The tragedy that took place in August 1985 in the English Keyterem shocked the entire population of this small suburb of London. And not only that there was a murder. And most of all by the very circumstances of the crime.
That night, 33-year-old businessman Colin Kemp, about two hours after he went to bed, had a nightmare …
As he made his way alone through the impenetrable jungle of tropical vegetation, he was attacked by two Vietnamese soldiers. One had a pistol, the other a knife. Kemp understood that he would not be able to provide decent resistance to armed enemies, so he rushed to run. But the Vietnamese proved to be more resilient, and gradually overtook him. The distance was shrinking by the minute. He had already heard their heavy breathing behind him, and suddenly he very clearly understood that he was about to die.
In a few seconds, the enemies were close. One soldier raised a sharp knife blade over Kemp, another aimed at the head. Kemp threw himself to the ground, pulling a soldier armed with a knife with him. Then, straining his last strength, he grabbed him by the throat and began to choke him.
At this time, the second soldier jumped to the fighting opponents and shot Kemp in the head. He saw a thin plume of smoke emerging from the barrel of the pistol and woke up, covered in sweat and with hands trembling with fear.
His wife lay motionless next to the businessman. Kemp, sensing unkindness, tried to wake her up. However, the woman showed no signs of life - she was dead. A cold wave of terror swept over Kemp: he realized that he had strangled her in his sleep.
A few months after the tragedy, a trial took place. Kemp pleaded guilty to the crime, but asked the court to take into account the fact that he committed the murder in a dream. Experts - psychiatrists, who were invited by the defense, proved that Kemp had a nightmare, the so-called night fright. And the jury delivered an acquittal. Kemp was released.
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So what is "night fright" - scientifically speaking? Can a person commit a crime in a dream?
Night fright is a strong fear that a person can experience in a dream when they have a nightmare. This state lasts 1-3 minutes. At this time, the sleeping person's pulse quickens, the frequency and depth of breathing increase, he becomes covered with profuse sweat, screams and makes sudden movements.
Sometimes, before waking up, he gets out of bed and even runs from room to room. At the same time, while still not waking up, a person can perform complex, including destructive actions. And only after 5-10 minutes the person wakes up. But he very vaguely remembers what happened to him.
During a medical examination, Kemp confessed to a psychiatrist that a few months before the tragedy, he had already seen two nightmares in a dream. And in one of them he hit his wife in a dream, after which she woke him up.
Children often have night frights. They are less common in adults, and usually as a consequence of the stress experienced during the day. Often night fright is associated with somnambulism. But, oddly enough, night fright is not a dream at all, since it manifests itself when the eyes of a sleeping person are motionless, that is, in another phase of sleep.
And we see dreams when the eyes move under closed eyelids.
In addition, the dream itself, associated with night fright, is difficult for a person to remember. And the incident with Kemp can be considered a rare exception. But his experiences and behavior are completely characteristic of a night fright.
The human brain has special mechanisms that block physical activity during dreams. Therefore, even if a person dreams that he is running, his legs still remain motionless. But with night fright, these blocking mechanisms do not turn on, and a person can perform various muscle movements.
In general, as studies have shown, scenes of violence and aggression in a dream are played out quite often. In the analysis of more than a thousand dreams, which young Americans told the researchers, it was found that various forms of aggression - from feelings of dislike to murder - were present in almost half of these dreams. Moreover, this share is no less among other peoples living in completely different conditions.
In addition, it was noted that about 3,500 characters participated in a thousand of these dreams, of which 23 people were killed. That is roughly one kill per 150 characters. But in reality, when this study was conducted, in the United States, the murder rate was one murder per 14,000 people per year. That is, dreams, as it turned out, are much more "criminal" than reality.
In Britain, there was another death similar to the tragic incident with Kemp. Then 29-year-old American sergeant Willis Bosheers was accused of killing a young woman. From his testimony it followed that, waking up at night, he was horrified to find that his hands were closed on the woman's throat, and she herself was dead. The court also found the sergeant innocent, deciding that the woman died due to the sergeant's "involuntary movement", that is, an unconscious action not related to reason.
Soon after this incident, the law enforcement authorities expressed fears that now, using the precedent, any criminal could kill a person at night, go to bed, and play surprise in the morning.
However, careful psychophysiological studies of the suspect - recording over many nights of his cardiogram, respiratory rate, encephalograms, electrical resistance of the skin, movements in sleep - allow with a high degree of confidence to confirm or refute the version of involuntary murder in sleep.
However, such cases are very rare in judicial practice.