SUNDS -- Sudden Unexpected Nocturnal death Syndrome
SUNDS -- Sudden Unexpected Nocturnal Death Syndrome
SUNDS was first noticed among young Hmong men, refugees from Cambodia, the Viet Nam War, back in the late 1970s. Young Hmong men were dying suddenly in their sleep for no apparent reason. Heart failure was determined to be the literal cause.
It was discovered SUNDS is common in various Oriental cultures where it has killed hundreds. In those cultures the sudden deaths are believed to be a form of vengeance wreaked upon the young men for varieties of religious disobedience, failure to perform religious rituals correctly.
The following is a description by the author of the accompanying article on SUNDS from The Atlantic. I feel it is a very evocative description and wanted to share it. I would imagine many of us have suffered similar episodes. SUNDS is called a visit by The Old Hag in some New World circles.
“I experienced sleep paralysis twice in college. I can vouch for the sheer terror that attends the experience. I saw -- no, felt -- an evil presence to my left. I can't tell you what was evil about it or how I knew it was so nasty. But I did. As the experience progressed, it came closer. It didn't feel like my life was at risk. That was, in fact, too small. It felt like the presence was after something else, probably what you'd call my soul or my being, even though intellectually I'm a straight materialist. I woke up more scared than I've ever been in my life. Overwhelming fear. Overwhelming dread. Overwhelming fear and dread. When I read about sleep paralysis, I immediately identified that presence (which remained just to the left of my visual field) as the Old Hag.”
On Saturday, April 2, 2014, I had the following regular dream -- not lucid.
As I am making an early dinner a substantial flatbed truck drives in across the lawn to the west and stops beside the lilac bushes. (Now covered in snow.) There are three Hmong men sitting across the front seat.
The back of the truck is carrying a pile of maybe 50 - 100 posts, treated 4” X 4” posts (posts), the sort you might use for steps, or less literally the sort posted to a web site. One of the three guys says, communicating to me...telepathically, in a dream fashion, that the delivery of posts is for “born leaders.”
I did not know what to make of this dream until I had a second about Hmong people and connected the two of them to SUNDS, a condition of which I was aware, then I knew what to do with the theme.
Maybe 20 years ago I had the following SUNDS, nocturnal paralysis episode followed by extraordinary lucid action.
I was lying in bed just before sleep when a werewolf came through the east wall of the bedroom. The “werewolf” looked like no werewolf I had ever seen visualized, rather like a miniature thunderstorm full of crackling lightning created by a painter like Francis Bacon or Dr. Frankenstein.
The werewolf headed straight for the bed and up on top of it and me where I lay paralyzed with dread. I managed, after an enormous struggle, to wake and when I did the werewolf slid down off the bed and out through the wall. I was so angry at this assault by nightmare I followed the werewolf determined to discover where it came from. I followed it, fully lucid, out across the marsh to the east, up the road 8 miles toward town, through a small grove of aspen, out across four lane highway 53 right to the back of the local _____ Church where it obediently scrambled into a large cage beside the basement entrance to said church.
I killed it there without mercy or pity.
My point is, in considerable disagreement with the diagnosis in the following article, I believe this “werewolf” was real, a variation on the famous Id monster Dr. Morbius dreams up in Forbidden Planet. After this and other episodes I have every reason to believe “the church” has a Dark Side “instrumentality” it can use to terrify nonbelievers or simply the strayed faithful back into the fold. Yes, even to kill.
This is a place, in my estimation, where lucid dreaming can and should be used. Where it can change the world.
Hope this link functions.
www.theatlantic.com/health/.../the.../245065/
