The Science of Monsters

Mai Vang: “Yes, I have experienced sleep paralysis. It’s a really scary feeling. You are laying there and something is there and you want to scream but nothing comes out. Sometimes it is difficult to breathe. You cannot move your arms and legs, and no matter how much you struggle, your body doesn’t move at all. I had a lot of this experience as a child and teen. It was so bad at that time, that I now have a habit of not falling asleep on my back. It seemed that was the sleep position when most of my experiences occurred.”

Kelly:“That is so scary!”

As Mai Vang mentioned, in Hmong culture, sleep paralysis is prevalent. It is understood within the culture to be caused by a nocturnal pressing spirit, dab tsog. Sleep paralysis is a state associated with the inability to move that occurs when an individual is about to fall asleep or is just waking. Those who have experienced sleep paralysis report a feeling of someone in the room with them, pressure on their chest, and an overwhelming fear.

Hundreds of years ago sleep paralysis was thought to be a visit by an evil entity who wished to crush the life out of its victim. How did, or do, cultures all over the world try to treat or prevent sleep paralysis? Greek physicians in history treated sleep paralysis through phlebotomy, or drawing blood, and a change in diet. Chinese people usually approached the condition by employing the help of a spiritualist. Italians, on the other hand, believed sleeping face down and placing a broom by the door with a pile of sand on the bed would help prevent it.⁴

REM sleep usually happens ninety minutes after falling asleep.

Currently, in medicine, sleep paralysis has been attributed to such conditions as post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression, and irregular sleeping habits. Experts explain that if we wake too quickly from rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, where there is no motion or muscle activity, the brain keeps us temporarily paralyzed. To prevent episodes of sleep paralysis, it’s recommended to get more sleep, avoid drugs and alcohol, and limit caffeine and electronics before bed. It’s also important to remember when experiencing sleep paralysis that it is temporary and will pass. Easier said than done, no doubt, but hopefully concentrating on that fact will help the time pass without increased fear. If only following these tips could have prevented Freddy Krueger from wreaking havoc on Elm Street!

Another aspect of A Nightmare on Elm Street was based on a real-life experience. When Wes Craven was a child living in Cleveland, Ohio, he heard noises on the sidewalk outside his second-story window. He described, “it was a man in an overcoat and a sort of fedora hat. Somehow, he sensed that someone was watching, and he looked right up and into my eyes.” Craven left the window but went back again to look and the man was still there, staring up at him. “The thing that struck me most about that man [in Cleveland] . . . was that he had a lot of malice in his face. He also had this sort of sick sense of humor about how delightful it was to terrify a child.”⁵ The real-life inspirations for A Nightmare on Elm Street definitely prove that sometimes truth can be stranger than fiction—and perhaps even scarier.

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SECTION TWO

SERIAL KILLERS

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CHAPTER FOUR

PSYCHO

Year of Release: 1960

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Writer: Joseph Stefano

Starring: Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh

Budget: $806,947

Box Office: $50 million

Several years before Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) caused audiences to collectively gasp, a real monster stalked the rural expanse of Wisconsin. He was the worst sort of villain, a man able to portray to his neighbors that he was quiet, sweet, and even a bit slow. It was a shock to those in the desolate farm town of Plainfield when the heinous truth was revealed in the winter of 1957. Ed Gein, trusted to occasionally babysit his fellow farmers’ children, had managed to hide a depravity so abnormal that it would inspire the creation of some of film’s most notorious monsters. Surprisingly, Gein is the spark that ignited both the timid and proper Norman Bates of Psycho as well as the mute and brutal Leatherface of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974). It is this duality of the light and the dark that has placed Norman Bates in the upper echelons of horror film fiends.