Dab Tsog

There are a few people I know who have had dreams that seem to connect to actual life events. A psychologist might call this a precognitive illusion. I do believe that some of these experiences can be due to coincidence or to our subconscious ability to pick up on subtle clues in our environment; and I’d also like to make note to what Kurt Vonnegut once said, “One would soon go mad if one took such coincidences too seriously.” However, there are times when these dreams seem to intersect with real life in ways I wish they didn't, making coincidence a much harder explanation to accept. Some seem to come straight out of A Nightmare on Elm Street scene. Like when I have sleep paralysis and the faceless man that comes to suffocate me is the same one described by many other people that get sleep paralysis. Coincidence? Yeah sure. Ohh yeah! I've gotten sleep paralysis here and there since I was 11. Each time it seems my brain has partnered up with this faceless man dressed in black and attempted to kill me in a more clever way. There is however one occasion where I had a witness. That witness is now dead and buried, and don't laugh at this part but he had four legs and couldn't speak. Yes, that was my dog. 

Just like most families do, we loved our dog and knew he was special. My dog was born, raised, and died in my hometown in Mexico. A small town up in the mountains where the clouds meet the earth.

It had been a regular summer day by that I mean it had started off hot going up to 80 degrees Fahrenheit, rain poured down around 3 in the afternoon cooling the town. Fog eventually rolled in and covered the mountains through the evening. By 10PM the sky was clear and due to the lack of light pollution we had a clear view of the bright stars, indicating a hot morning. I drank coffee at night with my parents as I always did during that summer and then I went up the stairs to my room. I might have or might have not asked my dog if he wanted to join me but either way I went to bed alone that night. My room is located on the second floor, the entrance is an old wooden french door and has a small balcony with another french door that views the street. Across the narrow street lies a white adobe cross meant to protect the town. These are placed all around town. 

I remember dreaming, the question is dreaming about what? Whatever it was I remember feeling trapped and screaming, I remember trying desperately to wake up but I don’t remember what I was dreaming about. "Please wake up, please someone come wake me up" I thought as I cried in my sleep. I felt a suffocation and pressure in my body. It was sleep paralysis disguised as a man yet I couldn’t open my eyes to see my complete hallucination. A few more moments passed when at a distance I heard my dog bark. It felt far and all I could think was "hurry" the bark became closer and closer. I heard the door open but I couldn't open my eyes and time seemed to be going very slow until I felt my dog over my body. He had jumped on top of me. That is when I woke up and saw my dog barking at the side of my bed.  After a few moments he went down to the floor and kept barking, barking at the door and then into the balcony. He barked for what seemed to be an eternity and no one in my house seemed to hear the commotion. He barked until finally running down the stairs to our patio then crossing into my uncle's patio. He barked for several minutes. I laid in my bed just listening. At some moment it crossed my mind to do what white people do in movies. That is getting out of my bed to see if there was anyone outside my balcony, but since I'm brown I would've been taken out as the first victim. So I knew better. When my dog finally stopped barking I heard him come up the stairs and saw him come through the entrance of my room. He didn’t even really look at me. Very nonchalant he jumped into my bed and snuggled next to me for the rest of the night. I, on the other hand, was still scared to go to sleep, I couldn’t even get up to close my door. The morning came and my parents hadn’t really noticed. “We heard the bark but just thought he was chasing a cat or something.” So was all that really a coincidence or was it a lost spirit roaming around town?

Now since I referenced A Nightmare on Elm Street I had to see if sleep paralysis was Wes Craven's inspiration. The answer, no, at least not directly. He got inspired by a LA Times article about Southeast Asian refugee men who were dying during their sleep. These men had been terrified of going to sleep due to them having a sensation that someone was stalking them in their dreams. Dab Tsog, Hmong’s folklore protagonist, a malevolent dream spirit that attacks during sleep paralysis. 

Let me just be clear, you cannot die from sleep paralysis itself. These men were fleeing war and genocide, carrying extreme psychological stress and not to mention trauma. They had also been keeping themselves awake because of this malevolent spirit (sleep paralysis). So add that, a heart condition that they all apparently had, and you trigger SUNDS (Sudden Unexpected Nocturnal Death Syndrome).

In Mexico we say Se me subio el muerto (the dead climbed on top of me), but apparently there are a lot of names for Dab Tsog around the world, he’s a pretty famous guy. If you’d like to see a documentary on sleep paralysis I recommend The Nightmare(2015). If you’d like to see a painting on sleep paralysis check out Henry Fuseli’s The Nightmare.