Item #: SCP-068-VN
Object Class: Neutralized
Special Containment Procedures (archived): Individuals affected by SCP-068-VN should be instructed to attend psychological counseling and psychiatric treatment in medical facilities operated by the Foundation. Both the facility and the affected individual must agree not to publicly disclose the customer/patient’s mental health status.
Special Containment Procedures (present): Containment procedures for SCP-068-VN are no longer necessary.
Description: SCP-068-VN is an anomalous phenomenon first recorded at the end of 2021. The frequency of SCP-068-VN events increased with time and reached its peak in late January to early February of 2022. This phenomenon mainly targeted civilians living in various districts of Hanoi, Vietnam.
When an individual is affected by SCP-068-VN, they will experience recurring dreams on consecutive nights. The content of these dreams is different between individuals. However, SCP-068-VN often simultaneously targets all family members living together, with every member in an affected family having identical dreams. Some individuals find these dreams to be uneventful, and in a few cases, “sweet dreams”. Many others, however, reported that their dreams contained cryptic details such as blood, weapons or implications of death. The only common feature among all SCP-068-VN events is that before the dreams end, all affected individuals will hear a female voice whispering to them various phrases with unclear meaning.
SCP-068-VN has caused many cases of sleep disorders and other mental issues such as prolonged anxiety, depression or hallucination. Affected individuals often seek help at medical facilities and psychological counseling offices, which suddenly resulted in an increased number of mental issue cases related to sleep in Hanoi. This has captured the attention of embedded Foundation personnel; follow-up investigation efforts have resulted in the anomaly being discovered. Although Class-A amnestics have been administered to affected individuals, the occurrence of dreams was completely unaffected.
Addendum 068-VN.1: An abridged list of recorded dreams.
| Content | Notes |
|---|---|
| A tropical forest scene, where the observer seemingly found themselves on top of a mountain and looking down. The scene did not contain any recognizable landmarks such as roads or rivers. | None. |
| The affected individual found themselves in the back of a truck on a highway. | After looking through cracks on the truck body, this individual recognized that the truck was running on the Nội Bài – Lào Cai highway. |
| A fireplace inside a stilted house, surrounded by a number of children in old, wearied winter clothes. The affected individual reported that these children looked identical to their siblings at a younger age. | This individual was born and raised in a well-off family in Hanoi. However, after waking up, they always felt a sense of longing and nostalgia for their dreams. |
| The affected individual found themselves on a small wooden boat in the middle of an unknown river. When they turned around, mist and fog had covered the entire view behind them. | None. |
| Some banknotes in RMB with small values. Drops of an opaque, white and viscous substance appeared on the banknotes. | None. |
| The affected individual found themselves looking at the ceiling of an unfamiliar room. The scene in their dream frequently trembled as if there was an earthquake, and sometimes became blurry or pitch black. | This individual reported severe body pain after waking up, and has sought psychological help. |
| A dirty bed sheet with fresh drops of blood. | None. |
| Numerous wild peach blossom trees on a mountain, with some trees having been cut off from their stumps. Instead of tree sap, fresh blood was flowing out from the cuts. | None. |
| The affected individual found themselves inside a grave hole, with someone above shoving soil on their body. The falling soil gradually obscured their view before the dream ended. | This individual often felt terrified and had difficulties in breathing after waking up. They have sought psychological help. |
| During their dreams, this individual would use a knife to slit the inner side of their own arm. | This individual had insomnia after two consecutive nights having had this dream, and had sought psychological help. |
During the interview process, affected individuals were instructed to list all of their activities in a few days before having been affected by SCP-068-VN. According to the results, on the day before having their first dreams, all affected families had brought a branch of wild peach blossoms to decorate their house for the celebration of Lunar New Year 2022.
Foundation personnel have analyzed the DNA of these wild peach blossom branches, along with specks of moss and lichen found on them. DNA sequence comparison has revealed that all of these flower branches likely came from one source. It was also revealed that all affected families had brought their peach blossom from only a certain few vendors in Hanoi.
The Foundation has covertly contacted these vendors to inquire on where they sourced the blossoms, and has therefore been able to pinpoint certain farms where these blossoms could have been taken from (see Addendum 068-VN.3 for a comprehensive list). At the same time, investigating personnel have also determined that the dreams contained trustworthy clues. Therefore, they have taken a closer look at peach blossom farms listed above that can be accessed through the Nội Bài – Lào Cai highway. Information about SCP-068-VN was also provided to police departments of all related provinces in order to support the investigation.
Addendum 068-VN.2: The Mù Cang Chải Event.
On 14/06/2022, the police department of Mù Cang Chải District in Yên Bái Province received a notification from Mr. Hà Văn Tính, the owner of a wild peach blossoms farm among those being investigated. Mr. Hà had made a call to the local authorities after having found a corpse buried in his farm. Foundation personnel, under the guise of Yên Bái policemen, have interviewed Mr. Hà. The interview was transcripted below:
Date: 14/06/2022
Interviewer: Researcher Bùi Anh Đức (Northwestern Outpost, Site-29-VN)
Interviewed: Mr. Hà Văn Tính (civilian)
[BEGIN LOG]
[…]
Researcher Bùi: Can you tell us one more time, from the beginning, about how you discovered the corpse?
Mr. Hà: I was digging a hole to process some fertilizers, since I wanted to feed the trees in a few days. There was quite a large and flat piece of land in the farm that hadn’t been used for anything else, so I dug the hole there. After digging halfway, my shovel touched something hard so I plowed it out to see what it was, but in no way could I expect to see such irregularities. I swear to you that I have nothing to do with this corpse!
Researcher Bùi: Please rest assured that we will investigate this event thoroughly before coming to a conclusion. As far as I know, your farm lies on the slope of a high mountain, but even then there was a flat piece of land right in the middle of it. And you have never discovered anything unusual there before?
Mr. Hà: I know that piece of land was there. But my father used to tell me that although I could do whatever I wanted on the farm, I was not allowed to touch that piece of land. For me that was such a waste, but it was my father’s words so I couldn’t disobey.
Researcher Bùi: So where is your father now?
Mr. Hà: He has already passed away. Shortly after the lunar new year began.
Researcher Bùi: (nodded) I am very sorry for your loss. Do you remember when you first noticed that this piece of land was there?
Mr. Hà: Thanks for the condolences. I can’t remember such trivial things. However… The first time my dad told me I shouldn’t do anything there was more than a year ago. Back then, I couldn’t remember whether that piece of land was new or if it had been there for some time.
Researcher Bùi: More than a year… When was that exactly?
Mr. Hà: Last year in the middle of May, if memory serves me right.
Researcher Bùi: Middle of May, alright. Was there anything unusual that happened at your farm around that time frame?
(Mr. Hà thought for a while.)
Mr. Hà: Nothing happened, even during a few days before or after.
Researcher Bùi: How about a few months? Was there anything unusual at the farm in that time period?
Mr. Hà: Are events from a few months even necessary?
Researcher Bùi: Please tell us the truth, and don’t worry. The more honest you are, the better you can prove that you are indeed not related to all of this.
(Mr. Hà thought for a while.)
Mr. Hà: If that’s what you said, I would like to first tell you about things that happened to my family in the past. Since my father was young, the peach blossoms farm was our family business, but he hadn’t been getting any decent income from it for several years. He was so frustrated that he almost gave up working on the farm. But then someone told my father about a very powerful shaman living near the borders.1 If we could find that shaman, he could help us get a better life, no matter how hard it would be. But finding that shaman was very difficult, since we heard that only he could find necessary offerings for his ritual, and even then it would take a lot of time. But sometimes in life there’s nothing that can be done other than believing in the superstitious, right? So my father was very determined to travel to the borders and find that shaman, as he would like to see which fate was lying before us. My father swore that if he couldn’t get it done, he would completely give up on the farm.
Researcher Bùi: I’ve heard of your family situation. I guess your father had succeeded, right?
Mr. Hà: You are right. I don’t know what happened during that ritual, because only the shaman and my father were allowed to get in the farm on that day. But all the trees have become much more healthy and lively afterwards. That was why we made lots of money selling peach blossom branches in the following celebration season. It was such a shame that my dad couldn’t enjoy prosperity for long during his life.
Researcher Bùi: You wanted to first tell us things that happened before May from last year. Does that mean there was also something unusual after that?
Mr. Hà: …It was about my father’s health conditions. That was much more complicated; everyone from my family, my relatives and my neighbors had thought that his condition was unexplainable.
Researcher Bùi: Can you tell us more about that in detail?
Mr. Hà: My father used to be very healthy. You know, he had been working on the farm for decades, and had even traveled for a whole month to find that shaman without any problems. However, since one year ago, right around this time of year, he started to have lots of nightmares. He used to dream of many unusual things like people swearing, screaming at him, the crying of hungry children, and sometimes he even saw a shadow of someone holding a knife and coming at him. So he couldn’t sleep at night and had hallucinations during the day. He saw that kind of shadow everywhere, his health got worse and worse, and he couldn’t work on the farm anymore. Since then, I have been taking care of the farm and he had been resting at home. He wouldn’t even want to go outside himself.
Researcher Bùi: That’s seriously unusual. Were his conditions truly incurable?
Mr. Hà: I used to believe that all of this could be fixed. But my father didn’t want to be healed himself. My family used to advise him to invite other shamans for rituals or come to big hospitals in the cities, but he wouldn’t listen. Everyone wanted him to get well again, but we couldn’t figure out how to make him understand. And… (whispered) my family has been hiding this from everyone, but my father did not pass away because of his conditions.
Researcher Bùi: So why did he pass away?
(Mr. Hà exhaled sharply and sat still for a while.)
Mr. Hà: If only he hadn’t went outside on that day and got lost… My family was frantically looking for him, and then we found him deep inside the farm, very high on the mountain slope. No one could understand how he got there. When someone finally came, my father had already been lying on the ground, breathless.
Researcher Bùi: It could be that he was exhausted, right?
Mr. Hà: No, that was not the case. Together, we tried to lift his body up, but right at that moment we were already shaking in fear. His blood has turned the soil into mud. A sickle was lunging deep inside his chest, and his hands were still firmly holding onto it.
[END LOG]
DNA comparison has revealed that all peach blossom branches bought by affected individuals in SCP-068-VN events had come from Mr. Hà’s farm. Notably, all SCP-068-VN events have ceased after the corpse found in the farm was returned to her family. It was identified that the corpse belonged to a young woman; however, the police department of Yên Bái Province has kept her identity a secret to protect her dignity.
The Foundation is searching for the aforementioned shaman through traveling accounts of Mr. Hà Văn Tính’s father.