October 6, 2025 • 72 mins
Grab your flashlights and circle up—because it's SPOOKTOBER, and we’re diving into the eerie world of spooky games you should (or really shouldn’t) play in the dark. From classic sleepover dares like Bloody Mary, to modern internet legends like the Elevator Game and the Midnight Game, these rituals blur the line between folklore, fun, and the supernatural.
We’ll uncover the chilling origins of these games, the rules that supposedly summon spirits, and the psychological theories behind why people are drawn to play them. Along the way, expect plenty of creepy storytelling, and of course—our signature blend of humor and shivers.
By the end, you’ll be asking yourself: are these just harmless party tricks… or invitations you should never send?
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
When the worms crawl in, the worms crawl out.
They'll eat your gods and spit them out.
And when your bones begin to rot, the worms remain.
But you do. Not so.
Don't ever lie. As a hearse goes by, there's
some day you'll be next in life.And when that brings his cold
(00:25):
despair, ask yourself, will anyone?
Macabre may not be suitable for all audiences.
Listener discretion is advised. It's spooky season.
Blair is rocking her Stephen King pet cemetery for Patreon
peeps. You can see it spooky too.
(00:48):
Heck yes, I love that. Sweater I got my dancing
skeletons on. Yeah, in the new studio space.
It's not quite done yet. But it looks great.
Thanks. Like my little ghost I made.
I do. I love it.
It's part of the like the stuffing from furniture packing
(01:10):
materials, really. Yeah, it's awesome.
Sometimes you got to get resourceful when you make
Halloween decorations. It's free.
So why not? Right, free decor.
Well, hello and welcome as always.
As Hallie was saying, it is spooky season and it's episode 2
(01:33):
of this month long Halloween party over here at Macabre and
we could not have a Halloween party without playing some
games, spooky games, and there are some spoop level games out
(01:54):
there. Let me tell you.
And This is why we're bringing it to you as listeners.
I'm going to straight up say this right now.
Of course, as always, remember this show is not for the faint
of heart. Negative energy is not allowed
and we are not necessarily condoning that.
You go and play any of these games, OK?
(02:15):
I like MC Cobb service announcement actually.
I'm not recommending that anyoneplay these games, but there's a
good chance you might have already played some of these.
Games and if you have and you have stories, can you please let
us know because I want to know what happened to you or your
(02:36):
friends or whoever played it. Please share because some of
these games I have never heard of before and when I dove into
it and some of the stories that I found relating to some of
these are change your pants level.
I don't think I could do them tobe honest.
(02:57):
You got to open with, you know, like goosebumps and oh, what was
the one we used to watch as kids, the Crypt Keeper.
I'm not as I'm not as entertaining as the Crypt
Keeper. I freaking love Tales from the
Crypt. And I think I have a better skin
regiment than he did, so I don'thave that same spooky.
(03:18):
I mean, I look like him a lot. No, you don't.
All right, let's get spooky. People.
Imagine this. It's midnight, the house is
quiet, the fridge is humming, and somewhere in the distance
you swear you just heard a floorboard creak.
(03:41):
Instead of turning on every light like a sane person, you
decide. Let's really test our homeowners
insurance out. And tonight we're going to dive
into the spookiest games you shouldn't play in the dark, and
we'll talk about where they camefrom, how to play them, and why
(04:03):
you probably shouldn't. Or at least move all your
furniture first so you don't diefrom tripping over the coffee
table like I would. Same, some of these I won't even
play in the light I mean. Woof, yeah, that's what I got
for your friend. I love it.
(04:24):
I love that build up because it's true.
Like it wouldn't be the game that killed me.
It'd be me chickening out and running into something and
that'd be my end. We're going to we're going to
try to like merge our way into the really creepy.
OK, so we're. Escalating this as we go along.
Yeah, I'm going to try to. I'm going to try to.
(04:47):
The spooky elevator is going to the top floor at the end, level
1. Some of them are like, this is
crazy to me, no way we're going to start with a game called the
Dice Game. OK.
Have you. I don't know this game.
No, I don't know this game. I.
Hadn't either. This is one that you are
(05:09):
definitely kind of risking some things with welcoming things.
So in order to get started, you're going to need 2 dice and
a table to play on and a lightweight cup that is clear so
that you can see into it the board.
You have to pick your favorite board game board to use as the
(05:33):
board for this particular game. So literally any board game.
But it has to be your favorite and you also need a stopwatch
and you need to come with something that you desire the
most in life and you can't have one that is, well, I kind of
want this and this. It has to be like the thing that
(05:55):
you want the most. OK, so this is all about setting
intention. A darker version of Dungeons and
Dragons, Maybe some demons. Wait till I wait till I tell
you. Yeah.
OK, So you place this board on the table?
(06:16):
It has to be a flat surface. No.
Hey, there's a bump over here. It's got to be completely flat
and on the board on this flat table, you put the dice one end
of the board. This is the first die and then
the second will go inside the cup.
(06:36):
Now you will place the cup on the opposite side of the board
of the first dice. And then you have to state this
out loud. Very clearly.
The game is set. Care to make your wager?
Oh, I don't like. That yeah, it's creepy.
It is creepy. It is creepy.
(06:59):
Oh just wait. Just wait.
After a moment of silence, you have to state your utmost desire
to the air, and then you have toexit the room and close the door
to the room. After 7 minutes.
(07:21):
This is what your stopwatch is for.
But before 11 minutes, keep thatin mind.
You can re enter the room. If everything is as you left it,
this entity does not want to play and then you immediately
need to dismantle the game and dispose of the second die.
(07:44):
It cannot be used again. If everything is as you left it,
but the second die is no longer in the cup, you've made the
entity mad. You have to immediately
dismantle the game and do your best to find the second die and
destroy it completely, never to be used again.
(08:07):
How do you? Destroy a die.
I have no idea. Sledgehammer maybe?
I don't know. D&D people, let us know if you
ever destroyed a die. I don't know, melting it down
maybe? Smashing it I don't.
Know, right? Depends on the material, I
guess. Yeah, exactly.
But here's where it gets even worse.
(08:31):
If the cup is upside down with the second die inside, it's your
turn and the entity is willing to play.
You pick up the first die, and you roll it, noting the number
you've rolled. You pick up the cup and compare
(08:51):
your role to what the second diehad been cast in underneath.
This is how it's playing with you, right?
If your number is higher, you win and within a couple of days
your utmost desire will come true.
If it's the same and you have a tie, life will continue as it
(09:16):
has been with no changes. But if your number is lower, you
lost and you pay consequences. Yeah.
What are the consequences? It doesn't say Oh no, yeah, I'm
(09:36):
not messing around with that. Nope.
So do you have any idea where that lore originated from or
kind of the time frame? I feel like it could have
originated to be something olderbecause it has that kind of
vibe, you know? But I don't know the origin, so
(09:58):
I don't know. It could have been something
newer, but it'd be kind of fun to find out.
Could be Reddit related, who knows.
Right, right. I don't like it though.
No, I don't either. It's unsettling and I'm like,
especially when you have to leave the room.
Yeah, and you have that window of between 7:00 and 11:00
(10:20):
minutes, you better be paying attention.
Right. And then that's the thing too.
It's like, what if you go in after 11 minutes?
What? Happens.
Yeah. Then what?
Yeah, you game over. You already lose.
Right. They should make a movie about
that. Yeah, I'd watch that.
I would too. That's creepy.
All right. So what do you think?
(10:41):
I'll go next. I got to start with the Queen of
Sleepover Dares Bloody Mary. Yeah.
Everybody knows Bloody Mary. Yeah.
This one's been around forever and guaranteed most of our
listeners have probably played it, know someone who's played
it, have a story about this. I have a story about this.
(11:06):
We'll talk about that. We'll talk about that after we
get through the game. But yeah, and if you haven't
tried this as a kid or a teenager, I'm not condoning that
you do it now, but maybe do it now.
I haven't lived until you scaredyourself playing Bloody Mary.
(11:28):
All right, so they say, if you stare along enough into a
mirror, the glass stops reflecting you and begins to
show something else entirely. The Bloody Mary ritual whispered
about at slumber parties and in dark bathrooms across the world
may be nothing more than a modern dare, but its roots go
(11:52):
back much further into the strange and unsettling world of
mirror divination. So we're going to go back to the
18th century on this one. Young woman would sit by
candlelight, gazing into the glass, hoping to catch a
fleeting glimpse of their futurehusband's face.
(12:14):
And sometimes they'd walk up thestairs backwards, holding the
mirror in front of them. Which if you're as clumsy as I
am walking backwards up the stairs, there are other risks
involved outside of the supernatural.
Or just like falling down the stairs with a lit candle and
glass in your hands. Yep, I'd be dead.
(12:37):
Yeah, it'd be dangerous. Yeah, for many reasons for me.
But some people claim that the specter that you would see in
the mirror, if it's not your future husband, might just be
the Queen Mary of England. Queen Mary, the first to be
exact. Remembered in history as Bloody
(12:58):
Mary. During her short reign from 1553
to 1558, she ordered the deaths of Protestants in a desperate
attempt to restore Catholicism. Her legacy drips with blood, but
her personal life was marked by sorrow, phantom pregnancies, and
miscarriages that haunted her. In certain versions of the tale,
the ghost that appears in the mirror cradles a dead child as
(13:22):
if forever trapped in her grief,which is also fucking
terrifying. I did not.
I did not hear that before. Yep, and others attribute Bloody
Mary to Mary Worth. Depending on the version, she
was a witch, a murderer, or possibly worse.
(13:44):
One particularly grim telling insists that she preyed upon
those escaping slavery along theUnderground Railroad, sealing
her freight fate. As a figure of cruelty and
darkness, her punishment was to be remembered in the cursed
chant that bears her name, Bloody Mary.
And still, some say the story pulls from women, like who we
(14:07):
have talked about before on the show, Countess Elizabeth
Bathory, the blood Countess of the 17th century Hungary.
I'm sure you've already listenedto that episode.
If not, then go back. But she was accused of torturing
and killing hundreds of young women.
Her legend has become synonymouswith female monstrosity.
(14:28):
Though she was never Mary, her shadow lingers in the myth,
stitched together with all the other fears we've attached to
women who lived and died in in me.
So when you stand in front of that mirror, candle flickering,
whispering her name, you may be calling on more than one spirit.
You may be summoning centuries of sorrow, cruelty, and blood.
(14:54):
Now here's the modern version. How do you play this game?
You turn off the lights. You light a candle.
You stare into the mirror and chant the words Bloody Mary
three times. Some versions say you spin in
circles or whisper instead of saying it out loud.
(15:18):
And then Bloody Mary will show herself to you.
Maybe she stares at you. Maybe she claws your face off
and maybe she drags you straightthrough the mirror into whatever
dimension she came from. Either way, it's a perfect
(15:38):
recipe for screaming and scaringyour fur babies half to death.
Now, one of the things with thisWhy is this so scary, and why
does this possibly do what it does?
(15:59):
OK, you've heard of the Troxler effect?
Yep. So staring at your own
reflection in dim light can makeyour face do some really fucked
up things, right? Your vision will distort and
your face might morph and you might even disappear, and it's
just your brain editing out whatit's been looking at for too
(16:20):
long, which is really weird in itself.
Yeah. And then there's the pareidolia
effect, where our brains are just kind of hardwired to look
and find faces and patterns, especially in the dark.
So that smudge on the mirror might become a set of eyes and
(16:40):
then fear priming because you'replaying the game.
You already go in with the intention of expecting to see
something. So you've already got that built
up anxiety in this instance. I think your brain is probably
the real villain in this scenario.
But I do have my own story, yeah.
(17:02):
I want to hear this. I've never heard this story.
All right, so of course, I did this when I was a kid, and I was
probably maybe only 10 or 11 at the time, and I played this by
myself like an idiot. Yeah.
And it was in my grandma's bathroom.
(17:24):
And I don't think I had a candleat the time.
I don't recall. But I had the lights off for
sure. And I was standing in the
bathroom mirror and I did the thing and I got so scared I
flipped on the light and then ran out of the bathroom.
(17:46):
I shit you not, the water in thebathroom turned on by itself.
What? Which is has nothing to do with
the mirror or anything like that, but the water in the
bathroom turned on by itself. No.
Yeah, it was the hot water. Oh yeah.
(18:06):
Yeah, so I don't know. Again, I don't know if it was
just like coincidence or my mindplaying tricks on me.
That place was kind of creepy anyways, so it could have just
been a perfect storm of your friends, but it made me really
terrified to go in the bathroom.I don't blame you.
Yeah. From that point forward, I was
like, I don't want to go in there.
(18:28):
Yeah, right. Well, then you said it was at
your grandma's house, so you're like, well, it's not at my
house. Yeah, unless it follows you,
yeah. Nope, Nope.
That is creepy. That is creepy.
Maybe at the end I'll have to tell you the scariest one I've
(18:50):
ever played. Oh, OK.
It's not scary at all, I could tell you.
Now if you want. Literally the scariest game that
I've ever played was in college.It was 7 minutes in heaven.
You. Know that's scary, isn't it?
Oh it was scary because in our broom closet on the 1st floor we
had this massive spider that lived in there and there was no
(19:13):
light and we had to go in there.Me and this guy and I was like
somewhere in this freaking closet there is a huge spider
and he is mean. He goes in there.
Yeah, yeah. Because one time I had a
standoff with that thing. I got home from work and I just
see these big legs, like out splayed underneath the closed
door of the closet. And I stopped my foot going,
(19:36):
don't you dare, don't you dare. And the more I stomp my foot, it
came out further. From the closet, it's an attack.
Mode. Because it's feeling those
vibrations, you think about it on a spider web.
That's how it hunts prey. Yeah.
Your best to not move, don't make eye contact.
(19:56):
It was so not good. So just like in this closet with
this guy, you know, college party, right?
And there's literally nothing going on.
She's so how's it going? I'm like, we're not talking at
all. There's a spider in here and he
goes, there's a what? And I'm like, yeah, there's a
(20:17):
spider in here. So for 7 minutes it was
literally like, well, shit, where do you think it is?
You know, yeah, that was the that's the scariest.
Game I've ever you're 7 minutes in heaven is very different than
most people so you're just more like 7 minutes in hell yeah.
Seriously, that's the way to torture me right there. 7
minutes in a closet where there's no light and there may
(20:40):
be a spider. Maybe they're not.
Yeah, yeah, the worst way. All right, we got to amp it up a
little bit with this next one. Have you ever heard of a game
called Red Door, Yellow Door? I want to say maybe I heard it
(21:03):
on morbid I feel like or maybe 2girls 1 ghost I can't remember.
It might have been 2 girls, 1 ghost.
Yeah, they probably did talk about this.
Yeah, I think it was, but it's been long enough that it's just
sketched from my brain. It's just gone now.
Well, this one is actually, in my opinion, freaky because it
(21:24):
involves your mind, OK. And yeah, there, yeah, there's a
couple stories that I've heard about it and I'll like
paraphrase stories that I've heard about this game.
But why don't we talk about whatit is if you've never heard of
it before? This seems to be a newer game.
(21:47):
I believe that there, if you're on TikTok, you might be able to
find clips of people talking about this game.
It's normally played at sleepovers.
And it's like other name, like there's other names too.
It's sometimes it's just known as Black door, White Door or
Doors of your Mind. So if you don't know where this
(22:11):
is going, I'm excited to share this with you.
So it's basically kind of tricking your mind or like going
into a weird like hypnotic stateof, you know, rooms in your mind
or like your thoughts are like what's hiding.
But it kind of quickly, for a lot of these cases anyway,
(22:34):
allegedly goes into paranormal mode really quickly.
OK. So it all you need is two people
to play this game and you're just ready to go.
So it involves one person. So you kind of have to start off
in a trance, right? You have to get yourself my like
(22:55):
mindfully ready to go on this mental journey.
So player 1 is the subject and they are going to be the guide.
So to play this, the one person has to be the guide and the
other person has to be the one in a trance.
Both people cannot be in a trance to play this.
(23:18):
People can watch, but they cannot speak or interfere while
this game is starting to take place and it is highly
recommended that no one else tries to be in a trance if
they're watching this go down. And it has to be a very quiet
room. So you sit down on the floor
(23:38):
with a pillow in your lap if you're the guide, right?
You have the other person layingtheir head in your lap on that
pillow because they have to be completely relaxed.
You have to sit cross legged that way.
And the second player then has to lie down with their head in
your lap, if you're the guide. And once the player's head is in
(24:03):
your lap and you've noticed thatthey are completely relaxed, you
ask them to close their eyes, raise your hands up in the air
and keep them there. It sounds like it.
Raise your hands on the air justlike some dance song.
But you have to do that until you really start relaxing and
your breathing becomes level. And you like have to keep your
(24:25):
eyes closed through this entire game.
Remember that too. So you have to start massaging
the person in your laps. Temples.
OK, it sounds weird at first, right?
Yeah, I'm like, I hope you guys are on good terms.
You know each other well enough,right?
Let's not make this weird. Yeah, maybe not a complete
(24:49):
stranger, you know, but yeah. So then you start, you're
chanting At this point, once youhave used those circular motion
to rub the person's head in yourlapse temples enough to truly
relax them, start chanting. Red door, yellow door and any
other color door over and over so that the subject starts to go
(25:11):
into this trance like state. It will take typically several
minutes to get the person that'sgoing into their mind there.
Once they can start visualizing a hallway of doors, you know
that you have successfully gotten that person where they
need to be. The other people, if there are
(25:33):
watching, they are welcome to chant this as well, but they
have to be on time with the guide, otherwise they don't
speak at all. At this point.
When the subject is in this hallway of doors, the subject
should then lower their arms to signify that yes, I'm in.
(25:54):
Once they see these doors, it may feel natural to be drawn to
one or multiple doors and they normally won't all look the
same. They may feel like they are
drawn to certain things, but if the seem to be having a certain
(26:15):
feeling in the negative way, they should probably avoid that
door. So it's also like a gut reaction
after you know that they're officially in and they can fully
visualize these doors. You have to set a timer for 10
minutes and they keep track of this.
(26:36):
You have to direct them at all times to make sure that they
don't get lost while they're in this hallway of doors.
They can, the guide will ask what do you see at this point is
when the subject can answer back.
So a lot of the times they will say that there is a door and the
(27:00):
door is ajar. If that happens, the person
guiding should say can you open the door?
And depending on what the answeris, don't ever force the person
in their mind to go through something it is.
It should be a naturally guided situation.
(27:21):
So if they can open the door then you would ask that person
to then describe the room. After a certain amount of time
you should leave. You should not stay prolonged in
one room or another. You should also ask what color
the door is, if they can make itout, and what type of door.
(27:42):
Like sometimes it's like a rickety door, or it's a door
that is unhinged, made of metal or you know, something like
that. So then after that point, when
you know that they've described the room, you can ask them to
leave, but they have to shut thedoor.
And at that point, you can then make sure that they're back in
(28:03):
that hallway and ask if they seeany other doors open or if
they're drawn to any particular door.
And then they can go and do the same exact thing.
Sometimes a really popular thingthat has come up while playing
this game is that some subjects see a lot of clocks.
(28:26):
That's a time frame warning in your mind to be like, it's kind
of time to leave because if you see too many of them, it's seen
as a way to trap that subject intheir own mind.
So after it's a positive feelingin a room then you can stay a
(28:46):
little bit longer. But clocks are always a no go
and if you have any sort of bad feelings you need to get out.
Even if in the beginning when you walk in it felt positive, if
something else happens you need to leave the room.
Encourage that person to constantly be talking to you and
giving you answers to your questions and for them to answer
(29:09):
honestly and not to lie about what they see.
If there are signs of spotting danger, you should be avoiding
that and stepping back out of that room and closing the door.
Sometimes subjects actually see people and people.
(29:29):
It's kind of tricky because sometimes it's OK, but most of
the time it's not. And sometimes.
So clocks are kind of like a wayto trap you, but people can
trick you in there. They're also another way to
stay. At that point, you need to back
out of the room while watching that person and close the door.
(29:53):
Yeah. So then if this doesn't sound
freaky, wait till I tell you about some of the stories I've
heard. Definitely stay clear of any
doors that you can see through that have a bunch of clocks or
you see motion like a human motion and do not enter those.
If there is an incident where it's like an upside down room,
(30:16):
avoid it. Avoid it.
Mostly you should be guided towards rooms that are brighter.
Stay away from darker rooms. Windows and lights are normally
a good sign in order to keep everything illuminated.
Now the last step is to try to wake up from where you are at.
(30:43):
Most of the time when you play this game, you do run into
something negative. I've never heard of a story
where somebody has come out of it without having an experience
that was in the negative. It will start to show on your
person that's in your lap, and then at that point you need to
try to wake them up and you needto help them wake up and guide
them out of it. Normally this involves being
(31:06):
trapped in a room. You're never supposed to close
the door behind you when you enter a room, but if it closes
on you, you need to wake up immediately.
If this happens to you and you are the one that's in your own
mind's hallway, you need to tellthe guide immediately that you
are trapped in A room and at this point you need to end the
game. They can shake you awake or out
(31:28):
of your trance in that way and stating that this game is now
done. Now, sometimes there have been
stories where people will say that at the very end when
they're trying to wake up, they actually spot a man in a suit
and it said that it's dangerous and it's unsettling because
(31:49):
there's something off about him,but nobody can really explain
anything besides the fact that he's in a suit and he's not
quite human, if that makes sense.
But yeah, that's how you game play the game, and that's how
you can tell warning signs and stuff.
Some of the stories that I heardabout this were freaking insane.
(32:11):
There was one where this person was being guided and it was
going really well. They had gone through 2 rooms
and it was just like one seemed to be like a normal like
bedroom, you know nothing it wasvery simple.
The next room there was a lot ofplants and then on the other
(32:33):
side of the hallway they saw this room.
Its door was cracked open and itwas like a darker color, and it
seemed to be almost like vintage.
And so they kind of peeked in and they really didn't see
anything. And so they opened the door and
there was this like woman in thecorner facing away from them.
(32:58):
Oh no, Very Blair Witch. Yeah, And she wasn't saying
anything. There wasn't any noise coming
from the room, but she was like rocking back and forth.
And so the person was trying to describe that to the guide.
And they're like, I think you should get out of there.
And so she tried like backing upand she's don't turn your back
(33:21):
on that woman. And so on the way out, she was
trying to find where the door was to get out and then turn
back to look. And the woman was like walking
with her back towards her still.Backwards, yeah.
Hopping backwards. And no.
(33:41):
Oh, yeah. And so she got out of there and
shut the door. And then there was like this
weird. Yeah, I know.
That was the one that sticks with me.
I'm like, Nope, Nope. I'm no, no, I'm not playing mind
games. We're not doing that.
Nope, No thank you and. It's so complex.
It's like there's so many rules and so many ways to like mess up
(34:04):
if you don't remember what to doin what order.
Like just trying to read the guidelines.
I was like and then you what? Yeah.
Oh no. Nope.
Nope, don't like that. I'm a path.
My turn. Yeah.
(34:27):
All right, so our next spooky game is the Midnight game.
Oh gosh. Hide and seek with a demon.
I do know this one. Yeah, so this one is one of
(34:51):
those urban legend types that got popular online.
And this, you know, originated in the creepypasta forums in the
early 20 tens. But it's supposed origins go
back a lot further than that, atleast according to the myth.
(35:13):
So the claimed origins say that the game would have started back
in, like, Pagan ritual in Europe.
Oh, OK Yeah. Allegedly used as punishment for
those who broke religious or spiritual laws.
And according to the legend, theritual was meant to summon the
(35:36):
Midnight Man, a supernatural entity who would torment the
guilty. Participants would invite the
spirit into their home by writing their name on paper,
adding a drop of blood, and lighting a candle at exactly
midnight. However, there's no verified
historical evidence of this ritual ever existing in Europe's
(35:58):
Pagan traditions. The back story is probably just
Smith created for the sake of their creepypasta.
For the pasta. Yeah, so of course, when it hit
the creepypastas, it spread across Reddit and YouTube, and
then people started doing like, paranormal challenges.
(36:20):
And you'll find videos and things of that of people like
trying it if you look. And then it also end up
inspiring indie horror film The Midnight Game, which basically
cemented this into Internet folklore.
(36:41):
OK, so how do we play it? How do you not play it?
I mean, so you're supposed to write your name on, well, your
full name on a piece of paper and add a drop of your blood,
your own blood, not someone else's blood.
(37:02):
Don't know what happened if you did that, but don't do that.
And you place that at your frontdoor with a lit candle fire
hazard, but OK. And then you knock exactly 22
times and the last knock has to be right at midnight, which I
(37:24):
don't know how you would ever actually time it right.
What is time anyways? Yeah, I don't know how you would
actually know that. But get your watch out, old
fashioned watch and try to time it.
So once you do this, legend saysthat the midnight man will enter
(37:46):
your house, and then the goal isyou're trying to escape him.
Like, you don't want him to cut you before 3:33 AM.
All right, so let's do the math.We just said midnight.
So you're basically running around your house for over 3 1/2
(38:08):
hours trying to get away from this guy.
Yeah. Also like that's way too much
cardio for me. Also if you have a small house.
You're screwed. Good luck.
Yeah, 'cause you got to walk around in the dark with only
your candle, right? And then you don't want your
(38:32):
candle to get blown out because if you do, you only have 10
seconds to try to relight it. Oh.
And if you fail, I don't know, the midnight man gets you.
And I don't know what that means.
I don't want to know what that means, but you're supposed to.
If the candle blow goes out and you can't realize that, you're
(38:52):
supposed to sit in a salt circleand basically wait until 3:33.
You better find that salt circle.
Yeah, in the dark. Yeah, exactly.
People allegedly hear whispers, see shadows and feel icy cold
spots. Yeah.
(39:15):
And of course, you know, your brain is geared up and ready to
freak out at any moment. Every little candle flicker
you're like. Oh, this is how I die barefoot.
Holding a Yankee Candle running from a demon.
Oh. Pumpkin spice, Pumpkin spice
(39:36):
cranberry. I don't know.
Creme Brulee And yeah, as I saidbefore, if you're clumsy like
me, this has its own inherent dangers.
Like you're running around your place trying to get away from a
demon? Good chance you're going to bang
your toe on a coffee table or who knows?
What? Yeah.
(39:58):
But yeah, but what? The other one, Oh, go ahead.
I was just going to say I'm justlike picturing, you know, OK,
make sure you've got a big salt circle, right?
But I'm like, how could you makea salt circle, like, portable?
So like, you can just be in it. And all I could think of was
like, getting like a hula hoop or like an inflatable from the
(40:20):
pool and just like ribbing that like a Margarita.
Yeah. And just be like I'm safe.
Keep it on me the whole time. Yeah, I think that's cheating.
And then and then I was like, what if you just outlined an
entire route? So maybe pick one room in the
house that is your safe room. You just have to know.
(40:41):
Where it is and be able to get there quickly right bathroom.
But again, this game is going toplay on all those same things.
Fear conditioning. You know, you've already made-up
(41:02):
in your mind that something scary is going to happen.
You've also created a ritual. You're playing into ritual.
There's blood involved, the hintof danger.
And if you're expecting to hear like knocks or whispers or see
shadows, your brain is going to.Create those for you definitely.
(41:25):
And then also, you're playing this at midnight, right?
So there's the circadian influence.
Generally speaking, you're goingto be a little bit more tired, a
little bit more anxious, and more likely to hear every little
noise and jump because of it. You're just tuned in, you're
(41:45):
hyper focused. And that will be your undoing.
Yeah. Is it the midnight man or is it
my 30 LB cat walking down the hallway?
I don't know. I wonder how these games are
played when you have animals. Actually, I didn't really think
about that. Right.
(42:06):
Oh. Because I don't know that you
could, because animals, especially cats, are sort of
known for being protectors, and you might just be null and void
for any scary games. If you have cats in the house, I
don't know, let us know. Yeah, No.
I'm curious. Apparently Arya has some
(42:30):
thoughts in the hallway right now.
Oh. Cuz she's, yeah, she's going
off. Yeah, she is the critter
quiring. And then two, we, I guess we'll
just bring it up now cuz I'm thinking about it.
That's why my brain works. But basically anytime you play
these games, any of these games,you're setting an intention.
(42:56):
So even if some of these games are bullshit, you know, if you
believe that setting an intention and asking for
something and inviting somethingin, it's very possible that you
might just create something veryreal out of something made-up.
So right, there's that danger always when you are dabbling, I
(43:23):
guess in these things. So macabre service announcement,
if you do go down that road, theSpooky Rd. maybe just protect
yourself in some way before and after, I don't know.
Negative energy is not allowed. Definitely not allowed, no.
(43:43):
And like we've talked about thaton other episodes too, or it's
sometimes it involves outside factors.
If you've got stuff going on in your life and you're a little
bit more vulnerable at the moment and then you do something
like this, I mean, maybe it's like just the right kind of
(44:03):
paranormal cocktail. To make something happen.
I was going to say yeah. Spooky cocktail.
Yeah, yeah. But this next one that I have
for you, it's intriguing, but it's still because it's another
(44:28):
thing that plays with your mind.But I've never heard of this one
either. I tried to pick ones I had never
heard of before besides the red door, yellow door.
I'd heard that in passing. But this one, I don't know if
you've heard this one, but it's kind of cool, especially if
you're a bibliophile because youknow, but so this is called the
(44:51):
Red Book game. Nope.
No. OK cool, so this actually does
date to something else into a different culture as well.
There was also a movie made about this not too long ago, but
basically this game, it's kind of a ritual ask game kind of
(45:15):
dating back to like original divination practices of Pagan,
Pagan cultures. So, and for how much, I mean, we
can, if you want a nerd with me for a little bit after this, I
can kind of explain a little bitof that 'cause it wasn't just
(45:36):
Pagan culture that did somethingsimilar to this, but in a little
different way. But we'll get there.
It's sometimes also called the 3:00 AM challenge.
OK, you that sounds that sounds more familiar.
Yeah, OK. Yeah, and I still did not know
what this meant. This is something where in this
game you are trying to communicate with spirits.
(45:59):
So it's typically played by yourself.
Yeah, if you play in a group, it's kind of encouraged that
everybody would take a turn in the same way.
So it's like you're not really playing it all together.
It's like kind of solo and then people are just watching your
turn kind of deal. It's kind of interesting.
(46:20):
But it does require a red covered book and a red candle
and check. Yeah.
And that's all you need really. So anybody that's playing, they
need to ask a question when the book is in front of them, they
(46:42):
have to put their hand on the book and ask this question.
They can then open the book to arandom page and they have to
place their finger on a random spot and they have to read the
entire sentence and interpret it.
So it's almost like a a fortune telling type game of like you're
(47:04):
communicating with spirits through this book and they're
kind of answering your question in a weird way, definitely left
up to interpretation. And some sometimes some of the
ritual requires asking permission to even enter the
game and to leave the game. And this is where it gets really
scary. So sometimes you don't have
(47:26):
permission to play. Sometimes you don't have
permission to leave. And this is where it can go from
being kind of spooky to OK, thisis really like freaky.
So how do you fully play this? Well, of course you need your
red book and your red candle. Now remember your red book, it
(47:50):
has to be a red covered book, but also it can't have any
pictures in it. That is very crucial.
Preferably you need to play thisin a quiet room, but it you
don't really necessarily need todo that.
In order to start the game, you have to light your candle and
you have to close your eyes. When you place your hand on the
(48:13):
book to ask your question that you would be answered to ask to
enter, you have to say Red Book may enter your game to receive
the answer. You open the book to that random
page and you place your finger on a random spot and you read
your sentence where your finger lands.
(48:35):
You kind of keep it to yourself.If the answer is a positive
answer, you can ask questions byrepeating the process as many
times as you'd like. But if you've noticed that your
answers from the book become negative or you're getting a
(48:59):
weird feeling about the answers that you're receiving, it's time
to ask to leave. So in order to do this, you just
ask Redbook, may I leave your game?
And you may now leave or you know, kind of a four stayed
situation depending on the answer.
Because in order to leave the game, you kind of have to play
(49:21):
it as it's played. So if you flip to another random
thing and you ask to leave the game and you come across
something that's, yeah, you're not really, you know, Nope, then
you're kind of stuck. It's something where you have to
ask permission to get in. You have to ask permission to
get out. And there have been a couple of
(49:44):
weird instances that I came across when looking this
particular game up that people have said that they forgot to
ask to leave because they kind of started getting freaked out.
Like the first couple times theyasked, it was fine.
And then they kept playing because it was kind of
entertaining. And then they just kind of
closed the book, left it on the table and blow out the candle.
(50:08):
Well, in that particular one that I read about, I guess that
the person playing it had some weird shit happen in their
house. So they're like, what is even
happening? And then they remembered, oh, I
played this game. So they had to go in and try to
get out of the game by playing it again.
(50:30):
And I'm like, no, Nope, I'm a pass.
So I think so like I said this, it kind of stems from like past
Pagan cultures and it's kind of a religious thing too from back
in the day. So it's not just to play a
spooky game and oh, you know, what can I ask?
(50:53):
You know, this was actually usedas religious practices in some
very old cultures. So I took a like a divinations
course. And it's like throughout
history, like ancient Rome, did they use things to predict
things for army movements and tactics.
(51:15):
And the answer is yes. So in this class, part of what
we learned was in very early Christianity, they actually
carried around little books. And they weren't the only
religion that did this, but it'sa really good example because
it's like first Testament or notfirst Testament book 1 Old
Testament, you know, that they, these people, these oracles
(51:38):
would carry around. And if somebody had a question,
they would literally use that asa way to answer these questions
as like a divine answer. They would flip to a random page
and be like, OK, tell me your question, you know, and they
would do the same exact thing. And depending on what verse they
landed on, that was the answer that they would give the person
(51:59):
asking, which is very weird, butit's.
In like blasphemous right as faras.
Yeah, you think? Yeah, you would think you
wouldn't be doing that because you're consorting with something
else. Right.
So that's why it's so intriguingwhen you think of early
religions and where some of the stuff that we do today stems
(52:24):
from so. So what you're saying is you
don't want to play this game on Patreon with me?
No, I do not. Well, people, you heard it.
It's a really intriguing game. I will say that.
Like I could see why you would get addicted to this because it
(52:45):
would be really cool, but also. I feel like it's very similar to
playing a ouija board or using and I guess don't come at me
people. Apologies if I come off as being
ignorant to some of this stuff, but it seems like a similar kind
of thing to using tarot cards oryes, using the Ouija board or
(53:08):
there's some you're seeking information from a source that's
outside of yourself and how thatinformation is relayed back to
you can be through different mediums, right?
But I guess the risk is, or somepeople think that the risk is
that it's coming from a place that is dark and manipulative.
(53:30):
And yeah, so that's. Right.
That's the potential risk, I guess.
Exactly. Yeah.
And it literally, I feel like that's the theme of the episode
today, is you're setting intentions.
And sometimes when people play games like that, it's because
they're in a vulnerable spot in life where, you know, maybe
(53:53):
something bad's happened and they just want to know, hey, is
this going to let up anytime soon?
And it's well again. Supernatural cocktail.
Yeah, well, it makes me think about the shirt you're wearing,
actually, the pet cemetery shirt.
You know, like good intentions were let's bury that in the pit
(54:14):
cemetery and see what happens. But.
Yeah, exactly. And like the saying goes,
sometimes dead is. Better dead is better.
All right, Well, I have one more.
Oh yeah, me too. I feel like everybody's heard of
this one. It's the elevator game.
Oh. My gosh, this one.
(54:36):
Yeah, so the elevator game, sometimes called Elevator to
Another World, is believed to originated in Japan or South
Korea, and it's spread online through message boards and
blogs. In the early 2000 tens.
Some of the earliest mentions appeared on Japanese 2 chapter
(54:56):
forums where people shared ritual games designed to summon
spirits or access other worlds. Now the game gained massive
attention when people started totry to connect it to the Elisa
Lamb case in 2013. Elisa Lamb if you're not
(55:17):
familiar, which I would be interested in covering this at
some point perhaps. But if you're not familiar, the
short story is she was found dead in a water tank on top of
the Cecil Hotel after they had found elevator surveillance
footage of her acting very strangely, erratically pressing
(55:41):
multiple elevator buttons, stepping in and out of the
elevator as if she's hiding fromsomething, gesturing at
something that can't be seen by the viewer.
People speculated that she had been playing the elevator game,
though there's no evidence to support the theory.
Still, it kind of fed into the war of this game.
(56:04):
If you haven't seen the footage of Elisa Lamb on the elevator,
it's creepy. It is really unnerving.
The first time I watched it, I got like full body chills.
So did I. So weird.
It's just so weird. That's the only way I can really
describe it. But how is the game played?
(56:27):
OK, so there are some requirements.
You need to be in a building that has at least 10 floors.
OK, It has to have a properly functioning elevator.
You don't want. You don't want one that doesn't
work. You know as it.
Should because then. You're just putting yourself in
a real bad position out the gate.
(56:50):
You should be alone when you play this game, and there could
be no one else in the elevator with you when you start the
game. OK, now you have to enter the
elevator on the first floor, press the button for the 4th
floor. When you arrive on the 4th
(57:12):
floor, you're going to stay inside and then press the button
for the second floor. Somehow you're then going to go
to the 6th floor, then back downto the second floor, and then up
to the 10th floor, and then finally you're going to press
(57:33):
the button for the 5th floor at the 5th floor.
This is where things are supposed to get interesting.
Legend says a woman may enter the elevator.
Can you hear that? Yeah, but it's very faint.
OK, I might just wait a second. Usually blows 3 or 4 times and
(57:53):
it stops. Normally the blowing only lasts.
Three or four times. I'll save that for the blooper
rhythm that it's done. Oh man.
Oh shit. OK, we good.
(58:13):
Yep, I don't hear it anymore. All right.
So once you get to the fifth floor of this is where things
get interesting. Legend says that a woman might
enter the elevator at that time and she might look very normal,
or she could be very unsettling.But whatever happens, you're not
(58:35):
supposed to look at her directly.
You are not supposed to talk to her or acknowledge her in any
way. Now, if she enters, of course,
she might go ahead and press thebutton for the first floor.
(58:56):
If the elevator starts to descend, exit immediately.
You have failed the game and arestill in our world.
Now if you press that first floor button and the elevator
starts to go up instead, you aregoing to be heading towards what
(59:17):
is called the other world. When you reach the top floor,
you can step out of the elevator, but things will just
feel a little bit off. So people who claim to have
reached this level describe it as an empty building with no
(59:37):
people, no sound. It's completely silent in there.
Windows might if you look through a window you might see a
dark sky, a red sky outside, even a black sky.
And sometimes you might even see, like a single glowing light
off in the distance. Now, some people say if they
(01:00:02):
have their cell phone on them, that it will lose service.
And if they're wearing a watch, the watch will stop working.
You'll get disoriented, You'll feel heavy.
You'll feel like you're being watched.
All of these. Things.
Nope. Now at this point you're going
to want to go back and re enter the normal world.
(01:00:26):
So how you do this is you're going to repeat the exact same
sequence of floors ending on the. 1st floor.
Oh my gosh. Now first of all, I would fail
at this game immediately becauseI'm never going to remember any
of those steps in the order I'm going to mess it up so bad.
(01:00:48):
I'd have to write it down for sure.
Yep, exactly. And then what if you lose your
directions or I don't know. Right.
No. No way.
No way. Now, there are some dangers and
risks with this psychological ofcourse, being being alone and
(01:01:12):
being confined in a small space for several minutes.
Sometimes for some people, that's not great, and then
you're also waiting for something supernatural to happen
and induce paranoia and panic. If you do, imagine someone
getting on at the 5th floor. Your fear response might cause
hallucinations or a feeling of being physically threatened.
(01:01:35):
There's also a risk of getting trapped in the elevator if
you're messing with all those buttons.
Yeah, exactly. You could get stuck between the
floors for hours. Yep.
So there's some spiritual stuff connected to this according to
(01:01:56):
legend. As I mentioned, if you don't
want to speak to the woman on the 5th floor or look at her.
If you do, it's believed you'll get trapped in that other world.
Like indefinitely. Some versions say that if she
speaks and you respond to her, she will kill you or drag you
away. Oh and there's one redditor who
(01:02:21):
claimed that they attempted the ritual in their apartment had 11
floors. It said nothing obvious happened
at first. There was no like ghost or no
extra floor woman on the 5th floor.
They just got really nauseous and an overwhelming feeling of
dread. Then allegedly later that night,
(01:02:42):
the elevator broke and went out of service.
And inside the elevator, a womanwith dark hair wearing a
tattered gown appeared. Her feet were rotting and she
had an evil grin on her face. And the person said that they
had to complete the ritual in reverse to get back.
(01:03:13):
Nope. Yeah.
What's tricky is if you did playthis game and you thought you
failed. OK.
And then you go back to your apartment, but in reality, you
succeeded and your apartment isn't your apartment, right?
(01:03:33):
Your apartment is like that whole it's off a little bit, you
know? No thank you.
No thank you. No, no.
(01:03:53):
Oh well. You ready to be more unsettled?
Let's do it. And this is the last one, and I
found this and I was like, also though we have to talk about at
the end because I'm like, if youhave a friend that does this to
you, are you really friends? Are you really friends?
(01:04:17):
That's what the name of this game is, actually.
It should be. This one is called the
Binoculars game. OK, I haven't heard of 1.
Either oh this one this is freaky.
I had not heard of it either. So the things that you need,
pack your little school backpack.
It's time to go. You need a flashlight for each
(01:04:40):
window in the house that you're going to be playing this in.
Who has that many flashlights? Right.
You need paper and pens. You need at least 17 feet of
rope scissors. A timer murder kit, basically.
Right, right. I'm like.
(01:05:01):
And then of course, a set of binoculars.
OK, so how do you play this? It's very particular.
And if you mess up, you are screwed basically.
So as the sun is setting, you can begin by closing and locking
all doors and windows. You place a lit flashlight on
(01:05:26):
each window sill throughout the house that you're playing this
game in. You set up a chair or a heavy
object near a door and use it asan anchor and tie one end of the
rope to it. This is very important.
Position your willing friend, itsays.
(01:05:47):
But really, honestly, I don't know anybody that would be
willing to do this. You have to place this person
near the anchor, but far enough away from the door so they can't
reach it. And then you secure the other
end of the rope around them, securing them to whatever
(01:06:10):
they're sitting on the chair. Basically, you'd get them a
chair. They have to remain silent for
the duration of this game. So you're basically like tying
up your friend and going, OK, have fun, we're going to see if
this works. No, no, not when you hear about
what can happen. So at this point, you write a
(01:06:32):
message saying we welcome you, you shall not be harmed down on
a piece of paper, and you slip it under the door near your
friend, on the chair that's close to the door where they're
anchored. Right at precisely 10:30 PM, you
turn off all of the lights in the house, leaving only the
(01:06:56):
flashlights in the window sill. Place your ear against the door
near your friend and listen verycarefully.
If you hear nothing, this game is over.
Turn on all of the lights, release your friend, and burn
(01:07:19):
the note that you had placed outside.
It's probably wise to also leavethe house for the rest of the
night. OK, this is where it gets really
freaky. If instead, when you have your
ear up against the door and you hear knocking, grab the
(01:07:43):
binoculars and the scissors. Move through the house and check
on every single window, one at atime.
Turn off each flashlight as you approach each window.
As you reach each window, use the binoculars to peer out each
(01:08:04):
one outside until you spot a distant figure.
And in this game it says that you absolutely will, and you
will know exactly what the game is talking about when you see
said figure. If you spot the figure, shout
forgive for I am mistaken. Quickly close your eyes, reopen
(01:08:30):
them, and look back outside again.
If the figure has vanished, the game is done and you should
probably just turn on the lightsand turn off the flashlights and
still leave the house for the rest of the night.
But if the figure remains, you better hope and pray that you
(01:08:54):
have secured all of the entrances to your house that
you're in and take your binoculars and scissors and go
bust in your butt running to make sure that everything is
locked or you are screwed. Can you imagine?
No, I don't like any of that. No, it's so unsettling.
(01:09:18):
It's so unsettling. And who is the willing friend
that's going to be like, Oh yeah, OK, no, no.
And I would never ask anybody todo that either.
But no way. No way.
I'm curious if any of our listeners have played any
(01:09:40):
outside of Bloody Mary, because I feel like, you know, a lot of
people did that back in the day.Right.
But some of these that I've never heard of, I'm curious,
would you and if you haven't, would you is the question?
Yes, let us know, and please tell us if you have a story from
playing one of these games, because I definitely want to
(01:10:01):
hear it. They're very intriguing, but
they're also so freaking creepy.Yeah.
I have a chill, but that's what we have for you on this Creepy
(01:10:22):
Games Edition for our Halloween Party of the month of October.
Now that we're really getting inthe spooky season.
Oh hey, this is a reminder you go to any parties and you dress
up. Please send us pictures of your
costumes. We really love seeing that.
And your decorations, yes. Crafts, yes.
(01:10:45):
Yards. Skeletons.
You put your animals in costumes.
We want to. See those two Critter Choir
costumes, buddy? I want to see them.
So we should run a contest. Actually, we.
Should. Oh my gosh, we should.
That'd be really fun. Can send some macabre merch.
Yes. 'Cause that's our yeah to our
(01:11:06):
top, top costumes. I do like that, Yeah, I do, yes.
But yeah, stay tuned. We've got more spooky tails,
Spook and spooker. Spooker as you go along.
(01:11:29):
It's so spooker out here, yeah. But yeah, it's happening.
And stay tuned because some of the episodes that we have
planned for the rest of spooky season are quite terrifying.
Stay tuned for listener tales. Buckle up.
(01:11:50):
And with that, have fun, be safe, be kind, try not to spoop
too hard, OK? And we'll shock you later.
Bye bye.
When the worms crawl in, the worms crawl out.
They'll eat your gods and spit them out.
And when your bones begin to rot, the worms remain.
But you do. Not so.
Don't ever lie. As a hearse goes by, there's
some day you'll be next in life.And when that brings his cold
(00:25):
despair, ask yourself, will anyone?
Macabre may not be suitable for all audiences.
Listener discretion is advised. It's spooky season.
Blair is rocking her Stephen King pet cemetery for Patreon
peeps. You can see it spooky too.
(00:48):
Heck yes, I love that. Sweater I got my dancing
skeletons on. Yeah, in the new studio space.
It's not quite done yet. But it looks great.
Thanks. Like my little ghost I made.
I do. I love it.
It's part of the like the stuffing from furniture packing
(01:10):
materials, really. Yeah, it's awesome.
Sometimes you got to get resourceful when you make
Halloween decorations. It's free.
So why not? Right, free decor.
Well, hello and welcome as always.
As Hallie was saying, it is spooky season and it's episode 2
(01:33):
of this month long Halloween party over here at Macabre and
we could not have a Halloween party without playing some
games, spooky games, and there are some spoop level games out
(01:54):
there. Let me tell you.
And This is why we're bringing it to you as listeners.
I'm going to straight up say this right now.
Of course, as always, remember this show is not for the faint
of heart. Negative energy is not allowed
and we are not necessarily condoning that.
You go and play any of these games, OK?
(02:15):
I like MC Cobb service announcement actually.
I'm not recommending that anyoneplay these games, but there's a
good chance you might have already played some of these.
Games and if you have and you have stories, can you please let
us know because I want to know what happened to you or your
(02:36):
friends or whoever played it. Please share because some of
these games I have never heard of before and when I dove into
it and some of the stories that I found relating to some of
these are change your pants level.
I don't think I could do them tobe honest.
(02:57):
You got to open with, you know, like goosebumps and oh, what was
the one we used to watch as kids, the Crypt Keeper.
I'm not as I'm not as entertaining as the Crypt
Keeper. I freaking love Tales from the
Crypt. And I think I have a better skin
regiment than he did, so I don'thave that same spooky.
(03:18):
I mean, I look like him a lot. No, you don't.
All right, let's get spooky. People.
Imagine this. It's midnight, the house is
quiet, the fridge is humming, and somewhere in the distance
you swear you just heard a floorboard creak.
(03:41):
Instead of turning on every light like a sane person, you
decide. Let's really test our homeowners
insurance out. And tonight we're going to dive
into the spookiest games you shouldn't play in the dark, and
we'll talk about where they camefrom, how to play them, and why
(04:03):
you probably shouldn't. Or at least move all your
furniture first so you don't diefrom tripping over the coffee
table like I would. Same, some of these I won't even
play in the light I mean. Woof, yeah, that's what I got
for your friend. I love it.
(04:24):
I love that build up because it's true.
Like it wouldn't be the game that killed me.
It'd be me chickening out and running into something and
that'd be my end. We're going to we're going to
try to like merge our way into the really creepy.
OK, so we're. Escalating this as we go along.
Yeah, I'm going to try to. I'm going to try to.
(04:47):
The spooky elevator is going to the top floor at the end, level
1. Some of them are like, this is
crazy to me, no way we're going to start with a game called the
Dice Game. OK.
Have you. I don't know this game.
No, I don't know this game. I.
Hadn't either. This is one that you are
(05:09):
definitely kind of risking some things with welcoming things.
So in order to get started, you're going to need 2 dice and
a table to play on and a lightweight cup that is clear so
that you can see into it the board.
You have to pick your favorite board game board to use as the
(05:33):
board for this particular game. So literally any board game.
But it has to be your favorite and you also need a stopwatch
and you need to come with something that you desire the
most in life and you can't have one that is, well, I kind of
want this and this. It has to be like the thing that
(05:55):
you want the most. OK, so this is all about setting
intention. A darker version of Dungeons and
Dragons, Maybe some demons. Wait till I wait till I tell
you. Yeah.
OK, So you place this board on the table?
(06:16):
It has to be a flat surface. No.
Hey, there's a bump over here. It's got to be completely flat
and on the board on this flat table, you put the dice one end
of the board. This is the first die and then
the second will go inside the cup.
(06:36):
Now you will place the cup on the opposite side of the board
of the first dice. And then you have to state this
out loud. Very clearly.
The game is set. Care to make your wager?
Oh, I don't like. That yeah, it's creepy.
It is creepy. It is creepy.
(06:59):
Oh just wait. Just wait.
After a moment of silence, you have to state your utmost desire
to the air, and then you have toexit the room and close the door
to the room. After 7 minutes.
(07:21):
This is what your stopwatch is for.
But before 11 minutes, keep thatin mind.
You can re enter the room. If everything is as you left it,
this entity does not want to play and then you immediately
need to dismantle the game and dispose of the second die.
(07:44):
It cannot be used again. If everything is as you left it,
but the second die is no longer in the cup, you've made the
entity mad. You have to immediately
dismantle the game and do your best to find the second die and
destroy it completely, never to be used again.
(08:07):
How do you? Destroy a die.
I have no idea. Sledgehammer maybe?
I don't know. D&D people, let us know if you
ever destroyed a die. I don't know, melting it down
maybe? Smashing it I don't.
Know, right? Depends on the material, I
guess. Yeah, exactly.
But here's where it gets even worse.
(08:31):
If the cup is upside down with the second die inside, it's your
turn and the entity is willing to play.
You pick up the first die, and you roll it, noting the number
you've rolled. You pick up the cup and compare
(08:51):
your role to what the second diehad been cast in underneath.
This is how it's playing with you, right?
If your number is higher, you win and within a couple of days
your utmost desire will come true.
If it's the same and you have a tie, life will continue as it
(09:16):
has been with no changes. But if your number is lower, you
lost and you pay consequences. Yeah.
What are the consequences? It doesn't say Oh no, yeah, I'm
(09:36):
not messing around with that. Nope.
So do you have any idea where that lore originated from or
kind of the time frame? I feel like it could have
originated to be something olderbecause it has that kind of
vibe, you know? But I don't know the origin, so
(09:58):
I don't know. It could have been something
newer, but it'd be kind of fun to find out.
Could be Reddit related, who knows.
Right, right. I don't like it though.
No, I don't either. It's unsettling and I'm like,
especially when you have to leave the room.
Yeah, and you have that window of between 7:00 and 11:00
(10:20):
minutes, you better be paying attention.
Right. And then that's the thing too.
It's like, what if you go in after 11 minutes?
What? Happens.
Yeah. Then what?
Yeah, you game over. You already lose.
Right. They should make a movie about
that. Yeah, I'd watch that.
I would too. That's creepy.
All right. So what do you think?
(10:41):
I'll go next. I got to start with the Queen of
Sleepover Dares Bloody Mary. Yeah.
Everybody knows Bloody Mary. Yeah.
This one's been around forever and guaranteed most of our
listeners have probably played it, know someone who's played
it, have a story about this. I have a story about this.
(11:06):
We'll talk about that. We'll talk about that after we
get through the game. But yeah, and if you haven't
tried this as a kid or a teenager, I'm not condoning that
you do it now, but maybe do it now.
I haven't lived until you scaredyourself playing Bloody Mary.
(11:28):
All right, so they say, if you stare along enough into a
mirror, the glass stops reflecting you and begins to
show something else entirely. The Bloody Mary ritual whispered
about at slumber parties and in dark bathrooms across the world
may be nothing more than a modern dare, but its roots go
(11:52):
back much further into the strange and unsettling world of
mirror divination. So we're going to go back to the
18th century on this one. Young woman would sit by
candlelight, gazing into the glass, hoping to catch a
fleeting glimpse of their futurehusband's face.
(12:14):
And sometimes they'd walk up thestairs backwards, holding the
mirror in front of them. Which if you're as clumsy as I
am walking backwards up the stairs, there are other risks
involved outside of the supernatural.
Or just like falling down the stairs with a lit candle and
glass in your hands. Yep, I'd be dead.
(12:37):
Yeah, it'd be dangerous. Yeah, for many reasons for me.
But some people claim that the specter that you would see in
the mirror, if it's not your future husband, might just be
the Queen Mary of England. Queen Mary, the first to be
exact. Remembered in history as Bloody
(12:58):
Mary. During her short reign from 1553
to 1558, she ordered the deaths of Protestants in a desperate
attempt to restore Catholicism. Her legacy drips with blood, but
her personal life was marked by sorrow, phantom pregnancies, and
miscarriages that haunted her. In certain versions of the tale,
the ghost that appears in the mirror cradles a dead child as
(13:22):
if forever trapped in her grief,which is also fucking
terrifying. I did not.
I did not hear that before. Yep, and others attribute Bloody
Mary to Mary Worth. Depending on the version, she
was a witch, a murderer, or possibly worse.
(13:44):
One particularly grim telling insists that she preyed upon
those escaping slavery along theUnderground Railroad, sealing
her freight fate. As a figure of cruelty and
darkness, her punishment was to be remembered in the cursed
chant that bears her name, Bloody Mary.
And still, some say the story pulls from women, like who we
(14:07):
have talked about before on the show, Countess Elizabeth
Bathory, the blood Countess of the 17th century Hungary.
I'm sure you've already listenedto that episode.
If not, then go back. But she was accused of torturing
and killing hundreds of young women.
Her legend has become synonymouswith female monstrosity.
(14:28):
Though she was never Mary, her shadow lingers in the myth,
stitched together with all the other fears we've attached to
women who lived and died in in me.
So when you stand in front of that mirror, candle flickering,
whispering her name, you may be calling on more than one spirit.
You may be summoning centuries of sorrow, cruelty, and blood.
(14:54):
Now here's the modern version. How do you play this game?
You turn off the lights. You light a candle.
You stare into the mirror and chant the words Bloody Mary
three times. Some versions say you spin in
circles or whisper instead of saying it out loud.
(15:18):
And then Bloody Mary will show herself to you.
Maybe she stares at you. Maybe she claws your face off
and maybe she drags you straightthrough the mirror into whatever
dimension she came from. Either way, it's a perfect
(15:38):
recipe for screaming and scaringyour fur babies half to death.
Now, one of the things with thisWhy is this so scary, and why
does this possibly do what it does?
(15:59):
OK, you've heard of the Troxler effect?
Yep. So staring at your own
reflection in dim light can makeyour face do some really fucked
up things, right? Your vision will distort and
your face might morph and you might even disappear, and it's
just your brain editing out whatit's been looking at for too
(16:20):
long, which is really weird in itself.
Yeah. And then there's the pareidolia
effect, where our brains are just kind of hardwired to look
and find faces and patterns, especially in the dark.
So that smudge on the mirror might become a set of eyes and
(16:40):
then fear priming because you'replaying the game.
You already go in with the intention of expecting to see
something. So you've already got that built
up anxiety in this instance. I think your brain is probably
the real villain in this scenario.
But I do have my own story, yeah.
(17:02):
I want to hear this. I've never heard this story.
All right, so of course, I did this when I was a kid, and I was
probably maybe only 10 or 11 at the time, and I played this by
myself like an idiot. Yeah.
And it was in my grandma's bathroom.
(17:24):
And I don't think I had a candleat the time.
I don't recall. But I had the lights off for
sure. And I was standing in the
bathroom mirror and I did the thing and I got so scared I
flipped on the light and then ran out of the bathroom.
(17:46):
I shit you not, the water in thebathroom turned on by itself.
What? Which is has nothing to do with
the mirror or anything like that, but the water in the
bathroom turned on by itself. No.
Yeah, it was the hot water. Oh yeah.
(18:06):
Yeah, so I don't know. Again, I don't know if it was
just like coincidence or my mindplaying tricks on me.
That place was kind of creepy anyways, so it could have just
been a perfect storm of your friends, but it made me really
terrified to go in the bathroom.I don't blame you.
Yeah. From that point forward, I was
like, I don't want to go in there.
(18:28):
Yeah, right. Well, then you said it was at
your grandma's house, so you're like, well, it's not at my
house. Yeah, unless it follows you,
yeah. Nope, Nope.
That is creepy. That is creepy.
Maybe at the end I'll have to tell you the scariest one I've
(18:50):
ever played. Oh, OK.
It's not scary at all, I could tell you.
Now if you want. Literally the scariest game that
I've ever played was in college.It was 7 minutes in heaven.
You. Know that's scary, isn't it?
Oh it was scary because in our broom closet on the 1st floor we
had this massive spider that lived in there and there was no
(19:13):
light and we had to go in there.Me and this guy and I was like
somewhere in this freaking closet there is a huge spider
and he is mean. He goes in there.
Yeah, yeah. Because one time I had a
standoff with that thing. I got home from work and I just
see these big legs, like out splayed underneath the closed
door of the closet. And I stopped my foot going,
(19:36):
don't you dare, don't you dare. And the more I stomp my foot, it
came out further. From the closet, it's an attack.
Mode. Because it's feeling those
vibrations, you think about it on a spider web.
That's how it hunts prey. Yeah.
Your best to not move, don't make eye contact.
(19:56):
It was so not good. So just like in this closet with
this guy, you know, college party, right?
And there's literally nothing going on.
She's so how's it going? I'm like, we're not talking at
all. There's a spider in here and he
goes, there's a what? And I'm like, yeah, there's a
(20:17):
spider in here. So for 7 minutes it was
literally like, well, shit, where do you think it is?
You know, yeah, that was the that's the scariest.
Game I've ever you're 7 minutes in heaven is very different than
most people so you're just more like 7 minutes in hell yeah.
Seriously, that's the way to torture me right there. 7
minutes in a closet where there's no light and there may
(20:40):
be a spider. Maybe they're not.
Yeah, yeah, the worst way. All right, we got to amp it up a
little bit with this next one. Have you ever heard of a game
called Red Door, Yellow Door? I want to say maybe I heard it
(21:03):
on morbid I feel like or maybe 2girls 1 ghost I can't remember.
It might have been 2 girls, 1 ghost.
Yeah, they probably did talk about this.
Yeah, I think it was, but it's been long enough that it's just
sketched from my brain. It's just gone now.
Well, this one is actually, in my opinion, freaky because it
(21:24):
involves your mind, OK. And yeah, there, yeah, there's a
couple stories that I've heard about it and I'll like
paraphrase stories that I've heard about this game.
But why don't we talk about whatit is if you've never heard of
it before? This seems to be a newer game.
(21:47):
I believe that there, if you're on TikTok, you might be able to
find clips of people talking about this game.
It's normally played at sleepovers.
And it's like other name, like there's other names too.
It's sometimes it's just known as Black door, White Door or
Doors of your Mind. So if you don't know where this
(22:11):
is going, I'm excited to share this with you.
So it's basically kind of tricking your mind or like going
into a weird like hypnotic stateof, you know, rooms in your mind
or like your thoughts are like what's hiding.
But it kind of quickly, for a lot of these cases anyway,
(22:34):
allegedly goes into paranormal mode really quickly.
OK. So it all you need is two people
to play this game and you're just ready to go.
So it involves one person. So you kind of have to start off
in a trance, right? You have to get yourself my like
(22:55):
mindfully ready to go on this mental journey.
So player 1 is the subject and they are going to be the guide.
So to play this, the one person has to be the guide and the
other person has to be the one in a trance.
Both people cannot be in a trance to play this.
(23:18):
People can watch, but they cannot speak or interfere while
this game is starting to take place and it is highly
recommended that no one else tries to be in a trance if
they're watching this go down. And it has to be a very quiet
room. So you sit down on the floor
(23:38):
with a pillow in your lap if you're the guide, right?
You have the other person layingtheir head in your lap on that
pillow because they have to be completely relaxed.
You have to sit cross legged that way.
And the second player then has to lie down with their head in
your lap, if you're the guide. And once the player's head is in
(24:03):
your lap and you've noticed thatthey are completely relaxed, you
ask them to close their eyes, raise your hands up in the air
and keep them there. It sounds like it.
Raise your hands on the air justlike some dance song.
But you have to do that until you really start relaxing and
your breathing becomes level. And you like have to keep your
(24:25):
eyes closed through this entire game.
Remember that too. So you have to start massaging
the person in your laps. Temples.
OK, it sounds weird at first, right?
Yeah, I'm like, I hope you guys are on good terms.
You know each other well enough,right?
Let's not make this weird. Yeah, maybe not a complete
(24:49):
stranger, you know, but yeah. So then you start, you're
chanting At this point, once youhave used those circular motion
to rub the person's head in yourlapse temples enough to truly
relax them, start chanting. Red door, yellow door and any
other color door over and over so that the subject starts to go
(25:11):
into this trance like state. It will take typically several
minutes to get the person that'sgoing into their mind there.
Once they can start visualizing a hallway of doors, you know
that you have successfully gotten that person where they
need to be. The other people, if there are
(25:33):
watching, they are welcome to chant this as well, but they
have to be on time with the guide, otherwise they don't
speak at all. At this point.
When the subject is in this hallway of doors, the subject
should then lower their arms to signify that yes, I'm in.
(25:54):
Once they see these doors, it may feel natural to be drawn to
one or multiple doors and they normally won't all look the
same. They may feel like they are
drawn to certain things, but if the seem to be having a certain
(26:15):
feeling in the negative way, they should probably avoid that
door. So it's also like a gut reaction
after you know that they're officially in and they can fully
visualize these doors. You have to set a timer for 10
minutes and they keep track of this.
(26:36):
You have to direct them at all times to make sure that they
don't get lost while they're in this hallway of doors.
They can, the guide will ask what do you see at this point is
when the subject can answer back.
So a lot of the times they will say that there is a door and the
(27:00):
door is ajar. If that happens, the person
guiding should say can you open the door?
And depending on what the answeris, don't ever force the person
in their mind to go through something it is.
It should be a naturally guided situation.
(27:21):
So if they can open the door then you would ask that person
to then describe the room. After a certain amount of time
you should leave. You should not stay prolonged in
one room or another. You should also ask what color
the door is, if they can make itout, and what type of door.
(27:42):
Like sometimes it's like a rickety door, or it's a door
that is unhinged, made of metal or you know, something like
that. So then after that point, when
you know that they've described the room, you can ask them to
leave, but they have to shut thedoor.
And at that point, you can then make sure that they're back in
(28:03):
that hallway and ask if they seeany other doors open or if
they're drawn to any particular door.
And then they can go and do the same exact thing.
Sometimes a really popular thingthat has come up while playing
this game is that some subjects see a lot of clocks.
(28:26):
That's a time frame warning in your mind to be like, it's kind
of time to leave because if you see too many of them, it's seen
as a way to trap that subject intheir own mind.
So after it's a positive feelingin a room then you can stay a
(28:46):
little bit longer. But clocks are always a no go
and if you have any sort of bad feelings you need to get out.
Even if in the beginning when you walk in it felt positive, if
something else happens you need to leave the room.
Encourage that person to constantly be talking to you and
giving you answers to your questions and for them to answer
(29:09):
honestly and not to lie about what they see.
If there are signs of spotting danger, you should be avoiding
that and stepping back out of that room and closing the door.
Sometimes subjects actually see people and people.
(29:29):
It's kind of tricky because sometimes it's OK, but most of
the time it's not. And sometimes.
So clocks are kind of like a wayto trap you, but people can
trick you in there. They're also another way to
stay. At that point, you need to back
out of the room while watching that person and close the door.
(29:53):
Yeah. So then if this doesn't sound
freaky, wait till I tell you about some of the stories I've
heard. Definitely stay clear of any
doors that you can see through that have a bunch of clocks or
you see motion like a human motion and do not enter those.
If there is an incident where it's like an upside down room,
(30:16):
avoid it. Avoid it.
Mostly you should be guided towards rooms that are brighter.
Stay away from darker rooms. Windows and lights are normally
a good sign in order to keep everything illuminated.
Now the last step is to try to wake up from where you are at.
(30:43):
Most of the time when you play this game, you do run into
something negative. I've never heard of a story
where somebody has come out of it without having an experience
that was in the negative. It will start to show on your
person that's in your lap, and then at that point you need to
try to wake them up and you needto help them wake up and guide
them out of it. Normally this involves being
(31:06):
trapped in a room. You're never supposed to close
the door behind you when you enter a room, but if it closes
on you, you need to wake up immediately.
If this happens to you and you are the one that's in your own
mind's hallway, you need to tellthe guide immediately that you
are trapped in A room and at this point you need to end the
game. They can shake you awake or out
(31:28):
of your trance in that way and stating that this game is now
done. Now, sometimes there have been
stories where people will say that at the very end when
they're trying to wake up, they actually spot a man in a suit
and it said that it's dangerous and it's unsettling because
(31:49):
there's something off about him,but nobody can really explain
anything besides the fact that he's in a suit and he's not
quite human, if that makes sense.
But yeah, that's how you game play the game, and that's how
you can tell warning signs and stuff.
Some of the stories that I heardabout this were freaking insane.
(32:11):
There was one where this person was being guided and it was
going really well. They had gone through 2 rooms
and it was just like one seemed to be like a normal like
bedroom, you know nothing it wasvery simple.
The next room there was a lot ofplants and then on the other
(32:33):
side of the hallway they saw this room.
Its door was cracked open and itwas like a darker color, and it
seemed to be almost like vintage.
And so they kind of peeked in and they really didn't see
anything. And so they opened the door and
there was this like woman in thecorner facing away from them.
(32:58):
Oh no, Very Blair Witch. Yeah, And she wasn't saying
anything. There wasn't any noise coming
from the room, but she was like rocking back and forth.
And so the person was trying to describe that to the guide.
And they're like, I think you should get out of there.
And so she tried like backing upand she's don't turn your back
(33:21):
on that woman. And so on the way out, she was
trying to find where the door was to get out and then turn
back to look. And the woman was like walking
with her back towards her still.Backwards, yeah.
Hopping backwards. And no.
(33:41):
Oh, yeah. And so she got out of there and
shut the door. And then there was like this
weird. Yeah, I know.
That was the one that sticks with me.
I'm like, Nope, Nope. I'm no, no, I'm not playing mind
games. We're not doing that.
Nope, No thank you and. It's so complex.
It's like there's so many rules and so many ways to like mess up
(34:04):
if you don't remember what to doin what order.
Like just trying to read the guidelines.
I was like and then you what? Yeah.
Oh no. Nope.
Nope, don't like that. I'm a path.
My turn. Yeah.
(34:27):
All right, so our next spooky game is the Midnight game.
Oh gosh. Hide and seek with a demon.
I do know this one. Yeah, so this one is one of
(34:51):
those urban legend types that got popular online.
And this, you know, originated in the creepypasta forums in the
early 20 tens. But it's supposed origins go
back a lot further than that, atleast according to the myth.
(35:13):
So the claimed origins say that the game would have started back
in, like, Pagan ritual in Europe.
Oh, OK Yeah. Allegedly used as punishment for
those who broke religious or spiritual laws.
And according to the legend, theritual was meant to summon the
(35:36):
Midnight Man, a supernatural entity who would torment the
guilty. Participants would invite the
spirit into their home by writing their name on paper,
adding a drop of blood, and lighting a candle at exactly
midnight. However, there's no verified
historical evidence of this ritual ever existing in Europe's
(35:58):
Pagan traditions. The back story is probably just
Smith created for the sake of their creepypasta.
For the pasta. Yeah, so of course, when it hit
the creepypastas, it spread across Reddit and YouTube, and
then people started doing like, paranormal challenges.
(36:20):
And you'll find videos and things of that of people like
trying it if you look. And then it also end up
inspiring indie horror film The Midnight Game, which basically
cemented this into Internet folklore.
(36:41):
OK, so how do we play it? How do you not play it?
I mean, so you're supposed to write your name on, well, your
full name on a piece of paper and add a drop of your blood,
your own blood, not someone else's blood.
(37:02):
Don't know what happened if you did that, but don't do that.
And you place that at your frontdoor with a lit candle fire
hazard, but OK. And then you knock exactly 22
times and the last knock has to be right at midnight, which I
(37:24):
don't know how you would ever actually time it right.
What is time anyways? Yeah, I don't know how you would
actually know that. But get your watch out, old
fashioned watch and try to time it.
So once you do this, legend saysthat the midnight man will enter
(37:46):
your house, and then the goal isyou're trying to escape him.
Like, you don't want him to cut you before 3:33 AM.
All right, so let's do the math.We just said midnight.
So you're basically running around your house for over 3 1/2
(38:08):
hours trying to get away from this guy.
Yeah. Also like that's way too much
cardio for me. Also if you have a small house.
You're screwed. Good luck.
Yeah, 'cause you got to walk around in the dark with only
your candle, right? And then you don't want your
(38:32):
candle to get blown out because if you do, you only have 10
seconds to try to relight it. Oh.
And if you fail, I don't know, the midnight man gets you.
And I don't know what that means.
I don't want to know what that means, but you're supposed to.
If the candle blow goes out and you can't realize that, you're
(38:52):
supposed to sit in a salt circleand basically wait until 3:33.
You better find that salt circle.
Yeah, in the dark. Yeah, exactly.
People allegedly hear whispers, see shadows and feel icy cold
spots. Yeah.
(39:15):
And of course, you know, your brain is geared up and ready to
freak out at any moment. Every little candle flicker
you're like. Oh, this is how I die barefoot.
Holding a Yankee Candle running from a demon.
Oh. Pumpkin spice, Pumpkin spice
(39:36):
cranberry. I don't know.
Creme Brulee And yeah, as I saidbefore, if you're clumsy like
me, this has its own inherent dangers.
Like you're running around your place trying to get away from a
demon? Good chance you're going to bang
your toe on a coffee table or who knows?
What? Yeah.
(39:58):
But yeah, but what? The other one, Oh, go ahead.
I was just going to say I'm justlike picturing, you know, OK,
make sure you've got a big salt circle, right?
But I'm like, how could you makea salt circle, like, portable?
So like, you can just be in it. And all I could think of was
like, getting like a hula hoop or like an inflatable from the
(40:20):
pool and just like ribbing that like a Margarita.
Yeah. And just be like I'm safe.
Keep it on me the whole time. Yeah, I think that's cheating.
And then and then I was like, what if you just outlined an
entire route? So maybe pick one room in the
house that is your safe room. You just have to know.
(40:41):
Where it is and be able to get there quickly right bathroom.
But again, this game is going toplay on all those same things.
Fear conditioning. You know, you've already made-up
(41:02):
in your mind that something scary is going to happen.
You've also created a ritual. You're playing into ritual.
There's blood involved, the hintof danger.
And if you're expecting to hear like knocks or whispers or see
shadows, your brain is going to.Create those for you definitely.
(41:25):
And then also, you're playing this at midnight, right?
So there's the circadian influence.
Generally speaking, you're goingto be a little bit more tired, a
little bit more anxious, and more likely to hear every little
noise and jump because of it. You're just tuned in, you're
(41:45):
hyper focused. And that will be your undoing.
Yeah. Is it the midnight man or is it
my 30 LB cat walking down the hallway?
I don't know. I wonder how these games are
played when you have animals. Actually, I didn't really think
about that. Right.
(42:06):
Oh. Because I don't know that you
could, because animals, especially cats, are sort of
known for being protectors, and you might just be null and void
for any scary games. If you have cats in the house, I
don't know, let us know. Yeah, No.
I'm curious. Apparently Arya has some
(42:30):
thoughts in the hallway right now.
Oh. Cuz she's, yeah, she's going
off. Yeah, she is the critter
quiring. And then two, we, I guess we'll
just bring it up now cuz I'm thinking about it.
That's why my brain works. But basically anytime you play
these games, any of these games,you're setting an intention.
(42:56):
So even if some of these games are bullshit, you know, if you
believe that setting an intention and asking for
something and inviting somethingin, it's very possible that you
might just create something veryreal out of something made-up.
So right, there's that danger always when you are dabbling, I
(43:23):
guess in these things. So macabre service announcement,
if you do go down that road, theSpooky Rd. maybe just protect
yourself in some way before and after, I don't know.
Negative energy is not allowed. Definitely not allowed, no.
(43:43):
And like we've talked about thaton other episodes too, or it's
sometimes it involves outside factors.
If you've got stuff going on in your life and you're a little
bit more vulnerable at the moment and then you do something
like this, I mean, maybe it's like just the right kind of
(44:03):
paranormal cocktail. To make something happen.
I was going to say yeah. Spooky cocktail.
Yeah, yeah. But this next one that I have
for you, it's intriguing, but it's still because it's another
(44:28):
thing that plays with your mind.But I've never heard of this one
either. I tried to pick ones I had never
heard of before besides the red door, yellow door.
I'd heard that in passing. But this one, I don't know if
you've heard this one, but it's kind of cool, especially if
you're a bibliophile because youknow, but so this is called the
(44:51):
Red Book game. Nope.
No. OK cool, so this actually does
date to something else into a different culture as well.
There was also a movie made about this not too long ago, but
basically this game, it's kind of a ritual ask game kind of
(45:15):
dating back to like original divination practices of Pagan,
Pagan cultures. So, and for how much, I mean, we
can, if you want a nerd with me for a little bit after this, I
can kind of explain a little bitof that 'cause it wasn't just
(45:36):
Pagan culture that did somethingsimilar to this, but in a little
different way. But we'll get there.
It's sometimes also called the 3:00 AM challenge.
OK, you that sounds that sounds more familiar.
Yeah, OK. Yeah, and I still did not know
what this meant. This is something where in this
game you are trying to communicate with spirits.
(45:59):
So it's typically played by yourself.
Yeah, if you play in a group, it's kind of encouraged that
everybody would take a turn in the same way.
So it's like you're not really playing it all together.
It's like kind of solo and then people are just watching your
turn kind of deal. It's kind of interesting.
(46:20):
But it does require a red covered book and a red candle
and check. Yeah.
And that's all you need really. So anybody that's playing, they
need to ask a question when the book is in front of them, they
(46:42):
have to put their hand on the book and ask this question.
They can then open the book to arandom page and they have to
place their finger on a random spot and they have to read the
entire sentence and interpret it.
So it's almost like a a fortune telling type game of like you're
(47:04):
communicating with spirits through this book and they're
kind of answering your question in a weird way, definitely left
up to interpretation. And some sometimes some of the
ritual requires asking permission to even enter the
game and to leave the game. And this is where it gets really
scary. So sometimes you don't have
(47:26):
permission to play. Sometimes you don't have
permission to leave. And this is where it can go from
being kind of spooky to OK, thisis really like freaky.
So how do you fully play this? Well, of course you need your
red book and your red candle. Now remember your red book, it
(47:50):
has to be a red covered book, but also it can't have any
pictures in it. That is very crucial.
Preferably you need to play thisin a quiet room, but it you
don't really necessarily need todo that.
In order to start the game, you have to light your candle and
you have to close your eyes. When you place your hand on the
(48:13):
book to ask your question that you would be answered to ask to
enter, you have to say Red Book may enter your game to receive
the answer. You open the book to that random
page and you place your finger on a random spot and you read
your sentence where your finger lands.
(48:35):
You kind of keep it to yourself.If the answer is a positive
answer, you can ask questions byrepeating the process as many
times as you'd like. But if you've noticed that your
answers from the book become negative or you're getting a
(48:59):
weird feeling about the answers that you're receiving, it's time
to ask to leave. So in order to do this, you just
ask Redbook, may I leave your game?
And you may now leave or you know, kind of a four stayed
situation depending on the answer.
Because in order to leave the game, you kind of have to play
(49:21):
it as it's played. So if you flip to another random
thing and you ask to leave the game and you come across
something that's, yeah, you're not really, you know, Nope, then
you're kind of stuck. It's something where you have to
ask permission to get in. You have to ask permission to
get out. And there have been a couple of
(49:44):
weird instances that I came across when looking this
particular game up that people have said that they forgot to
ask to leave because they kind of started getting freaked out.
Like the first couple times theyasked, it was fine.
And then they kept playing because it was kind of
entertaining. And then they just kind of
closed the book, left it on the table and blow out the candle.
(50:08):
Well, in that particular one that I read about, I guess that
the person playing it had some weird shit happen in their
house. So they're like, what is even
happening? And then they remembered, oh, I
played this game. So they had to go in and try to
get out of the game by playing it again.
(50:30):
And I'm like, no, Nope, I'm a pass.
So I think so like I said this, it kind of stems from like past
Pagan cultures and it's kind of a religious thing too from back
in the day. So it's not just to play a
spooky game and oh, you know, what can I ask?
(50:53):
You know, this was actually usedas religious practices in some
very old cultures. So I took a like a divinations
course. And it's like throughout
history, like ancient Rome, did they use things to predict
things for army movements and tactics.
(51:15):
And the answer is yes. So in this class, part of what
we learned was in very early Christianity, they actually
carried around little books. And they weren't the only
religion that did this, but it'sa really good example because
it's like first Testament or notfirst Testament book 1 Old
Testament, you know, that they, these people, these oracles
(51:38):
would carry around. And if somebody had a question,
they would literally use that asa way to answer these questions
as like a divine answer. They would flip to a random page
and be like, OK, tell me your question, you know, and they
would do the same exact thing. And depending on what verse they
landed on, that was the answer that they would give the person
(51:59):
asking, which is very weird, butit's.
In like blasphemous right as faras.
Yeah, you think? Yeah, you would think you
wouldn't be doing that because you're consorting with something
else. Right.
So that's why it's so intriguingwhen you think of early
religions and where some of the stuff that we do today stems
(52:24):
from so. So what you're saying is you
don't want to play this game on Patreon with me?
No, I do not. Well, people, you heard it.
It's a really intriguing game. I will say that.
Like I could see why you would get addicted to this because it
(52:45):
would be really cool, but also. I feel like it's very similar to
playing a ouija board or using and I guess don't come at me
people. Apologies if I come off as being
ignorant to some of this stuff, but it seems like a similar kind
of thing to using tarot cards oryes, using the Ouija board or
(53:08):
there's some you're seeking information from a source that's
outside of yourself and how thatinformation is relayed back to
you can be through different mediums, right?
But I guess the risk is, or somepeople think that the risk is
that it's coming from a place that is dark and manipulative.
(53:30):
And yeah, so that's. Right.
That's the potential risk, I guess.
Exactly. Yeah.
And it literally, I feel like that's the theme of the episode
today, is you're setting intentions.
And sometimes when people play games like that, it's because
they're in a vulnerable spot in life where, you know, maybe
(53:53):
something bad's happened and they just want to know, hey, is
this going to let up anytime soon?
And it's well again. Supernatural cocktail.
Yeah, well, it makes me think about the shirt you're wearing,
actually, the pet cemetery shirt.
You know, like good intentions were let's bury that in the pit
(54:14):
cemetery and see what happens. But.
Yeah, exactly. And like the saying goes,
sometimes dead is. Better dead is better.
All right, Well, I have one more.
Oh yeah, me too. I feel like everybody's heard of
this one. It's the elevator game.
Oh. My gosh, this one.
(54:36):
Yeah, so the elevator game, sometimes called Elevator to
Another World, is believed to originated in Japan or South
Korea, and it's spread online through message boards and
blogs. In the early 2000 tens.
Some of the earliest mentions appeared on Japanese 2 chapter
(54:56):
forums where people shared ritual games designed to summon
spirits or access other worlds. Now the game gained massive
attention when people started totry to connect it to the Elisa
Lamb case in 2013. Elisa Lamb if you're not
(55:17):
familiar, which I would be interested in covering this at
some point perhaps. But if you're not familiar, the
short story is she was found dead in a water tank on top of
the Cecil Hotel after they had found elevator surveillance
footage of her acting very strangely, erratically pressing
(55:41):
multiple elevator buttons, stepping in and out of the
elevator as if she's hiding fromsomething, gesturing at
something that can't be seen by the viewer.
People speculated that she had been playing the elevator game,
though there's no evidence to support the theory.
Still, it kind of fed into the war of this game.
(56:04):
If you haven't seen the footage of Elisa Lamb on the elevator,
it's creepy. It is really unnerving.
The first time I watched it, I got like full body chills.
So did I. So weird.
It's just so weird. That's the only way I can really
describe it. But how is the game played?
(56:27):
OK, so there are some requirements.
You need to be in a building that has at least 10 floors.
OK, It has to have a properly functioning elevator.
You don't want. You don't want one that doesn't
work. You know as it.
Should because then. You're just putting yourself in
a real bad position out the gate.
(56:50):
You should be alone when you play this game, and there could
be no one else in the elevator with you when you start the
game. OK, now you have to enter the
elevator on the first floor, press the button for the 4th
floor. When you arrive on the 4th
(57:12):
floor, you're going to stay inside and then press the button
for the second floor. Somehow you're then going to go
to the 6th floor, then back downto the second floor, and then up
to the 10th floor, and then finally you're going to press
(57:33):
the button for the 5th floor at the 5th floor.
This is where things are supposed to get interesting.
Legend says a woman may enter the elevator.
Can you hear that? Yeah, but it's very faint.
OK, I might just wait a second. Usually blows 3 or 4 times and
(57:53):
it stops. Normally the blowing only lasts.
Three or four times. I'll save that for the blooper
rhythm that it's done. Oh man.
Oh shit. OK, we good.
(58:13):
Yep, I don't hear it anymore. All right.
So once you get to the fifth floor of this is where things
get interesting. Legend says that a woman might
enter the elevator at that time and she might look very normal,
or she could be very unsettling.But whatever happens, you're not
(58:35):
supposed to look at her directly.
You are not supposed to talk to her or acknowledge her in any
way. Now, if she enters, of course,
she might go ahead and press thebutton for the first floor.
(58:56):
If the elevator starts to descend, exit immediately.
You have failed the game and arestill in our world.
Now if you press that first floor button and the elevator
starts to go up instead, you aregoing to be heading towards what
(59:17):
is called the other world. When you reach the top floor,
you can step out of the elevator, but things will just
feel a little bit off. So people who claim to have
reached this level describe it as an empty building with no
(59:37):
people, no sound. It's completely silent in there.
Windows might if you look through a window you might see a
dark sky, a red sky outside, even a black sky.
And sometimes you might even see, like a single glowing light
off in the distance. Now, some people say if they
(01:00:02):
have their cell phone on them, that it will lose service.
And if they're wearing a watch, the watch will stop working.
You'll get disoriented, You'll feel heavy.
You'll feel like you're being watched.
All of these. Things.
Nope. Now at this point you're going
to want to go back and re enter the normal world.
(01:00:26):
So how you do this is you're going to repeat the exact same
sequence of floors ending on the. 1st floor.
Oh my gosh. Now first of all, I would fail
at this game immediately becauseI'm never going to remember any
of those steps in the order I'm going to mess it up so bad.
(01:00:48):
I'd have to write it down for sure.
Yep, exactly. And then what if you lose your
directions or I don't know. Right.
No. No way.
No way. Now, there are some dangers and
risks with this psychological ofcourse, being being alone and
(01:01:12):
being confined in a small space for several minutes.
Sometimes for some people, that's not great, and then
you're also waiting for something supernatural to happen
and induce paranoia and panic. If you do, imagine someone
getting on at the 5th floor. Your fear response might cause
hallucinations or a feeling of being physically threatened.
(01:01:35):
There's also a risk of getting trapped in the elevator if
you're messing with all those buttons.
Yeah, exactly. You could get stuck between the
floors for hours. Yep.
So there's some spiritual stuff connected to this according to
(01:01:56):
legend. As I mentioned, if you don't
want to speak to the woman on the 5th floor or look at her.
If you do, it's believed you'll get trapped in that other world.
Like indefinitely. Some versions say that if she
speaks and you respond to her, she will kill you or drag you
away. Oh and there's one redditor who
(01:02:21):
claimed that they attempted the ritual in their apartment had 11
floors. It said nothing obvious happened
at first. There was no like ghost or no
extra floor woman on the 5th floor.
They just got really nauseous and an overwhelming feeling of
dread. Then allegedly later that night,
(01:02:42):
the elevator broke and went out of service.
And inside the elevator, a womanwith dark hair wearing a
tattered gown appeared. Her feet were rotting and she
had an evil grin on her face. And the person said that they
had to complete the ritual in reverse to get back.
(01:03:13):
Nope. Yeah.
What's tricky is if you did playthis game and you thought you
failed. OK.
And then you go back to your apartment, but in reality, you
succeeded and your apartment isn't your apartment, right?
(01:03:33):
Your apartment is like that whole it's off a little bit, you
know? No thank you.
No thank you. No, no.
(01:03:53):
Oh well. You ready to be more unsettled?
Let's do it. And this is the last one, and I
found this and I was like, also though we have to talk about at
the end because I'm like, if youhave a friend that does this to
you, are you really friends? Are you really friends?
(01:04:17):
That's what the name of this game is, actually.
It should be. This one is called the
Binoculars game. OK, I haven't heard of 1.
Either oh this one this is freaky.
I had not heard of it either. So the things that you need,
pack your little school backpack.
It's time to go. You need a flashlight for each
(01:04:40):
window in the house that you're going to be playing this in.
Who has that many flashlights? Right.
You need paper and pens. You need at least 17 feet of
rope scissors. A timer murder kit, basically.
Right, right. I'm like.
(01:05:01):
And then of course, a set of binoculars.
OK, so how do you play this? It's very particular.
And if you mess up, you are screwed basically.
So as the sun is setting, you can begin by closing and locking
all doors and windows. You place a lit flashlight on
(01:05:26):
each window sill throughout the house that you're playing this
game in. You set up a chair or a heavy
object near a door and use it asan anchor and tie one end of the
rope to it. This is very important.
Position your willing friend, itsays.
(01:05:47):
But really, honestly, I don't know anybody that would be
willing to do this. You have to place this person
near the anchor, but far enough away from the door so they can't
reach it. And then you secure the other
end of the rope around them, securing them to whatever
(01:06:10):
they're sitting on the chair. Basically, you'd get them a
chair. They have to remain silent for
the duration of this game. So you're basically like tying
up your friend and going, OK, have fun, we're going to see if
this works. No, no, not when you hear about
what can happen. So at this point, you write a
(01:06:32):
message saying we welcome you, you shall not be harmed down on
a piece of paper, and you slip it under the door near your
friend, on the chair that's close to the door where they're
anchored. Right at precisely 10:30 PM, you
turn off all of the lights in the house, leaving only the
(01:06:56):
flashlights in the window sill. Place your ear against the door
near your friend and listen verycarefully.
If you hear nothing, this game is over.
Turn on all of the lights, release your friend, and burn
(01:07:19):
the note that you had placed outside.
It's probably wise to also leavethe house for the rest of the
night. OK, this is where it gets really
freaky. If instead, when you have your
ear up against the door and you hear knocking, grab the
(01:07:43):
binoculars and the scissors. Move through the house and check
on every single window, one at atime.
Turn off each flashlight as you approach each window.
As you reach each window, use the binoculars to peer out each
(01:08:04):
one outside until you spot a distant figure.
And in this game it says that you absolutely will, and you
will know exactly what the game is talking about when you see
said figure. If you spot the figure, shout
forgive for I am mistaken. Quickly close your eyes, reopen
(01:08:30):
them, and look back outside again.
If the figure has vanished, the game is done and you should
probably just turn on the lightsand turn off the flashlights and
still leave the house for the rest of the night.
But if the figure remains, you better hope and pray that you
(01:08:54):
have secured all of the entrances to your house that
you're in and take your binoculars and scissors and go
bust in your butt running to make sure that everything is
locked or you are screwed. Can you imagine?
No, I don't like any of that. No, it's so unsettling.
(01:09:18):
It's so unsettling. And who is the willing friend
that's going to be like, Oh yeah, OK, no, no.
And I would never ask anybody todo that either.
But no way. No way.
I'm curious if any of our listeners have played any
(01:09:40):
outside of Bloody Mary, because I feel like, you know, a lot of
people did that back in the day.Right.
But some of these that I've never heard of, I'm curious,
would you and if you haven't, would you is the question?
Yes, let us know, and please tell us if you have a story from
playing one of these games, because I definitely want to
(01:10:01):
hear it. They're very intriguing, but
they're also so freaking creepy.Yeah.
I have a chill, but that's what we have for you on this Creepy
(01:10:22):
Games Edition for our Halloween Party of the month of October.
Now that we're really getting inthe spooky season.
Oh hey, this is a reminder you go to any parties and you dress
up. Please send us pictures of your
costumes. We really love seeing that.
And your decorations, yes. Crafts, yes.
(01:10:45):
Yards. Skeletons.
You put your animals in costumes.
We want to. See those two Critter Choir
costumes, buddy? I want to see them.
So we should run a contest. Actually, we.
Should. Oh my gosh, we should.
That'd be really fun. Can send some macabre merch.
Yes. 'Cause that's our yeah to our
(01:11:06):
top, top costumes. I do like that, Yeah, I do, yes.
But yeah, stay tuned. We've got more spooky tails,
Spook and spooker. Spooker as you go along.
(01:11:29):
It's so spooker out here, yeah. But yeah, it's happening.
And stay tuned because some of the episodes that we have
planned for the rest of spooky season are quite terrifying.
Stay tuned for listener tales. Buckle up.
(01:11:50):
And with that, have fun, be safe, be kind, try not to spoop
too hard, OK? And we'll shock you later.
Bye bye.
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