Welcome to my Nightmare.”
-Freddy Krueger
We are all too familiar with this guy; am I right? One third of the trifecta of Boogeymen that have shaped our visions. The horrific archetype that haunts us at our most vulnerable times. Along with Michael Myers and Jason Vorhees, Freddy Krueger has been sneaking into our dream worlds since the early 80’s.
Like many iconic characters that have withstood the test of time in Hollywood, the inspiration and origin story can often be more interesting than the fictional portrayal that we see onscreen. The legendary horror filmmaker, Wes Craven, stumbled upon a pretty horrific tale that gave him the idea for ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street.’ A movie that evolved into a legacy….a legacy of “invading your dreams.”
Back in 1981, a young teen named Daniel, was living in Merced, California. His family had fled in the late 70’s to escape the eradication of their people, the Hmong(pronounced ‘mong’). His father worked as a physician and all in all, they were living a well-to-do life. Suddenly, Daniel became terrified to go to sleep. He resorted to extreme measures to stay awake, such as having a coffee pot in his bedroom and drink it nonstop.
One night, the parents were awakened by chilling screams coming from Daniel’s room. His father ran into the room and found his son dead. The autopsy was inconclusive couldn’t explain a cause of death.
This story spread across the media and psychologists were coming forward and explaining that it could possibly have been a case of SUNDS(Sudden Unexpected Nocturnal Death Syndrome). But at that time, little was known about that to the public.
When Wes Craven got ahold of this story, it gave him the idea of how that would make a terrifying film. Being fascinated with dreams himself and bringing his own childhood experiences of bullying, he started molding the Freddy Krueger character that would live on in infamy.
Wes had to “dig a little deeper,” to really give the Freddy character some depth. He also drew from another fear he had from his childhood of boiler rooms and furnaces. Which became a big part of Freddy’s backstory as he was burned alive in a boiler room by the parents of Springwood for a being a child predator. Even the colors of his sweater, the red and the green, carried a purpose with the character. Wes discovered that those colors together play psychological trickery on the human mind. The image that is projected in the mind’s eye slightly distorts the image causing subtle confusion on a subconscious level.
Which plays perfectly into the storylines of the movies, because the dreamer often can’t tell at first if they are asleep or awake. You could say this parallels how the mind and body are both simultaneously asleep and awake during sleep paralysis.
He drew from ancient folklore from around the world. Sleep paralysis and the mythology that comes with it has been around for as far back as Mesopotamia around 2400 BCE. Some examples would be Lilith, whom I wrote about in a previous blog, as well as other spirits like the female sex demoness, the succubus and the male sex demon, the incubus.
Sleep paralysis is defined as a phenomenon where a person wakes up but cannot move or speak. Often feeling bound or being held down by a supernatural entity. It’s where REM sleep overlaps with waking consciousness, frequently associated with high stress.
The ‘Kanashibari’ is the term the Japanese use for sleep paralysis. The most common form of kanashibari comes from possession. When one of these entities, such as the inugami, kitsune, tanuki, or other kinds of tsukimono, sleep paralysis can set in. To fight this, they would recite Buddhist sutras to drive out the possessing animal spirit. Once that happened; all would be well.
“The Night Hag,” has also been a prominent demoness that has plagued many Anglo-Saxon cultures across European countries. Another name for her is the, ‘Neahat Mara,’ aka the night crusher. It was this terrifying lore that helped spark the witch trials during the time of the 15th-18th centuries.
In Brazil, their culture had ‘La Pisadeira,’ which translates to, “to step on.” This creature was imagined being a skeletal, witch-like old woman with long claws and glowing red eyes who haunts the rooftops to attack people who overeat before bed.
Sending haunting from southwestern Louisiana, we have ‘La Cauchemar,’ which is French for ‘nightmare.’ This night spirit originates from Cajun/Creole folklore that appears to people who have sinned or disobeyed by sitting on their chest while asleep.
The traditional, faith-based method of warding off this entity is by placing a rosary under your pillow at night. Another, is to keep a crucifix near the bed and praying. Even one of my favorite horror writers, H. P. Lovecraft, wrote a story about it…”Le Cauchemar D’Innsmith.”
This sleep paralysis spawns from the deepest and darkest corners of our minds. What I find personally fascinating, is the shared fear of sleep paralysis between cultures all across the globe. It’s as if we are all sharing similar patterns of consciousness that remains a constant mystery. More specifically, our subconscious. A mystery that has been a part of our existence for aeons. We write about it, we share it, we all experience it; yet we don’t truly don’t know how it works.
And with that, I say, “Sleep tight my friends. Try not to fear that which goes bump in the night.”
