<\/p>
In the late spring of 1870, an American journalist was staying in a little Hungarian village. One night at about 2am he awoke \u201cin a cold sweat, screaming and struggling with some horrible thing, cold as death, that lay upon my breast pinioning my arms to my sides, and trying to fasten his clammy mouth about my throat. I yelled and fought, and presently I heard men running through the hall toward my room.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hearing this tale, the American\u2019s landlord warned gravely that he had been sucked by a vampire \u2013 and must prepare for death. At this point the American is not persuaded. But presently, having had it explained to him that ongoing and widespread vampire hysteria in the region is due to the recent death of one Peter Dickowitz, who has since attacked many villagers, he follows a party of vampire-killers to the local cemetery. Two coffins are hauled from the earth. And at this point something remarkable happens. Our author, who had previously referred with disdain to \u201cthe old, horrible superstition of vampirism\u201d, very quickly becomes a true believer:<\/p>\n
\u201cIsaw\u2013dareItellit?\u2013inthesickly light of the flambeaux, that the men within them were not dead; but, horrible beyond expression, deadly in their ghastliness, yet, alive, they lay there. Their bodies were swimming in blood, and a horrible leer was on their mouths, and agonised fate within their staring eyes. Loathsome beyond thought, ghoul-like beyond nightmare dream, they were the living dead.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Dragged away from the consecrated ground, these two vampires are staked through their hearts. At this point, our already-traumatised witness hears from each \u201csuch a wailing sob and cry\u2026 as I never did dream even in nightmare\u201d. The heads of both \u2018vampires\u2019 are then laboriously hacked off with sharp spades.<\/p>\n By 1870, most educated Europeans and Americans saw vampires as either thrilling entertainment (on both stage and page) or as an example of the backward superstitions of peasants in such lands as Hungary, Romania, Serbia and Greece. So what could have caused the radical change of heart seen in our previously sceptical reporter?<\/p>\n One factor was undoubtedly the relatively undecayed state of the exhumed corpses, supposedly swimming in blood. Since the painstaking forensic work of Paul Barber, it is relatively well known that some bodies are slow to decay, and that copious fluids (resembling blood) can issue from them. The sudden release of trapped gases can even result in \u2018vampires\u2019 screaming when staked.<\/p>\n The second factor in the American reporter\u2019s vampire epiphany is less well known. The attack that the American suffered was almost certainly a combination of sleep paralysis and nightmare. These inter-related medical conditions have occurred throughout history, and still occur now.<\/p>\n When we sleep we routinely become paralysed; this prevents us from acting out dreams and suffering possible injury. We\u2019re not usually conscious of this state. But during a sleep paralysis nightmare, the victim feels absolutely conscious. They see their room, often in vivid detail, but are paralysed and cannot speak.<\/p>\n Presently, they become aware of an entity approaching. They may see it or hear it; but even if they do neither they are horribly convinced of it (perhaps hovering just outside their field of vision) and utterly traumatised by fear. Now the demon entity is on their chest, its weight crushing and its hands or mouth suffocating, squeezing the life from their throat\u2026 Although in reality such attacks last no more than a few minutes, to victims the experience can seem endless.<\/p>\n This mix of symptoms can vary, as can the extremity of attacks. But in many cases they cause a level of terror that mere words can barely capture. In 2011, some years after a nightmare attack, the American writer Alexis Madrigal wrote that: \u201cIt didn\u2019t 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\u2019d call my soul\u201d \u2013 strong words from someone who describes himself as \u201ca straight materialist\u201d. This and many similar descriptions leave one wondering if the nightmare is indeed the origin of evil itself.<\/p>\n It certainly is the origin of many vampire epidemics. Some of the very earliest written accounts of proto-vampires come from Britain. In the 12th century alleged revenants (essentially, undecayed walking corpses) brought terror and death to people in Buckinghamshire, Wales, Northumbria and at Melrose Abbey on the Scottish borders. In Wales, sometime after 1149, an English knight complained of a recently deceased \u201cWelsh wizard\u201d who \u201ckeeps coming every night, calling by name certain of his former neighbours, who instantly fall sick and die within three days\u201d. A contemporary report from Buckinghamshire tells of a dead man who, the night after his burial, \u201csuddenly entered the room where his wife lay asleep and, having awakened her\u2026 almost killed her by leaping upon her with the whole heaviness of his weight and overlying her\u201d.<\/p>\n In 1567, in the Bohemian city of Trawtenaw, the revenant of one Stephen Hubener \u201cdid pinch many men with such strait embracements, that many of them died\u201d. Those who survived reported \u201cwith one consent\u2026 that they were thus clasped or beclipped by this\u2026 man\u201d \u2013 who, for his pains, was decapitated, eviscerated and burned.<\/p>\n Around 1738, a young Serbian girl \u201cnamed Stanoska\u2026 went to bed in perfect health, but awoke in the middle of the night, trembling, and crying out, that the son of the Heyduke Millo, who died about nine weeks before, had almost strangled her while she was asleep. From that time, she fell into a languishing state, and died at three days end.\u201d<\/p>\nParalysed with fear<\/h3>\n