Maybe the lack of oxygen, sleep or heat were the reason.
I can't explain why. My dreams were strange in Shangri la.
Images of Tibetan gods haunted my sleep, which seemed more like a trance.
I only remembered glimpses of the dream the next day.
The previous day, I visited Zhongdian monastery high up on a hill at the mouth of the valley. The original monastery was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution and rebuilt only recently.
Inside the monastery, images of grotesque Buddhas looked down from the walls. Some of the gods stood on top of naked human bodies. Others had human heads tied around their waists. Some reached out with long talons. The gods themselves were blue, green and red.
Tibetan Buddhism was different than the serene images of Buddha I had become familiar with in the rest of China.
The murals seemed more like ghosts than gods.
The ghosts followed me to bed. They danced around wildly as I slept. I've never had dreams so vivid and frightening.
Maybe the reason for my dreams were less scientific. The city has mythical roots according to many tourist brochures.
Shangri la, a mystical city in Tibetan Buddhism, may be the place of British writer James Hilton's novel Lost Horizon. In the novel, the people are nearly immortal and cut off from the outside world.
The next morning over breakfast, all of my friends shared similar experiences: Strange dreams and fitful sleep.
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