A Prophetic Middle School Crush | Your Urban Legends 110
/Have you been dreaming about a new urban legend episode? Maybe your dreams are a little bit prophetic! We dig into some sweet and also terrifying prophetic dreams, creepy child ghosts, and why we trust night nurses over any other profession to combat the supernatural.
Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about or mentions of illness, war, institutionalization, sex, death, dementia, and child endangerment.
Housekeeping
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Cast & Crew
- Co-Hosts: Julia Schifini and Amanda McLoughlin
- Editor: Bren Frederick
- Music: Brandon Grugle, based on "Danger Storm" by Kevin MacLeod
- Artwork: Allyson Wakeman
- Multitude: multitude.productions
About Us
Spirits is a boozy podcast about mythology, legends, and folklore. Every episode, co-hosts Julia and Amanda mix a drink and discuss a new story or character from a wide range of places, eras, and cultures. Learn brand-new stories and enjoy retellings of your favorite myths, served over ice every week, on Spirits.
Transcript
[theme]
AMANDA: Welcome to Spirits Podcast, a boozy dive into mythology, legends and folklore. Every week, we pour a drink and learn about a new story from around the world. I'm Amanda.
JULIA: And I'm Julia. And Amanda, we are back with another Hometown Urban Legends episode. I don't know— I've been re-listening to a lot of these, and I guess I just don't know how to start these in a way that is not singing or putting on a weird accent.
AMANDA: It's quite true, because normally, when Julia researches an episode, she'll put together an outline with the help of researcher Sally for some episodes, and you think of an intro. Sometimes I go rogue and, you know, just kind of throw a non sequitur at you, and then you sort of pivot nicely back to your outline. But for these, Julia, we're— it's loosey-goosey, baby. We are coming here with our voicemails. That's right, we have a voicemail for today. We have emails.
JULIA: Yay.
AMANDA: And I mostly want to say, Julia, that it is so hot out here in July. It is sticky, it is humid. My tomato plants are doubling in size every day. I am wilting. I want to do nothing more than crank that AC all the way up, cuddle down under a blanket, and listen to some scary stories.
JULIA: You know what? Just because it's summertime and the sun is out for longer, does not mean that there are not spooky things that we can talk about here.
AMANDA: And can I get us started, Julia, with a urban legend that grabbed me right from the subject line? Which is the Axe Murderer is coming for you.
JULIA: Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Yes.
AMANDA: This is from K. Pronouns, she/her. And K writes, "Hey, Amanda and Julia, I am a long time-listener, first-time submitter. In the hometown episode from May of this year, you asked people to submit again, to strengthen the broth." As you pointed out, Julia, this is the stone soup metaphor that I don't remember making, but people love.
JULIA: Yeah. Yeah. People love the soup metaphor, and I love that for you, Amanda.
AMANDA: K continues, "As a lover of out of pocket metaphors, I really loved that one."
JULIA: Amanda, all your pot—
AMANDA: So—
JULIA: I was gonna say all of your metaphors are out of pocket, but some of them are, you know, right on the money. But this one, mwa, chef's kiss. I love it.
AMANDA: Thank you. I like to think of myself as more of a Kim Possible, not only because I really wish that I had hair like hers, but also because I like to wear a black crop top and big pants. I think those pants have many, many pockets. Not even cargo pants. It's like a parachute style pant with so many pockets and so many metaphors of all shapes and sizes and flavors that— I mean, it's in my pocket, but it's still random. You know?
JULIA: Much like that one, yes.
AMANDA: All right, back to K. Here goes nothing. "Let's go back to 2010. I was 16. It was summer. 11th grade was approaching, and I went to a mental and general health rehab facility for teens over the summer break as I was struggling with some shit."
JULIA: Fair enough.
AMANDA: "The facility is a fairly new building, but it's part of a bigger complex of old buildings that used to be a sanatorium for tuberculosis, then a hospital during World War Two, before being used and run down by the Soviets during the Cold War."
JULIA: Oh. Okay.
AMANDA: "It's called Beelitz-Heilstätten, and is a popular list place with history and probably lots of people dying there over the years if I had to guess."
JULIA: Yeah, when it's a tuberculosis hospital and then a regular hospital during the war. Yeah, yeah. Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: "Some buildings are in ruins, a few were renovated and are now being used as rehab centers for all kinds of conditions and illnesses. But everything is on the same big property. And one story in particular is a murder that happened there after the complex was shut down for good for a few years. The story goes that a photographer went there with a model whom he found via newspaper search. He wanted to take some pictures of her amidst and inside the beautiful old buildings when," the story goes, "a mania grabbed him and he murdered her in cold blood."
JULIA: I feel like this was a very '90s, early 2000s story about, like, the dangers of answering personal ads.
AMANDA: Yes. And for additional context, K adds, "At least that's what my older sister told me the first weekend she visited me. Thanks."
JULIA: Hey, that's rude. Honestly, rude.
AMANDA: "So I had two very nice bunk mates that summer. We got along great, and honestly, I even made some friends. It was really useful. One night, it was supposed to finally rain and hopefully wash some of that dusty, bone dry climate away as we were getting ready for bed, talking about, obviously, horror movies. Now, as you may remember, paranormal activity was really big at that time. We all agreed that, yes, it scared the shit out of us, and we all went to sleep. So in the middle of the night, I woke up in a start from hearing a terrible clatter from the next room over. Now, mind you, that room was not supposed to be inhabited by anybody, because it was used as a quarantine room for any patients that got the summer flu. And right now, no one was sick. It was raining heavily, and as I lay awake, my heart racing, I continued to replay the sound in my mind. It's probably just the chairs stacked on the table that fell down and made noise, or maybe it was thunder. I was trying to tell myself, attempting to calm down and go back to sleep. But it sounded nothing like thunder. And why would the chairs just fall down in the middle of the night in an empty room? The others were still fast asleep, so I even considered that maybe I dreamt the noise."
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: "Just as I calmed down, I heard heavy steps in the hallway and clonk."
JULIA: Not clonk.
AMANDA: "One singular, terribly loud knock against our door."
JULIA: Okay.
AMANDA: "Now in this room, my bed was the one closest to that door. Needless to say, I am scared shitless. I lie there considering having a look. Now, our room is at the end of a hallway that leads past the nurse's cubicle. Nobody gets past the night nurse."
JULIA: No.
AMANDA: If I had to choose someone, Julia, to be, like, a line of defense between me and a paranormal happening, I would choose a night nurse. Don't get it twisted.
JULIA: Yeah, yeah. That feels right. That feels right.
AMANDA: "I think if a person were in the hallway, the night nurse would have come by and shushed them at this point, because they're walking very loudly and clearly knocking. I decided to stay ignorant, and after some anxiety filled time, fell back asleep. The next day, I asked around, but no one had noticed anything strange, and I kind of forgot all about it."
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: "Fast forward two years."
JULIA: It's 2012, the world has changed.
AMANDA: It has. "I'm meeting a friend I made that summer, and we talked about the time that we spent at the facility together. 'You know, I saw something there,' she says. And I thought, "The fuck now?"'
JULIA: Excuse me?
AMANDA: "We had just talked about some of her sensitivity to the paranormal, and she even recounted some experiences, and me, being a skeptic, listened with interest, yet doubted privately, strongly seeking other explanations for the things that she'd encountered."
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: "So she began explaining that when we were at the facility, remember it only rained once, and immediately, I think back to that night."
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: "She told me she had a room on the floor above mine and woke up from the heavy rain. She looked out the window, and as lightning struck, she saw—"
JULIA: Oh, no.
AMANDA: Any predictions, Julia?
JULIA: A person's face in the window, you know, several floors above the ground.
AMANDA: She sure saw a person standing on the window ledge, looking into her room.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: "By the next flash of lightning, they were gone."
JULIA: Hmm, a classic.
AMANDA: I'm getting shivers.
JULIA: And also that depends on how bad the storm is. Like that could be a few seconds, or that could be, like, five minutes, and you're just staring at the window being like, "Is the person still there? Is the person still there?"
AMANDA: Yeah. I consistently get thunder and lightning mixed up where I'm like, "Oh, well, the second clap of lightning is this far away. That's not quite how it works."
JULIA: Uh-hmm. And also doesn't clap it. Anyway, lights up. But I mean the idea of someone being there in a flash and gone the next flash, terrifying.
JULIA: Wild.
AMANDA: So K continues, "The next morning, when rain had stopped, my friend went to investigate and looked out that very same window to see a single muddy footprint on her white window sill on the fourth floor."
JULIA: Oh, that's fucked. That's fucked.
AMANDA: "How did a person get up there in the dead of night when it was raining and storming on the third floor? And why was that footprint still there, even though it had rained buckets all night long?"
JULIA: This is also the European third floor, which is, I think, our fourth floor.
AMANDA: The American fourth floor. Julia, you get me. Thank you so much.
JULIA: I don't know. Like the physical evidence of a person actually having been there is concerning in a different way than ghostly figure outside during a storm, right?
AMANDA: Exactly. I would expect debris on a windowsill during a storm, bird poop, animal, you know, tracks, like whatever. It happens. But a whole ass human footprint, that's scary.
JULIA: Uh-uh. Uh-uh. I don't like that. I don't like it one bit.
AMANDA: So K concludes, "I told her about my own weird experience that seemingly nobody else noticed and we both agree it had to be the same night, and it was definitely really odd. That's when she told me she had all kinds of weird feelings in that space. She heard whispers from the manholes outside, and felt temperature changes. I am, by this point, properly creeped out. We agree that the murderous photographer must have visited again that night, and maybe the flashes she saw were not, in fact, lightning, but his camera."
JULIA: That's really interesting. If you have this murderous photographer who suddenly, like— something happened and they killed this person when they probably didn't intend to do that, if we're trusting the original source story from the sister, who's very mean.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: It's possible maybe there's like a demonic possession thing going on there. Like, I don't know if the murderous photographer is the actual/only ghost that may be haunting this place.
AMANDA: I think you're right, Julia, that there is a world in which he is another example and not the origin.
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: Great story, K. Thank you so much.
JULIA: All right. Amanda, I have a email from Zoe, she/her, and it's really continuing something that I've been enjoying talking about here on the show, which is My Psychic Dreams. Not mine, personally, but Zoe's in this case.
AMANDA: Julia, I had a dream yesterday that my dad showed up to help me move something in the, like, the finger shoes.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: You know?
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: The shoes where the toes are separate.
JULIA: Uh-huh.
AMANDA: And I said, "Dad, no," and that was a whole dream.
JULIA: Your dreams are so funny to me. That's so normal, Amanda.
AMANDA: I know, I know.
JULIA: Zoe says, "Hey, Spirits team. I wrote up half of this email months ago, but forgot to finish it until now, when your calls for urban legends and your various dream-related stories got me thinking about the strange, psychic dream experiences I have had throughout my life."
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: "Like Julia, my dreams have always been vivid. Some of them take the form of fantasy or sci-fi adventures where I am someone else trying to save the world from destruction. Others are me visiting locations of past dreams. Still others, I can manipulate and decide when they are becoming too creepy or weird that they need to stop. The most interesting dreams of mine, though seemingly mundane, are the ones that have shown me events that I will later learn to be true." Now, I've talked about this on the show, and I'll keep fucking saying it. I genuinely think that déjà vu is the result of you remembering a prophetic dream.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: I stand by that. I think it's absolutely true.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: It happens to me constantly.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: It's very odd. Anyway, Zoe continues, "The first time I remember having a prophetic dream is in the sixth grade. I had a huge crush on this one boy for the longest time. In fact, this specific crush started in fourth grade from a dream."
AMANDA: Wow.
JULIA: "I dreamt that this boy put his arms around me and told me that he liked me. Being a fourth grade witchy girl who loved to take everything as a sign, I instantly got a crush on this boy, thinking that he liked me."
AMANDA: Also, that's how crushes work. You know, somebody shows interest—
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: —and you're like, "Oh, I didn't think about that, but like, now that we're here, sure."
JULIA: But, like, a dream crush is even more interesting.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: "Ever since that time in fourth grade, I dreamed of this crush a lot. So on the surface, this dream in sixth grade was not abnormal. It began in a middle school classroom with one of my teachers getting the class to line up for the library. There were some dream shenanigans with the library being in the wrong place, and the walk taking forever because the hallways kept shifting around. But my crush was interacting with me, so my dream self was awkward, but happy."
AMANDA: Realistic, realistic.
JULIA: Realistic. "When my class got closer to the library, I noticed my crush getting more and more nervous as I heard others talking in the way only gossiping middle schoolers can. In my dream head, I was beginning to think maybe he's going to ask me out."
AMANDA: Hey, huge deal.
JULIA: "We got to the library and my crush walked away from me, still incredibly nervous. I fretted and began talking to some of my friends about what they thought, which is when I heard my crush ask, 'Will you go out with me?' I turned and I saw in the middle of the library was my crush, asking out another girl."
AMANDA: Why would your own brain do you like this?
JULIA: It's so mean. It's so mean.
AMANDA: That's so mean.
JULIA: I think— well, if we're taking this in this scenario, this is a prophetic dream—
AMANDA: Right.
JULIA: —maybe your past self was getting your future self ready for a little bit of a heartbreak, so it wasn't as sudden and terrible for you.
AMANDA: Forewarned is forearmed, but God, that sucks to go through twice.
JULIA: "I don't remember if she said yes or no, but about a week after that very disappointing dream, my middle school English class went to the library. My crush didn't interact with me like he did in the dream, but when we got to the library, my friend told me that he was dating someone. They had just started dating within the last day, and it was the same girl he asked out in my dream."
AMANDA: Yo, you saw it before anyone else.
JULIA: That's wild, that's wild.
AMANDA: Wild.
JULIA: "The next few psychic dreams that I remember happened a decade later during the pandemic. I, for better or for worse, was an early pandemic college graduate, so my fledgling adulthood years were a bit odd."
AMANDA: I'm sorry, Doug, [14:53] like we don't talk about it very often, but all of you who are in school or were gonna go to school, or you know, had all your life things, especially under 20, like interrupted by that shit, that sucks, and I'm super sorry.
JULIA: "So this oddness was helped by my choice of accepting a fellowship where I lived and worked with 10 other people in a residential environmental learning center. Because we were in the midst of, quote-unquote, 'unprecedented times' we weren't able to do all of the, quote, 'normal things' our fellowship typically did as 20-plus one-year-olds, so we resorted to partying and interpersonal relationships to entertain ourselves."
AMANDA: Oh, 10 people in a bubble? Tell me at least seven of you fucked, okay? I'm gonna need to know.
JULIA: "One night I had a dream that my roommates and I were partying, but I was looking for one of them in particular. In my dream hunt, I entered the living space where my roommates Kay and Ell were talking in hushed tones. Kay was telling Ell that she had received a note from one of our other roommates, Ess, professing his feelings for her."
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: "Ell questioned Kay about her actual interest in this guy and Kay responded that she wasn't looking to date anyone. Kay was clearly stressed out by the situation, but since I was on a mission, I left the room. When I woke up, I went to the kitchen where Kay, Ess, and I usually ate breakfast, being the early risers of the group. Kay was already there making her morning meal, but Ess was not. Typically every morning, I would report my strange dreams to Kay and Ess and anyone else who was in the room at the time. But this morning, I was glad Ess wasn't there, since I felt weird telling them both about the dream that I had just had."
AMANDA: Right.
JULIA: "I retold the dream to Kay, who laughed it off awkwardly, and we continued on our way. I later told Ess as well, but not in nearly as much detail. He was quite dismissive of the dream. Months later, Kay and I were once again in the kitchen chatting when she turned to me and said, 'You remember that dream you had about Ess giving me a note with his feelings on it?' 'Of course, I did.' She replied, 'Yeah, that actually happened before you told me, and your dream really freaked me out. Did you know something about that?'"
AMANDA: No. No. What?
JULIA: I don't know.
AMANDA: A post event, prophetic dream?
JULIA: I think it's also very possible that maybe Zoe is an extremely observant person when it comes to, like, interpersonal relationships between other people, and maybe these are all just playing out in her head.
AMANDA: Zoe, I'm gonna say it right now, you gotta go on Big Brother, girl. I have to see you on Big Brother. I wanna watch you clock everybody from across the room and then in the Diary Rooms, in the Talking Heads, be like, "I saw it in a dream."
JULIA: I had a dream about this.
AMANDA: That'll get you cast, a 100%.
JULIA: She continues, "I had no idea Ess had done anything like that, but was secretly proud of my strange sixth sense about the situation. Needless to say, I became more suspicious of my dreams after that. For the most part, the suspicion wasn't needed. But every once in a while, if I had a dream about someone, especially if they got injured or had something significant happen to them in my dream, I would reach out to them, just in case it became reality. This was the case when I dreamt about my roommate, Tee, who had left the fellowship early for various reasons. My dream brought Tee back to the fellowship, returning because she claims she missed it too much. That was odd to my dream self since Tee was originally really happy to be leaving for new opportunities. I took her aside in the dream and I asked her what was really going on. She told me that she was having a really hard time and hated what was going on in her life right now, so she wanted to come back and be with her friends instead. Now, I didn't remember to text Tee immediately when I woke up, but when I texted her later in the week, telling her about the dream and that I wanted to check in with her, she responded almost immediately in all caps, "'OH, MY GOSH, THAT IS SO CRAZY. YOUR DREAMS KNOW EVERYTHING. I JUST HAD THE WORST WEEKEND OF MY LIFE."
AMANDA: No.
JULIA: "She proceeded to tell me all the terrible things that had happened to her and how she was feeling really defeated. As someone who took my dreams very seriously, though, she was happy to know that I could feel her upset aura through the dreamscape and reached out to check on her."
AMANDA: Oh.
JULIA: "Now, I make a point to reach out to my friends to tell them about any dreams that they appear in."
AMANDA: Zoe.
JULIA: "Now, my last dream story for now happened in my second year of this same fellowship program." This fellowship program has got all the drama, all the tea. I love this.
AMANDA: I'm fully picturing the secret history, and I hope nobody got murdered in a bacchanal.
JULIA: Fingers crossed. "Somewhat relevant family background. My mom's side of the family, aunts, uncles, and cousins and all had weekly Sunday night dinners at my grandma's house when I was growing up. This was a tradition that lasted all the way until Covid, when we switched to a family zoom call instead. Since I was living in a work provided cabin with minimal cell service and no internet, I couldn't participate in the Zoom calls unless I drove to my workplace. This kept me from showing up to these zoom calls every week, but I had enough contact with my family to know that my grandpa's dementia was unfortunately worsening. My mom would update me occasionally, but the latest in the saga was that my grandpa was doing in home hospice with my grandma taking care of him."
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: "They had a bed set up in the living room so that he could watch the birds, since that was one of his favorite pastimes. I was hoping to go up and visit at some point when my mom visited, but work was getting really crazy, and so I forgot about any plans for a few months. One late night, I dreamt I was in my grandparents' house with my grandpa's hospital bed facing the window, next to the couch. My grandma was taking care of him, and I was helping them figure out how to log into our family Zoom call, but I was having technical difficulties and getting a bit frustrated. I sat with my grandparents in the living room, trying to connect them to the Zoom call, but couldn't for the life of me figure it out. Before I could solve it, the ringing of a phone jerked me awake. It was 9:00 AM and the landline of my cabin was going off, so I stumbled down from my loft to pick it up." I just want to do a quick aside. This sounds like a great situation, a great fellowship. I love that you're, like, in a cabin with a loft. That sounds beautiful.
AMANDA: That does sound beautiful. And also a bit of a nightmare to get down to the landline when it's ringing and you're in a loft.
JULIA: "My mom was on the other side sounding very upset. She had called to tell me that my grandpa had passed away early that morning. When I told her the dream that I had, she said maybe it was his spirit saying goodbye, since I didn't get to visit more recently to say goodbye in person. Coming home for the celebration of life later that month, I learned that my grandpa's bed had been set up exactly how I saw it in my dream."
AMANDA: Wow. Hmm.
JULIA: "I know this is a common story of someone dreaming of a loved one on the night of their death, but I thought it was odd that my grandpa would have appeared to me. He had other grandchildren who he spent more time with, and I am closer to my grandma than I was to my grandpa. Besides, when my other grandpa, who I was very close to, passed away more recently, I didn't dream about him. Does appearing in a dream at death have to do with the personality of the person, their beliefs, or was I somehow more attuned to ethereal vibes when I was doing a nature fellowship in the middle of nowhere Minnesota? I had my most connected and psychic dreams while I was working at that position, but I haven't had one since. I would love to know your thoughts on why or how I have these psychic dreams, and why they happened in some parts of my life, but not in others. Have I grown out of it? I hope not." Here's my thoughts.
AMANDA: Okay.
JULIA: I think that there is a certain thing when you, like, disconnect from the reality that has been your reality for so long.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: So this idea of, like, you were in the middle of the woods, in a cabin, very limited cell service, no internet whatsoever, maybe you're just more in tune with, like, what's going on around you, because you are quite literally unplugged.
AMANDA: I think so. I think you're thinking about what your loved ones are doing because you're not able to catch up with them day-to-day, also happening just at that time for all of us in the world, where we have to, like, think about and talk to and make efforts, and we're speculating about what people's lives are like, because we're not having that, like, casual contact of the Sunday dinners, of the, you know, visits during work that we're used to. So I totally agree with you, Julia. And when it comes to folks visiting people on the nights of their deaths, I think there is definitely a proximity effect, like a spiritual proximity.
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: Like water, it'll take the path of least resistance. And I think if someone is very spiritually open, then that is often a way that that will manifest. But I'm also really touched by the idea that maybe your grandpa knew he was able to talk to or, like, have moments with the grandchildren he saw more often, and he knew you needed this one. That may be the answer that he wanted to have that moment with you, not in spite of the fact that you weren't particularly close, but because of it.
JULIA: I think it's also very possible that maybe Zoe was more psychically open/in touch/spiritually open and in touch—
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: And so, you know, maybe in death, there were a lot of threads connecting him but yours was the strongest, because you are more open to those experiences.
AMANDA: Totally. Well, I'm glad you had that last moment. I also lost my grandpa during Covid and was not able to see him in his final weeks, and so I my heart really goes out to you, and I'm glad you had that memory.
JULIA: Zoe finishes with, "I was planning on writing about the dream experience from my best friend's grandma too, but I'll save that for another time." Obviously, we want to hear it. "Thank you for reading and for keeping me entertained on my long commutes. I have been a mythology nerd since my childhood and love all the things that you do. Later, satyrs. Zoe.
AMANDA: Thank you, Zoe, and thank you for taking the time to write in.
JULIA: Well, Amanda, I am feeling, after that, you know, pretty long email, a little parched. Why don't we go and grab a refill really quick?
AMANDA: Let's do it.
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AMANDA: Hey, everybody, it's Amanda. Welcome to the refill, where I want to give a special welcome to the newest person to pledge human dollars every single month to help support Spirits and let this be our jobs, over on Patreon, it's Patutatu, whose urban legend, by the way, was featured in the most recent bonus urban legends episode that went out a couple weeks ago. If you love urban legend episodes, if you love me and Julia hanging out, if you love getting to know what we think of the episodes we record after we record them and get to listen to them back, you should become a patron. You should go to patreon.com/spiritspodcast where you can join for free. You can try a free trial, or you can just go ahead and say, "I trust this is going to be good," and get access to almost nine and a half years of bonus content, all starting at five bucks a month. That's patreon.com/spiritspodcast. Thank you as well to our supporting producer-level patrons, Uhleeseeuh, Anne, Hannah, Lily, Matthew, Rikoelike, Scott, and Wil, and our legend-level patrons, Audra, Bex, Chibi Yokai, Michael, Morgan H., Captain Jonathan MAL-uh-kye Cosmos, Sarah, and Bea Me Up Scotty. We are still looking for your voicemails, folks. You have really responded and send in a ton of urban legends. Keep them coming. We always welcome them. But especially if you want to tell us a little story or ask us a question with your human voice, I would love to hear it. If you're in the US, dial us at 617-420, Blaze, 2344, or if you live outside the US, email a voice memo to spiritspodcast@gmail.com. We want to hear you. Folks, if you've been looking for something else to feed your podcast hue, I've got to recommend Pale Blue Pod. If you like the moments of the show where I go off on a bit of a tangent, great news. I was on an episode of Pale Blue Pod recently, where Dr. Moiya McTier, an astrophysicist and folklorist who you know from the Advice from Folklore episodes of Spirits, brought me a bunch of different stories about space, and I ranked them by the order of how much I think Moo Deng would like them, the hippo. So listen, if that doesn't convince you to try Pale Blue Pod, I don't know what will, folks. New episodes come out every single Monday in your podcast app. Go subscribe to Pale Blue Pod and start with my episode. Okay? Tell Moiya, Amanda sent you. We are sponsored this week by Cornbread Hemp, which is the only place that I buy CBD and THC gummies. Now, they are a family-owned CBD company based in Kentucky. They are family-owned, crowdfunded USDA- Certified Organic, and they make CBD oils, gummies, and THC products as well. They have a ton of vegan options. And if you're vegan, you know, it's really difficult to find vegan gummies, just because of all of the extracts that are often used in those so you have got it. You can also, if you want to, read the independent lab certification tests that are published for free for the public on Cornbread Hemp's website. These folks are the real deal. They are really kind, and they've been supporters of Multitude shows for years now. So go on over, show them some love, go to cornbreadhemp.com and use the code Spirits for 25% off your order for first-time buyers. That's cornbreadhemp.com and the code is Spirits.
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JULIA: Amanda, we are back. And after my terrible milk punch mishap, which I think I told maybe on one of our previous hometown urban legends episodes.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: I'm back at it. I recently did a batch again of a Blue Hawaiian because I loved that one a whole lot. And I don't know if I told you all about the Thai iced tea milk punch that I made for Jake, but man, that one's— I'm gonna make that one again because it was so freaking good, man. It was so good.
AMANDA: Amazing. I need a version of that, because coconut milk, baby, will not hurt the tum.
JULIA: That's true. That is true. And you can separate coconut fat out just as well as, like, animal fat and—
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: —it works great. And a coconut washed cocktail is one of my favorite things. I don't love coconut flavor, but I do love it, like, in drink form or in, like, dessert form. It's more of a texture thing for me, I guess.
AMANDA: I have been really just imbibing some liquid sunshine recently, Julia, with the sand and sea glass Jake and Julia limoncello, which I have been enjoying over ice with a little dash of seltzer—
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: —to make a little bit of a limoncello spritzer for myself. And now that I'm growing all kinds of herbies in the garden, I have been rotating through some mint some days.
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: Some basil other days. Very good.
JULIA: You gotta get on that minty simple syrup or basil-y simple syrup vibe, Amanda, for your cocktails.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: Absolutely. And I have a little—
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: —secret for you, Amanda. Jake started—
AMANDA: What?
JULIA: —another batch of limoncello.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: So get ready for that.
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: Amanda, I feel like I want to hear someone else tell me a story. Do we have a voicemail?
AMANDA: Happily, Julia, we do. Folks have come through, and as always, if you're in the US, you can dial the number in every episode description, or if you're outside the US, you can email a voice memo to spiritspodcast@gmail.com.
JULIA: Heck yeah.
AMANDA: Let's hear the newest.
SPEAKER 3: Hello, good morning. I've grown up in my family's house for the past 22 years. Growing up, there were a lot of weird things that happened. Things that, you know, I was a kid, I didn't really know much about it. It was really hard to tell what was happening. Barely remembered it. And then I was just talking to my mom, and she let me know, "Yeah, this house was really, really haunted." We have, above in the kitchen, just hanging pots and pans. We would hear them just playing and, like, everyone would apparently have really bad dreams and— or see the same person. It was like a little girl just walking around all the time in the hallway upstairs, so we had to get the house blessed and everything.
AMANDA: Julia, I don't know what's worse is the shared repeated apparition or the shared repeated dream characters.
JULIA: Yeah, I don't love that. And also, like not even dream characters, Amanda, they said the little girl was walking around upstairs. That's not a dream, that's the real thing.
AMANDA: That's what I'm saying. Like I don't like it. I don't like it.
JULIA: I don't like that. I also— listen, I know that it is not financially feasible to move easily for everyone, especially if you own property or like, you know, you're— you have a mortgage and everything like that. But if you all were having terrible dreams and seeing ghosts for 22 years, maybe it's time to look and see if there's other houses in your neighborhood. I don't know.
AMANDA: You outlasted them.
JULIA: I hope so. I hope so. All right. Amanda, I have— how about we do— I got one more dream experience for us to talk about. How about that?
AMANDA: Let's do it.
JULIA: This is from Bri, she/they. Titled My Mom and I Keep Sharing Experiences and Dreams.
AMANDA: Ooh.
JULIA: Bri says, "Hello. I just recently caught up on the newest episodes after a small break, and I heard your call for more urban legends and was inspired to write in due to the story of parallel dreams. Anyway, I was listening, and I couldn't help but think about the weird relationship my mom and I share with dreams, or rather, our connected dreams."
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: "I also have a fun college urban legend story to share that I will include as well." So we get a little bonus of both.
AMANDA: Love it.
JULIA: The first section, Dreams. "Now, I will fully admit that most of these stories are ones that she shared with me in the past, so the details may be a little hazy. I think the first instance that she likes to share happened when I was around six or seven years old. Now, I was a creepy kid."
AMANDA: Let's go.
JULIA: "My brother and I were both sleepwalkers and sleep-talkers, and every once in a while, my mom mentioned that I would start screaming from night terrors, only to be shaken awake to complain about being tired and go back to bed."
AMANDA: Oh, boy.
JULIA: "That being said, sleep has always been a struggle in our household."
AMANDA: Sure.
JULIA: I wonder if that's genetic, the like— how you're able to sleep. I know to a certain extent, like sleep issues tend to be environmental.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: But I'm very curious if there's, like, a genetic like sleep talking, sleepwalking, insomnia sort of situation that happens there.
AMANDA: I think there must be— especially where, like, you know, anxiety runs in my family, that impacts sleep a lot for everyone I'm related to. So I think there are lots of different things that can be like a co-condition or express themselves in the quality of your sleep.
JULIA: We really need to get, like, a sleep scientist on the show at some point. If you know someone, let us know.
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: But I would love to do, again, a like dream and sleep-related episode with someone who is an expert in this field.
AMANDA: I would love that. The one person I reached out to was going on sabbatical, and said, "Not for a year." And I said, "Fair enough, my man."
JULIA: "So sleep always been a struggle in our household. However, one night, my mom was fast asleep. My mom doesn't dream normally. She rarely recalls anything happening, but this night, she was having one of the most vivid dreams. In the dream, she was in the living room, watching my brother and I play with each other, but everything was muffled and far away. She noticed that dream me was turning to talk to someone at the front door. Now, our front door is right next to the couch in the living room. You can actually have conversations through the screen door if you don't feel like getting up." I like that. I'm into it. "So in the dream, she turns to see who I'm talking to, only to notice a dark shape of a man. Now, this is where some of the details get a little lost. I'm not sure if it's due to my poor memory or the fact that she was talking about a dream and details get muddled when you're asleep. But I do remember this. She mentioned being frozen, stuck and forced to watch as I got up and started wandering towards the door."
AMANDA: No.
JULIA: "The shadow man convinced me to unlock the door."
AMANDA: "No."
JULIA: "And I stepped through and disappeared."
AMANDA: Oh, shit. That's so scary.
JULIA: "She woke up, freaking out, and in the process, shoved my dad out of bed.
AMANDA: Like, "Shut up. I have to find my kid."
JULIA: "She ignored him and ran out of their room to check on me. Imagine her surprise and likely horror to find me fast asleep with my hand on the lock of the door, turning it."
AMANDA: Oh. I didn't— that made my heart skip a beat, Julia. That is really fucking scary. Oh, my God.
JULIA: How you doing? How you doing? "She grabbed me, and shook me awake, which I remember vividly. I was clammy, my hands shaking, and my mind confused. I had been having a dream about my brother begging to be let into the house and being a good sister and going to let him in."
AMANDA: No. Shit. fuck.
JULIA: "I was not expecting to be forced awake only for my mom to start yelling at me."
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: "My mom was crying so much in between yelling that I kept apologizing. It was a whole mess."
AMANDA: Oh. And you were so little that I'm sure that wasn't your reaction, too. Like you just get scared when your parent is scared. Oh, my God.
JULIA: Yeah. "Looking back now, I feel horrible for my mom. I can't imagine waking up and realizing that your kid figured out how to unlock the doors in their sleep."
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: "We actually had to end up getting different locks after that, and the doorknob to my room got a bell on it after that since my mom and my dad were usually light sleepers."
AMANDA: They said, "Kid, it's not happening again."
JULIA: "I don't know what those dreams meant. Was something using my brother's voice to lure me out of the house and my mom—"
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: "—stopped it?"
AMANDA: Yes, it was.
JULIA: "Or was her dream just a warning to kickstart her mama bear urges to get her to wake up and stop me before I could leave the house in nothing but pajamas? Who knows?"
AMANDA: Nah, dude. Kids wander outside the house all the time. Shadow people do not all the time attempt to wheedle their way in. The fact that your mom knew and identified that it was a sinister presence or at least an unknown presence, and you transmuted that into your brother's voice. Absolutely 100% that was something from a different realm, trying to get its way into your home.
JULIA: Uh-hmm. Well, Amanda, "That alone could be chalked up to coincidence, right?"
AMANDA: No, no.
JULIA: "Well, it's not the last time that my mom and I had connected dreams. Another incident that I recall was much later, in college. I was preparing for finals and super stressed out, so I went to sleep after a lot of tossing and turning. Now, unlike my mom, I usually have very vivid or sometimes lucid dreams. I've often realized I was dreaming. I would change what was happening or wake myself up if I wasn't having a good dream."
AMANDA: Cool.
JULIA: "This was one of my more vivid dreams, but I still felt in control. I was sitting in my great grandma's, we call her G-ma, great grandma's old living room. She lived in this condo that always smelled like her baking and old lady lotion."
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: I know exactly what you mean by that.
AMANDA: Me, too.
JULIA: "I was curled up with her on her suede couch, and we were chatting about how stressed I was at college. I hadn't been able to visit her in the nursing home for a couple of weeks since it was a while away. She'd been closer at one point, but after a nasty fall that broke her hip and her femur, they had moved her to one that was attached to a hospital. So we were chatting, and I mentioned that I missed her. I could feel her warm, soft hands brushing through my hair, knobby fingers and all. I think I could cry just thinking about it right now."
AMANDA: Oh.
JULIA: " She kept telling me that she understood that I couldn't visit and that that was okay. Thanksgiving was coming up, and I mentioned that I wanted to visit her. She looked at me sadly and told me that she would be busy making pies."
AMANDA: Aw.
JULIA: "Now, I want to mention this, my grandma loved baking pies. The one thing she hated about living in her new nursing home was that she wasn't allowed to cook. I offered to come down and help her, but she shook her head and said, 'You'll be busy with everything else. Just know I'll make a banana cream for you when you're ready.'" I'm gonna legit cry. I can't.
AMANDA: Stop. The whiplash of how terrifying that dream was to how fucking sweet and sad this is. Oh.
JULIA: Because we all see where it's going. We all see where it's going.
AMANDA: Yeah, we do. She's baking pies in heaven, and she's waiting for you.
JULIA: "She kissed my forehead and then I woke up."
AMANDA: Oh.
JULIA: "I was very groggy when I woke up from that one, and I soon realized why I had woken up. My phone, which I kept next to me as an alarm, was going off. Normally, no one calls me, since I'm awful about answering my phone, since I tend to lose track of it, but I saw that they had left me three missed calls. I knew—"
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: "—instantly what happened. I answered the phone, and the first words out of my mouth were something like, 'G-ma's gone, isn't she?"
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: "My cousin was silent after a little while she said yes, and asked if my mom had called to let me know. I told her she hadn't and asked why. Apparently, my mom and I had had the same reactions when we first answered our phone."
AMANDA: Wow.
JULIA: "I found out later that my mom had had the same dream with a similar conversation about pie, hers being pumpkin."
AMANDA: Aw.
JULIA: "I like to think that G-ma had known that she was leaving, but that she had been waiting for us to join her when our time was right. Those are the two most detailed dream situations that I had had with my mom in parallel, I've also had a few one-off incidences where I have a vivid dream of something, only to have déjà vu of the same thing happening later." What did I just fucking say? What'd I just fucking say?
AMANDA: Wow. You did. You did, and you didn't read ahead.
JULIA: "On more than a few occasions, my brain will skip ahead to the real world, and I'll predict what people will say and answer questions that haven't even been asked yet. I freaked out a lot of roommates with that one."
AMANDA: Uh, yeah. I should think so.
JULIA: "However, my family just kind of shrugs it off when I do it, because my mom just happens to do the same thing. I don't know if it means I have prophetic dreams or if people are just predictable, but oh, well, it makes for a good joke." Now you'll remember, Amanda, Bri also has a second story for us.
AMANDA: Julia, can we save it for this month's bonus urban legend episode for paying patrons?
JULIA: I think we might have to do that. We might just have to do that. But I will give you a little tease. It's about a college-related incident and a weeping woman.
AMANDA: Oh, always very good.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: Honestly, Julia, my heart is so full after the creepiness and the sweetness. I feel like that's all I need.
JULIA: Real— okay. I love it. I love to see it. You can sign up for our Patreon. Maybe you can try out the seven-day free trial. Who can say? And you can get a bonus urban legends episode for this month and every other bonus urban legends we have done on the podcast. So check that out.
AMANDA: Folks, it's years. It's years' worth. You could have done a PhD in that time. It's a lot.
JULIA: So head over to the Patreon, it's patreon.com/spiritspodcast. You can sign up for the seven-day free trial or sign up and get a bonus urban legends episode each and every gosh darn month. It's wild.
AMANDA: And Julia, I will further tease that when we return to this email, I'm also going to share with you my sister Bailey's prophetic dreams, including—
JULIA: What?
AMANDA: —one she had recently that concerned me, that I need your opinion, and the ConSpiriters' opinion on.
JULIA: I— can you tell me after we get off this recording?
AMANDA: Yes, yes. I'll give you a preview.
JULIA: I'm very curious.
AMANDA: Okay.
JULIA: Incredible.
AMANDA: Well, folks, remember, next time you see a flash of lightning outside, only to see a figure that's there and then it's gone.
JULIA: Remember—
AMANDA: Remember—
JULIA: —stay creepy.
AMANDA: —stay cool.
JULIA: Later, satyrs.
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