Needing some easy fodder for an experimental idea related to imprinting emotions, William began to experiment on Michael. Regularly sedating and dragging him away to undergo fear inducing "nightmares" in hopes his fear and anguish would eventually imbue William's puppets with life. These mechanized puppets would be used in tandem with disorienting audio and a light dose of sleeping gas to create a nightmare-like experience that William would later brush off as night terrors when a miserable Michael began to complain. This continued until William was Springlocked, leaving his work unfinished and Michael with genuine nightmares resembling what he had been subjected to. What neither of them know is that these experiments were successful. The Nightmares have taken on a life of their own, haunting the dreams of any child with enough fear relating to Freddy's.