Episode 649: Listener Tales 95: Sleepover Edition

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Hey, weirdos. I'm Ash.

And I'm Elena.

And this is Morbid slumber party edition this might be my favorite one i think should we just make these Just slumber parties. Because this is A+.
Fuego. I love pajamas.
You know what we should do? Maybe we'll do this because dressing up is fun and I know you guys love the themes. No, it is.
And you like it. So maybe we'll do that.
But every few, we do a slumber party. Yeah.
Yeah. Love.
We'll figure out the cadence of that. Yeah.
You know what? You'll just get it. I don't know't know we'll just be in pajamas it'll just be when we're feeling lazy like today yeah but honestly i'm in my era of matching pajama shit i'm in my era of matching pajama sets it makes you feel better going to sleep it does and then you wake up and you're like i'm a goddess yeah it makes feel fancy.
I actually, these I got when I was pregnant with the twins. Did you really? Yeah.
Wow. This is like.
They don't even look stretched out or anything. I know, which is wild.
I think I would unbutton them. Yeah.
And wear something under it and just be like. But they're so comfy.
I love a silk. Yeah.
I love a silk moment. Set.
I got to have silk, velvet, or cotton. Hell yeah.
Which pretty much covers all bases. I got to have a fabric.
I need to, in my pajamas, I need a fabric. That's what's pretty important to me.
It's top of the list. So we tried, or I tried to make these like slumber party themed or like dreams.
I did some astral projections. I do believe there demon that's an ashkel coffee creation if you will yeah we don't we don't pay for coffee anymore i do we pay in love and affection i was like i actually pay like i do actually i'm going through milk like it's insane this is an ashkel coffee creation that's what brings me and mikey every day it's my cookie butter beautiful my cookie beautiful.
My cookie butter creation that I found on TikTok. I gotta get the stuff to make the tiramisu one.
Oh, fuck yeah, you do. You need to get like marscapone or something like that.
I love tiramisu. Tiramisu.
I also need to get a little sifter for the cocoa on top. Oh, yeah, you got it.
I'll work on it. Yeah, we'll get there.
Maybe for the next Listener Tales. Yeah, next time i'll be sipping a tiramisu one yeah bitch but let's do this let's go let's go all right so my first listener tale is listener tales the dream that forced my mom to seek an exorcism i love things that force people to seek an exorcism me too it's okay it's kind of our thing yeah it says hey morbid fan my name is lauren but my family calls me ren obsessed with that what a cool nickname for lauren i know i love that i know i don't think i've ever heard that for lauren before but i think more lauren should do that yeah at my sister lauren let's start calling you ren start calling you that we call her low but uh i'm an english education major working in medical in a medical coding department to put myself through.
And ever since my mom introduced me to you guys a handful of years ago, your podcast keeps me company during long hours at work while staring at a screen, doing customer service, wishing to scoop my eyeballs out, and while doing schoolwork. Oh, we've all been there.
Mm-hmm. Yep.
Do you ever still – I mean, you have a lot of deadlines that you have to follow still. Yeah.
It'll be like 8 o'clock on a Sunday night, night and I'll be like, oh fuck, I have to do my homework. And then I'm like, I don't have homework.
You're like, I don't have to do that. Does that ever happen to you? It happens to me all the time, but usually it's like an actual deadline.
Oh fuck, I actually have to. Yeah, I have a lot of deadlines.
Yeah, I don't work on a lot of deadlines. Yeah.
I'm kind of against deadlines. You are against deadlines.
Yeah. I don't think we're meant for that.
Can confirm. We're not meant for that.by windy sound i was showing elena the other day i'm obsessed with gabby i think she's my religion oh when i heard that sound i said is that ash though she was like don't call me after three o'clock to have a creative call send me an email i would rather gouge my eyes out with some dull chopsticks and i said is, is that Ash? It is.
The more and more I see her on Traders, I'm like, are we like, were we separated at birth? Perhaps. Maybe.
Well, anyways, I truly feel like I'm hanging out with friends and it makes everything more bearable. I've even gotten my fiance into it and he now requests to listen to The Girls while we cook together.
That's such a classic thing. It's frequent.
Yeah. That like you get your husband or significant other into the show and they refer to us as the girls.
I kind of love that. I love it.
Yeah. And they listen while they cook together.
Oh, I really love that. I know.
Cute. I hope you guys enjoy reading.
And if it makes it on the show, I will shit my dick as my fiance likes to say. Shit your dick.
I went through a period of saying shit shit my dick yeah so your fiance rules yeah so do you well please find enclosed a 14 point double spaced put a full for you you would pleasure i love it let's go okay so this is the dream that forced my mom to seek an exorcism i love it and the time she visited my dreams. Ooh, star, star, sparkle.

As I mentioned earlier, my mom is actually the person who introduced me to you guys a few years ago. Shout out to your mom.
We shared a deep love of true crime and spooky podcasts. We love to discuss whatever episodes we've been listening to and listen to them together in the car or weekend mornings cleaning the house.
She was a cool mom, no doubt. unfortunately she passed away earlier this fall

four days after her 49th birthday

after a two year battle with an

extremely aggressive form of bone cancer. Oh, I'm sorry.
As a side note, my childhood best friend and my mom's honorary additional daughter is a mortician and a funeral director and a fellow morbid listener. Bitch.
Bad motherfucking ass. Hell yeah.
And she handled everything with my mom in our service because she's a freaking badass she yeah she is and an amazing friend to boot danielle if you're listening i love you and i love you too i love you danielle so i had the opportunity to go hang out with her and get my mom ready we wanted to play an episode of your show and chat while i painted her nails and such one last little girl's day all together oh my god that just sent chills like right through my body holy shit i wanted to thank you guys for your roundabout involvement in that and creating a show that creates a venue to foster connections like that thank you for telling us that that like that really made my week yeah that just i'm like shit yeah like we just make we just like do, it's fun and, you know, like, it's something that we love doing together. Yeah.
But we don't always think about how it reaches other people. Yeah.
And to hear it is, like, really shocking and humbling and awesome. And we're very grateful for you.
Yeah. Thank you.
Damn. That was really cool to hear.
It's really cool. Thank you.
Anywho, I digress. I've always been, shall we say, sensitive and surrounded by spooky things.
If y'all want, I'll write in someday and tell you about my experience working in a haunted old ass restaurant for years. Yes, please.
My mom was not skeptical per se, but definitely didn't enjoy the creep factor that I did. So she forcibly brushed things off and forbid discussing anything paranormal.
If you ignore it, it's not happening.

Love her for that.

LMAO.

That being said, I believe my sensitivity came from her and her side of the family.

Indigenous hippies from Oregon for the win.

Hell yeah.

Hell yeah.

We just had two different reactions to it.

And this story may be part of why, lol.

When my mom was in high school, approximately circa 1990, she had a very intense dream one

night that she was in her choir

class and their teacher came in and told them he had cancer and would be resigning from teaching and shortly thereafter passed away i don't remember i don't remember exactly what it was but she said she remembered something specific that struck her about like what he was wearing in the dream for whatever reason i feel like it was his shoes but don't quote me on that she tells her mom a devout Mennite which if you are not familiar is like amish light it really is amish light and she said she told her mom in passing about the odd dream the next day she gets to class and this man walks in and like a bad case of deja vu he's wearing what he had been in the dream and proceeds to tell them exactly what he had told them in the dream oh that, that'd be fucking weird. That would, because already you're like trying to process, oh my gosh, like he's telling me this awful thing.
And it sounds like this is like a very beloved teacher. And then you're like, why did I know that? Why did my brain know that was going to happen? That happened in a very small, like not like this, but the other day when somebody came here oh yeah and and something happened like so somebody came here and they went to sit in the wrong seat to record yep and i had had a dream the night before that that was going to happen that's so and i was like so when it happened i was like that was weird yeah like I've never had that, like, on the nose.
Yeah. Prediction in a dream.
And, like, very inconsequential, but, like, strange. I once had a dream that somebody I was really close with in high school, and it was, like, right after high school, like, something happened and, like, there was a house fire where they lived.
And I woke up to the news that there was a house fire. Yeah, see, that's weird.
And, like, luckily everybody, but I had dreamt it the night before and I remember that feeling of just being like, why did I know that was going to happen? Yeah. And I've never had anything like that crazy happen, but we have things like that that will happen.
For sure. And it comes from Ma.
Yeah, it definitely does come from my mom. So relatable.
Yeah. Well, my mom understandably freaks the fuck out and can't

decide if she has superpowers or what the fuck is going on so what does she do like any reasonable high school girl she thinks she's developed the ability to see the future and predict deaths so she goes and tells her mom yeah my grandmother bless her heart is a staunchly conservative woman so her reaction of course was to call the church in and legitimately the year of our lord lord 1991 in a rural midwestern town and being distinctly not catholic attempt them to get to exercise my poor mother she only succeeded in traumatizing her a little bit no actual exorcism was performed but she did have to speak to the deacon or some other religious higher-ups i believe to make sure that she wasn't possessed by the devil himself, TM. TM.
I love how you write it like that. The devil himself, TM.
When it was determined that she was not, in fact, in cahoots with the man down under, this was dropped like nothing had ever happened in true Mennonite fashion and never spoken of again. Wow.
So in hindsight, I don't blame my mom for attempting to pointedly ignore anything spiritual. The threat of an exorcism has to leave a bad taste in your mouth.
I mean, religious drama is real. That's like, that's top of the list.
Yeah, it is. Yeah, it is.
Now, this second part is my story, but it does connect as it involves my mother and dreams. For context, I was not with my mother when she passed away.
My fiance and I were driving to be there and we're about three hours away at the time. Aww led to a few weeks of intense dreams and nightmares regarding her death, which my therapist informed me were

totally normal as my subconscious sought closure, however unpleasant, and that they would resolve in

time. Thanks, bro.
Very helpful. Just kidding.
We love him. Just when I was about at my breaking

point with this, I had the dream. It started like lots of others.
I was standing in my childhood living room and my mom was there looking as she did the last time I saw her and in her wheelchair, even what she was wearing the last day I saw her a few days before her death. I remember thinking, here we go with this bullshit again, which is odd in and of itself as I'm not prone to lucid dreams at all.
Then I heard something behind me and I turned around and there was my mom, only it was her slightly younger as i remember her from before cancer took her leg her hair and her vitality she was beautiful and whole and i don't know how to describe it beyond her being so much more real and vibrant than the room even around us that was my mom guys she looked at me and didn't say a word but there was this silent understanding that i was real and she was real and the dream realm around us wasn't but it was just the venue where we had to meet in at this time i literally have goosebumps i can't stop them she didn't say a word the whole time just held me on our couch just as she did when i was a kid until i fell asleep and woke up in the real world the nightmare stopped right then and there i got the closure i was seeking i don't know firmly what i believe about what happens when we shuffle off this mortal coil but i know wholeheartedly that my mama is whole and healthy and still around in her own way and that she came to be my mama bear just like she always does i love that oh my god i love that so much that the fact that she like just snuggled you like i'm going to cry. I can't even.
And after you were having like these awful dreams. It's weird that I read this one when I did because I went to see Long Island Medium, Teresa Caputo last week.
The hair herself. Oh my God, the hair.
I'm obsessed with that queen. But she said that there was like a few people that she read in the audience who weren't able to be there when their loved one passed away.

And she says you're not supposed to.

If you're not there when it happens, it's for a reason.

You weren't meant to be there.

Your soul wasn't meant to experience that.

And the person like didn't want you to.

They didn't want to like put that on you.

That's so comforting.

It is. To people who couldn't be there.
Because I'm sure that want to like put that on you. Yeah.
That's so comforting. It is.

To people who couldn't be there because I'm sure that's like a massive thing of guilt. Wait.
Yeah.

Damn. I just thought that was interesting that she said that and then we wrote this.
Yes.

That is interesting. Yeah.
I love that story. I love that you had like the closure that you needed.

Yeah. And I love that you called being Mennonite Amish-like.
I'm obsessed with that. I'm literally obsessed with that.
And the devil himself, TM. That's my favorite.
I'm going to use that. Let's see.
I'm going to do Listener Tales, Lucid Dreams, and Diamonds. Diamonds.
Diamonds. Let me bring her up.
Oh, we got two. This is a twofer, yeah.
Oh, this is a twofer. Mm-hmm.
Should we start? Let's start with lucid dreams yeah let's do that all right so let's see hello from the land down under well the land under the land down under you almost got me there uh or new zealand our tara roa i did it uh for clarity thank you so much for that phonetic spelling. My name is Caitlin.
Feel free to use it there. There are a multitude of us there and even more ways of spelling it.
I have ADHD and I am a Virgo. A dichotomy I am well aware makes for a sporadic and tumultuous relationship.
So please bear with me as I first gush over how much I love you guys. I love you.
We love you. I first came across you ghoulies whilst my friend, Quiva.
Oh, I like that. Isn't that a pretty name? The way that's spelled, it's C-A-O-I-M-H-E, but pronounced Quiva.
It's like Siobhan, how that's spelled like. Siobhan.
Siobhan. Yeah.
I love that. Very pretty.
So Quiva and I were sharing back and forth different true crime podcasts. Quiva put you on my radar and have never looked back.
Cuiva, Cuiva, Cuiva. You made my job at the time, data entry, not only bearable, but something I could look forward to as I got to hang out with your banter and listen to whatever ghastly tale you had prepared for the day.
Ash, I too have many souls. My accent will change randomly while I'm speaking.
I love that about both of you. Thank you.
Most often I will claim the accent of the person I am talking to and have to stop mid-sentence to apologize and proclaim, I promise I'm not mocking you. I've just stolen your accent.
That has happened to me before. I love that.
Apparently as is the side effect of ADHD masking. Masking.
I feel that. But that doesn't explain why I randomly go Irish, English, or Russian with no prompting when I've had a few to drink.
I like that. It's the souls.
Elena, I loved The Butcher and the Wren. Thank you.
And from one aspiring author to another, you are beyond amazing for finishing one hell of a book. Thank you so much.
Now two. Yeah.
Hell yeah. It was gripping and spooky in all the right ways.
Please find attached a size 12 double-spaced put-a-foot of my spooky experience with astral projection and a diamond.

Diamond.

And the time I asked the forbidden question while streaming.

Yes, I did that.

I missed the first intake of listener tales because I typed everything out in my phone notes, then forgot to format and email it.

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All right, so let's start with lucid dreaming. Yeah, I'm very excited.
This one is creepy as fuck. Let's go.
I did the thing. I was dreaming and I knew I was dreaming because since I was five, most of my dreams have been lucid.
By the way, sorry about my voice if it sounds a little off. No, I love your sick voice.
It's a sick voice. I'm struggling with it, but I've been drinking tea.
I envy your sick voice because you sound like Lilo. I sound like some scary old lady who's like...
I love that too, though. I sound like Chandler Bing's manager hell yeah no Joey's I just started watching Prince I dig that um so I was watching this woman standing in the sunlight she was dancing I suddenly remembered I needed to ask her the date and time so I blurted out hey do you know the date and time her serene face shifted abruptly and she stopped dancing the sunlight seemed to lose its shine and the woman began yelling and sprinting towards me you bitch why would you ask that i was afraid so i did the thing i usually do to wake up and counted to five this time however instead of waking up i shifted into another dream in this dream i was wandering up and down bright white stair classes stair classesair classes.
I realized that as I was, you can probably see my, I'm like stair classes. That's not what that says.
No. You wrote staircases.
I said stair classes. Bright white staircases reminiscent of the topsy-turvy ones from the final scene in the labyrinth à la David Bowie.
So you were meant to read this one? I was. I wasn't alone here either.
There were people dressed completely in white, continuously traveling up and down the stairs. Their faces were blank with emotion, and as I'm typing, I can't recall their exact features.
However, I was outnumbered 100 to 1. I have had many a weird dream in my life, but this is the first time I've been dropped into a dream that didn't have at least a point of familiarity.
I was curious as to where these staircases would lead, so I assimilated myself into marching up and down the stairs, good for you, only to find myself on a staircase above more marching people dressed in white. There didn't seem to be an end to the stairs, and I realized I must be stuck in a loop of sorts.
It occurred to me that maybe this was my punishment for asking what the date and time was. That's terrifying.
I hate that. Really scary.
So in typical me fashion, I decided, fuck this. I stopped in my tracks, turned around, looked at the blank faces of the matching pedestrians dressed in white and shouted, hey, what's the date and time? It was like a shock had gone through the crowd.

The steady sound of marching ceased immediately.

And just like the woman from before,

the people dressed in white stopped dead in their tracks.

100 unrecognizable faces shot their eyes to me,

faces contorting in rage.

They opened their mouths,

and where the normal parts of the mouth should be,

aka teeth, tongue, darkness of a throat, was throat was a bright dark blue light and they were screaming i don't like that can i interject and be absolutely off topic but like kind of on topic whoa she said like where the mouth should be have you ever seen the inside of a penguin's mouth oh it's scary i found this out last night for the very first time ever it's a a situation. It's just teeth upon teeth upon teeth upon teeth.
And they're all like teeth on teeth on teeth. Yeah.
And they're jagged. Yeah.
They're gnarly. I saw this video of this girl like being scared to pass by a penguin that she like met on the beach.
And I was like, why is she scared? It's a fucking penguin. Because of that mouth.
And somebody commented that. Yeah.
Someone said, what'd that mouth do? Pretty much. And she said, I don't want to know.
Like, why? Yeah. Why? Because they're too cute on the outside.
Well, probably fish bones, too. Yeah, and they got to, like, crush that fish as it goes.
Yeah. So they need, like, lots of teeth.
If you don't know what the inside of a penguin's mouth looks like, please look it up. Anyways, back to these mouths.
Google it. What do these mouths do? They didn't rush me this time, but the sound was deafening.

This time,

before I could try to wake up,

I dream shifted again.

And this time I was sitting at a desk

opposite a man

who kind of looked like

a relatively famous actor

I'm having trouble remembering the name of.

Insert name here if I remember.

Steve Valentine.

I don't know if I know who that is.

I'm going to look it up.

I know.

I need to know now.

Let's find out.

Worked it out after about a day of trying. love that steve valentine yeah steve valentine he's a british american actor i feel like he that makes sense that he would come into your dream oh okay he just looks like somebody that would come into your dream yeah he's just like hey can we get a close-up on steve valentine can we get a close-up he's got great teeth he does what we get a close-up? He's got great teeth.
He does. What that mouth do? Some up, though.
He's got mysteries in there. Yeah, especially with his mustache.
Yeah, you know? With his mustache. Oh, I tried to open Instagram, but I don't have that.
His mustache makes it very mysterious. Yeah.
So as he was talking to me, it seemed like he was in the mid-sentence and was explaining something to me. It was like I had blacked out and was coming into the middle of a discussion.
I was missing a piece of the conversation and came to his words, and that's why it's important not to ask the question. And this is in a quote.
Now you have two options. Either you can have your normal dreams back and never ask the question again, or you can continue to ask the question but never have control over your dreams again.
At the time, the choice was obvious.

I occasionally have night terrors, so the ability to control my dreams is a necessary component of me acquiring a peaceful night's sleep.

I picked to never ask the question again whilst dreaming, and then I woke up in my bed in a cold sweat with a searing headache.

I pinched myself to make sure I was actually awake and thought about writing all this down in case I forgot in the morning. However, I decided the headache was bad enough that I didn't want to look at my phone screen.
I lay there for a while contemplating what I could remember of what the man had said, quote, and that's why you can't ask the question. Don't tell anyone about what I have shared.
Either you can have your dreams back or go back to the white staircases. I had to actively stop my brain from wanting to ask the question again after I fell asleep.

But upon managing to keep the inquisitive side quiet,

I had a normal dream of fighting zombies alongside friends that I haven't seen in a while.

Hey, awesome.

I should really hit them up and see how they are.

Anyway, that's my experience of asking the dreaded question of what is the date and time while streaming.

It was your podcast that gave me the idea to do so.

and even though it was comparatively harrowing experience, it was certainly interesting to see how my dreams reacted to it. I now have a migraine, so I'm going to sign off.
Yours cautiously, Kat. Kat, that's terrifying.
I've done that. And I had a similar experience where everyone was so mad at me.
Yeah. And then it shifted me out of that dream and into another one.
I read these yesterday. And so last night when I was falling asleep, I was like, I kind of want to try it.
But I don't, I can't always lucid dream. Like sometimes I just fall asleep and it happens and other times I can't.
Yeah. I haven't been able to super control my lucid dreaming when it happens.
I want i want to jinx i just bought a bunch of books about lucid dreaming yeah so maybe you'll figure it out we're gonna get on it i'm taking this witchy class and like the um second part of it they talk about like astral projecting and i'm sure lucid dreaming will come up there yeah that's interesting yeah i like that i'm bit scared, though. I don't think your dreams are just dreams, personally.

Probably not.

No.

I thought it was weird that it worked.

I'm usually one that, like, I like to prove things wrong.

Yeah, we know. That's, like, kind of my thing.

Yeah.

And so when we had read those first ones about asking the date and time, I was like, okay, I don't know.

Yeah.

Like, I'm going to try this. And I was like, when I tried it, I was shocked at the response and the feeling and the dream that I had.
I feel like our dreams are almost like a higher conscious, but like we haven't totally figured out how to figure it all out. What it all means.
Yeah, I sounded really high there. We haven't figured out how to figure it all out, it all means yeah i sounded really high there we haven't figured out how to like figure it all out man you know yeah someday we'll figure out how to figure it out let's figure it out let's do that let's do it together yeah uh so let's talk about demons demons demons i don't want to do that because i'll cough um i want to start this off by saying i've always been sensitive i love how many sensitive listeners we have i know we have a lot of those it makes sense i can walk into a crowded room and tell if something is off same when i was a kid i had active conversations with shadows and was able to know if something bad was going to happen i was obsessed with the supernatural and devoured literally anything remotely on the topic of ghosts species and magic elena i can't do that.
I also had a bad case of the night terrors. Me too.
And slept with the light on constantly because although little me likes to think she didn't have the word fear in her vocabulary, she was actually a fearful little bean that couldn't get a full night's sleep to save her life. I was the same.
As I grew older, I learned how to combat the bad dreams by waking myself up by counting to five. I have to pinch myself or move my fingers.
I would often lay awake watching the shadows on my ceiling morph into various demonic shapes. This was after I had been shamed into sleeping with the light off because I was, quote, a big girl now.
Side note, fuck you. The night is dark and full of terrors and I'll sleep with the light on if I want to.
There's demons in the closet and a tentacle monster with a lion's head at its center that has claws inside of its suckers under my bed that will grab me if I don't jump onto the bed from the doorway after I switch off the light switch. So I'll be sleeping with the light on.
Thank you. 100%.
And I agree with you. Fuck that shit.
I'm a big girl now. Shit.
I will never say that to my kids. No.
Because I am 39 years old. I have to see the TV on.
And I still need the TV on because of the light and light murmuring sound that blows me into sleep. Same.
I also have this weird thing, and I don't know what this is, but I have a nightlight in my bathroom, and it flashes through the colors of the rainbow. Oh, yeah.
And if I go into my bathroom at night, I won't step foot in the bathroom if it's on red and while i'm in there if it flashes red i close my eyes until it goes to the next color wow i don't know i like that it freaks me out i mean hey yeah you gotta go with your gut it's a weird thing you think something's weird you gotta go with it yeah no i feel that the girls have um like my kids have this like um constellation light that's like the northern lights with like stars it It's so pretty. And it is every night.
It has to stay on. And when I go up to bed after they've gone to bed, I go into the room just to like check on them.
It's just like a habit. I have to do it.
And then I always turn it off and turn it back on so that it won't cycle through and shut off in the middle of the night because they will wake up and be like, blah. So it's just like a habit now.
And I don't care how old they are when they use it. They have one at my house and I'm always tempted to bring it into my room when they're not there.
Yeah. I'm like, I should just like take that.
It's soothing as hell. It is.
I would use it. Yeah.
But John doesn't like light. That's, this is his actually.
Because he does not like light. Yeah, I know.
It's a tough, I would have to pick between the TV and that, I think. Yeah, that's the thing.
I need, I'm not a like bright light people person at night. So like, I can handle certain TV shows.
But they have to be like calm. Yeah, as well.
Well, yeah, we differ there. We found that out the other day.
I fall asleep to Bravo. Yeah, I can't do that.
So it's just like women screaming at each other. Yeah, I can't do that.
But I don't, I have it on like a low level. Office and Parks and Rec because it's pretty low key.
Yeah. Yeah.
Makes sense. You know? Anyway, this story takes place much more recently than I would have liked it to have taken place.
This story begins with a mirror. Now, this mirror isn't the small spooky mirror from a horror movie with a gilded frame.
This mirror is the size of fucking wall and resides in the bathroom I share with my partner and one of my flatmates. On this night, I was standing in front of the mirror on the damp tiled floor.
I think I had gone to the bathroom half asleep and came to consciousness while washing my hands. Though the taps were turned off and my hands weren't wet, I was staring at my reflection, or at least where my reflection should have been.
In the mirror, I could see the doubles of everything in the bathroom. I could see the shower, whose grout refuses to appear clean, no matter how much bleach we scrub into it.
The porcelain bath, and the ever-dramatic peace lily wilting in the corner, even though I had watered it earlier that day. Lilies are tough.
Lilies are tough. I could even see the light in the hallway streaming in through the open door.
But do you know what I couldn't see? Me. I was standing in the bathroom looking at a mirror that takes up the entire wall and my body was absent from its surface.
How fucked is that? I can't even picture that. How fucked is that? I looked over my shoulder to check that everything in the mirror was present in real life.
That is when the dread set in. Cold fear tore its way through my core.
Its icy tendrils clawing at my very being. You're an aspiring writer.
Write the book. I know.
The way you write is really, really, really good. Write it.
Because you can see everything. Write it.
The way you write, it's so easy to visualize what you're talking about. Caitlin, write it.
Caitlin, Kat. Kat, write the book.
Write the book. Write it.
All at once, I was aware of the presence behind me. Something was staring at me behind my back, watching me through the mirror.
Sweat began to glisten my skin. My stomach flipped and I was frozen.
Everything in me was screaming, don't turn around, don't turn around, don't turn around. And do you know what my dumb ass did? Turned around.
I turned a fucking round. And suddenly I found I was back in my bed, drenched in cold sweat, breathing heavily.
My partner soundly asleep beside me in a shadow with two long arms that ended in talons standing in the corner of our room. I hate that.
I went to move but found my body bound by sleep paralysis. Oh God.
I don't know if you've ever experienced sleep paralysis, but it is one of the most awful experiences. I experienced it recently after a long bout of not experiencing it.
Did you? And it was when I heard the kids screaming. Oh, yeah.
I forgot you said that. It, like, fucked me up.
For, like, two nights I couldn't sleep after that because what happened was I found – I woke up to hearing all three of my children in their room screaming my name. But not actually.
And it was, it wasn't real. But in it, I was looking at my room.
I was hearing their voices. I could see in the hallway and I went to get up and I couldn't get up.
And then I went to yell to John to get up and go get them, but I couldn't yell. And I was just laying in my bed, paralyzed, unable to scream, hearing my children screaming for me.
And finally, I was able to do the thing where I like, I was able to pinch the side of my leg and like move my fingers. And I sat up and I was like, so I couldn't hear them anymore.
But I darted into their room. All three of them are fast asleep.
Completely asleep. Fast asleep.
Everything was fine. John was asleep.
And like, like everything was normal i could not go back to sleep that night i sat up like feeling sick yeah not i hate it was awful i've had dreams like not on that level but i've had dreams similar to that where i've had to like sit up and just like like fall asleep naturally take a moment to like but that one fucked me up i could not get back and even the next night i couldn't fall asleep yeah that would shake me it fucked me up i've only had sleep paralysis like once and it was in a car when i was little and i was having this like wicked scary dream and i remember like opening my eyes but not being able to move at all but like seeing like the cars pass oh yeah yeah it was weird it's scary and when it happens in like your bed oftentimes you see things in the room with you that you can't move away from and they're like coming towards you yeah and like while it's happening you're sitting there being like oh my god this is real like there's something in my room and I can't move like it's yeah it's this weird like thing your brain does yeah Yeah. It's very weird.
I hate that. I hate it a lot.

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It's one of the most awful experiences, I agree.

Your mind is fully awake, but your body isn't aware that you are and is frozen. You feel trapped in the useless sack of meat that is your body.
Your very being is claustrophobic as it is being reduced to dead weight. The only thing I know that can counteract this paralysis is to go kill Bill on the situation, wiggle your big toe, or in my case, move your pinky finger.
I have to move my fingers. While still seeing the terrifying visage that is the fucking Baba Yaga in the corner of the room, I channeled everything into moving the seemingly useless appendage.
After a moment that felt like an eternity, my pinky finger moved, breaking the spell of paralysis. I bolted to turn on the bedside table light, telling the demon to fuck off as it wasn't welcome here.
As soon as the light turned on, the shadowy shape disappeared. I sat up on my bed, legs to my chest, blanket clutched tightly to my chin, breathing as slowly as I could muster, trying to calm myself down.
My partner woke up at this point due to the commotion. He told me it was okay and to go back to sleep.
I turned the light off, but I couldn't shake the seeping terror. I ended up getting out of bed, going downstairs to the kitchen and grabbing the salt.
I did a rough cleansing, and once back in bed, I messaged my witchy friends and told them everything that had happened. After chatting with them for a while, I had calmed down enough to attempt to go back to sleep.
Now, wouldn't it be great if the story ended there? It would. But unfortunately, there ain't no rest for the wicked.
As soon as I would settle down, the dread would creep its way back in.

I could feel something watching me.

When I did finally get some sleep, my dreams were a wash of nightmares that I don't fully remember.

What I do remember is a voice of many whispers searching for a book.

A book had gone missing or had been stolen.

I don't know, but I remember vividly that that's what the entity was searching for. According to my partner, I woke up multiple times telling the darkness to go away or you're not welcome.
He also claimed I had been tapping on his head to wake him up, but later realized I couldn't have been tapping him as I was facing the opposite direction. Fuck a whole bunch of that.
Fuck that. That day at work, I felt out of it, like I wasn't fully connected to my body.
I was present, but going about my duties was excruciatingly difficult. I was ridiculously clumsy and found myself walking into door frames and tripping over my own feet.
You were experiencing life as me. Yep.
I ended up calling my witchy friend and she told me to come over. We all need as many witchy friends as we can possibly get.
It's true. We have a great amount of witchy friends.
We have wonderful witchy friends. I love our witchy friends.
It's true. Love you.
She came to the conclusion that I had been astral projecting in my sleep and my spirit wasn't fully back in my body. It's like, where were you? And where are you? In limbo.
Like, that's scary. Where are you? Where are you? Soul.
Soul. We did a grounding ritual, which involved my holding on to the biggest orb of crystal I'd ever seen in my life.
Love it. Once done, I no longer had the airy weightless feeling and felt much more attached to my body.
We then made a cleansing slash banishing charm, which to this day is still under my bed. I still live in the same house this occurred in and occupy the same room, but thankfully the only demons I see now are the ones that have been attached to my partner since childhood.
Talejo and Anorec. That's cool.
Damn. They're mostly chill.
Damn. I like, they're mostly chill.
And usually just stare at me from the closet and protect us from the bad vibes. Oh, I like them then.
Yeah, hell yeah. Good for them.
They were absolutely no help with the demon that visited on that night, though. It seems they were afraid of it as much as I was.
Apologies for the long story. You shut up.
Nope. Love you bad bitches to the moon and back.
Thank you for sticking with me through this frankly long-winded yet slightly cathartic now that i've written it all down tale yay it was not long-winded at all no that was awesome and fucking scary like cat i'm you're a writer cat can i call you cat you're ready write the book or whatever it is that you want to write write because you're great at it and holy shit, you've had a lot of shit happen. Yeah, for real.
I like it. No, that was a good one.
You're powerful at night, I feel. Only at night.
Only at night. You're powerful at night.
Yeah, your spirit apparently leaves you in the day. I mean, yeah.
Glad you got it back. It's like Spongebob at night.
I don't know what that is, but I'm going to trust. It's just an episode where he literally just keeps saying, at night.
At night. There you go.
like that nosferatu makes an appearance oh nice yeah i dig that that's when um drew always goes nosferatu yeah anyway all right my next tale is listener tale the time i accidentally became a medium yiggity yeet thank you for that i like the accidentally know accidentally. Oops.
Oopsie. Hello ladies.
My name is, I think it's Emily. I am a H-U-G-E huge fan.
Listener tales are some of my favorite episodes and I finally got around to writing one. I love that.
I always love hearing when people love listener tales. Because people do.
They do. Although I'm not a writer and there are probably a lot of grammatical errors and it doesn't help that i feel the pressure of a best-selling author potentially writing my reading my writing oh babe that's why i have an editor by the way i'm about to read the shit out of butcher in the run and congratulations elena thank you anywho i'll keep it short and sweet because my tail is a little on the longer side i timed it and ended up being around 10 minutes attached is my 14 point doublefuh.
Random, but every time I hear you guys say that, I imagine a sassy French man saying it in an accent over and over, trying to get somebody to say it correctly. Okay.
That's like merch, right? Yeah. A man with a beret and a mustache.
Yeah. And he just has a thought bubble that says, put-a-fuh, put-a-fuh, put-a-fuh.
Yeah, I like that. That'll happen.
TM. I mean, nope, I already said that.
Make sure to scroll to the bottom, to the put-a-fuh, to see all my little pictures I attached to give some faces to the mentioned names. Oh, that reminds us.
Oh, yeah. That's a very good segue.
And that's why we drink would say a segu. A segu.
A segue into if you guys have, like, attach photos to your listener tales and you are cool with us sharing them on like socials to like add to the whole like story and everything. Let us know in the listener tale which ones we're allowed to, which ones you're fine with.
Or you can say none of these are okay to share. For public consumption.
Which is totally fine.

You're not going to, we don't care.

Either way, we totally get it.

No, it's your bad.

But sometimes when you have fun tales

that like reference certain things,

people are like, oh, I want to see that thing.

Like that, you know, the picture of the scratches on the wall

or like something like that.

Or I want to see that cute little puppy.

So if it's cool, just let us know.

If not, let us know. And if you don't say anything, we will not share it.
Yeah. Because we'll just assume that it's not okay.
Yeah. So, but again, either way, it's okay.
Just let us know so we can start sharing them if you're cool with it. Just like how we ask if we can use your name or not.
Yeah. You guys usually put that in there.
Try to do it when you do pictures. Yeah.
Just so we're not sharing things that you want shared. Yeah.
And we'll never share something that you don don't want to share exactly so uh if this makes this if this makes this on the podcast consider my pants soiled love you guys hey oh hope you got new pants ash elena ladies first of all of course i need to begin with word vomiting affirmations of love all over you both thank you i love you guys you gals are simply some of the most splendid people in my life and i don't like having many people around so the fact that you two are in my ears basically 24 7 says a lot this this is why we all get along here yeah we all are all the same we all have a limit yeah we all got this yeah i'd never been a uh hello i'd never been a huge fan of true crime before discovering morbid but i just wanted to commend you guys for the way that you honor the stories and memories of the victims you choose to cover and in doing so you preserve the memory of the person rather than the tragedy thank you thank you that's what we try to do yeah that's always the aim yeah it's touching to learn about the lives of these amazing people and i feel that they must appreciate that a lot as well wherever their souls are resting oh that like really that that hit different thank you for that but anyway my name is emily pronounced like regular emily and yes you can use it and all the other names involved emily i'm 25 years old hailing from the state of indiana affectionately known to many as the corn state we gotta tell some people that we do i discovered more but a few months ago while searching for something to occupy my ears during my grueling 10-hour shifts as a delivery driver at a certain delivery company. I'm sure I've been caught many times on ring cameras randomly bursting out in laughter at you guys.
That'd be awesome. I continue to listen to y'all as I upgrade from the Bezos Brigade to my first big girl office job as assistant marketing director, where I am currently typing this while making it look like I am actually working.
How adult of me. What what a badass you are now i am irrevocably hooked and have been making my way through all 400 plus episodes anytime i get the chance the shower the car when i'm folding clothes taking my crazy ass dog for a walk which speaking of i have a beautiful nine-month-old german shepherd named gemini oh i love that love love love pictures attached obviously we'll we'll message anybody who shared pictures this time around and see if we can get them out yeah for sure um and i just had to bring her up because i bring her up any chance i can get i feel that she came into my life when i needed her the most and i think it's no coincidence that she's a gemini and i'm a capricorn just like another bestie duo that i know oh my god i love that my younger sister is also a gemini slash Taurus cusp and our relationship reminds me so much of you two.
But anyway, that's quite enough about me. Let's get to the spooky stuff.
Never. My tale is a little more on the spooky side.
After all, I came to the podcast for The Supernatural and stayed for The True Crime, lol. Oh, I love that.
It starts a few years ago, right around the beginning of the panorama. Now, a little context for the story.
I grew up very borderline cultish Christian. I consider myself now to be an incredibly open person that believes in the spiritual, but readily acknowledges that none of us know what the fuck is going on.
Good for you, man. Hell yeah.
So I'm the last person that will ever look at somebody differently for their beliefs or challenge them, because ultimately, everyone's individual spiritual experience is for them and them alone. Love that so much.
That's exactly how I feel. So I wanted to preface by saying I'm not against Christianity and I never will be and I did not want to come across that way by the next part of my story.
Thank you so much for coming to my TED Talk. Don't worry, we're with you.
Yeah, we got you. I just graduated college and was living in Minneapolis with two of my bestie girls.
We were on top of the world in our brand new three bedroom apartment doing nothing but smoking ganja and collecting those good, good stimulus checks. What a time the pandemic.
We had all attended the same private Christian university and we all started to depart from our Christian beliefs at the time. Our community was very comforting and we all became a safe space for each other to deconstruct from our lifelong systems of belief, which is terrifying, by the way.
And if you're currently experiencing it, I see you. Yeah, I can't imagine that.
It's a lot to veer off from a path that you've been on your whole life. Yeah, especially when you've been raised that way.
Yeah. We did start to get a little wild with it, experimenting with a lot more weed and psychedelics.
My teenage self is rolling in her grave at the thought that I would ever do drugs. And this ultimately led to some wild spiritual experiences when we would explore

together. At the start of my spiritual awakening, I had an incredibly visual and effortless

connection to the spiritual realm or other dimensions, who knows, and would often dabble

in astral projection and receive messages in the forms of visions. For example, one time I astral

traveled while in my physical body and I was having a stomach ache. As soon as I arrived at my destination, the beings there just started chanting at me to eat corn, eat corn.
I was very confused by that. But sure enough, when I woke up, there was a mystery can of corn in our pantry that none of my roommates had bought.
Shut the fuck up. And when I ate it, my stomach immediately felt better.
No. I looked it up after the fact and corn is a natural laxative oh shit who knew i guess it has the juice i'm obsessed with the fact that they were all just like eat some fucking corn you'll feel better fucking cool and i'm obsessed with it has the juice he said i really hope you get that reference of course we did that reference was my life for a minute i love that jingle whether or not i had spoken to real beings at that moment i may never know but one day while i was at the apartment by myself i had a vision that made me realize i was most definitely beyond a doubt connecting with something very very real on the other side sometime before this happened my roomies and i had started watching a documentary on netflixiving Death, which is about real near-death experiences and other related things.
It's super awesome and interesting. Go watch it.
In one of these episodes, a medium explained how spirits from beyond try to communicate in whatever channels they can, one of these channels being electricity. So, of course, when I'm home alone, high as balls, and the hallway lights start flickering like it had never done before, I knew what the fuck was up, Kyle.
I didn't have any preconceived ideas about what exactly could be trying to communicate with me, but I wanted to hear it out nonetheless. So I started by saying out loud, whoever is there, blink for a yes, stop for a no.
Are you trying to communicate with me? Blinking continues. Are you not trying to communicate with me? See what I did there? Ooh.
Blinking stops. Okay.
Oh, shit. Now we're getting somewhere.
Are you someone that I know? No blinking. Do you know me? Blinking starts again.
Ooh. Do you have a message for me? Blinking continues.
At this point, I wasn't sure if I was actually communicating with something, but I decided because I most easily received messages through visuals, I was going to lay down and try to connect with this energy while I astral projected.

Now, I don't know about a lot of people's experiences, but for me, astral projection feels like a marriage between my intuition, my mind's creativity, and spiritual guidance.

So a lot of times the messages are formed around stories that I'm shown.

Isn't that really cool?

I like that.

This is really interesting.

Thank you. creativity and spiritual guidance.
So a lot of times the messages are formed around stories that I'm shown. Isn't that really cool? I like that.
This is really interesting. The vision started off with a king who was the main character in this story.
He was running away from his castle when he fell through an ice-covered lake. He was trapped until his soldiers could retrieve him and they brought him back to a castle.
The king was bedridden, freezing, and fighting for life as a blur of servants and soldiers came in and out of every door to bring him aid. But then I saw her.
A woman approached his bed and as she approached, I took the perspective of the king. I could feel his overwhelming sense of love, warmth and the relief that he felt when he saw her.
She was wearing a black floor length dress with long sleeves, a white apron and her face was that was that of a black bird. All of a sudden, a bright light came over her face, and she transformed into a beautiful woman with rosy cheeks and silky black hair.
And I kept hearing the same word over and over. Raven.
Ooh. I have actual chills.
I've literally read this before, and I have chills. I just got like a whoosh of chills.
A whom, if you will.

I love ravens.

Yeah, I love ravens so much.

I've been trying to like communicate more with like ravens and crows lately because Hakate rules over them.

And I'm like really into Hakate lately.

Yeah, that's my girl.

Yeah.

So she's right over there.

You just can't see her.

Yeah, she is.

So I got up and as I sat up, I began to question the light again.

Are you raven?

No blinking. Is raven someone you love? Blinking starts furiously.
I tried asking it some other questions, but growing continuously in confusion, I decided to stop. I thanked the energy for their time, and I apologized that I wasn't sure what to do with the information.
Later on, though, one of my roommates returned home from a grocery run, and I had the incredible sense that I needed to tell her everything that happened. It hadn't even been five minutes after telling her about the light interaction that we both got a text from our third roommate in our group chat.

Another quick tidbit of context.

My third roommate, Amanda, worked for a program that connected with teenagers in the local area to create a positive community for them with different activities and resources.

It was an awesome program.

The text we got said that she was going to be bringing over one of her students who was having a particularly rough time in her life and was in need of extra support. When I read the message, I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach and I responded, is her name Raven? Yes, was the response.
Oh, wow. Isn't that insane? That is.
I was waiting. I was like, don't tell me.
Who's Raven? Don't tell me. Hey, weirdos.
I'm Lindsey Graham from the podcast American History Tellers. And if you're still reeling from Ash and Elena's episode on the Boston molasses disaster, and you want to dive even deeper, you're in luck.
My show doesn't usually venture too far into the spooky or creepy, but we've dedicated two full episodes to uncovering fascinating details about this bizarre molasses catastrophe. From the company's negligence to the victim's harrowing stories, we explore how this strange event reshaped industrial safety laws and left an indelible mark on Boston's history.
And the Boston molasses disaster is just one of many fascinating stories waiting for you on American History Tellers. We take you to the events, the times, and the people that shaped our nation and show you how our history affected them, their families, and affects you today.
Follow American History Tellers on the Wondery app or wherever you catch your podcasts. Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to both American History Tellers and Morbid early and ad-free.
Start your free trial on the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify today. As I read the message, I collapsed in a heap on the ground and I started to sob uncontrollably.
I was overwhelmed with the feeling of grief and loss. Raven had been a student of Amanda's for some years now, but only had recently lost her mother unexpectedly to an overdose while she was at a party in another state.
Raven was devastated and at the age of 18 was left with nothing and nowhere to go.

The amount of desperation I was experiencing was indescribable, like the desperation of a mother who left her baby too soon and was doing anything she could to tell her that everything was going to be okay. the feeling was so intense that i could barely catch my breath and as i remembered that raven was currently on her way to our apartment i couldn't bear the thought of even being in the

same room with her let alone meeting her for the first time and freaking her out by explaining to

her that i'm sobbing and snotty because her late mother was trying to channel through me like what the actual fuck. Oh my god.
The entire time Raven had been over that evening, I was in the next room weeping. I didn't get any other messages from Raven's mother.
However, I came to learn later on that Raven was a caretakeraker of sorts for her which lined up with the narrative for my vision i feel the king leaving the castle was representative of her mom leaving home his breaking through the ice was the tragic event ending in her loss and the appearance of the woman represented her longing to be with raven again wow a stretch perhaps but i needed some way of rationalizing it. No, I think it makes sense.

I don't think it's a stretch.

I told her about the experience eventually, and while she was a little weirded out because she didn't consider herself spiritual at the time, she was very comforted by the sentiment of her mother still being around her.

Raven moved in with us a few months later, and we all became one big happy family for a while.

Things didn't exactly end on a super cheeky note in the household by the time I moved away, but Raven and I remain close and we chat as often as we can. Oh, I love that.
I know. I try to tell her every time we talk how proud I am of her and that no matter what, I will always be there for her.
After all, I think that's exactly why her mother came to me in the first place. She needed to know that her precious daughter would be okay, that she had people who loved her in her life and that those people would look after her.
Today, Raven shares an apartment with Amanda and works as a store manager while pursuing modeling and fashion, and even sews her own clothes. I really mean it when I say I'm so, so proud of her.
I'm proud of Raven. Me too.
As for me, I haven't dabbled so much in mediumship since that point. It reached a point for me where I had to kindly ask energies to leave me alone because I was starting to see and hear things quite constantly, creating a lot of paranoia in my daily life.
Will I ever get back into that world? Probably, just not until I'm ready. I was and still am processing a lot from that time, but hopefully I'll have more tales for you one day.
If you've made it this far, thank you so much for reading, regardless of whether it ends up on the pod. Although if it does, I got a fresh set of Fruit of the Looms ready to go for the cuck-off us that will surely be happening in my pants while I listen.
And Deb Deb, you superhero, thank you for reading through all of these. You're an angel.
I just know it. I just, she is.
She is. And with that, ladies, keep it weird, but not so weird that you accidentally channel your future roommate's dead mom while smoking way too much pot and end up talking to your light bulbs.
Or do. Do youboo do you boo-boo i love it i like it was so good damn emily right that was a good one that was really good and spooky super spooky that gave spookiness that was like wholesome spooky yeah damn all right well i think we're gonna end on listener tale dream town where I met my husband for the first time.
This one's really cool. I'm obsessed with the idea of Dreamtowns.
I know. I love a Dreamtown.
Can't stop. I love it so much.
Attached for your consideration, I've included my tale of Dreamworld and how I met my husband there. If you decide to read this tale, you may use my first name, Heather.
Heather. But please do not use any other names.
I actually left out the names of others, but attach pics and info that have the names for your eyes only. Thank you.
Which you were kind of ahead of the game telling us what we could and couldn't do with these pics. You're ahead of the whole thing.
All right. It says, Listener Tale.
Follow up to Listener Tale. Dream town.
I met my husband when we were children in the astro world, only to meet up when we were adults in this world, thousands of miles from our childhood hometowns. Isn't that fucking crazy? Whoa, that's crazy.
Says, hello, Ash and Elena, starting with the obligatory gushing over how fantastic you both are and what in that you do. You are both fantastic.
Listening to Morbid genuinely feels like sitting around talking with my besties about all things morbid and whimsical. That's exactly what we want.
It really is. So please keep doing what you do and always wishing you both the best of success in all that you do across all your lifetimes.
Thank you. Love you guys.
Well, let's get into it. I am a half-century old weird witch freak artist healer medium I'm obsessed with you.
Love. And lover of the and animals anywho i was struck by your listener tale 85 in which a listener talked about her experience with astral projection and the tree in the meadow and dreamtown i was obsessed with that one that one i think i'll remember for the rest yeah that will that changed me i've been there and met others there some of whom i ended up meeting this world, including the boy who would become a man who would eventually become my husband.

Fucking beautiful.

I'm literally like wooming.

Like beautiful.

Yeah.

Woom, woom.

Yeah.

The meadow with the weeping willow, with the orbs of light and how magical the other world is.

That is where we met.

Being able to move through the astral world and being able to shift and change things in this world is one of the greatest and freeing experiences.

It reminds me of where we go between lifetimes.

And it's one of my favorite places to be.

One can fly there, move with ease like floating, swim like a mermaid, and all the laws of physics as we know it do not seem to exist.

I want to go to there.

Let me get back up a bit and give you some context. The bulk of my most vivid astral experiences happened in my youth, teens, and early adult life.
I'm guessing I come from a long line of witches, mystics, or something weird. I've been a weirdo for as long as I can recall, and well before I even knew weirdos existed.
I've been able to see and talk with dead people before I could talk with living people. I've been lucid dreamer for as long as I can remember and well before I even knew there was a term for it.
I remember that too. I didn't know before I knew there was a term for it.
I was like, it's weird. I can do this thing.
I always used to like say like, oh, like some dreams I can control. Yeah.
Like I have a decision in my dreams. Yeah.
I have also spent much of my life having weekly, sometimes daily predictions, Everything from small acts or behaviors of another person to huge events like the tsunami in 2004 in the Indian Ocean. Damn.
Another tale for another time. That's wild.
Okay, here's my tale. My husband and I met in the astral world when we were children.
He lived on the East Coast and I on the West Coast. We were kids and would meet up in the meadow with the willow tree, and I loved him instantly.
We did not know each other in the physical world. We would fly, run, laugh, and play.
We were about 10 to 12 years old. When the time would come to wake up, I hated it.
I hated leaving the astral world. I hated leaving him.
He would tell me not to worry because we would know each other again and for always. Ruin me.
Literally ruin me. One of the times when we met by the tree, he tried to give me his phone number.
It would try to tell me where he lived in the physical world. It was always so hard to understand each other when we tried to talk of the physical world.
Like our voices would get drowned out in a sudden roar of wind, or one of us would just disappear slash wake up. Each time we tried to talk about finding each other in the physical world, the astral world would feel heavy and grow darker, less fun.
What would end up being one of the last times we would see each other in the astral world, he had me memorize his phone number, a landline as cell phones were not a thing yet. I know I'm ancient, girl, I feel it.
The world would shift and turn heavy slash darker when we would try to talk about how to find each other in the physical world. So it was really hard to remember his number, but I was determined.
I woke up with a body-wide jerk, like when you're falling in a dream and you jerk yourself awake. I hate that feeling.
I do too. And I instantly wrote the number down.
I was shocked and exhilarated all at the same time. I knew he was real.
He could never, we could never remember each other's names when we woke up, but I remembered the number. This is incredible.
Insane. I love it.
The scribbled number on the scrap of paper sat on my desk for days, as I was afraid to call it. It felt like we broke a major rule and somehow we would get in trouble, but I called it on a weekend and my heart raced.
My mouth went dry and felt like a bowling ball was in my stomach. It rang several times before a woman answered with a bit of a Southern accent.
I tried to speak, but fuck, I didn't know this kid's name. So what was I supposed to say? Um, hello? I'm a girl who's been visiting with a boy in an astral world.
Um, is there a boy that lives there? Yes. Yeah, I hung up, but I saved the number.
My visits in the astral world came and went, and sometimes we would see each other, and I tried to tell him. I called.
He said, I know, and don't worry. We'll be together.
Life went on, and astral projection is something that has always been a part of my existence. So want to know how and when we meet in the physical world? Yes.
Of course I do. Well, I will write more another time.
Just kidding. I was like, no.
What are you talking about? I was like, you bitch. No.
You bitch. Now you know how it feels when you end a multi-part episode on a cliffhanger.
That's when Heather's yelling at us. You bitch.
Fuck. You got me.
So fast forward 12 to 13-ish years. Why is that so funny? I'm now in my 20s, living in the PNW, attending university, Pacific Northwest, living near campus in a historically restored apartment building, I saw him.
There he was, living in a bottom floor flat. I would have to pass his window, by his window upon entering the building.
He and his housemate often had the window open during the spring and summer months, as they played their guitars, singing, smoking the devil lettuce, and living the good life. I knew when I saw him that we knew each other.
I just knew. In a very anticlimactic fashion, when we did finally speak, he gave no indication that he knew me or remembered me or wanted anything to do with me.
Ugh, instant broken heart. Right? But I didn't give up because I knew.
I remembered. The meadow and all the fun we had came washing over me.
As my friends and I started hanging out and getting to know these fly boys, it became more and more clear to me that we knew each other. But he ignored me.
I was devastated. I was so attracted to him on a soul level.
I once told my friend at the time, I'm going to have that man's babies. She turned and said, just his babies? No marriage? I just gave him a knowing smile.
Fast forwarding a bit, he finally began noticing me and talking with me. And next thing you know, we're dating.
I did straight up ask at some point, what changed? Why are you paying attention now? He replied, bro code. I was like, what the fuck does that mean? He explained that his flatmate called Dibs.
I should have been horrified that I was being seen as a possession, but I was kind of flattered. I get it.
She goes, it was the 1990s, way back in the 1990s. You know, we were not as woke then.
Once it was painfully clear I wanted nothing to do with his cringey flatmate, the bro code was dissolved. Well, as my future husband and I grew closer and closer, we shared about finding each other all those years before in the astral world.
It was an incredible night as we snuggled up as a massive storm rained down and begins sharing and remembering our otherworldly time together. This is like a movie.
I can't get over this. I love it so.
As we were talking, I got up, walked to my keepsake box, and showed him the telephone number.

Stop it.

It was his grandmother's number.

I love.

All over.

I love love.

All over.

My future husband was born and raised on the East Coast.

Hell yeah.

And was in part raised by his grandparents.

Hell.

And that is the number he gave me all those years before in the astral world we locked eyes and we knew we found each other across space and time a fucking stop i'm just like i can't i cannot fast forward to the present my beloved husband oh this is gonna oh this destroys me i'm so sorry but it's so beautiful fast forward the present. My beloved husband was killed 10 years ago, vehicular manslaughter, leaving me to raise our babies alone.
I'm going to cry. I know.
I always knew I would have his babies, and I always knew our time together would be way too short. He knew it too.
You're literally going to make Elena cry. I'm going to cry.
I'm literally about to cry. It's such a beautiful story.
But we also knew that we could find each other. I'm going to literally cry.
It's going to happen on camera. We also knew we can find each other across time and space and across lifetimes.
It's important to know that my husband and I, in our nearly 15 years together, came to discover that we remembered multiple lifetimes together. I'm sorry, I'm thinking of John.
I've never seen Elena actually be brought to tears like that. No, I know.
I'm thinking of John, and this is fucking me up. Did you see me reading the listening tales over there yesterday? I got in like a sad place.
Yes. And yes, I knew when he walked out the door on that fateful day he died that he wasn't coming home.
He knew it too. Since his death, I've been blessed with his visits and his signs to remind me that we are never that far apart.
And that we, oh, fuck. This is fucking me up.
I know. I just keep thinking of John.
I know. This is like my worst fear.
I know. That's not going to happen.
That we are never far apart. And that we will always find one another another across time, across space and lifetimes.
Ash, the way you speak of your love, Drew, reminds me of my love. Thank you for that.
Oh. Stay weird and remember our time here is beyond our control.
Make the most of your moments and remember what is real is the love we create, the love we share, and love we become. Damn, I like needed that, I think.
Yeah. that i think that was really really i love that one thing that she says what is real is the love we share create and become like damn thank you again for what you beautiful souls do thank you for what you beautiful souls seriously you bring light to the world by telling the stories of the dead of the strange and the unexplainable and those without a voice below are some photos no names but my own please if you decide to read this on the pod also i just have to say you guys are fucking gorgeous beautiful a beautiful couple that like absolutely mikey's crying over there we're all just crying about our love the only reason i'm not is because i read this yesterday and cried damn but i'm like like holy shit you clearly belong together you can see it in your eyes they're like you have soulmate eyes yeah oh my god and your kids are beautiful and they look your kids look so much like each of you it's wild like it's that was beautiful i can't even the most beautiful ever you just destroyed me heather and that was gorgeous yeah gorgeous touched me on like another level damn in me and drew's vows we lit i was like i'm not saying till death do us no like i i absolutely outright refuse to say that and we said i will find you in every lifetime yes and we say that to each other all the time yeah and i'm like no i will no i will like you're not you're not getting away from me you're not marrying anybody else in another lifetime so i got that thought out of your head and i don't cry that was a bit that's a big deal that you just got me to cry that's huge look at you you're big softy that was really good no you guys that's just like that hit me it's the cream of the crop you guys really is damn i love you guys i'm pulling this back up so i can do the not so weird no fuck i know thank you for that you're so pretty when you cry oh my god you have a pretty cry face that's so sweet you do i look oh i just burped i look crazy when i cry i have a little bit of a kim k crying face no i i was prettier when i cried when i had my botox but now what i I cried the other day and I was like, oh, it's moving.
My face is moving.

Gross.

It's supposed to. I know.
But yeah, those were beautiful. That was awesome.
And fascinating. And I want to fucking astral project so badly.
That just fucked me up. All of it.
I know. But I want to learn how to astral project like safely.
Yeah. You know, I got some books that are coming.
it hmu hit me yeah all right guys well as always we hope keep listening and we hope you keep it weird but that's something you don't check these out on youtube if you're listening these are available on video on youtube which i feel like we never say i know we always forget and definitely keep it so weird but not so weird that your mom has to have an exorcism based off a vision that she had i think you should keep it so weird that you meet your husband in a dreamland dream town and then you spend every lifetime together because that's my fucking plan yes and your fucking plan hell yeah uh definitely keep it so weird that you channel a message for a future bestie oh from their mom that's so cool and don't keep it so weird that you look at the mirror and you're gone and everything behind you is not correct. Don't do that.
Or it is correct, but you're not supposed to turn around and it's scary.

And a scary demon visits you.

Yeah, don't keep it that weird.

Don't do that.

But we love you so much.

We do.

Bye.

Bye.

We're going to sleep now. Thank you.
I'm I'm I'm I'm If you like Morbid, you can listen early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music.
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