Talk:Hag

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Since so few links link here, it might be good to provide links to 'Famous hags of history' or somesauch. If no one finds an entry, it isn't much use. Wetman 00:26, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)

It's not even very accurate. According to dictionary.com, "hag" can refer to a witch with magical powers also. DopefishJustin (・∀・) 06:21, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Neuroscience?

Unless someone can make a really good argument, I'm removing this article from Category:Neuroscience. The tentative semantic link to sleep paralysis does not seem to constitute enough of a connection to keep this category. Semiconscious (talk · home) 06:53, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

See: Sagan, Carl (1997). The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark.

• Could you give me a synopsis please? I don't exactly have time to read an entire book to figure out what the link between a creature of folklore is to neuroscience. In a neruoscientific setting I have never once heard anyone refer to a hag. Semiconscious (talk · home) 08:48, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

• Also, this is like linking the car model Mercury to category greek mythology because the product name derived from a greek deity. It just doesn't make sense. Semiconscious (talk · home) 08:52, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

The hag, mara, incubus, succubus, and hundred of other "entities" appear to dreamers during episodes of the "nightmare (in the original meaning of the term)" which frequently is currently called "sleep paralysis with hypnagogic hallucinations", more frequently abbreviated to "sleep paralysis" or "hypnagogia". Mary Shelley called it with a better term: "waking dream". Jones wrote a whole book about linking mythology to his, superseded by now, interpretations. Carl Sagan has chapters linking neural events to the folkloric "entities". For their relationship to religious expressions see the work of William James. The common link is not the names but the images generated and their neurobiological substrate. Jclerman 10:20, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't doubt the link. But you don't address my Mercury analogy, which I believe to be most accurate. At the very most the best connection you could make would be to add this to Category:Sleep disorders, which is much more specific (and not even appropriate in this case). You "in neurobiology" section should refer to the nightmare and sleep paralysis article, as the "hags" themselves have nothing to do with the neurobiological phemonmena of sleep disorders. Semiconscious (talk · home) 16:44, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

And clearly I can already tell you won't be satisfied with this so I've requested administrator arbitration so we can avoid revert-warring. I'm completely willing to concede I may be incorrect and out of line here. Semiconscious (talk · home) 16:47, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

This is a disambiguation page. The term "old hag attack" is being disambigated from the more common uses of hag. I would not support the use of those categories on a disambig. JFW | T@lk 18:07, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

FWIW, more specific cats are better, and sleep disorder seems to fit pretty well- Jclerman, the rough corners where sleep disorder would rub uncomfortably in this category seem minor and fairly pedantic. I'd suggest a compromise on Category:Sleep, or something like that, since you could make a case the hags and sleep paralysis are fairly important in the history of the understanding of sleep but... --Maru (talk) Contribs 17:53, 26 December 2005 (UTC)