Episode 702: Listener Tales 101: Sleep Over / Dream Edition!

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Hey, weirdos, I'm Ash, and I'm Elena, and And this is super duper dreamy morbid.

We're dreaming.

It feels nice.

It does.

I'm going to go to sleep.

Honestly,

I'm sitting here being lulled.

Yeah.

Very much lulled into sleep right now.

now.

Yeah.

Me and Alina have had a very long few days.

Yeah.

We've had some family stuff happening.

That's been a little rough, overwhelming.

But here we are.

We're here.

And this feels so calm.

Yeah.

Beautiful that it's like...

I'm like just looking around at all the stars.

We have one of those like nightlight things.

Yeah.

I feel like Raquel.

This is my kids' nightlight though.

Remember in VPR when they all made fun of Raquel.

I mean, Raquel sucks, but when they made fun of her, though, for her starlight.

And that's not, if you're going to make fun of her for something, I mean, don't make fun of anybody ever.

Don't do that.

That's not nice anyway just ignore people you don't like yeah but don't make fun of somebody for a starlight starlights are magnificent here's the thing starlights are gangsta they are like gangsta this feels good i feel awesome yeah yeah i'm saying so we decided um in case you couldn't tell that this is gonna be like sleepover themed because you know we're moving to a new house oh also um we have our phone volumes on we're gonna do our best to kind of like cut the noises out but we do have some stuff going on that our phone volumes need to be on yeah we just need to make sure we know if a call is coming through yeah um again it's not like us just being like i need i need a call to come through like um my mom's in the hospital so we need to make sure that we have our that's my grandma so yeah

um so yeah

So hopefully that doesn't annoy you too much.

And if it does, I kind of don't care.

If it does, you suck.

Yeah, exactly.

But yeah, so we wanted to have another sleepover.

We haven't done a sleepover edition in a little while.

No.

And I mean, we're going to a new home at Sirius.

So, we figured in this old house, we might as well, you know, end it on a sleepover.

Yeah, end it on a sleepover note.

We've been in this house a long time.

Yeah.

So, one last sleepover to

before we leave.

Yeah, before you kick that door closed

and on to the next, on to the next door, you know.

So, without further ado, I think Elena was going to read the first tale.

And neither of us have read these, so we don't know what's going to happen.

No, we have not read these.

Deb Deb picked these for us.

Vetted by shout out to Deb Deb.

She made a whole thing about, you know, dreams and astro projection and all that cool stuff.

So, this is going to be very dreamy, very spooky.

It's going to be a good one.

We like it.

So, this one is called Glitch in the Matrix.

I got lost.

Time yeeded into the past and lived to tell the tale.

I'm glad you lived to tell the tale.

Damn.

Hey, weirdos.

I'm Courtney.

Feel free to use my name.

Good.

I did.

I did that.

I just like trucked right through that.

I didn't even take a second.

Cousin Courtney.

courtney and yes i absolutely said that in your intro voices in my head i'm i'm elena that's

and this is courtney and this is also morbid i'm from south jersey and yes it's very different from north jersey this is a hill we this is a hill we will all die on i'd call myself a newish listener but i've been power binging since maternity leave started in january so like when do i level up to be a seasoned weirdo status you're there you're there is there a pin a sash a secret handshake i'm ready it's a high five Ready, Courtney?

Boom.

You're in.

Boom.

Attached is my

listener.

Listener.

Listener tale.

Listener tale and a double-spaced put-a-foot because I love you both, duh.

That's how you know you're vetted.

That's right.

You're in just for that.

Yeah.

Insert, sorry for the length here, but I know you won't edit it.

It's a creepy, funny glitch in the matrix moment from my teen years involving a weird-ass ghost town.

I love a ghost town.

A haunted-looking movie theater.

I love haunted movie theaters.

And map quest directions.

I really never experienced those because I'm a youth.

This just RIP.

I bet I would have loved them.

You would have.

You would have hated them.

AK, the original emotional trauma simulator.

Hope you enjoy the ride.

Okay.

Love you.

Mean it.

Say it back.

Love you.

Love you.

Mean it.

Mean it.

I actually do remember you driving with MapQuest directions.

Like I remember being with you.

It's a real rite of passage for a lot of people.

Shout out to my husband Tim P.S., who has no idea I sent this and is about to be real confused and extremely hyped if you read it on the pod.

Surprise!

Tim!

Here we are reading your wife's tale on the pod.

Surprise.

All right, let me open the tail because you did it in a podopho, which is a beautiful thing.

An iconic thing.

Listener tale, Glitch in the Matrix?

Welcome to my listener tale.

Like everyone says, because it's true.

I absolutely love this podcast.

It truly feels like you're my true crime besties.

The only thing I changed is that I wish I had started listening sooner.

I only jumped in this past January while on maternity leave.

Shout out to my husband Tim who got me hooked.

I thought you were going to say shout out to my husband Tim who got me knocked up.

He did both.

That's what I thought you were going to say.

He got you hooked and knocked you up.

It's true.

And I've been binging like a maniac ever since.

I'm on episode 280-ish as I write this.

It's June for context.

Tim, if you're hearing this, I will catch up to you.

I love this.

This is adorable.

If you actually read this on the pod, I'll be shook.

Like full-blown, Jaw on the floor, blow my brain apart, excitement level, shocked.

Well, girl.

And I won't even know it for a while since I'm still catching up.

So you won't know for a while, actually.

Yeah.

But one day, future me is going to absolutely love it.

I kept telling myself I didn't have a listener story worthy of sending in.

So many people do that, and then they realize they do.

They dig deep.

And then one day, while driving home from my son's daycare, I randomly remembered this bizarre thing that happened and was like, wait, I just might.

So here we go.

I buckle up, hold on to your butts, and let me take you on a creepy what the actual hell just happened glitch in the matrix tale from my teen years.

Let's go.

i was 17 freshly licensed in the great garden state new jersey and it was fall aka spooky season aka the best season aka marching band season if you know you know band kids unite

i was not a band kid but like that makes sense because i it's like football season hell yeah rock on bandkids

uh small spooky season side note my three-year-old is feral for halloween hell yeah your three-year-old like full-blown spooky season ride or die we bump spooky scary skeletons like it's a Grammy nominated banger and it should be And Monster Mash lives rent-free on our family playlist year-round.

He's already a spooky little weirdo, and we are so proud.

Oh, I'm proud.

I'm so proud of him.

And you.

Anyway, back to the story.

Being in Marching Band meant I had a weird web of friends from other schools that I'd only see at competitions, but now that I had a car, that opened up a whole new world.

I could actually hang out with them.

It's all deal.

One night, I drove to pick up a friend who lived four or five towns over.

This was pre-GPS, so I had printed out MapQuest direction sheet and a prayer.

Sure, I had a cell phone, but I wasn't about to call my dad and admit if I was lost.

I had pride.

Getting there was fine.

I picked her up, we hung out, and eventually it was time to take her home.

Probably after New Jersey's curfew for new drivers, because let's be honest, I've always had main character energy, and despite questionable time management.

Same.

And deeply questionable time management, excuse me.

On the way back, driving through unfamiliar towns, I took a few wrong turns.

No biggie.

I always figured I'd recognize something eventually or just double back until it got spoopy.

I was going to say, no biggie.

There's a whole installment of movies called Wrong Turn that is pretty big.

It's a big.

It turns out to be a biggie.

Yeah, the biggest.

A huge.

Capital fact.

Yeah.

I ended up on what looked like a typical South Jersey Main Street.

You know the type.

Cute little shops, old school lampposts, cozy town vibes.

Nothing up the little at first.

Then I saw it.

This super old movie theater caught my eye.

Total 1950s vibes.

The marquee displayed the title of some old film.

I couldn't tell you what it was now, but it wasn't just the movie.

It was the vibe.

All the movie posters on the outside walls were old too.

Like black and white monster flicks and vintage dramas.

This sounds awesome.

You know the kind.

Overly dramatic titles and bold fonts.

A woman screaming into the void.

Probably a giant spider somewhere.

It felt like I'd pulled up to a drive-in from another dimension.

So I slowed down.

There was no one behind me.

I leaned forward to get a better look.

And that's when I realized the entire street looked like it was from another time.

Not charming vintage.

I'm talking full-on time travel.

All the cars parked along the street, antique.

Like Model T-level antique.

No modern cars, no people, no dogs, no sounds, just this heavy, eerie stillness.

Ooh.

This is like Pleasantville, but like,

really shitty.

I love that movie.

That's a banger.

It is.

I kept driving, totally freaked out.

Like I'd just been dropped into into 1953.

And me in my little car stuck out like a sore thumb.

I started panicking.

It was like the world glitched and I ended up somewhere I definitely wasn't supposed to be.

Imagine, that must have felt so weird because you're like, my logical brain is telling me that like something, this is an explanation here.

But this can't be happening.

There's another part of your brain that's like, what if we did time travel and now I'm just stuck in 1953?

How do I get home?

What do I do here?

I pulled into a random parking lot, turned my ass around and got the hell out of there.

Fast, like Scooby-Doo running from a haunted mansion fast.

Eventually, I found my way home.

Didn't die.

Amazing.

But obviously, I had to tell someone.

So I told my best friend at the time, another spooky-loving weirdo, and she immediately said, we have to go back.

Duh.

We tried multiple times.

I retraced my steps, actually.

I had a freakishly good memory back then.

R.I.P.

to that, thanks to Mombrain.

And I was certain I knew where I had gone.

I mean, how could I forget something like that?

But we never found that town again.

Not once.

And it wasn't for lack of trying.

Now, weirdly enough, I live even closer to where that friend used to live.

I'd driven all around the area for years.

Haddenfield, hell yeah.

Collingswood, Pittman.

Nicholas just said beside you, and he also says that every single time.

It is interesting that he says the same things because I feel like he's trying to like communicate

in the same room.

Is he right?

Are you right in between us right now?

That's that might be

I hope you're enjoying yourself.

I hope you feel as thin as we do.

I don't know how tall you are.

Sorry if I did you dirty there.

Rubbing your back, Nicholas.

I hope you feel.

I hope you feel okay.

I hope you feel okay.

I hope you feel okay.

What if he's 10 feet tall?

Oh, like that, like the guy in it follows.

That freaks me out.

Nicholas would be like a tall drink of water, though, not like a man peeing on your roof, but naked.

That's not a, Nicholas's energy is not a man on your roof pissing naked.

Nicholas is like, thank you, girl.

He's like, neither is yours, Ash.

Yeah, I think he's a tall drink of water for sure.

Yeah.

So like, hey, Nicholas.

What's up?

Did he say timeless?

He said, I'm timeless.

You are.

A tall drink of water is also a timeless expression.

It is.

He appreciated our expression.

You are timeless, Nicholas.

Maybe he was saying we're timeless.

Like timeless beauties.

I'm going to.

I'm taking it

i'm gonna take it i like that nicholas it's like nicholas knew we needed that he's like you know what you two timeless beauties i'm gonna sit between you i was like come over here sit next to me

oh what if i just started sobbing thank you so much nicholas

i really needed you to tell me that I appreciate it, Nicholas.

All right.

You can keep saying things, Nicholas.

Say nice things.

Now, weirdly enough, I live even closer to where that friend used to live.

I've driven all around the area for years.

Haddenfield, Collingswood, Pittman, all those cute little South Jersey towns that sort of match what I saw that night, but none of them are it.

And that's the weirdest part, because to this day, I can still picture it perfectly.

That's wild.

The old theater, the vintage posters, the cars, the way the street looked frozen in time.

It's crystal clear in my brain.

And yet, no matter how many times I've tried, I never have been able to find that street again.

Not even close.

Every now and then then when I think about that town, that stillness, the way everything just stopped.

And I wonder if I accidentally drove through a glitch in the Matrix.

Maybe it was a ghost town.

Maybe another dimension.

Maybe the past.

I don't know where I went, but I know I wasn't supposed to be there.

Thanks for reading, and thank you both for being hilarious, gory little beams of light just by being your authentic weirdness selves.

You're the best.

Keep it weird, but not so weird that you end up stuck in 1953 without a GPS.

Courtney.

P.S.

Tim, if you hear this tale read on the pod, surprise!

Surprise Tim!

Surprise Tim, she made it!

That was like such a fun little like opener because that's such a fun, spooky, like

short.

Because I'm just like, what did happen there?

And like, why did you end up there?

Of all, of all places to end up.

That's the thing.

Like what, and the fact that she couldn't find it ever again.

That's the, that's the kicker.

Because it's like you drive around your town, you know areas in your town.

You've been to all the places in your town.

Yeah.

How are you not finding it?

And even like the surrounding towns, too, you know, yeah, like it's very strange.

Yeah, it's it is.

I like that.

I love it a lot.

I like that a lot because I'm very interested in like glitches in the matrix and the simulation kind of theory and all that.

It's fascinating.

I'm at least very interested in it.

I am too.

Yeah.

All right.

Well, thanks, Courtney.

Yeah.

Thank you, Courtney.

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The town of Agda Agda in France is famous for sun, sand, sea, and sex.

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The town's mayor, a respected pillar of the community, has been arrested for corruption.

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I am the Archangel Michael.

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Our next one is called Listener Tales.

That time I astro projected, couldn't leave my bedroom, but also couldn't get back into my physical body.

So I just panicked and tried punching my stupid body until I woke up.

My stupid sleeping body until I woke up.

Not just your stupid body.

It's stupid and sleeping.

Stupid and sleeping.

All right.

It says, hey, gals, you can call me Kip, a name which you may use.

Okay, Kip.

I'm writing to y'all because I've been power cleaning my apartment while listening to y'all's podcast, Two Hard Cider's In.

I love the cider.

I love it.

And I just heard a string of listener tales about lucid dreaming and astral projection.

I thought I'd try sharing my own experience.

But of course, first off, the thank yous.

This show has gotten me through so many boring office days, doing the dishes, as we say, for a cleaning lab and sampling equipment, and staring mind-numbingly at slides under the microscope hours on end.

It's entertainment for sure, but it's also helped me become aware of these stories of real people and their friends and families that demand attention.

Maybe I've become a bit paranoid, but it's helped me really take in my surroundings, memorize the face of the man I pass at the park, recognize the make and model of the only other car parked alongside mine at the trailhead, lie to the man that asks me if I live alone, and check in with all my friends if I haven't heard from them in a while.

All smart.

I know.

It all just goes to say that I appreciate the work y'all do.

I enjoy the dynamic, the entertainment, and the insight that comes out of these true crime stories and the lives of real people that surround them.

Their stories are important, and I'm glad your platform has grown large enough to share them.

Oh, thank you.

I was like so thoughtful.

It was really

kind.

Thank you very much.

He did that and you did too.

Damn.

Gah.

It's so hard to type right now because my cat is petting my face, begging for affection, lol.

I almost read that as my cat is peeing on my face.

And she's like, damn, it's so hard to write.

My cat's just peeing all over my face.

It's so hard to write.

It was a wild visual.

It would be hard to type.

It would.

So I get it.

That's why I got it.

Yeah.

But onto my spooky dreams and strange happenings between sleep and wakefulness.

When I was a kid, I would occasionally have these experiences when I was on the edge of sleep, most often in the middle of the night, when I would wake up a bit, then be in this limbo sort of awake but still drifting off.

I would feel the sensation of pulling, like in my chest, like my soul, and I could sense this other being, this entity with me.

And my vision, while still dark, would spiral and pixelate.

I could very distinctly feel myself breathing.

Mind you, I consider myself a skeptic.

I have negative sixth sense.

My roommate in college swore our dorm and first apartment were haunted, and I felt nothing.

I accidentally visited Old Alton Bridge, you know, Goatman's Bridge.

Oh, yes.

You remember that?

From scariest places on earth.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yep.

For a sampling trip and felt nothing.

I've been to a supposedly haunted hotel.

Nothing.

Hell, even prayer to the Christian God or Jod if you're nasty.

I added that.

Nothing.

Meditation, nothing.

My best friend can use a pendulum like a professional and pull tarot cards like a witch, and she puts them in my hands, and the spirits seem to flee at my touch.

I honestly hardly even believe in the soul, let alone that I have one.

But in these moments between wakefulness and sleep, I could feel a presence and an entity of some kind, and it did not feel good.

Maybe it was just because I was scared and it felt like I was losing control, but it felt evil, like there were no good intentions behind this action of pulling.

This happened a few times as a child, and every time it was the sequence of multiple episodes of quick succession of pulling, resisting, and fading, and then pulling again until I truly woke up, sat up, too scared to fall back asleep.

Honestly, I had forgotten entirely about these experiences until it happened to me again, once, as an adult.

I have a friend, aforementioned, the talented spiritualist with the pendulum and tarot cards, frighteningly so.

She has been supposedly attempting to astral project all of her life.

She frequently has lucid dreams and seems to have a deeper connection to whatever lies beyond our physical existences more than anyone I've ever met.

But she's never successfully astral projected.

I talk with her a lot on this subject.

While I have great control over my dreams, I don't think I truly lucid dream.

I never control the setting, but I interact freely with the setting.

I kind of understand that.

Yeah.

I can't really control the setting, but I can,

I don't think I lucid dream, but I can, I know that I'm dreaming.

Yeah.

And I am able to wake myself up, but I can't.

switch out the environment.

I've been able to switch out the environment before.

That's cool.

Yeah, I would like to try that.

It was the time when...

You asked what time it was.

I asked what time it was.

Yeah.

And that didn't go well.

No, it really didn't.

That was very strange.

Yeah.

It was very strange.

I don't do that in my sleep.

I don't have any intention of doing that.

I kind of want to do it again.

You would.

Yeah.

But it was weird.

Well, Kip says, I interact freely with the setting.

I half realize that I'm dreaming, but I rarely acknowledge it because my dreams are often so much fun.

I don't want to interrupt them.

I want to continue the story.

I want to fly and fight and swim to my heart's content.

I think it just goes to say that I have extreme control over the things that happen in my dream.

And for the most part, especially in these story-based dreams, I'm cognizant and freely move about in.

And I'm generally aware of when I'm dreaming and when I'm awake.

And I can always bring myself out of it.

If I cannot change a dream turn sour into something pleasant, I can always wake myself up on command

with just the thought of, I don't want to be here anymore.

It's worked every single time.

except twice.

I've had sleep paralysis twice in my life, once when I was a kid and once as an adult, the latter being an extraordinary experience that I want to share.

I know this is a bit long-winded getting there, apologies, but I think my explaining of these prior experiences contributes to my own understanding of what may have actually occurred on the night that I may have successfully astral projected.

Oh, I'm excited.

The first time I experienced sleep paralysis, I was flat on my stomach, face in the pillow, and I couldn't wake up.

I didn't see anything but a shadow passing my door over and over and over again.

Oh, I hate that.

You too.

Almost like I was caught in a time loop.

But it wasn't malevolent.

It just was.

So I didn't see any demons.

I heard nothing but footsteps and I felt no presence, evil or otherwise.

I was confused, but I wasn't scared.

Maybe because I was already aware of what sleep paralysis was.

I was honestly kind of annoyed, but I was able to easily come out of it by just letting go and falling back asleep and then waking myself up.

Then, much later as an adult, I experienced the chest pulling again.

The feeling that an entity had its grip on my very soul and was trying to pull it from my body, to the ceiling specifically.

I fought it off, finally woke up, and I spent the rest of the night on the couch watching Star Wars, and then I discussed it with my witchy friend.

I like that you were like, I'm terrified.

I'm going to go watch Star Wars on my couch.

Just watch Star Wars and then chat about it with your witchy friend.

I like that.

Sounds comforting.

She told me that it was actually a rather common phenomenon, known most commonly as the ankle puller.

I didn't feel it pulling at my ankle, but everything else matched.

The presence of an entity, the sensation of pulling, the tangly and fuzzy feeling I had across my body, like pins and needles, this white noise, almost like a rushing of water, or the sound of your own blood when you put your ear to a shell.

That's mermaids, actually, Kip.

I have a bone to pick with you, Kip.

That's mermaids.

Just saying.

Just kidding.

Like the ocean or mermaids.

Or mermaids.

She said it was commonly a precursor to astral projection.

And that the next time I should just let go, let it pull me.

Well, it did happen again.

And I let it take me.

I literally had the distinct, distinct, completely lucid thought, she said I should let go, so I'm going to let go.

And I fully embraced it.

I let go, and it pulled me away.

It pulled me awake.

I heard what sounded like a storm starting, like sheets of rain falling on the roof and down onto the stone outside and strong winds.

I opened my eyes and I was in my bedroom.

It was dark, still very early in the morning, but I felt awake, and I was in my room.

Everything was exactly how it should have been.

But everything was more dim and less saturated, like there was a cold filter on my vision.

I moved my arms to rub my forehead or rest them above my head like I usually do when I wake up.

And I felt my arms move, but I didn't see them where they would have moved across my vision to rest above my head.

So I waved them in front of my face.

I very distinctly felt the action, but I couldn't see them.

Huh.

And then I realized that I couldn't sit up.

And then I finally realized that I could really feel my arms moving about, but I also still could feel them lying by my sides.

I could feel them in both places at once.

What the fuck?

I tried throwing my legs out of bed.

And again, I felt my legs move, but I couldn't see them moving.

And I actually couldn't get out of bed.

I could still hear the winds or what sounded like the ocean outside again, or mermaids.

But again, I think it was really just my blood pressure in my ears.

Kip, it was mermaids.

It's mermaids.

Even mermaids.

Everybody always mermaids.

Yeah.

I had that classic sleep paralysis pressure on my chest, but it wasn't strong.

It was more like a cat.

So that was actually pretty pleasant.

Still, no sensation or of another presence in my room, let alone on my chest.

I saw nothing but the empty room around me.

So I laid there trying to wiggle my fingers, but nothing was happening.

And honestly, I was growing kind of bored.

So I just got out of bed.

I swung my body weight to one side and then onto the other to launch myself out of bed, which I later learned is called the rollout method.

And it worked.

I was standing upright.

My body was still in bed, but I couldn't see it.

And I couldn't see myself standing beside my bed.

It was like I was in both places at once.

Whoa.

Physically, I could feel both places at once.

Whoa.

That's, that must have been gnarly.

That's so weird.

Yeah.

Like, how?

Oh, that's right.

Cause like, I think about it, like, cause we were talking about this the other day, actually, that like you have those moments where you'll be somewhere and then sometimes like this is gonna sound funny.

It happened to me at the Rod Stewart concert halfway through it.

I think I was like, I was just like zoning out, watching.

And then I was all of a sudden, like, and I had to go to the beach.

Oh, dare please zone out and look.

I was mesmerized is what I was.

I think he was shaking his booty, and I was like, mesmerized.

But I was like out of it.

And then all of a sudden, I like clicked back in.

And I was looking around.

And I was like,

am I here right now?

Like, I looked around and I was like, am I where?

Like, I kind of get that.

Like, I knew where.

But I was like, am I actually here right now?

That used to remind just, I feel like outside of myself, it's like a very weird feeling.

And it happens to me pretty frequently.

A little, yeah, when I'm like out somewhere.

That used to happen to me when I was little a lot in the car.

Yeah.

Like I would be like, like, I just kind of like zone out.

And then when I was back, I would be like, am I really here?

You're like, am I?

Like, where, where am I really?

Yeah.

All of a sudden, and it's almost like.

Am I what?

Like, I'm here?

And it's like, am I real?

Yeah, it's very weird.

So I feel like that's existential.

That idea of like being in two places at once is like similar, I think, but I can't fathom being feeling myself in bed and feeling myself standing.

Yeah, because like your experience is just like, where am I?

That experience is like, oh, I'm in two whole ass places.

Yeah, that's so weird.

Yeah.

That it is.

So I walked over to my bathroom mirror, but I couldn't really see myself.

I could definitely feel myself moving though.

I had my phone in my hand and I activated the screen and got really close to the mirror.

And then I could see my reflection in the mirror in the glow of my phone screen.

It looked like me, exactly.

There was nothing scary at all about what happened here, except that I couldn't wake up.

But I couldn't move my head.

It was like I was still paralyzed even as I was walking around.

I could see my eyes moving in the mirror as I was glancing around, and I could see my mouth moving while I was talking myself through the whole experience.

I could hear my own voice out loud, clear as day, and I could even see my phone screen, the ridiculous background image I'd chosen.

I could see it exactly.

But of note, I could not see at the time, which skeptic in me has latched onto to convince convince myself that this was a dream.

Oh, sorry, I could not see the time.

Oh, so that's interesting.

That is interesting.

You can see your background, but not the time, which is very interesting because then think of all those people in dreamland who do not want you to know what time it is for whatever reason.

Yeah.

Or like what the date is.

It's like an abyss.

It's like there is no time.

Yeah.

You know?

I know.

I want, I love this shit.

I do too.

It's very fascinating.

So I left the bathroom mirror, but I couldn't leave the bedroom.

I was trapped in there.

My curtains were cracked open enough that I could have left.

It's a studio apartment, so there's no bedroom door, but something was keeping me in the room.

I couldn't even see to my other side.

It was just nothing, not even dark.

It was just nothing.

I went back to my body, but I couldn't get back into it.

I was still both entities at the same time.

Oh, I would panic.

I was my body lying in the bed, and I was my astral body trying to lie back down in bed, but my astral body couldn't lay back down.

I just kind of hovered over my physical body.

And it was at that point that my physical body, still laying in bed, started having trouble breathing.

Not because of the pressure on my chest, but I think my tongue was falling further back in my throat, maybe.

I don't know.

I'm not sure.

It felt like something was in my throat.

So I tried harder to snap out of it, which only caused me to start panicking.

Oh my God.

Nothing was working.

I started hitting my physical body with my astral body.

I felt my astral arms move.

I felt my astral fingers pinching myself, but on my physical body, they weren't moving.

I wasn't actually feeling the blows or the pinches, like my astral body was having absolutely no effect on my physical body.

So I started calling out for help.

I was praying.

I have no idea to whom, but eventually it worked.

And I finally managed to knob the head on my physical body.

And then my body was awake and whole again.

I never saw anything, no demons, no shadows, no presence other than my own.

I never heard anything beside my own voice crystal clear when I was speaking to myself and the sound of the wind or the ocean or the mermaids or whatever else outside.

It felt like it lasted an eternity though, truly an eternity.

And I started questioning if this was actually sleep paralysis because it lasted so much longer than my initial episode.

But was it really a dream?

It certainly didn't feel like one.

The physical sensations, visuals, and audio were just so accurate, crisp, so present, so real, like nothing I ever dreamed before.

The commands that would normally have woken me did not work.

And the fact that I very intentionally entered this state at the beginning of the episode, of this episode, was so strange.

And the fact that I couldn't escape by any familiar means was very frightening.

Maybe it was just a dream, just sleep paralysis still heavily influenced by my sleepy brain.

But in the moment, it felt like a lot more than that.

Certainly different than any dream I've ever had, and much different than the first sleep paralysis episode that I was subjected to.

Anyways, it hasn't happened since.

Granted, it was rather unpleasant at the time.

So maybe I just haven't tried hard enough.

Lol.

Interesting for sure.

Lol.

We're all like, lol, lol.

Interesting for sure, but who knows if interesting enough to share on the show?

I do.

Pretty fucking interesting.

It is.

Just thought I'd write in since I haven't spoken about it much with other people.

Maybe I'll try again someday.

I'm in a new apartment with a door this time.

Maybe all I needed was a door.

Lol.

Doors have lore, right?

Doors do have lore.

The doors got lore.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We shall see.

Thanks again.

And maybe next time you feel a weird pulling in your dreams, just let it tug you along.

You never know where you might end up.

Ooh, that's spooky, Kim.

Kiss spooky.

Also, I love how you wrote that entire thing.

Yeah, I think that

was 100%.

Astral projecting.

I really do.

And you were just new at it.

And I think you went, I think you may have gotten too hard too fast.

Yeah.

I think you, you astral projected too.

Too close to the sun, I think.

I think

I'm going to this one because it's haunted, sleep paralysis, listener tale.

All right, you have questions.

Hopefully, we have answers.

This one is: hello, I would like to submit a listener tale.

This is the story of the time my mom thought she was haunted for 10 years before she heard about sleep paralysis.

It features visions of Jesus and the devil, which for my adamantly non-religious mother is wild.

I like that she thought she was haunted for 10 years.

I'm like, oh no, by Jesus and the devil.

Thank you in advance for taking time to read it.

14 points, point font, double space putafa attached.

Amazing.

Let me make sure.

And your name is Whitney.

I like that name.

Whitner!

Houston?

All right, let's see.

Haunted?

Better not tell anyone.

A listener tale.

Use all names.

We would be thrilled if this made it off.

Yay, it did.

Please let me start by saying that I love Morbid.

I frequently listen at work or in my car with my mom.

In the car with my mom, Betty.

Oh, Betty.

I work alone quite a bit, and you guys have kept me company through countless tasks.

I'm a PhD student in paleontology and geochemistry.

Casual.

The fuck, Whitney?

You just dropped that?

Whitney.

You should always just drop that.

Yeah, you should.

Like, it's hot.

You should throw that, like, spike it like a football

i like that that's what footballs sound like in my mind uh a little background on betty thank you for that uh she's wild

i hope my future child just says that background on my mom she's wild she's always up to something it gets better with each second

And it's hilarious more often than not.

For example, back in 2005, we lived in western Washington state, and the local newspaper had an advertisement for the International Seagull Calling Contest.

Naturally, Betty entered and spent the next week crafting a seagull costume to complete the vibe.

What?

I'm literally obsessed with Betty, your mom.

That energy is pristine.

That's the energy I'm looking for.

Yeah, facts.

Holy hell.

So then conveniently on her birthday, she strutted out onto the beach, dressed as a seagull, and squawked her heart out.

What a queen.

To my horror, as a 17-year-old at the time, she won.

Hell yeah, I knew she won.

Cut to the present day.

She and I live together far from our previous home on the west coast.

She opted to retire from her job in 2022 and moved several states away with me to help me out while I'm in the graduate school.

She's a real one.

I have a dog named Mollicule, a.k.a.

Molly.

Stop.

That's so cute.

Why didn't I

think of that?

I know.

Why didn't I think of that?

That is genius.

And a cat, BB,

which greatly appreciate getting to stay home with Grammy.

While I travel around in the search of fossils, you are way cool.

Betty is a staple in the Natural History Museum where I work as part of my contract.

Her silly nature and kindness has turned her into the geology department mom.

Recently, I took her with me to search for fossils and she found an ichthyosaur, a marine reptile.

That's so cool.

Your mom found that?

That's badass.

I love that buddy was like, I got something.

I love this.

Which is a decently common animal, but she would like it to be known that she will only speak to news outlets about it.

Do we count?

So I guess watch for her on Nat Geo as the next adventuring paleontology dog, grandma.

This story starts roughly in 1999 in a house on a lake where I grew up.

My parents were still together at this time, but maintained separate bedrooms for my whole life.

My dad practically shook the house with his snoring, so frankly, it made sense.

I do be like that.

For this story, it is important to point out that I was raised as adamantly non-religious.

To this day, I have a notice on my front door that reads, no soliciting, no religion.

We cannot be saved.

We don't believe your stories.

Don't make it weird.

Where do you buy that?

I have one that says no soliciting.

Don't make it weird.

Don't make it weird.

I like that one, though.

Yeah, I like that one better.

Tell us where you got that.

I like that.

Betty and I collaborated on it.

Oh, do you so love that?

That's a Betty and Whitney original notice, honestly.

Betty and I collaborated on it after several visits from the local Christians.

Okay, sorry for the side quest, but it is important, I promise.

And it's, no, I'm sure Whitney agrees.

It's funny if you're a Christian.

Just don't bother me about it.

Don't come to my door.

No.

Don't come to my door with the religion, that's for sure.

So don't come to me with the religion.

Yeah, don't do that.

Don't come to any of it.

You do the religion.

Exactly.

It's all you.

And I'll say, yeah.

Betty was stressed out at the time of this story.

I don't know if that plays a role in what happened, but perhaps.

In the middle of the night, she awoke to a glowing blue light.

It lit up her whole room, and emanating from it was Jesus Christ.

Superstar?

No, the man of the world, JC, JC.

He floated above her, near the foot of her bed, in long white robes with long brown hair and arms that outstretched to his side.

Wait, this is like not Jesus Christ, superstar.

This is like superstar.

Remember when Jesus comes and visits Molly?

Molly, Molly, shit.

Well, he said, he instructed her, believe in me.

Believe in me.

Betty fought it.

She tried to tell stereotypical Jesus no and to go away.

Betty said,

What did he say?

Nicholas just said that Jesus Christ is ugly.

Whoa.

I don't know what that was about.

Honestly, Jesus Christ is a zaddie.

Yeah, there you go.

Oh, so she tried to tell stereotypical Jesus no and to go away.

She couldn't move.

She couldn't get out of this situation.

It was so vivid and real.

There was no way to, no way this was a normal dream.

Once Jesus left, she was able to calm down.

Once Jesus got the hell out.

Well, that was fucking crazy, she thought, but I can't tell anyone because everyone already thinks I'm crazy.

Betty proceeds to not tell a soul about her visit from Jesus.

She just assumed she was now haunted and moved on with her life.

Jesus himself.

Meanwhile, I had no idea Jesus was soliciting believers in my own home.

He didn't give a fuck about the sign.

A couple of weeks later, with no Jesus follow-ups, Betty is awoken again, but this time to a red light.

You guessed it.

This time it was the devil.

This sounds more fun.

He was there with a long red tail, pitchfork and all.

He hovered at the foot of the bed.

Believe in me.

Believe in me.

He commands her.

No, Betty tries to tell the stereotypical devil.

I hope this is the devil from like Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.

Yes, the hot devil.

So I'd be like, sure.

I'd be like, oh, honey, I've been believing.

I believe.

When the devil finally leaves, she again thinks, that was crazy.

I really can't tell anyone about this.

She stuck it out, took this as a sign that she was now definitely haunted and told no one.

Now, personally, I cannot imagine thinking I'm being haunted and just keeping that fact private.

No.

Also, these experiences didn't change her opinions on religion.

In fact, if anything, she doubled down.

10 years go by.

10 years.

Of this happening?

Yeah.

A few other instances occur, but never vivid or religion inspired okay so never that again at this point i'm out of the house in college for the first time i ended up dropping out but hey it's all good now i guess so i guess so betty goes on a cruise to alaska this is not usually something either of us would enjoy but her niece my cousin was the main singer slash performer on said cruise and betty got a cheap deal to go watch her for a week Also, apparently Alaska cruises are supposed to be like wild.

It's like really like beautiful.

Beautiful views.

During one of their hangouts, my cousin starts talking about how she suddenly gets sleep paralysis and what she sees or what happens during an episode.

Suddenly, it clicks.

Betty had never heard of sleep paralysis before.

Jesus and the devil were sleep paralysis visions.

She isn't haunted after all.

Hey.

She was so relieved to hear that she wasn't being haunted, or her perhaps becoming a prophet, that she finally started telling people that a decade prior, she had been personally visited by Jesus and the devil, and that they were as stereotypical looking as possible.

Naturally, my response was, how can you just keep that inside for 10 years?

She thought that everyone knew her for being funny and that if she stared her experience, people would write it off and think she was nuts.

So she just kept it secret and lived in fear.

Probably not the best coping mechanism, but probably are communicators now, so no more thinking you're haunted for a decade.

We talk that stuff out now.

True to form, I have a ton of other Betty stories, including the time she gave my phone number to a homicide detective to help them identify potential living bones.

That's fucking bones.

Human bones is what I meant.

Her rationale was that I work in a museum and identify bones for a living, so it makes sense.

It's always something with Betty around.

I have included some photos.

Oh my God, we got Molecule.

Molecule.

With a small bunny whale tooth from the paleontology collection.

Whoa.

She always comes to work with me.

This is part of a weird thing I do where I take pictures of fossils with Molly for scale.

Oh my God, I love it.

Oh my God.

Betty's adorable.

Oh, I love Betty.

Betty is exactly how I pictured her, actually.

Yeah, truly.

She has a wonderful energy.

It shines through.

And that's where she found the crazy dinosaur spine.

And we left it in place and took a GPS point so that the museum can get a permit to excavate it.

Please direct all nature documentary requests and interviews to Betty.

I'm...

Betty dressed as an alien for Halloween in the 1970s.

What a hot ticket.

She's a queen.

Okay, girl.

She later saved a friend from drowning in the bathtub later that night when the friend had a seizure.

Oh my gosh.

Can you imagine waking up naked in a bath after a seizure to an alien saving you?

That's just Betty's life.

I'm obsessed with Betty and Whitney.

I love you guys a lot.

Come hang.

I do.

Here's the thing.

I still don't think that was sleep paralysis.

I don't either.

I refuse to believe that.

I get sleep paralysis.

I've never had Jesus and the devil visit me stereotypically and yell believe in me at me.

I think that was something entirely else.

It was a fight.

It was a duel between

the one above and the one below.

Yeah, Yeah, you know, and we don't know.

We don't know what happened.

I don't know.

Neither of them won.

They both lost, you know?

That's the thing.

I like that one.

That one was like a fun little

Betty side note.

I like that.

All right, we have listener tale: the time my boyfriend turned into a demon.

Oh, that happens to a lot of girls.

Let's go.

Yeah, and we've had that happen.

We've all had that happen, actually.

Hi, my morbid baddies.

My name is Kara, and you can use my name and all others included in this story.

And I got consent before sending this in because duh, consent is very important.

Consent!

Oh, and baddies as a compliment by the way, despite bad being part of the word.

Oh, totally.

We know that.

Thank you.

I'm technically Gen Z, but just barely, as I'm still a 90s baby, and sometimes I adopt the lingo.

I love that.

So you are both the good kind of baddies.

The kind Urban Dictionary defines as a female who can hold her own.

She's confident, slaying the game, hot as pho, basically a bad bitch.

Oh, fucking.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I know what what the Gen Zs would say to that.

I just learned this.

Purr.

Purr.

Mm-hmm.

I'm gonna purr like a cat.

Well, not like,

but like purr.

Purr.

Purr is like, yeah, I heard that.

Like, that's T, I think.

I think.

Gen Z's tell me if I'm wrong.

They will.

Tony, I'm not.

They will.

They will.

But I like purr, if I'm using it correctly.

Anyway,

according to one definition, I really did my research.

Baddies can even be defined as an emo person who is badass.

Anyway, you get the point.

You're both absolute queens and I'm obsessed with the podcast for a multitude of reasons, including the way you share cases with an in-depth and victim-focused approach, as well as the banter you two share.

I can definitely relate being the middle sibling in a sister trio, all of us two years apart in age and born with the gift of sarcasm.

I love it.

A true gift.

Also, I really loved both of your books, Elena.

I literally,

this is such a good compliment.

I literally never read unless forced, but you becoming an author actually provoked me to do so.

So I guess you can say you make me a better version of myself oh i love that elena loves specifically when people who are like i don't even read read the book it like that's a hot

yeah the people who are like i never read and now i'm reading and like i started reading because of those books like No better compliment.

That's

it's a thing for you.

Yeah.

It's that or people saying, I never listened to ghosts before you mentioned them.

Melena loves turning people into what are ghost fans called?

Like

ghouleth, right?

Ghouls and gules.

Yeah.

She likes turning you into that.

Yeah.

All right.

Well, we share the double.

Oh, me, Ash.

Ash.

Hey.

We share the double-sided blessing/slash curse of empathy and also being silly goof mood spasms that you more than occasionally have on the pod.

So, twin,

I'll take it.

Well, fuck.

I'm supposed to be writing my listener tale, but I ramble on the paper the same that I do when I tell stories in person.

Let's go.

I can never stay on track without having to do, without having to double back and explain a backstory and whatnot.

So I apologize in advance if this is hard to follow or if my sentences run on too much.

But here it goes.

I talk fast, but the read should take anywhere from about 13 to 17 minutes minus commentary.

Please read all parentheses.

Yeah.

The story takes, yeah, that's a long time, but I'm in for it.

We're locked in.

I'm locked and loaded.

The story takes place back in 2020.

I was 22 and dating a guy I met in college, Ben.

We met a little over a year prior while attending a local community college in Knoxville before transferring to the university in our college town to finish out our education.

There, I majored in advertising, which side note, I rarely use my ad degree today, as I predominantly do architectural design work now.

Damn, everyone's so fucking impressive.

That's cool.

And Ben majored in computer engineering because

he's some whack-ass brainian.

Some whack-ass brainian.

He wrote respectfully.

We both lived off campus, but I would routinely spend the night at his place and a majority of my free time there to avoid being at home.

A backstory I'm not trying to divulge due to the ungodly amount of trigger warnings it would require.

Damn, sorry.

Let's just say, if college wasn't so damn expensive, I would have sought other living arrangements, but I had a tuition to pay and my cat, or rather, the love of my life, Ollie's mouth to feed.

The mention of my strained relationship with my parents is semi-relevant to the story, but I'll get to that later.

Anywho, I spent a majority of nights over at Ben's place and never had any offsetting experiences there until the night he turned into a demon for the first time.

Yeah, that'll do it.

Yeah, that'll take the case.

Before I tell the mortifying experience of that night, let me give you a mental image of Ben.

Thank you.

He could easily be the poster child for the golden retriever type personality.

He's sensitive, well-rounded, boy next door type of guy.

I see him.

I do too.

He has this infuriating ability to pick up just about anything and excel at it.

For instance, he was an amazing cook that had the ability to whip up concoctions in the kitchen, utilizing an inherent intuition of whatever flavors pair well together.

And he even kept a garden in his backyard to grow fresh herbs for cooking.

He also found a yo-yo one time at his job and just decided to pick up yo-yo.

Watching YouTube videos to learn tricks and eventually became a bit of a yo-yo master simply because of the opportunity that aroused to learn something new.

And he thought, why not, I guess?

I love Ben.

I love that he was like, I better master this.

I guess I'm going to master this.

Take it as a side from the universe.

Honestly, nothing's better than mastering stuff.

I know it's true.

I like to master things.

I love it.

Me, I can't even get out of bed without injuring myself.

I have zero spatial awareness.

I'm also the only person I know who has managed to kill a succulent.

Nope.

I am too.

I've done that.

Number two.

Somehow I overcare for them.

Like, how the actual fuck.

I genuinely think I'm I'm an alien, or maybe I'm just a maybe I'm just defective.

I also think I'm an alien.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The good kind of aliens.

Absolutely.

Like, not the aliens that are coming to, like, probe you.

Oh, just, like, just an alien.

Meanwhile, Ben out here be flaunting his newfound yo-yo skills and cultivating whole ass gardens.

So I know what you're thinking.

How does this dude become the demon of this story?

Yeah, I'm wondering.

Well, one night after working a late shift on my bartending job, I came to Ben's house, exhausted, and I almost immediately passed out.

So he went to sleep, cuddled up next to me, and that was the last thing I remember before waking up in the middle of the night.

This felt very random, because I had no idea what would have woken me up out of my deep sleep so abruptly.

There wasn't a loud noise, I didn't have the urge to pee, and no one had shaken me awake or called my name.

In fact, Ben still appeared to be asleep right next to me.

His body was turned away from me at this point, as he had fallen out of cuddle formation, rude, but nonetheless, he appeared to be sound asleep.

So, me being the annoying ass girlfriend I was, I rolled over to Ben's back and whispered, Ben, Ben,

grabbing him by the shoulder and lightly shaking him awake.

To my surprise, he awoke rather quickly and immediately turned his body to face me, but looking back at me wasn't Ben.

The body was Ben's, the room, his bed, his face, all but his eyes.

Where Ben's hazel-colored eyes once were were now replaced by these disturbing, searing, black eyes.

I instantly felt a heavy and imminent sense of danger.

To this day, it still sent shivers down my spine just picturing those eyes.

Before I could process what I was seeing, it spoke.

In the most chilling, demonic-ass voice, it said, I'm not Ben.

As its mouth crooked into a menacing smile that I can only describe as utterly demonic looking, literally like the smile in the smile movies, but somehow worse.

The realization no later hit me that this wasn't Ben, merely someone or something pretending to be him, masking itself in his skin.

As soon as I felt the panic of this realization, I abruptly woke up and was on the brink of tears.

Whew, it was only a nightmare, I thought.

Still the most terrifying thing I've ever seen, but at least it wasn't real.

Yeah.

Relieved.

At least that.

At least that.

Yeah.

Relieved, I went to wake up Ben, but for real this time.

I shook him awake, saying his name, the same as I had in my nightmare just before.

But this time Ben actually turned and looked to be himself.

Oh, good.

I started telling him the scary dream that I just had, still freaking the fuck out and attempting to catch my breath.

And I don't even think I finished more than a sentence or two before yet again, Ben started to motherfucking shapeshift back into the same demon-esque boyfriend impersonator as before.

I was mortified.

Had I not woken up?

Was this still the same dream?

Or was I not dreaming at all?

I don't wake up from the nightmare immediately as I did before.

Instead, I continue to stare at this creepy ass thing in the eyes, frozen and pleading under my breath for it to go away, go away, leave me alone.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, I woke up again.

I'm in the same spot in Ben's bed, still everything is exactly the same as it would be in reality.

And so I scanned the room looking for something off in an attempt to determine whether I'm still in the dream or if I'm really awake this time.

But there's nothing.

His room just looked like the room I slept in every single night, down to the coloring pages I ripped out to color and hung on his wall.

That's adorable.

And my phone's still charging on the nightstand adjacent to me.

I didn't turn to wake Ben up like I had before out of fear that it wouldn't be him.

Yeah, exactly.

But instead, his Mr.

Hyde counterpart.

It's almost like the demon could read my mind, though, because this time it didn't wait for me to muster up the courage to wake him up.

It just turned to look at me with its dark, fiendish eyes and its menacing, smuggish smile, and it started to speak to me.

Its voice would start as Ben's, but slowly become more gruff and foreboding, sort of like the ghost.

It was almost like it was taunting me, even saying my name and trying to get me to look at him.

But internally, I was screaming, fuck

no!

And I refused to even make eye contact hoping that ignoring it would make it disappear it didn't it whispered in my ear calling me by name telling me to look at him assuring me it really was just ben it was freakishly manipulative trying to play tricks on my mind or convince me it was my boyfriend after all.

I was paralyzed in fear.

Same.

And you're not.

You're moving about.

And all I could do was cry.

Finally, I reawaken.

You see where this is going.

I immediately recognize I've only awoken back inside this never-ending hell loop of sorts.

This sucks.

I hate it for you.

This time the demon didn't waste time trying to convince me it was my boyfriend or that I'd woken up from the recurring nightmare.

This time there was a TV on in his room.

Ben didn't have a TV in his room though.

Oh, he needed more.

She said he needed more room for his yo-yo tricks, I guess.

So I immediately knew that I was dreaming and recognized his room was slightly morphed now from reality.

Demon Ben was faced toward the TV, watching something, but I could never tell what it was.

He slowly cricked his neck back to look at me, as if he noticed that I entered the dream again, primed for his torment.

He kept telling me to look at him the same as before, and he started walking toward me now.

I was overwhelmed by a feeling of dread and knowledge that this thing, whatever it was, was pure evil.

I closed my eyes tightly and tried to lean into my consciousness in an effort to escape my slumber while saying out loud, You can't hurt me, this is just a dream.

You can't hurt me, this is just a dream, over and over and over.

Worth a shot.

But somehow, without even saying it, I felt it was telling me that it could harm me, that it could end me right there and then if it wanted to.

I could feel it approaching, getting closer and closer and closer.

Leaning into whatever religion I had left, I just started to beg God to make it a nightmare stop and force me to wake up.

Next thing I know, I wake up and I'm in tears.

Still not trusting that I was actually awake.

I didn't move for a while.

I was waiting for the demon to make itself known again and continue its torment, but this time, nothing.

I finally got the courage to turn over over and wake up Ben, but once again, no, I'm just playing.

Oh my god, I was like,

it really did wake up for real, for real this time.

I didn't believe it at first, and I was still apprehensive when Ben first opened his eyes.

I immediately asked him if he was a demon, to which he responded very confused and still half asleep that he was in fact not a demon.

I remained hesitant, but I was petrified that the demon would re-emerge as Ben and take me for good.

Take me!

Take me!

Don't take me.

Eventually, I reached over to grab my phone off the nightstand to check the time, and Ben reached reached his arm across me to make sure I didn't fall off the bed as I leaned.

He was well aware of my absolute clumsiness.

But instead of being thankful and grateful, I completely lost my shit and started scream.

And started screaming and kicking, thinking he was still the demon and that I was still asleep and he was grabbing me now.

He's pulling you in a hell dimension now.

Yeah.

It took a lot of convincing, but eventually I accepted that I was no longer stuck in the demonic dream loop, and Ben forgave me for accusing him of being a demon and going ape shit on him when he

only tried to prevent me from falling off our bed.

I had been at least partly conscious the whole time, aware that I was trapped inside this dream loop and practically clawing to get out.

I could think and talk if I wanted, and this was something I'd never experienced before.

But after some research on the interwebs, I came to understand that I was experiencing some form of metacognition while caught in this dream loop.

From what I gathered, it appeared I was either lucid dreaming or in sleep paralysis.

I tend to lean more towards sleep paralysis because I didn't feel like I could move, and I definitely was not in any control of my dream.

I also read that sleep depravity, deprived of sleep, I was, or even trauma, which I have plenty of too, could be potential causes of sleep paralysis.

I'm no expert nonetheless, and I would be interested to hear your guys' take on it all.

After recovering from whatever the fuck it was, followed by many hours of lying awake afraid to drift back to an inescapable dream loop again.

Can't say I blame you.

I know.

I eventually caved my exhaustion and fell asleep and did not wake up again until the following morning.

Luckily, no more reawakenings occurred that night.

However, I was low-key traumatized from those dreams, so badly actually, that I spent the remaining nights that week at my own home instead of with Ben at his place.

But my widow baby self couldn't even sleep in my own bed either.

My 22-year-old ass crawled into mommy's bed and slept there for the first two nights following the nightmare.

Luckily, my stepdad worked third shift, making it possible for me to take his place.

This was wildly out of character for me because, as I mentioned earlier, I have a strained relationship with my mom and stepdad.

Not to mention, my mom isn't your typical nurturing, affectionate maternal figure.

Her mom passed away when she was 11, 11, sorry, leaving her to be raised by her equally cold father.

My mother and I rarely hugged or even talked about anything deeper than my curfew, never said I love you.

So the decision to sleep in her bed, understand, was very out of character.

Yeah.

I hope that gives perspective to how severely the sleep paralysis experience affected me, especially given that thing I feared in my dream was my boyfriend at the time.

I even searched for deeper meaning in the fact that the demon in my dream masked itself as my boyfriend.

Was it a warning that he was bad for me and to get out while I can?

Did he dabble in dark magics and mess with the wrong spirit?

Nah, not then.

He preferred more docile hobbies like wardworking and, you know, yo-yoing.

I was going to say yo-yoing.

No tea, no shade, no lemonade.

Also, haters hate and potatoes potate, but I ain't afraid of no.

Haters hate and potatoes potate, but I ain't no hater, just a regular old couch potato.

Anyway, back to the story.

I'm obsessed with you.

That was iconic.

I feel like we're soul sisters.

At first, I feared Ben, even though I knew he wasn't an actual demon, and it did take me a while to shake the image of him with black eyes and a creepy-ass smile out of my head.

Maybe subconsciously, I never did, because about a month after, I had the dream loop again, pretty much the same as before.

I wasn't fooled by these false reawakenings.

Instead, every time I reawakened within my dream, I would try to read things around me in the room, and immediately knew that when I couldn't, I was still trapped.

Spoiler.

Ben and I broke up almost a year later.

Oh no.

I thought we were holding each other back from growing as individuals and had become a little too codependent.

But we remain friends today, just with a healthy distance now.

I'm dating another man now, shout out Pookie.

He listened to me read this over and over again to make sure it made sense throughout the writing process.

Aw, Pookie forever.

Pookie.

I haven't laid

an egg.

I haven't had any sleep paralysis or loop dreaming experience since my relationship with Ben ended.

Now, four and a half years later, I still think about that sleep paralysis, loop dreaming experience from time to time, sometimes before bed.

And I even ask whatever being slash God is out there to just protect my dreams.

I was raised from the age of 13 on in a Southern Baptist household where my mom remarried my stepdad and got brainwashed into being an entirely new person.

And then forced his idiocracy and hypocrisy down mine and my sister's throats too.

But those are not my ideals today.

As I find comfort in the idea of a God existing to watch over us, but not in the let us condemn others or tell others how to live their life kind of way.

Good for you, man.

I like that.

My belief, which is only just my opinion, is that the universe is way too vast for anyone to comprehend and nobody really knows what or who is out there.

Just let everybody live their life and shut the fuck up, Karen.

Hell yeah.

I agree.

If you've read this listener tale on the pod, thank you.

I'm a very private person and very rarely open up to even the people closest to me.

So writing this tale allowed me to challenge that side of myself and hopefully even grow a little.

Aww.

I don't really have a lot of friends because I'm extremely socially awkward and usually assume the worst of humanity.

Us too.

I mean, yeah, I get it.

I know that's something I need to work on through therapy, but it's expensive, all right?

Yeah.

Ash, Elena, thank you again for doing what you do and being the baddest of all baddies in the world of podcasts.

I have decided to attach pictures of my ex-Ben so...

You can put faces to the story as well as pictures of my fur babies.

Ollie's the bigger white and black cat with green eyes.

He is the air that keeps me breathing.

Samoa is the wiener.

Samoa.

Enough said.

And Toby, a girl with a boy's name, is the kitten that looks and acts like Ollie's shadow.

Carl's the tan dog.

He's my boyfriend's dog, but we live together, so I adopted him.

Carl is from the streets, but he's the sweetest, goodest boy there ever was.

And I have also attached a picture of my current boyfriend because he deserves a little recognition too, to fuck.

Oh, I have to see that.

And a picture of my sisters and I doing the awkward JCPenney photo shoot just for shits and giggles.

Oh my god, that's how I pictured Ben.

That's actually exactly how I pictured him.

Oh, and you guys were very cute together, but I haven't seen your new boyfriend yet.

I hope you all found my listener's tale to be at minimum interesting.

Oh, and shout out to my older sister Kayla for introducing me to Morbid years ago.

With all the love, Kara.

Vote is attached below with names and also more separate attachments in the email.

Look at these animals.

Oh my god, Samoa and Toby and Ollie and Carl.

Oh.

Oh, Pookie is adorable.

I love you guys.

And the JC Penny shoot is absolutely iconic.

That's phenomenal.

Wow.

You're all iconic.

Thank you guys for your listener tales.

They really shot us in the arm today.

They really did.

It's what we needed.

We needed this like dreamy, spooky, but also kind of uplifting at times.

Yeah.

We needed Betty.

We needed Betty.

We certainly didn't need to find out that someone was following us.

But I guess we'll deal with that.

I guess we'll deal with Walter.

Oh, and quickly, I meant to say this at the top.

Somebody at your book event complimented my lipstick and I appreciate it.

I'm wearing it.

And I promised you I would tell you.

It's Maybelline vinyl and it's the color Royal.

Ooh.

I really love it.

This is not an ad.

I love these vinyl lipsticks.

They really stay on.

Yeah.

I like those a lot.

And that book event was awesome.

You guys were all awesome.

Thank you for being so cool.

And I loved meeting all of you.

We went from a medical emergency in your mouth to a medical emergency at home.

Exactly.

So it's been great.

My Saturn return is Saturn returning so hard.

And actually, you're not Saturn returning, but you must be going through something.

Something's going on.

We always love to go through things together.

Yeah.

and that but this was a nice little shot in the arm today recording this because it was it was a nice little escape yeah you guys are blessed guys for giving us that

and without further ado we hope that you keep listening and we hope you keep it weird

bye

not so weird

i was just like i'm tired not so weird that You don't try to astral project, I guess, because I want to try it a little bit.

I just don't want to ask what time it is.

And don't let your boyfriend become a demon.

I mean, do your best not to let that happen.

to not to let that happen.

Don't participate in it.

But they be so weird.

That you come over with us.

That you come to Sirius.

Sirius.

You'll still get these YouTube videos.

Same thing.

Same thing.

We're just not going to be on Wondery Plus.

Yeah.

Only place we won't be.

So join us.

Love you.