daymaren.
/ˈdeɪmɛː/, U.S. /ˈdeɪˌmɛ(ə)r/ A fearful or frightening fantasy experienced while awake; a daytime nightmare (in literal and figurative senses of nightmare n. 2). Also spec. (now rare): a feeling of suffocation or great distress experienced while fully conscious.In quot. 1737, apparently a fearful or dispirited state of mind attributed to the fancifully personified Spleen of the poem's title.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > emotion > fear > quality of inspiring fear > quality of being eerie > [noun] > nightmare or incubus > occurring during wakefulness
daymare1737
1737 M. Green Spleen 39 The day-mare Spleen, by whose false pleas Men prove mere suicides in ease.
1830 R. Macnish Philos. Sleep x. 148 I have strong doubts of the propriety of considering this affection as any way different from the incubus, or night-mare... The only difference, indeed, which I can perceive between the two affections is, that in day-mare the reason is always unclouded—whereas in incubus it is generally more or less disturbed.
1843 T. Watson Lect. Physic I. xxxix. 686 I saw a lady..who was subject to these attacks of imperfect catalepsy; which have been whimsically, but very expressively, called also attacks of day-mare.
1889 Atlantic Monthly 64 147 Help me to tame these wild day-mares That sudden on me unawares.
?a1949 W. S. Graham Let. Jan. in Nightfisherman (1999) 78 It will be good..to compare our notes of that land which certainly seems like a nightmare or daymare or mare of some galloping sort.
1963 A. Kuhn Study of Society viii. 137 The horrible things which sometimes happen in our daymares.
2002 Sunday Herald (Glasgow) 8 Sept. (Sport section) 4/1 Crainey was having a daymare.
Compounds
daymare dream n. rare a nightmare experienced during the day or while awake (in literal and figurative senses of nightmare n. 2); cf. earlier nightmare dream n. at nightmare n. and adj. Compounds 1a.
ΘΚΠ
the world > physical sensation > sleeping and waking > sleep > dream > [noun] > nightmare
bitch daughter?c1475
nightmare1562
hag1598
nightmare dream1763
daymare dream1796
night horse1840
1796 S. T. Coleridge Let. 1 Nov. (1956) I. 145 I necessarily have day-mair dreams that something will prevent it.
1906 M. D. Conway My Pilgrimage to Wise Men of East vii. 143 I had never imagined—unless in some early day-mare dream of transmundane torments—any [sensations] comparable with those which made memorable my New Year's eve.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, September 2014; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1737