Transcript of Episode 649: Listener Tales 95: Sleepover Edition

Hey, weirdos. Elaina here. If you're looking to kick back and relax with Morbid, WNDYRY Plus is the way to go. It's like having a cozy seating our haunted mansion. No ads, just you and early access to new episodes. You can join WNDYRY Plus in the WNDYRY app or an Apple podcast or Spotify.

You're listening to a Morbid Network podcast. I'm Afwa Hirsch. I'm Peter Frankerpern. In our podcast, Legacy, we explore lives of some of the biggest characters in history. This season, Ginges Khan. Best known for his brutal campaigns, he was accused of causing millions of deaths, but he also gave his followers religious freedom and education. So is there more to his story than Violence and Bloodshed. I suspect that there might be, Peter. And since Violence and Bloodshed is basically all I ever learned about Genghis Khan growing up, I'm actually really curious to find out what lies behind the legend. I can promise you are in for a treat because the Mongols were capable of exceptional acts of brutality. But all the stuff in the positive column either is never talked about or gets brushed to one side. I'm really grateful to have the chance to speak up for Mongal history. Follow Legacy Now wherever you get your podcasts. Or binge entire seasons early and ad free on WNDYRY Plus. I'm John Robbins, and joining me on How Do You Cope this week is the musician Justin Hawkins. How big a meatloaf fan I am. A big meatloaf fan.

I remember he came over to me, grabbed me and he squeezed me and he said to me, I want you to think of me as your father. And he had like sausage on his breath.

So every time I smell sage and pork, I think of meatloaf. So that's How Do You Cope with me, John Robbins. Find us wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey, weirdos, I'm Ash.

And I'm Elaina.

And this is Morbid Slumber Party Edition.

This might be my favorite one.

I think- Should we just make these slumber party-themed? Just slumber party. Because this is A plus. Fuego. I love pajamas.

You know what we should do? Maybe we'll do this because dressing up is fun. I know you guys love the themes. No, it is.

And you like it.

So maybe we'll do that. But every few, we do a slumber party.

Yeah. Yeah. Love.

We'll figure out the cadence of that. You know what? You'll just get it. I don't know. We'll just be in pajamas.

It'll just be when we're feeling lazy, like today. Yeah. But honestly, I'm in my era of matching pajama shit.

Pajama shit.

I'm in my era of matching pajama sets. It makes you feel better going to sleep. It does. And then you wake up and you're like, I'm a goddess.

Yeah. It makes you feel fancy. I actually these I got when I was pregnant with the twins. Did you really? Yeah. Wow.

They don't even look stretched out or anything.

I know, which is wild. I think I would unbutton them. Yeah. And wear something under it and just be like... But they They're so comfy. I love a silk.

Yeah. I love a silk moment. Set. I got to have silk, velvet, or cotton. Hell, yeah. Which pretty much covers all bases.

I got to have a fabric.

In my pajamas, I need a fabric.

That's what It's pretty important to me.

It's top of the list. So I tried to make these slumber party themed or like dreams. I did some astral projections. I do believe there's a demon. That's an Ashkel coffee creation, if you will.

Yeah. We don't pay for coffee anymore. I do. We pay in love, in effect.

I was like, I actually pay a lot for coffee. I do, actually. I'm going through milk like it's insane.

This is an Ashkel coffee creation. She brings me and Mikey every day.

It's like cookie butter. She's beautiful. My Cookie butter creation that I found on TikTok. I got to get the stuff to make the tiramisu one.

Oh, fuck.

Yeah, you do. You need to get like Marscapone or something like that. I love Tiramisu. I also need to get a little sifter for the for the cocoa on top. Oh, yeah, you got it. I'll work on it.

Yeah, we'll get there.

Maybe for the next Listener tales.

Yeah. Next time I'll be sipping a tiramisu one.

Yeah, bitch. But let's do this. Let's go. Let's go. All right. So my first Listener tale is Listener tales, the dream Forced my mom to seek an exorcism.

I love things that force people to seek an exorcism. Me too.

It's our thing. It says, Hey, morbid fan. My name is Lauren, but my family calls me Ren.

Obsessed with that. What a cool nickname for Lauren. I know.

I love that. I know. I don't think I've ever heard that for Lauren before, but I think more Lauren should do that. Yeah. @my sister Lauren. Let's start calling you Ryn. Start calling you that. I call her Lo. But I'm an English education major working in medical In a medical coding department to put myself through college. And ever since my mom introduced me to you guys a handful of years ago, your podcast keeps me company during long hours at work while staring at a screen doing customer service, wishing to scoop my eyeballs out and while doing schoolwork.

We've all been there.

Yeah. Do you ever... I mean, you have a lot of deadlines that you have to follow still. It'll be eight o'clock on a Sunday night and I'll be like, Oh, fuck, I have to do my homework. And then I'm like, I don't have homework.

I don't have to do that. Does that ever happen to you? It happens to me all the time, but usually it's an actual deadline. Oh, fuck, I actually have to. Yeah, I have a lot of deadlines.

Yeah, I don't work on a lot of deadlines. I'm against deadlines. You are against deadlines. Yes. I don't think we're meant for that. You can confirm. We're not meant for that. It's like that Gabby Windy sound I was showing Elaina the other day. I'm obsessed with Gabby. I think she's my religion.

Oh, when I heard that sound, I said, Is that Ash, though?

She was like, Don't call me after three o'clock to have a creative call. Send me an email. I would rather gouge my eyes out with some dull chopsticks And I said, Is that Ash? It is. The more and more I see her on Traitors, I'm like, Were we separated at birth?

Perhaps.

Maybe. Well, anyways, I truly feel like I'm hanging out with friends, and it makes everything more bearable. I've even gotten my fiance into it, and he now requests to listen to The Girls while we cook together. That's such a classic thing. It is. It's frequent.

Yeah. That you get your husband or significant other into the show, and they refer to us as The Girls. The Girls.

I love it. I love it, yeah. And they listen while they cook together.

Oh, I really love that.

No, cute. I hope you guys enjoy reading, and if it makes it on the show, I will shit my dick, as my fiance likes to say. Shit your dick. I went through a period of saying, Shit my dick.

Yeah, so your fiance rules.

Yeah. So do you. Well, please find enclosed closed a 14 point double-spaced put-a-fuffa you would pleasure. I love it. Let's go. Okay. So this is the dream that forced my mom to seek an exorcism. I love it. And the time she visited my dreams. Star, star, sparkle. As I mentioned earlier, my mom is actually the person who introduced me to you guys a few years ago. Shout out to your mom. Hell, yeah, mom. We shared a deep love of true crime and spooky podcasts. We love to discuss whatever episodes we've been listening to and listen to them together in a car or weekend mornings cleaning the house. She was a cool mom, no doubt. Unfortunately, she passed away earlier this fall, four days after her 49th birthday, after a two-year battle with an extremely aggressive form of bone cancer. Oh, I'm sorry. As a side note, my childhood best friend and my mom's honorary additional daughter is a mortician and a funeral director and a fellow morbid listener. Bitch. Bad motherfucking ass. Hell, yeah. And she handled everything with my mom in our service because she's a freaking badass. Yeah, she is. And an amazing friend to boot.

Danielle, if you're listening, I love you. And I love you too.

I love you, Danielle.

So I had the opportunity to go hang out with her and get my mom ready. We wanted to play an episode of your show and chat while I painted her nails and such. One last little girls day altogether.

Oh, my God, that just sent chills right through my body. I know. Holy shit.

I wanted to thank you guys for your roundabout involvement in that and creating a show that creates a venue to foster connections like that. Thank you for telling us that. That really made my week Yeah, I'm like, Shit. We just make... We just do the show. It's fun. It's something that we love doing together, but we don't always think about how it reaches other people.

Yeah, and to hear it is really shocking and humbling and awesome, and we're very grateful for you.

Yeah, thank you.

Damn, that was really cool to hear.

It's really cool. Thank you. Anywho, I digress. I've always been, shall we say, sensitive and surrounded by spooky things. If you all want, I'll write in someday and tell you about my experience working in a haunted old ass restaurant for years. Please do. Yes, please. My mom was not skeptical per se, but definitely didn't enjoy the creep factor that I did. So she forcibly brushed things off and forbid discussing anything paranormal. If you ignore it, it's not happening. Love her for that. L-o-m-a-o. That being said, I believe my sensitivity came from her and her side of the family. Indigenous hippies from Oregon for the win. Hell, yeah. Hell, yeah. We just had two different reactions to it, and this story may be part of why, L-O-L. When my mom was in high school, approximately circa 1990, she had a very intense dream one night that she was in her choir class, and their teacher came in and told them he had cancer and would be resigning from teaching, and shortly thereafter passed away. I don't remember exactly what it was, but she said she remembered something specific that struck her about what he was wearing in the dream.

For whatever reason, I feel like it was his shoes. But don't quote me on that. She tells her mom, a devout Mennonite, which if you are not familiar, is like Amish light. It really is. Amish light. And she said she told her mom in passing about the odd dream. The next day she gets to class and this man walks in and like a bad case of deja vu, he's wearing what he had been in the dream and proceeds to tell them exactly what he had told them in the dream Oh, that'd be fucking weird. That would... Because already you're trying to process, oh my gosh, he's telling me this awful thing. It sounds like this is a very beloved teacher. And then you're like, why did I know that?

Why did my brain know that was going to happen. That happened in a very small, not like this. But the other day when somebody came here. Oh, yeah. And something happened. So somebody came here and they went to sit in the wrong seat to to record. And I had had a dream the night before that that was going to happen. That's so weird. And I was like, so when it happened, I was like, that was weird. I've never had that on the nose prediction in a dream. And very in one show, but strange.

I once had a dream that somebody I was really close with in high school, and it was right after high school. Something happened and there was a house fire where they lived, and I woke up to the news that there was a house fire. Yeah, see, that's weird. Luckily, everybody was okay, but I had dreamt it the night before. I remember that feeling of just being like, why did I know that was going to happen? I've never had anything like that crazy happen, but we have things like that that will happen. It comes from my mom.

Yeah, it definitely does come from my mom's- Relatable.

Yeah. Well, my mom understandably freaks the fuck out and can't decide if she has super powers or what the fuck is going on. So what does she do? Like any reasonable high school girl, she thinks she's developed the ability to see the future and predict deaths, so She goes and tells her mom. Yeah. My grandmother, bless her heart, is a staunchly conservative woman. So her reaction, of course, was to call the church in and legitimately the Year of Our Lord 1991 in a rural midwestern town and being distinctly not Catholic attempt them to get to exercise my poor mother. She only succeeded in traumatizing her a little bit. Oh, no. No actual exorcism was performed, but she did have to speak to the deacon or some other religious higher ups, I believe, to make sure that she wasn't possessed by The Devil himself, T. M. T. M. I love how you write it. I like that. Tm. The devil himself, T. M. When it was determined that she was not, in fact, in cagoots with the man down under, this was dropped like nothing had ever happened in true Mennonite fashion and never spoken of again.

Wow. So in hindsight, I don't blame my mom for attempting to pointedly ignore anything spiritual. The threat of an exorcism has to leave a bad taste in your mouth.

I mean, religious trauma is real.

That's top of the list, religious drama. Yeah, it is. Now, this second part is my story, but it does connect as it involves my mother and dreams. For context, I was not with my mother when she passed away. My fiance and I were driving to be there and we're about three hours away at the time. This led to a few weeks of intense dreams and nightmares regarding her death, which my therapist informed me were totally normal as my subconscious sought closure, however unpleasant, and that they would resolve in time. Thanks, bro. Very helpful. Just kidding. We love him. Just when I was about at my breaking point with this, I had the dream. It started like lots of others. I was standing in my childhood living room and my mom was there looking as she did the last time I saw her and in her wheelchair, even what she was wearing the last day I saw her a few days before her death. I remember thinking, Here we go with this bullshit again, which is odd in and of itself as I'm not prone to lucid dreams at all. Then I heard something behind me and I turned around and there was my mom, only it was actually her, slightly younger, as I remember her from before cancer took her leg, her hair, and her vitality.

She was beautiful and whole, and I don't know how I can't describe it beyond her being so much more real and vibrant than the room even around us. That was my mom, guys. She looked at me and didn't say a word, but there was this silent understanding that I was real and she was real, and the dream realm around us wasn't. But it was just the venue where we had to meet in at this time. I literally have those thoughts.

I can't stop them.

She didn't say a word the whole time, just held me on our couch just as she did when I was a kid until I fell asleep and woke up in the real world. The nightmare stopped right then and there. I got the closure I was seeking. I don't know firmly what I believe about what happens when we shuffle off this mortal coil, but I know wholeheartedly that my mama is whole and healthy and still around in her own way, and that she came to be my mama bear just like she always does. I love that. Oh my God.

I love that so much. The fact that she just snuggled you, I'm going to cry. I can't even. Yeah.

And after you were having these awful dreams. It's weird that I read this one when I did because I went to see Long Island Medium. Theresa Caputo last week. The hair herself. Oh my God, the hair. I'm obsessed with that queen. But she said that there was a few people that she read in the audience who weren't able to be there when their loved one passed away. And she says, You're not supposed to. If you're not there when it happens, it's for a reason. It's because you were not supposed... You were not supposed... Your soul wasn't meant to experience that, and the person didn't want you to.

They didn't want to put that on you. Yeah. That's so comforting. It is. Some people who couldn't be there because I'm sure that's a massive thing of guilt.

Yeah.

Yeah.

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

That is interesting. I love that story.

I love that you had the closure that you needed. Yeah. And I love that you called Being Mennonite, Amish light.

I'm obsessed with that.

That may be law.

I'm literally obsessed with that.

And the Devil himself, Tiam.

That's my favorite. I'm going to use that. Let's see. I'm going to do Listener tales, Lucid Dreams and Dimonds. Dimonds. Dimonds. Let me bring her up. Oh, we got two. This is a twofer. Oh, this is a twofer.

Should we start?

Let's start with Lucid Dreams. Yeah. Let's do that. All right. So Let's see. Hello from the land down under. The land under the land down under. You almost got me there. Or New Zealand. Our Tararoa. I did it. For clarity, thank you so much for that fanatic spelling. My name is Kaitlyn. Feel free to use it there. Our multitude of us there and even more ways of spelling it. I have ADHD and I am a Virgo. A dichotomy I am well aware makes for a sporadic and tumultuous relationship. So Please bear with me as I first gush over how much I love you guys. I love you. We love you. I first came across you, Ghoulies, whilst my friend Quiva.

Oh, I like that. Isn't that a pretty name?

The way that's spelled, it's C-A-O-I-M-H-E, but pronounced Quiva.

It's like Siobhán, how that's spelled.

Siobhán. Siobhán.

I love that.

Very pretty. Quiva and I were sharing back and forth different true crime podcasts. Quiva put you on my radar and I've never looked back.

Quiva, Quiva, Quiva.

You made my job at the time. Data entry, not only bearable, but something I could look forward to as I got to hang out with your banter and listen to whatever gastly tale you had prepared for the day. Ash, I too have many souls. My accent will change randomly while I'm speaking. I love that I'm proud about both of you. Thank you. Most often I will claim the accent of the person I am talking to and have to stop mid-sentence to apologize and proclaim, I promise I'm not mocking you. I've just stolen your accent.

That has happened to me before. I love that.

Apparently, is the side effect of ADHD at masking. Masking. I feel that. But that doesn't explain why I randomly go Irish, English, or Russian with no prompting when I've had a few to drink. It's the souls. I like that. It's the souls. Elaina, I loved The Butcher and the Rent. Thank you. From one author to another, you are beyond amazing for finishing one hell of a book. Thank you so much. Now, two. Yeah, hell, yeah. It was gripping and spooky in all the right ways. Please find attached a size 12, double-space putipha of my spooky experience with astral projection and a diamond. And the time I asked the forbidden question while streaming. Yes, I did that. I missed the first intake of it, Listener tales, because I typed everything out in my phone notes, then forgot to format and email it. Adhd, what are you going to do?

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All right, so let's start with Lucid Dreaming because I'm very excited about this.

This one is creepy as fuck.

Let's go. I did the thing. I was dreaming, and I knew I dreaming because since I was five, most of my dreams have been lucid. By the way, sorry about my voice if it sounds a little off.

No, I love your sick voice.

It's a sick voice. I'm struggling with it, but I've been drinking tea.

I envy your sick voice because you sound like Lilo. I sound like some scary old lady who's like- I love that, too, though. I sound like Chandler Bing's manager. Hell, yeah. No, Joey. I just started watching Friends.

I dig that. So I was watching this woman standing in the sunlight. She was dancing. I suddenly I remembered I needed to ask her the date and time. So I blurted out, Hey, do you know the date and time? Her serene face shifted abrupt and she stopped dancing. The sunlight seemed to lose its shine and the woman began yelling and sprinting towards me. You bitch, why would you I hate that. I was afraid, so I did the thing I usually do to wake up and counted to five. This time, however, instead of waking up, I shifted into another dream. In this dream, I was wandering up and down bright white stair classes, Stairclasses. I realized that as I was... You can probably see my... I'm like, Stair classes? That's not what that says. You wrote Staircases. I said Stairclasses. Bright white staircases, reminiscent of the topsy turvy ones from the final scene in the labyrinth à la David Bowie.

So you were meant to read this one? I was.

I wasn't alone here either. There were people dressed completely in white, continuously traveling up and down the stairs. Their faces were blank with emotion, and as I'm typing, I can't recall their exact features. However, I was outnumbered 100 to 1. I have had many a weird dream in my life, but this is the first time I've been dropped into a dream that didn't have at least a point of familiarity. I was curious as to where these staircases would lead, so I assimilated myself into marching up and down the stairs. Good for you. I know. Only to find myself on a staircase above more marching people dressed in white. There didn't seem to be an end to the stairs, and I realized I must be stuck in a loop of sorts. It occurred to me that maybe this was my punishment for asking what the date and time was. That's terrifying. That sucks.

I hate that. That's really scary.

That's terrifying. I hate that. So in typical me fashion, I decided, Fuck this. I stopped in my tracks, turned around, looked at the blank faces of the matching pedestrians dressed in white, and shouted, Hey, what's the date and time? It was like a shock had gone through the crowd. The steady sound of marching ceased immediately. Just like the woman from before, the people dressed in white stopped dead in their tracks. One hundred unrecognizable faces shot their eyes to me. Faces contorting in rage. They opened their mouths and where the normal parts of the mouth should be, AKA teeth, tongue, darkness of a throat, was a bright dark blue light and they were screaming.

I don't like that. Can I interject and be absolutely off topic, but on topic? She said where the mouth should be. Have you ever seen the inside of a Penguin's mouth?

Oh, it's scary.

I found this out last night for the very first time ever.

It's It's a situation.

It's just teeth upon teeth upon teeth upon teeth. And they're all teeth on teeth on teeth. And they're jagged. I saw this video of this girl being scared to pass by a Penguin that she met on the beach. I was like, why is she scared? It's a fucking Penguin.

Because of that mouth. And somebody commented that. Yeah, someone said, what that mouth do. Pretty much. She said, I don't want to know. Why? Yeah. Why? Because they're too cute on the outside.

Well, it's probably fish bones, too.

They got to crush that fish as it goes. Yeah.

But they need lots of teeth. If you don't know what the inside of a Penguin's mouth looks like, please look it up. Anyways, back to these mouths. Google it. What do these mouths do?

They didn't rush me this time, but the sound was deafening. This time, before I could try to wake up, I dream shifted again, and This time I was sitting at a desk opposite a man who looked like a relatively famous actor I'm having trouble remembering the name of. Insert name here if I remember. Steve Valentine.

I don't know who that is. I'm going to look it up.

I know. I need to know now. Let's find out. Worked it out after about a day of trying.

I love that. Steve Valentine?

Yeah, Steve Valentine.

He's a British-American actor. I feel like that makes sense that he would come into your dream. Oh, okay. He just looks like somebody that would come into your dream.

Yeah, he's just like, Hey, Can we get a closeup on Steve Valentine in the house? Can we get a closeup? He's got gray teeth.

He does. What that mouth do.

Sum up, though. He's got mysteries in there.

Yeah, especially with his mustache.

Yeah, you know? With his mustache.

I tried to open Instagram bottom.

His mustache makes it very mysterious. So as he was talking to me, it seemed like he was in the mid-sentence and was explaining something to me. It was like I had blacked out and was coming into the middle of a discussion. I was missing a piece of the conversation and came to his words, and that's why it's important not to ask the question. And this is in a quote, Now you have two options. Either you can have your normal dreams back and never ask the question again, or you can continue to ask the question but never have control over your dreams again. At the time, the choice was obvious. I occasionally have night terrors, so the ability to control my dreams is a necessary component of me acquiring a peaceful night's sleep. I picked to never ask the question again whilst dreaming, and then I woke up in my bed in a cold sweat with a searing headache. I pinched myself to make sure I was actually awake and thought about writing all this down in case I forgot in the morning. However, I decided the headache was bad enough that I didn't want to look at my phone screen.

I lay there for a while contemplating what I could remember of what the man had said, And that's why you can't ask the question. Don't tell anyone about what I have shared. ' Either you can have your dreams back or go back to the white staircases. I had to actively stop my brain from wanting to ask the question again after I fell asleep. But upon managing to keep the inquisitive side quiet, I had a normal dream of fighting zombies alongside friends that I haven't seen in a while. Hey. Awesome. I should really hit them up and see how they are. Anyway, that's my experience of asking the dreaded question of what is the date and time while it's streaming. It was your podcast that gave me the idea to do so. Even though it was comparatively harrowing experience, it was certainly interesting to see how my dreams reacted to it. I now have a migraine, so I'm going to sign off. Yours cautiously, Kat.

Kat. I It's terrifying.

I've done that, and I had a similar experience where everyone was so mad at me. And then it shifted me out of that dream and into another one.

I read these yesterday. And so last night when I was falling asleep, I was like, I want to try it. But I I can't always lucid dream. Sometimes I just fall asleep and it happens and other times I can't.

Yeah, I haven't been able to super control my lucid dreaming when it happens.

I want to. I want to.

I just bought a bunch of books about lucid dreaming. Yeah.

So maybe you'll figure it out. We're going to get on it. I'm taking this witchy class and the second part of it, they talk about astral projecting, and I'm sure lucid dreaming will come up there. Yeah, that's interesting.

I like that.

I'm a little bit scared, though. I don't think your dreams are just dreams, personally.

Probably not. No. I thought it was weird that it worked. I'm usually one that I like to prove things wrong. Yeah. That's my thing. Yeah. And so when we had read those first ones about asking the date and time, I was like, okay, I don't know. I'm going to try this. And I was like, when I tried it, I was shocked at the response and the feeling in the dream that I had.

I feel like our dreams are almost like a higher conscious, but we haven't totally figured out how to figure it all out.

What it all means.

Yeah, I sounded really high there. I'm not.

We haven't figured out how to figure it all out, man. You know? Yeah. Someday we'll figure out how to figure it out.

Let's figure it out. Let's do that. Let's do it together. Yeah.

So let's talk about demons. Demons. Demons. I don't want to do that because I'll cough. I want to start this off by saying, I've always been sensitive. I love how many sensitive listeners we have. I know. We have a lot of those. It makes sense. I can walk into a crowded room and tell if something is off. Same. When I was a kid, I had active conversations with shadows and was able to know if something bad was going to happen. I was obsessed with the supernatural and devoured literally anything remotely on the topic of ghosts, species, and magic.

Elaina?

I can't do that. I also had a bad case of the Night Terrors. Me too. And slept with the light on constantly because although little me likes to think she didn't have the word fear in her vocabulary, she was actually a fearful little bean that couldn't get a full night's sleep to save her life. I was the same. As I grew older, I learned how to combat the bad dreams by waking myself up by counting to five. I have to pinch myself or move my fingers. I would often lay awake watching the shadows on my ceiling morph into various demonic shapes. This was after I had been shamed in sleeping with the light off because I was a big girl now. Side note, fuck you. The night is dark and full of terrors, and I'll sleep with the light on if I want to. There's demons in the closet it in a tentacle monster with a lion's head at its center that has claws inside of its suckers under my bed that will grab me if I don't jump onto the bed from the doorway after I switch off the light switch.

So I'll be sleeping with the light on. Thank you.

100 %. And I agree with you. Fuck that shit. I'm a big girl now. Shit. I will never say that to my kids. No. Because I am 39 years old and I still need the TV on because of the light and light murmuring sound that blows me in the sleep.

Same. I also have this weird thing, and I don't know what this is, but I have a night light in my bathroom and it flashes through the colors of the rainbow. If I go into my bathroom at night, I won't step foot in the bathroom if it's on red. While I'm in there, if it flashes red, I close my eyes until it goes to the next color. Wow. I don't know. I like that. It freaks me out.

I mean, hey, you got to go with your gut. It's a weird thing. You think something's weird, you got to go with it. No, I feel that. The girls have... My kids have this constellation light. I know. The northern in lights with stars. It's so pretty. And it is every night. It has to stay on. And when I go up to bed after they've gone to bed, I go into the room just to check on them. It's just a habit. I have to do it. And then I always turn it off and turn it back on so that it won't cycle through and shut off in the middle of the night because they will wake up and be like, blah. So it's just a habit now. And I don't care how old they are when they use it.

They have one at my house, and I'm always tempted to bring it into my room when they're not there. I'm like, I should just take that.

It's soothing It is. I would use it. Yeah. But John doesn't like light. This is his, actually, because he does not like light.

Yeah, I know. It's a tough... I would have to pick between the TV and that, I think.

Yeah, that's the thing. I'm not a bright light people person at night. So I can handle certain TV shows, but they have to be calm as well. Yeah, we differ there.

We found that out the other day. I fall asleep to Bravo. So it's just like women screaming at each other. Yeah, I can't do But I have it on a low level.

Office and parks and rec because it's pretty low key.

Yeah. Yeah.

It makes sense. Anyway, this story takes place much more recently than I would have liked it to have taken place. This story begins with a mirror. Now, this mirror isn't the small, spooky mirror from a horror movie with a gilded frame. This mirror is the size of a fucking wall and resides in the bathroom I share with my partner and one of my flatmates. On this night, I was standing in front of the mirror on the damp-tiled floor. I think I had gone to the bathroom half asleep and came to consciousness while washing my hands. Though the taps were turned off and my hands weren't wet, I was staring at my reflection or at least where my reflection should have been. In the mirror, I could see the doubles of everything in the bathroom. I could see the shower whose grout refuses to appear clean no matter how much bleach we scrub into it.

That is so hard.

The porcelain bath and the ever dramatic peace lily wilting in the corner, even though I had watered it earlier that day. Lillies are tough.

Lillies are tough.

I could even see the light in the hallway streaming in through the open door. But do you know what I couldn't see? Me. I was standing in the bathroom looking at a mirror that takes up the entire wall, and my body was absent from its surface.

How fucked is that?

I can't even picture that.

How fucked is that?

I looked over my shoulder to check that everything in the mirror was present in real life. That is when the dread set in. Cold fear tore its way through my core. It's icy tendrils claw at my very being. You're an inspiring writer. Write the book.

I know. The way you write is really, really It's really good. Write it. Because you can see everything. The way you write, it's so easy to visualize what you're talking about. Caitlin, write it. Caitlin, cat. Cat, write the book.

Write the book. Write it. All at once, I was aware of the presence behind me. Something was staring at me behind my back, watching me through the mirror. Sweat began to glisten my skin. My stomach flipped and I was frozen. Everything in me was screaming, Don't turn around, don't turn around, don't turn around. And do you know what my dumb ass did? Turn around. I turned a fucking round. And suddenly I found I was back in my bed, drenched in cold sweat, breathing heavily. My partner soundly asleep beside me in a shadow with two long arms that ended in talons standing in the corner of our room. I hate that. I went to move but found my body bound by sleep paralysis. Oh, God. I don't know if you've ever experienced sleep paralysis, but it is one of the most awful experiences. I experienced it recently after a long bout of not experiencing it. Did you? It was when I heard the kids screaming. Oh, yeah.

I forgot you said that.

It fucked me up. For two nights, I couldn't sleep after that because what happened was I woke up to hearing all three of my children in their room screaming my name and help me.

But not actually.

It wasn't real, but it wasn't real. But I was looking at my room, I was hearing their voices, I could see in the hallway, and I went to get up and I couldn't get up. Then I went to yell to John to get up and go get them, but I couldn't yell. And I was just laying in my bed, paralyzed, unable scream, hearing my children screaming for me. Finally, I was able to do the thing where I was able to pinch the side of my leg and move my fingers. And I sat up and I was like, so I couldn't hear them anymore, but I darted into their room. All three of them were fast asleep. And they're all just completely asleep. Fast to sleep. Everything was fine. John was asleep and everything was normal. I could not go back to sleep that night. I sat up feeling sick. It was awful.

I've had Dream's not on that level, but I've had dreams similar to that where I've had to sit up and just fall asleep naturally.

Take a moment. But that one fucked me up. I could not get back. And even the next night, I couldn't fall asleep.

Yeah, that would shake me.

It fucked me up.

I've only had sleep paralysis once, and it was in a car when I was little. I was having this wicked scary dream. I remember opening my eyes but not being able to move at all, but seeing the cars pass. Yeah, it was weird.

It's scary. When it It happens in your bed, oftentimes you see things in the room with you that you can't move away from and they're coming towards you. And while it's happening, you're sitting there being like, oh, my God, this is real. There's something in my room and I can't move. It's this weird thing your brain does. It's very weird. I hate it.

I hate it a lot.

In the 1980s, a rosé swept the country.

Hey, Mike, I really like this white Zinfin down.

Well, good. Now put it down. We're going to try another one. White Zin became America's top selling wine. But most don't know that this sweet drink has a sour history. What began in 1986 with counterfeit bottles.

A big fraud, a multimillion dollar fraud.

Sent investigators chasing one of the most powerful families in the business, the Lachardies. But the closer the feds got to them, the more dangerous things it became. It's a story of deceit.

At the time, I was paranoid.

Threats.

You touch my kids, I will kill you.

And murder. With a 22 caliber bullet to the head. What started with a scheme to mislabel wine, spilled into a blood-soaked battle for succession. Welcome to bloodvines. You can binge listen to bloodvines exclusively and ad-free on WNDYRI Plus. Join WNDRI Plus in the WNDRI app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.

Bunk. Bunk.

Bunk. Michael, what are you doing? I'm saying Bunk, Vinnie. What's a Bunk? I'm glad you asked, Vinnie. Bunk is a super easy-to-use free digital bank that pays 2. 67% interest on your savings. Paid weekly fully on demand and can be set up in just five minutes. It's fun to say, Bunk. Bunk.

I see. What did my bank pay?

Next to nothing.

On Bunk?

2. 67%, Vinnie. Paid weekly. Paid weekly. Okay, Bunk. Bunk. Hey, it is fun to say. Bunk Ireland is regulated by the Dutch Central Bank and by the Central Bank of Ireland for Rules of Business Conduct. Terms of Conditions apply.

It's one of the most awful experiences, I agree. Your mind is fully awake, but your body isn't aware that you are and is frozen. You feel trapped in the useless sack of meat that is your body. Your very being is claustrophobic as it is being reduced to dead weight. The only thing I know that can counteract this paralysis is to go kill Bill on the situation, wiggle your big toe, or in my case, move your pinkie finger. I have to move my fingers. While still seeing the terrifying visage that is the fucking Baba Yaga in the corner of the room, I channeled everything into moving the seemingly useless appendage. After a moment that felt like an eternity, my pinkie finger moved, breaking the spell of paralysis. I bolted to turn on the bedside table light, telling the demon to fuck off as it wasn't welcome here. As soon as the light turned on, the shadowy shape disappeared. I sat up on my bed, legs to my chest, blanket clutched tightly to my chin, breathing as slowly as I could muster, trying to calm myself down. My partner woke up at this point due to the commotion.

He told me it was okay and to go back to sleep. I turned the light off, but I couldn't shake the seeping terror. I ended up getting out of bed, going downstairs to the kitchen and grabbing the salt. I did a rough cleansing, and once back in bed, I managed my witchy... I messaged my witchy friends and told them everything that had happened. After chatting them for a while, I'd calm down enough to attempt to go back to sleep. Now, wouldn't it be great if the story ended there? It would. But unfortunately, there ain't no rest for the wicked. As soon as I would settle down, the dread would creep its way back in. I could feel something watching me. When I did finally get some sleep, my dreams were a wash of nightmares that I don't fully remember. What I do remember is a voice of many whispers searching for a book. A book had gone missing or had been stolen. I don't know, but I remember vividly that that's what the entity was searching for. According to my partner, I woke up multiple times telling the darkness to go away or you're not welcome.

He also claimed I had been tapping on his head to wake him up, but later realized I couldn't have been tapping him as I was facing the opposite direction.

Fuck a whole bunch of that. Fuck that.

That day at work, I felt out of it. Like I wasn't fully connected to my body. I was present, but going about my duties was excruciatingly difficult. I was ridiculously clumsy and found myself walking into door frames and tripping over my own feet.

You were experiencing life as me. Yep.

I ended up calling my witchy friend, and she told me to come over. We all need as many witchy friends as we can possibly get. It's true.

We have a great amount of witchy friends.

We have wonderful witchy friends.

I love our witchy friends. It's true. Love you.

She came to the conclusion that I had been astral projecting in my sleep and my spirit wasn't fully back in my body.

It's like, Where were you?

And where are you?

And limbo.

That's scary. Where are you? Where are No. Soul. Soul. We did a grounding ritual which involved my holding on to the biggest orb of crystal I'd ever seen in my life. Love it. Once done, I no longer had the airy weightless of feeling and felt much more attached to my body. We then made a cleansing/banishing charm, which to this day is still under my bed. I still live in the same house this occurred in and occupy the same room. But thankfully, the only demons I see now are the ones that have been attached to my partner since childhood. To Lejo and Anarek.

That's cool.

Damn. They're mostly chill.

Damn.

They're mostly chill. And usually just stare at me from the closet and protect us from the bad vibes. Oh, I like them then. Yeah, hell, yeah. Good for them. They were absolutely no help with the demon that visited on that night, though. It seems they were afraid of it as much as I was. Aw. Apologies for the long story. You shut up.

No.

Love you, bad bitches to the moon and back. Thank you for sticking with me through this frankly long-winded, yet slightly cathartic, now that I've written it all down, tale. Yay. It was not long-winded at all. No, it was perfect. That was perfect.

And fucking scary.

Like, Kat. You're a writer. Kat, can I call you Kat? You're a writer. You're a rock star. Write the book or whatever it is that you want to write because you're great at it. And holy shit, We've had a lot of shit happen. Yeah, for real. I like it.

No, that was a good one.

You're powerful at night, I feel.

Only at night. Only at night. You're powerful at night.

Yeah. Your spirit apparently leaves you in the day.

I mean, yeah. Glad you got it back. It's like, Sponjab, at night.

I don't know what that is, but I'm going to trust.

It's just an episode where he literally just keeps saying, At night. At night. There you go. Oh, actually, you would like that. Nosferatu makes an appearance.

Oh, nice.

I dig that. That's when Drew always goes, Nosferatu. Okay.

Yeah.

Anyway, All right, my next tale is Listener Tale: The Time I Accidentally Became a Medium. Yeggety Yeet. Thank you for that.

I like the accidentally part of this.

I know. Accidently. Oops. Hello, ladies. My name is... I think it's Emily. I Emily. H-u-g-e. Huge fan. Listener tales are some of my favorite episodes, and I finally got around to writing one.

I love that. I always love hearing when people love Listener tales.

Because people do.

They do.

Although I'm not a writer, and there are probably a lot of grammatical errors, and it doesn't help that I feel the pressure of a best-selling author potentially reading my writing.

Oh, babe. That's why I have an editor.

By the way, I'm about to read the shit out of Butcher in the Rhin, and congratulations, Elaina. Thank you. Anywho, I'll keep it short and sweet because my tale is a little on the longer side. I timed it and it ended up being around 10 minutes. Attached is my 14-point double-space putipha. Random, but every time I hear you guys say that, I imagine a sassy Frenchman saying it in an accent over and over, trying to get somebody to say it correctly.

Okay. That's like merch, right?

Yeah. A man with a beret and a mustache. Yeah. And he just has a thought bubble that says, putipha, putipha, putipha. Yeah, I like that. That'll happen.

Tm.

I mean, no, but I already said that. Make sure to scroll to the bottom to the putipha to see all my little pictures I attached to give some faces to the mentioned names.

Oh, that reminds us.

Oh, yeah.

That's a very good seg. A very... And that's why we drink would say a segou. A segou. A segue into, if you guys have attach photos to your listener tales, and you are cool with us sharing them on socials to add to the whole story and everything. Let us know in the listener tale, which ones we're allowed to, which ones you're fine with, Or you can say none of these are okay to share. For public consumption. Which is totally fine. You're not going to... Yeah. We don't care. Either way, we totally get it. No, it's your bad. But sometimes when you have fun tales that reference certain things, people are like, Oh, I want to see that thing, the picture of the scratches on the wall or something like that, or I want to see that cute little puppy. So if it's cool, just let us know. If not, let us know. And if you don't say anything, we will not share it. Yeah, exactly. Because we'll just assume that it's not okay. Yeah. But again, either way, it's okay. Just let us know so we can start sharing them if you're cool with it.

Just like how we ask if we can use your name or not. You guys usually put that in there. Try to do it when you do pictures. Yeah.

Just so we're not sharing things that you want shared. And we'll never share something that you don't want shared.

Exactly. So if this makes this on the podcast, consider my pants soiled. Love you guys. Hey, I hope you got new pants. What are your soiled pants? Ash, Elaina, ladies. First of all, of course, I need to begin with word vomiting affirmations of love all over you both. Thank you. I love you guys so much. You girls are simply some of the most splendid people in my life, and I don't like having many people around. So the fact that you two are in my ears basically 24/7 says a lot.

This is why we all get along here.

Yeah, we all have a- Because we're all the same. We all have a limit to the people that we can hang out with. I'd never been a... Hello. I'd never been a huge fan of true crime before discovering morbid, but I just wanted to commend you guys for the way that you honor the stories and memories of the victims you choose to cover. And in doing so, you preserve the memory of the person rather than the tragedy. Thank you. Thank you. That's what we try to do.

Yeah, that's always the aim. Yeah.

It's touching to learn about the lives of these amazing people, and I feel that they must appreciate that a lot as well wherever their souls are resting.

Oh, that like really, that hit different. Thank you for that.

But anyway, my name is Emily, pronounced like regular Emily. And yes, you can use it and all the other names involved. Emily. I'm 25 years old, hailing from the state of Indiana, affectionately known to many as the Corn State. We got to tell some people that.

We do.

I discovered more but a few months while searching for something to occupy my ears during my grueling 10-hour shifts as a delivery driver at a certain delivery company. I'm sure I've been caught many times on ring cameras, randomly bursting out in laughter at you guys. That'd be awesome. I continue to listen to you all as I upgrade from the Bezos brigade to my first Big Girl office job as assistant marketing director, where I am currently typing this while making it look like I am actually working. How adult of me.

What a badass you are.

Now I am irrevocably hooked and have been making my way through all 400 plus episodes anytime I get the chance. The shower, the car, when I'm folding clothes, taking my crazy ass dog for a walk. Which, speaking of, I have a beautiful nine month old German shepherd named Gemini. Oh, I love that. Oh, I love that. Love, love, love. Pictures attached, obviously. Well, We'll message anybody who shared pictures this time around and see if we can get them out. Yeah, for sure. And I just had to bring her up because I bring her up any chance I can get. I feel that. She came into my life when I needed her the most, and I think it's no coincidence that she's a Gemini and I'm a Capricorn, just like another bestie duo that I know.

Oh my God, I love that.

My younger sister is also a Gemini/Taurus cusp, and our relationship reminds me so much of you two. But anyway, that's quite enough about me. Let's get to the spooky stuff. Never. My tale is a little more on the spooky side. After all, I came to the podcast for the Supernatural and stayed for the true crime, L-O-L. I love that. It starts a few years ago, right around the beginning of the panorama. Now, a little context for the story. I grew up very borderline cultish Christian. I consider myself now to be an incredibly open person that believes in the spiritual but readily acknowledges that none of us know what the fuck is going on.

Good for you, man.

Hell, yeah. So I'm the last person that will ever look at somebody differently for their beliefs or challenge them because ultimately everyone's individual spiritual experience is for them and them alone. Love that so much. That's exactly how I feel. So I wanted to preface by saying I'm not against Christianity, and I never will be, and I did not want to come across that way by the next part of my story. Thank you so much for coming to my TED Talk.

Don't worry, we're with Yeah, we got you.

I just graduated college and was living in Minneapolis with two of my bestie girls. We were on top of the world in our brand new three bedroom apartment, doing nothing but smoking ganja and collecting those good, good stimulus checks. What a time, the pandemic. We had all attended the same private Christian University, and we all started to depart from our Christian beliefs at the time. Our community was very comforting, and we all became a safe space for each other to deconstruct from our lifelong systems of belief, which is terrifying, by the way. If you're currently experiencing it, I see you.

Yeah, I I can imagine that.

It's a lot to veer off from a path that you've been on your whole life.

Yeah, especially when you've been raised that way. Yeah.

We did start to get a little wild with it, experimenting with a lot more weed and psychedelics. My teenage self is rolling in her grave at the thought that I would ever do drugs. This ultimately led to some wild spiritual experiences when we would explore together. At the start of my spiritual awakening, I had an incredibly visual and effortless connection to the spiritual realm or other dimensions, who knows, and would often dabble in astral projection receive messages in the forms of visions. For example, one time, I astral traveled while in my physical body and I was having a stomach ache. As soon as I arrived at my destination, the beings there just started chanting at me to eat corn, eat corn. I was very confused by that. But sure enough, when I woke up, there was a mystery can of corn in our pantry that none of my roommates had bought. Shut the fuck up. And when I ate it, my stomach immediately felt better. I looked it up after the fact, and corn is a natural laxative. Oh, shit. Who knew? I guess it has the juice.

I'm obsessed with the fact that they were all just like, eat some fucking corn.

You'll feel better. Eat some fucking corn. And I'm obsessed with, it has the juice. He said, I really hope you got that reference. Of course. We did. That reference was my life for a minute. It was. I love that jingle. Whether or not I had spoken to real beings at that moment, I may never know. But one day, while I was at the apartment by myself, I had a vision that made me realize I was most definitely, beyond a doubt, connecting with something very, very real on the other side. Some One time before this happened, my roomies and I had started watching a documentary on Netflix called Surviving Death, which is about real near-death experiences and other related things. It's super awesome and interesting. Go watch it. In one of these episodes, a medium explained how spirits from beyond try to communicate in whatever channels they can, one of these channels being electricity. So of course, when I'm home alone high as balls and the hallway lights start flickering like it had never done before, I knew what the fuck was up, Kyle. I didn't have any preconceived ideas is about what exactly he could be trying to communicate with me, but I wanted to hear it out nonetheless.

So I started by saying out loud, Whoever is there, blink for a yes, stop for a no. Are you trying to communicate with me? Blinking continues. Are you not trying to communicate with me. See what I did there? Blinking stops. Okay. Oh, shit. Now we're getting somewhere. Are you someone that I know? No blinking. Do you know me? Blinking starts again. Do you have a message for me? Blinking continues. At this point, I wasn't sure if I was actually communicating with something, but I decided because I most easily received messages through visuals, I was going to lay down and try to connect with this energy while I astral projected. Now, I don't know about a lot of people's experiences, but for me, astral projection feels like a marriage between my intuition, my mind's creativity, and spiritual guidance. A lot of times the messages are formed around stories that I'm shown. That's really cool. I like that. This is really interesting. The The children started off with a king who was the main character in this story. He was running away from his castle when he fell through an ice-covered lake. He was trapped until his soldiers could retrieve him, and they brought him back to a castle.

The king was bedridden, freezing, and fighting for life as a blur of servants and soldiers came in and out of every door to bring him aid. But then I saw her. A woman approached his bed, and as she approached, I took the perspective of the king. I could feel his overwhelming sense of love, warmth, and the relief that he felt when he saw her. She was wearing a black floor-length dress with long sleeves, a white apron, and her face was that of a black bird. Oh. All of a sudden, a bright light came over her face, and she transformed into a beautiful woman with rosy cheeks and silky black hair. I kept hearing the same word over and over, raven. I have actual chills. I've literally read this before and I have chills.

I just got like a whoosh of chills.

A wham, if you will.

I love ravens.

Yeah, I love ravens so much. I've been trying I like communicate more with ravens and crows lately because hacate rules over them. I love my crows. I'm really into hacate lately.

Yeah, that's my girl.

Yeah. So she's right over there.

You just can't see her. Yeah, she is.

So I got up and as I sat up, I began to question the light again. Are you Raven? No blinking. Is Raven someone you love? Blinking starts furiously. I tried asking it some other questions, but growing continuously in confusion, I decided to stop. I thanked the energy for their time, and I apologized that I wasn't sure what to do with the information. Later on, though, one of my roommates returned home from a grocery run, and I had the incredible sense that I needed to tell her everything that happened. It hadn't even been five minutes after telling her about the light interaction that we both got a text from our third roommate in our group chat. Another quick tidbit of context. My third roommate, Amanda, worked for a program that connected with teenagers in the local area to create a positive community for them with different activities and resources. It was an awesome program. The text we got said that she was going to be over one of her students who was having a particularly rough time in her life and was in need of extra support. When I read the message, I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, and I responded, Is her name Raven?

Yes, was the response. Oh, wow.

Isn't That's not insane. I was waiting. I was like, Don't tell me. Who's Raven? Don't tell me.

I'm Jon Robbins, and on my podcast, I sit down with incredible people to ask the very simple question, How do you cope? From confronting grief and mental health struggles to finding strength in failure. Every episode is a raw and honest exploration of what it means to be human. It's not always easy, but it's always real. Whether you're looking for inspiration, comfort, or just a reminder that you're not alone in life's messier moments, join me on How do you cope? Follow now wherever you get your podcasts or listen to episodes early and ad free on WNDRI Plus. How Do You Cope is brought to you by Audible, who make it easy to embark on a wellness journey that fits your life with thousands of audiobooks, guided meditations, and motivational series.

As I read the message, I collapsed in a heap on the ground and I started to sob uncontrollably.

I was overwhelmed with the feeling of grief and loss. Raven had been a student of Amanda for some years now, but only had recently lost her mother unexpectedly to an overdose while she was at a party in another state. Raven was devastated and at the age of 18 was left with nothing and nowhere to go. The amount of desperation I was experiencing was indescribable. Like the desperation of a mother who left her baby too soon and was doing anything she could to tell her that everything was going to be okay. The feeling was so intense that I could barely catch my breath. And as I remembered that Raven was currently on her way to our apartment, I couldn't bear the thought of even being in the same room with her, let alone meeting her for the first time and freaking her out by explaining to her that I'm sobbing and snotty because her late mother was trying to channel through me like what the actual fuck. Oh my God. The entire time Raven had been over that evening, I was in the next room weeping. I didn't get any other messages from Raven's mother. However, I came to learn later on that Raven was a caretaker of sorts for her, which lined up with the narrative from my vision.

I feel the king leaving the castle was representative of her mom leaving home. His breaking through the ice was the tragic event ending in her loss, and the appearance of the woman represented her longing to be with Raven again. A stretch, perhaps, but I needed some way of rationalizing.

No, I think it makes sense. I don't think it's a stretch.

I told her about the experience eventually, and while she was a little weirded out because she didn't consider herself spiritual at the time, she was very comforted by the sentiment of her mother still being around her. Raven moved in with us a few months later and we all became one big happy family for a while. Things didn't exactly end on a super cheeky note in the household by the time I moved away, but Raven and I remain close and we chat as often as we can. Oh, I love that. I know. I try to tell her every time we talk how proud I am of her and that no matter what, I will always be there for her. After all, I think that's exactly why her mother came to me in the first place. She needed to know that her precious daughter would be okay, that she had people who loved her in her life and that those people would look after her. Today, Raven shares an apartment with Amanda and works as a store manager while pursuing modeling and fashion, and even sews her own I really mean it when I say I'm so, so proud of her.

I'm proud of Raven.

Me too. As for me, I haven't dabbled so much in mediumship since that point. It reached a point for me where I had to kindly ask energies to leave me alone because I was starting to see and hear things quite constantly, creating a lot of paranoia in my daily life. Will I ever get back into that world? Probably. Just not until I'm ready. I was and still am processing a lot from that time, but hopefully I'll have more tales for you one day. If you've made it this far, thank you so much for reading, regardless of whether it ends up on the pod. Although if it does, I got a fresh set of fruit of the looms ready to go for the fuck of us that will surely be happening in my pants while I listen. I love it. And Deb, you, superhero. Thank you for reading through all of these. You're an angel. I just know it. She is. She is. And with that, ladies, keep it weird, but not so weird that you accidentally channel your future roommate's dead mom while smoking way too much pot and end up talking to your light bulbs.

Or do. Do you, Boo Boo?

Do you, Boo Boo?

I love it. I like it. That was so good.

Damn. Emily, right?

That was a good one. That was really good.

And Spooky. Super spooky. That gave spookiness.

It was like wholesome spookiness. Yeah.

Damn. All right. Well, I think we're going to end on Listener Tale Dreamtown, where I met my husband for the first time.

This one's really cool.

I'm obsessed with the idea of dream towns.

I know. I love a dream town. I love it so much.

Attached for your consideration, I've included my tale of dream world and how I met my husband there. If you decide to read this tale, you may use my first name. Heather. Heather. But please do not use any other names. I actually left out the names of others, but attach pics and info that have the names for your eyes only.

Thank you. Which you were ahead of the game telling us what we could and couldn't do with these pics.

You were ahead of the whole thing. All right. It says, Listener Tale. Follow up to Listener Tale, Dreamtown. I met my husband when we were children in the astro world, only to meet up when we were adults in this world, thousands of miles from our childhood hometowns.

Isn't that fucking crazy?

Whoa. That's crazy. He says, Hello, Ash and Elaina. Starting with the obligatory gushing over how fantastic you both are in that you do. You are both fantastic. Listening to Morbid genuinely feels like sitting around talking with my besties about all things morbid and whimsicle.

That's exactly what we want.

It really is. So please keep doing what you do and always wishing you both the best of success and all that you do across all your lifetimes. Thank you. Love you guys. Well, let's get into it. I am a half century old weird witch freak artist healer medium. I'm I'm obsessed with you. Love. And lover of the ocean, nature, and animals. Anywho, I was struck by your listener tale, 85, in which a listener talked about her experience with astral projection and the tree in the Meadow and Dreamtown. I was obsessed with that one.

That one, I think I'll remember for the rest of my life.

That changed me. I've been there and met others there, some of whom I ended up meeting in this world, including the boy who would become a man who would eventually become my husband.

Fucking beautiful.

I'm literally like, womb.

Like, beautiful. Yeah.

The meadow with the weeping willow, with the orbs of light, and how magical the other world is, that is where we met. Being able to move through the astral world and being able to shift and change things in this world is one of the greatest and freeing experiences. It reminds me of where we go between lifetimes. It was one of my favorite places to be. One can fly there, move with ease like floating, swim like a mermaid, and all the laws of physics, as we know it, do not seem to exist.

I want to go to there.

Let me get back up a bit and give you some context. The bulk of my most vivid astral experiences happened in my youth, teens, and early adult life. I'm guessing I come from a long line of witches, mystics, or something weird. I've been a weirdo for as long as I can recall. And well before I even knew weirdos existed. I've been able to see and talk with dead people before I could talk with living people. I've been lucid dreamer for as long as I can remember, and well before I even knew there was a term for it. I remember that, too. I didn't know before I knew there was a term for it. I was like, It's weird. I can do this I always used to say, Oh, like some dreams I can control. Yeah, like I have a decision in my dreams. I have also spent much of my life having weekly, sometimes daily predictions. Everything from small acts or behaviors of another person to huge events like the tsunami in 2004 in the Indian Ocean. Another tale for another time.

That's wild.

Okay, here's my tale. My husband and I met in the astral world when we were children. He lived on the East Coast and I on the West Coast. We were kids and would meet up in the Meadow with the willow tree, and I loved him instantly. We did not know each other in the physical world. We would fly, run, laugh, and play. We were about 10 to 12 years old. When the time would come to wake up, I hated it. I hated leaving the astral world. I hated leaving him. He would tell me not to worry because we would know each other again and for always.

Ruined me. Literally ruined me.

One of the times when we met by the tree, he tried to give me his phone number. It would try to tell me where he lived in the physical world. It was always so hard to understand each other when we tried to talk of the physical world, like our voices would get drowned out in a sudden roar of wind, or one of us would just disappear/wake up. Each time we tried to talk about finding each other in the physical world, the astral world would feel heavy and grow darker, less fun. What would end up being one of the last times we would see each other in the astral world, he had me memorize his phone number, a landline, as cell phones were not a thing yet. I know I'm ancient, I feel it. The world would shift and turn heavy/darker when we would try to talk about how to find each other in the physical world. So it was really hard to remember his number, but I was determined. I woke up with a body-wide jerk, like when you're falling in a dream and you jerk yourself awake. I hate that feeling. I do, too.

And I instantly wrote the number down. I was shocked and exhilarated all at the same time. I knew he was real. We could never remember each other's names when we woke up, but I remembered the number.

This is incredible. Insane. I love it.

The scribbled number on the scrap of paper sat on my desk for days, as I was afraid to call it. It felt like we broke a major rule and somehow we would get in trouble. But I called it on a weekend and my heart raced. My mouth went dry and felt like a bowling ball was in my stomach. It rang several times before a woman answered with a bit of a Southern accent. I tried to speak, but fuck, I didn't know this kid's name. So what was I supposed to say? Hello. I'm a girl who's been visiting with a boy in an astral world. Is there a boy that lives there? Yes. Yeah, I hung up. But I saved the number. My visits in the astral world came and went, and sometimes we would see each other, and I tried to tell him. I called. He said, I know, and don't worry, we'll be together. Life went on, and astroprojection is something that has always been a part of my existence. So want to know how and when we meet in the physical world? Of course I do. Well, I will write more another time.

Just kidding. I was like, No. What are you talking about? I was like, You bitch. No. You bitch. Now you know how it feels when you end a multi-part episode on a cliffhanger.

That's when Heather's yelling at us, You bitch. Fuck.

You got me. So fast forward 12 to 13-ish years.

Why was that so funny?

I'm now in my 20s living in the PNW, attending university. Pacific Northwest. Living near campus in a historically restored apartment building, I saw him. There he was, living in a bottom floor flat. I would have to pass by his window upon entering the building. He and his housemate often had the window open during the spring and summer months as they played their guitars, singing, smoking the devil's lettuce, and living the good life. I knew when I saw him that we knew each other. I just knew. In a very anticlimactic fashion, when we did finally speak, he gave no indication that he knew me or remembered me or wanted anything to do with me. Instant broken heart. But I didn't give up because I knew, I remembered. The meadow and all the fun we had came washing over me. As my friends and I started hanging out and getting to know these fly boys, it became more and more clear to me that we knew each other, but he ignored me. I was devastated. I was so attracted to him on a soul level. I once told my friend at the time, I'm going to have that man's babies.

She turned and said, Just his babies? No marriage? I just gave him a knowing smile. Fast forwarding a bit, he finally began noticing me and talking with me. And next thing you know, we're dating. I did straight up ask at some point, What changed? Why are you paying attention now? He replied, Bro code. I was like, What the fuck does that He explained that his flatmate called Dibs. I should have been horrified that I was being seen as a possession, but I was flattered. I got it. She goes, It was the 1990s, way back in the 1990s. We were not as woke then. Once it was painfully clear I wanted nothing to do with his cringey flatmate, the bro code was dissolved. Well, as my future husband and I grew closer and closer, we shared about finding each other all those years before in the astro world. It was an incredible night as we snuggled up as a massive storm rained down and begins sharing and remembering our otherworldly time together.

This is like a movie.

I can't get over this.

I love it so.

As we were talking, I got up, walked to my keepsake box, and showed him the telephone number. Stop it. It was his grandmother's number.

I love. All over. I love, love.

All over. My future husband was born and raised on the East Coast. Hell, yeah. And was in part raised by his grandparents. Hell. And that is the number he gave me all those years before in the astro worlds, we locked eyes and we knew we found each other across space and time.

Fucking stop. I'm just like, I can't.

I cannot. Fast forward to the present. My beloved husband Oh, this is going to... Oh, this destroys me. I'm so sorry.

But it's so beautiful.

Fast forward to the present. My beloved husband was killed 10 years ago. Behicular manslaughter, leaving me to raise our babies alone. I'm going to cry. I I always knew I would have his babies, and I always knew our time together would be way too short. He knew it, too. You're literally going to make Elaina cry.

I'm going to cry.

I'm literally about to cry.

It's such a beautiful story.

But we also knew that we could find each other. I'm going to literally cry. It's going to happen on camera. We also knew we can find each other across time and space and across lifetimes. It's important to know that my husband and I, in our nearly 15 years together, came discover that we remembered multiple lifetimes together.

I'm sorry. I've never seen Elaina actually be brought to tears like that. No, I know.

I'm thinking of John, and this is fucking me up.

Did you see me reading the listening tales over there yesterday? I got in a sad place. Yes.

And yes, I knew when he walked out the door on that fateful day, he died that he wasn't coming home. He knew it, too. Since his death, I've been blessed with his visits and his signs to remind me that we are never that far apart. And that we... Oh, fuck. This is fucking me up. I know. I just keep thinking of John. This is my worst fear. I know. That's not going to happen. That we are never far apart and that we will always find one another across time, across space and lifetimes. Ash, the way you speak of your love, Drew, reminds me of my love. Thank you for that. Stay weird and remember our time here is beyond our control. Make the most of your moments and remember what is real is the love we create, the love we share and love we become. Damn, I needed that, I think.

That was really, really sweet. I love that one thing that she says, What is real is the love we share, create, and become.

Like, damn. Thank you again for what you beautiful souls do. Thank you for what you beautiful souls are. Seriously. He brings light to the world by telling the stories of the dead, of the strange and the unexplainable, and those without a voice. Below are some photos. No names, but my own please, if you decide to read this on the pod.

Also, I just have to say you guys are fucking gorgeous.

Beautiful.

A beautiful couple that absolutely... Mikey's crying over there. We're all just crying about our love. The only reason I'm not is because I read this yesterday and cried. But I'm like, You clearly belong together. You can see it in your eyes. You have soulmate eyes. Oh my God.

And your kids are beautiful.

And your kids look so much like each of you. It's wild.

That was beautiful. I can't even...

The most beautiful ever.

You just destroyed me, Heather, and that was gorgeous.

Yeah. That touched me on another level. In me and Drew's vows, I was like, I'm not saying till death, do us part. I absolutely outright refused to say that. And we said, I will find you in every lifetime. And we say that to each other all the time. And I'm like, no, I will. No, I will. You're not getting away from me. You're not marrying anybody else in another lifetime. So get that thought out of your head.

And I don't cry. That's a big deal. You just got me to cry.

That's huge. Look at you, you look softy.

That was really good. No, you guys. That hit me.

It's the cream of the crop, you guys. It really is. Damn. I love you guys. I'm calling this back up so I can do the not so weird. Fuck. I know.

Thank you for that, guys.

You're so pretty when you cry.

Oh my God.

You have a pretty cry face. That's so sweet. Thank you. You do. I look- Oh, you burped. I look crazy when I cry. I have a little bit of a Kim K crying face. No, I was prettier when I cried when I had my Botox, but now that I I cried the other day and I was like, oh, it's moving. My face is moving.

Gross. It's supposed to.

I know. But yeah, these were beautiful.

That was awesome.

And fascinating. And I want to fucking astral project so badly.

That just fucked me up. All of it.

I know. But I want to learn how to astral project safely.

I got some books that are coming.

We'll do it. Hmu. Hit me up. All right, guys. Well, as always, we hope to keep listening and we hope you keep it we But that's so weird that you don't check these out on YouTube. If you're listening, these are available on video on YouTube, which I feel like we never say. I know.

We always forget.

And definitely keep it so weird, but not so weird that your mom has to have an exorcism based off a vision that she had. I think you should keep it so weird that you meet your husband in a dream Dreamtown, and then you spend every lifetime together because that's my fucking plan and your fucking plan. Hell, yeah. Definitely keep it so weird that you channel a message for a future bestie from their mom. That's so cool. And don't keep it so weird that you look at the mirror and you're gone and everything If anything behind you is not correct. Or it is correct, but you're not supposed to turn around, and it's scary.

And a scary demon visits you.

Yeah, don't keep it that weird. Don't do that. But we love you so much. We do. Bye. We're going to sleep now. If you like Morbid, you can listen early and ad-free right now by joining WNDYRI+ in the WNDRI app or on Apple podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wndyri. Com/survey.

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