The Batibat is a nightmare spirit of Philippine Ilocano folklore, pictured as an old, grotesquely fat woman who lives in trees. She favors large, ancient trees such as the balete, the strangler fig long tied to the supernatural in Philippine lore. When her tree is cut down and turned into a post that holds up a house, she migrates into the hole left in that wood and lingers there.
If someone sleeps near the post, she takes her true form, settles onto the sleeper’s chest, and suffocates them. In the Philippines such sudden death in sleep is called bangungot, and is medically linked to SUNDS — sudden unexplained nocturnal death syndrome — which affects about 43 per 100,000 young Filipinos a year, mostly men.
The word “batibat” comes from the Ilocano term for nightmare. Folklore holds that a victim can ward her off by biting a thumb or wiggling the toes, which wakes the sleeper from the Batibat-induced nightmare. Recent medical research points instead to starchy food and alcohol before sleep, and to sleep apnea, re-explaining deaths once laid at a spirit’s feet.