Don't play One Man Hide and Seek.

🎙️ NEW EPISODE: What Is the Can You Hide Game?
Ever heard of a paranormal game that doesn’t want to end? This week on Make You Scream, host Nicki Baber dives into the terrifying internet ritual known as Can You Hide? — a haunting game where you become the prey. Then, we unravel its spiritual twin: the Japanese-born One Man Hide and Seek, a solo game that blurs the line between possession and play.

We’ll break down the origins, real-life stories, ancient lore, and the horror movies that echo these chilling games. From Japanese spirit rituals to modern Reddit horror stories, this is your deep-dive into the world of dangerous dares.

🎧 LISTEN IF YOU DARE.
🔪 Urban legends, haunted games, possession rituals
📲 Send in your scary game stories to be featured next episode!

#ScaryGames #HorrorPodcast #CanYouHide #OneManHideAndSeek #MakeYouScream #NickiBaber #Creepypasta #UrbanLegends #ParanormalPodcast #JapaneseHorror

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome back to Make You Scream,the podcast where we dive into
urban legends, horror rituals and paranormal dares you're
definitely not supposed to try. This is part of our special
series called Don't Play Scary Games, where we unpack the
chilling stories behind the internet's creepiest games.
I'm your host, Nikki Bieber, andtoday we're going to be talking
about the lesser known but seriously disturbing can you

(00:22):
hide game. And then we'll deep dive into
its terrifying cousin, the one man hide and seek.
But let's start with the can youhide game.
Unlike Bloody Mary in the Elevator game, this one doesn't
get talked about as much. Maybe that's because the people
who played it don't really want to talk about what's happened
after. According to the lore, the can
you hide game is a game of spiritual tag.

(00:43):
You're not summoning a specific ghost, you're inviting something
into your space to hunt you. The instructions are very
simple, and that's what makes itso sinister.
You sit alone in your room, you write your name on a piece of
paper and hide it somewhere in your house.
Then out loud you say 3 times, can you hide, can you hide, can
you hide and then you hide. The rules say not to hide in a

(01:04):
place you'd normally feel safe, like your bed or your closet.
You have to outsmart it and thenyou wait and hope it doesn't
find you. I don't know where I would hide.
I would probably, you know, whenI was a kid and I would play
hide and seek, I would actually push the mattress out from the
wall and I would lay in the crevice in between the wall and
the mattress and then put the sheet back over me.

(01:26):
So instead of being under the bed, I became like part of the
bed. That's probably probably where
I'd hide now. Then you wait and you hope that
whatever you've called to doesn't find you.
Some versions of the game say that you have 10 minutes and
some say you can literally feel it getting closer.
Like hot and cold, a coldness, ashadow, or even here breathing

(01:46):
that's not yours. The crazy part about this game
is there's actually no ending tothe game.
You're just supposed to hide basically forever and hope that
it gets bored. There's no known ways to end the
game. There's no closing ritual.
There's no salt circle just survived.
So people who have claimed to play the game say they've felt
watched for weeks after and thatitems move or there's whispers

(02:09):
at night or pets refused to enter the room where they hid.
That's really interesting to me because when I lived in my
haunted house that I grew up in,my cats would refuse to leave my
dad's room. They would just stay in there.
They wouldn't go in the other rooms.
And it was so bad that he had tomove the litter box into his
room. Now one person on Reddit said
they didn't even finish the game.
They chickened out after hiding,but their phone kept going off

(02:31):
at exactly 3:33 AM every night for a month.
And when they changed their number to get it to stop
happening, it kept calling. You're probably thinking like,
why do games like this even exist?
Who would want to play this, right?
Well, I'm sure some of you wouldwant to play it.
There are some of the games thatI wanted to play, like as a
teenager, I totally wanted to play Bloody Mary.

(02:51):
But the idea about inviting something in, whether it's a
ghost, a demon, or an ancient entity, it dates back thousands
of years. I don't know what what the
obsession is in human nature with inviting in the negative
spiritually divine, but there's something to that.
In Japanese folklore, there's the concept of Tutu megami.

(03:12):
I might be pronouncing this wrong, but I've I'm doing my
best or spirits that inhabit objects.
People have these weird obsession with haunted dolls,
even like the Annabelle doll, which we'll definitely have to
talk about sometime. It just got moved to a new
museum. But basically, in the Japanese
folklore, the line between object and being blurs.
And that brings us to the scarier and more famous version

(03:34):
of this myth, one man hide and seek.
This is a game. Then I will keep saying in every
podcast that you should not play, do not play one man hide
and seek. If you've never heard of it,
this game supposedly originated in Japan as a modern twist on
ancient summoning rituals. And it goes a little something

(03:55):
like this. You take a doll, but it can't
just be any doll. You cut it open, remove the
stuffing and replace it with rice.
Basically symbolizes sustenance or like a bait for the spirits.
Then you also add a piece of your own DNA.
A lot of people are doing like fingernails, but you could also
do a strand of hair and then yousew it shut with red thread and

(04:16):
wrap the rest of the thread around its body.
And then you name the doll. You place the doll in water,
typically a bathtub, and begin the ritual.
After a countdown you declare your name is the first it.
So basically I would say Nikki is the first it and then I would
go find the doll, stab it with something sharp and say you're
the next it. And then I would go hide.
And just like the can you hide game, you wait and try to stay

(04:38):
hidden. But people who've played this
game claim the doll actually moves, sometimes subtly and
sometimes across the entire room.
Videos have even circulated showing unexplained doll
movement, lights flickering, andeven voices in empty rooms.
Honestly, don't even look up theone man hide and seek videos if
you're not ready to be scared. But what makes one man hide and
seek even more terrifying is that it has an ending ritual.

(05:02):
So basically, when you're done, you are supposed to gargle salt
water and spit it on the doll while you're saying you're done
three times. And if you skip this step,
according to lore, the spirit won't leave.
Why do these games feel so real to people?
Psychologists say that rituals give people structure, and fear
heightens our awareness. Combine the 2A creepy

(05:23):
environment, a clear structure of steps and suspense, and your
brain can fill in all the gaps. But there's more to it.
A lot of times, you even have tohave the light off.
They're designed to make you feel vulnerable.
It's like the perfect condition for panic.
Let's talk about horror films for a second, because there's a
few of these that mirror games perfectly.
Hide and Seek in 2005, starring Robert De Niro and Dakota

(05:43):
Fanning, taps into the paranoia of being haunted in your own
home and more recently talked tome, released in 2022, which was
really good if you haven't seen.It is based on a group of teens
using mysterious hand to speak with spirits eerily similar to
the real life trend of spirit and game rituals.
Paranormal activity is another big one which I'm sure you've
seen All these stories share thesame bones, you know,

(06:05):
invitation, possession, isolation and some of these
games even end in death. But if we go even further back,
we see similar stories in ancient texts.
So like the Greek legend of Pithia, a woman who would inhale
spirit vapors and allow Apollo to speak through her was
essentially A ritualized possession.
And in parts of Africa and SouthAmerica, there are ritual hide

(06:26):
and seek games meant to honor ortrick spirits, often played
during full moons or festivals. And in, you know, if you're a
witch, you know there are some, there are certain moon phases
when your spells can be more powerful or your rituals can be
more powerful. So it's weird how these games
sometimes line up with full moons.
Even in Norse mythology, Odin would perform rituals to gain

(06:48):
knowledge from the dead. And maybe these aren't actually
games, they're just modern expressions of ancient fears.
So whether it's the can you hidegame or one man hide and seek or
something your friend dared you to try to sleep over, remember
this. The rules always sound simple,
but once you play, the game might not always end.
Just be careful what you're letting inside your own home.

(07:09):
And especially as we get more into the ritualistic side of the
Don't Play Scary Games podcast, I'm going to advise you again
and again and again to not play scary games.
There are some games that even Iwouldn't try.
Thanks so much for joining me for another spine tingling
episode of Make You Scream. If you've ever played one of
these games or you know someone who did, I want to hear about

(07:31):
it. So tag me, message me, or send
me in your stories. I might just read them on the
next episode. Until next time, don't play
scary games, and if you do, justdon't hide somewhere you can't
get out of.