The Curse of the Dab Tsog

during the 1980s a Nightmare on Elm Street first introduced audiences to the iconic horror character Freddy Krueger but as unsettling as the movie was the true story that inspired director Wes Craven's creation of the supernatural killer is equally disturbing this week we examine the terrifying curse of the dab soul [Music] as a blanket of heavy rainfall continued to roll in over the San Francisco Bay Area the duty night detective for the Oakland Police Department sought shelter in a shop doorway it was December of 1981 and in addition to the unrelenting downpour it was also the

coldest month of the year cursing under his breath whilst he shook the water from the sleeves of his now saturated overcoat he watched him passively as a couple of EMTs removed the body of the deceased from the apartment block on the opposite side of the street the case was as unwelcome to him as it was inexplicable homicides and robberies were continuing to rise in the city at large as a flood of crack cocaine flowed into the streets of San Francisco and now he was also saddled with investigating the mysterious death of mr. pang an unassuming

factory worker with no criminal record or known medical issues the 35 year old lash and migrant had passed away suddenly in his sleep without warning or explanation with no apparent signs of injury or trauma the only evidence as to how the deceased had met his end was provided by mrs. pang who had been with him when he died the woman was understandably traumatized by what had just occurred but had managed to relate the incident using broken English she had been awoken from a deep and restful sleep by the violent movements of her husband as he

convulsed erratically beside her the dead man's widow explained that when she turned over to investigate he had appeared to be struggling in his sleep as if trying to haul himself up off the bed into a seated position he then began to lash out with his arms seemingly in an attempt to fight off an unseen attacker her desperate efforts to rouse him had failed with his frantic and violent actions continuing despite the fact he still seemed to be fully asleep and completely unaware of her intervention while she watched helplessly his wild movements suddenly seized and her

husband let out an anguished cry before going completely limp he was declared dead as soon as the ambulance had arrived with the body now on its way to the morgue for further examination and the bereaved wife being comfort by members of the local community there was little more to be done as the police officer stepped back out into the rain and headed for his car he found himself irritated by two details of the investigation that he knew would make the case a difficult one for him to file the first was the revelation that this was

the 18th seemingly healthy member of the homonka mmunity to die in identical circumstances that year alone and the second was the unshakable insistence of the man's wife that he had been killed in his sleep by a vengeful spirit one that had pursued him halfway across the globe in 1959 the already troubled kingdom of Laos became the scene of a bloody and brutal civil conflict between an emerging socialist undercurrent and the ruling royalist government when the populist forces embraced communist ideals the ongoing war in neighboring Vietnam subsequently spilled across the borders and into the tiny country

in the face of advancing North Vietnamese armies and assisted by covert CIA military assets who were desperate to see the takeover fail the Hmong's sided with the Lao Shan government forces it was a decision they would come to regret by 1975 public unrest in the United States had led to complete withdrawal of American forces from the Vietnamese theater of war leaving the Hmong's at the mercy of the victorious communists the Lao Shan royal family would eventually perish in the nightmarish prison camps that they were thrown into and huge swathes of the ethnic Hmong population would

be massacred accused of being puppets and lackeys of the defeated Americans those that were able to flee headed for the border with Thailand with 50,000 among eventually finding their way to the United States where they were granted asylum it was then that these strange deaths started to occur throughout the 1970s and 80s increasing numbers of among migrants who had settled in America started to violently panic in their sleep and then suddenly pass away in all over a hundred of their number would perish in this manner with no obvious indication or reason why for over a

decade the authorities remain baffled by what was happening until the stories of the survivors began to emerge wang chong was amongst the first thousand migrants to reach the safety of america and one of a significant number who had settled in chicago shortly after his arrival he was asleep in bed one night when he sensed another presence in the room near to where he was lying it was then that he became aware of a tall pale-skinned woman watching him intently from the end of his bed kiyong found that he was unable to move and was forced

to watch with growing horror as the slender figure slowly climbed up onto the bed and then deliberately lowered her body onto his crushing his chest as the strangest stared angry and on blinking down into his terrified eyes he felt his breathing starts become restricted and labored when kyung tried to cry out for help he found he could not even open his mouth unable to do anything other than stare at the hateful female features that hovered mere inches above his face whenever he tried to shift his body to one side in order to relieve the relentless

pressure that weighed down on his lungs the female intruder would match the movement continuing to press down hard onto his torso for the next 15 minutes unable to move to any real extent or cry out for help hyung could feel his life slowly ebbing away his vision became blurred and his breathing gradually slowed with darkness starting to envelop him throughout this his attacker wore a mixed expression of condemnation and hostility neither moving nor speaking as he felt the last few traces of breath leaving his body the figure that was lying on top of him suddenly

disappeared instantly releasing the crushing weight on his chest he fell sideways out of bed flooring desperately at his throat and sucking down huge lungfuls of oxygen as his eyes darted nervously around his bedroom the young man could see no trace of the woman only the memory of her hate-filled eyes remained as he sat gasping for air on the floor Young realized that he had just been paid a visit by the dab so also known as the night hag the sow was one of a number of horrific monsters that populated the culture and folklore of the

Far East others included the manananggal a form of winged vampire that sought ain't pregnant victims using its long tongue to suck the blood from their unborn babies there was also the gruesome pain and Galan a cannibalistic entity that took the form of a beautiful woman by day but whose head separated from her body at night and floated across the field searching for prey its entrails and spinal column dragging along behind it the sow was a similarly nocturnal creature dwelling underground or in mountain caves by day and roaming the countryside during the hours of darkness it

would sneak into residences and suffocate on suspecting humans stealing their souls as they died protection from these creatures could be achieved in the form of sacrifices and offerings to her family's departed ancestors who would reward these acts of remembrance by watching over and protecting their loved ones descriptions of the dabbe so varied from survivor to survivor suggesting that it possessed the ability to use its victims fears and anxieties against them in some cases it was only a shadowy outline in others a fully defined person sometimes it would be clothed on other occasions naked the only

common feature was that the entity always manifested as female in appearance ranging in age from a young girl to an elderly woman the attacks were not restricted to the United States seeming to occur wherever the lowchen refugees had settled there were further cases of deaths attributed to the dub so within her Hmong settlements in Thailand and Singapore where records show that over 230 fit and healthy males die painfully and unexpectedly in their sleep during the same timeframe as the deaths in America the stories related by the handful of victims who had managed to survive the

encounters sent shockwaves throughout the rest of their community there were cases of young among men not sleeping for an entire week using coffee and drugs to stay awake beyond the point of exhaustion for fear of being murdered as they slept then gradually the number of deaths began to fall and by the start of the 1990s there were no more incidents attributed to the so so are we to believe that the tragic deaths of over 100 American residents during the early 1980s were caused by a malevolent paranormal or supernatural entity that had followed them to their

new home on the other side of the world it's an argument that perhaps unsurprisingly failed to convince the US authorities who attributed the Hmong's to a slew of other medical and societal factors the cases were classified in official reports as sudden unexpected nocturnal death syndrome or sons for short a number of frequently occurring features were identified from examining the son's cases as a whole with only one solitary exception the victims were all male they were middle-aged averaging somewhere between 33 and 34 years old they had also died within the first 17 months of their arrival

in the United States and whilst an exact cause of death would prove impossible to pin down a closer examination of the bodies did manage to highlight shared symptoms in at least some of the cases Chicago pathologist dr. Frederick Aetna reported that in 17 of the 18 bodies that he had been asked to investigate small defects were present within the tiny fibers that carried the electrical impulses from the brains of the heart these fibers were found to be frayed and curled much like a fuse that had been overloaded and burnt out he hypothesized that the hearts

of the dead men had suddenly stopped working because of an immediate and wholly unexpected electrical discharge the type of discharge created by the body's nervous system in times of extreme stress and anxiety in short while sleeping at night the victims appeared to have been killed by their own nightmares other theories that were brought forward seized upon the high levels of depression that were present in the home on community in addition to the anticipated stresses and strains of the panic flight from Laos many of the migrants also admitted to possessing an unhealthy degree of survivor guilt

feeling as if they had abandoned their friends and families to die at the hands of the victorious communist authorities the way that American society treated the newcomers did little to help their fragile mental health the hammam were often mistaken for either Vietnamese or Korean nationals by their new neighbors which resulted in verbal and physical abuse the American people were understandably exhausted and outraged by 20 years of bloody conflict in the Far East there were many cases of aggression and violence towards the migrants which was particularly sad given that so many ethnic among soldiers had died

fighting against the Communists increased levels of stress can sometimes cause significant sleep deprivation and one possible side effect of this is a disorder known as sleep paralysis this is exceptionally common believed to affect up to 50% of adults at some point during their lives during a paralysis episode as the body is on the verge of falling asleep or about to wake the subject temporarily enters a state where they believe they are conscious but cannot move this can sometimes lead to hallucinations with visions of intruders or strange demonic entities often reported by those who have experienced

it however it is not usually fatal could the overwhelming stresses of integrating into a new culture and the observed defects in the nerve fibers have combined to turn this usually terrifying but harmless disorder into a deadly condition it's an interesting question there is also the possibility that the nervous and immune systems of the hammam could simply not adapt to the pollution heavy environment they now found themselves living in in their Lao and homeland they had lived off a natural and healthy diet the rural communities enjoyed much cleaner air and extremely low rates of heart disease

now residing in congested cities choked by exhaust fumes and industrial pollution and with cheap and easy access to fast foods containing ingredients their bodies were just not accustomed to there was a significant increase in their levels of congenital illness the narrative provided by the migrants is a compelling one when viewed objectively the fact that no children or old people were ever involved in the incidence certainly seems to indicate some form of targeting or sentient intelligence to the attacks there is also an argument as to why the timeframe in which the deaths occurred is so narrow

the move to America was a huge cultural shock to most lotions and it was their efforts to adapt and integrate into American society that allowed the so to enter into their lives the communist purge in Laos killed many huh Mongolians and shamans the people who had been tasked with keeping the dab so and other monsters at bay the legend says that when the survivors settled in the United States the amount of holy men amongst their number had dwindled to such an extent that there was now little in place to guard against the attacks by the

night hag customs of sacrifices and offerings that had kept them safe in their beds whilst in Laos were slowly forgotten removing the protection their ancestors had traditionally provided for them with very few her hmong left in laos to target the dab so were also forced to leave their homeland setting off in pursuit of the few believers that still feared them for a brief period they were able to hunt and kill with impunity but their eagerness to steal the souls of their victims would also eventually be their undoing as they gleefully called the middle-aged bracket of

survivors the older migrants who believed in them also passed away from natural causes but a significant portion of younger migrants ended up converting to Christianity and in a short space of time the number of her Hmong who believed in the soul had all but disappeared scientists and doctors who have examined sons have never been able to conclusively diagnose the exact reason why the nervous system of the victims failed but from the observations of dr. Etna it seems apparent that the cause was psychological rather than any kind of external factor possibly related to a form of

sleep paralysis something very painful and persistent was imbedded in the depths of the Hmong culture something that exposed the migrants to events of extreme anxiety so extreme that it proved fatal for the minds of some of the people involved perhaps the most important question to be asked when examining the case of the dab so is this what exactly is an evil spirit is it is traditionally conceived a paranormal entity possessing its own consciousness acting with malicious will and intent or is it something we manufacture in our minds a form of subconscious projection that we manifest

in response to events that are taking place around us whichever of those answers you subscribe to there is little doubt that the humming my grants who died in their sleep were killed as a result of the most extreme level of stress and anxiety they had ever faced whether that was because of a paranormal entity or one they imagined because of the awful situation they had been exposed to is irrelevant they still died at the hands of the dab so and what makes this case even more compelling is the fact that the vision of the night

hag is so common in episodes of sleep paralysis even in Western culture that one has to wonder how and why so many people witness the same entity all over the world the sheer hopelessness and helplessness of the manner in which these people perished is easily one of the most tragic cases we have examined we take comfort in the hope that sharing this story keeps the memory of those who died alive and then whatever forces were at work in claiming them will never return [Music] [Music]