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Episode 21: To Sleep, Perchance to Scream...
22 Plays3 years ago
For this nightmare-inducing 21st episode we cover the crazy topic of sleep paralysis. First, Kelsey covers the science behind it all, before sharing some of the most popular sleep demons people witness all over the world. Then, Alanna shares some creepy sleep encounters from everyday people and even a few celebrity stories. Top it off with a deep dive into the Succubus and Incubus and you've got yourself a trifecta of terror!
You may rethink sleeping with the lights off after this terrifying episode.
Tags: Sleep Paralysis, Sleep Paralysis Demons, Sleep Demons, Hat Man, Cloak Man, Incubus, Succubus, The Hag, The Old Hag, The Night Hag, Pisadeira, Pesanta, Lietuvēns, Ammuttadori, Batibat, Bangungot, Lilith
linktr.ee/castlesandcryptids Website: castlesandcryptidspod.squarespace.com
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Transcript
Podcast Introduction and Community
00:00:23
Speaker
Buh buh buh cuz we're having a good time
00:00:28
Speaker
Don't stop. That's a good pump up song. Oh my god. Alright, I'm ready. Did you want to do the intro? Doesn't matter.
00:00:47
Speaker
sure i can do it i believe in myself stop her now cuz she's doing the intro oh we have fun are listening to castles and cryptids where the castles are haunted and the cryptids are cryptic as fuck
00:01:14
Speaker
then I'm Alana and I didn't mean to fuck up your intro when I was laughing. Yes, that is us and we are castles and cryptids. And I have fun thing to tell you today. I think it's fun. Today I'm wrapping one of my favorite podcasts because I got some merch for myself. Treat yourself.
00:01:40
Speaker
Oh, very cool. I am sporting a night-classy podcast t-shirt. It is pink and it says Hose for Science on it. That's wonderful. It evolved from like some sort of inside joke where he went to call them hosts and it sounded like Hose and you know it grew from there so.
00:02:07
Speaker
It makes a nice merch purchase, I must admit. That's awesome. I know, I love, I'm like, I feel like, oh, and then, so I got some other stickers too, like one says night classy and the other one says learny journey. It's got like the school bus on it, like magic school bus style. I was gonna say, that makes me think of magic school bus. Yeah, yeah, it's definitely, that was some of their inspo, I think.
00:02:37
Speaker
Yeah, they're funny girls. Yeah, I enjoy their merch. Yeah.
00:02:44
Speaker
It's nice to be like in the podcast community. Yes, you feel very welcomed. I know people are really nice. Like
Challenges of Podcasting
00:02:53
Speaker
I've had some people asking me about getting into doing their own kind of shows and you know, for like YouTube or different things and they're like, how is it? Does it take up lots of time? And I'm like, well, I don't know. It's fun, but yes, it takes up lots of time. Yeah. I was like, well, you know, it's a passion project.
00:03:14
Speaker
I think in the last two days alone, I've spent at least eight hours working on notes for two different episodes. Notes can take a while. Yeah, yeah, for sure. But yeah, I mean, usually I'll do something else while I'm doing it.
00:03:32
Speaker
have listened to something else or, you know. Yeah, I'm really distracted. I'll put on a podcast about something totally unrelated while I'm researching a podcast about something that I'm going to be covering. And then I get very confused partway through because I'm not quite paying attention to either. I
Summer Fun and Recent Topics
00:03:51
Speaker
know you should just listen to music, but you're like, no, this is going to be fun. I'm not going to laugh. Sometimes I just put on like thunderstorm sounds.
00:04:05
Speaker
oh Mila's yeah I just wanted to have a fire even if nobody else in the house wanted to have a fire because it's it's nice ASMR and visually pleasing and I oh like I said to you I wanted to be outside a lot yesterday I had a few days off I'm like give me some sun I love a good fire mm-hmm it feels like summertime I don't know yeah
00:04:33
Speaker
Well, hope everyone else is having, enjoying their summer, hot girl summer, vaxxed and waxed, as they say. Yes. Well, some people do. But I hope everyone's, you know, safe and healthy and all that. So. Yes. Gotta do what you can, even though you're on a staycation. I'm like, I gotta get at least a little bit of a tan or how can I prove that I went outside? I'm so white and pasty. Yeah, right?
00:05:04
Speaker
Well, this week. Hopefully you enjoyed last week's episode for Canadian Cryptids. We had a lot of fun.
00:05:12
Speaker
Or petty crimes, right? Oh, sorry. Yes, petty crimes. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Oh, Canadian Cryptids did come out today. That's why. That's why. Because we're recording on, yeah. I worked on the YouTube video for like an hour this morning. That's why. Oh my gosh. You have been hustling. Well, it only takes like five minutes of work, but then like an hour of processing on the video editor I use and then an hour of processing in YouTube. So just so it's in the background.
00:05:39
Speaker
Right, it's going to be different once we start doing anything like short videos. Yeah, I know really little about editing those. Woo hoo, challenge accepted. No. Maybe that'll be your job. Right? Let us know if you want to see videos.
00:06:02
Speaker
Yeah,
Exploring Sleep Paralysis
00:06:03
Speaker
so we yeah, we did cryptids and then we did petty crimes and now we are doing another paranormal Which is gotta be some of our favorites. Yeah, I think the listeners too I enjoyed my research for this one
00:06:22
Speaker
It seems to be a much requested topic. I don't know. It fascinates people. There's a lot of questions about it on the Reddit. I didn't know anything about it before I started listening to podcasts, to be honest. But I just knew like a bit from I guess like movies and TV shows that would kind of slip it in, mostly like horror movies and stuff like that. They tend to slip it in. Yeah.
00:06:50
Speaker
That's true. I can't think of any now that I had seen. Well, I know you have seen The Haunting of Hill House, so... Ah, damn it. I have to watch like both of those freaking shows because they were good, but I don't remember a ton of it. Nellie in The Haunting of Hill House, she does actually, she is diagnosed and does suffer from sleep paralysis and that's when she seems to be a neck lady.
00:07:17
Speaker
Oh, right. Yeah, which is gross. And she goes to sleep studies or I guess a sleep doctor and he teaches her about like trying to wiggle her toes or fingers and stuff to break out of it, which is actually like known treatment to break out of it. So yeah, I'd say. Oh, that's kind of cool. Yeah, she definitely suffers from sleep paralysis, even if it's not like explicitly said in the show, I don't think.
00:07:46
Speaker
Do you think they would just talk about it if so many people suffer from it? PSA, talk about sleep paralysis. Government, I guess. I know we have a pandemic on, but come on. These are the pressing issues. Today's youth are facing. All right, what else science you got? That's pretty cool.
00:08:13
Speaker
Yeah, speaking of that though, I was actually shocked at what percentage of the population actually suffers from sleep paralysis. Yeah, I feel like it was much higher than I expected too. Yeah, so I have a bit of the science of it here for anybody like myself that didn't know much about it.
00:08:33
Speaker
Little smattering of science. Just a little bit. So paralysis occurs in approximately 8% of the population. So almost one in 10 people. Wow, yeah. Yeah, which is way higher than I ever would have thought. Yeah, because no one talks about it. Yeah. Other than on podcasts and Reddit, I guess.
00:08:58
Speaker
It seems to me anyway. Maybe just no one in my circles ever suffered from it, really. Have you ever had it? No. No, me neither. Not that I ever recall, anyway. Yeah, so it can occur really at any age, but normal symptoms start typically in childhood, and it often becomes more frequent in somebody's 20s or 30s. Oh.
00:09:24
Speaker
Yeah. So it can start in your 20s or 30s? It can. Typically it's gonna start in like really early childhood like when you're under 10 and then become more frequent in your 20s and 30s but it can be triggered by like stress and poor sleeping and a bunch of other reasons we'll get into so really anybody could suffer from this given the right circumstances.
00:09:51
Speaker
Ew. I was hoping the chances were very low, so. But yeah. It blurs the line between being asleep and awake, and it's the temporary inability to move that occurs right after somebody falls asleep or right when they're waking up. So. Right. Okay. Yeah. Because it's your, your body's supposed to do that. Yes. For a bit anyway.
00:10:21
Speaker
People are typically aware during these episodes and they can experience hallucinations and even the sensation of being suffocated, which is just horrible. Yeah, I don't like that one. None of them are great options, but suffocation's gotta be the worst. It's part of something called the parasomnias, which are any sort of abnormal behaviors during sleep. Oh.
00:10:52
Speaker
There are some weird ones other than sleepwalking. I was thinking of Phil on Modern Family because he's something like somnamorousness is a real problem. Like it's like cuddling and being romantic. Asleep and stuff. I hope it's a real thing but it's funny.
00:11:18
Speaker
So it's a condition identified by a brief loss of muscle control known as atonia, atonia.
00:11:29
Speaker
Okay. And that's the standard REM sleep involves vivid dreams and Tonia working to prevent a person from acting out their dreams. So Tonia is like what stops you from I guess when you're dreaming of like running that your legs wouldn't actually be moving.
00:11:54
Speaker
okay that's the name for the function that prevents that okay cool yeah because i had heard about that that it had to do with yeah what stops you from acting at your dreams and i was like cool that makes sense yeah in like sleep paralysis somebody like wakes up but their atonia is that's supposed to stop when somebody wakes up
00:12:15
Speaker
it actually continues making them unaware of the... or sorry, atonia typically stops as soon as someone wakes up making them unaware that they while sleeping have a loss of muscle control but in sleep paralysis a person continues to experience atonia even after they have woken up and it mixes with the vivid imagery of the regular like REM sleep cycle
00:12:39
Speaker
So when somebody wakes up they're supposed to regain control of their body but in sleep paralysis they don't and then they still kind of continue to be out of it and experience a REM sleep which is what causes the hallucinations.
00:12:59
Speaker
That makes sense also. It seems like a direct correlation. But your eyes are open and you can see. So it's like you're asleep and awake at the same time you're awake and that you can see your room, but half your brain is asleep and it's dreaming. So it's adding things to your room if you want to think about it that way. And then because it doesn't go away, you're also paralyzed at the same time.
00:13:22
Speaker
And you're like, and I'm having a nightmare. Great. Like a living nightmare. Yeah. A living nightmare. Oh, you don't like it. No, this is like awful. It's it sounds bad, but it's my worst nightmare is sleep paralysis. Oh, feel bad for all you guys out there that have to deal with it. Like hopefully it's a rare thing. Is it rare?
00:13:53
Speaker
No, no, but I wonder I'm not sure if people all experience it all the time or just sometimes Like did you do anything? I do have some of that. There's like two categories. We'll get into a bit later Okay
00:14:11
Speaker
So an estimated 75% of sleep paralysis episodes involve hallucinations, which can be visual, auditory, or sensory. Sorry, what percent? I'm sorry. 75%. Oh, Jesus. Okay. So they kind of fall into three categories, which most sleep paralysis stories are also going to be able to be classified under.
00:14:38
Speaker
So the first category of hallucinations are called intruder hallucinations and they involve the perception of a dangerous person or presence in the room. And the second category is just classified as chest pressure hallucinations or they're also called incubus hallucinations and they can incite a feeling of suffocation.
00:15:06
Speaker
Oh, but they're also called Incubus? Yeah, that's actually the name of the classification, interestingly enough. Eww, again. Cuz, yeah. You know, Incubus, we'll get to it, but sleep demons, no! Yeah! Feeling like you're suffocating, that means something's like, feeling like it's sitting on your chest or whatever. We'll get into a lot of that later on in my segment. No thanks, I'm done.
00:15:36
Speaker
I quit the podcast. Carry on. The third classification is called vestibular motor or VM hallucinations. That one just sounds super sciency compared to the others, but you got incubice, you got intruder, and then you got vestibular motor.
00:16:00
Speaker
So they include the feelings of movement. So these are things like somebody feeling like they're flying, falling, spinning, or any sort of out of body sensations. Oh, that's unsettling. Yeah. So around 90% of all sleep paralysis episodes are associated with some sort of fear.
00:16:28
Speaker
Um, but some people do actually experience pleasant or blissful hallucinations. I'd like to hear some of those stories. I will. Be careful what you wish for.
00:16:44
Speaker
oh my god so okay so they're just saying that they're not all it's like dreams they're not all horrifying nightmares so this is like your dreams or subconscious sleeping through yeah then it's like also a variety if you will and episodes kind of vary in length they can last for even just a few seconds or up to even 20 minutes long but the average is six to seven minutes
00:17:13
Speaker
which is still long. Oh, no. Yeah. It is. It really is. That's seven minutes too long. Yeah. Most episodes end on their own, but they can be interrupted by another person's touch or voice or even by the individual's intense effort to move. So say like a finger or your toes, and that can overcome the atonia that the person is experiencing.
00:17:41
Speaker
Oh my. And you can pretend you're Uma Thurman and kill Bill as you do it when you're like, wiggle your big toe. We just rewatched that the other day and she came out of her coma, remember? It's a great movie. That's happening when she's in the car, isn't it? Yes, in the pussy wagon that she stole from Buck who likes to fuck that piece of shit. Great movie, guys.
00:18:09
Speaker
Most people I'm sure have seen it, but yeah. So for causes, the exact cause of sleep paralysis is unknown, but other sleep-related disorders such as sleep apnea, insomnia, people, even people that have circadian rhythm issues,
00:18:28
Speaker
And sadly enough to break the news do you have people suffering from jet lag, sleeping on your back, stress, people who work shift work, or even people who often experience nighttime leg cramping are more likely to experience sleep paralysis. Aww, so that's a lot of factors. Yeah, right? Like shift work and stress, sleeping on your back was brought up a lot.
00:18:58
Speaker
Exactly you're like, yeah, I've heard the sleeping on your back or with your Was it sleeping in your back with your hands above your head? I don't know. But yeah it's just like yeah, or who doesn't have stress or
00:19:10
Speaker
I forget what the other one that I identified with a lot of those Nighttime leg cramp now every time that happens. I'm just gonna be like yes Sometimes I think I get almost a little bit of that restless leg syndrome where I'm like oh I've just squeeze my leg muscles
00:19:28
Speaker
I've woken up before with Charlie horses in my legs, like in my calves, and I've woken up multiple times with them in both legs at the exact same time. So as soon as I did my research and that came up, I was horrified that I was going to end up with sleep paralysis. You're like my legs have sleep paralysis. Oh dear.
00:19:49
Speaker
So mental health conditions can also increase a risk. So things like anxiety disorders, PTSD, people who have experienced sexual abuse or physical or emotional distress. And then it's also believed that a family history of sleep paralysis could also play a part. Interesting.
00:20:14
Speaker
What if the person with PTSD doesn't dream? Cuz. Just thinking of- Then I'd say it's probably pretty unlikely. But then I'd say the REM cycle is probably not at like a level that it has to be to produce hallucinations.
00:20:34
Speaker
Yeah, because Pat doesn't dream. He doesn't remember any of his dreams anymore. Or I don't know if he ever did before he had PTSD, but yeah. Interesting. Well, it's said even that on average you only remember a really low amount of actual dreams.
00:20:53
Speaker
And your REM cycle out of an entire night's sleep in my research, I don't think I have it in my notes, but I think it came across saying that your REM cycle is an active part of you dreaming is only about an hour and a half of you during your actual sleep cycle.
00:21:10
Speaker
right it's a if you're sleeping for eight hours and the dreaming portion is only going to be an hour and a half it's not the biggest portion or like the most memorable thing for you to remember when you wake up i guess yeah but they feel long when you're in them yeah they can they feel like they last the whole night when you actually remember them yeah you're like what the hell and then we did this and then you try and remember and it fades away yeah
00:21:38
Speaker
Like there was a baby and I rescued a dog, like I don't know. Timmy fell down a wall. So my last little section for science is about some treatment. So sleep paralysis usually doesn't happen frequently enough to cause any sort of significant health problems, which is great news.
00:22:06
Speaker
Yeah, I haven't heard of anything like any super horrifying cases where it's like every night. Yeah. However, somebody associating like sleep with sleep paralysis can cause like a negative association. So they can associate it with going to sleep, going to bed, it can provoke anxiety around bedtime, making it harder for an individual to fall asleep and may lead to sleep deprivation.
00:22:36
Speaker
I could see that. Extreme cases. Yeah, for sure. It's gotta be terrifying. Everyone says it is.
00:22:45
Speaker
Online it said practicing a healthy bedtime routine can improve sleep and help prevent episodes. That's just the answer to everything. A healthy bedtime routine will help you with this, this, this. Good luck! No, but I remember I read one of Jordan Peterson's book about 10 rules for life or whatever and I think he said more and he put more emphasis on getting up at the same time.
00:23:13
Speaker
that it's something about getting up at the same time can really um yeah set your cycles right or whatever like he's like even if you stay up a little bit too late but like try and get up at the same time i was like that's interesting like yeah but sense that you would want to pay attention to both yeah but that's hard i can't do that
00:23:39
Speaker
can't go to bed it's like 12 31 130 like I don't know what I'm gonna get to bed it's gonna be whenever I can finally stop thinking and I'm the I'm the opposite I'm the one that loves to sleep so this is my worst nightmare because sleeping is my favorite thing on earth
00:23:56
Speaker
Oh, I love to sleep in. Who doesn't love to sleep, right? Well, this whole week I've been having to get up at 5 a.m. for a week, for a week, for work, and she's tired.
00:24:11
Speaker
And when I came home from work yesterday, I managed to stay awake for a couple hours, worked on some stuff for the podcast, and then was like, you know what? I'm just going to go take a nap. And I set a timer for an hour and 15 minutes later. I was like, I'm going to sleep for like a little over an hour. Well, as soon as that alarm went off, I
00:24:32
Speaker
put it on silence and then rolled over slept for another hour and then woke up about an hour later and then looked at the time and was like I could do another hour so I went to sleep for another hour so I had a three hour nap in the middle of the day yesterday and it was amazing and then I still went to sleep at like 10 o'clock
00:24:51
Speaker
Yeah, your body needed it then for sure for sure slept until What I yeah, I slept until 8 a.m. And then didn't get out of bed until 9 a.m. This morning. So I just slept like You're like finally And I do it all yeah
00:25:14
Speaker
Oh, and that's what'll happen too to me. Like if I, you know, I do go to bed late and then sometimes I end up making up for it on the weekend because I will get up at like 10 or whatever. You know, goddamn sleep. They still don't know why we need it, but we seem to like it a lot.
00:25:31
Speaker
So science
Cultural Interpretations of Sleep Demons
00:25:32
Speaker
can help people understand their experience with sleep paralysis, but it can't explain everything. So it can't explain the demons seen for centuries around the world described by both adults and children in almost exactly the same way. So that brings us into, we're gonna talk about a whole bunch of sleep demons that I researched
00:25:58
Speaker
I don't need to know that there's a whole bunch. I'm fine with one or two. I'd say 90% of them are the same one. Just different cultures around the world have slightly different variations and names. So I'm going to cover all of those or a handful of those at the end. Okay.
00:26:17
Speaker
starting for the sleep demons it's actually interesting to know and I didn't know this before that the in old English the name for the sleep demons was actually a mare m-a-r-e or mare spelled m-a-e-r-e and that is believed to be the mare part of nightmare
00:26:40
Speaker
Yes! I feel like I've heard like run across that once and thought I was like that's cool! I like it. So different cultures around the world have many different demons and names based on their culture, slightly different beliefs and slightly for one of them it's like slightly different variations but cultural explanations try to account for the terrifying experiences that these people have.
00:27:07
Speaker
The first one, some of these are really short. The first one I have is really really short and it has to do with the Inuit culture. In my research it said that people talk to shamans who cast spells when someone is sleeping.
00:27:28
Speaker
And this makes the person unable to move, talk, or scream, and then they are visited by a shapeless or faceless presence. So that was kind of interesting because that was like a spell cast on you. Or like... Eww. Faceless also. This is gross. I don't know if this one was the inspiration.
00:27:52
Speaker
or the hat man from the Haunting of Hill House but there is a sleep demon called the hat man or the cloak man people believe they're pretty much the same one even though their appearance varies slightly mm-hmm I've heard I've heard of this one yeah and and definitely some people do see it a little differently even I think even in the same room or whatever sometimes oh wow
00:28:19
Speaker
yeah not that i have a story like that that i have written down but i feel like i was like yeah it was like a brother and sister or something and they're like i saw one with like a cloak and the other one was like i saw him with a long coat coat yeah words are hard so hat man cloak man whatever you want to call him they're believed to be the same creature with two different appearances
00:28:44
Speaker
and it's described as human-like shadow wearing a Quaker hat or a cloak and has yellow snake-like eyes. Eww, gross. Like the yellow-eyed demon on Supernatural. Yes, right? Afton stands in the corner of a room or paces. I don't know which ones were. It's probably just standing there. Especially if it's rocking back and forth.
00:29:14
Speaker
I don't even like it when humans stand there and stare at me. So yeah, that's pretty gross. Yeah, so kind of interesting. There's two different takes on this like slave demon. So some people say that it comes and warns them of an imminent danger and is trying to help them. While others say it's like malevolent and they feel like waves of like bad energy coming off of it.
00:29:44
Speaker
weird maybe maybe there's a good man a good hat man and a bad hat man oh my god i don't know it's reported he sometimes appears with a shadow child
00:29:59
Speaker
who is the shadow child is slightly more shapeless and seems to only really solidify in corners of the room or at the foot of the bed. People say they feel like the reason why they think it's a child is they feel a child like curiosity or shyness coming from the smaller shadow. And some have even reported hearing a garbled song or rhyme that it sings.
00:30:29
Speaker
which is creepy. It's all so very creepy. I don't like that. The hat man is often benevolent when appearing side by side with the child and people experience feelings of like protection and safety when they show up as a pair.
00:30:52
Speaker
so I guess it seems like a better spirit when it's with the child. Some articles even said that they report it feeling like a paternal or like an uncle, like familial relationship between the two. Huh, let's hope for that in a good way. The child rarely appears by itself, which is also interesting, but when it does, it's reported that the child spirit
00:31:21
Speaker
often jumps on a person's bed and then kind of like crawls up them which sounds horrifying but apparently it likes to tangle its little hands into the person's hair and kind of play with their hair but it sounds horrible and isn't like grabbing or pulling it's doing it like playfully like babies do
00:31:42
Speaker
What? So we're holding like a little kid and the kid starts playing or the baby starts playing with your hair and stuff. It's not grabbing at it or trying to like cause you harm. People are pretty specific about that. Oh, he just wants you to be his mommy. Make you a shadow family. Like I feel bad if it's a ghost of some little boy, right? I'm like, okay.
00:32:11
Speaker
I don't want to be your mommy. Please be nice. You can be here, but please, please don't do that. You're scaring me. I don't want to be your mommy. Don't make it angry, Kelsey. I did find a little quote. This is from the amhsnewspaper.com. Oh, of course. A maths?
00:32:40
Speaker
Wait, AMHS. Never mind. I'll just put a whole lot of extra letters in there.
00:32:50
Speaker
So this is, I just copied this paragraph exactly how they had it written. So they said when asked about their supposed imaginary friend, children up to the age of five often describe a figure very near the hat man, as did a young boy in Missouri. So he's quoted as saying that man when his father asked who he was talking to, cheerfully pointing at an empty chair,
00:33:17
Speaker
when asked what the man looks like the boy said a big dark man with a big coat he watches me when you're away because he doesn't want me to be lonely he says i can play with his pets but i can't ever ever try to see his face he says bad things will happen to you and mommy if i do oh great so great that's lovely carry on timmy
00:33:44
Speaker
Why
Incubus, Succubus, and Folklore
00:33:45
Speaker
can't they see his face? If he's so helpful. Yeah, that's very strange to me. So then next we're gonna talk about briefly and I don't know if you have a story to share later, others are not, but it's about the incubus or succubus. Yeah stories, a little bit history too. Perfect.
00:34:13
Speaker
Incubus is the male form of a demon who lies upon sleeping women in order to engage in sexual activity with them It's paranormal activity the porn version
00:34:26
Speaker
sexual activity in cubus i don't know i got nothing i'm sorry carry on the female's form is called the succubus stories of them have been told for centuries with sexual with sexual activity with them reported to cause deterioration of health an impaired mental state or even leading to death oh whoa yeah
00:34:54
Speaker
Yeah, while other times it causes a child to be born part human and part demon. In the source I found it says that they're believed to use one of two methods to impregnate a woman. First, to steal the sperm out of a dead man and deliver it into a woman. This one seems a little more interesting to me. I don't know.
00:35:19
Speaker
But it's also not for involved. That's probably the more common theory because the first one was not the one I've heard. The dead, yeah, dead man, gentleman's relish. Nope, I don't like that. Yeah, so you're right. This one seems to be the more common one. And this method is the idea that a dead body could be possessed by a devil causing it to rise and have sexual
00:35:44
Speaker
relations with others. This is similar to depictions of revenants or vampires.
00:35:51
Speaker
So what? Back a long time ago, that's what their second theory was on how this happens, but now that theory has kind of evolved into believing that they first engage in sexual activity with a man to get the human seed, and that they use their dark power to strengthen the seed to guarantee pregnancy, and then they kind of shapeshift or change into the
00:36:19
Speaker
incubus the man version and then the spirit and then they sleep with the woman and then the spirit's offspring were thought to be of supernatural origin yes yeah surprisingly the yeah that crazier one is the one i've heard the most right i mean i guess it's not crazier it's like they're just like we don't want to need to involve a corpse we'll just do it ourselves yeah between the incubus and the succubus or i guess they can go between them usually yeah
00:36:49
Speaker
the one was saying that they it's now I guess more believed that they're the same entity and it's pretty much genderless I guess and can form whatever sexual organs I guess it needs to get the job done yeah it just switches back and forth yeah just a little like you know those weird animals in the animal kingdom that are like
00:37:11
Speaker
clownfish so like wait you need to be a male today because we need to have more offspring sorry yeah so that brings us those were kind of like some of the more common ones the rest of it is all pretty much variations of the same one called the hag the old hag the old night hag the night hag whatever you want to call her
00:37:38
Speaker
that's pretty much what she's called in North America the beautiful maiden that's what I want to call her but apparently it's gonna be like the woman in the shining instead just all sores all over her and like lanky hair and shit when you when you're already kissing her
00:38:02
Speaker
Yeah. So the hag, or the night hag, is a ghastly old woman who stands over the sleeping person or sits on their chest. No. No thanks. Hard pass. She even covers their mouths with her reported claw-like fingers.
00:38:27
Speaker
And she is always accompanied by the feeling of choking or a person's chest caving in.
00:38:37
Speaker
Oh, Kidoki? She has like hundreds of names around the world. The Wikipedia article for her is ridiculous. I think I went through about 45 variations of her same names and picked out a couple of them that had maybe slightly variations that sounded different. But yeah, she has like 45 names around the world.
00:39:01
Speaker
She has like 45 names. That's like insane. Then you know she's like not made up just by one culture. Yeah, and they're all virtually like within slightly variations, like 98% of what's told is virtually the same. So it's pretty crazy between like around the world. Yeah, that stuff fascinates me because you're like, okay, these cultures are so different.
00:39:29
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. So within the U.S. and Canada, as I said, she's called the Hague, the Night Hague, the Old Hague. She reportedly leaves her physical body during the night and sits on people's chests. And back a long time ago, they actually said nightmares that you had when she was visiting were called being Hague-ridden.
00:39:56
Speaker
Yeah, or witchridden. In some cultures they called it witchridden, but hagridden was more common. Because she sits on your chest and people said equated it to her riding like a horse. So you're being hagridden.
00:40:13
Speaker
Are they sure that's what they were talking about and not just some terribly ugly lay they had? No, that's right Pat always talks about that it's like you know that song she ain't pretty she just looks that way He's like that's so true some people
00:40:38
Speaker
I'm like, I know babe, you want a natural girl next door beauty. You don't want someone who's in the morning, their whole face is all over the pillow. Self makeup.
00:40:50
Speaker
Oh dear. So, an interesting thing I thought I'd throw out there, there isn't much on this, but I did find a little thing kind of nestled right in there about Newfoundland. What? Yeah. Newfoundland? So, Newfoundland on the island folklore, they say that the hag can be summoned and used to attack a third party like a curse. So I don't know what's going on in Newfoundland.
00:41:17
Speaker
Someone's getting some revenge. And in the 1982 book, The Terror That Comes in the Night, David J. Hufford says that they believe, he like researched in Newfoundland with the folklore and everything for a long time before he did this book, and he says that they believe the way to call the Hague is to in fact say the Lord's Prayer backwards.
00:41:45
Speaker
Oh my god, I'd have to write that down. Cause like, how else would you remember it? I couldn't even recite the alphabet backwards, okay? No, and that's like part of a sobriety test, isn't it? Sometimes. I'll just be like, just give me the blow test. I'm never literally, I don't even know if I could necessarily do the alphabet backwards if I was looking at it.
00:42:08
Speaker
No, and you literally will not even like have too much to drink or whatever at my house if you're like, if it's gonna make me like too drunk in the morning. Like you're like, I will not have an ounce of an ounce, whatever, you know? I would not have one alcohol.
00:42:25
Speaker
I will not have one alcohol in my bloodstream. That brings us into a handful of variations of the hag around the world that I thought were kind of the most interesting. The hag variants. You don't watch Loki, nevermind. Loki had a bunch of variants in the season from different timelines, different versions of Loki, that's all.
00:42:52
Speaker
Okay, I know one of them's DB Cooper and that makes me unbelievably happy it was more like he had a flashback where you found out he was DB Cooper and Like the variants are like there's like an alligator Loki and a kid Loki and like a girl Loki It's all the different. It's like a different multiverse. Anyway, I'm so sorry Into the Loki verse just like into the spider verse
00:43:16
Speaker
Well, that's why it's so cool because at the end, spoiler alert, she's like breaks the main timeline. And so now it's like, ooh, anything can be canon because they've made like 15 million timelines happen. It's cool. I like it. Yeah. I did look up the pronunciation of these because as I said, like different cultures around the world, Google was only semi helpful. So I'm going to wing it.
00:43:44
Speaker
We can't even pronounce English half the time. Come on. Like, what do you expect? So the first one is the Pizadeira? Pizadeira? Ooh. Where are they from? It is in some parts of Brazil. Okay. They have a folklore about a creature with long fingernails that lurks on people's rooftops during the night and they come into a person's house and
00:44:13
Speaker
It said trample on the chest of people who sleep. It didn't really give you a reason as to why. It just, that's what it said. Trample them with your many hoops. It's like a herd of horses comes through. Yeah, oh my god. The hell? Yeah, most of these are really short. That's why I included them all together. Okay, I like short and sweet.
00:44:42
Speaker
Pezanta. Yeah, Pezanta is in the Catalonia region of Spain. Okay, yeah. Yeah, this one was a little bit different. They have a black animal, often seen as a cat or a dog, that invades people's homes and sits on their chests, causing breathing problems and nightmares. And it's described as black and hairy with steel paws.
00:45:12
Speaker
Yeah, so I guess that's where the weight comes from and then all the sources like I find five different versions of talking about this creature and all of them said that it's steel paws have holes in them so that What was it? I cut it out of my notes because it did not make sense to me
00:45:30
Speaker
I have to open it because I want to talk about it because it made no sense to me. Oh so it's black and hairy with steel paws but with holes so it can't take anything. So it's steel paws have holes in it but it can't take anything. Do you understand what that sentence is supposed to mean? Because I really don't. I'm just picturing like
00:45:55
Speaker
paws and with Wolverine claws that are retractable and then the palm has a big hole in the center. So if they try to pick something up, it comes through the hole. Or there's holes in the claws so that there's no DNA under the claws when they scrape you.
00:46:20
Speaker
It can't take anything. I don't know. Weird. No. The next one is Leotovins. Leotovins. That's the closest Google translation I can find. Leotovins. No, I don't know. And that's in Latvian folklore. And they are the soul of a killed. It's specified strangled, drowned, or hanged person.
00:46:48
Speaker
that attacks yeah and they attack people as well as domestic animals that was sad so apparently they attack animals too but it is listed that well under attack one is supposed to move a toe on their specified left foot to get rid of it i don't know why the left foot that was quite common people would specify like you have to wiggle your right thumb or your left toe or like
00:47:17
Speaker
It was kind of all over the place. Yeah, I just didn't want to run through like all 45 of them, so I kind of picked a couple out.
00:47:29
Speaker
Oh my god, 45, yeah. It was literally like, this is the same thing, like I might as well just copy and paste this like for 15 times. It's the exact same thing. This will be a two-part episode. All of them were like two sentences long and they all said, it's, it's, climbs through the window, sits on your chest, climbs through the window, sits on your chest, climbs through the window, sits on your chest, and I was like, okay. Okay, yeah, I would also just like list a few then where I'd be like. These are the ones that were kind of a bit different. Mm-hmm.
00:47:57
Speaker
Um, so there's the Ama... Oh, I looked up this one. It was pronounced exactly like it looks like. And now I'm just like, how was that again? Amatadori. Amatadori. Okay. Sardinia. Uh, Sardinia, I believe. Italy? Sardinia? Yes. One of Idi- Italy. One of Idi-
00:48:27
Speaker
okay it's one of italy's islands and sleep paralysis is blamed on a ghoulish creature that sits on your chest again suffocating the victim and sometimes ripping at their skin with its nails and fun yeah also gonna rip you up
00:48:47
Speaker
and this was actually kind of common too in some of the ones I just didn't again want to list a whole bunch of them but in some parts of the island and other places they believe that the creature in this case um in Sardinia that the creature wears seven red caps on its head and that if you manage to take one you will find hidden treasure as a reward that was a common theme through some of them that it wears a hat and if you manage to grab the hat you get treasure
00:49:18
Speaker
Oh, keeps treasure in their hat. Yeah, or like you'll wake up or you'll have good fortune stuff like that. So that was kind of different. The I like that. Yeah, the last one I have is probably the only one even before knowing about the Hague or anything that I had ever heard about.
00:49:39
Speaker
which none of the research I did reminds me of why I would know this. I'm pretty sure it was from a really bad movie that I saw on Netflix or something. Um. That had like one true thing in it. No. Yeah. And it is the Batty Bat. Ooh. Yeah. I don't know this one. I think when I was looking it up, it said it was on Chilling Tales of the like Sabrina, the teenage Sabrina.
00:50:09
Speaker
Oh, the first Sabrina? Yeah. Yeah, like the new Netflix one that they did for a couple seasons that they had a batty bat. So I didn't really like I don't even remember watching that episode. So I'm not sure but I had heard. Oh, I didn't really see the Netflix one. Yeah.
00:50:27
Speaker
So Batty Bat or Bang Gong Ot in Tagalog. It's pretty much like two, just two names for it. It's a vengeful demon who takes the form of an ancient obese, and some sources said grotesquely obese, tree-dwelling spirit.
00:50:49
Speaker
Oh my god. A fat wood nymph? What the hell? Wouldn't they break those branches? Right. They're seen after the tree where they live falls down, especially when their tree is then made into support posts that are used to build houses.
00:51:09
Speaker
Oh no, yeah, I'd be mad too. Yeah, they migrate and follow the support post to the new house that was built, and they do not allow humans to sleep near their post. And when they do, they take another form, like a smaller form I guess, and suffocate the person, invading their dreams and causing sleep paralysis and waking nightmares.
00:51:34
Speaker
okay so they're yeah they're doing all of it to ward off the batty bat one should bite one's thumbs or wiggle one's toes and the person will awaken from the nightmare induced by the batty bat oh cool i like that
00:51:55
Speaker
Yeah, and that's a little trip through a bunch of sleep demons. Again, like 90% of them are just variations of the hag. I don't like the sound of her no matter which variation it is. Yeah, I don't want to see her. I'm good.
00:52:15
Speaker
I'm good on that one. Speaking of that one in the Philippines, I heard there's a podcast by a Filipina lady. I heard it featured on a couple of the pods we're friends with on Instagram and stuff. It's called Stories with Sapphire. I remember I listened to an episode because it was a crossover with one of the ones that I already listened to.
00:52:42
Speaker
I can't remember exactly right now so I'm not gonna say it but yeah it was cool I remember she talked about there was um one of her family members had a spirit that reminded her of Spongebob Squarepants that's what I remember because I was like that's funny
00:53:01
Speaker
That would be so weird. Yeah, so it's cool to have, and I think the stories with Sapphire, Sapphire is the lady's name, the host, and she's, I heard the ad for the show too, and it's like, well, do I want to do it because there's not a lot of options for
00:53:18
Speaker
you know in the paranormal community podcast where people are from the Philippines or you know just different regions like that so I was like that's cool because like yeah I love getting the different cultures variations on stuff yeah because then you're gonna hear stuff that you wouldn't really hear anywhere else exactly like you just it's not necessarily gonna be the same all around the world yeah oh that's awesome I enjoyed that
00:53:51
Speaker
we'll be right back. Oh I guess I did have no I don't really have a title but what what the header on my document is for sleep paralysis is creepy sleep creepy sleep that's all it is yeah just creepy sleep so there you go so my segment entitled creepy sleep
00:54:17
Speaker
starts out no so oh yeah i wanted to point out that uh as i had mentioned in a previous episode the haunted part two you don't want to live here
00:54:32
Speaker
I guess I had mentioned a story quickly, one I had briefly heard on another podcast, which turned out to be drinking the Kool-Aid podcast, their sleep paralysis episode. And I mentioned it again because my sister was listening and was like, what was that one? That was weird. Because I was like, and they thought they'd gotten pregnant.
00:54:54
Speaker
you know sleep demon or whatever yeah but honestly there's not like a whole i don't know what happened after that because it wasn't like there was a full story but for anyone else that was curious about like reza was yeah and she was like what was that from it was from drinking the kool-aids um episode 54 it was their anniversary episode so it was called mary podversary
00:55:21
Speaker
Aww, that's so cute. Yeah, and it was it was a good It was a good episode about sleep paralysis. So yes, also if you want to listen to that and You know after you're done with this one, go ahead. I'd recommend it. I think it was like a listener story
00:55:40
Speaker
Yeah, so I did have a story from Reddit that I got permission to use from user Jolie Sarise and she asked, does anyone else have really detailed hallucinations? When I have sleep paralysis, I try to keep my eyes closed so I don't get freaked out. So occasionally I'll hear things and it's usually voices like someone whispering in my ear or voices coming from the TV.
00:56:08
Speaker
Once I thought I heard a Spanish soap opera, but I opened my eyes to see that the TV was off. Earlier today, during sleep paralysis, I heard an episode of Johnny Bravo playing.
00:56:29
Speaker
I feel like I was big on Cartoon Network. Hey mama. Or whatever he used to say. Hot mama. Something like that. Oh yeah. I think I remembered. What was his catchphrase? Oh my god. Badmama. Something like that. No, that sounds familiar. Hey mama. That's right. Something like that. I can picture it in my head. Okay, continue. Um, I could hear the dialogue clearly. It was an episode where John-
00:56:59
Speaker
Where Johnny finally got a girlfriend and stopped being obnoxious. And then in brackets, I don't know if this is an actual episode or if I made it up. I don't know, I didn't watch it that much. I don't remember. Me neither. I'm sure if it was an episode it was probably like a one-off.
00:57:19
Speaker
Yeah, for those of you that don't know Johnny Bravo, just picture Joey from Friends as a cartoon guy who only wears sunglasses and a tight black t-shirt and just hits on it. It's just pretty much going, how you doing to everybody? And he's blonde, right? Yeah, he's got a blonde, like, cesary faux-hawk wave thing at the front. I don't know. Yeah.
00:57:44
Speaker
That's the kind of person he is and that's the kind of cartoon hair that I find is so hilarious that this person's hallucinating an episode of. That just makes me unbelievably happy. They enjoy some Johnny Bravo. Yeah. So they said, I was starting to get into it. So I opened my eyes to watch it and my TV was off. I couldn't believe it.
00:58:08
Speaker
When I had auditory hallucinations before, it was never really scary because I knew I was hallucinating. And if I listened closely, the voices were talking nonsense or gibberish. This time it was really detailed. Is this normal? So you do get a lot of ones that end with a question on Reddit. Yeah. Which is cool because then you get it's nice to get a consensus. And then
00:58:34
Speaker
some people did comment that there's head sounds okay so yeah the most upvoted comment or whatever it seemed was this person was like sometimes my sleep paralysis sounds like this
00:59:04
Speaker
oh that's so creepy what the fuck oh i hate it like i don't like it no oh i literally have like shivers down my spine like what is this i know i don't know how to describe it i like i describe it like white noise because it's like yeah that's a perfect really loud and bassy and yeah
00:59:30
Speaker
oh that's awful like maybe someone's screaming in demon language behind that but you don't know i got like goosebumps and shivers down my spine as soon as it started playing if that's what this person that replied the sleep paralysis sounds like i do not want any of that no it's like staticky just horribleness distorted yeah um in the background exactly
01:00:01
Speaker
did we talk about on here before like what is that called like it sounds that specifically trigger humans to feel scared i think it's called like dissonance or something just tones that just like
01:00:13
Speaker
kind of creep us out like on almost like a biological level oh now i don't think we've talked about that before i don't know i've heard of it briefly it's but yeah you could you could definitely kind of get an idea for it i find if you listen to something really creepy and you're like oh yeah oh my god that went down my spine yeah just like nails on like a chalkboard like screeching sounds
01:00:44
Speaker
Thank you next. All right, so ready for something a little more fun. Yeah. Yeah.
01:00:54
Speaker
um so I have heard about um a celebrity that had an encounter that they talked about and so I wanted to include that and then I found a couple more a celebrity oh my god I've never heard of this I hadn't um you know Lucy Liu
01:01:19
Speaker
from Charlie's Angels, Kill Bill as I was just talking about. So apparently while she was promoting Charlie's Angels in 1999, Lucy Liu told Us Weekly that she was interrupted by a spirit while trying to nap on her futon.
01:01:41
Speaker
She said, quote, some sort of spirit came down from God knows where and made love to me. It was sheer bliss. I felt everything and then he floated away.
01:01:54
Speaker
Okay. You asked for bliss. I was pretty shocked the first time I heard this on a podcast or something. I was like, wait, what? Because celebrities never talk about that kind of stuff normally. No. Not unless you're like Dan Aykroyd and your whole family's been in it for ages.
01:02:17
Speaker
yeah and then you're like ghosts and stuff yeah yeah man not just ghostbusters all right so also um do you know who anna nicole smith is yeah yeah i think she was like a playboy bunny or whatever um she said that one entity or whatever would crawl up her leg and have sex with her every night every night
01:02:47
Speaker
For her, it was every night. I thought that was interesting. Creepy. I mean, if it was anything like Lucy Liu's experience, maybe she's just happy she's getting it on the regular. Are you sure that if she's a playboy bunny, was she living at the playboy mansion and this was Hugh Hefner just creeping up her leg every night?
01:03:15
Speaker
Like it was a demon. It's a gross demon. We can't ask her anymore. Rest in peace. So we'll never know. Somebody posited that things like this could be spectrophilia, perhaps?
01:03:33
Speaker
which I guess is just sex with ghosts. Okay. You know, I think most people, um, of a certain age anyway, think of the ghost, the movie ghost. Yeah. Patrick Swayze. Yeah. It's going to teach them pottery. Yeah. I've seen the scene, but I don't think I've actually seen the whole movie. Anyway. Yeah. Neither. Um, no. Pat doesn't like,
01:04:00
Speaker
a whole lot of Swayze movies. His sister used to watch Dirty Dancing like on repeat, apparently. Oh, okay. That's fair. So sex with ghosts has been found in folklore in many cultures, Arabic, Greek, Hindu, and Celtic, which is cool. Oh, and speaking of Dan Aykroyd, he admitted to cuddling with a male ghost regularly. Okay. That was cool.
01:04:31
Speaker
that's my my ghost bro yes and like I said reason we should do episodes on him like he's seen UFOs and stuff too so it's pretty cool he's just got he's just in everything then well right like he's not just he doesn't just play a ghostbuster on TV well one thing I didn't include in my notes and stuff is um
01:04:57
Speaker
But I can mention then, since we're already talking about aliens a little bit, that- Always. Yeah, right? Always just slip the aliens in there. People do, like, doctors and stuff believe that a lot of cases of supposed abduction by aliens is actually people just experiencing sleep paralysis, like hallucinations.
01:05:22
Speaker
Oh interesting. Yeah and they're like the floating feeling and then they're like stuck and being held down and they can like hallucinate intruders so those could possibly end up being aliens I guess depending on the person and then like people reporting like stuff having like sexual activity and stuff as aliens probing you it's like a whole thing. Yeah.
01:05:49
Speaker
Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. It does line up in some ways. So you're like, well, yeah. Um, I, I still don't think it could explain all the different alien encounters and stuff. That is interesting. People waking up not at home and.
01:06:07
Speaker
lost time and marks on their body and ugh what about that randalsham forest incident with the UFO and the binary code that they all downloaded um that was crazy that was crazy what was that that was in our that wasn't even in a UFO episode that was in time travel part two if you guys were looking for it um anyway
01:06:29
Speaker
Also, Kesha wrote her hit, Supernatural. I guess she has a song called Supernatural? I don't actually know it. I don't know that one. I know Katy Perry's E.T. Yeah, I thought that one was called Supernatural, because that one's like, Supernatural, extraterrestrial. Yeah. But I guess Kesha has a song called Supernatural as well. And apparently it's about a ghost one night stand. So that's cool.
01:06:59
Speaker
Okay. Oh, and it's the final note on the celebrities, Lucy Liu's spectral fling now apparently watches over her. She sees it watching over her. So that's kind of cool. Okay. So it's like protective. Doesn't sound like a bad thing. Yeah, that seems like a guardian angel. Yeah. All right. So time for some succubus.
01:07:30
Speaker
which come on we have to admit even the name sounds a little dirty yeah i'm like of course they would name like because that's the female one right of course they would put suck in the female one like fuck of course i mean well wait
01:07:52
Speaker
We'll get to the etymology of the word succubus in just this paragraph. Okay. Modern online depictions, especially on the subreddit succubus, which I joined for research purposes only, but it's like these sexy anime girls with tails and horns and they're in a rainbow of colors like, you know, My Little Pony.
01:08:22
Speaker
It was like all pictures. I was like, this is not what I wanted.
01:08:26
Speaker
This is not what I signed up for. Reminds me of in my early life when our family friend Billy Joe went to look up something about the White House in the early days of the internet. And it was like, no, nothing. You can't look up anything, you know, without it being porn. And that was the first time we like realized that. Oh my gosh. I don't even know what it was that it could have been about the White House. It was, I'm sure it was about the White House. My siblings, listen, please tell me if I'm remembering this correctly.
01:08:56
Speaker
The only time I remember is at work, one of our co-workers, I was telling her a story that I had just seen on Google's News thing about a cougar that had escaped from the zoo in our area.
01:09:14
Speaker
so at work on her work computer she just googled cougars in blank area and you can fill in the blank on what kind of results came up but she immediately just closed all of the internet tabs she got open and just went that wasn't what i was looking for i remember that it was yeah i think they would block you from those sites
01:09:39
Speaker
yeah but not from the search result page just when you tried to click the links and she's like not at all what i'm looking for close the internet as a whole and then i think she just went i'm gonna go take a break because you just google cougar's in my area like
01:09:57
Speaker
oh my god yeah i can just imagine cougar town yeah and yeah sometimes there's a moose on the loose and you just want to look it up but yeah cougars you got to be careful so
01:10:13
Speaker
Barbed tails and horns are shown on all these succubi succubuses Yeah, and they're like depicted in a lot of instances and the internet is cute and like anime and like with these giant boobies, Tay's Tickle biddies as my friend Michelle I would say
01:10:39
Speaker
they're
Lilith Across Cultures
01:10:40
Speaker
just wearing tiny tiny triangles beanie like bikini tops oh yeah if that uh so the original succubus was quite different looking alright they were stooped or hunched and deformed and hideous and they also lurched or crawled along instead of walking upright yeah you mean they didn't wear high heels and like corsets and
01:11:09
Speaker
No, and we know how we feel about the crawling. We already discussed the crawling of your leg. It's disgusting. They had clawed hands.
01:11:20
Speaker
And bird talons and their faces were like those of gargoyles. Yeah, that's the depiction I've seen. It's little gargoyly looking troll things. Oh, and yes, they also seem to sound like your segment a bit because they were also described as nasty, greedy hags out to get some and get pregnant. Yeah. They wanted to fall pregnant.
01:11:48
Speaker
Today's succubus is seductive, manipulative, and vengeful if slighted, but proud of their ability to please men also. So yeah, they're still definitely a little bit evil and twisted, but it definitely seems like we see them as more sexy, I don't know. Yeah. I'm trying to think, was it the TV show Lost Girl? Did you ever watch that? She was a succubus, wasn't she?
01:12:15
Speaker
lost girl it sounds familiar but i can't what was the main premise i only watched a couple episodes i'm positive she was a succubus but she had to like feed on people's energy to live it wasn't about getting pregnant i'm positive she was a succubus ew let me google i just think of lost now for some reason i'm like lost yeah had girls no
01:12:45
Speaker
uh i don't know but i should this says lost girls it's a movie from 2020 no i want lost girl freaking google lost girl it was on for six years
01:12:59
Speaker
Lost Girl, a Canadian supernatural TV show. Canadian, I was gonna say Canadian. Yeah, it follows the life of a bisexual succubus named Bo, played by Anna Silk, as she learns to control her supernatural abilities, help those in need, and discover the truth about her origins. Aw, how sweet! It was on for six years on the side by now. A do-gooder. Yeah.
01:13:27
Speaker
No, I don't, who's in it? Anyway, I don't know. I don't think anybody popular. It ended in 2016. Yeah. I watched a couple episodes of it. No, it sounds interesting. Yeah. I don't know. I watched things when like, like Supernatural Pat founded in like Walmart and was like,
01:13:47
Speaker
I haven't heard about this yet, but let's watch it and buy us a DVD of it before it gets big. Especially it's hard if you're in a relationship, you want to get into a new show, but if your spouse doesn't want to get into it, then you have to watch it on your own time. Yeah. No, never saw that. Here we go. The word succubus is derived from two Latin words that mean to lie down.
01:14:17
Speaker
Okay, both the words mean to lie down? Yeah, well maybe one means lie and one means down, but not in the same way that we say it in English. I'm not too sure. It's from medieval English. That's the only other note I have on that. Okay. But at least it doesn't mean to suck dick. But it does mean to lie down, so that's also pretty, you know, suggestive.
01:14:43
Speaker
They were these succubus or succubi were widely known as early as the 15th century. They left the limelight for a bit and returned based on one of their more pleasant incarnations. So they did kind of fall out of favor or folklore and then kind of get back into popularity and but more as this kind of sexy incarnation that we see. Oh, okay.
01:15:10
Speaker
That's that was my understanding of the the history anyway and the incubus as you said is the male sex team and the partner in crime and You already mentioned how they will Visit a male get some of their semen bring it to the incubus and then deposit it into the unsuspecting female Yeah, it's quite a it's quite a
01:15:35
Speaker
interesting process and I called it a type of surrogacy, not to offend anyone, but I just that's how I thought of it.
01:15:46
Speaker
well yeah it's like a like a gestational surrogacy it's someone else's anyway um stop going in there so um some believe that it switches between incubi and zucubi and and you mentioned that oh but the child that is born of this union if you will is called a cambion i read okay yeah i don't know why that's kind of cool what powers do they have
01:16:18
Speaker
No idea. Whatever site it was on did not have any more on that. And I was like, I want to like deep dive into all of this, but I have to kind of stay on track. But they did tie in the story of Lilith, which you probably know a little bit about her. Yeah, just from Supernatural. I know she's a cute little girl who's eight and has black eyes and is a psychopath.
01:16:44
Speaker
Well, come on now. We both read Shadowhunters. She's in that too. I only slightly remember. Well, you know, she's demony anyway. Yeah. So we get all our, you know, knowledge from pop culture, as you can see. She's known as the mother of all succubi and mother of all demons. Well,
01:17:13
Speaker
That's kind of my opinion, but in, in like the Judeo-Christian mythology, a lot of times I'll get into it, but she's depicted as like mother of all of the demons. Yeah. Um, she also appears in Sumerian, Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Judaic, and Christian mythology. Sorry. That kind of repeated itself a bit. So Lilith or Lilitu first showed up in Sumerian culture as a goddess, a goddess of witchcraft and fertility.
01:17:44
Speaker
Okay, I didn't know that goddess of witchcraft and wizardry no anyway We'll talk enough about Harry Potter and that one patreon we're gonna do
01:17:58
Speaker
Yes. The Philosopher's Stone. Philosopher's Stone. Yeah, I'm pretty sure we'll just count how many Harry Potter references we managed to sneak in there. Well, it's also, okay, not gonna tangent, but it is good and like an allegorical kind of story where you're like, oh, she could be talking about Christ or whatever. Because like, yeah, Jordan Peterson will reference that in his little lectures where he'll be like,
01:18:27
Speaker
I could use this Bible story, but then I can also use Harry Potter to illustrate what I mean. And you're like, what? Oh yeah, that's cool. Yeah. It's, oh, I love it. A good writer really does pull from a lot of different sources. Yeah. Any who's.
01:18:47
Speaker
Okay, so Lilith, um, that demony biotch. Babylonians and Assyrians, I think, began to associate her with dark demons. The Greeks told a different origin story of Lamia.
01:19:06
Speaker
Which was their name for her, I guess. She was a beautiful woman cursed by Hera after she caught Zeus's eye. Her fate was to roam the world as a monster seducing men and eating babies. Ew. I've never heard the eating baby thing before. Oh yeah, and that's just this Greek lady that like Zeus was like, oh, I saw you, I got a boner. And then Hera cursed the shit out of her.
01:19:34
Speaker
Maybe these should have cursed fucking Zeus. Stop cursing the women for catching his eye and curse him. Why is it always the woman's fault? A thousand women and wives and children. Like, jeez. So many. Curse him. Curse the problem, not the... not the woman. Takes two to tango. Yep. Okay, so in Judah...
01:20:00
Speaker
In Judeo-Christian mythology, Lilith was Adam's first wife created at the same time as him and not from him, like not from his rib. So she would not bow to Adam as her leader or, you know, ruler or whatever, and went off on her own, eventually finding the Red Sea and its horde of demons. So she mated with them instead.
01:20:27
Speaker
So yeah, that's like Old Testament shit and then like, obviously that's when God was like, you can have Eve, but it's too late. Lilith had already made all these demons. She birthed more than... She's angry. She is a woman scorned. The OG woman scorned. She birthed more than 100 demons per day and some of these sexy offspring became the succubi.
01:20:57
Speaker
Sexy on the street. She's got to be sexy. I mean, come on. You're supposed to be gargoyle-y looking hunched over things with gloss. I know, right? Originally. Well, she's glowed up over the years. She's reinvented herself. So Lilith around the world has different names. In India, she's called Yakshini. In Arabia, Garinha.
01:21:24
Speaker
Native Americans referred to her as just the Dear Woman, like Dear, D-E-E-R. Yeah. And China, she was called the Mogwai in Greece, the Lamia, which we mentioned. Yeah. And yeah, that was most of her main names. So that's, that was cool. I just wanted to touch a little bit on Lilith when we were talking about demons. If she's their mommy, we got to talk about her.
01:21:55
Speaker
Exactly. Okay. So then I had a second Reddit story also that I wanted to share with you. Um, so yeah, the,
01:22:16
Speaker
The Reddit users didn't say they wanted to be anonymous, so it was posted by GoStudy93. And the heading was, not sure if I lost my virginity to a demon or if I had sleep paralysis. Okay, that's a title. Isn't it?
01:22:37
Speaker
It really caught my eye. Clickbait. Yes. Oh my God. I love a good personal story on Reddit. I wish I had more interesting ones. Okay. So we'll quote. All right. This story happened to me sometime in 2014. I never told anybody about it. I'm almost 30 now and thinking about it still keeps me awake at night sometimes. Keep in mind, I never did drugs and I do not drink alcohol.
01:23:08
Speaker
Each summer, my family and I would visit my granddad's house where he, my uncle, and two aunts live. Now my uncle is a self-proclaimed treasure hunter. In North Africa, these hunter people would supposedly employ through creepy rituals to guide you to hidden old valuables buried in some secret places. Okay, I love a good treasure hunter story. Right? Um, and like,
01:23:37
Speaker
ancient rituals and stuff. That sounds cool. Is your uncle or dad Indiana Jones?
01:23:47
Speaker
I was going to say African Jones. But Indiana is just his name because he's a really weird name. Anyway, I digress. So secret places. So my uncle is pretty knowledgeable about demons and jinns and those things. Jinns are like the genie, right?
01:24:13
Speaker
right thank you yeah they're like similar to a genie where they have that kind of ability or whatever but um i think they can be malevolent anyway this is not about jinns yeah they have a twist to everything that always backfires for ya i think
01:24:33
Speaker
That would make sense because it's like that episode of Supernatural. Be careful what you wish for type of thing. And then whenever they would make it a wish, it would like come back to haunt him. Like he like wished for like a big sub hoagie sandwich and then like it gave him like the runs. Yeah. Wishes turn bad. Okay. So his uncle is knowledgeable about demons and jins and things. So one night,
01:25:02
Speaker
After having a big North African dinner with the family, I hung around with my uncle in his room. I always liked to listen to his creepy stories. He decided to show me his stack of old Islamic witchcraft books and manuscripts. Among them, there was one called The Great Secret to Attract the Beloved in brackets, which was a rough translation from Arabic.
01:25:26
Speaker
Oh, okay. The book was a bit hard. Yeah, so interesting, intriguing. No. Yeah. Yeah. The book was a bit hard to read as it was old and handwritten. I browsed randomly and there were some sort of talisman with instructions. You had to draw some sort of table and within the columns you draw some letters. You then take the paper, put it under your pillow. This will supposedly bring you a lover.
01:25:55
Speaker
It seems silly. Fun to try. Yeah. I mean, as a teen, didn't anybody be like, oh, I want to try this love spell or whatever? Yeah.
01:26:06
Speaker
I slept. I woke up sometime in the early morning. I still remember it as it was a little bit bright and the pigeons would get really loud at that time. But their sound was not what woke me up. It was actually the weight of a woman on my waist. I got woken up by a lady riding me cowgirl style.
01:26:28
Speaker
Oh, yeah. And how long? So this person said they're almost 30 now? And this was... Now, yes. So they're like 24 or 23, 24, something like that. Okay. When this happened? Yeah. Because you said at the beginning that they said that this happened in 2014.
01:26:48
Speaker
right right right i can't do math though okay yeah you're probably right so yeah probably be no you're probably like 23 22 maybe okay so because it's 20 it's 2021 now to be clear yeah so it's not like this person's like 14 year old boy or whatever no but i still think they said it was their first sexual experience that's true
01:27:13
Speaker
yeah yeah okay um like maybe they were waiting for marriage i don't know oh damn well there well just listen yeah so heavy on i know it's the mines going all over the place
01:27:30
Speaker
would carry on. No, it's like, this is why we want like, listener stories, please. Listener stories. I know. It's hard because I get it. Not everybody has a story. You and I don't have a story. I mean, it's not like we have millions of listeners. So if only like two people have stories, they might not want to write in, right? But like, oh, some of these are so good. And then like,
01:27:52
Speaker
I think it'll probably be one of our first listener stories because I told them I want to use this for my podcast and they were like, I will listen to it. Tell me when it's airing. Nice. So they're going to be a listener, at least for this episode. But anyway, okay, so as I said, he got woken up by a lady riding in cowgirl style. Every dude's dream. Carrying on. Yeah, it's like a wet dream. True.
01:28:22
Speaker
Oh my god, I don't know. So he says, I was hard and I was inside her, but there was no pleasure. All I felt was terror. The lady had no face. Oh, okay. Not every dude's dream. It is a little dark. It was dark, darker than the room. Abyss kind of dark. She had glowing neon red hair that burnt me whenever she'd bounce.
01:28:54
Speaker
So her hair is like flames. Jesus. I guess so. That sounds awful. I know. I mean I love a good redhead. You know I always dye my hair red but like I don't want it to burn anybody. Yeah we've both been redheads for a large portion of our lives so. That's true. Redheads have more fun. Fuck bons. No.
01:29:20
Speaker
Sorry, Mom. Okay. So he said, like every good Muslim guy, I looked away and started reciting verses of the Quran. Okay. That's fair. I mean, it's a demon with no face and it's burning you.
01:29:38
Speaker
and like so sweet he's just gonna go to his faith right like i'm gonna rely on my faith to get me through this and i mean there's even been stories i heard where people weren't maybe they're raised like in a religion but they weren't that faithful anymore and they're like i saw a demon i fucking recited some prayers yeah that's very true yeah um i would be the same i looked back at her and she was gone
01:30:04
Speaker
My pants were down and I was lost in thought. Same. Next day, my uncle saw me acting weird and distant and asked why. I hesitated and told him about it. Not sure if he was joking, but the dude told me it's just his ginger familiar. She likes to play with young guys. What? Who? Okay. Why, uncle? Why?
01:30:34
Speaker
Yeah. Jesus. We have company, my fiery redhead. We have company. Don't harass them in their sleep with our consent. Careful with those books there, buddy. It's like, instead of finding pornos under the mattress, he's like, careful with those mystical books there. Yeah. Oh, God. The pages are sticky for a reason. He says, kid you not. I have not spent a night there since then.
01:31:04
Speaker
Yeah, I don't think I would either. Yeah, not so much. Fast forward three days later. Back in our home, I was asleep and I have this dream. I'm walking in a dark tunnel. I get shivers and I reach to my pocket and find my phone. Just as I turned on my flashlight, it revealed a naked black man kneeling.
01:31:28
Speaker
I approached him and touched his shoulder. He stood up. He kept standing up. It was a very tall naked black man. He smiled at me with big white teeth. I woke up from my dream unable to move. I guess it was sleep paralysis. Anyways, unable to move, I start to look around with my eyes. A figure stands up from the edge.
01:31:52
Speaker
Sorry. Oh, no. And does he just keep standing up and up and up at the foot of the bed? I guess that was the end of the sentence. Hang on. Yeah. OK, it stands up from the edge. It was him. He stood there for a moment and looked at me. I tried to scream, but nothing came out of my throat. Then he vanished in a cloud of very dark smoke, darker than the dark of the room.
01:32:19
Speaker
He turned to smoke, then appeared to the right side of my bed, and he stood there again, tall and naked. His face slowly got closer to mine, just as I made eye contact with him. He smiled at me and vanished in smoke. I could then move. I stood up and went to drink some water, unable to believe what happened.
01:32:40
Speaker
I like shivers right now. It's so creepy. And I just looked behind me to make sure there was nothing there. And it's 4.30 in the afternoon. Right? I'm just like, oh. But same, when you were telling some story and then I said, oh, that's gross. Because, oh, the hair, the hair grabbing on the bed. Yeah. I looked to the bed behind me in the guest room slash studio here and I was like,
01:33:10
Speaker
What's on the bed? So next day I get woken up by my 8 a.m. Alarm with my eyes half closed I try to reach for the phone to shut it down, but I get blocked by something I thought it was my brother When I looked my hand was blocked bit by a dwarf head a dwarf who had the face of the brother of one of my friends
01:33:37
Speaker
Okay. That does sound like a dream though, right? You just get the randomest people in your dreams. Yeah. Uh, he then laughed at me and ran away towards the door with his short legs. It was funny. Oh my God. Since then I started praying and have not seen any of them again. I like to think those were just sleep paralysis episodes. I have one interesting question.
01:34:07
Speaker
You know how they keep, like, scientists and stuff have numerous times said that in your dreams you can't dream of somebody you've never at least physically seen? In the real world? Yes, I feel like I've heard that, yeah. Yeah. Then how do all these sleep demon-y things happen? Have people,
Dreams and Personal Fears
01:34:27
Speaker
like, having these sleep paralysis, like, hallucination-y things, if it's caused by their REM cycle, but your REM cycle,
01:34:34
Speaker
You're not supposed to be able to see people you've never seen before. Didn't he say he was also faceless, like your guy described? Yeah, but it's like, but who's like, where are these people seeing faceless people on the street with like black holes as faces, you know?
01:34:54
Speaker
I guess. I assume in most dreams they're like representations of fears we have and stuff. They must be. Because I'm sitting here going, oh my god. What does he mean? Does he ever have that dream where, well, yeah, but like you ever have a dream where you're like, you more get the feeling than actually what happened? Where you're like, okay, I know I was scared, but I can't picture the guy's face or like, I know it was hot and horny, but I can't picture the guy's face or whatever.
01:35:20
Speaker
You get the emotion of it almost. I have one reoccurring where I get chased by something, but it's something so small, like the size of a fly. You can't see it. It's like a little bug. What? Yeah, but I'm getting chased by it and it's so scary, but it's a bug sized thing.
01:35:42
Speaker
that seems so symbolic of something it's like it's like you're afraid of minuscule things that maybe it's like telling you you don't need to be like what the hell does that mean probably probably means exactly that because anxiety about the stupidest little stuff that means nothing at the end of the day so it's probably well we're millennials like yeah we're expected we have like phone anxiety we don't like to like talk to anybody
01:36:13
Speaker
but like no I'll have I'll have nightmares my most recurring nightmare is literally like I'm basically like late for work and I cannot get out of the house I'm like yeah you know I didn't always drive I'm like calling a cab it's not coming like something's happening
01:36:29
Speaker
Yeah. It's like that hole you're trying to run from someone because I've had that too when you're trying to like run from the bad guy and like you feel like you cannot move your legs. Yeah, that's what this one is. That's because I'm sleeping because I can't move. It's like a bug that I can't run from. Oh my god. Yeah. Anyway. Well, it probably is our intense fear of failure with our podcast. No.
01:36:56
Speaker
I haven't had any of my reoccurring dreams since we started the podcast. I only have them like once a year or so. So I haven't either. Maybe this is good for us.
Upcoming Episodes and Listener Engagement
01:37:07
Speaker
Um, and then next week after sleep paralysis, you said we're doing, uh, true crime UK. Cause I already forgot. Yes. Yes. Yes. I'm excited for that. United Kingdom.
01:37:24
Speaker
United Kingdom. We've got some roots there, too, I would say. I'm like English, Irish, French, German, Scottish. So, yeah. Yeah, I think some. Well, my mom likes of my people. Gosh, because her family comes from like a small island. Oh, really? Yeah. Um, and then, yeah, I think my dad's dad must be the Scandinavian one then. Yeah. Yeah.
01:37:54
Speaker
yeah yeah my segment so far i think it's gonna be pretty long i don't know oh my god we've barely touched anything in england scotland or ireland or wales
01:38:10
Speaker
Oh my god we could do so much haunted history there. I'm so excited for it. It's just like we could yeah haunted forever because it's been around forever. Oh totally and we've had requests to do things like haunted battlefields so like that could be fun. Yeah I'm sure there's plenty of those and written in anywhere else. I can already think of one from Outlander.
01:38:41
Speaker
Yes. So many Scottish ghosts. Okay, so join us next time for some UK true crime. Yeah, I'm excited for that because also, I don't know, maybe there will be a little paranormal in it since the true crime goes back so long there in history. There could be even some ghosts we could bring to it just to make it a little more fun.
01:39:11
Speaker
I'm like, my segment's gonna be long enough all by itself. Oh, is it? Yeah. I just know people love the paranormal stuff, but like... I'm at eight and a half pages. And as I said, I haven't even listened to that documentary yet to see if that has any other little bits for me.
01:39:29
Speaker
We do have fun with the murder. What's the murder? Murder. Well, until next time, like us on Spotify, follow us and subscribe on the YouTube. Rate us, review us, please.
01:39:47
Speaker
We would love a review. Reviews are very helpful, I have learned, but also just annoying because if you're on Spotify and other things, they don't let you do it. Anyone who can review, if you can, we would really appreciate it and I don't know, keep it super cryptic, baby. Super, super cryptic. Stay cool, cats.
01:40:15
Speaker
and don't invite any succubi or incubi into your beds. No, I mean, I would be... there is some definite risks. Yeah.
01:40:28
Speaker
Either they're gonna drain yourself forever, you might get pregnant, or it just might be a good lay. I mean, maybe ask for consent first, alright kids? When I was doing my research, I didn't bring it up, I omitted it, but it did say, according to like many religions, that incubi and succubi are blamed for demonic possession, that that's what starts it, so.
01:40:53
Speaker
Oh, and then the only comes into them while they're sleeping. Yeah, and it starts as that as like an incubators like succubi encounter and then they slowly
01:41:04
Speaker
if they like consent to it or whatever and then depending how they react to that like the demon will keep coming to them or whatever and then the only way to expel them is through like a proper exorcism and stuff like that quite crazy oh hopefully if it's becoming a problem in your life you're getting the help you need with it um because yeah also i read on that forum with that story there they were the where the
01:41:31
Speaker
User the listener story was like, you know I don't know if they took my virginity or not because it was a sleep demon and other people were like, you know what? Your virginity is you should just count as it's like the first time you have You know make love have sex with someone you're in love with and that you choose to Yeah, not necessarily someone in your dreams and I was like, I like that like you take control back, you know, that's Yeah, you can choose
01:42:01
Speaker
Yeah. And hopefully nobody's dealing with any super serious sleep paralysis problems right now. Or sleep deprivation because of it. Well, who is dealing with that? But hit us up. Either way, let us know. We're here for you guys. We would love to chat. Is there anything you want to share with us? You can message us email or social media.
01:42:27
Speaker
Hey, if we get three stories, that's like 10% of our listenerships, so there you go. Yeah. No. An 8% of you, 8% of 32.
01:42:40
Speaker
How much is that? How many stories do you need? I don't know. Maybe we just need someone to make up a story. We're not going to fact check. That's true. That's true. I'm very gullible. If you want 15 minutes of fame on our small podcast, we'll give it to you. Sure.
01:43:00
Speaker
15 minutes now. It could be very popular later. You never know. We might get some people. We might get the Warrens on here. We're gonna resurrect them. Oh no, that's not gonna happen. I refuse to be a part of any sort of resurrection. It never ends well. No, I don't want to channel any spirits. I heard from some that do
01:43:24
Speaker
even do tarot cards and channel when they're doing episodes and they're like, the black Dahlia was needy as shit. And I'm like, I do not need any of that kind of stuff messing up my aura. No, I don't need divisions of women cut in half with, um, what do they call it? The Glasgow smile or whatever.
01:43:45
Speaker
Right, but apparently she's okay with the notoriety. She's even a little bit like Infatuated with it like the first of course she was trying to be a famous actress star
01:43:58
Speaker
I mean, I'll just die and then my YouTube account will get a million views. I do not intend to commit suicide. I am very happy if I do end up dead after this episode. Please investigate. Please investigate. I'm just kidding. Anyway, catch us next week. I'm like 82 minutes long now.
01:44:28
Speaker
Catch us on Castles Encrypted! Bye!
01:44:57
Speaker
This has been Castles Encrypteds. You can listen to our podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Anchor, Breaker, Pocket Cast, and our YouTube channel. Please rate, review, and subscribe wherever you listen. Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Reddit. On our website, you can listen to all of our episodes as well as view pictures for each of our segments.
01:45:20
Speaker
Check out our Patreon page to view all of our tiers and become a Patreon supporter today to unlock monthly bonus episodes and behind the scenes content. We are working on an Ask Us Anything. You can submit questions by social media or by email at castlesandcryptids at gmail.com.
01:45:38
Speaker
Do you have a spooky ghost story, a creepy cryptid sighting, or a thrilling true crime tale you would like to share and have us include in a future episode? Send us your listener story by social media or by email. Please include the name that you would like mentioned. Our music is by Cobia Fair. Our logo and artwork is by Antonio Garcia. Thanks for listening!