As a child, I witnessed passers-by kicking at my mother’s door, throwing sand across the ceiling, making noises outside, and no one was brave enough to tell them to leave. My mother was not bothered, but when I was a child, this terrified me very much.
Let me explain what nightrunners are: they are grown men, married to families who decide at night that they will run around other people’s compound and disturb their sleep. The Nightrunners are not violent people, they do not steal, or try to kill, their mission is to run through other people’s houses, throw sand or stones on the iron sheet roofs and move to the next house. They get satisfaction from disturbing people who are asleep.
Many of the nightrunners were ordinary people, except at night, there is a demon or something that prompts them to leave the comfort of their home and run around naked. It is absurd, but true, that most nightstrunners are men. Nightrunner also enjoys running when it rains because the chances of meeting people outside at night are minimal.
My grandmother told me about her cousin that she had an arranged marriage to a man at night. At midnight, the husband told his wife that he was going out. The wife was very suspicious but did not respond. The next day, the nightrunner suspected that the wife might go off and tell others about her “night duties” and plot to kill his wife. The night he left to go out, the wife also left and put on a pillow and some clothes to pretend she was asleep. The next day, the nightrunner visited the woman’s family and begged them not to reveal her secret. He paid them two cows, three sheep and a goat.
I searched the Diagnostic Statistics Manual to find which diagnosis a nightrunner would fit and found none. It is still a mystery to me that a grown man would leave the comfort of his home and run around other people’s houses naked. Nightrunners are mainly found in rural areas where there is no electricity and people cannot identify who they are. Some people have speculated that nightrunners are depressed people, however this can be debated because most depressed people would not have the energy to get up and run at night. If anyone has any information on the diagnosis of nightrunners, I would greatly appreciate discussing it further.