A) FNaF4 was Mike's nightmare (see: Logbook), BUT...
B) The nightmare was paranormally inspired by some real events, the agony experiments alluded to in SL.
B) The nightmare was paranormally inspired by some real events, the agony experiments alluded to in SL.
In my experience, people tended to claim that the original, "real-life" Nightmares were naked endoskeletons with illusion discs. I always found this strange, because there's really no reason to think that the real-life versions of the Nightmares would look anything like the Nightmares themselves. The Nightmares are "nightmares", they're Mike's dreams, probably inspired a bit by FNaF1. The real-life-Nightmares from those original experiments inspired Mike's dreams, but that doesn't have to mean they looked exactly the same. Bringing illusion discs into game canon just for this one specific point always seemed absurd to me.
The Twisted Ones is about pseudo-Funtimes using illusion discs to appear as pseudo-Nightmares. It reads clearly to me as a metaphor for Funtimes appearing as Nightmares in a dream. Help Wanted's Night Terror minigames (in the bedroom) feature exclusively Nightmares and Funtimes. Funtime Chica's cupcake has sharp teeth, randomly. The Funtimes and Nightmares all have 5 fingers. The Funtimes are designed to capture/kill kids, which fits the behavior of the Nightmares. Freddles = Bidybabs? Plushtrap = Bon Bon?
It'd be cool if the Funtimes' special features from the blueprints matched the Nightmares' behavior, so you could draw a 1-to-1 connection. Sadly, they don't. For this reason, I always thought it was more likely the real-life-Nightmares were more like proto-Funtimes. They were experimental versions, early testing for the Funtimes' child-capturing abilities. It'd be even more similar to the Twisted Ones in that way.
Molten Freddy's mask is a Funtime Freddy lookalike, but it has sharp teeth. What if it's real-life-Nightmare Freddy's mask? It'd connect Molten Freddy more directly to BV, giving the FFPS finale some FNaF4 representation, and tying everything together a bit more nicely. It'd be really cool.
Alas, Dittophobia has come to kill my dreams.
According to the book, the real-life-Nightmares are... mannequins that look the same as the nightmare-Nightmares. It's... the most boring option possible?
Scott, Steel Wool, please... F1X TH1S!