The ‘dream’ that can be a nightmare for children playing a dangerous game
Print Edition
Do a deep squat against a wall until you feel tired. Take a deep breath and hold it for a few seconds. Then a second person will come and press on your chest, and you will see strange visions.
That is an activity reportedly popular among primary-school students. It has many names, but the best-known in China is “Dreaming Back to the Tang Dynasty.”
The engaging name, however, masks serious risks. Many children have been hospitalized after playing the game, with some claimed to have “merely escaped death.”
The Southern Metropolis Daily reported that a student in Yiyang, central China’s Hunan Province, “fainted immediately” after playing the game and sweating profusely. He was sent to hospital, but no permanent damage was diagnosed.
The Yiyang Education Bureau later issued a statement banning such activities.
What is attractive about this dangerous game? It may be the visions players see when they lose consciousness — sometimes visions of “previous lives.”
“I didn’t even know how I lost consciousness but went straight into a dream,” said a netizen, whose screen name is “a gentleman after all.”
“I dreamed I was taking a bath at home, and a dazzling light burst out as the bathroom door opened. Through the door, I saw my classmates hitting and kicking me, and then I woke up.”
This activity is not a Chinese invention; it was introduced from overseas.
American health information site WebMD published an article in 2012, calling for parents to be aware of seven dangerous activities their children might play at school. One was called the “choking game.”
The article said that a Center for Diseases Control study analyzed 82 probable choking game deaths in the United States over a period of 12 years, finding that the average age of kids who died was 13. Nearly all of them were playing the game alone when they died, even if they had first played it with a group of friends.
It is believed that the game was introduced into China from Southeast Asia in the late 1990s. It took a few years for it to appear among school-age children.
Although no deaths have been reported in China, multiple injury cases around the country have occurred.
In 2017, a university student in the city of Changsha fell into a coma after playing the “death game,” resulting in severe brain injury. The lack of blood and oxygen supplies to the brain caused loss of consciousness and endangered his life.
In 2022, at a primary school in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, a student hit his head on the ground when playing the game and suffered a disability.
On social media, many adults have shared their experiences of playing the game when they were in school. All said they regretted doing it.
“When I was in school, the game was called ‘losing consciousness for three seconds,’” said a netizen on Weibo. “I only remember that I had a long, inconsistent dream. And then I woke up and I found my classmates were looking at me in horror. They said my eyes rolled to the whites and my body couldn’t stop twitching.”
Doctors say that the core of the game lies in artificially creating short-term asphyxia, a condition of oxygen deprivation, through a combination of various methods such as deep breathing, holding one’s breath and external pressure on the chest. The methods reduce the oxygen supply to the brain, causing brain hypoxia and triggering certain physiological responses and hallucinations.
“The phenomenon of hallucinations is caused by abnormal stimulation of brain regions responsible for vision and memory, such as the visual cortex and the hippocampus, during the game,” said Guo Jian, deputy director of emergency department of Shanghai Yueyang Hospital of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine.
Guo explained that when the visual cortex is affected by asphyxia, it exhibits abnormal neuroelectrical activity, which may cause individuals to see unrealistic images or scenes. The hippocampus, which is responsible for processing and storing memories, may experience random activation or confusion due to hypoxia.
“Sometimes people mistakenly believe they are ‘seeing their childhood’ or ‘scenes from past lives,’ but these are actually memory fragments being disorderly retrieved from the brain,” he said.
Physically, hypoxia exerts severe impact on the brain. During the game, air is forcibly expelled from the lungs, causing a rapid decline in oxygen levels in the body. As the brain is a major oxygen consumer, it is the first to be affected.
“Instant hypoxia is like suddenly shutting off the life support system of the brain, which may cause dizziness, blurred vision, and in severe cases, instant coma, while prolonged hypoxia can lead to permanent brain damage or even death,” Guo explained.
“Even if only attempted once, severe hypoxia can cause brain damage that cannot be fully recovered.”
Playing the “death game” has been likened to a near-death experience, placing the body in a highly stressed mode that can easily cause anxiety, panic and other mental problems.
“Every attempt at playing such game is a gamble betting on health and future, so parents and schools need snuff out pupil curiosity to try it,” the doctor said.
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