悪い夢でも見てるのかと思った。– what is “でも” doing here?

I saw this sentence in WaniKani: 悪い夢でも見てるのかと思った

…..translated as "I thought I was having a bad dream."

What is "でも" doing here…?

by traanquil

7 comments
  1. でも in this context does not mean “but” or “however”.

    Sometimes Noun + でも holds a separate grammatical meaning something closer to “or something” or “even”. This でも emphasizes a lack of certainty or conviction that the speaker has in their statement regarding the preceding noun phrase.

    So you could also translate that sentence as “I thought I was seeing a bad dream or something”.

  2. Can someone help me understand “のか” here? I feel I see this often and don’t understand it.

  3. I think ‘でも’ in this context means something the speaker thinks is not valuable. 
     Another example: オナニーでもしてろ,
    カップ麺でも食ってろ

  4. Can also help to phrase it like this 「悪い夢でも見てるのか」と思った

    As it’s supposed to be inner dialogue. Like others have said, it serves a purpose of “or something” like “am I having a nightmare or something?”

  5. Wanikani has sentences? Is that like for the later levels? I’m at level 3 right now.

  6. Pretty sure it’s a continuative form of だ for “is” and then も for “even”. Like how a て-form verb plus も means “even if” you do the verb, here this would mean “even if it is a bad dream”.

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