Lots of horror movies get inspiration from real-life events.  Tobe Hooper was inspired to do the Texas Chainsaw Massacre by lines at a local store.  As for Wes Craven, the inspiration for his legendary film A Nightmare on Elm Street is a weird medical condition called SUNDS, or sudden unexpected nocturnal death syndrome.  However, is it a real condition, or is it folklore?  Can you really die from nightmares?

According to physicians like Matteo Vatta from Baylor College of Medicine, SUNDS is all too real.  “The heart can be normal for quite some time, and then it may stop unexpectedly,” Vatta said in one interview.  “Usually, the heart stops at night, and in Southeast Asia it once caused more deaths amongst young males than car accidents.”

The disease is most common in Southeast Asian males, which is why the disease wasn’t noticed in the West until refugees from the Vietnam War came onto American soil and started to drop dead in their sleep.  SUNDS is related to arrhythmia in the heart caused by the body’s slowing down during sleep.  This causes the electrical problem that is believed to be the basis of SUNDS to flare up, the heart to go into a fatal spasm, and the person to die.

Freddy Krueger is officially off the hook, at least for now.

Tags: Nightmare on Elm Street, death while sleeping, death from a nightmare, SUNDS, sudden unexpected nocturnal death syndrome, more likely to die at night, unusual medical conditions, fatal heart arrhythmia, Matteo Vatta, Baylor

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