The Baku: The Japanese Spirit That Eats Nightmares
Japan's answer to the nightmare is not a ward, a prayer, or a dreamcatcher hung above the bed. It is an animal —and the animal must be called . The baku is the dream-eater: a benevolent composite beast with the trunk of an elephant, the eyes of a rhinoceros, the tail of an ox, the paws of a tiger , and a body often bear-like—assembled, says the charming old account, from the pieces left over when the gods finished making all the other animals : the divine workshop's sweepings, gathered into one creature whose office would be, fittingly, to consume the sweepings of the human mind. The protocol of his service was taught to Japanese children for centuries and is still taught: wake from a nightmare, and say, three times, "Baku-san, come eat my dream." The baku comes—invisible, prompt, professional—and devours the nightmare , which cannot then return or come true; and the sleeper may go back to sleep in a swept room. His image was carved on the pillow-boxes of the Edo p...