In 1984 Wes Craven brought us the amazing movie series, Nightmare on Elm Street. If you’re not familiar with this movie series…. Shame on you!
You definitely have some catching up to do!!
This movie series brought us a horror icon… Freddie Krueger. A demon who torments and murders teens while they sleep. These movies terrified anyone who watched them throughout the 1980s.
The plot seemed so far-fetched that it could not ever actually happen in real life… But that couldn’t be furthest from the truth…
In this story, we learn about the strange sleeping deaths that occurred in the early 1980s that inspired one of the greatest horror movie series ever…This is the true story of the Hmong Sleep Deaths.
Hmong people are an indigenous group from East and Southeast Asia. The Hmong migrated in the 19th
century from southern China to the mountain areas of Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam. During the Vietnam War, the Hmong actually worked
with the US, in what is called a secret war…
The Vietnam War began in 1955 and by the early 1960s, the United States CIA began recruiting the Hmong people to work with them in the war against the North Vietnamese as well as Pathet Lao, a Laotian communist group who worked closely with the Vietnamese communists and North Vietnam.
The Hmong worked secretly under the direction of the CIA. They would guard U.S. strategic radar installations, provide intelligence to the US about enemy operations, harass communists on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, and often would assist US pilots who had gone down.
The Vietnam War ended in 1975 and the country Laos became a communist country. The leaders viewed the Hmong people as traitors as they had worked with the U.S. during the war. The Hmong became hunted and once caught would be forced into concentration camps and persecuted.
Chemicals were sprayed in their villages and bombed with Napalm. It is estimated that more than 10% of the Hmong population in Laos were killed or died as a direct result of the war.
Survivors would flee their homes and become refugees in the U.S. or Thailand. With no other option, they were forced from their homes and ancestral country.
Survivors who settled in the US struggled with poverty and overwhelming amounts of stress. As if this wasn’t hard enough…By 1977 Hmong men between the ages of 20 and 30 with no health issues began suddenly dying in their sleep.
Doctors became baffled and titled it Sudden Unexpected Nocturnal Death Syndrome and no one knew what brought it on.
Public health officials became alarmed as it was only affecting Hmong men who were refugees of Laos.
Medical investigations were conducted but a medical explanation could not be determined. Some began to suspect the chemical Nerve agents used in the Vietnam War and it was the cause of these mysterious deaths.
Medical officials stated this was definitely not the cause.
In a 1981 news article, a 47-year-old man’s mysterious death was described. The man had died inexplicably as his wife lay beside him. This would be the 4th Hmong man to pass in his sleep in nine months and the 13th mysterious sleeping death of a Hmong male refugee since 1978.
American doctors continued to be perplexed and the Hmong people were scared and with little to no support they turned to their beliefs…
They believed that if they did not worship properly, or perform rituals and sacrifice, they would not be protected from evil spirits.
Since they were displaced from their homeland and places of worship many Hmong believed these men were being attacked by a demon that could only reach them in their nightmares.
This demon was called Tsog Tsuam. It was a sleep-paralysis demon that would attack an individual while they slept by sitting on their chest and in some stories strangle the victim to death.
Though most believed these men were under an enormous amount of stress, due to the trauma of being forced out of their country and living in poverty in the United States and this may have caused a cardiac arrhythmia that may have caused their death.
As these deaths among Hmong men continued… American film director and screenwriter, Wes Craven read a series of articles in the Los Angeles Times newspaper. One article was about a Cambodian family who escaped the mass genocide in the Killing Fields. Once in the United States, a young male in the family became terrified to sleep. He believed something was chasing him in his sleep and he would be killed if he slept.
This young man forced himself to stay awake for days and when he finally fell asleep, it appeared that he died during a nightmare. Wes Craven found this article interesting and found a few more similar articles. While doctors could not tie these sleep deaths together, Craven found them eerily similar.
The last article Wes read was about a 21-year-old whose family pushed him to sleep, though he was afraid to. He was given sleeping pills but would not take them and stayed awake for nearly 7 days. He eventually fell asleep on his couch while watching TV. His family was relieved that he was finally sleeping and carried upstairs to his bed. The rest of the family also went to bed but were woken up by screams and crashing sounds coming from his room. By the time they entered his room, he was dead.
An autopsy showed no heart attack or any other health issues. However, the family later found a coffee maker in his bedroom closet full of coffee and discarded sleeping pills. He was drinking coffee constantly to keep him awake and never took the sleeping pills.
Craven found this story incredible and was intrigued… Ultimately this would inspire him to create the iconic horror character….. Freddy Krueger, the ultimate sleep demon. Within the movies, teens are tormented by Freddy who seeks to torture and kill them in their dreams.
While the movie is still admired and loved by many, the story of the Hmong sleep deaths is terrifying… Did these men die from stress and trauma… A sleep demon? Or a reaction to chemicals used in the war?
In a London journal, a research student wrote that the Soviet-backed Vietnamese used nerve agents and irritants as well as chemicals. These were also used in Laos as the Vietnamese supported Pathet Lao.
What do you all believe? Some Researchers and doctors state it’s a genetic condition or heart issue… Others believe it was stress and trauma… And of course, everyone is wondering if it is the work of a sleep demon…
I suppose we leave this to the realms of the unexplained…
I guess this is a case of art imitating life… I’ve read more on this subject and it seems there is more of an understanding now, but it’s still extremely interesting how Wes Craven transformed this true-life horror into fictional horror.
You all already know I’m obsessed with anything horror, so it’s no shock that I am a super fan of Wes Craven… His talent is sorely missed in this world… He created some of the best horror movies… Obviously, Nightmare on Elm Street, but also, Scream, Vampire in Brooklyn, Shocker, Swamp Thing, The People Under the Stairs, The New Nightmare, The Hills Have Eyes, and The Last House on the Left, just to name a few…. Definitely one of the Kings of Horror…Rest In Peace Mr. Wes Craven.