The Reddit Files: Demons, Possesions, Spiritual Interactions

Hello everyone, and welcome to Scary Stories We Tell. I'm your host, Christashu, and I am joined by the other host of this show or one of the other hosts of the show, Emma Hellove. Hello and Emma. We're here to go back to a website that I have actually sworn off. I used to have it on my phone, the app, and I actually deleted the app off my phone because I found that I was spending too much time just scrolling through it.

So I took the sally Yeah, I'm dead serious, dead serious. I would scroll through, like, you know, whatever my for you page was, and then I would go on the person like the personals, but like the popular I guess is what? Yeah, popular, I guess personal is the for you page. So I would like scroll that and then I would scroll that. But yeah, I don't have Reddit on my phone anymore, folks, because I spent too much time doom scrolling on it, especially like during the pandemic.

It was real bad. But like more recently, I was just like my wife kind of made a decision to stop like Facebook doom scrolling and YouTube's doomscrowing. So I was like, you know what, I'm going to take the step to get rid of my equivalent, which is Reddit. So but hey, we're gonna talk about Reddit, so let us let us doom stroll for you. So let's just reignite your addiction.

Oh I didn't reinstall it on my phone. That's good, I refuse. I was like, there's got to be a way for me to do this without reinstalling it on my phone. So I was I was able to find the stories on my phone because Reddit has a nice way of sorting for new and top that you can still do without downloading the app. So yeah, it's pretty nice.

I don't have to download the Reddit app. Fuck you. Hell yeah, tingingrat ain't healthy. Boundaries with technology is important and are ever change agreed. Absolutely, it was important to go and read stories of people on the internet who are posting on Reddit, because otherwise we wouldn't be able to sit here and do it.

So, you know, I think that social media is a double double edged sword, and I think it is a wonderful way to connect people and share experiences and inspiration, and then there's everything awful about it as well. So I think social media is more like a double edded edge dildo. You're gonna get fucked either way if you use it or if you don't, because if you don't use it, people are gonna tell you to use it more and you're not using it enough. And then if you use it, it just feels like you're just yelling into the void and nothing is happened up to do with the dildo. You're gonna get fucked either way.

You're foled. Either way, you're fucked. If you do, you're fucked if you don't. I mean, I thought you were gonna continue with the metaphor. Oh no, it's just like you're fucked either way, like use it or not.

I think social media sucks, and I don't like I don't think anybody would disagree. I think, like you said, it's a necessary evil, but it is still evil. Like I definitely think there's good to it. I just think that the people that have continued to perpetuate its worst qualities are doing so too. Well yeah, well there, It's almost like those are the people that are the ones at the controls.

As it is, the people at the controls don't have the best intentions in mind either. Because you know, Reddit, I think is a little bit different because obviously, you know you can peruse Reddit anonymously without an account. You don't have to create an account Facebook and stuff, yet you kind of have. There's a little bit more of a you gotta get a little bit more familiar with the platform. The platform needs to get a little bit more familiar with you, as it were, because I'm just gonna wag to reguess that one of the stories, or both of the stories I'm reading, and probably both the stories you're reading are being posted on an anonymous forum because it is anonymous, and therefore it allows a level of anonymity that Facebook just doesn't provide a list for being a catfish, which is I believe against Facebook's term of services any right, I don't know.

Isn't that the real horror? Right? Well, I mean look Reddit, Look for as much as we're talking about our slash paranormal, I mean, there are so many other things on Reddit that necessitate privacy. R slash Gone wild r slash any pornography. Anything on Reddit is going, especially where it's a user uplate uploaded content.

Most people aren't showing their faces at any of this stuff. So like, Reddit is a great place for that, but redd it's a great place for sharing stories about the weird shit you see in your flat with your flat mates, because get bet you can't guess where my story takes place. I bet it takes place in a hospital. I just like that. The moment they use the word flat and flatmates, it's like, oh, so you're in the UK.

Huh, somewhere somewhere in the UK or the just a really uppity American. Yeah, I just I don't think flat is a term that Americans use even in like American cities where they have like apartment life, Like do people do people in New York call it they're flat? No? Right, Okay, I don't think so. But maybe I call it like their studios, do you?

Right? But so yeah. So on this episode of the Scary Stories we Tell, we are gonna be checking out some more are slash Paranormal, and we are gonna be talking a little bit more about user shared story. So I'm actually gonna share mine first because Emma has not only a story, but a story that has an update as well. So I'm going to share mine first.

This was posted twenty eight days later h to Our slash Paranormal by me ym nah m e r y E m n U eight Okay, I can't pronounce it better, so yeah me either. It has five hundred and thirty one up boats and it is tagged as an experience is as follows and the title is I saw myself jump off my balcony. Bye everyone. So this happened to me when I lived with a flatmate and worked nights. This one night, I came back home around two thirty am, and since my flatmate worked as ground staff and her ships rotated every week, she was supposed to be home around six thirty am that morning.

I had a private balcony. Because it was winter, I kept it closed or my room would be freezing. I lived in a place that you can get two or one degrees during winter, but that's it. So there's never any heating system in the house. But we had room heaters.

I'm assuming that's celsius. I'm yeah right. That literally wouldn't make no sense, Otherwise it will for all of us who don't use the correct measuring system. It was odd that it was open, since I remembered closing it before I left for work, but chopped it up to my flatmate. I closed the door to the balcony, turned off the white outside, and got into my usual routine of taking a bath and changing for bed.

It was about three am by then, so about half an hour's gone bye, And when I the pillow, I fell asleep immediately. Now this was out of the ordinary for me since it was since it always takes me a good hour to fall asleep. Once in bed, I didn't remember falling asleep either. I woke up about an hour later as I was really cold, and saw the door to the balcony was open again and the lights were back on. I remembered closing it and turning lights off very clearly.

From my bed, I had a diagonal view to the balcony, so I can see anyone who might be standing there. Just as I was about to get out of bed, I saw something move out of the shadows where I couldn't see and into the light. It was me written in all caps. Fuck that as like that vine fuck this shit, I'm out like y yeah, yeah, no, I'm with you one percent, like yeah we when we we'll get into it, but yeah like that's fuck no no, hip no, And it climbed onto the steel railings. Once on top, I in parentheses, she earned her neck to look back direct and smiled a little too wide for human being.

She had too many teeth. Then she jumped off the balcony down into the fog. I was frozen, not that I couldn't move, but more like I was shell shot. I got up from bed shakley after a couple of minutes, freaked out of my mind, closed the door and turned off the lights outside again. Didn't sleep for the rest of the night.

I still don't understand what I saw to this day, but it always inspires. It chilled down my back when I think back on it. I haven't seen her again since, so we always mentioned the comments here. Obviously, people engaging with our dear friend here seems to be an afab as well, since they refer to themselves in the pronoun if. She so, they're identifying as female, so let's just identify them as females.

That's the pronouns they want to use. So She in the comments responds to some people saying, someone asks, hey, did it feel sinister? She says, it don't know, but it felt sinister. Some people are saying, I don't know. I would say that's pretty sinister.

I mean again, I do like to impose our own intent on things. Is to try and humanize it. I guess, you know, like maybe again it's operating on some sort of wavelength that we don't necessarily understand. I agree with you in theory. I think you know eight times out of ten, But again I also don't know because I've never interacted with anything, especially not myself.

Some people are saying, you know, oh, you know, people here saying you're lying, You're calling you a joke, and that bothers me, Like even if it was sleep paralysis, it was still real to you. And also like people jumping to lying is also problematic, which I agree with. You see that a lot in ing in these posts where everyone's like, you know, this sounds like a plot of a movie I've seen that I can't remember the name of. You know, the immediate reaction being with some people online is always going to be discredit, discredit, discredit, discredit, And I get it. It's like it's like that person that's at a magic show, right, they want to know how it's done, and it's like, are you here to see a magic show and be entertained or here to be a dick?

Like that's right, exactly, Like and again I'm not saying people who want to know how magic is done are dickheads, because I would like to know how all magic is done, because again, I understand it's not magic, but I'm also willing and able and understanding to go along with the storyteller in the medium that they've chosen to tell a story. Some people telling stories just happened to use the medium of magic, so I don't need to have everything explained to me. Some people seem to have miss that, and with this I kind of feel the same way. Is it sleep paralysis? I have no idea.

I'm not this person. This person seems like they saw something. It's a little rough to see yourself. I will say that, did they say that anything changed? Like did they have like the curtain drown or something and it was opened.

Did they say like that the light was you know that they turned the light off and it turned on by itself or anything like that. Nope? I mean, like, I does this thing exist all of a sudden? Is the question? Right?

Like, with no warning, with no like letting you know of its presence all of a sudden, just like Jesus, what the hell? I mean? I mean, my first instinct in situations like this is to say, if you had a vivid hallucination where you know nothing else in the in the room has changed, like actually, you know I and you woke up from sleeping. I in my brain as somebody who has experiencedly paralysis, although I haven't experienced hallucinations while sleep paralysis, but I have experiencedly paralysis. I mean, they said that they didn't feel paralyzed, but it is really common for people to have scary hallucinations when they wake up at a weird time.

And it dodged the question is what it feels like because they they were like, you know, it was fruisy bruisen. I was fruisen. True. Uh, they said I was frozen, and then they clarified by saying not that I couldn't move, but more like I was shell shocked in my mind. It's like that.

That is the only thing of all of this that really put a red flag is because like to me, it's like, okay, so it's I'm not gonna say it's sleep paralysis. But if you're looking for an explanation that makes more sense to more people, that is an explanation less a kind of theory. Sleep paralysis is an explainable thing that people know exists, and it's like, that's what this You're right, that's what this sounds like. Even if you're saying like I was frozen but I could still move, it's like, hmm, I no, no, I don't know about that. Like it's it's interesting.

Did she say that she sat up or something? Or was she always laying down? She said like after several minutes she got up, Okay, I got up from bed shakily after a couple of minutes. It's kind of the next sentence passed, and that was was that after it it disappeared, or it was it was after it jumped off the balcony, and then they were frozen staring at it. And then you know, and again like they're in bed and they can see this happen.

Ro you know. So I mean, if you're laying down and you see this, after waking up again, my brain immediately goes to some kind of sleeproalysis or sleep phenomenon. You know that includes a hallucination, which is common, and it's not to say that that isn't necessarily, you know, affected by supernatural forces. Like I have no way of determining whether or not somebody else's sleep phenomenon is you know, affected by paranormal or otherwise. I'm pretty sure mine aren't.

But then again, I've never hallucinated. But well, I will say that if you were if you woke up at a weird time in the night and you were laying down and you see a weird thing, and that it's not until after you're done seeing the weird thing that you are quote unquote able to get up. In my opinion, that's some form of sleep paralysis, because for those that don't know, it's when you are in a weird like state between sleep and wakefulness. That's when sleep prolyssis happens. It's just that you're caught in a state of the in between where you become conscious of your surroundings.

However, your brain basically turns off your motor skills or should you know, your ability to move while you sleep to avoid acting out your dreams. You know, people that punch or like kick somebody in their sleep, you know, for the most part that is that that function is not functioning as it should be. But for most people, you know, if you dream that you're in a fight with somebody, you're not punching at the air in real life, and that's because of this function of the brain shutting down your ability to move to act out your dreams. And so if you're caught between this you know consciousness and still like but your body assumes that you're still asleep, that's when sleep proalysis happens. And because it's that weird in between state, you're very attuned to your subconscious which again could make you very attuned to paranormal encounters as well, because it could be just a very susceptible, vulnerable time.

I mean is it feels extremely vulnerable, and it often feels like that you have no control over the situation. And it's in bed, I mean, being in bed is just about as well, especially when you can't move like it's something for me personally that I have to will myself out of when I experience it, I basically have to convince myself to move like a toe or move a finger like I put all because the word for me personally, the worst part about sleep paralysis is that you feel like you can't breathe because you're breathing is also regulated, or it should be. When you sleep, you don't need as much oxygen. You breathe more shallow, and again, because you can't move, you can't will yourself to like take deep breath, so it feels like you're suffocating.

And that's that's the worst feeling to me, And so I panic a little bit. I'm immediately aware because it feels like I'm struggling to breathe. But I know what it is now, and if as long as I can manage to like move a toe or move a finger, I can snap myself out of it anyway. But like I said, we don't want to be those people and say it's sleep paralysis. But like, if it's not, I mean, if it's not, that's fucking horrifying.

It's some rhy mimic, some kind of like I do all or something. Yeah, I again don't want to fuck with it. Well, but again, this person wasn't necessarily doing anything to incite it, right, like it that's the thing. It's like it seemingly came out of nowhere like this RaSE, like and then I was in bed, nothing unto ward around me that I could tell is happening, and then all of a sudden, here is this thing that is presenting itself as me to me, and it's not again like to what end is my question? Like this thing just jumps off the balcony into the fog.

I don't know what else. Seems very real, it doesn't, I kind of does like romantic not like romantic and like you know, I know it's but like yeah, like it's a romantic way of telling story. I suppose jumped into it never to be seated. Yeah, I it makes me wonder what the what the intention would have been if this is paranormal, what would that intention? I mean, would it just be too scare?

Again? Presenting someone to themselves as themselves is very strange, like, h I don't know how else to describe it, Like what's the intent there to scare? To do? No, but like to scare for sure, because like being like you know, it would be like if you ran into someone who looked like you, you'd be like what the doppelgangers, unless if you're early chaplain thing where you're standing in front of the mirror doing the thing. It's like, I don't know, I don't know to what end.

I never know to what end with any of this? Right, Like that's fair? Yeah, maybe it just scare maybe, as I mean, there are a lot of entities that presumably feed off of fear. You know, if we are to go with the anecdotal evidence that we've you know, heard thus far, there are several entities that people say that they thrive and exist off of being feared cause fear, and that if you choose to not fear them, they will go away because they can't suck your energy or some shit. So you're like, they can't suck if you know what I mean.

Wow, I know, I know what you wow. But to be clear, it's like it's like the Freddy Krueger thing. I mean, that's how they deal with Freddy right at the end of the first movie. It's like I turn my back on the evil, and in turning my back on the evil, I don't give the evil power over me, right, Like that's what you're talking about here exactly. Yeah, which I don't do you believe?

I mean, I believe in that, I think up to a point. Same. I think it's for somebody that's never really had a paranormal experience. As far as I know, it's hard for me to say I believe in stations, which is like the inverse. I feel like brave people that like refuse to believe in it.

You know, I feel like they're never going to experience anything because you have to be open to it. So I feel like if you're in a mindset where you're where you literally just do not believe, you cannot father that, you think it's all absolutely bullshit, and you go out of your way to be like, I'm not fucking scared because none of this is true. I feel like you're less likely to ever encounter something because there has to be a part of you that is open to the experience because essentially it would be lifting a veil, and if you're not looking to lift that veil, then you would never see it. Well. And I also wonder because again, you and I are two people who if these experiences were to happen to us, I don't think the two of us be like bullshit, would be like, what the hell just happen?

I'd be fucking scared. The people that are like this is fucking bullshit, like there's nothing you could do to change the mind anyway, So it's like no, you know, I mean, skeptics are going to be skeptics until they're given a reason to not be a skeptic. But I don't think you or I are going to magically make that happen today or tomorrow. Like that's no, that's the thing. It's just it's it's kind of I don't know.

To quantify a lot of this through the eyes of other people, I think is always very hard, which is obviously you know why when we mentioned redd it's like we mentioned the comments because you know, like you said, people are automatically going to the deep. There's debunkers in the comments. There are like genuine empathizers and sympathizers in the comments. There are people that are just reading and letting them know what they think. But like the debunkers are very local, fair, they want to be heard right, They have a very strong opinion, and they feel like I feel like some skeptics.

It's like I don't want more people to be taken in by like and I'm I'm defending them from being taken in by you know, some some nonsense. I would view it more as a superiority complex, like you're sure, yeah, like so kind of believe in this stuff? Yeah, what are you don't? Yeah, exactly like and you know what, I'm cool and don't believe in this stuff. And that's how you know, I'm cool and better than you.

I think that that stigma has like kind of disappeared in a way thankfully now, Like you know, I think the discussion is more open. I mean, yeah, is it's still on internet forums, but I think it's more popular than ever. I mean this this place has one point one million enthusiasts is what they call them, with you know, about four almost four hundred people online right now, so I see. I don't know, as far as I know, there's only one person that I've ever seen be that way in a way that doesn't make them come off as just like a complete and total prick, And that would be a Shane from BuzzFeed on Salt. He's endearing, he is anybody else, and you'd be like, you're such a prick.

Like it's because of the dynamic between him and Ryan that I think they if not for their friendship, it wouldn't work well if it were just two dudes that are also like low key just like that also wouldn't be indertaing. What's the yeah, what's the point? Like, it's that juxtaposition of the two look right. I think for something like this, this is a great forum for it. Read it to post this kind of story.

What do I think is going on here? I had no earthly idea if there was a fucking doppelganger in my apartment jumping off the balcony and disappearing into the fog of the night, I would not live there anymore. I would move like, I would act through everything I could to not be in that space. And if I couldn't move, I would never step onto that balcony ever. Again, sound like right?

If it would take me like months to work up the courage to be able to be like, Okay, it's it's scary, is what this is? Again? Like again, I don't know if it's sleep paralysis or not. It kind of has the markers of a sleep paralysis, but at the same time, like it's also yeah, it's also like scary too, and there's no reason why it couldn't be a combination. So so I I kick it to you then, Emma, because you have a story with a follow up too, which is it?

I do well? First, we've never had a follow up come after them. I like this person's energy, especially in their follow up. You can tell that they're like a zennial. They have xenil.

She excited, so this is let I just double check that this is the first one. Yep, okay cool. So this is a post by user Lord underscore Septar and the title is long Time Haunting Suddenly escalates a little backstory to fill you all in on what's been happening. I'll start this off with the fact that I believe I've been haunted. For some of my earlier memories.

There have always been unexplainable sound, shadows, or figures in the corner of the eye. As I got older twenty two mail, I started to get used to these things since I could never confirm these things for sure, and they never seemed to try to harm me in any way. Hell, I could have just been seeing and hearing things out of paranoia for all I know. But these last two weeks, the activity is quickly ramped up since my roommate had been on vacation. I was accustomed to hearing things, but I could always blame it on my cat or dog.

But Sunday night, I was in my room watching YouTube on the PS four. I was at a party with my friend, just talking, and then I heard a very distinct why come from the outside of my cracked door. I'm staring at the opening as every hair in my body stands on end. My friend then says, hey, who was that that prompted me to jump out of bed and get my knife. I'm explaining to my friend that I have no idea who that was, and I think someone's in my house.

The whole time, I'm just fixed on this cracked open door, with a terrible feeling that something bad is about to happen at any second. Then suddenly the bad feeling is gone, and I gathered my courage and rush into the hallway and turn on the light. I didn't see anything. I searched the rest of the house and see nothing. He said he heard it, and we both came to the conclusion that it had to be my cat making a weird noise.

He's making weird ones all the time, but never like that. But I was ready to leave it at that. Two days later, Tuesday night, I'm watching YouTube again, this time with the door locked and closed. It was opened because it gets hot in my room if the door is closed, but I didn't care. I was spooked.

So I'm watching a pro game match. At the end of the video, they add time to keep you from guessing the winner of the match early by looking at the time left in the video. I ended up zozing off pretty early in the video. Up some time later, and I'm just listening to this match for a few minutes to see how everything is going. I realized I never get back to sleep if I kept listening, so I decided to turn off the TV and go to bed.

I turn around, eyes closed, because I didn't want to wake up fully, find the remote on the nightstand and try to turn it off. It wasn't working, so I figured I left a controller in front of the censor again and prepared myself to open my eyes in an exaggerated fashion. When I open them, I see this figure standing in front of the TV. I couldn't tell if it was looking at the TV or at me. It looked like a black stick figure, but like a head full of long, straight black hair.

It was probably about four feet tall. In utter shock, I just laid there looking at this thing. Time goes on and on and it doesn't move a muscle, and neither did I. I felt like if I moved something, something bad would happen, so I continued to stare at the back or front of its head, still not sure where it's looking. A few minutes go by, and I realized the match is complete from the black screen, and the black screen is about to pop up in the next few minutes.

I had no idea what I should do. About ten minutes since I noticed this thing and it hasn't moved an inch, but my fear only increased. Out of panic, I called out to it and I screamed, who are you? I got no response. It continued just standing there.

I'm still not sure what it's looking at. At this point I could no longer bear to look at it. I closed my eyes and rolled back over, turning my back to it. In the next few minutes, the match was over and it was silent. I heard no sound of it moving, but I once again had that feeling if I turned to look I would regret it, so I laid there, pretending to be asleep.

Well, every sense was on high alert. I was starting to think it was gone when I had this overwhelming sense of presence, like someone was standing right behind me. I then felt little pricks on the side of my face that's not on the pillow. It felt like hair. The mental image I came up with from this information almost caused me to start bawling.

I was starting to think I was going to die, but I didn't want to look at it. I was afraid of what I would see. So I laid there still as a corpse, and I heard a faint alice and the feeling vanished just like that. Still stricken with fear, I didn't dare open my eyes. I ended up falling back to sleep.

I had a confusing dream that I'll talk about if you all want me to. But I'm not sure what I did to cause this to suddenly start getting so serious, or if I'm starting to get sick with some sort of mental illness. Let me know, this doesn't live here anymore. She just said, house doesn't live there anymore. You did it?

Oh boy? Uh? This is very similar to what we just talked about with my story, and I will say the difference though, is that he was able to pull himself up enough to grab the remote roll over. That's not paralysis. Now.

It could still be hallucination, but it was not paralysis that I can be sure of. Yeah, but I was hallucination. Any better of an option than paralysis is my question? Because, like like a waking lucid hallucination, like those are exceedingly rare unless you're like, you know, unless you have another underlying mental condition like schizophrenia or something like lucid hallucinations, unless you're like onto something are not right, that's normally localized to like severe mental illness or severe stress. But even so, to be staring at this thing for ten minutes.

Yeah, But we watched Skin of a RNK together. Remember there were plenty of times where we're watching it and I was like, is there a face? Do you see a face? It's like, how much of it is just cynathesia right where It's like I'm saying the thing because like look, it's like I mean, look if you look in the corner just right. And I've seen horror movies just like you have.

I've seen The Conjuring. The Conjuring two plays with like dark corners in movies better than like any other movie I've seen. And it's like I'm looking into the corner and is there something there? Because that girl is going there's something there. I could set see its eyes.

I've seen that scene a million times and it's like that's from the first one and it's Jolie king screaming that like the top of her lungs, and I'd never like paused it and like turn the brightness up to see if there's anything there. But that feeling that it evokes is so universal of like the monster under the bed, the thing in the closet, like the dark corner of your room, and so like, I've got a wonder if part of it's just like I'm seeing like you said, maybe it's a hallucination in the sense of like I'm seeing what I want to see, which is something scary, right, I mean it's angel in the corner. You're gonna see something scary. Nobody ever sees anything not scary, like of course, because we're we're evolutionarily predisposed to that, correct, Like that is a survival instinct to constantly be on the lookout for danger at night, Like we're not constantly looking out for nice things at night, Like, no, what could come at night is monsters from the wild coming into your cave, sneaking in like the monsters in the night and dragging you out and eating you.

Because nature's metal as fucking it doesn't care. It will not feel bad for you if you're its meal, So it yeah, And to me, it's like that evolutionary idea of like the dark is scary, Like in my mind, it's a little bit of like the same thing of like death, right, Like why is death scary? It's because we don't understand it, Like the dark ist scary because we don't understand it. But I don't think that actually makes it scary, right, Like, it's just that's our interpretation, right, I guess going back to the story, what is my sticking point in this is the fact that he turns away he feels the pin pricks of potentially like hair on his cheek because he described this figure as having just hair, just like it was a stick basically essentially a stick figure with hair, right, and whispering alice like that, that must have been fucking horrifying, whether it's a lucation or not fucking terrified.

Agreed. I mean, that's that's the thing. I mean. Similar to my story, it's like, you know, I guarantee you experience something, because you don't just can cock this shit out of nowhere like this, you're being specific enough for me to believe that you experienced this, or I believe you experienced it for sure, Like I'm with you. The stick figure thing.

When I was first reading this through and like vetting it, I was like, Okay, all right, this is kind of stupid, And then I kept reading it and I was like hooked, and I'm like, I didn't I don't know if they can appear in that form, but why the fuck not? Well, I honestly like you're you know, you bring up a good point, like the stick figure thing is kind of dopey. It is like I don't I don't know how to I don't know how to kind of deal with that in the juxtaposition of this like pretty good story about someone interacting with like a being in the corner of their eye, out of their peripheral at night, Like I don't know how to like square that. Why would you make that up? Like why that?

Well? Why a stick figure? Though? Like what is that? What is that?

Like? I don't understand is my question? Like what what? Like I don't get it. I'm imagining like the pipe cleaner monster from the back rooms.

I'm I'm imagining like a literal like stick figure, Like, no, do you know what I'm talking about? I do not. I look at a stick figure is pretty unambiguous. Do you know what I mean? I mean, that's why they're using the term stick figure, because it's like it's a universal term that we can all understand, which is a you know, a ball for ahead, and then legs and arms that are literally straight lines.

Like whether or not it's a straight line across for arms or two lines for arms is unimportant. A stick figure is about as universal as I don't know, it's pretty universal, I feel. But that's such a weird thing to see. Did you look into like if there were other people seeing similar descriptors of things like stick men? Is that a thing?

Because because like the man with the dark hat is you're right, that right, like the man with the man with the flodora that's essentially backlit. That's a thing. I mean, that's just what I was thinking of. Oh interesting, okay, I mean yeah, okay, I can kind of say it looks tiny though, yeah, I mean like human size. No, it's it's supposed to be, like I'm assuming, like eight feet tall or tall.

And the perspective is weird. The whole point of like the back rooms is as supposed to be like a liminal walk through type space. So the perspective is a little wonky, but like that's supposed to be like far away, it's just like a lot of winding corridors. Seems like this is in that same camp of the man with the hat, Like you're seeing a thing that's scary and in the dark, and you can't tell me what it is. And I bet that there are other people who have seen similar things to this right in is it sleep paralysis?

No, but here's the thing in The Nightmare, the documentary by Rodney Asher, all about sleep paralysis, which is fucking scary on its own, Like it's a scary documentary. It's just like not a thing like he's scary. I mean, it's not like it's something that like if you watch it in the right setting, it's scary as fuck, like as scary as a whore movie. I'm not. I'm like, not a joke on sleep parowsons.

Yeah, yes, it's called The Nightmare. It's really good. It's really scary. Uh. Just the way he shoots it is just he makes it beel like you're in the sleep paralysis with them, because he like recreates the sleep paralysis the way they describe it.

With the people who are describing here, it has shitty rating on like everything. Ratings are unimportant. I know ratings are important when it comes to documentaries because it's it's such a specific art style that like some people are just not gonna vibe with it, and he's doing something weird. He's really mixing the idea of what a documentary can be with like horror trappings and like trying to scare you. But it I bet that people didn't like it because they were like, why are you doing like jump scare type shit in a fucking like documentary, which is fine.

I don't know the first review, it's a sentence of like one of the fucking critics, so fucking dumb. I can't wait to hear it. The nightmare is undeniably entertaining, but it's just empty calories, fucking whatever. Not everything has to have a purpose, fuckers anyway, anyway, I'm sorry, I had to shut up. It's fair.

It's fad empty calories. That's what I would describe like the Mario movie as an adult. Yeah, like it's entertainment and like that's okay, like yeah, everyone, yeah, not everything has to someone who watches more content than most people, well, I take them back as someone who watches a lot of content and has to talk about it more than most people do. Ah, Sometimes you just want to watch something that has nothing to do with anything, and it's just like reality TV. I used to hate it.

Like, there are some reality TV things that I fucking love and I will unabashedly just sit and have it on and I love it and ube out to it. Anyways, bring all that aside. In that documentary, they talk about the man with the Fedora, which is like a thing that people are seeing in their dreams, and people are seeing it across there, like people on different continents describe a similar thing. I wonder if this is like that. I genuinely wonder if this is in that sane camp, because in my mind this is sleep prolysis.

And the other thing that I would say, the reason I would go for that is in the documentary when they're recreating the sleep proalysis, one of the sleep prowsses that they recreate, it's like a fake out. The guy thinks he's woken up and it's still sleep. I have had dreamway cloops. They're not fun. So how is how does this person that this is not that?

As my question, that's a fair question. I want somebody who's the story to get to that question. But the questions, now, yeah, how did that? How do they know that they were awake? Because if you can tell, then it doesn't matter.

Have you had an experience like that before? So look, I smoke weed. Okay, so let's just get that out in the open. Oh dare you? And like, I feel like with the usage of marijuana, my like dreams have become at times more vivid and at times none at all.

It just depends like it seems to be like there's not a middle ground. And I'm not saying that there was always a middle ground with my dreams. Maybe I feel like I've always had very vivid dreams, but I've never, best I can tell, have had the I wake up and I fall back asleep thing. I've never had that. Best I can tell, I've had dreams that felt as real as life, sure, but I've never had a dream where I where you think you wake up and you're still actually dreaming.

I am not lucky enough to have had one of those weird cinematically oh oh no, oh, you're gonna tell me how terrible it is. But like I've had it twice. It feels so fucking insane that it could actually happen. But it's like it's such a trope in movies that I like, maybe it has happened to me and I just don't realize it. But you know what I mean, Like in so many movies, it's such a trope of like, am I even awake?

Like I mean, that's the thing for me, is I get the most recent time that it had happened. I might have already told you about this, already talked about it on here, but non story short. Uh, my boyfriend is staying the night and it was, you know, sometime in the morning, and I start having this you know sleep loop where I am dreaming that you know, it's morning, and I get up and I take my medication. I start heading down the stairs, and then I'm back in bed and I wake up and I take my medication and I'm going down the stairs and I wake up and I take my medication. And I'm going to like it was like that, And I could not tell you how many times it looped, but like approximate was it more that?

Was it double digits? I want to say it was like a round eight or ten. Oh, my lord, and so by the time I was actually awake, I was crying, and so like my boyfriend was like, oh my god, are you okay? What happened? And I was just like, I don't know if I'm sleeping, I don't know if I'm awake, Like it's fucking if he had to like console me and convince me that I was awake this time.

It's not fun. Well, And that's I mean, the thing that I think everybody forgets about is like in a movie, it's it has no bearing on anything. It's literally false stakes when it's taking place in your real life, in your brain. Like She's like that was so mundane too, Like it's not like it was a scary dream it but what was what scared me is that I didn't know if it would happen again, right, I wouldn't know, like how far would I get in my day? And then just to be like that is horrifying.

That in and of itself is scary. There didn't need to be a monster in the dream. It was daytime, it was morning. It was not inherently a scary dream all. It was just a very surreal, disturbing experience.

And like I said, I'm very glad that I had him there to convince me I was awake. If not for that, I probably would have had to like sit up and like watch YouTube or some shit and convince myself that I'm breaking the cycle by like being chronically online until I forget about. But luckily he was there. No, I'd excy. It's not fun.

It's not it's so fun. It sounds awful. It sounds genuinely like a terrible thing that I would not wish upon anybody. If I if I had to choose between the two like sleep paralysis, which I said I have experienced without hallucinations, or dreamwake loop, which I've had significantly less of, uh, I would pick sleep paralysis every single time. Every single time.

I would much rather like for the you know, for the twenty seconds that I'm struggling to breathe and I can't move, and how scary that is. At least it's over in like twenty to thirty seconds. I can break myself out. But I prefer that every time it because it doesn't it doesn't affect your idea of reality. That's that's the difference.

Unless if you're hallucinating, which thank god I don't, maybe it's because I have partial avantasia. Why I also wondered that because you do have that. So it's like, which is very I mean I don't have a very vivid imagination, so huh. I mean it very well could affect it anyway. But this tension is, this seems oddly well so well, and what you're describing is vivid enough where you can like tell me about it distinctly happening.

So like, I don't know. This all sounds very it's it's not scary is not the word I would use, but it's very unsettling because again, like we don't know enough about the human brain and we may never know, but like this is all contained up here, like that's it. It's just just there is external motivation happening, like stressors and other things. But like, ultimately, this is just the thing up here. Do what it's thing, whatever that thing is, because we just don't know, and that's the scary part.

That's actually the scary part because everybody has so But what I will say is that I think this follow up might make you rethink your theory. Oh boy, so again, user lord underscore Septar titled update to my post over a year ago. Hey everyone, thanks for all the feedback and help to my previous post. For anyone else, a quick TLDR of the last post is the following. Some sort of entity suddenly made itself known for seemingly no reason.

Now for what's happened? Since I love the TLDR, so like thing happened anyway, let's go yeah, get to it, man, I like this is where the gen z really starts showing for me? Was this one? Now? For what's happened since then?

For starters, my cat has passed away? Rip Pricardy piece, Like, can we just like pour one out for Priccarty? You know, I know you're a sillennial with your naming your biccardy. This is the same kind of person that has liquor bottles above their cabinets in there that makes it anyway. Secondly, nothing major had happened to me until about two hours ago.

I was coming in the house from work and was very thirsty. On the way to my room, I walked past my roommate's room and I noticed his bedding was gone, which is a side he's gone for the weekend. I grabbed my water bottle and head back to the kitchen, I fill it with water, head back to my room. On the way back, I walked past the bathroom. I had this urge of paranoia to check behind the shower curtain, so I checked to see nothing and just say out loud, imagine if there really was someone out there and they caught me black and I love it.

I love this so much. I was shaking my head, shaking my head smh. As I turned to leave the bit. I just like, I just want to picture this for a moment. This guy just being like opens up his curtain, y'all.

Imagine if this ghost fucking caught me slacking smh. Fucking the people that run up the stairs from the basement and they're like, oh my god, these I still do that. I'm gonna do that tonight. Wow. I mean fair, but it's like the same thing.

Oh for sure, you wouldn't want me to slow down on the stairs, now, what'd You're like? Yeah, I know, why not, as if you was there. So I'm shaking my head as I turned to leave the bathroom. When I turn, I think I noticed something bolt to the left side of my door forroom, which leads to my room. I didn't hear anything so I wasn't worried.

I figured if someone could move that fast and silent, I was a goner. Anyways, I love it. I love this energy. So I exit the bathroom and turn into my room. Not seeing anything out of the ordinary, I start to change close for bed.

I finished changing and turn on my TV while grabbing my PS four controller and laying onto and laying into the bed. Laying into bed, laying on bit and laying on my bed is how I'm choosing to read that. I'm scrolling You'd two, looking for something to watch when I noticed a slight movement on the ceiling. I look up, and I know this isn't going to make sense, but I saw a head peeking over the ceiling fan blades. It physically doesn't make sense to me even now, I noticed what it was, and before I could even blink, it upped behind the blade of the fan from my last major encounter.

I've decided to call it Alice, so I said, well, goodbye, Alice. I didn't have goosebum or chills, so I felt like joking around. At that time. I thought that was it. As I'm trying to fall asleep.

About fifteen minutes later, while I'm still awake. I hear my door suddenly open, which prompts me to immediately close it. This has been happening since the last major incident. My door will open for seemingly no reason during the night unless I lock it. My door is at the foot of my bed, so my door is at the foot of my bed.

It opened too far for my foot to reach, so I have to sit up to use my arm to do it. While I'm reaching, I peek outside the door, and all and all I see is the stick figure with a head full of hair in the doorway to my bathroom, literally one foot away from my doorframe. I freeze as I get chills all over my body, but only for a moment. I haven't looked directly at it, so I try to play it off like I pulled a muscle trying to stretch for the door. I don't want to repeat of last time, so I just reach for the door and close it.

This time, I lock it and try to ignore what I just saw. In my head. I'm thinking I just won, and I can't believe I really tried to play it off like I didn't see it. I lay back down and get comfy, almost immediately, I hear my door open again, this time much more slowly. I open my eyes and now it's in my doorway, just standing there.

This time I looked directly at it. It seemed like it was looking at me directly, even though I couldn't tell for sure. The chills are starting to hurt. At this point, I sit up in defiance while looking at it. It's two to three feet away from me.

My heart is absolutely racing. But I would rather do this than be in faral like last time, I say, in a calm tone of voice, go away, Alice. Almost as soon as the words leave my lips, it turns violently. Now it looked like it was looking directly at me. I didn't hear it turn, which scared me more than it should have.

I point at its face and say again, in a calm voice, go away, Alice. Next thing I know, I'm in the kitchen with my water bottle, filling it again, with no recollection of what had happened between that and now. It's almost two hours later than I remember, and now I'm very worried about what happened. I'm checking my body, checking my phone, checking the house, checking everything. Things seem normal.

I'm not sure what happened at the end. Is there anything to suggest this has happened for a reason? Did it knock me out somehow? Did it possess me? Did I think them to the stress?

Any would have a guess on what happened? Right now, I'm feeling no different than before, besides just feeling exhausted, but mostly very unsettled. Thanks for any help in advance. I know what it is now? Oh no, oh yeah, loss it really behind the ceiling fan?

I mean that. I mean, oh, you could explain it as plenty of things, but an alien makes just about as much. That's fair, I will give you that, but I do want to hear your your reasoning. Loss of time is a very common sign of abduction, like or interaction with some sort of extraterrestrial being, because often for whatever reason, they interfere with the electricity and the electronics right, so often with time loss, it's like, oh I found my like my watch stopped working too, or like the clocks ros or something like that often comes with time loss. But time loss is like is a very strong indicator of interaction with alien, alien interact heird or fourth close encounter.

Yeah, that's like it's very weird now because like putting it into perspective and kind of listening to the way they're talking about certain things, like the way that they're talking about like oh, this thing peaking out, it's like or you know this like they because they saw the thing again, right, they saw ye this they saw this, Like basically a year later they had this update. They said that for the past year though, their door has been opening unless it had been locked, except this time the door opened again after he had locked it. I mean repeat visits. I meaneah interactions are I mean Whitley Strieber, I mean his entire book Communion talks about his interactions with UFOs over like a twenty thirty year period of his life.

And they started out kind of they started out kind of inexplicable, and then you know, the older he got, the more he was able to kind of understand. Because that's the thing. The sleep paralysis documentary, The Nightmare, one of the guys in there is like, oh, it was alien At one point it's like, oh, you know, I thought I thought this was alien and it's like, no, this is not aliens, Like this is sleep paralysis. But like he made the image of a mask of what one of the things he interacted with while he was in sleep prousis as a baby, and it looked like an alien, like a like a literal gray like you and I. But here's the thing, like, I'm not willing to say that this is sleep paralysis anymore because they were standing up like if you were doing something, so this this in my mind, I think I do kind of defer straight up to like this is something something alien, something at the very least something wacky.

Like I read this update before I read the original post, so I read it out of order originally, And I definitely think installment number two is stronger than installment number one, but more of a clarifier on certain questions that needed to yeah answer. I wonder, you know, I've seen it describe sometimes like staticky, because in the Nightmare, the guy talks about like the staticky nature of these things that he's seeing. I wonder if this stick figure is like not a stick figure as much as just like the way that we're perceiving what we're seeing, like it's not a stick figure, it's like that's what it's projecting itself. And right like I don't know how that would be any less scary than like presenting itself as what it is.

But like maybe that's just the best way our eyes can perceive it as what it is. It's like trying to camouflage itself in the room as best it can. And it's like it's a it's a it's a fat it's a four fact simile of a human being. But it's like trying to disguise itself and be in the room with them. Interesting, I don't know.

Like again, if you look at it from one way, it's ghosts, but like the ghost ghosts do not explain timelags. Oh I would say demon, I'm over, I don't. I don't know, Like for even demons are like aliens. It could be like like demons have signifiers, like speaking in a language they've never known. Like thing like given demons and ghosts are very close, right, Or some sort of demonic entity, some sort of sinister entity.

Again, maybe an entity that thrives off of fear. I just I'm very proud of him for trying to act great, like kudos fucking props could not be me. I mean, I agree that like so many of these stories have someone saying like I saw a thing and then I just kind of, you know, walked away from it like this person is buck No, I confronted it, right, and like good for you, like the balls on you congratulate absolute mad lad. I want to I want to interview him. I want to know.

I want to know what's happened, big dog giggachet. Look. I mean even when I had the interactions that I've had, like I'm not facing them down, Like the time I heard the saying at night above our bed, like I did what that person did initially, and like I just I just stayed there. Just he sat there and like didn't make a noise and hoped that it would go away. It's like yeah, like like but this person's that's what i'd do, big do I go get by if you're wad bay Like oh god damn, like all right, yes, some fiery spiy shit.

I just I really think this is one of the times where it is so weird that like why would you make this up? Of all things? Like it doesn't feel like it pulls inspiration from a movie or from a book. It feels to me, it feels so specific and so weird. I don't know it this one, this one hits weird for me, and definitely like the first one you could easily write off as like a sleep sort of hallucination, this one, at most most schizophrenia.

Yeah, but that's not something you just have and don't know you I mean, I don't like, I don't know, Like it seems like such a dire thing, like schizophrenia is not something to joke about, you know what I mean, like none of it. But that being said, it did open the door. Yeah, it aliens, kid, Yeah, if they're phasing any But like what I'm saying is, like the reason why I wouldn't vote for mental health problems is because the door opened, And oh I see physical interaction. I see what. Yeah, Like when it starts interacting with your environment.

To me, that's when it's you're just seeing the door open. And that's part of their illness. Like again, like it's the whole thing of like how do you know you're awake? Like you know, right, I'm not saying that this unless this person has like a really rough case of sleep paralysis, which is what we're advocating for. If it's not these other things like they're seeing aliens every night and now they're having sleep paralysis while they're standing up, which is not possible.

So that's the thing like that, there's the part of this that's hard to kind of square away is I was at the refrigerator, and then I was in my bed, and then I was back in the kitchen again, and it's like I'm looking to see and that's a I like your response, the oh my god, aliens. What yeah, I think about I don't think about that. I really don't. It's not that I don't I get it. I think the aliens are a possible explanation, whine.

It's just not where my brain goes. But I know it's so lazy though, like it used to be the lazy choice like aliens. Like I'm like genuinely saying aliens on ironically, that's where I'm coming. So one person commented, under extreme stress and or anxiety, you can have what's called vasovagel syncope. Basically your blood pressure could have quickly tanked under the stress, causing you to black out.

So even so, I don't think that explains it. I'm trying to see if anybody else in the comments or anything interesting or helpful. Let's find something that sounds even less plausible and try to pin it on that like it just that's the way I feel about a lot of these like secondary explanations. It's like, do you understand how much of a leap this in and of itself Also is like I don't know, Like, yeah, Aliens is kind of a leap, but you know what, like when we're talking about something that's unexplained, like why is it ely? Why?

Why why is it ealy? But I don't think it is. I will say that I like this one comment that says I practice magic, and one thing I can tell you is go to God. People can say what they want to, but Jesus Christ told a lot of power. But like match of getting that as a common Yeah, there's one in every crowd, Emma, as they would say, like there's there's there's one in every crowd, regardless of eliher we are.

There's one in every crowd, and they're just so happy to be there and the prostoltize and be able to spread the message of Jesus that hey, I mean to be fair. More power to you and if you feel safe by invoking the name of Jesus Christ, then the hell, yeah, I love that for you. I just think it's really funny, so different than like rubbing a rabbit's foot. I just I love how it's like the person posting is like they must not have considered Jesus. It's like if they were, if they were going to ask Jesus for help, I think they would have done it already.

The ultimate consideration is honestly anyway, That's what I have for you. Do you want to do? You? Do you think we got to do one more? I think we're good.

You think we're good. I think so. I think the conversation was lively enough at the end of year, don't you. I think so. I think you.

Yeah, I think you brought a good story to the table that that is very engaging. Well, you didn't tell me what you thought it was. I mean, like I told you, like I mean, I'm staking my thought goes towards some sort of demonic apparition. That's my sticking with the demonic. Yeah, I mean, I definitely see where you're coming from with aliens, and I want to It's not it's not like I want to agree, but I can't.

It's just like I said something about this screams demonic and haunting, not like curiosity and probing. So do you feel like there's like an intent or does this seam ran In these cases the intent would be too scare and a lot of shadow like figures apparently at anecdotally feed off of that fear. So yeah, yeah, and maybe it was waiting, you know, for the for the roommate to to leave, so it could really capitalize on that fear of you know, this person being alone in his house. Like, I wonder if the inner actions that they've had with this thing increase in frequency when there's only them there. That's a good question because again, like you know, with Whitley Strieber's stuff and the aliens that he interacted with, they would present themselves to him, but then they started kind of getting more cavalier about it, and they would present themselves to him and other people at his house at the same time.

So it's like, I wonder if there's like a ramp up nature to this too. I mean, obviously there is, given that it didn't happen until it did, and then it just kept happening. Like that's that in and of itself is like a nature of the ramp up. But this is this is a wild one, absolutely so a good one. Good for him for having this story, and I was deeply enthralled.

I love I like his storytelling, and I I like how he accounts it it and I definitely think it's a very interesting, unique encounter. And I feel bad for him and Vert Paccardi. Yeah, I feel bad from as much as I can, but also at the same time, like they seem to have made like a level of peace with it, which, yeah, it's also a good thing. I mean, that's the thing like in either that or it's that Zenny Old denial. Yeah, but I mean looking in Whitley Strieber's book, he kind of makes peace with it.

Like by the end of the book, he's like, I kind of made peace with what's been going on and how and how I've been kind of dealing with that personally. So like I feel like for me, they've made their peace with what's going on. Like, look, you can't control this thing, and to think that you can is ridiculous in and of itself. So so way I look at it, it's like if it's gonna happen, it's gonna happen. The likelihood that it happens to you is very low.

Fair enough, but just like winning the lottery, Just like so many things like winning the lottery, you have a low percentage chance, you know, getting hit by lightning. You know, you go out in the rain storm with the umbrella ands to get up in the sky, you have a better chance of getting hit, but it doesn't guarantee that you will. And that's the thing here. It's just like, you know, maybe they were doing some sort of high risk behavior that we don't know about that they're not talking about to kind of bring these things to them, But your roommate just leaving is not I mean, I will say it looks like they're still posting. The last time they post, the last time they commented on something was forty days ago, and the update that they had was two hundred and forty one days ago.

So at least they're still alive. That's what matters to me. Agreed. Agreed, They're still kicking it, even if they have to deal with their door opening and possibly go On that lovely note, Reddit, as always is a great place for some good story. So yeah, on that note, until the next time we do another one of these.

You can find Emma and I over at Weirdingwaymedia dot com, where this podcast is readily available along with the kind of one A one B to this show Twisted and Uncorked to women who are much funnier than me, which, by the way, ain't that hard. You should go listen to their show. Listen to this show, listen to bull Show. Support everybody over Weirdingway Media because Hey, we're making content that we want to listen to. As for Emma and I, scary stories we tell can be found at scary stories weetell dot com on social media.

Everywhere you find it you have found it there before and continue to find it now like rate and review the show wherever you get it, which is more than likely iTunes are Spotify. And yeah, we'll let our good friend, the former host of Sidings, mister Tim White, lead us out. No mystery is closed to an open mind.