Can my nightmares kill me?

Disease Control headquartered here in Atlanta, our fair city. People who watch The Walking Dad know that that's a big claim to thing. And people who play the board game Pandemic. So CDC Centers for Disease Control they were suddenly really interested in eighteen deaths that had occurred over the last four years. They were all apparently healthy uh Laotian refugees, all except for one woman, right, Yeah, one woman the

rest man. They were all ethnic mong people. These were a native ethnic group that had fled Laos due to some severe crackdowns. Yeah in front I've read to this is an isolated culture or similar to that of the American Indian and their religion is an animist one, so it's governed by spirits and manifestations of the soul. Yeah, like like a lot of old religions very you know,

have this kind of vibe going on. But they escaped some brutal conditions, so they you know, they had there's a lot of stress most likely going on with some postraumatic stress syndrome disorder as well, and they're winding up dead like in the wee hours of the morning in their sleep, dying right, Completely mysterious and actually really chilling that these these mostly men were going to sleep and they were fit people, and yep, all of a sudden,

this is happening all over the country, right, because they're spread out in different cities, just one area of the country, right, different refuging this. Yeah. So doctor started to put it together and sort of say, oh, this is very odd that these same people, the same refugees, these group of people are dying in their sleep. What's going on? Yeah.

One thing that they thought might be going on was the possibility, and they were looking into this, the possibility that they were being scared to death by nightmares in their sleep, that nightmares were killing them in their sleep. Yeah. And at that time too, they termed it oriental nightmare death syndrome, which of course has been updated since then. Yeah, like every part of that except for except for the

syndrome has been updated for various reasons, as we'll explore. Uh, it's not really about nightmares, and of course we don't use the word oriental anymore either. But what's what's fascinating about it is that it does. It does really give you the chills because there is that just the possibility that something in our dreams could kill us is it's something.

It just continues to fascinate us though. I mean, you see it in our in our stories and our our fiction, in our mythology, in our like third grade lunch room conversations. You know where you here maybe for the first time. Oh did you know that if you fall in your dream, if you don't wake up before you hit the ground, you'll die, right right? We always have the Boogeyman in the back of our minds, so I can't help it. No matter what culture you're from, you have some sort

of story. And the reason why this is frightening is is that it actually does bear some weight. We'll talk about this a little bit, but you possibly could scare yourself to death, to a certain degree, and it's possible. It's possible, um, and we'll talk about that is it's um it's not something that obviously happens all the time, or else we would all be dropping dead right now, right. Don't lose any sleepover, No, nothing to leave sleepover. But

it is an interesting a reality for some people. And so you can see that in some cultures that this idea has really taken root, this idea that you could dine your sleep or that um, something could come and visit you in the middle of the night and basically take your life. Yeah, and we'd discussed in the past. I mean sleep and dreams. It's a state of the human mind where a lot of the rules sort of

shift and change. I mean, obviously, the brain is tricked into believing that that the dream is reality during the dream for the most part, unless you're lucid dreaming that alone, you're you're in a world where suddenly even the most fantastic of happenings is believed by the mind. And then you throw in all these various uh, you know, parasomnia events that we've discussed in the past, and it becomes

even weirder. Like so you're saying like sleep paralysis right where you have woken up, but your body is still locked down because the body parents sort of goes into the state of paralysis to keep you from say, you know, you're your kung fu fighting a zombie in your dream. You don't want to do that in your bed next to your significant other because then a disaster ensues. Sleep paralysis, as we've discussed before, you wake up, but those locks are still down, so you're like, I'm awake, but I

a move. What's going on? U? Add that you may have just been having some sort of troubling dream. Yeah, add that to the mix of h when you have sleep apnea. And at times some people can wake up and be a little bit confused about what state they're in sleep or um, whether or not they're actually waking, and they'll have a sexual arousal basically um in mostly

a sleep state. And so take that with the sleep paralysis, UH, cultural taboos, cultural stories, and all of a sudden, you've got a suckubus or incubus hanging out with my bed right like the I like to think about, like thick a medieval monk. They're trying to live this really non sexual life and then in the middle of the night, whoa, you're you know, your your aroused, your dreaming, You're waking

up in this weird state. So you end up with this cognitive distance where where what's happening is it a sharp contrast with what should be happening and uh, and so we end up having to create this external version of of of you know, it must have been a demon, must have been a demon, must have been a spirit, must have there was something uh external um attacking me. And and you see shades of this throughout different cultures

and mythologies. Yeah, I mean, you know, we're gonna talk about folklore a little bit more surrounding this, but I did want to mention that in South Asian populations that this sudden unexplained death syndrome that we're going to get into it seems to be a bit higher in this population. And you will also see that there is um a lot of folklore around this, this idea of being visited by a demon in your sleep. Um. In fact, let's talk about that a little bit. So what do you

got You gotta listen suspects here I do. This is actually from a fourteen Times article that you had sent me. And in Japan, um this this type of death in your dream or what they think is happening people dying from their nightmares is called polke kuri, the Filipinos call it and glunt or body bot. And the Mong people you're gonna say that the entire podcast, aren't you? And the Mong people of Vietnam and laos Um. Of course, we just talked about the Latian people that died in

their sleep suddenly and unexpectedly. They call it sobs swung um. And in Thailand it's called the widow ghost who comes to steal away the souls of young men. And it's mostly young men. They are experienced, that's right. So just imagine this. Imagine that this is happening in your culture, this sudden death among healthy men mostly. So what do they do. They defend themselves by wearing lipstick at night. I read that, so that the ghost mistakes them for

women and leaves them alone. It's also an excellent excuse for why you woke up the next morning with lipstick all over your face. You know that too. Yeah, I had to defend myself from the body. But yeah, it's like I wasn't out snoozing it up. I wasn't out wearing lipstick. I just protective measure against the spirits to night. Yeah, that's just yeah, of course. And then you're like, okay, that is this ironclad excuse I cannot say anything about that.

But let's talk about that body about just a little bit more because I find it fascinating, um and the and the Philippines. The body is an obese female demon that lives in the trees. There is a picture of this that you found an artist interpretation, um and well, I will I will definitely link to it in the accompanying blog post for this yes, which you'll find on the house stufforks blogs and and linked on the Facebook. Can you describe this image? She appears to be made

out of pooh. That's That's the first thing that I think came to mind for you. And then the second is that she's got red lasers that are coming out of her eye holes and her her mouth hole, and she's sitting on the poor unsuspecting person, like sitting on there face and suffocating them to death. And it was we I've never have you see plenty of artists depictions of a night terror or a night spirit a setting

on the chest. Like there's you know, the famous series of paintings European paintings where you see the little squat little man sitting on the person's chest and there's like a nightmare horse or just you know, a nightmare sticking its head through the curtain behind. Yeah, like, you know, that's a famous image. So the idea of setting on the chest is well established. But but the but sitting on the face, that's just really through well in the

arts depiction too. Of whether or not here she knew it. Maybe this, this being this demon being made out of pooh makes it even a little bit more unsavory. Yeah, but you might want to know, like or you might say to yourself, why in the world would she exact this revenge on this person anyway? And the reason is is because her beef is she was sitting up in that tree. You hacked it down and then you used it for either your bed post or is a support

beam in your home. So she conveniently shape shifts into one of the little peg holes and then when you fall asleep, that is when she makes remove again. We get back to like these animistic views of the world in which every part of nature has some sort of spirit to it, and therefore, if you're striking out against anything in the world, you're potentially ticking off a spirit. Yeah. Right, So, I mean it's it's kind of again, it's the cultural thing,

like don't don't without potentially angering the spirit. World really a touchy world. It's a very touchy world. But I mean there's there's definitely an environmental factor. They're right, don't denied the forest or she will sit on your face. Um, but let's talk about what was really going on with these locations. Yeah, we will get to that right after this quick break. This podcast is brought to you by Intel, the sponsors of Tomorrow and the Discovery Channel. At Intel,

we believe curiosity is the spark which drives innovation. Join us at curiosity dot com and explore the answers to life's questions. All right, So, eighteen deadly oceans, all in the course of four year period, four of them in the eighteen month period, right, Yeah, Yeah, which was really freaky, and all of them seemingly healthy. These are not old people, they're not infirmed, they're they're not suffering from some sort

of weird illness. They're just suddenly dead, and they died in their sleep, and there's the suspicion, what if it was a nightmare? Well and and again they before this uh in that back in the day one, they had called it the nightmare death syndrome um. And this sort of became the key candidate for what was going on. They thought, Okay, someone just just died in their sleep. And again you're dealing with people who have been refugees, who have experienced lots and lots of stress, right, and

lots of he will lots of change. Um. But what they find out is that this is actually something called Brugata syndrome. Yeah, it's the underlying cause for the sudden, unexplained death. And and and it's noteworthy that it's connected to people of the Southeast Southeast Asian descent. Yeah, because it's a genetic factor. It's uh in the same way certain genetic markers appear in certain ethnic groups more than others,

or or appear in exclusively in certain ethnic groups. Southeast Asia is where you encounter this, or people of Southeast Asian descent. Yea. Not everyone who has the condition dies in their sleep. And you know it actually has nothing to do with with nightmares. It's an inherited heart rhythm disorder, and we can actually pinpoint the gene responsible to it. It's a gene called sc N five A, which controls

the flow of sodium ions into heart cells. All right, This flow of ions generates the electrical field that controls heartbeat regularity. Isn't that trippy? Yeah? So when the flow fails, the heart fibrillates. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean just I mean, I knew that we had an electrical field around our heart, but to think that it's so sensitive that something like that could just trip it and all of a sudden you've got these irregularities. Um. And in fact, there's Dr

Pedro Brugatta of Brugotta syndrome. He came across this unusual pattern. Yeah yeah. He found that he had a patient who he suspected had something weird going on, and uh so he hooked him up to e G and it showed this activity and the heart and it, as you say, it looked like a shark fin, which became known as br Brugatta sign a sign it's Brugatta sign Um. I don't know. He's Italian now, right, Brugatta. But what is when of the key indicators that the patient could suffer

from this really rare syndrome. UM. And that, my friend, is what was happening with our friends, the loations that that all died in this four year period. Now, the cool thing is is that we can we can treat this. We can with severe cases, you can actually put an electrical implant in the body that will will address the problem. Uh and uh in the foreseeable future. I mean we're gonna be able to to use like gene therapies on this and tack tackle the mutation head on. So that's

even even more encouraging. Yeah, which is I mean, you know that's the it's it's awful that people had died from that. In certainly it must have been terrifying in that culture too, because we all know we have this confirmation bias, right, we take all these different details from our lives and we put it together to make some

sort of case about something. So imagine you're from this um, from from Laos and this happens, and you say, ah, yes, it was the demon that got them, you know, because they have these weird amount of people dying from something that was completely unexplained. Um. Heretofore. Now, we know about the eighteen louisitions, but that doesn't explain why we have a disproportionately large amount of um deaths in this culture. Again, uh, stemming, it seems from fear. Yeah, it's possible that you could

be scared to death, right, Yeah, it's possible. I mean you have to sort of break down, like what happens when we get afraid. Obviously, there is a it's a physical there's a physical manifestation to the fear. It's a it's flight or fright. Something bad is happening in your body needs to prep for possibly running away from it or duking out, duking it out, you know. So um, you know, you're your strength surges through your strength surgers through your muscles. Uh, so you can run or you know,

or or punch something. Your pupils dilate your you start breathing faster, and a number of chemicals, a whole cocktail of things, including adrenaline, began pumping through your bloodstream so intense you know, the activity in the body is intensified. Okay, So you have that going on, and then you have something that's almost like a self fulfilled prophecy, because again you've got this cultural equation going on. And in one of the studies I read, they were looking at and

I can't believe. I can't remember if it's a Korean or it's a Chinese similar word for fourign death, but they're very very close, so foreign death. It's not not a good number in this um, in this culture. And what they were finding is that there there seemed to be a larger number of deaths happening on the fourth of each month. And it's not that that, you know, four has some sort of power over people in this culture. It's that people were sort of anticipating that the fourth

was going to come up. So if you have, you know, some sort of condition or you're under a lot of stress, is very possible that he'd almost talk yourself into saying, oh gosh, the fourth is coming up, and it becomes like this self fulfilled prophecy for yourself. And uh. Molly Edmunds wrote this great article on hostaff works dot com

called can you really Scare someone to death? And she was saying that it's very hard to um say how often these sudden deaths occur, because most accounts of sudden deaths are in otherwise healthy people in this anecdotal, right, But what she did say that one of the most famous reports of sudden death was published in nineteen forty two by Harvard physiologist Walter B. Cannon, and he reported

a phenomenon that he had called the voodoo death. So what he found is that, um that a lot of sudden deaths were occurring in places where there were some form of voodoo or black magic being practiced South America, Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. And he recounted the sudden deaths of healthy men who had been cursed by a medicine, man accused of eating forbidden food items, and injured by spears

that were said to be enchanted. So Cannon noted that many of the men have possibly brought about their own deaths by refusing food and water, but also that they died essentially because of this fear that was perpetuated in their society. So the corporal scenario, the supernatural scenario is created, yes, in which being scared to death is possible. Yeah, I mean what with this article characters, and then that's the

outcome of the play. And then what he was saying is, I think it's an overactive sympathetic nervous system, so the conditions are there. All of a sudden, you're a migdala, right, which is so great for trying to ferret out to saber tooth tiger. UH is overactive now in this other instance where the risk you know, is really actually low. You know this this UH, this old man with a stick and can actually kill you, but it should be

a very low risk. But that person in the amygdala and and the body is now perceiving it as a real threat and reacting to it. And this is really going to stress out all the tissues in your heart um the rest of your body. It's really going to take a toll on it again, making it a little bit easier for you to possibly die from this, especially if you're not taking any food or death or food food or death food or water. So they're like cats.

When cats get sick, then like it creates that scenario, like you know where cats refuse to eat and then they die because it's like like they're sick, I'm not gonna eat anymore. Yeah, I don't know. I mean they kind of just seem to batten down the hatches when cats get sick, sort of like just leave me alone. We see if I can heal myself, and I'm just gonna get over to this corner like the witch doctor is essentially making them act like a cat. It's possible,

It's possible. But this other this article talked about another instance in which Boston neurologist Martin A. Samuel's believes that the sudden death of the former and ron CEO Kenneth lay And July thousand and six could have been the result of fear of a looming prison sentence or black magic or black that's very possible that he had some some voodoo dolls with sticks in him with his name on it. But there's also something called broken heart syndrome,

which believe that people die broken heart. And again it's not that they die from a broken heart per se, but it could be that extreme extreme emotions caused something that looks like heart failure or heart attack. Um, but in fact it's a little bit different because blood clots and clogged arteries that caused cardiac conditions were absent. Instead, the heart was just weak from stressful emotions. My mom claims that she almost had a heart attack when she

saw the first Dirty Harry movie in the theaters. Really well, okay, so she was frightened. She was what it was just so tense, It was so you know, exhilarating, you know that she just she was just like, oh my goodness, I think I almost had a heart attack. Well have you ever had someone sneak up on you and you really literally gasp for breath and in your whole body

just stops, it just kind of shutters itself. Every time you come up to my desk listening to music in my headphones, I try to tap gently and get your attention before I scare you. Well, it's not every time, but sometimes I'll be really into something and and somebody will come up and you know, so, yeah, I I that happens every day. I think you know, it's possible. I Mean, the good news here is that it's very

rare to die from from something like this. I mean, obviously you'd have to have some sort of conditions in place. And when you think about the Louisian refugees again, this is an instance where they were undergoing extreme stress, right, um, and presumably and emotionally, well I'm sure and physically we're having to deal with that, and that could certainly have eroded. Um, their health to a degree, although they were otherwise healthy. You know, sod the gene. Yeah, I mean the gene

was the main factor there. But but but from what we looked at, it is conceivable that one could have a nightmare, and if one's physical condition was such to facilitate this, you could be scared to death by a nightmare. But then who would know? Right, I mean, well that's the problem, right. It's kind of hard to do a double blind study on that one. Yeah, it is um until we really get that inception technology going, and then

we'll we'll figure it out. We're getting there. It's also worth noting and I did a blog about this aspect of it. This New York Times article came out in eight one and about the CDC study and and made the headlines. And then in the first Nightmare on Elm Street movie came oh right, right right, You have a great blog post about this. Yeah, this was a news item that partially inspired West Craven to create Nightmare on Elm Streets. So if you like those movies, this is

where it came from. Interview. Don't like those movies? This is something the story you can blame that. Yeah, yeah, but again, nothing to fear of really, I mean, when you think about it, low scare folks, um, when you think about actual high risk situations in our lives, like getting into our cars, that's that's nuts. Yeah, So be careful there, Please one one more thing before we move

on to a listener. Mail I was looking through Carol Roses, giants, monsters and dragons and Encyclopedia Folklore, legend and myths looking for some sleep related demons. And I think all the sleep most of the sleep demons are hiding in her her other book about fairies that I don't have. Yeah, I keep some some serious scientific books on hand here. But you're not gonna bring the fairies book to work, is what I'm hearing. Well, I'm gonna have to buy it.

I don't know. Yeah, like, yeah, I'll put it on my bookshelf. But it did have an item about the Sandman, which this is fascinating, says. This is the name of the fearsome nursery bogey in the late eighteenth and early nineteen centuries of England. The sandman was a vicious and terrifying ogre who came during the night to throw handfuls of course sand into the eyes of children who would not go to sleep. And it gets worse. When the eyes of the screen child were rubbed, they dropped out

all bloody on the floor. The sandman gathered these eyes to take in his sack as food for his long beaked progeny nesting in the crook of the crescent moon. This was the image of the salmon nursery boogie in the fairy tale written by E. T. A. Hoffman in eighteen seventeen and then in subsequent years. We uh we we, I think we There are also other folk tales where there's you know, they're fairies that bring like sleep dust and put in your eyes. And we've been along with

with those ideas. We ended up turning the salmon into this more benign uh or even benevolent spirit that comes in and sprinkles, and they of rubbing your eyes out all bloody on the floor and feeding them to some sort of bird like creatures that live on the moon. It's uh terrifying. So you know, I've been looking for a good story to read my daughter. Yeah, we went through the whole doctor SEUs thing, So that's thank you. Just set her down and have a talk with us.

I look, um, but Sam and the sand Man. This is how it works, that's how it's gonna go down. Well cool, let me get to the listener mail here. So we recently covered electronic music, or at least week we sort of did an introduction to electronic music because as we as we mentioned, we can't possibly cover everything about it. It is very vast. So yeah, we had some some people wrote in with some interesting feedback on that.

A number of people actually UM. A listener by the name of Ian wrote in and said, Dear Robert and Julie, I love the podcast, especially the recent episode and electric music. UM, but when Robert said he did not know what a Nintendo step was, I thought I'd clarified. Uh, And this is good for me because I'm I truly didn't there

what it was. Uh. Nintendo step is a subgenre of dub step, but instead of using electronic electronics synthesizers on samplers, computers, or keyboards, they use chip tunes, which is music from older video game consoles I think original Mario to create the warbling, robotic sounds of normal dub staff. That he included a few samples which I listened to, which I think they were from Ruscoe and they were they were pretty interesting. Thanks for getting me through a few six

hour bus rides to ex country ski races. Sincerely again. Cool. Yeah, there you go, a Nintendo stuff. I think we're all richard for knowing what that is. It is. But you know part of that trend where you see, uh, you see a lot of artists going back to older electronics sounds and bringing them back like I've I've really been

into this one chill wave. Um, I guess you've called chill wave artists that goes by the name Calm Truise like Tom Cruise with the letters and uh that alone for that alone, and uh and he has his style is like very much calling back to like, uh like nineteen eighties, um, kind of like Miami Vice soundtrack kind of stuff. Um, but in a good way. Uh. It sounds like listening to the music makes you feel like

you're in the best possible like convertible. Well now I'm thinking about like like psychedelic Miami vibes and you know, movie of some kind. But okay, yeah, all right, Clubs and Crockett there you go. And we also heard from J. J. Rodan said, I just listened to your electronic music podcast and really enjoyed it. However, I was surprised you didn't mention of vocaloid music. It's been around long enough to

not be a fad. Even though it is wildly popular in Japan and East Asia, there have been some very successful concerts in the US. The amazing part about this is that vocal oid singers are completely virtual. They are software programs, not people. So in order to have a concert, the vocal oad characters have to take the stage as holograms. Um. I hope this subject will blow your mind. It certainly

has blown mind. Sincerely, Jay Um. Yeah, that's uh. I think Josh Clark did a blog post about this, uh ball back um where yes, like the the the frontman or front woman for the group the The the singer is a hologram on stage and people were like going nuts. But the the the the main character, that the main persona of this band does not exist in physical reality. M I think about this movie called Wild Palms by Oliver Stone, and I feel like there was a such

a of that movie that has something very similar. You could just beam in your own music, you know, you'd have like I don't know, I think in this like the Pointer Sisters. Well it makes you wonder like in the future, it's like we we we depend more and more on holographic pop stars, and then would we be able to well, be able to preserve past pop stars this way or recreate them? So like would you have

holographic Elvis concerts? Well, I mean I can definitely see cable companies really continent to this, right because they would say, okay, well we're gonna have Selean Dion or Justin Bieber you know who remember at this point come on and uh and we're gonna you know, for extra one hundred dollars, you can get them beamed into your living room. Oh man, imagine the benefit. What was the song that they did, like the sort of fiebe children kind of things, where

they we are the world, we are the world. You know what do you imagine that we are the world? Concerts of the future, you could you could actually go to this concert and they would have hallgrams of like all these like past pop stars, and that would be you know, be like Beethoven and Elvis. We'll see. I kind of loving this too for a cocktail party, right, Oh yeah, you know you got like you said Elvis

and Beth heaven hanging. I mean they're obviously not able to interact, I would assume, but still, no, you make them interact, yeah, make them eat all the notches. Yeah, and then you you could tweak their musical setting. So like, imagine this idea you have, like Elvis doing like dub step in your house. Like, how horrifying is that? It's pretty great? The future is shiny, it is so Hey, if you have any thoughts about the future, about what

about the pasture? Why not we're gaining the present. Yeah, we'll listen to that too, especially if they have any thoughts about dreams and nightmares. I'm I'm very interested. How many of you have ever died in a dream? Um, and of course not died in real life the person? How would you write us? Uh? Because we were talking about this earlier. How you said that you've mentioned that him dream You've had dreams where you have died or about to die and obviously you're still alive. Well, yeah,

I'm alucid dreamer. And it was more like a movie watching myself. It wasn't There wasn't any sort of real fear there. Okay, I'm for my part, I don't think I've ever had a dream where I actually died. Uh. So it's it's it's really fascinating to think about it. So, but let us know, tell us what tell us all about your dreams and uh and how they line up with this podcast? Who else ask you to do that? I know everybody loves talking about their dreams. Let us know,

and even if we don't respond, we will. We will read them for sure. Indeed, so if you want to check out what we're up to, drop our Facebook and Twitter feeds. We are blow the Mind on both of those, and you can also drop us an email at blow the Mind at house to works dot com. Be sure to check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join House to Work staff as we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow.