Last night I had a horrible nightmare. Actually, no. Let me preface that by saying that I consider a nightmare to be anything bad that happens to you in the night. If you are sleeping and you are scared, that is a nightmare. If you think in your sleep about loved ones getting sick, that is a nightmare. Obviously. If hooligans come into your room at night and start beating you, that is a night-mare. Unless the hooligans beat you awake. If you wake up, then it is just a beating. The beating can be mild or serious, depending on the intensity of the beating. If you are dreaming about happy thoughts during the beating, then you are having what I like to call a dream-nightmare, or a dream-nightmare with beating. That is just what I like to call it. You can call it something different if you want, although I would be very interested to hear what you consider to be a better term for the scenario I described, and invented. If you are dreaming about sad thoughts but are simultaneously receiving a massage, then you are having what I like to call a nightmare-dream, but I might also call it a midlife crisis. If you are thinking about something nice while you are sleeping, and nothing much is happening to you physically, then obviously that is a dream. I don’t even think there is any question about that one. Please don’t waste my time. If you are asleep and you are thinking about a nocturnal female horse, that is a night mare. You may think I am making a joke, but it happens. Not often. Let me be clear that a nightmare is not a dream. Let me make that abundantly clear. There. A dream is something that happens to you while you are asleep. A nightmare, by contrast, is not, and usually involves an intense massage and/or beating. I am having a nightmare right now. No I’m not.