DREYMI OR GHOST LIGHTS

I’m sure you must have heard or seen Dreymi (ghost lights) some point in time. Westerners call the light phenomenon in the night as Paulding light. However in Bhutan, we have myraid of stories alluding to phenomenon of lights. We call them Dreymi. In the late 90s, from Gaselo, we could spot hundreds of lights in the night on the opposite hillside surrounding Rueb-bjaphu village. People on the opposite had also seen similar light activities on our side. The size of the lights used to be that of 100 watts traditional bulb and they travel real fast, integrate and disintegrate quickly. 

If it was nothing to do with creepy ghost stories, those light activities were interesting to watch. Most of the time, those lights used to be accompanied by howling of jackles which made the phenomenon even more hair raising. 

Well, in our belief system, what really is Dreymi? Some elderly folks say, it is a paranormal activity of living human souls called Soendrey—spirits of the living. The opposite is Shindrey—spirits of the dead. It is believed that, when we fall asleep, mostly with women and seldom with men, our souls momentarily escape from our bodies and freely roam all over in the dark. The loitering souls meet, communicate and are capable of causing harms.

Let me briefly narrate a true story of a man’s close encounter with ghost lights. A hunter from my father’s village, whom I last saw as an old man in his 80s, was out on hunting and by the time he was returning home, it was nearly midnight. On his way home, he was surrounded by some indescribable lights. They were also making some inaudible chitchats. He knew they were Dreymi and trying to harm him. Quick enough, he could manage to whip twice on one of the lights with his bow. The lights then disintegrated making loud cries. 

The next day, pretending nothing had happened, he casually hopped from one house to another in his neighborhood. Certainly, he saw a woman in agony. She was having a severe backpain. As he checked on her back, he saw two long marks as if someone hit her with a long stick. That way, he identified the woman from last night who possessed Soendrey. When he asked where she had been last night, she narrated a dreamlike experience of walking with her friends and encountering the hunter. She couldn’t exactly recollect if he lashed her with the bow.

However, it has been many years that I haven’t spotted a single Dreymi on the opposite hill. Our folks in Gaselo believe, it could be due to the effect of religious reach and blessings that the paranormal light activities must have disappeared. Some say, it could be due to developmental activities like roads and rural electrification everywhere.