-born British painter in the Romantic period who frequently painted supernatural scenes and images. One of his best known works is “The Nightmare”, painted in 1781 and exhibited a year later. Considered an evocative “edgy” piece at the time, the painting was an immediate success and Fuseli produced three more along this theme.

The work depicts a woman sleeping and the content of her dream or nightmare. Sleep and dreams were common themes for Fuseli, as well as many artists of the Romantic period who sought expression for human emotional experience.

Later interpretations of the painting suggest that the demon-like figure sitting on the woman is representative of a common experience in sleep paralysis where sleepers experience weight on their chests and difficulty breathing.

Sleep paralysis is characterized by temporary paralysis of the body related to Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep, where loss of muscle tone is a normal occurrence. In this state, the mind may awaken from sleep but often mixes dream-like illusions or hallucinations with reality, while the body remains immobile, or “paralyzed”.