A nightmare is an unpleasant dream that produces horror while you sleep, our parents used to tell us that dreams could not hurt us, unfortunately, this is not the case since apparently there have been some cases where nightmares could even take your life…
In Los Angeles, California during the 1970s, a group of Asian refugees began to report very intense nightmares, some refusing to sleep because of the deep fear, which was so immense that they found it difficult to rest.
The origin of these nightmares was due to the fact that many people had lived in deplorable conditions in the past, within their countries of origin: immigrants of the ethnic group known as Hmong or Miao had fled the war when Vietnam attacked Laos.
However, even though many had the opportunity to escape to new horizons, unfortunately, this was not enough to save their lives, the war was still in their dreams since a large number of these immigrants had died in their sleep.
The first known case occurred in 1977 in Orange County. There, Ly Houa – a hardworking, physically fit man – died inexplicably. That was the beginning of a dozen deaths of the same nature. Within five years, more than twenty healthy young Hmong immigrants had suffered the same fate.
The parents of one of the victims mentioned that their son was afraid of falling asleep, said that there was an entity that was chasing him and would end up catching him if he stayed too long in the dream, so he stayed awake for 3 days.
Eventually, his father worried parents decided to give him sleeping pills, but instead of helping him to rest, they led him straight into his worst nightmare with just that monster chasing him.
At midnight and for no reason, the young man began to scream in his sleep. His screams were so loud and frightening that they woke his parents up. But unfortunately, it was too late, when the parents arrived at the young man’s room, their poor son who they believed would find a moment of peace in his sleep, was unconscious and lifeless, for that monster had finally caught up with him.
This syndrome came to be known as sudden unexpected death syndrome although this led to various explanations based on mythology and the paranormal, which spoke of monsters and witches paralyzing their victims in their dreams.
This paranormal event was the watershed that inspired Wes Craven to create Freddy Krueger, a character in the film “Nightmare on Elm Street”.
Have you ever heard about this syndrome and what do you think about it?