A man discovered his cat was the reason he had trouble breathing at night, after setting up a camera to record himself sleeping.
Lomphonten Lomphontan, of Thailand, already had a video camera set up in his house to record his cat when he was out at work. He decided to turn that camera towards his bed and record during the overnight hours, The Dodo reported.
“I couldn’t breathe when I slept so I installed a camera” pic.twitter.com/DDhP0OweoW
— Greed (@stluis_htx) July 22, 2019
Still images from the camera footage show the cat climbing onto Lomphontan’s chest and covering Lomphontan’s mouth and nose with its furry face and neck.
“I sat and watched [the footage] one night,” Lomphontan told The Dodo. “It was very funny.”
Lomphontan didn’t say he plans to change anything, despite the breathing discomfort.
“It’s a show of love,” Lomphontan said of his cat’s behavior, via The Dodo.
Twitter user @stluis_htx posted Lomphontan’s photos in a tweet. Sympathetic users commented their thoughts and experiences.
“Looks like your cat may be trying to stop you from snoring,” commented @greeentease.
“My cat used to do that to me! I only found out because when I woke up from my recurring dream of suffocating, the fat [expletive] was sprawled out on my face,” commented @jamie2181.
“i bet my cat would do this [expletive]. he has to get as close to you as possible when he sleeps. it’s very cute until it’s the middle of summer and you’re hot as hell and there’s a bald cat sprawled out sleeping on top of u,” commented @funeralfemme.
One person shared insight about what he or she thinks is really going on in these kinds of situations.
“All of your (sic) that are keeping your village people as pets, you feed them, bath them, provide a comfortable environment and they still don’t like you and don’t even hide it. Cats are not pets, you are the pet in the relationship,” commented @OluniyiGates.
Lomphontan’s Facebook page says he lives in Bangkok, but is from Buriram, Thailand. Many of his Facebook photos feature him and his cat. Some of his earlier photos show him and what look like pet rabbits.
As far as the danger of cats in the household potentially suffocating you, there have been no recorded adult human deaths from cat suffocation, but babies have been, Vice reported.
The only other way domesticated cats have killed humans is through infection. Professor of surgical and radiological sciences at UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, Frank J. M. Verstraete, was asked by Vice if a cat would ever attempt to kill a human being.
“Domestication has been going on so long that I don’t think cats retain much of a killing instinct, other than watching bird feeders and the occasional rodent,” Verstraete answered.
In response to the cat smothering tweet, at least a couple of Twitter users posted a photo of a book published by comedy website The Oatmeal titled “How to Tell If Your Cat Is Plotting to Kill You.”
One person on Twitter shared how her cat helped her by doing something similar to Lomphontan’s cat.
“When my baby Jack was still a kitten I had my wisdom teeth removed and I had to switch between warm and cold on both sides. He’d sit on the side that needed to be warm and served as my heating pad while I iced the other side,” commented @SophieAlper.
