Why screaming into the abyss may be just the mindfulness trick you need
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Loading... - Lori Adams
- 07 Sep 2022
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If you find yourself in the Flogsta neighbourhood of Uppsala, Sweden, a little north of Stockholm, at 10pm, you could be in for a little bit of a surprise. At that time every night, a collective scream unleashes itself from the windows of high-rise buildings – a primal shriek, piercing into the abyss. But relax, it’s not some terrible ghoulishness, but the ritualistic communal scream of… university students.
"It was one of the first things I heard about when I knew my accommodation would be in Flogsta," says Uppsala University law student Emma Boran, 21. "My mum and I researched it and realised it was this tradition. I thought it was a bit quirky but also lots of fun. It felt like a taste of the student culture I would be entering into."
The origins of this tradition – which dates back to the 1970s – are largely unknown and, maybe consciously, mysterious. Some say it was to honour the suicide of a student; others, that it was adopted to relieve the stress of exams. There is also a theory that it was transferred from students in Lund, where it is (still) known as ‘the Delphi roar.’ The phenomena has also not restricted itself to Flogsta alone – there is a Lappkärrsberget neighbourhood scream in Stockholm as well, known as ‘the Lappkärr Cry’ – and, in 2020, students as far afield as Hong Kong adopted the scream as a form of protest.
But as enigmatic as its origins are, why do it at all? Does it actually relieve stress? "It really does!" says an emphatic Boman. "I was a bit apprehensive in the beginning, but one week I had an assignment that was really stressing me out and I just did it. It’s honestly a huge release."
