When I was a kid, I watched nightrunners kick in my mom’s door, throw sand through the roof, make noises outside, and no one was brave enough to tell them to go away. They didn’t bother my mother, but as a child they terrified me greatly.

Let me explain what nightrunners are: these are grown men, married to families who decide at night that they will run around other people’s compound and disturb their sleep. Nightrunners are not violent people, they don’t steal or try to kill, their mission is to run around other people’s houses, throw sand or stones on the sheet iron roofs and move on 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 drives them to leave the comfort of their home and run naked. It’s absurd but true that most Nightrunners are men. Night runners also enjoy running when it rains because the chances of running into people outside at night are minimal.

My grandmother told me about her cousin who had an arranged marriage with the night runner. At midnight, the husband told his wife that he was going out. The wife was very suspicious but she 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 her wife. On the night that he went out, the wife also left and she put a pillow and some clothes to pretend that she was asleep. The next day, the Nightrunner visited the woman’s family and begged them not to reveal her secret. She paid them two cows, 3 sheep and a goat.

I have searched in the Diagnostic Statistical Manual to find what diagnosis would fit a nightrunner 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 mostly 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 out there has any information on diagnosing nightrunners, I’d really appreciate it if you could talk more.