November 4, 2021 • 51 mins
What actually happened to Bitcoin tycoon Gerald Cotten, and why do some people believe he faked his death? Could there be a relationship between lucid dreaming and sleep paralysis? Ben closes out the world of ghost stories with one last collection of tales from around the world. All this and more in this week's Listener Mail.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Nol. They call
me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer
Alexis code named Doc Holiday Jackson. Most importantly, you are you.
You are here, and that makes this the stuff they
don't want you to know. Welcome as always, fellow conspiracy realist.
This is our weekly listener male segment where we hear
(00:49):
from the best part of this show, you and your
fellow listeners. It is, of course, as we've said previously,
the most wonderful time of the year, as decided after
great deliberation by us. And we're we're encountering some paranormal
things today, we're encountering some ghostly things. We're encountering some
(01:10):
unsolved mysteries. So where should we begin today? I have
an idea, what if What if we start with the
unsolved mystery and we go to the realm of dream
and then we go to the realm of the afterlife.
(01:31):
How does that sound you? Guys. Sounds great. It's like
a real journey there. Yes, so, uh so, first off,
to set this up, we have talked at length about
crypto cryptocurrency, and we've also talked at length about mysterious
(01:53):
disappearances or unexplained deaths. Uh. One thing that many people
outside the crypto space don't know is that the official
identity of the inventor of blockchain and bitcoin has never
actually been officially revealed. And uh that for a lot
(02:13):
of people's the main mystery of bitcoin. But there's another
one that we just heard about recently that I don't
think we've ever jumped into. Have we No, we have not.
And Chris wrote to us, I think today, is that correct, Ben?
I think Christ to us today or yesterday, just today,
and and just said, I'm not sure if you've covered
(02:34):
the mysterious death slash perhaps disappearance of bitcoin investor Gerald Cotton.
Fascinating stuff. Well, Chris, no, we have not. But now
we've we've all dealt into it a bit. We dipped
our toes into this realm, and my goodness, there is
stuff worth discussing here. We may not get to everything
(02:55):
in this moment, but I think we're going to talk
about it more especially do to the content of the
first article that I jumped into and researching this topic
from Business Insider from September of this year. Netflix true
crime documentary dives into cryptic death of crypto millionaire Gerald Cotton,
and I thought Netflix is making a documentary on this already.
(03:18):
How do we not know about this? Well, Uh, it
just flew under the radar. Honestly, seriously, I had no idea.
There have been so so many crypto security issues over
the past several years, and we've talked about a ton
of them. We just talked about one in our last
episode that we recorded of Strange News. This one is weird.
(03:41):
This one's very weird because it deals with perhaps a
person who faked their death or a person who did
in fact die but took with them a fortune. Very strange,
and it has to do with the nature of cryptocurrency
and blockchain and the way that you can get keys
to those kingdoms. Very weird. So let's let's jump into this.
(04:03):
The Netflix show is going to be called Trust No
One Colin The Hunt for the Crypto King and it
is all about this guy, Gerald Cotton, who was the
founder and CEO of an exchange called Quadranga or quadringa
c X crypto exchange, and he died suddenly in two
(04:23):
thousand eighteen. When he died, he was running this exchange
kind of like Mount Cox that we've talked about before
in the past, where they're kind of the go between
between people who are looking to buy and sell cryptocurrency
or exchange cryptocurrency for other currencies, like a popular one.
Right now, it'd be like crypto dot com or coin
(04:43):
base is an exchange. It's like a app where you
can purchase it. But people always recommend that you don't
leave it on the exchange because if you leave it
on the exchange then things like the Mount Cox hack
or collapse could happen. And technically, if you don't have
that crypto in your own encrypted wallet or bank situation,
it's not actually here's yet. Yeah. There in lies some
(05:04):
of the weirdness that honestly, I don't fully understand. And
you can make fun of me as much as you want,
and the reviews or wherever you are, you awesome crypto
people that know way more than me. But I just
don't know a lot about this, but I'm learning. Ha ha.
Look at this guy doesn't know everything. I know the
integrity to admit it instead of pretending otherwise it doesn't matter.
(05:27):
I so, uh, this person, Mr Cotton, he likes to
control this stuff, and honestly, I don't know other ways
that would make something like this more secure. Where he
actually stored around a hundred and ninety million dollars worth
(05:47):
of bitcoin, and he was the guy who was in charge,
so he had the passwords that were needed to access
those funds and to manipulate those funds make trades and changes.
When he died, that information, at least according to the
people around him and his wife who became executor after
he passed, those were lost with him, so that all
(06:10):
of that money from around seventy five thousand investors, Uh,
it just disappeared. So there's a lot of interest from
people who say lost maybe a hundred dollars to a
million dollars. Two more are very much into figuring out
what the heck happened. And he stole from the exchange,
is that what you're saying, He actually stole other people's
(06:32):
crypto that had not been taken off of this exchange. No.
We read from Business Business Decider here quote Cotton encrypted
and stored around a hundred and ninety million U S
dollars worth of his customers bitcoin cashes and held sole
responsibility for the passwords needed to access those funds. Then
the crypto millionaire suddenly died in India from complications from
(06:52):
Crohn's disease about three years ago. And yes, and when
he died, he didn't give that security information to anybody else,
at least according to those around him, including again his
wife is an executor. So all these people want to
figure out what that happened, They want to track their
money down. It's it's out there, it's somewhere right and
(07:14):
due to the nature of blockchain, like you, you almost
know where it is right, you know exactly where it
is and what's happening to it. You just can't access it.
And that's got to be terribly, terribly frustrating, especially if
this is a meaningful amount of money for somebody, which
I guarantee it is. But then, of course, when someone
like this dies, they are the sole person who has
control over a large amount of money. So you know,
(07:37):
around two hundred million dollars, there are going to be
rumors spreading that perhaps this person didn't actually die you know,
show me the proof that this person is actually dead,
because you may think, well, perhaps this person is on
an island somewhere, which I believe he did purchase an island.
He also purchased a Sessna. He also purchased a yacht
with an extra gas tank, um because he needed to
(08:01):
be able to sail, according to the story in Vanity Fair,
um all the way to the Caribbean without stopping in
Canada or the United States very specific gask. So this
Netflix shows coming out in is going to attempt to
track down what happened to this person, if he is
indeed still alive or what You can look to the
(08:23):
sun out of the UK. You can read a little
bit more about this about why people believe he quote
died rather than died. You can also head on over
to I Think It was Coin Highlight was an interesting
website that had some pretty good reporting on this. And
there's one other place you should go if you want
to learn more about this story, and that is Vanity Fair.
(08:47):
There is a huge, huge article that came out in
twenty nineteen I believe the end of that year titled
Ponzi Schemes, Private Yachts and I'm missing two fifty million
dollars in crypto. The Strange Tale of Drina or Quadriga. Um,
it's a long read, just to forewarn everybody, but I
think it's gonna be worth your time. There's tons and
(09:09):
tons of detail in here about this person, who he was,
and why a lot of people believe he may have
just left with that money. Pretty cool stuff. Yeah, this
could be a full episode because it's like a heist.
It's gets like a case of potential, you know, disguise
and intrigue and faking one's own death. That has all
(09:30):
the things. Um. It's this interesting thing too about the
whole blockchain. I mean, is it purports to be all
about transparency, but yet it's used for all kinds of
catchy shady dealings. Uh, And it is pretty easy to
make things disappear. Uh. You can trace the providence of it,
you know, through the blockchain. But it's sort of the same.
This isn't exactly right, but the way that um, you know,
(09:52):
the the CIA can trace phone calls using metadata but
not actually knowing who exists on either end. Um, it's
kind of like that, Like it's it's it's still pretty
easy to obscure. Yeah, I just want to leave you
with some of some of these little details that you
can get out of that Vanity Fair article. Guys, four
days before Cotton had left for India on whatever trip
(10:16):
he was on. When he passed away, he changed as
a will around and left all of his money twelve
million dollars in real estate holdings. Uh, the Lexus, you
got to give that away, the Cessna, the Gulliver, which
is the name of that giant yacht that he owned,
and a hundred thousand dollars for the care of the chihuahuas.
It all like his will that he made four days
(10:37):
we're leaving sent all that stuff out essentially in the
case of his death. And um, I don't know, it's
a little weird. Maybe he just was trying to cross
some teas dots of eyes when it comes to international
travel and you know the perhaps dangers that may lie
within that. Or maybe he was trying to move his
(11:00):
money around before he disappeared. Yeah, that's the interesting part here,
because the the timing is weird. Right, First it could
just be unfortunate timing, but secondly, I was looking in
the details of the the chain of custody for the body,
(11:21):
which was apparently returned to Nova Scotia after the police
said they had no objection to the official death certificate
which came about from a local municipality uh in Jaipur
right where. And this is not a ding on anybody,
but it it's pretty widely acknowledged that it's not impossible
(11:44):
to bribe people fairly easily in certain parts of India,
especially when you're at the local or street level government.
So I'm not saying I'm not saying he faked his death.
I'm saying things can happen. It seems very strange that
he was the only whole are of those keys right?
This is a big venture, a lot of money involved,
(12:05):
a lot of people involved. If something happens to him,
like in this case, he knows that that's it. If
you can't get access to that money anymore. Mm hmmm something.
What did you say last episode? We're not necessarily in
the fish factory, but it's smell a pretty fishy. It
(12:28):
makes me wonder if any of these like Crypto or like,
I don't know, we haven't really even seen. It's such
a new space that we haven't seen, like the big Crypto,
you know, criminal syndicate. Right, we don't know, I don't
have a face yet. They're just like, you know, folks
like this or like, you know, these developer types, sir.
Because it's even still kind of sketchy to like more
traditional Wall Street folks. And it's like, you know, we've
(12:50):
got El Salvador and the president of El Salvador announcing
that that country is now going to start accepting bitcoin
as legal tender alongside the US dollar, And you gotta
wonder is that gonna lead to it being a haven
for like crypto criminals, you know, Like I don't know,
it's certainly a country you hear about corruption taking place in.
(13:11):
So I'm wondering if you know, if people are out
on the lamb with their you know, sacks full of crypto, uh,
if that's going to become a destination for them. Yeah.
Two of the UH. And I think there's another African
country that is also engaging in a digital currency. I
think it's uh. Nigeria is issuing they banned a crypto exchange,
(13:32):
and earlier today the news drop that they're they're issuing
something they call the e Nira, I mean digital currency.
I think is is going to be unavoidable in the future.
But with this, the two biggest conspiratorial angles I've seen
are people arguing that Cotton faked his own death. Fancy
word for that again is pseudo side that's pretty yeah,
(13:55):
that's pretty cool, or the other theories that his death
exposed was an actual Ponzi scheme, which is possible. But
the the thing that the thing that we have to
say to be fair is successfully faking your death is
extremely difficult for a number of reasons, uh with and
(14:19):
again we'd need to do an actual episode on this.
But like, from what I understand, this is one of
the people who would have the ability to do so.
Like you guys pointed out, that's not a normal yacht,
you know what I mean. That's also uh, that's that's
a long distance we could disappear for a while yacht.
But if you want to fake your death effectively, the
(14:44):
people that I believe have done so successfully have almost
always done it in a foreign country if they're US based,
because it's a little easier to get around the rules
in some countries, or they've just gone off into America's
Great Wilderness and decided they were going to live off
the grid in a kind of miserable life until they
(15:05):
were caught. But I, I just I don't know. Man,
it's so hard to actually fake your death in a
sustainable way unless you have scads of money and unless yeah,
and unless you can if you ever want to travel
from where you have to be able to circumvent the
customs and border control systems, which he could. Yeah, Derek's
(15:27):
is that money again? That's superpower. You can figure out
all kinds of interesting ways around rules and laws if
you got that moolah. Well, there you go, Chris. We've
just scratched the surface there. But uh, you know, I
guess we'll all be watching that Netflix shout out. You're
welcome Netflix, where all that stands between them and bankruptcy.
(15:49):
All right, we'll be right back, And we're back with
another message from you. Yes you, triple Z. I'm talking
to you. Uh triple Z rights in with a subject
line Lucid Dreaming Paralysis. Hey guys, a long time listener,
(16:09):
first time email. You can call me triple Z. I
did I love the show. I'm a big fan of
the strange news segments. Thank you. Um. At a young age,
I was really interested in Lucid Dreaming. I would stay
up for a day until I was physically tired and
try to keep my mind active when I attempted sleep. Uh.
The idea is to trick your brain into keeping your
consciousness active while your body is asleep. From doing this,
(16:31):
I believe I developed sleep paralysis. UM. That affects me
still to this day. It happens once in a while.
I wondered if you guys had any experience with lucid
dreaming yourselves or heard of anyone getting sleep paralysis from it. Again,
love the show, Thanks guys. UM. I found a ton
of really really cool stuff. There's a lot of new
(16:52):
studies being done into dreaming, which is neat because, I mean,
one of the articles I read, uh in see science
Focus UM lead with the the idea that, hey, we're
sending billionaires into space and all this stuff, and uh,
you know, solve so many mysteries of the universe, you know,
through science. But one thing that still remains largely out
(17:13):
of reach is the state of dreaming. And that is
because it's hard to study something that is purely subjective
to an individual. You know, you can study brain wave
patterns and things like that, and you know, monitor breathing
and the way the body behaves. But you can't exactly
like shove a camera on somebody's brain and see what
their dreams are like. So you would rely on that
(17:36):
subject to be able to describe it to you. And
that's something that lucid dreaming is playing a big part of.
I think it's pretty clear, but to anyone that isn't familiar,
lucy dreaming is is like triples, he said, where you
essentially train yourself Two. It happens during r E M sleep,
which we know rapid eye movement, which is the state
of sleep where dreaming kind of kicks in. And if
you can keep yourself aware, uh of being awake and
(18:02):
of being you know, in the waking world while still
experiencing that R A M state, you can technically at
the very least be aware of your dreams, describe them,
you know, in a sort of a cogent kind of way,
or even steer them if I'm not mistaken. Isn't that right?
Then We've talked about this in the past, and the
notion that you're supposed to be able to almost like
drive your dreams better that way. Yeah, yeah, the idea is, uh,
(18:26):
it's odd because the ideas or the phenomenon. From a
scientific basis of sleep, prowesse and lucid dreaming are not
that different. They're both kind of a hybrid state of sleep,
and there's some really interesting studies done on that. There's
not really a lot of substantive work yet on a
(18:47):
causation between lucid dreaming and sleep paralysis. But you can
teach yourself to experience lucid dreaming. I've I've experimented with
it in the past. Uh, mainly mainly due to some
uh personal interest. Shout out shout out to Brian. Yes,
I'm the one who has dreams in a shared universe.
(19:09):
But you're absolutely spot on. Well, these are Um, this
is a skill that people can teach themselves, and the
steps are relatively simple. But your mileage may vary. And
for a lot of people they'll encounter they'll encounter sleeping
lucidity in relatively short bursts, like without a d percent
(19:32):
success rate. Yeah, mileage may indeed vary, and that's I
don't know, this is my theory, um, you know. And
being not like a sleep scientist or anything, but almost
the way you put it, bad I think makes perfect sense.
That's the lucid dreaming and uh, sleep paralysis are seemingly sides,
two sides of the same coin. And I'm wondering if
lucid dreaming is like the positive side, uh, and sleep
(19:56):
paralysis is the negative side, Like, couldn't you also lucidly nightmare?
You know? Is it? What is sleep paralysis if not
a lucid nightmare where you're sort of trapped in that
state between waking and sleeping, but also they lost control
of your body. Yeah, but in your lucid nightmare, you
could grow wolverine cloths and like anything that's coming at you,
(20:20):
you're good to go because you can heal yourself and
you've got wolverine cloths, unless it's paralyzing, lee, terrifying, and
then you're just like, you know, stricken because it does
feel like you know the commonalities between people that experienced
sleep paralysis is they often have suffered some kind of
trauma it seems, you know, or or there's some triggering
you know, event like it just doesn't come out of
(20:41):
nowhere usually. But I'm sorry if that's way off base, folks,
let me know, um, but that that that is my
understanding from that food is that film that actually ended
up being quite scary. It was called like the nightmare
I think about the shadow people and sleep paracess. Well,
there's there's another. Another distinction is reading a study a
(21:01):
little while back that said, this is how I know
that there hasn't been a lot of substance research into
a causation between lucid dreaming and sleep paralysis, which hopefully
triples the is good news um for you because it
helps us eliminate one of the possible causes. Uh. Sleep
paralysis involves a full return to consciousness to wakefulness while
(21:25):
you're muscles while you're still experiencing muscle a tonia, which
is why you're you're not thrashing all the time when
you're having a very active R E M phase. On
the other hand, lucid dreaming evolves getting some of your
waking consciousness back while you're still fully asleep, so you're
(21:45):
not the differences in sleep paralysis. You kind of are.
You're much closer to being quote unquote awake than you
are lucid dreaming and lucid dreaming. You're just kind of
like realizing you're in the matrix, you know what I mean,
Or you're having that inception moment where you're like, hey,
tops usually stop spinning. For anybody wants to read more
(22:05):
about that, I'd recommend Terror and bliss commonalities and distinctions
between sleep paralysis, lucid dreaming, and their associations with waking
life experiences. Is it the sexiest title? No? Is it
a good read? Yes? I don't know if you guys
are listening to Radio Rental this season as it's come around,
But there's a story in there about a woman who
(22:28):
witnesses what her husband was having a sleep paralysis episode on.
So who knows if it's real? Who knows exactly what's
happening when it just came out, And it's making me
think about this, the difference, you know, lucid dream and
then waking up and perhaps part of your brain is
still in a dream state, or actually seeing an entity
(22:50):
into your room attacking your husband. Yeah, that's not good. Um,
it's interesting. I mean, we've talked about the the idea
of lucid dreaming being a pretty ancient concept, right. In fact,
I believe Aristotle had some cool stuff to say about it.
Oh yeah, Aristotle described it um as quote, often when
(23:11):
one is asleep, there's something in consciousness which declares that
what then presents itself is but a dream um roundabout
way of saying, you know, you're like awake dreaming basically.
But you know, there are some studies looking into this
concern over people that have taught themselves how to lucid
dream the idea of like getting stuck or something or
(23:34):
having it be harder to wake up. Um. It always
make sure you think of like nightmare in elm Street movies,
you know, like, oh I can't wake up? Uh, that
would be terrifying too. And to me that fear seems
to be somewhat intertwined with sleep paralysis. Um. But then
it seems like you've read a little bit more of
these studies that I that I'm that I'm seeing. Did
you see a direct correlation between the two or are
(23:56):
they just kind of operating on similar principles? Um, because
our our listeners seems to believe that his practice in
uh um lucid dreaming led to the sleep paralysis troubling them. Yeah.
So well let's talk a little bit triple X about
the the most important thing, which is techniques or things
(24:18):
you can attempt to lower your likelihood of sleep paralysis,
which is a terrible feeling. Also, yeah, I've been I've
been caught on the ass out end of a lucid dream.
You know what I mean. You jump off the building.
You're supposed to wake up before you hit the ground.
I didn't. It's not cool. Wake up if you can.
(24:38):
But with with sleep paralysis, uh, some of the big indicators,
like the only common indicator between both sleep paralysis and
lucid dreaming is what are called disassociative experiences. But sleep
paralysis is a little bit different because sleep paralysis can
(25:00):
be it's likelihood can be increased by your stress and
anxiety in waking life. Not the amazing film, but you know,
you're just day to day while you're not sleeping life.
And you can also predict a likelihood of sleep paralysis
based on sleep quality. So if you're if you're natural,
(25:20):
like if you are one of those people who has
successfully acquired society's current six to eight hours in one
block kind of pattern, that's that's the one that's normal
in society, but it's not really normal for humans. Um,
if you have that down and then you're something in
your life means that you have to break that cycle
(25:43):
and you have to you know, start sleeping in a
polyphasic manner, or you're just getting less sleep than normal,
or you find yourself sleeping for like long ten hour
burst routinely, then messing. What you're doing at that point
is you're you're forcing a readjustment reaction from from your brain,
and that can lead to the states of hybrid sleep
(26:07):
that can lead you to sleep paralysis. And furthermore, I
would advance the idea that calling them calling them sleep quality,
anxiety and life stress as though they are three separate things.
It's not. I mean, I get it, but the distinction
is not super bright because if you have anxiety and
life stress, that is almost certainly gonna mess with your
(26:30):
sleep quality. There are very few people who are like, man,
this is crazy. I'm so scared. I'm so miserable. Thank goodness,
I still get my six to eight. Do you know
what I mean? Yeah? I mean, even with like sleep aids,
it's not always quality sleep. You know what I mean?
Are like people that need to drink alcohol to try
to fall asleep. That's that's going to be like a
(26:52):
very poor quality sleep. And if you have one of
those fitness trackers, you can usually tell. I think it's
about how long you stay in our him So I
can't remember exactly, but there's definitely ways of like gauging
the quality of your sleep. I alluded to it at
the top of this of this story, I just want
to wrap up with it. Uh. There is there are
some kind of interesting developments being made in dream study
(27:16):
that that hinge directly on um observing folks that have
the ability to lucid dream Ken Polar is a psychologist
and dream researcher at Northwestern and he has this to
say in this article on Science Science Focus that I
found memories of dreams can be missing some parts of
dreams and can be distorted and incorrect. So if that's
(27:37):
all we have to go on, then building a solid
science of dreaming can be difficult. Um. He goes on
to say that what he and his colleagues have discovered
is that if you you know, observe folks that are
lucid dreaming, they can come up with a system of
codes uh that allow them to almost communicate directly with
the dreamer and get more vivid descriptions. So, along with
(28:02):
his partner another scientic research are named concholy Um, they
use some labs in France Germany and the Netherlands to
essentially exploit that level of awareness that lucid dreamers are
able to exercise, and they you know, gathered several experienced
lucid dreamers, one of whom I believe an artist who
(28:23):
who uses lucid dreaming to create these really cool I mean,
sorry for lack of creativity here, but but dreamy kind
of geometric um ink pen and ink images that almost
looked like these weird mazes that are kind of mixed
with like cave paintings or something. They're really really cool um.
But they use beeps and flashing lights um, and they
(28:45):
are able to kind of almost uh it's almost like
a guided hypnosis thing where they're then able to give
instructions um to the lucid dreamer to kind of give
them feedback, and then they take notes accordingly. So it
seems very very new, but very very cool. Oh, it's
it's it's it's um. Oh, what's the name of it?
Dream yoga, yoga nitra. It's like an ancient technique, but
(29:07):
there I'm sure they're applying the more scientifically rigorous applications
right to clarify the Indian Hindu practice of yoga nidra
is similar to the Tibetan Buddhist practice of dream yoga.
People have been on to this for a long time.
You know, it's like it's kind of free entertainment depending
on do you guys remember that film Waking Life, of course?
(29:30):
I still my favorite moment in that film is when
the person has kind of achieved a state of lucidity,
the protagonist, and they ask one of the entities they're encountering,
what's it like to be a dream? And they just
never answer, sort of the whole thesis of the of
the film. In a lot of ways, it now it
(29:52):
makes me think about the techniques to train yourself to
be able to lose a dream. I don't know if
you guys ever tested some of these out where you well,
what are a few of them, Matt Well? Someone where
if you have a small light, like a candle or
something that you can focus your eyes on while you're
laying down and starting to drift off, and but keeping
yourself awake, focusing on the candle, which would ground you
(30:15):
in the real world, in your space where you actually
physically are, where your body is, while your mind starts
to go elsewhere. Um and like shut itself down essentially,
and if you do that enough times, your brain then
kind of finds itself awake in that space between dreaming
and sleeping. And that's kind of the gateway at least. Yeah,
(30:36):
that doesn't work for everybody, and it doesn't work every time,
but and there are other techniques to and some you know,
work for some and some work for others, and you know,
obviously probably people can find ways of figuring out themselves. UM,
it's interesting this article. I can't recommend it highly enough
by Christian Jarrett for Science focus dot com. It goes
on to mention something we've talked about recently on it
(30:59):
was either strange new user or one of these uh,
the idea of um using uh dreams or influencing dreams
to sell stuff, uh that we talked about it. We
talked about a cores Light campaign that was really more
of a gimmick. I don't know that it was. It
didn't feel like it was actually trying to hijack people's dreams.
But the to the ability to do that and the
(31:21):
inherent kind of badger out of the madness of all
of this. This field of research, you know, is a
little worrisome because as we know, I mean the pure
you know, um, ethical version of a thing, whether it
be a scientific discovery you know, like the atomic bomb,
or or or technology that leads something like that, it's
ultimately going to get out in the world. And you know,
(31:42):
when something gets out in the world, it's inevitably going
to end up being exploited by terrible people. So um,
it's an interesting field to keep an eye on, but
it does have some troubling you know, dystopian sci fi
kind of future ramifications if you really think about it. Yeah,
if anybody wants to try their hand at being in
one area, not or that's just kind of freestyling on
(32:05):
on eurology. The study of dreams. One of the most
effective again, your mileage may vary. Just one that has
worked for me in the past is what's called the
wb t B wake back to bed. You've probably experienced this, folks.
If if you have dreams, you have woken up. You've
woken from some dream, right, And have you ever had
(32:29):
the feeling like, oh, I need to get back to
sleep immediately so I can continue this awesome dream. Or
I can't go to sleep just yet because I'll be
back in the nightmare or whatever. There's truth to that
because when you go back to sleep after waking up
for a short period of time, you are more likely
to encounter dreams, like you'll go back into r E
(32:51):
m uh much more easily, and you'll also be more
likely to lucid dream. So that's that's something I think
has been very effective. And then also keeping a dream
journal will help you immensely. So if you want to
try those three things, UM, I wish you great success.
You know, I had a weird dream the other night
where it was a dream about a dream that I
(33:14):
had dreamt many years ago, and it was one of these.
It was a scary dream. It was about like I
had I had gone to see us a very scary
Asian horror movie UM, and I don't remember the contents
of it, but something about it was just like scarier
than anything I've ever seen. It was like a vision
of hell or something, and um, I woke up fully
thinking this movie existed and started trying to google it,
(33:36):
and then I realized, like, this movie does not exist.
I was just remembering a previous dream of having seen
this dream horror movie uh from years ago. But it
was very familiar and I was like, this is bizarre.
I don't know what you call that, like dream javou.
I mean it was very jarring, and it was a
cool way. I mean I wasn't like upset or anything,
(33:57):
but I fully was like, what is this piece of
sin him that I should fully be able to find?
Um and it just doesn't exist. So I was clearly
dreaming about a memory of a previous dream. Whoa dreams
on dreams on dreams, y'all. Yeah, some of this stuff
does have a pretty patently like you know, inception an
e type vibe. Um. But I think again, there's a
(34:18):
lot of imagination that can go into thinking about the
study of dreams because of how little we know about it. Um, So,
any anything that's gonna push that forward I'm all for,
at least until the you know, the big Madison Avenue
ad agencies get ahold of it. Yeah, that's fine. This
is all real, guys, You're real. I'm real, it's all real.
I promise the future is now, um and uh, the
(34:39):
future is in an ad break now. It's gonna just
come into your ears, not your your dreams, hopefully, unless
it's like really effective, you might I mean, who knows
you it might, it might do it for you, and
you might dream about it. But we'll hear that and
then we'll be back with more messages from you. The
time has come again, the hour grows late, the moon
(35:03):
the color of blood. I hope it is a stormy
night as you're hearing this, doc, would you mind hitting
that sound cue. It's time for more ghost stories from you.
Were doing this for the rest of October, and the
end of October is coming too soon. Here's our first one.
(35:23):
This is from Kyle. Kyle says, Hi, there, I hope
I'm not too late for the ghost stories thing. When
I was a boy, about two or three years old,
I used to see a woman at night when I
was in my bed. She was an old woman, and
she would be over me as I lay in bed,
the way you sort of sit half on the bed
and lean over slightly with your arm on the other
side of someone if they are laying flat on their
(35:46):
side of the bed. She came to me on several
occasions and would talk to me. She would ask questions
like how are you and are you okay, and questions
about my family. I was a child, and so obviously
I was extremely scared of this and told my mom
about this woman. My mom took notice of this as
I was quite distressed about it, and she told me
(36:06):
that if I don't want to see the woman, asked
her not to visit you anymore. So that is what
I did, and I never saw him again. My mom
told me that it was about a few months later.
She opened up a box of her stuff to unpack.
As far as I am aware, we had not long
moved into this flat, and it was like a box
of photo albums and things like that. So my mom
(36:28):
started looking through an old photo album. I'm playing about
in the living room and come to look at the
pictures and I point out the woman who was coming
to talk to me because apparently my mom's grand uh
editorial note us listeners, that means mother's grandmother. I can't
fully remember all the things she asked me or what
we spoke about, but I do remember seeing her and
(36:51):
asking her to go away. I still can't to this
day go to sleep lying on my back. It just
gives me chills. This happened to us in Cambridge on
To area. So that's that's the first one, and I
wanted to share this with everybody first. Thank you, Kyle,
I want to share this with everybody, because that's not
an uncommon experience. I don't want to put you guys
(37:12):
on the spot, but if you had any situation like
that in your own lives that you're comfortable talking about,
not really yes, but no, got you. Yeah, so yes
to the first part, not to the second, I got you,
you might be interested, Kevin to learn that you're not
the only person who has written in with stories or
(37:36):
accounts like this. There is also a rich vein of
literature and lore related to children's saying things that are
inexplicable or you know, maybe seemed disturbing. There was a
great Reddit thread making the round several years ago where
it was just scary things that children have said to
(37:58):
their parents. Uh and and a lot of times they
seem to imply, um, a ghost or the kid is
maybe having an imaginary friend if you want to be
more skeptical, who somehow seems to have a lot in
common with a relative who has passed on or Some
of my favorites were the ones that sound as though
(38:20):
there is a the kid at least believes they have
a past life. That that kind of stuff pops up
in horror and it's it's not made out of whole
cloth I have. UM. I think a lot of people
have had visions. I mean to our earlier listeners question
about lucid dreaming, about of people encounter lucid dreams at
(38:41):
some point in their life. So the odds are on
your side. But with the idea of what appears to
be a visitation from someone, um in your family or
someone you're close to or you knew and they passed
beyond the mortal veil before you did, uh, it's it's
hard to navigate, even if you're a very skeptical person.
(39:05):
I I just want to point out my favorite of
the the creepy child statement genre is there was one
where these parents are driving with their kids. They're in
traffic or something, and then their daughter is like four
or five or something. She points to this car that's
in traffic with him and she's like, that's the car.
(39:27):
That's the car I got in that accident in before
with my other mom and dad. And they're like your
other mom and dad, sweetie, And then she says, yeah,
they got out okay, but I sure didn't. No no
word on what model of car it was, but I
(39:48):
think we probably also have a lot of people in
the crowd today who have had either your parents later
told you you said some creeps or stuff, or maybe uh,
or maybe you have encountered your own child saying something
that kind of squidge out, you know what I mean, Like, yeah,
(40:09):
you got an example more too many? Right, not necessarily
a sibling. I didn't grow up with siblings, but it's
just you know, I'm I'm easily I'm more easily squigged
than one might think. I got you. Yeah, anything to
do with like describing veins, for example, like or like
like blood flow through the body, or like cutting that
(40:33):
stuff makes me go a little faint. Have you ever
seen the veins on some birds when they when you
when they don't have feathers, Yeah, it's then they look
like weird little freaking fetuses, And I don't like it.
One day. Yeah, I'll add hairless cats to that. I
know that they're doing their best, and what people have
(40:54):
done to them it's unfair. Are you familiar with the
famous internet hairless cat named Bingus? Yes, you're aware of Bengas.
I'm aware of Bengas. Yeah. I I expressed distrust and
distaste for Bengas of no fault of Bengas his own
to my daughter, who's a big fan, and she canceled me. Uh, so, Fellas,
I'm canceled for not appreciating the wonder and majesty that
(41:17):
is this weird little fetusy looking, creepy veny cat named Vengas.
Well maybe you can make peace with the feline. Cats
are creatures native to dream, so uh, just just get
yourself in a lucid dream and have a waking life
situation with Bengas. Speaking of dream, ben Um, I know
I asked you particularly because I know that you're you've
(41:38):
read them, Um, are you if you've seen the trailer
for the new Sandman series on Netflix? I have. I
think it looks quite promising that it could be good
if Neil's happy with it. I'm happy. You know, the
casting of of Dream in particular, I'm not even familiar
with the actor, but looks pretty spot onto me. So
um and also a friend of the of the network
(42:01):
and show, John Cameron Mitchell is is in is in it.
It plays a character. So I'm looking forward to very much.
And we're going to move to an excellent, an excellent
series of anecdotes and legends from Robin Uh. Robin writes
in Too in response to our story about the Devil
(42:22):
visiting a nightclub in San Antonio. Remember that's the one
where he partied hard and the knee he must have
like dropped off, the dropped a hot single in the
restroom because he disappeared. Uh, he dropped the evil kids
off at the pool. Yeah, he made a deposit. Yeah.
(42:43):
So this is funny because Robin said they stumbled across
an almost identical older story, older version of that San
Antonio in the seventies story in a N six compendium
of Welsh folklore, and they found it just a few
weeks or days before they heard our listener mail segment
with ghost stories. So here just if you're sharing these,
(43:07):
because they just tickle me to an infernal degree. First
Devil at the card party at an inn in Iberswith.
It was once the custom of members of local fashionable
society to hold card parties and dances on Sunday nights.
On Sunday one evening, a stranger arrived. He was an
exceedingly handsome young man, very well dressed in a cloak
(43:29):
of rich black velvet and wearing curls on either side
of his face. He easily got permission to join the
dancing party, chose the most beautiful girl in town as
his partner, and made himself very agreeable. After the dance,
he sat down with the rest to play cards, still
with the same partner, she happened to drop a card and,
(43:49):
stooping to pick it up, saw that this stranger at
cloven feet. She fainted and never recovered her health, dying
shortly after. The result was a great impetus to Sabbatarianism
in the town. Wait this, this is a tale that
I just heard about. There's a haunted there's a haunted
(44:11):
manner in Ireland that has this tail as like why
the place is haunted and it's now a hotel or
you know, an inn in a place where you can
go and ghost hunt. But it's this tail. Yeah, you
gotta find it, gotta find it. Yeah, sorry, I like
I just wrote, I just wrote this down in our
(44:33):
meta for an episode we should cover. Oh wow, amazing. Okay,
well this seems like a good indicator, Matt m At
the very least, there's somebody weird feet who's just carousing
and philandering across the land. Well, according to the legend
of this place. I'll tell you the name of why
doesn't find it? Uh this it was the devil and
(44:55):
it shot through the roof, like shot straight up through
the roof, and there was still a whole or you know,
part of where there was a hole where the devil escaped.
But then the real history is that the woman, rather
than dying and like classing it dying shortly after, she
was actually kept hostage essentially in the house by the
(45:15):
people who owned the house and her family's because she
was she had gone what's going to say this mad
because of her experience loftus Hall in off this hall. Okay, well,
here's here's the second one. We'll we'll dive into Loftus Hall.
Let's do it. Let's get supernatural with it, let's get spooky.
(45:35):
This next one, also from Robin, is called Second Sites
and Warnings the Deacon's Vision. Some sixty years ago or more,
there was a gathering of the Calvinistic Methodist at Aberystwyth,
which I am probably mispronouncing, apologies Welsh friends. Two deacons
who came to attend it were lodged in a house
on the front now part of a larger building. They
(45:57):
were given a double bedded room next to the drawing room,
but chose for the sake of warmth to sleep in
the same bed. Sure they did sake warmth, okay, to
their surprise, for they supposed themselves the only guests. They
were kept awake by the sound of dance music next door.
Presently there was a heavy thud as of someone falling,
(46:18):
and then the door of their room was opened, and
several persons entered, carrying what appeared to be the body
of a woman dead or in a faint. This they
laid on the unoccupied bed and went away, paying no
attention to these two deacons. The latter got up, but
found no one dead or alive in their room or
the drawing room. The landlord in the morning said that
(46:39):
there had been no music or dancing, and that there
were no other guests in the house. Sometime afterwards, however,
they received a letter from him saying that a party
of English visitors had since had a dance in the
drawing room, during which one of them, a lady, had
fallen dead. In her body placed where the old men
had seen it in their earlier vision. Usually not shared
(47:03):
unless it's a folly. Ad I love that term. Well,
that's another great one. Do we have any dates associated
with these? Are these are just this is lore? Well
we know they were before, right, because that's when the
couple was published. That's that's where we'd have to start. Um,
folly ad is for a new one. I'm familiar with
(47:24):
the term. It is a description that's it's not perfect,
maybe a little accidentally offensive to people, but it's described
as an identical or similar mental disorder affecting two or
more individuals, usually members of a close family. So one
of the most famous examples in popular culture of what
(47:46):
has been called folly a d before was the report
of these two teachers who were visiting Versailles and they
felt they had traveled back in time just for a
brief moment. Remember that story. They saw ghosts, they saw
historical reenactment, whatever it was. Ultimately the mobilely Jordaan incident. Yeah,
(48:09):
it seems like what probably happened in that case was
that it would be as though we were all, uh,
the four of us and you, fellow listener, It's as
though we were all on a road trip and we
went to one of those towns in Virginia where they're
like his, how Witchen, but the gloial way and like
(48:31):
uh ing, and then you stumble. You know, it's like
it has always stumbled across one of those towns and
did not know that re enactment towns were a real thing.
That's kind of what they encountered. But with this, it's
a little bit stranger because this opens the door for
another theme we can hopefully explore in uh In in
(48:54):
a future listener mail segment when gets stories from you folks,
And it's this claire voyance, the idea of precognition. Right.
We we know that time works in a very strange
in a very strange way once you get down to
very small levels, and we explored this in our two
part episode on dreams. We've also received numerous reports, anecdotal,
(49:17):
of course, of people who say, like I, I fundamentally
know if something has happened to my twin or my
close sibling, or I suddenly know if something has happened
to loved win right, it's usually a close relative, but
not always um And those are stories. You know, three
(49:37):
of us of fall more on the skeptical side, but
we want to believe more more importantly, we want to
find a true explanation for these things. And those visions
are not super rare, you know what I mean, They're
not the rarest pokemon in the world of alleged psychic experiences.
So I wouldn't be surprised if we have some of
our fellow conspiracy realists writing in to let us know. Oh,
(50:00):
keep your spooky stories coming, folks. Uh, this is always
joy for us to read them. We read every email
we get. We cannot wait to hear from you. Some
thanks to everyone who wrote in. Good luck out there
on the boundaries of sleep and that what in particular? Uh,
(50:21):
and and let us know, let us know what really
spooks you out in this the most wonderful time of
the year. We try to be easy to find online,
oh are we ever? You can find us on the
Internet in the usual social media places of note, Facebook, Twitter,
and YouTube, where we operate under the handle conspiracy Stuff.
You can also find us on Instagram at conspiracy Stuff show. Yes.
(50:45):
And if you don't like social media, that's fine. I
don't like it either. I mean it's fine, it does
what it needs to do. But if you want to
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do that. Call our number one eight three three st
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yourself a very cool nickname. We accept all of them.
(51:08):
We're excited about it. We can't wait to hear from you.
If you've got too much to say that can't fit
in three minutes, instead send us a good old fashioned email.
We are conspiracy at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff they
(51:39):
don't want you to know is a production of I
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From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Nol. They call
me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer
Alexis code named Doc Holiday Jackson. Most importantly, you are you.
You are here, and that makes this the stuff they
don't want you to know. Welcome as always, fellow conspiracy realist.
This is our weekly listener male segment where we hear
(00:49):
from the best part of this show, you and your
fellow listeners. It is, of course, as we've said previously,
the most wonderful time of the year, as decided after
great deliberation by us. And we're we're encountering some paranormal
things today, we're encountering some ghostly things. We're encountering some
(01:10):
unsolved mysteries. So where should we begin today? I have
an idea, what if What if we start with the
unsolved mystery and we go to the realm of dream
and then we go to the realm of the afterlife.
(01:31):
How does that sound you? Guys. Sounds great. It's like
a real journey there. Yes, so, uh so, first off,
to set this up, we have talked at length about
crypto cryptocurrency, and we've also talked at length about mysterious
(01:53):
disappearances or unexplained deaths. Uh. One thing that many people
outside the crypto space don't know is that the official
identity of the inventor of blockchain and bitcoin has never
actually been officially revealed. And uh that for a lot
(02:13):
of people's the main mystery of bitcoin. But there's another
one that we just heard about recently that I don't
think we've ever jumped into. Have we No, we have not.
And Chris wrote to us, I think today, is that correct, Ben?
I think Christ to us today or yesterday, just today,
and and just said, I'm not sure if you've covered
(02:34):
the mysterious death slash perhaps disappearance of bitcoin investor Gerald Cotton.
Fascinating stuff. Well, Chris, no, we have not. But now
we've we've all dealt into it a bit. We dipped
our toes into this realm, and my goodness, there is
stuff worth discussing here. We may not get to everything
(02:55):
in this moment, but I think we're going to talk
about it more especially do to the content of the
first article that I jumped into and researching this topic
from Business Insider from September of this year. Netflix true
crime documentary dives into cryptic death of crypto millionaire Gerald Cotton,
and I thought Netflix is making a documentary on this already.
(03:18):
How do we not know about this? Well, Uh, it
just flew under the radar. Honestly, seriously, I had no idea.
There have been so so many crypto security issues over
the past several years, and we've talked about a ton
of them. We just talked about one in our last
episode that we recorded of Strange News. This one is weird.
(03:41):
This one's very weird because it deals with perhaps a
person who faked their death or a person who did
in fact die but took with them a fortune. Very strange,
and it has to do with the nature of cryptocurrency
and blockchain and the way that you can get keys
to those kingdoms. Very weird. So let's let's jump into this.
(04:03):
The Netflix show is going to be called Trust No
One Colin The Hunt for the Crypto King and it
is all about this guy, Gerald Cotton, who was the
founder and CEO of an exchange called Quadranga or quadringa
c X crypto exchange, and he died suddenly in two
(04:23):
thousand eighteen. When he died, he was running this exchange
kind of like Mount Cox that we've talked about before
in the past, where they're kind of the go between
between people who are looking to buy and sell cryptocurrency
or exchange cryptocurrency for other currencies, like a popular one.
Right now, it'd be like crypto dot com or coin
(04:43):
base is an exchange. It's like a app where you
can purchase it. But people always recommend that you don't
leave it on the exchange because if you leave it
on the exchange then things like the Mount Cox hack
or collapse could happen. And technically, if you don't have
that crypto in your own encrypted wallet or bank situation,
it's not actually here's yet. Yeah. There in lies some
(05:04):
of the weirdness that honestly, I don't fully understand. And
you can make fun of me as much as you want,
and the reviews or wherever you are, you awesome crypto
people that know way more than me. But I just
don't know a lot about this, but I'm learning. Ha ha.
Look at this guy doesn't know everything. I know the
integrity to admit it instead of pretending otherwise it doesn't matter.
(05:27):
I so, uh, this person, Mr Cotton, he likes to
control this stuff, and honestly, I don't know other ways
that would make something like this more secure. Where he
actually stored around a hundred and ninety million dollars worth
(05:47):
of bitcoin, and he was the guy who was in charge,
so he had the passwords that were needed to access
those funds and to manipulate those funds make trades and changes.
When he died, that information, at least according to the
people around him and his wife who became executor after
he passed, those were lost with him, so that all
(06:10):
of that money from around seventy five thousand investors, Uh,
it just disappeared. So there's a lot of interest from
people who say lost maybe a hundred dollars to a
million dollars. Two more are very much into figuring out
what the heck happened. And he stole from the exchange,
is that what you're saying, He actually stole other people's
(06:32):
crypto that had not been taken off of this exchange. No.
We read from Business Business Decider here quote Cotton encrypted
and stored around a hundred and ninety million U S
dollars worth of his customers bitcoin cashes and held sole
responsibility for the passwords needed to access those funds. Then
the crypto millionaire suddenly died in India from complications from
(06:52):
Crohn's disease about three years ago. And yes, and when
he died, he didn't give that security information to anybody else,
at least according to those around him, including again his
wife is an executor. So all these people want to
figure out what that happened, They want to track their
money down. It's it's out there, it's somewhere right and
(07:14):
due to the nature of blockchain, like you, you almost
know where it is right, you know exactly where it
is and what's happening to it. You just can't access it.
And that's got to be terribly, terribly frustrating, especially if
this is a meaningful amount of money for somebody, which
I guarantee it is. But then, of course, when someone
like this dies, they are the sole person who has
control over a large amount of money. So you know,
(07:37):
around two hundred million dollars, there are going to be
rumors spreading that perhaps this person didn't actually die you know,
show me the proof that this person is actually dead,
because you may think, well, perhaps this person is on
an island somewhere, which I believe he did purchase an island.
He also purchased a Sessna. He also purchased a yacht
with an extra gas tank, um because he needed to
(08:01):
be able to sail, according to the story in Vanity Fair,
um all the way to the Caribbean without stopping in
Canada or the United States very specific gask. So this
Netflix shows coming out in is going to attempt to
track down what happened to this person, if he is
indeed still alive or what You can look to the
(08:23):
sun out of the UK. You can read a little
bit more about this about why people believe he quote
died rather than died. You can also head on over
to I Think It was Coin Highlight was an interesting
website that had some pretty good reporting on this. And
there's one other place you should go if you want
to learn more about this story, and that is Vanity Fair.
(08:47):
There is a huge, huge article that came out in
twenty nineteen I believe the end of that year titled
Ponzi Schemes, Private Yachts and I'm missing two fifty million
dollars in crypto. The Strange Tale of Drina or Quadriga. Um,
it's a long read, just to forewarn everybody, but I
think it's gonna be worth your time. There's tons and
(09:09):
tons of detail in here about this person, who he was,
and why a lot of people believe he may have
just left with that money. Pretty cool stuff. Yeah, this
could be a full episode because it's like a heist.
It's gets like a case of potential, you know, disguise
and intrigue and faking one's own death. That has all
(09:30):
the things. Um. It's this interesting thing too about the
whole blockchain. I mean, is it purports to be all
about transparency, but yet it's used for all kinds of
catchy shady dealings. Uh, And it is pretty easy to
make things disappear. Uh. You can trace the providence of it,
you know, through the blockchain. But it's sort of the same.
This isn't exactly right, but the way that um, you know,
(09:52):
the the CIA can trace phone calls using metadata but
not actually knowing who exists on either end. Um, it's
kind of like that, Like it's it's it's still pretty
easy to obscure. Yeah, I just want to leave you
with some of some of these little details that you
can get out of that Vanity Fair article. Guys, four
days before Cotton had left for India on whatever trip
(10:16):
he was on. When he passed away, he changed as
a will around and left all of his money twelve
million dollars in real estate holdings. Uh, the Lexus, you
got to give that away, the Cessna, the Gulliver, which
is the name of that giant yacht that he owned,
and a hundred thousand dollars for the care of the chihuahuas.
It all like his will that he made four days
(10:37):
we're leaving sent all that stuff out essentially in the
case of his death. And um, I don't know, it's
a little weird. Maybe he just was trying to cross
some teas dots of eyes when it comes to international
travel and you know the perhaps dangers that may lie
within that. Or maybe he was trying to move his
(11:00):
money around before he disappeared. Yeah, that's the interesting part here,
because the the timing is weird. Right, First it could
just be unfortunate timing, but secondly, I was looking in
the details of the the chain of custody for the body,
(11:21):
which was apparently returned to Nova Scotia after the police
said they had no objection to the official death certificate
which came about from a local municipality uh in Jaipur
right where. And this is not a ding on anybody,
but it it's pretty widely acknowledged that it's not impossible
(11:44):
to bribe people fairly easily in certain parts of India,
especially when you're at the local or street level government.
So I'm not saying I'm not saying he faked his death.
I'm saying things can happen. It seems very strange that
he was the only whole are of those keys right?
This is a big venture, a lot of money involved,
(12:05):
a lot of people involved. If something happens to him,
like in this case, he knows that that's it. If
you can't get access to that money anymore. Mm hmmm something.
What did you say last episode? We're not necessarily in
the fish factory, but it's smell a pretty fishy. It
(12:28):
makes me wonder if any of these like Crypto or like,
I don't know, we haven't really even seen. It's such
a new space that we haven't seen, like the big Crypto,
you know, criminal syndicate. Right, we don't know, I don't
have a face yet. They're just like, you know, folks
like this or like, you know, these developer types, sir.
Because it's even still kind of sketchy to like more
traditional Wall Street folks. And it's like, you know, we've
(12:50):
got El Salvador and the president of El Salvador announcing
that that country is now going to start accepting bitcoin
as legal tender alongside the US dollar, And you gotta
wonder is that gonna lead to it being a haven
for like crypto criminals, you know, Like I don't know,
it's certainly a country you hear about corruption taking place in.
(13:11):
So I'm wondering if you know, if people are out
on the lamb with their you know, sacks full of crypto, uh,
if that's going to become a destination for them. Yeah.
Two of the UH. And I think there's another African
country that is also engaging in a digital currency. I
think it's uh. Nigeria is issuing they banned a crypto exchange,
(13:32):
and earlier today the news drop that they're they're issuing
something they call the e Nira, I mean digital currency.
I think is is going to be unavoidable in the future.
But with this, the two biggest conspiratorial angles I've seen
are people arguing that Cotton faked his own death. Fancy
word for that again is pseudo side that's pretty yeah,
(13:55):
that's pretty cool, or the other theories that his death
exposed was an actual Ponzi scheme, which is possible. But
the the thing that the thing that we have to
say to be fair is successfully faking your death is
extremely difficult for a number of reasons, uh with and
(14:19):
again we'd need to do an actual episode on this.
But like, from what I understand, this is one of
the people who would have the ability to do so.
Like you guys pointed out, that's not a normal yacht,
you know what I mean. That's also uh, that's that's
a long distance we could disappear for a while yacht.
But if you want to fake your death effectively, the
(14:44):
people that I believe have done so successfully have almost
always done it in a foreign country if they're US based,
because it's a little easier to get around the rules
in some countries, or they've just gone off into America's
Great Wilderness and decided they were going to live off
the grid in a kind of miserable life until they
(15:05):
were caught. But I, I just I don't know. Man,
it's so hard to actually fake your death in a
sustainable way unless you have scads of money and unless yeah,
and unless you can if you ever want to travel
from where you have to be able to circumvent the
customs and border control systems, which he could. Yeah, Derek's
(15:27):
is that money again? That's superpower. You can figure out
all kinds of interesting ways around rules and laws if
you got that moolah. Well, there you go, Chris. We've
just scratched the surface there. But uh, you know, I
guess we'll all be watching that Netflix shout out. You're
welcome Netflix, where all that stands between them and bankruptcy.
(15:49):
All right, we'll be right back, And we're back with
another message from you. Yes you, triple Z. I'm talking
to you. Uh triple Z rights in with a subject
line Lucid Dreaming Paralysis. Hey guys, a long time listener,
(16:09):
first time email. You can call me triple Z. I
did I love the show. I'm a big fan of
the strange news segments. Thank you. Um. At a young age,
I was really interested in Lucid Dreaming. I would stay
up for a day until I was physically tired and
try to keep my mind active when I attempted sleep. Uh.
The idea is to trick your brain into keeping your
consciousness active while your body is asleep. From doing this,
(16:31):
I believe I developed sleep paralysis. UM. That affects me
still to this day. It happens once in a while.
I wondered if you guys had any experience with lucid
dreaming yourselves or heard of anyone getting sleep paralysis from it. Again,
love the show, Thanks guys. UM. I found a ton
of really really cool stuff. There's a lot of new
(16:52):
studies being done into dreaming, which is neat because, I mean,
one of the articles I read, uh in see science
Focus UM lead with the the idea that, hey, we're
sending billionaires into space and all this stuff, and uh,
you know, solve so many mysteries of the universe, you know,
through science. But one thing that still remains largely out
(17:13):
of reach is the state of dreaming. And that is
because it's hard to study something that is purely subjective
to an individual. You know, you can study brain wave
patterns and things like that, and you know, monitor breathing
and the way the body behaves. But you can't exactly
like shove a camera on somebody's brain and see what
their dreams are like. So you would rely on that
(17:36):
subject to be able to describe it to you. And
that's something that lucid dreaming is playing a big part of.
I think it's pretty clear, but to anyone that isn't familiar,
lucy dreaming is is like triples, he said, where you
essentially train yourself Two. It happens during r E M sleep,
which we know rapid eye movement, which is the state
of sleep where dreaming kind of kicks in. And if
you can keep yourself aware, uh of being awake and
(18:02):
of being you know, in the waking world while still
experiencing that R A M state, you can technically at
the very least be aware of your dreams, describe them,
you know, in a sort of a cogent kind of way,
or even steer them if I'm not mistaken. Isn't that right?
Then We've talked about this in the past, and the
notion that you're supposed to be able to almost like
drive your dreams better that way. Yeah, yeah, the idea is, uh,
(18:26):
it's odd because the ideas or the phenomenon. From a
scientific basis of sleep, prowesse and lucid dreaming are not
that different. They're both kind of a hybrid state of sleep,
and there's some really interesting studies done on that. There's
not really a lot of substantive work yet on a
(18:47):
causation between lucid dreaming and sleep paralysis. But you can
teach yourself to experience lucid dreaming. I've I've experimented with
it in the past. Uh, mainly mainly due to some
uh personal interest. Shout out shout out to Brian. Yes,
I'm the one who has dreams in a shared universe.
(19:09):
But you're absolutely spot on. Well, these are Um, this
is a skill that people can teach themselves, and the
steps are relatively simple. But your mileage may vary. And
for a lot of people they'll encounter they'll encounter sleeping
lucidity in relatively short bursts, like without a d percent
(19:32):
success rate. Yeah, mileage may indeed vary, and that's I
don't know, this is my theory, um, you know. And
being not like a sleep scientist or anything, but almost
the way you put it, bad I think makes perfect sense.
That's the lucid dreaming and uh, sleep paralysis are seemingly sides,
two sides of the same coin. And I'm wondering if
lucid dreaming is like the positive side, uh, and sleep
(19:56):
paralysis is the negative side, Like, couldn't you also lucidly nightmare?
You know? Is it? What is sleep paralysis if not
a lucid nightmare where you're sort of trapped in that
state between waking and sleeping, but also they lost control
of your body. Yeah, but in your lucid nightmare, you
could grow wolverine cloths and like anything that's coming at you,
(20:20):
you're good to go because you can heal yourself and
you've got wolverine cloths, unless it's paralyzing, lee, terrifying, and
then you're just like, you know, stricken because it does
feel like you know the commonalities between people that experienced
sleep paralysis is they often have suffered some kind of
trauma it seems, you know, or or there's some triggering
you know, event like it just doesn't come out of
(20:41):
nowhere usually. But I'm sorry if that's way off base, folks,
let me know, um, but that that that is my
understanding from that food is that film that actually ended
up being quite scary. It was called like the nightmare
I think about the shadow people and sleep paracess. Well,
there's there's another. Another distinction is reading a study a
(21:01):
little while back that said, this is how I know
that there hasn't been a lot of substance research into
a causation between lucid dreaming and sleep paralysis, which hopefully
triples the is good news um for you because it
helps us eliminate one of the possible causes. Uh. Sleep
paralysis involves a full return to consciousness to wakefulness while
(21:25):
you're muscles while you're still experiencing muscle a tonia, which
is why you're you're not thrashing all the time when
you're having a very active R E M phase. On
the other hand, lucid dreaming evolves getting some of your
waking consciousness back while you're still fully asleep, so you're
(21:45):
not the differences in sleep paralysis. You kind of are.
You're much closer to being quote unquote awake than you
are lucid dreaming and lucid dreaming. You're just kind of
like realizing you're in the matrix, you know what I mean,
Or you're having that inception moment where you're like, hey,
tops usually stop spinning. For anybody wants to read more
(22:05):
about that, I'd recommend Terror and bliss commonalities and distinctions
between sleep paralysis, lucid dreaming, and their associations with waking
life experiences. Is it the sexiest title? No? Is it
a good read? Yes? I don't know if you guys
are listening to Radio Rental this season as it's come around,
But there's a story in there about a woman who
(22:28):
witnesses what her husband was having a sleep paralysis episode on.
So who knows if it's real? Who knows exactly what's
happening when it just came out, And it's making me
think about this, the difference, you know, lucid dream and
then waking up and perhaps part of your brain is
still in a dream state, or actually seeing an entity
(22:50):
into your room attacking your husband. Yeah, that's not good. Um,
it's interesting. I mean, we've talked about the the idea
of lucid dreaming being a pretty ancient concept, right. In fact,
I believe Aristotle had some cool stuff to say about it.
Oh yeah, Aristotle described it um as quote, often when
(23:11):
one is asleep, there's something in consciousness which declares that
what then presents itself is but a dream um roundabout
way of saying, you know, you're like awake dreaming basically.
But you know, there are some studies looking into this
concern over people that have taught themselves how to lucid
dream the idea of like getting stuck or something or
(23:34):
having it be harder to wake up. Um. It always
make sure you think of like nightmare in elm Street movies,
you know, like, oh I can't wake up? Uh, that
would be terrifying too. And to me that fear seems
to be somewhat intertwined with sleep paralysis. Um. But then
it seems like you've read a little bit more of
these studies that I that I'm that I'm seeing. Did
you see a direct correlation between the two or are
(23:56):
they just kind of operating on similar principles? Um, because
our our listeners seems to believe that his practice in
uh um lucid dreaming led to the sleep paralysis troubling them. Yeah.
So well let's talk a little bit triple X about
the the most important thing, which is techniques or things
(24:18):
you can attempt to lower your likelihood of sleep paralysis,
which is a terrible feeling. Also, yeah, I've been I've
been caught on the ass out end of a lucid dream.
You know what I mean. You jump off the building.
You're supposed to wake up before you hit the ground.
I didn't. It's not cool. Wake up if you can.
(24:38):
But with with sleep paralysis, uh, some of the big indicators,
like the only common indicator between both sleep paralysis and
lucid dreaming is what are called disassociative experiences. But sleep
paralysis is a little bit different because sleep paralysis can
(25:00):
be it's likelihood can be increased by your stress and
anxiety in waking life. Not the amazing film, but you know,
you're just day to day while you're not sleeping life.
And you can also predict a likelihood of sleep paralysis
based on sleep quality. So if you're if you're natural,
(25:20):
like if you are one of those people who has
successfully acquired society's current six to eight hours in one
block kind of pattern, that's that's the one that's normal
in society, but it's not really normal for humans. Um,
if you have that down and then you're something in
your life means that you have to break that cycle
(25:43):
and you have to you know, start sleeping in a
polyphasic manner, or you're just getting less sleep than normal,
or you find yourself sleeping for like long ten hour
burst routinely, then messing. What you're doing at that point
is you're you're forcing a readjustment reaction from from your brain,
and that can lead to the states of hybrid sleep
(26:07):
that can lead you to sleep paralysis. And furthermore, I
would advance the idea that calling them calling them sleep quality,
anxiety and life stress as though they are three separate things.
It's not. I mean, I get it, but the distinction
is not super bright because if you have anxiety and
life stress, that is almost certainly gonna mess with your
(26:30):
sleep quality. There are very few people who are like, man,
this is crazy. I'm so scared. I'm so miserable. Thank goodness,
I still get my six to eight. Do you know
what I mean? Yeah? I mean, even with like sleep aids,
it's not always quality sleep. You know what I mean?
Are like people that need to drink alcohol to try
to fall asleep. That's that's going to be like a
(26:52):
very poor quality sleep. And if you have one of
those fitness trackers, you can usually tell. I think it's
about how long you stay in our him So I
can't remember exactly, but there's definitely ways of like gauging
the quality of your sleep. I alluded to it at
the top of this of this story, I just want
to wrap up with it. Uh. There is there are
some kind of interesting developments being made in dream study
(27:16):
that that hinge directly on um observing folks that have
the ability to lucid dream Ken Polar is a psychologist
and dream researcher at Northwestern and he has this to
say in this article on Science Science Focus that I
found memories of dreams can be missing some parts of
dreams and can be distorted and incorrect. So if that's
(27:37):
all we have to go on, then building a solid
science of dreaming can be difficult. Um. He goes on
to say that what he and his colleagues have discovered
is that if you you know, observe folks that are
lucid dreaming, they can come up with a system of
codes uh that allow them to almost communicate directly with
the dreamer and get more vivid descriptions. So, along with
(28:02):
his partner another scientic research are named concholy Um, they
use some labs in France Germany and the Netherlands to
essentially exploit that level of awareness that lucid dreamers are
able to exercise, and they you know, gathered several experienced
lucid dreamers, one of whom I believe an artist who
(28:23):
who uses lucid dreaming to create these really cool I mean,
sorry for lack of creativity here, but but dreamy kind
of geometric um ink pen and ink images that almost
looked like these weird mazes that are kind of mixed
with like cave paintings or something. They're really really cool um.
But they use beeps and flashing lights um, and they
(28:45):
are able to kind of almost uh it's almost like
a guided hypnosis thing where they're then able to give
instructions um to the lucid dreamer to kind of give
them feedback, and then they take notes accordingly. So it
seems very very new, but very very cool. Oh, it's
it's it's it's um. Oh, what's the name of it?
Dream yoga, yoga nitra. It's like an ancient technique, but
(29:07):
there I'm sure they're applying the more scientifically rigorous applications
right to clarify the Indian Hindu practice of yoga nidra
is similar to the Tibetan Buddhist practice of dream yoga.
People have been on to this for a long time.
You know, it's like it's kind of free entertainment depending
on do you guys remember that film Waking Life, of course?
(29:30):
I still my favorite moment in that film is when
the person has kind of achieved a state of lucidity,
the protagonist, and they ask one of the entities they're encountering,
what's it like to be a dream? And they just
never answer, sort of the whole thesis of the of
the film. In a lot of ways, it now it
(29:52):
makes me think about the techniques to train yourself to
be able to lose a dream. I don't know if
you guys ever tested some of these out where you well,
what are a few of them, Matt Well? Someone where
if you have a small light, like a candle or
something that you can focus your eyes on while you're
laying down and starting to drift off, and but keeping
yourself awake, focusing on the candle, which would ground you
(30:15):
in the real world, in your space where you actually
physically are, where your body is, while your mind starts
to go elsewhere. Um and like shut itself down essentially,
and if you do that enough times, your brain then
kind of finds itself awake in that space between dreaming
and sleeping. And that's kind of the gateway at least. Yeah,
(30:36):
that doesn't work for everybody, and it doesn't work every time,
but and there are other techniques to and some you know,
work for some and some work for others, and you know,
obviously probably people can find ways of figuring out themselves. UM,
it's interesting this article. I can't recommend it highly enough
by Christian Jarrett for Science focus dot com. It goes
on to mention something we've talked about recently on it
(30:59):
was either strange new user or one of these uh,
the idea of um using uh dreams or influencing dreams
to sell stuff, uh that we talked about it. We
talked about a cores Light campaign that was really more
of a gimmick. I don't know that it was. It
didn't feel like it was actually trying to hijack people's dreams.
But the to the ability to do that and the
(31:21):
inherent kind of badger out of the madness of all
of this. This field of research, you know, is a
little worrisome because as we know, I mean the pure
you know, um, ethical version of a thing, whether it
be a scientific discovery you know, like the atomic bomb,
or or or technology that leads something like that, it's
ultimately going to get out in the world. And you know,
(31:42):
when something gets out in the world, it's inevitably going
to end up being exploited by terrible people. So um,
it's an interesting field to keep an eye on, but
it does have some troubling you know, dystopian sci fi
kind of future ramifications if you really think about it. Yeah,
if anybody wants to try their hand at being in
one area, not or that's just kind of freestyling on
(32:05):
on eurology. The study of dreams. One of the most
effective again, your mileage may vary. Just one that has
worked for me in the past is what's called the
wb t B wake back to bed. You've probably experienced this, folks.
If if you have dreams, you have woken up. You've
woken from some dream, right, And have you ever had
(32:29):
the feeling like, oh, I need to get back to
sleep immediately so I can continue this awesome dream. Or
I can't go to sleep just yet because I'll be
back in the nightmare or whatever. There's truth to that
because when you go back to sleep after waking up
for a short period of time, you are more likely
to encounter dreams, like you'll go back into r E
(32:51):
m uh much more easily, and you'll also be more
likely to lucid dream. So that's that's something I think
has been very effective. And then also keeping a dream
journal will help you immensely. So if you want to
try those three things, UM, I wish you great success.
You know, I had a weird dream the other night
where it was a dream about a dream that I
(33:14):
had dreamt many years ago, and it was one of these.
It was a scary dream. It was about like I
had I had gone to see us a very scary
Asian horror movie UM, and I don't remember the contents
of it, but something about it was just like scarier
than anything I've ever seen. It was like a vision
of hell or something, and um, I woke up fully
thinking this movie existed and started trying to google it,
(33:36):
and then I realized, like, this movie does not exist.
I was just remembering a previous dream of having seen
this dream horror movie uh from years ago. But it
was very familiar and I was like, this is bizarre.
I don't know what you call that, like dream javou.
I mean it was very jarring, and it was a
cool way. I mean I wasn't like upset or anything,
(33:57):
but I fully was like, what is this piece of
sin him that I should fully be able to find?
Um and it just doesn't exist. So I was clearly
dreaming about a memory of a previous dream. Whoa dreams
on dreams on dreams, y'all. Yeah, some of this stuff
does have a pretty patently like you know, inception an
e type vibe. Um. But I think again, there's a
(34:18):
lot of imagination that can go into thinking about the
study of dreams because of how little we know about it. Um, So,
any anything that's gonna push that forward I'm all for,
at least until the you know, the big Madison Avenue
ad agencies get ahold of it. Yeah, that's fine. This
is all real, guys, You're real. I'm real, it's all real.
I promise the future is now, um and uh, the
(34:39):
future is in an ad break now. It's gonna just
come into your ears, not your your dreams, hopefully, unless
it's like really effective, you might I mean, who knows
you it might, it might do it for you, and
you might dream about it. But we'll hear that and
then we'll be back with more messages from you. The
time has come again, the hour grows late, the moon
(35:03):
the color of blood. I hope it is a stormy
night as you're hearing this, doc, would you mind hitting
that sound cue. It's time for more ghost stories from you.
Were doing this for the rest of October, and the
end of October is coming too soon. Here's our first one.
(35:23):
This is from Kyle. Kyle says, Hi, there, I hope
I'm not too late for the ghost stories thing. When
I was a boy, about two or three years old,
I used to see a woman at night when I
was in my bed. She was an old woman, and
she would be over me as I lay in bed,
the way you sort of sit half on the bed
and lean over slightly with your arm on the other
side of someone if they are laying flat on their
(35:46):
side of the bed. She came to me on several
occasions and would talk to me. She would ask questions
like how are you and are you okay, and questions
about my family. I was a child, and so obviously
I was extremely scared of this and told my mom
about this woman. My mom took notice of this as
I was quite distressed about it, and she told me
(36:06):
that if I don't want to see the woman, asked
her not to visit you anymore. So that is what
I did, and I never saw him again. My mom
told me that it was about a few months later.
She opened up a box of her stuff to unpack.
As far as I am aware, we had not long
moved into this flat, and it was like a box
of photo albums and things like that. So my mom
(36:28):
started looking through an old photo album. I'm playing about
in the living room and come to look at the
pictures and I point out the woman who was coming
to talk to me because apparently my mom's grand uh
editorial note us listeners, that means mother's grandmother. I can't
fully remember all the things she asked me or what
we spoke about, but I do remember seeing her and
(36:51):
asking her to go away. I still can't to this
day go to sleep lying on my back. It just
gives me chills. This happened to us in Cambridge on
To area. So that's that's the first one, and I
wanted to share this with everybody first. Thank you, Kyle,
I want to share this with everybody, because that's not
an uncommon experience. I don't want to put you guys
(37:12):
on the spot, but if you had any situation like
that in your own lives that you're comfortable talking about,
not really yes, but no, got you. Yeah, so yes
to the first part, not to the second, I got you,
you might be interested, Kevin to learn that you're not
the only person who has written in with stories or
(37:36):
accounts like this. There is also a rich vein of
literature and lore related to children's saying things that are
inexplicable or you know, maybe seemed disturbing. There was a
great Reddit thread making the round several years ago where
it was just scary things that children have said to
(37:58):
their parents. Uh and and a lot of times they
seem to imply, um, a ghost or the kid is
maybe having an imaginary friend if you want to be
more skeptical, who somehow seems to have a lot in
common with a relative who has passed on or Some
of my favorites were the ones that sound as though
(38:20):
there is a the kid at least believes they have
a past life. That that kind of stuff pops up
in horror and it's it's not made out of whole
cloth I have. UM. I think a lot of people
have had visions. I mean to our earlier listeners question
about lucid dreaming, about of people encounter lucid dreams at
(38:41):
some point in their life. So the odds are on
your side. But with the idea of what appears to
be a visitation from someone, um in your family or
someone you're close to or you knew and they passed
beyond the mortal veil before you did, uh, it's it's
hard to navigate, even if you're a very skeptical person.
(39:05):
I I just want to point out my favorite of
the the creepy child statement genre is there was one
where these parents are driving with their kids. They're in
traffic or something, and then their daughter is like four
or five or something. She points to this car that's
in traffic with him and she's like, that's the car.
(39:27):
That's the car I got in that accident in before
with my other mom and dad. And they're like your
other mom and dad, sweetie, And then she says, yeah,
they got out okay, but I sure didn't. No no
word on what model of car it was, but I
(39:48):
think we probably also have a lot of people in
the crowd today who have had either your parents later
told you you said some creeps or stuff, or maybe uh,
or maybe you have encountered your own child saying something
that kind of squidge out, you know what I mean, Like, yeah,
(40:09):
you got an example more too many? Right, not necessarily
a sibling. I didn't grow up with siblings, but it's
just you know, I'm I'm easily I'm more easily squigged
than one might think. I got you. Yeah, anything to
do with like describing veins, for example, like or like
like blood flow through the body, or like cutting that
(40:33):
stuff makes me go a little faint. Have you ever
seen the veins on some birds when they when you
when they don't have feathers, Yeah, it's then they look
like weird little freaking fetuses, And I don't like it.
One day. Yeah, I'll add hairless cats to that. I
know that they're doing their best, and what people have
(40:54):
done to them it's unfair. Are you familiar with the
famous internet hairless cat named Bingus? Yes, you're aware of Bengas.
I'm aware of Bengas. Yeah. I I expressed distrust and
distaste for Bengas of no fault of Bengas his own
to my daughter, who's a big fan, and she canceled me. Uh, so, Fellas,
I'm canceled for not appreciating the wonder and majesty that
(41:17):
is this weird little fetusy looking, creepy veny cat named Vengas.
Well maybe you can make peace with the feline. Cats
are creatures native to dream, so uh, just just get
yourself in a lucid dream and have a waking life
situation with Bengas. Speaking of dream, ben Um, I know
I asked you particularly because I know that you're you've
(41:38):
read them, Um, are you if you've seen the trailer
for the new Sandman series on Netflix? I have. I
think it looks quite promising that it could be good
if Neil's happy with it. I'm happy. You know, the
casting of of Dream in particular, I'm not even familiar
with the actor, but looks pretty spot onto me. So
um and also a friend of the of the network
(42:01):
and show, John Cameron Mitchell is is in is in it.
It plays a character. So I'm looking forward to very much.
And we're going to move to an excellent, an excellent
series of anecdotes and legends from Robin Uh. Robin writes
in Too in response to our story about the Devil
(42:22):
visiting a nightclub in San Antonio. Remember that's the one
where he partied hard and the knee he must have
like dropped off, the dropped a hot single in the
restroom because he disappeared. Uh, he dropped the evil kids
off at the pool. Yeah, he made a deposit. Yeah.
(42:43):
So this is funny because Robin said they stumbled across
an almost identical older story, older version of that San
Antonio in the seventies story in a N six compendium
of Welsh folklore, and they found it just a few
weeks or days before they heard our listener mail segment
with ghost stories. So here just if you're sharing these,
(43:07):
because they just tickle me to an infernal degree. First
Devil at the card party at an inn in Iberswith.
It was once the custom of members of local fashionable
society to hold card parties and dances on Sunday nights.
On Sunday one evening, a stranger arrived. He was an
exceedingly handsome young man, very well dressed in a cloak
(43:29):
of rich black velvet and wearing curls on either side
of his face. He easily got permission to join the
dancing party, chose the most beautiful girl in town as
his partner, and made himself very agreeable. After the dance,
he sat down with the rest to play cards, still
with the same partner, she happened to drop a card and,
(43:49):
stooping to pick it up, saw that this stranger at
cloven feet. She fainted and never recovered her health, dying
shortly after. The result was a great impetus to Sabbatarianism
in the town. Wait this, this is a tale that
I just heard about. There's a haunted there's a haunted
(44:11):
manner in Ireland that has this tail as like why
the place is haunted and it's now a hotel or
you know, an inn in a place where you can
go and ghost hunt. But it's this tail. Yeah, you
gotta find it, gotta find it. Yeah, sorry, I like
I just wrote, I just wrote this down in our
(44:33):
meta for an episode we should cover. Oh wow, amazing. Okay,
well this seems like a good indicator, Matt m At
the very least, there's somebody weird feet who's just carousing
and philandering across the land. Well, according to the legend
of this place. I'll tell you the name of why
doesn't find it? Uh this it was the devil and
(44:55):
it shot through the roof, like shot straight up through
the roof, and there was still a whole or you know,
part of where there was a hole where the devil escaped.
But then the real history is that the woman, rather
than dying and like classing it dying shortly after, she
was actually kept hostage essentially in the house by the
(45:15):
people who owned the house and her family's because she
was she had gone what's going to say this mad
because of her experience loftus Hall in off this hall. Okay, well,
here's here's the second one. We'll we'll dive into Loftus Hall.
Let's do it. Let's get supernatural with it, let's get spooky.
(45:35):
This next one, also from Robin, is called Second Sites
and Warnings the Deacon's Vision. Some sixty years ago or more,
there was a gathering of the Calvinistic Methodist at Aberystwyth,
which I am probably mispronouncing, apologies Welsh friends. Two deacons
who came to attend it were lodged in a house
on the front now part of a larger building. They
(45:57):
were given a double bedded room next to the drawing room,
but chose for the sake of warmth to sleep in
the same bed. Sure they did sake warmth, okay, to
their surprise, for they supposed themselves the only guests. They
were kept awake by the sound of dance music next door.
Presently there was a heavy thud as of someone falling,
(46:18):
and then the door of their room was opened, and
several persons entered, carrying what appeared to be the body
of a woman dead or in a faint. This they
laid on the unoccupied bed and went away, paying no
attention to these two deacons. The latter got up, but
found no one dead or alive in their room or
the drawing room. The landlord in the morning said that
(46:39):
there had been no music or dancing, and that there
were no other guests in the house. Sometime afterwards, however,
they received a letter from him saying that a party
of English visitors had since had a dance in the
drawing room, during which one of them, a lady, had
fallen dead. In her body placed where the old men
had seen it in their earlier vision. Usually not shared
(47:03):
unless it's a folly. Ad I love that term. Well,
that's another great one. Do we have any dates associated
with these? Are these are just this is lore? Well
we know they were before, right, because that's when the
couple was published. That's that's where we'd have to start. Um,
folly ad is for a new one. I'm familiar with
(47:24):
the term. It is a description that's it's not perfect,
maybe a little accidentally offensive to people, but it's described
as an identical or similar mental disorder affecting two or
more individuals, usually members of a close family. So one
of the most famous examples in popular culture of what
(47:46):
has been called folly a d before was the report
of these two teachers who were visiting Versailles and they
felt they had traveled back in time just for a
brief moment. Remember that story. They saw ghosts, they saw
historical reenactment, whatever it was. Ultimately the mobilely Jordaan incident. Yeah,
(48:09):
it seems like what probably happened in that case was
that it would be as though we were all, uh,
the four of us and you, fellow listener, It's as
though we were all on a road trip and we
went to one of those towns in Virginia where they're
like his, how Witchen, but the gloial way and like
(48:31):
uh ing, and then you stumble. You know, it's like
it has always stumbled across one of those towns and
did not know that re enactment towns were a real thing.
That's kind of what they encountered. But with this, it's
a little bit stranger because this opens the door for
another theme we can hopefully explore in uh In in
(48:54):
a future listener mail segment when gets stories from you folks,
And it's this claire voyance, the idea of precognition. Right.
We we know that time works in a very strange
in a very strange way once you get down to
very small levels, and we explored this in our two
part episode on dreams. We've also received numerous reports, anecdotal,
(49:17):
of course, of people who say, like I, I fundamentally
know if something has happened to my twin or my
close sibling, or I suddenly know if something has happened
to loved win right, it's usually a close relative, but
not always um And those are stories. You know, three
(49:37):
of us of fall more on the skeptical side, but
we want to believe more more importantly, we want to
find a true explanation for these things. And those visions
are not super rare, you know what I mean, They're
not the rarest pokemon in the world of alleged psychic experiences.
So I wouldn't be surprised if we have some of
our fellow conspiracy realists writing in to let us know. Oh,
(50:00):
keep your spooky stories coming, folks. Uh, this is always
joy for us to read them. We read every email
we get. We cannot wait to hear from you. Some
thanks to everyone who wrote in. Good luck out there
on the boundaries of sleep and that what in particular? Uh,
(50:21):
and and let us know, let us know what really
spooks you out in this the most wonderful time of
the year. We try to be easy to find online,
oh are we ever? You can find us on the
Internet in the usual social media places of note, Facebook, Twitter,
and YouTube, where we operate under the handle conspiracy Stuff.
You can also find us on Instagram at conspiracy Stuff show. Yes.
(50:45):
And if you don't like social media, that's fine. I
don't like it either. I mean it's fine, it does
what it needs to do. But if you want to
use your mouth to talk to us, hey, you can
do that. Call our number one eight three three st
d W y A t K. You have three minutes
to leave a message. Say whatever you will. Please give
yourself a very cool nickname. We accept all of them.
(51:08):
We're excited about it. We can't wait to hear from you.
If you've got too much to say that can't fit
in three minutes, instead send us a good old fashioned email.
We are conspiracy at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff they
(51:39):
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