Djinn are a rare race of supernatural cave dwelling hermits. They have been encountered by a few hunters including Sam and Dean Winchester.
Characteristics
A Djinn's depiction
Djinn are humanoid creatures with tattooed skin that prefer to live in large ruins with a lot of places to hide. They feed on human blood and can poison their victims with a touch. The poison can be used either to kill their victims quickly, or to leave victims in a coma-like state while the djinn feeds on their blood over a long period of time. Djinn are depicted in the Koran as beings with godlike powers. Contemporary lore depicts them as genies and are able to read a person's mind to learn their deepest desires; however, the djinn do not truly grant wishes like the genies of lore. Instead, using their poison, the Djinn causes hallucinations so powerful that the immobilized victim thinks he or she is actually living in the reality the Djinn implanted.
The fantasy universe differs among the victims but it is generally where they believe their wish has been granted. Victims under the influence of the Djinn could see other victims as apparitions within their fantasy. At their peak, these fantasies, are incredibly detailed, to the point were they include a fantasy version of the Djinn who infected them, and there victims. Time passes slowly enough in the fantasy universe that the djinn's victims will feel as if they are living an entire lifetime before their physical bodies die. The only way to escape from the Fantasy universe, is for the person to comit suicide, in which case they wake up. However if they die in the fantasy from anything other than their own hand, they will die in real life. There is an antidote to Djinn posion, known to some hunter circles. When Djinn access their powers, either both their eyes and hands glow blue, or their tattoos move and extend down their arms.
A second type of Djinn appeared on the show, refered by Dean as "bastard offshoots". This type do not feed on human blood but on human fear. They can pass as normal humans at will and reveal their glowing blue eyes just like normal Djinn do before attacking their prey. They possess the same powers and weakness of normal Djinns, but unlike them, turn the victim's insides to jelly and leave a blue hand mark on the corpse of the victim. This Djinn's poison is different as well, instead of making their prey hallucinating living in their happy place, they hallucinate their worst nightmares and die from fear. The anitidote for normal Djinn poison doesn't affect their hallucinations. The only way to escape is to let go of the fear. Both types of Djinns hide in ruins and tend to live as a family and raise their own offspring.
Powers and Abilities
Djinn's power.
- Hallucinogenic Touch - The Djinns' main ability. By touching someone, they can induce a series of delusions on the mind of their target, typically causing them to enter in a unconscious, dream-like state. Inside it, a person can re-live their deepest dreams and desires, over and over again, akin to a endless loop. These dellusions can also be induced in a more mild fashion, leaving the person awake, but at the risk of having them break on a mental level due to the mix of reality and illusion. There is also an offshot race of Djinns, who when inducing the delusions, trap people in a dream world of their greatest fears, and feed off it. When touching their targets, they usually leave a blue mark in the shape of a handprint on the victim.
- Super Strength - Djinns are notably stronger than humans, able to easily over power them. Even a teenage Djinn is able to overpower a grown man.
- Super Speed - Djinns can move incredibly fast, able to suddenly appear and ambush others.
- Super Senses - A particular type of Djinn that feeds on fear instead of human blood, can smell human fear and can track their prey by following their scent.
- Shapeshifting - Djinns can change their form to pass as humans.
- Immortality - Djinns possess a longer life span then humans and can potentially live forever
- Telepathy - They can read people's minds and learn their greatest desires or fears.
- Super Agility - Djinns are more agile than humans, while wating to attack Dean three hid in a tree like birds.
Vulnerabilities
- Silver and lamb's blood - A silver knife dipped in lamb's blood can kill a djinn.
Season 2
A djinn attacks Dean.
Dean and Sam are tracking a djinn, and when Sam tells Dean that, according to his research, they live in "ruins, usually –- the bigger, the better," Dean recalls a warehouse that he passed a while back and decides to investigate it on his own. In the warehouse, Dean finds the djinn but is overpowered and poisoned. After he is poisoned, he finds himself in the fantasy universe based on his innermost desire for his mother not to have been killed when he was a child.
Dean kills the djinn.
In this alternate reality, Dean and Sam are not hunters, and so have not become close to each other. Dean wants to believe that the djinn granted his wish, but becomes convinced that he is only dreaming. He wakes himself up by killing himself inside the vision, and when he returns to reality he is bound and weak. Sam is there trying to wake Dean, and starts to free the latter's rope bonds before being attacked by the djinn. Dean manages to break free and stab the djinn with a silver knife dipped in lamb’s blood, killing it.
Season 6
Brigitta touches Dean's arm to infect him with her poison.
Djinn are hunting Dean and Sam and they are not "cave-dwelling hermits," but are able to pass as human. A djinn named Brigitta poses as a waitress and touches Dean's arm to infect him with her poison. Her touch makes Dean hallucinate his worst fears, including the return of Azazel. He seems on the verge of a panic attack when he is saved by Sam, who injects him with an antidote to the djinn's poison. Sam tells Dean that he was also poisoned by the djinn and that they both would have died without the antidote, which he got from their grandfather Samuel Campbell.
After getting Lisa and Ben Braeden to safety, Dean and Sam act as bait for the djinn. Instead of coming for them directly, the djinn attack and poison Dean's neighbor Sid and his wife. Dean goes to try and save them, but finds them dead with their eyes white. It is unclear if they had time to hallucinate, or if the dose of poison was so high that they died instantly. While Dean checks on Sid and his wife, he is attacked by Brigitta and another djinn. Brigitta gives Dean a second, stronger dose of poison through her touch and tells him, "That's for our father," implying that the djinn Sam and Dean killed in 2007 was her father, and the other two djinn with her are her brothers.
The djinn are eventually overpowered by Sam and Samuel, and, while Sam is in Sid's house rescuing Dean, Samuel and Christian Campbell kidnap Brigitta.
Sam, Dean, Castiel, and Meg encounter the djinn Brigitta in Crowley's monster jail. She is chained in a cell and seems terrified. She begs them to free her, but they don't have time and have to leave her. Later, Crowley comes to her cell, and she backs away from him fearfully. She is spared from further torture when Crowley focused his attention on the escape of the Winchesters. She is presumably killed later when Castiel fired off his White Light on the entire warehouse containing the captured monsters.
Season 8
The Djinns shown in the episode Pac-Man Fever, are different. Their eyes glow blue and leave blue handprints on the victim's hands. They can smell fear and feed off the victim's fear.
In 2013, a djinn of a type referred to as a "bastard off-shoot" by Dean, that feeds off fear rather than happieness named Jennifer O'Brien sets up shop in Topeka, Kansas. Her first kill draws attention, but she is able to eventually hide it by becoming the assistant of the coroner at the time and "accidentally" burning the body. Over the next nine years, she covers up her kills in the same way which she is able to easily do as the coroner, but when her son comes of age, he kills two people and the bodies draw the attention of Charlie Bradbury who warns Sam and Dean who investigate the case.
Sensing Charlie's fear when she pretends to be an FBI agent to investigate the case, Jennifer kidnaps her and plans to feed both herself and her son off of Charlie. Charlie is poisoned, but Sam and Dean track her down and Dean kills Jennifer. Unable to wake Charlie up with the antidote, Dean enters Charlie's mind with African Dream Root while Sam confronts and kills Jennifer's son. Eventually Dean is able to save Charlie and snap her out of her fear-induced hallucination.
Lore
More commonly known as a genie, Djinn (or Jinn) are supernatural creatures in Arab folklore and Islamic teachings which occupy a parallel world to that of mankind. Like humans, they can be good, evil, or neutrally benevolent. According to the Qu'ran, the Djinn were created by Allah from a smokeless fire. The focus in Western culture has been on the Djinn or genie's ability to grant wishes, which originated in the tales from The Book of One Thousand and One Nights. The true form of a Djinn is currently unknown because they appear invisible to humans, but have the power to shape shift into human and animal forms to become physical. Arab lore also says that Djinn possess superhuman speed, strength, immortality, can mimic human voice, and can even possess humans like demons do. Djinns are even said to be vunerable to salt, iron, and silver.
Unlike the Djinns on Supernatural, Djinns in Traditional lore are not a type of monster, but a race of supernatural beings like Angels and Demons.