"A Nightmare on Elm Street" contains many biographical elements from director Wes Craven's childhood. The basis of the film was inspired by several newspaper articles printed in the "Los Angeles Times" in the 1970s about Hmong refugees, who, after fleeing to the United States because of war and genocide in Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam, suffered disturbing nightmares and refused to sleep. Some of the men died in their sleep soon after. Medical authorities called the phenomenon Asian Death Syndrome. The condition afflicted men between the ages of 19 and 57 and was believed to be sudden unexplained death syndrome or Brugada syndrome or both. Craven stated that "“It was a series of articles in the "LA Times"; three small articles about men from South East Asia, who were from immigrant families and had died in the middle of nightmares—and the paper never correlated them, never said, 'Hey, we've had another story like this.”" The 1970s pop song "Dream Weaver" by Gary Wright sealed the story for Craven, giving him not only an artistic setting to jump off from, but a synthesizer riff for the movie soundtrack. Craven has also stated that he drew some inspiration for the film from Eastern religions.