October 31, 2012 • 23 mins
Ke$ha claimed to have sex with a ghost, and the pop star is not alone in the claim. So why do people believe that incubi, succubi and ghosts lurk in the bedroom. Is sleep paralysis to blame for people's reports of ghost sex? Listen in to learn more.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to stuff mom never told you. From how Stuff
Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast, and
Happy Halloween. I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline. So it's ghost Day.
It is um and so we decided we would talk
(00:25):
about ghosts. We tweeted a few weeks ago that we
needed to come up with a Halloween topic, and I
forget the verbatim tweet response, but it was something along
the lines of gender differences with ghosts. So I started
looking some stuff up and quickly came across, uh, a
(00:51):
pop music story that probably a lot of folks will
have heard about, and it's about a certain certain lady
named Kesha. You mean Dollar Sign? Yes, yes, yeah, she
she in an interview. Well, she called into Ryan seacrest show,
which I'm very credible, and she said that she'd had
(01:14):
sex with a ghost and that experience inspired her song Supernatural. Yeah,
and she explained it to Ryan Seacrest. Thus, Lee, it's
a bad experiences with a supernatural, but in a sexy way.
I had a couple of experiences with a supernatural. I
don't know his name. He was a ghost. I'm very
open to it. That's a direct quote. I hope she
(01:38):
said it like that, yeah, and it kind of you know,
you gotta give it to Kesha a k A Dollar
side for coming out and and saying, hey, guess what
I wrote a song. It's about the time I had
sex with a ghost. Yeah, because that obviously happened, because
well it obviously happened because it happened to Anaticle Smith too,
(01:59):
who was another very credible source back in the day.
She she claimed that a ghost climbed up her leg
and had sex with her and she was like, oh
my god, it was so scary. And then I was like, well,
you're not hurting me and it's kind of nice, so
let's just keep doing this. So uh, you know, if
it seems kind of laughable, oh, Kesha had sex with
a ghost. Haha. But one of the first um search
(02:22):
results that I found was from our company affiliates over
at Discovery News that did a little bit of digging
into ghosts sex. And you know what, ghost sex this
is not just something that that you know, pop pop
(02:42):
stars claim here and there. This ghost sex has been
going on for quite a while. So we decided that
since it's Halloween and what better topic could there be
for stuff? Mo'm never told you to talk about then, well,
can you have sex with a ghost? Should you use ghosts? Uh?
(03:06):
You probably shouldn't have sex with a ghost if you
can help it. But the thing is you can't help it. No,
these spirits will have their way with you. Yeah, a
lot of times, like the ghost sex is not consensual,
but I don't want to get I don't want to
get ahead of myself because then on the other on
the other side of it, you have people who are
(03:27):
into ghost sex. Like I would say Kesha would fall
into this category because she said that she she was
really enjoying her ghost sex and even wrote a song
about it. Um. And this is referred to as spectrophilia. Yeah,
well basically yeah, it's it's across cultures, the idea of
this ghost that can come attack you in the night sexually. Um.
(03:50):
There are Arabian jin's, the Greeks had Stader's, Hindu boots,
and Celtic I hope I pronounce it right, doucy. And
then this was my favorite form of these spirits, these
sexy spirits that that we found Medieval Chinese and Japanese
female spirits would take the form of foxes and they
(04:13):
were thought to visit, seduce, and later kill lonely bachelor's,
particularly scholars. So beware the fox in the night. I
suppose as you're writing with your quill pens um. But
they're okay, So so they we we have all these
different forms of them, and very quickly this becomes a
(04:37):
major concern for the church, the Capital ce Church, the
Christian Church. Yeah. Well, originally it wasn't such a big
deal if you had a nighttime sexy time dream, because
in the medieval period a lot of theorists were arguing
that nocturnal sexual encounters were just dreams, no big deal.
(04:57):
But that'll change in fourteen eighties six, when the text
Malleus Maleficarum a k a. The Hammer of Witches was published. Yeah,
we go from saying like, hey, okay, you have a
sex dream. Well, that's fine. It's just like a simple indulgence.
You can't help it. It just happened. And then this
idea of the of the ghosts coming back to have sex.
(05:20):
It was kind of comforting that even after death there
was a chance to have physical pleasure once again. But
then in four eighties six, all that is thrown out
the window and it's it's kind of funny because at
first in in the medieval period period, the theorists had
(05:40):
it right saying like, oh, these are just dreams, and
the church is like no, no, no, these are legitimate
demons and ghosts. And the Malleus Maleficarum has a section
that explains that sex with the unknown is inherently evil
and a sign that you are fraternizing with Satan. Yeah,
(06:01):
and these city spirits have a name, and you've probably
heard them. I've heard them. One is a terrible band
uh Incubus and Succubus. Yeah, this is a quote from
Malius Maleficarum. Here follows the way whereby which is copulate
with those devils known as incubi. That's a good creepy
voice for Halloween, I know, practicing ll trick a triatas.
(06:26):
But yeah, So the incubus was the male ghost and
the succubus was the female ghost. So named because the
incubus was on top and the succubus would be underneath.
And sometimes the incubus and the succubus would be sort
of be the same, the same entity, but just going
through different phases. For instance, John Klein, who's a clinical
(06:49):
psychologist and a professor Yale talks about in certain medieval lore,
the incubus would come along impregnate a woman in a
very Rosemaries baby esque kind of way, who would then
give birth to a succubus that would then attack a
male victim, and once in possession of that male victim sperm,
(07:10):
the succubus would take on a male form that's becoming
an incubus again. And the circle FLFE that you come,
full demonic circle, Yeah, full full circle indeed. So okay,
what's going on? Are we really? Are we really getting
attacked by ghosts at night? Well? Yeah, because this is
not just something that that stays in medieval times, and
(07:34):
it's not just something that that popped up with uh
with Kesha. These nighttime ghostly um experiences I'm putting experiences
in big giant quotes right now are still common. Yeah. Well,
it has a lot to do with what your brain
is doing when you're asleep, because have you ever had
(07:56):
a sleepy time experience that you feel is just so
vivid You way up and you're like, oh my god,
Brad Pitt and I are getting married, or you know,
you just feel like something's holding you down. Or you
feel like you're falling, or you're twitching weird, or you're
having sex with a ghost or you're having sex with
a ghost. Well, this is all sleep paralysis stuff. And
(08:16):
I've had sleep paralysis before. I haven't. It's usually um
corresponding with narcilepsy and there's some other stuff going on.
I have never had an ecailepsy that I have had
sleep paralysis, which is basically you um are awake more
than you should be during rem sleep when your muscles
are turned off, so you're kind of conscious, but you
cannot move. And so I've gotten this feeling before, like
(08:39):
there's someone in the room and they want me to
come do something, and my my brain process is like
hang on, hang on, I can't get up, And you
do start to feel kind of afraid, like okay, well
someone's in the room and I need to get up
and move, but I can't. And so it's this whole
idea of of sleep paralysis and hallucinations while you're in
that kind of twilight in between stage that have led
(09:02):
to a lot of superstitions and believing in spirits attacking
you in your sleep. Yeah, there's a name for this, uh,
the old hag syndrome. Uh, this idea that it's an
old hag that comes and sits on your chest, which
is why you can't move. And folklorist David J. Hufford
did a bunch of research on this and he he
(09:24):
thought when he was doing this research that it would,
you know, he would find like a few people, but
it ballooned into this giant project because he found it
about fifteen percent of people. This is written about in
his book The Terror That Comes in the Night of
people experience being assaulted in their sleep by an unknown
(09:45):
entity at some point in their lives, probably as a
result of sleep paralysis. And now Kristen mentioned the old
hag phenomenon, this is not necessarily the same time of
the same idea as having sex with with a ghost
or some entity in your sleep. The old hag phenomenon,
as it's known through North America and England, is more
(10:07):
like the feeling that something terrifying is pressing down on
you while you're sleeping. So it does kind of tie
into the idea of the incubus in that way, because
it's supposedly on top of you, trying to suffocate you
when you're sleep. Yeah, and since it is also Halloween. UM,
I feel like it is necessary to point out too
that should you be ghost hunting tonight, uh, you should
(10:32):
abstain from having sex. Just go to sleep you might
encounter an old hag. Okay, but you really Uh one
of the rules. I did not know this before doing
this research, but ghost hunters are encouraged to abstain from
sex after they go ghost hunting because they're at high
risk of having their genitals possessed. I'm not making this
(10:55):
up now. I read it too, and it just um
of having their genitals zested by the ghosts of a hunt.
And this is coming from an article written by Karen
stoles now over at the Commitical the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry.
And Um. She goes on to quote Marianna Chatelaine Moresby.
He's talking about this potential danger associated with ghost hunting. Quote,
(11:19):
many male ghost hunters are prone to such anal ghost
intrusions and possessions. So you wanna you wanna wait, you know,
I don't immediately go infecting your partner with ghost well,
and also speaking of this is going to be the
weirdest transition I've probably ever made on this podcast. But
(11:42):
speaking of anal probes. Also from this article the Skeptics Dictionary,
the author Robert Carroll talks about how he thinks that
alien abduction these ideas that the more modern day ideas
that we have of of alien abductions are modern day
versions of ghost sex, because so often the purported victims
(12:08):
will claim sexual abuse and anal probing. Interesting, so maybe
alien abductions are the twenty first century ghost sex. Yeah, intriguing. Um.
The Skeptical Inquirer in March had an article about the
(12:29):
spectrophilia of which we speak and they made an interesting
point and I think this this ties along with the
church's finger wagging of ghost sex. Uh. They write that
attributing sexual dreams or sexual thoughts to a supernatural force
is a guiltless absolution for those with moral objections. And
so maybe back in the day those priests were having
(12:49):
sexy time dreams and we're like, oh, I didn't know,
I didn't do anything. It was a demon. But however,
if you're a woman back in the day who thinks
that you have spirit sex, you might be a witch
and you might be burned for it. Now I should
point out to possibly new listeners out there, Uh, we
are not speaking this as offering this as scientific fact
(13:14):
that ghosts come around and have sex with people. There
are a lot of these articles even in um you know,
on on skeptic sites will say, hey, you know what,
there there has been no there's no proof that anyone
who's that that an incubus or a succubus actually exist.
And it is like we talked about, attributed now to
(13:37):
sleep paralysis, because it turns out that those medieval theorists.
If we had just listened to the medieval theorists who said,
yes on the one thing, that it's all in our
brains making dreams, um, then then that that's all it is.
We we would could have saved ourselves. Um. But then
we wouldn't have all of this this folklore to talk
(13:59):
about for Halloween. Um. And speaking of Halloween to James
McLennan and Emily Edwards Uh published an article in the
journal Southern Folklore in looking at whether or not um
horror movies and instances of ghost sex or assault in
Halloween horror movies might influence the number of reports anecdotal
(14:22):
reports of ghost sex, and they did not find a
strong connection between the two. Yeah, I mean there could
be some degree of suggestion, because people all the world
over experience this. You know, it's not just like a
certain group of people feel this intense sensation when they're sleeping.
(14:42):
But so maybe hearing this folklore, you might be like, yeah, well,
maybe maybe something kind of paranormal happened, right, because there was,
um what was it about sleep paralysis that in Mexico?
There was one study finding the like of the kids
in the you know, the population that they had surveyed,
knew this colloquial term for what we would call old
(15:06):
Hag syndrome. Yeah, and I think it was something like
a dead person holding you down. Yeah, yeah, it was
something like that. Um So, and it's and that's kind
of interesting to see, like how how it is such
a cross cultural um thing. Well, yeah, when something freaky
happens to you and you feel like you're sure of
something like okay, well I'm sure that was a stronger
(15:27):
feeling than I have in my normal dreams. Like it's
not just a normal dream where you're doing whatever you're doing.
It's like you you actually are feeling something and maybe
hallucinating at the same time, because you're in that twilight
rim stage where you shouldn't be awake because everything is
supposed to be switched off. Maybe you have evidence of
arousal and you wake up and you're like, Okay, something's
(15:48):
been going on when I've been asleep because I really
felt something. Yeah, but I mean, if anything, though, we
can take comfort on the spookiest of days that it
is it's just our brain playing tricks on us. I
don't know. Maybe Kesha does have some portal to the afterlife,
or maybe it's a fox in the night. I love
(16:09):
that their fox is attacking. Well, not not the attacking part,
but foxes seeking out uh, scholarly bachel laws, so watch yourself. Yeah,
oh man, I got a soft spot for some folk lore.
Gotta love it. Um. So uh, now do we ask
for ghost sex stories? Yes? Have you ever had sex
(16:29):
with a ghost? Do you get sleep paralysis? Yeah? The
old hag syndrome. I'm sure there's got to be people
out there who have experienced that feeling of someone, um,
someone sitting on your chest or someone being in the room.
I also know people who have who have felt like
they have sensed ghosts around. There was oh man, uh
sort of on a on a side note, um, speaking
(16:51):
of ghost sex. We hear a lot about ghosts coming
to have sex with living humans, but last year there
was is in a small town in Ohio, there was
a report of a woman who was upset because she
kept seeing two ghosts in her house having sex with
each other. And a para psychologist who was interviewed was like,
(17:12):
what we never hear you know, ghosts ever want to
have sex with other ghosts. Yeah, that was funny. There
was a lot a lot written about that in that article,
just about like, well, maybe they knew each other, and
you know, ghosts are just imprints of energy, and so
maybe something really intense happened on your couch a time ago,
(17:33):
and so the ghosts have found their way back. Oh, ghosts,
you'ld romantic or pervy? Your choice. I don't know about you, Caroline.
I'm gonna go head out and find as much fun
sized candy as possible to eat should be on sale. Yeah,
and I'll probably have to take a nap by three o'clock. Um.
(17:55):
But now, yeah, ghost stories, please send them our way,
and we want to know if you've encountered any ghosts,
whether they're having sex or not. Yeah. Mom, Stuff at
Discovery dot com for all of your spookey letters. But
before we get to some non spooky letters, we have
(18:15):
a quick word from our sponsor for today's episode of
stuff I've never told you. It is Netflix. Uh. If
you go to Netflix dot com back splash mom, you
can get a free thirty day trial to stream movies
and TV shows instantly to your laptop or mobile device.
(18:37):
And I am excited to recommend to Netflix users that
you go on and watch the movie Ghost starring Demi
Moore and Patrick Swayze. You can stream it instantly because
we have been talking about ghostly romance and although spoiler alert,
I don't think there's any actual sex in it. Uh,
(19:00):
still to the season, go watch some Ghost titles are
subject to availability, but listen to thirty day free trial
will not be around forever, So go ahead, eat some
some Tucker Treat candy while you type in Netflix dot
com backslash mom to start your trial today, and on
(19:25):
to our letters. So we've got a couple of emails
here about our episode on fem phobia, and this is
coming from Katie. My daughter already has some gender issues
at four years old. I have a little girl who
likes plenty of quote unquote boy things like catching snakes
and bugs, digging in the dirt, and climbing trees. But
(19:48):
she also likes plenty of quote unquote girl things, like
playing dressed up and playing with baby dolls. My approach
has always been to just let her be herself and
not talk to her too much about boy slash girl stuff.
I have vowed all so to never call her a tomboy,
because I think that is a limiting label. I agree
she right now is in a total pink obsession that
was largely sparked because some of the boys that are
(20:09):
pre school told her that because she has a bob
and we're a purple sparkly shirt and also has a
Batman logo on it, all that's really cute, that she
must be a boy and that the only way to
be a girl is to wear pink. This of course
disturbs me too, and I've had plenty of discussions with
her about how girls can wear whatever color they want
and about how my favorite color is blue, but she
(20:30):
insist on wearing mostly pink. I tell her that as
long as she truly likes pink, it's just fine for
her to wear it while also trying to model a
more open gender identity. I think that's the thing that
bothers me most about from phobia. It puts femininity in
a box. I don't see a whole lot of difference
between a little preschool boy telling my daughter she's not
a girl enough because she wore a Batman shirt and
(20:53):
some blogger telling women they are not woman enough because
they're wearing pink and sparkles. We are all women, we
are mostly born that way. I don't need to show
that I'm a woman by conforming to your narrow definition
of good enough woman. When we get into a big
argument about what being a woman means, we make it
harder for women to be free to just be themselves
whatever that is. No matter what narrow definition you gift womanhood,
(21:15):
some women are not going to fit into it, So
stop trying to define it and just accept people for
who they are. I agree, as long as your costume
is nice and warning. Yes um. This one is from Joscelyn.
Also on our Femphobia episode, she says that she encounters
fimphobia almost every time she gets to know someone new,
especially a guy. So she says, I'm twenty years old
(21:37):
studying finance, a traditionally male dominated field at Arizona State.
I'm sweet and outgoing. I have blonde hair and blue eyes.
I love to shop, I love to bake, and I
wear high heels and a skirt or dress almost every
single day. On the surface, I look extremely feminine. Because
of this, men in the finance industry and in my
classes have treated me differently. When people find out that
I'm intelligent, graduating college a year and have early got
(22:01):
a full ride scholarship, have been working full time for
almost four years to completely support myself, have a fantasy
football team, or anything about me that is not ultrafeminine
like my outward appearance suggested would be, people are shocked.
The fact that people are surprised by these things in
comparison to my outward appearance goes to show that femininity
is related to weakness, vulnerability and has nothing to do
with strength, power, initiative, independence, and intelligence. Yes, it's true
(22:24):
that women have almost equal rights now and that women
for the most part are treated equally technically speaking, but
when it comes when it really comes down to it,
you can see that feminine women are still perceived as
inferior by both men and nonfeminine women. I don't understand
this concept. I believe being a feminist and being a
woman embracing her woman nous can come in so many
different forms. I just so happened to embrace my feminine appearance.
(22:47):
I believe that regardless of your appearance, that is how
you carry yourself and what you do that are ultimately
the factors that decide whether or not you are a
woman or a girl woman. So thank you, Jocelyn, and
good luck graduating early. You go girl scholarship. That's impressive,
And thanks everybody who's written into mom Stuff at Discovery
dot com. You can find us on Facebook, where I
(23:08):
totally encourage you to go post your Halloween costume pictures,
and you can tweet us as well at mom Stuff podcast,
and you can follow us on tumbler stuff mom Never
Told You dot tumbler dot com. And as if that
is not enough, you can go learn all about Halloween
traditions over at our website, It's how stuff works dot
(23:31):
com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
Is it how stuff Works dot com
Welcome to stuff mom never told you. From how Stuff
Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast, and
Happy Halloween. I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline. So it's ghost Day.
It is um and so we decided we would talk
(00:25):
about ghosts. We tweeted a few weeks ago that we
needed to come up with a Halloween topic, and I
forget the verbatim tweet response, but it was something along
the lines of gender differences with ghosts. So I started
looking some stuff up and quickly came across, uh, a
(00:51):
pop music story that probably a lot of folks will
have heard about, and it's about a certain certain lady
named Kesha. You mean Dollar Sign? Yes, yes, yeah, she
she in an interview. Well, she called into Ryan seacrest show,
which I'm very credible, and she said that she'd had
(01:14):
sex with a ghost and that experience inspired her song Supernatural. Yeah,
and she explained it to Ryan Seacrest. Thus, Lee, it's
a bad experiences with a supernatural, but in a sexy way.
I had a couple of experiences with a supernatural. I
don't know his name. He was a ghost. I'm very
open to it. That's a direct quote. I hope she
(01:38):
said it like that, yeah, and it kind of you know,
you gotta give it to Kesha a k A Dollar
side for coming out and and saying, hey, guess what
I wrote a song. It's about the time I had
sex with a ghost. Yeah, because that obviously happened, because
well it obviously happened because it happened to Anaticle Smith too,
(01:59):
who was another very credible source back in the day.
She she claimed that a ghost climbed up her leg
and had sex with her and she was like, oh
my god, it was so scary. And then I was like, well,
you're not hurting me and it's kind of nice, so
let's just keep doing this. So uh, you know, if
it seems kind of laughable, oh, Kesha had sex with
a ghost. Haha. But one of the first um search
(02:22):
results that I found was from our company affiliates over
at Discovery News that did a little bit of digging
into ghosts sex. And you know what, ghost sex this
is not just something that that you know, pop pop
(02:42):
stars claim here and there. This ghost sex has been
going on for quite a while. So we decided that
since it's Halloween and what better topic could there be
for stuff? Mo'm never told you to talk about then, well,
can you have sex with a ghost? Should you use ghosts? Uh?
(03:06):
You probably shouldn't have sex with a ghost if you
can help it. But the thing is you can't help it. No,
these spirits will have their way with you. Yeah, a
lot of times, like the ghost sex is not consensual,
but I don't want to get I don't want to
get ahead of myself because then on the other on
the other side of it, you have people who are
(03:27):
into ghost sex. Like I would say Kesha would fall
into this category because she said that she she was
really enjoying her ghost sex and even wrote a song
about it. Um. And this is referred to as spectrophilia. Yeah,
well basically yeah, it's it's across cultures, the idea of
this ghost that can come attack you in the night sexually. Um.
(03:50):
There are Arabian jin's, the Greeks had Stader's, Hindu boots,
and Celtic I hope I pronounce it right, doucy. And
then this was my favorite form of these spirits, these
sexy spirits that that we found Medieval Chinese and Japanese
female spirits would take the form of foxes and they
(04:13):
were thought to visit, seduce, and later kill lonely bachelor's,
particularly scholars. So beware the fox in the night. I
suppose as you're writing with your quill pens um. But
they're okay, So so they we we have all these
different forms of them, and very quickly this becomes a
(04:37):
major concern for the church, the Capital ce Church, the
Christian Church. Yeah. Well, originally it wasn't such a big
deal if you had a nighttime sexy time dream, because
in the medieval period a lot of theorists were arguing
that nocturnal sexual encounters were just dreams, no big deal.
(04:57):
But that'll change in fourteen eighties six, when the text
Malleus Maleficarum a k a. The Hammer of Witches was published. Yeah,
we go from saying like, hey, okay, you have a
sex dream. Well, that's fine. It's just like a simple indulgence.
You can't help it. It just happened. And then this
idea of the of the ghosts coming back to have sex.
(05:20):
It was kind of comforting that even after death there
was a chance to have physical pleasure once again. But
then in four eighties six, all that is thrown out
the window and it's it's kind of funny because at
first in in the medieval period period, the theorists had
(05:40):
it right saying like, oh, these are just dreams, and
the church is like no, no, no, these are legitimate
demons and ghosts. And the Malleus Maleficarum has a section
that explains that sex with the unknown is inherently evil
and a sign that you are fraternizing with Satan. Yeah,
(06:01):
and these city spirits have a name, and you've probably
heard them. I've heard them. One is a terrible band
uh Incubus and Succubus. Yeah, this is a quote from
Malius Maleficarum. Here follows the way whereby which is copulate
with those devils known as incubi. That's a good creepy
voice for Halloween, I know, practicing ll trick a triatas.
(06:26):
But yeah, So the incubus was the male ghost and
the succubus was the female ghost. So named because the
incubus was on top and the succubus would be underneath.
And sometimes the incubus and the succubus would be sort
of be the same, the same entity, but just going
through different phases. For instance, John Klein, who's a clinical
(06:49):
psychologist and a professor Yale talks about in certain medieval lore,
the incubus would come along impregnate a woman in a
very Rosemaries baby esque kind of way, who would then
give birth to a succubus that would then attack a
male victim, and once in possession of that male victim sperm,
(07:10):
the succubus would take on a male form that's becoming
an incubus again. And the circle FLFE that you come,
full demonic circle, Yeah, full full circle indeed. So okay,
what's going on? Are we really? Are we really getting
attacked by ghosts at night? Well? Yeah, because this is
not just something that that stays in medieval times, and
(07:34):
it's not just something that that popped up with uh
with Kesha. These nighttime ghostly um experiences I'm putting experiences
in big giant quotes right now are still common. Yeah. Well,
it has a lot to do with what your brain
is doing when you're asleep, because have you ever had
(07:56):
a sleepy time experience that you feel is just so
vivid You way up and you're like, oh my god,
Brad Pitt and I are getting married, or you know,
you just feel like something's holding you down. Or you
feel like you're falling, or you're twitching weird, or you're
having sex with a ghost or you're having sex with
a ghost. Well, this is all sleep paralysis stuff. And
(08:16):
I've had sleep paralysis before. I haven't. It's usually um
corresponding with narcilepsy and there's some other stuff going on.
I have never had an ecailepsy that I have had
sleep paralysis, which is basically you um are awake more
than you should be during rem sleep when your muscles
are turned off, so you're kind of conscious, but you
cannot move. And so I've gotten this feeling before, like
(08:39):
there's someone in the room and they want me to
come do something, and my my brain process is like
hang on, hang on, I can't get up, And you
do start to feel kind of afraid, like okay, well
someone's in the room and I need to get up
and move, but I can't. And so it's this whole
idea of of sleep paralysis and hallucinations while you're in
that kind of twilight in between stage that have led
(09:02):
to a lot of superstitions and believing in spirits attacking
you in your sleep. Yeah, there's a name for this, uh,
the old hag syndrome. Uh, this idea that it's an
old hag that comes and sits on your chest, which
is why you can't move. And folklorist David J. Hufford
did a bunch of research on this and he he
(09:24):
thought when he was doing this research that it would,
you know, he would find like a few people, but
it ballooned into this giant project because he found it
about fifteen percent of people. This is written about in
his book The Terror That Comes in the Night of
people experience being assaulted in their sleep by an unknown
(09:45):
entity at some point in their lives, probably as a
result of sleep paralysis. And now Kristen mentioned the old
hag phenomenon, this is not necessarily the same time of
the same idea as having sex with with a ghost
or some entity in your sleep. The old hag phenomenon,
as it's known through North America and England, is more
(10:07):
like the feeling that something terrifying is pressing down on
you while you're sleeping. So it does kind of tie
into the idea of the incubus in that way, because
it's supposedly on top of you, trying to suffocate you
when you're sleep. Yeah, and since it is also Halloween. UM,
I feel like it is necessary to point out too
that should you be ghost hunting tonight, uh, you should
(10:32):
abstain from having sex. Just go to sleep you might
encounter an old hag. Okay, but you really Uh one
of the rules. I did not know this before doing
this research, but ghost hunters are encouraged to abstain from
sex after they go ghost hunting because they're at high
risk of having their genitals possessed. I'm not making this
(10:55):
up now. I read it too, and it just um
of having their genitals zested by the ghosts of a hunt.
And this is coming from an article written by Karen
stoles now over at the Commitical the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry.
And Um. She goes on to quote Marianna Chatelaine Moresby.
He's talking about this potential danger associated with ghost hunting. Quote,
(11:19):
many male ghost hunters are prone to such anal ghost
intrusions and possessions. So you wanna you wanna wait, you know,
I don't immediately go infecting your partner with ghost well,
and also speaking of this is going to be the
weirdest transition I've probably ever made on this podcast. But
(11:42):
speaking of anal probes. Also from this article the Skeptics Dictionary,
the author Robert Carroll talks about how he thinks that
alien abduction these ideas that the more modern day ideas
that we have of of alien abductions are modern day
versions of ghost sex, because so often the purported victims
(12:08):
will claim sexual abuse and anal probing. Interesting, so maybe
alien abductions are the twenty first century ghost sex. Yeah, intriguing. Um.
The Skeptical Inquirer in March had an article about the
(12:29):
spectrophilia of which we speak and they made an interesting
point and I think this this ties along with the
church's finger wagging of ghost sex. Uh. They write that
attributing sexual dreams or sexual thoughts to a supernatural force
is a guiltless absolution for those with moral objections. And
so maybe back in the day those priests were having
(12:49):
sexy time dreams and we're like, oh, I didn't know,
I didn't do anything. It was a demon. But however,
if you're a woman back in the day who thinks
that you have spirit sex, you might be a witch
and you might be burned for it. Now I should
point out to possibly new listeners out there, Uh, we
are not speaking this as offering this as scientific fact
(13:14):
that ghosts come around and have sex with people. There
are a lot of these articles even in um you know,
on on skeptic sites will say, hey, you know what,
there there has been no there's no proof that anyone
who's that that an incubus or a succubus actually exist.
And it is like we talked about, attributed now to
(13:37):
sleep paralysis, because it turns out that those medieval theorists.
If we had just listened to the medieval theorists who said,
yes on the one thing, that it's all in our
brains making dreams, um, then then that that's all it is.
We we would could have saved ourselves. Um. But then
we wouldn't have all of this this folklore to talk
(13:59):
about for Halloween. Um. And speaking of Halloween to James
McLennan and Emily Edwards Uh published an article in the
journal Southern Folklore in looking at whether or not um
horror movies and instances of ghost sex or assault in
Halloween horror movies might influence the number of reports anecdotal
(14:22):
reports of ghost sex, and they did not find a
strong connection between the two. Yeah, I mean there could
be some degree of suggestion, because people all the world
over experience this. You know, it's not just like a
certain group of people feel this intense sensation when they're sleeping.
(14:42):
But so maybe hearing this folklore, you might be like, yeah, well,
maybe maybe something kind of paranormal happened, right, because there was,
um what was it about sleep paralysis that in Mexico?
There was one study finding the like of the kids
in the you know, the population that they had surveyed,
knew this colloquial term for what we would call old
(15:06):
Hag syndrome. Yeah, and I think it was something like
a dead person holding you down. Yeah, yeah, it was
something like that. Um So, and it's and that's kind
of interesting to see, like how how it is such
a cross cultural um thing. Well, yeah, when something freaky
happens to you and you feel like you're sure of
something like okay, well I'm sure that was a stronger
(15:27):
feeling than I have in my normal dreams. Like it's
not just a normal dream where you're doing whatever you're doing.
It's like you you actually are feeling something and maybe
hallucinating at the same time, because you're in that twilight
rim stage where you shouldn't be awake because everything is
supposed to be switched off. Maybe you have evidence of
arousal and you wake up and you're like, Okay, something's
(15:48):
been going on when I've been asleep because I really
felt something. Yeah, but I mean, if anything, though, we
can take comfort on the spookiest of days that it
is it's just our brain playing tricks on us. I
don't know. Maybe Kesha does have some portal to the afterlife,
or maybe it's a fox in the night. I love
(16:09):
that their fox is attacking. Well, not not the attacking part,
but foxes seeking out uh, scholarly bachel laws, so watch yourself. Yeah,
oh man, I got a soft spot for some folk lore.
Gotta love it. Um. So uh, now do we ask
for ghost sex stories? Yes? Have you ever had sex
(16:29):
with a ghost? Do you get sleep paralysis? Yeah? The
old hag syndrome. I'm sure there's got to be people
out there who have experienced that feeling of someone, um,
someone sitting on your chest or someone being in the room.
I also know people who have who have felt like
they have sensed ghosts around. There was oh man, uh
sort of on a on a side note, um, speaking
(16:51):
of ghost sex. We hear a lot about ghosts coming
to have sex with living humans, but last year there
was is in a small town in Ohio, there was
a report of a woman who was upset because she
kept seeing two ghosts in her house having sex with
each other. And a para psychologist who was interviewed was like,
(17:12):
what we never hear you know, ghosts ever want to
have sex with other ghosts. Yeah, that was funny. There
was a lot a lot written about that in that article,
just about like, well, maybe they knew each other, and
you know, ghosts are just imprints of energy, and so
maybe something really intense happened on your couch a time ago,
(17:33):
and so the ghosts have found their way back. Oh, ghosts,
you'ld romantic or pervy? Your choice. I don't know about you, Caroline.
I'm gonna go head out and find as much fun
sized candy as possible to eat should be on sale. Yeah,
and I'll probably have to take a nap by three o'clock. Um.
(17:55):
But now, yeah, ghost stories, please send them our way,
and we want to know if you've encountered any ghosts,
whether they're having sex or not. Yeah. Mom, Stuff at
Discovery dot com for all of your spookey letters. But
before we get to some non spooky letters, we have
(18:15):
a quick word from our sponsor for today's episode of
stuff I've never told you. It is Netflix. Uh. If
you go to Netflix dot com back splash mom, you
can get a free thirty day trial to stream movies
and TV shows instantly to your laptop or mobile device.
(18:37):
And I am excited to recommend to Netflix users that
you go on and watch the movie Ghost starring Demi
Moore and Patrick Swayze. You can stream it instantly because
we have been talking about ghostly romance and although spoiler alert,
I don't think there's any actual sex in it. Uh,
(19:00):
still to the season, go watch some Ghost titles are
subject to availability, but listen to thirty day free trial
will not be around forever, So go ahead, eat some
some Tucker Treat candy while you type in Netflix dot
com backslash mom to start your trial today, and on
(19:25):
to our letters. So we've got a couple of emails
here about our episode on fem phobia, and this is
coming from Katie. My daughter already has some gender issues
at four years old. I have a little girl who
likes plenty of quote unquote boy things like catching snakes
and bugs, digging in the dirt, and climbing trees. But
(19:48):
she also likes plenty of quote unquote girl things, like
playing dressed up and playing with baby dolls. My approach
has always been to just let her be herself and
not talk to her too much about boy slash girl stuff.
I have vowed all so to never call her a tomboy,
because I think that is a limiting label. I agree
she right now is in a total pink obsession that
was largely sparked because some of the boys that are
(20:09):
pre school told her that because she has a bob
and we're a purple sparkly shirt and also has a
Batman logo on it, all that's really cute, that she
must be a boy and that the only way to
be a girl is to wear pink. This of course
disturbs me too, and I've had plenty of discussions with
her about how girls can wear whatever color they want
and about how my favorite color is blue, but she
(20:30):
insist on wearing mostly pink. I tell her that as
long as she truly likes pink, it's just fine for
her to wear it while also trying to model a
more open gender identity. I think that's the thing that
bothers me most about from phobia. It puts femininity in
a box. I don't see a whole lot of difference
between a little preschool boy telling my daughter she's not
a girl enough because she wore a Batman shirt and
(20:53):
some blogger telling women they are not woman enough because
they're wearing pink and sparkles. We are all women, we
are mostly born that way. I don't need to show
that I'm a woman by conforming to your narrow definition
of good enough woman. When we get into a big
argument about what being a woman means, we make it
harder for women to be free to just be themselves
whatever that is. No matter what narrow definition you gift womanhood,
(21:15):
some women are not going to fit into it, So
stop trying to define it and just accept people for
who they are. I agree, as long as your costume
is nice and warning. Yes um. This one is from Joscelyn.
Also on our Femphobia episode, she says that she encounters
fimphobia almost every time she gets to know someone new,
especially a guy. So she says, I'm twenty years old
(21:37):
studying finance, a traditionally male dominated field at Arizona State.
I'm sweet and outgoing. I have blonde hair and blue eyes.
I love to shop, I love to bake, and I
wear high heels and a skirt or dress almost every
single day. On the surface, I look extremely feminine. Because
of this, men in the finance industry and in my
classes have treated me differently. When people find out that
I'm intelligent, graduating college a year and have early got
(22:01):
a full ride scholarship, have been working full time for
almost four years to completely support myself, have a fantasy
football team, or anything about me that is not ultrafeminine
like my outward appearance suggested would be, people are shocked.
The fact that people are surprised by these things in
comparison to my outward appearance goes to show that femininity
is related to weakness, vulnerability and has nothing to do
with strength, power, initiative, independence, and intelligence. Yes, it's true
(22:24):
that women have almost equal rights now and that women
for the most part are treated equally technically speaking, but
when it comes when it really comes down to it,
you can see that feminine women are still perceived as
inferior by both men and nonfeminine women. I don't understand
this concept. I believe being a feminist and being a
woman embracing her woman nous can come in so many
different forms. I just so happened to embrace my feminine appearance.
(22:47):
I believe that regardless of your appearance, that is how
you carry yourself and what you do that are ultimately
the factors that decide whether or not you are a
woman or a girl woman. So thank you, Jocelyn, and
good luck graduating early. You go girl scholarship. That's impressive,
And thanks everybody who's written into mom Stuff at Discovery
dot com. You can find us on Facebook, where I
(23:08):
totally encourage you to go post your Halloween costume pictures,
and you can tweet us as well at mom Stuff podcast,
and you can follow us on tumbler stuff mom Never
Told You dot tumbler dot com. And as if that
is not enough, you can go learn all about Halloween
traditions over at our website, It's how stuff works dot
(23:31):
com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
Is it how stuff Works dot com
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