In Jewish folklore, a dybbuk is a troubled dead soul that clings to or enters the body of the living. It gives poetry a language for grief that becomes invasive, for memory that speaks through someone else's mouth, and for inherited pain that refuses burial. A dybbuk need not be merely frightening; it may also be pitiful, bound by unfinished love, injustice, or remorse. Poems may use possession to dramatize divided identity and the difficult work of release.

The dybbuk comes from Jewish folklore, especially traditions associated with Ashkenazi communities, and is understood as a possessing spirit or wandering soul that attaches itself to a living person. Literary treatments often use possession to explore guilt, unresolved obligations, forbidden desire, communal memory, or the inability of the dead to find rest. Because the concept belongs to a specific religious and cultural tradition, it is better analysed in context than treated as a generic ghost. Related ideas include possession, exorcism, restless dead, soul, haunting, memory, ritual, and Jewish mystical folklore.