meemies, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

meemies n.

also meemees, meeyams

[? var. on heebie-jeebies n.; note WWII US milit. sl. screaming meemie, the German nebelwerfer, a multi-barrelled mortar]

(orig. US) hysteria; usu. as screaming meemies

1941		C. Brackett & B. Wilder Ball of Fire [film script] Blitz it, mister [...] you give me the mimis [...] the screaming mimis.
1945		R.L. Bellem ‘Coffin for a Coward’ in Hollywood Detective Dec. 🌐 There was something about his stillness that gave me the drizzling meemies.
1946		Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 270: The hophead oblivion, the jangled nerves [...] the underworld meemies.
1952		W.R. Burnett Little Men, Big World 37: ‘Anything wrong?’ After a long pause, she seemed about to tell him something, then she spoke hastily. ‘No. Maybe the meemees. I don’t know.’.
1965		J. Thompson Texas by the Tail (1994) 49: Knock off that daddy-mama alfalfa [...] It’s beginning to give me the meeyams!

screaming meemies (n.) (also screaming meamies, screaming mimis, screemies)(US)

1. nerves, paranoia; hysteria.

1941		[see sense 1.
1943		R.L. Bellem ‘Heads You lose’ in Dan Turner Hollywood Detective Feb. 🌐 For an instant I tottered on the brink of the screaming meemies.
1945		E. Hemingway letter 2 Apr. in Baker Sel. Letters (1981) 578: A battle fatigued radio bloke who got the screemies a couple of times.
1949		F. Brown Dead Ringer 126: Susie scared him, then what hapened to Jigaboo must have given him the screaming meamies.
1956		F. Brown [title] The Screaming Mimi.
1986		S. King It (1987) 609: Henry Bowers’s sudden attack of the screaming meemies in West Garden was interesting in some more than technical way.
1987		(con. 1968) Bunch & Cole Reckoning for Kings (1989) 381: His lieutenant who must by now be in the middle of the screaming meemies.
1987		R. Campbell Alice in La-La Land (1999) 138: Somebody threw a building block through the plate glass, gave Hetty the screaming meemies.
2000		G.V. Higgins At End of Day (2001) 31: They are takin’ Halcion like housewives with the screamin’-meemies.

2. delirium tremens.

1941		M. Prenner ‘Drunk in Sl.’ in AS XVI:1 Jan. 70/1: ... has the screaming meemies.
1953		S. Bellow Augie March (1996) 358: When last heard from he was in the booby-hatch for the insulin cure, with the screaming meemies.
2002		S. Phillips Walkaway (2003) 237: Waking up wih the screaming meamies.