Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Hey guys, it's Nikki and welcomeback to another episode of Make
You Scream. I'm your host and today I have a
special guest, Tori Carew. You might recognize her as my
old ghost hunting partner. Yeah, that's me.
I'm here. Hi.
I'm happy to be here. So tell us a little bit about
you. As Nikki said, I used to be her
(00:21):
ghost hunting partner. From there on, I I still enjoy
the spooky and I've been enjoying a new life of
homemaking and acting and so that's what I've been up.
To Yeah, you bought a house, which is yeah.
Yeah, I did, and I'm obsessed with putting vintage things in
it and I've been saging like crazy, so it's still within me.
(00:42):
Have you had any weird experiences since you moved into
your new house? Honestly, I actually feel like
there is maybe someone either who came with me or is in my
house. My brother actually came to
stay. If you guys recall or were a
part of our journey. He kind of has some medium
(01:03):
tendencies and he came to stay and he had a crazy, crazy dream
about this girl came to him and the dream and was like, Hey,
don't tell your sister I'm here,but she that I could stay as
long as I'm. Cool.
Oh my gosh, that's so creepy. But also kind of.
Cool, but also kind of cool. So he told me that.
(01:23):
And I was just kind of like, OK,so I did a whole stage and I was
just like, I really don't and didn't want it to be like any
sort of evil spirit that, you know, as you and I know can
sometimes kind of pretend to be nice or whatever, banished any
negative spirits. And then from then on, just
sometimes I feel like there's this feeling, you know, of being
(01:43):
kind of watched or someone else in the room with you.
And of course, those could be passing by things.
But yeah, so. But nothing negative.
I've always felt just like a bigpiece in my house.
It's just, it feels like the light of my life right now.
So I love it. That's really great.
I know that you have definitely like come face to face with the
(02:05):
darkness. Yes, yes.
So I do feel as though if it washere, I would know.
Well, today we are talking aboutother people who want to come
face to face with darkness. They're asking for it.
So this is called the closet game.
Have you ever heard of it? No, that's the only name it's
ever gone by. Just the closet game.
(02:27):
Yeah, it's the closet game, and it's on the deep dark web.
OK, the inner web. OK, how does it go?
OK, so basically it was an urbanlegend on forums like Reddit
from the early 2000s. It's gained this reputation of
being one of the most dangerous paranormal games.
(02:47):
So what you do is you can only play at night, and all the
lights in the room and closet have to be turned off.
You have to carry a single match.
You open the closet door, step inside, close the closet door
behind you, stand facing the door in silence for two minutes.
(03:07):
I guess you're just counting. And after 2 minutes you say show
me light or leave me in darkness.
It's kind of evolved in some people instead of a match now
are using a flashlight, but thatand.
Then what happens? You're supposed to hear
whispering, and if you hear whispering, you light the match.
By the way, the light and the flashlight have been off up to
(03:29):
this point. You're just sitting in the
darkness. OK.
And if you hear nothing? So if you don't hear whispering,
you just like you want to make sure you don't turn around.
OK, wife, what happens if you turn around?
So if you hear whispering and ifyou light the match and the
match lights properly and nothing happens, then you're
(03:51):
fine and you can leave the closet and you don't look back
and you close the door behind you.
My God. OK, but if the match doesn't
light or you don't hear the whispering, you're just sitting
there in the darkness and it's like keeping you in the
darkness. They say that you'll get like
stuck in the dark. You'll start to like hallucinate
(04:13):
and you can see spirits and you're basically in like if
you've ever watched Insidious, you're like in that in between.
Oh wow, OK, that's really scary.Yeah.
I mean, it's almost, maybe it's almost like a meditative state.
Yeah, wondering, I'm wondering what the significance of the
closet is because, you know, previously when we were doing
(04:33):
some ghost hunting and going to these different locations, we
would often end up in the closetor hearing something in the
closet. Yeah.
And. Kids are always scared of the
closet, yeah. But like I cut, I'm like why?
Why would that be the case? Is it just because it's like
such a small space, it's giving claustrophobia?
(04:56):
It's usually dark, like a lot ofpeople.
If you go in your closet, if it's not a walk in closet, you
don't even turn the light on. Yeah.
That's a good point. So you just open it.
There's darkness. There's kind of nooks and
crannies that are like unaccounted.
For it's a place you can hide. Absolutely, Absolutely.
So I have some real accounts of people who played this, and I've
(05:16):
never played it myself. Yeah.
Because it sounds terrifying butalso I don't think I ever heard
heard of it before. I hadn't heard of it until it
was recommended for the podcast.Oh, OK, OK, yeah, tell me some
stories. OK so this 15 year old girl and
her three friends play the closet game during a birthday
sleepover. The 1st 2 girls just report
feeling uneasy after doing it, hearing soft thuds.
(05:40):
But the girl who's writing this story, she claims she felt cold
fingertips brush against her arm.
She had the urge to turn around and then heard the whispering so
she quickly lit her match and ended up actually staying in
there 7 minutes. But she didn't even know she was
in there that long when she wentout.
(06:01):
Her friends are like freaking out like what happened?
Like what? Why were you in there so long?
We were calling your name and she wasn't answering.
Whoa. But that's all she remembered.
OK. So like you were kind of saying
about the meditative state, she almost experienced that, like
just that, that time space continuum where you lose track
of anything that's happening around you.
(06:23):
Yeah. It's kind of psychological
though, because they feel like you're like priming yourself for
being afraid. You're heightening your own fear
response by like, expecting something to happen.
Yes, very true. So what?
This is just a game that somebody made-up I.
Can't find where it comes from besides forums.
(06:43):
So I feel like yeah, somebody just made it up.
But I was literally talking in my last episode with a guest
about like how? Why do people make these up?
Are they trying to summon things?
Yeah, because that that's what it feels like.
And I guess we a lot of times wedon't know the origin of whom
who makes it up. Sometimes we do.
(07:04):
But I would guess that they haveto want to experience something.
And I think some of it just comes from curiosity and
disbelief. And then they go with it and
they don't realize how easy it is to create a ritual.
I know. I think that people are a lot of
(07:24):
times uninformed when they go into this stuff.
And so a lot of people don't realize that a spell is just
words strung together, said in acertain way and for a lot of
times with a certain amount of repetition.
And then people just go into these dark places and like,
actually physically dark and like, ask for more darkness.
(07:45):
And yeah, I feel like it always comes.
You're asking for it. This is literally why the
podcast series is called Don't Play Scary Games because why
would you want to play these? Why would you want to summon
something? I don't know but OK.
But you have played a few scary games and like when you were
(08:06):
doing it, what was it? Curiosity.
What was? It peer pressure FOMO.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
It's not. I'm not like going into it being
like, oh, I really want to see Bloody Mary.
Yeah, I. Don't want to be the chicken, I
don't want to be left out. Bloody Mary is one of the ones
that very much scares me. So this closet game I'm just so
(08:29):
curious about because I'm like, wow, this feels like, is there
something more sinister where like people are being like,
given these ideas, you know whatI mean?
To like spread. That's kind of like a creepy
thought. Just like I'm like, why are
these games like it feels like every generation has a version
of these summoning games. You know, we always have the
(08:51):
tried and true Ouija board. She'll be around forever and
always. Why do these different summoning
games that keep coming up withineach generation?
That's such a good question. And why do we want to play them?
Everyone's played some kind of scary game.
Maybe not everyone, but most people.
So how many more accounts were there of this game?
(09:12):
Was the thread just like popping?
Or there's a lot of accounts, but all of them seem to be
pretty different. So here I'll read another one.
This one was shared on Reddit. Key responsibility eight kind of
ironic name recounted how odd activity began around their
wardrobe after attempting the game in the wardrobe.
They wrote that afterwards, opening or even approaching the
(09:34):
closet in the dark triggered occurrences, and they said that
they never even look inside their own closet or open the
door unless the light is alreadyswitched on.
Anytime they would open the doorwith the light off, they would
see red glowing eyes peering back at them.
What? Whoa.
Holy wow, that's. Crazy.
(09:57):
Why is it always red eyes though?
Yeah, because it's like, well, that's actually interesting
because that like kind of gives like an animal a most.
I mean, I guess animals like yellow, but still, that one is
specific. Strictly interesting because I'm
like, Dang, you really went intoa wardrobe which, no offense, is
like giving its antique. Yeah, that just Why does that
(10:18):
feel like a coffin? Yeah, I'm like, wow, that just
was not your best idea. How long has this wardrobe been
here? Who had that wardrobe before
you? Is your grandma in there?
Like what is happening? Well basically all the other
accounts are people are seeing things in the closet, shadows
(10:38):
move, feeling touched, whispers.There were some that said that
after doing it, they would have visions of leaving the closet
even though they were already out of the closet, or like
dreams about a warped version oftheir house, or seeing their
friends and family in visions, or dreams where their faces were
warped. Yikes, when it continues on into
(11:01):
like your dream state that just that would make me so
uncomfortable. I've, I mean, we've had it
happen before and it's just so scary to like not even be able
to escape it at all. That's how I felt in the prison,
but the prison was just a giant closet.
I mean, yeah, literally just a giant humongous closet full of
(11:24):
wow, if we would have played that in the prison, like, would
we even still be standing here? That it just feels so dangerous.
And the fact that we still call them games is just like wild to
me. Yeah, I mean, let's call them
what they are. They're rituals.
These are not games. These are not scary games.
They're scary rituals that people are playing.
Yes. And if we as a people group
(11:48):
don't start, like, actually helping people understand that
these are rituals, you know, we could be inviting some really
dangerous things into our homes.So scary.
Oh my God. Even though I'm saying don't
play scary games, I know that a lot of listeners are listening
because they want to know what the scary game is so that they
can try it. Do you have any advice or
(12:10):
thoughts in terms of risk with like mind over fear dynamics?
Yeah. You know, I am a really big
believer that something can't follow you if you aren't giving
it the space. You know, I am a Christian and I
have a belief in God, and so that's important to me.
So like having a higher power and a protection, I think that's
(12:34):
really important. I know I don't suggest playing
this game, but if if you're going to, I'm like, please know
that, yeah, you could be. You don't know what you could be
inviting in because you don't know the history of your home
necessarily. You don't know who in the room,
like if you're playing with friends, has been going through
(12:56):
anything particular or has anything going on in their life.
I would say just make sure to approach it with a lot of
research and protection. Yeah.
Yeah. Do you have any advice about
discerning when it's a real haunting versus your own fear?
(13:16):
Yeah, and that one's hard, too, because some people even argue
that our own fear is the only thing that exists as a haunting.
And that's what manifests the hauntings, is fear itself.
And the strength of that for me,your intuition, your body is
going to send you signs of feeling unsafe if you stay in
(13:38):
tune with that. That's a really good way to kind
of figure out that discernment of whether you're in your mind
just freaking out, or whether it's actually a haunting
happening around you. It also helps I think to have
like a partner because I will say doing a few ghost hunts
without Tori is way more scary than with Tori.
(14:00):
Yeah, having someone that you trust and that knows also like
your own personal limits and like when you're truly like,
scared or unsafe, I think that'sa really good point, is having
someone with you. Oh, if you're doing these games
alone, wow, wow. I applaud you.
Like, wow. But yeah, I I definitely agree
(14:24):
with you. Having people that can remind
you is is a great, great thing. So have you played any scary
games for yourself? No, I, I, when we were talking
about this, I was like, it's so funny because I was that child
who literally felt so left out quite often because people were
like, oh, let's play light as a feather or let's play Bloody
(14:46):
Mary was very popular when I wasgrowing up.
And I was so scared. Like I was just really scared.
I was scared of even just like being in the room.
I had heard so many horror stories of different games and I
was like, it's a no for me. It's really, really a no.
So no. Besides the Ouija board, I
(15:06):
haven't played any scary games. Do you have anyone you know that
has like a crazy story playing ascary game?
My friends have never had good experiences with scary games.
Actually, you know one of the ladies we met in Saint Louis was
saying that for her birthday party.
I don't know if you remember this, but her and her friends
(15:29):
when down in the basement and put a bunch of mirrors around
them and played Bloody Mary together.
And two of the friends were really, really uncomfortable and
scared. And so they just went upstairs
and they were like, we're not playing, we're not doing this.
And they said that they were texting and calling the girls
(15:50):
because it had been over 30 minutes and the girls had like
still not come up or finished playing at all.
And then all of the lights went off, all of the lights came back
on and the girls were playing downstairs, came upstairs and
we're like, why'd you guys turn off the lights?
Like just to freak us out while we were playing this game we
(16:12):
just started. And the girls were like, what do
you mean you just started? It's been 30 minutes since
you've been down there. Apparently I'm like literally
getting chills right now just talking about it because she was
like, that was one of the scariest moments because I
realized that there is some sortof time loop that was happening
(16:32):
that happening to adult women. Not that children don't know or
anything, but obviously like just like to have an adult
person telling you that happenedto them and they were not a
child in their in their full right mind capacity and just
like had a really freaking weirdexperience.
I feel like it always hits harder when like an adult says
(16:53):
that something happened. Like my dad when he was 28, He's
like, yeah, when I stay to my parents something and grabbed me
from under the bed and tried to pull me under the bed like when
he was an adult. Yeah, and you're like, whoa.
It's like, I know you're not dreaming because.
Exactly. It's not just, like a thing of
your imagination. I don't know.
(17:13):
Yeah, those kinds of stories just always got me, and I felt
very strongly about just not participating in those.
But I did get made fun of sometimes.
I did. But you know, it's a look.
At you? How many of them became a ghost
hunter? Yeah, how many of them did so?
I miss ghost hunting so much so that's all I know.
(17:36):
For those of you who don't know and don't watch our YouTube
channel got Ghost. Me and Tori went around the
United States ghost hunting in the most crazy places, from
prisons to abandoned hospitals to cruise ships.
So Oh my. God, yeah.
If you guys haven't watched any of those episodes, you've got to
(17:56):
go binge watch them and make sure you watch with the lights
off. Hopefully in the near future me
and Tori will be ghost hunting again.
If we do, would you play a scarygame?
I. You know what, I would be
interested. No, I don't think I could do it.
I don't think I could. I don't know.
If I don't play a scary game I could maybe consider.
Depends on the location, Dependson the game.
(18:19):
We've done some work with a candle and a mirror before.
Yeah, we've done some trying, but we are running out of time.
Guys, I just want to say thank you so much Tori for joining me
today. It was so awesome talking about
spooky things with you, Nikki. Thanks for having me.
Guys, comment under the podcast if you enjoyed our weekly guest.
(18:40):
It was hauntingly enlightening. If you're curious or skeptical
about the closet game or any paranormal ritual, Please
remember it's often your own mind that makes the game real.
If you don't believe it, probably nothing's going to
happen. But it could.
If you or your friends have tried it safely or otherwise,
tell us your story. We might share it anonymously in
a future episode. As always, don't chase fear
(19:01):
unless you're prepared for it chasing you back.
Until next time, stay curious, but keep your lights on.
We'll see you in the next episode of Make You Scream.
Bye, guys. Bye, guys.