 Wes Craven (qv) claimed to have drawn inspiration for this movie  from a series of news stories that involved a group of young  Cambodians who died from a horrific nightmare. The story goes that  first these young, otherwise healthy people would have a horrible  nightmare, then refuse to sleep for as long as possible; when they  finally fell asleep from sheer exhaustion they awoke with a scream,  and died from a heart attack.