Sleep Paralysis, Shadow Figures, And The Science Of Fear

Shadows visit the edges of sleep, and somehow they all look the same. We open on the global map of sleep paralysis—night hags, jinn, and the infamous Hat Man—and sort what fear circuitry can explain from what shared stories refuse to surrender. I bring first-hand encounters and listener accounts into the light, then test them against what we know about REM atonia, amygdala alarms, and why dream imagery can bleed into a waking room.

From there, we widen the circle. We sit with the symbolism of eye donation and the stubborn feeling that vision carries more than tissue, balancing reverence with the clinical truth of corneal transplants. History’s darker corridors follow: assembly-line lobotomies, MKUltra’s covert manipulations, and the “monster study” that manufactured stuttering through shame. These aren’t campfire tales; they’re the ethical scars that built parts of modern science, forcing us to ask what kind of progress is worth the price.

The mysteries keep layering. We touch the Voynich manuscript and simulation theory, then descend into the Paris catacombs and the durable “Well to Hell” myth to see why certain stories endure even when debunked. Missing 411 cases in wild spaces test our appetite for closure; Third Man Syndrome offers a counterpoint, a presence that steadies people at the brink. Along the way, we unpack the psychology of social media’s dopamine loops and the toll of influencer culture—modern hauntings with algorithmic teeth. Urban legends like the Smiling Man and black-eyed children surface not as proofs but as mirrors, reflecting what unnerves us now.

If you’re drawn to episodes where folklore meets neuroscience, where forensics meets philosophy, and where personal hauntings meet public record, this one is a map with many doors. Subscribe, share with a friend who loves the strange, and leave a review telling me which thread you want unraveled next.

Transcript

Welcome And Topic Setup

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Good evening. Welcome back to Strange Strange Beyond Insane. And this is your host, Melissa. Across cultures, across centuries, people have described the same terrifying experience. Seeing dark figures, shadow people, or what they believe are demons. But what if they are not creatures at all? What if they're something else entirely? Something our brains are translating into a form that we cannot understand. About 20 to 30% of people have experienced at least once sleep paralysis at some point. Many report seeing the same thing. Was it your brain glitching between dream and reality, or is something ancient humans interpreted as supernatural? We're gonna revisit this because this is such an interesting topic, and there's so many different angles to go at it, and it's you constantly see footage and people even talking to therapists, even people being hypnotized trying to fight these demons or these visions that are repetitive in their lives and even are disturbing. Before sleep science existed, people tried to explain the experience with whatever beliefs they had. In Europe, demons or the night hag is sitting on the chest. In Japan, they say a spirit attack is called a kanashiburi, which I'm not sure if I pronounced that right. In the Middle East, they call it a Jin visitation, which we've even in America we use the term jinn. And then, like the modern internet calls it shadow people or the hat man. Now, the last time that I talked about the hat man on the podcast, I was talking to Jenny and some weird shit happened down here, and my episode kept glitching. So hopefully that doesn't happen again. Same neurological event, different culture interpretations. Some people even claim that these figures move closer, they can even lean over them, they whisper, or they can disappear instantly when they move again. Sleep researchers say it's a dream image overlapping with a waking reality. So in Japan, again, the again, I don't know if I'm saying this right. The kana shiborari is the spirit paralysis. Newfoundland is called the old hag. Scandinavia is the night, and then mare, Middle East is Jin. Um, they just say that that's like a gin attack during your sleep. And this is why it feels so real. During sleep paralysis, the brain's fear center, the amid the amygdala is extremely active. So the brain essentially says something is wrong, there's a threat in the room. So you're awake, you're unable to move, and you're often hallucinating dream imagery in the room. So again, like researchers find the same hallucinations fall into patterns. Shadow people, the hat man, a dark figure sitting, someone standing beside the bed, um, figures watching from doorways. Other cultures describe very similar experiences, even like a centered ego. Old-fashioned hat man standing in the corner of the room or a doorway again, and they're watching them. But what makes it strange is that people who have never heard of it still describe the same figure. Sleep paralysis happens when your brain wakes up but your body is still in REM sleep mode. During REM sleep, your brain paralyzes your muscles so you don't act out in dreams. Sometimes the brain wakes up before the paralysis shuts off. So this one is wild and genuinely creepy because something that sleep researchers have studied, thousands of people around the world report again the same exact thing. So we're gonna go over again the hat man phenomenon. During sleep paralysis, many people report seeing a tall shadow figure wearing what looks like a wide-brimmed hat. People describe it almost identically: a completely black silhouette, often tall, six to seven feet tall, right? Wearing something like a fedora or an old-fashioned hat, standing in the corner of the room or a doorway or watching them. So are shadow people or demons, whatever, is this just the brain reacting, or are demons just frequencies that we cannot see? Why so many people are seeing the same dark entities has always been the question. Now, myself, I did see something like this um in the hospital room right after I had given birth to Jack. Um, you guys know about that, that's on a few episodes about that whole entire experience, which was insane. Um, sometimes I think it was my dad, um, but my dad was not gone yet, but he was at that hospital, obviously like in bad condition before he passed away. Um, sometimes I think it was an unfamiliar man, but still familiar. So I don't know. Um, Christina, that's been on here lots of times, she seen Go getting a little nervous saying it. Excuse me. Um, because when we speak of the hat man, you know, things happen. So she did see a shadowed hat man at a cemetery not too long ago. Who gives me the shakes? Woohoo. Um, she was actually trying to pee outside of the truck, behind the truck, and Tom and I were obviously in the truck. And whatever the whatever she's seen scared the shit out of her because she's usually pretty like level-headed going out doing stuff. I mean, we'll get like jump scares, like she, you know, gets a little nervous sometimes, but she was like petrified. She jumped her ass back in the truck and she's like, Oh, hell no. And I'm like, what happened? And she goes, There was this really tall figure. She goes, I could tell it was a man, and she's like, it looked like it was like 10 feet tall. And she goes, It I seen it walk across the cemetery and then like literally walk right through the gate, and she's like, it looked at me and it just like walked off. And I was like, of course, in the most vulnerable time, right? That would happen. And she doesn't like Christina's still kind of new to the paranormal world, right? Um, she kind of got into it because she had a lot of situations happening at her condo like years ago. She was extremely scared of it. I kind of helped her not be so scared, and now she loves doing paranormal stuff, right? But she didn't really know anything about the hat man or shadow people, so when like she got in the truck explaining to us what she had seen, we knew like right away, we're like, holy shit. And then I have seen at least three or four shadow figures at LOE's when I used to work there, and the one that I seen, um one of the last times that I was there literally was probably like 12 foot tall. It was very crazy to see, and I do have quite a bit of pictures too. Um, I also have pictures of a man, uh customer there just hanging out, you know, like coming to do the tour, and he actually morphed into this like shadow person, and you can see the pictures morphing, and it actually looked like he was wearing like a potato sack over his head. It was insane. Yes, I so I too have seen this, and a lot of people that don't do anything with the paranormal have seen it. Um, some people these are recurring dreams, nightmares, you can say, which is very, very, very scary. And there's been people that have had heart attacks from these nightmares. So yeah, they're very petrifying. Not being able to move, being paralyzed, but you can see and hear what's going on, right? Okay, so this subject's a little near and dear to my heart. Um I'm just gonna say it very nonchalant, because I don't want to give any details, but somebody close to me lost their parent um recently and found out after pretty shortly after death that their eyes were donated. Um and we were actually thinking we kind of had the same kind of question, so I looked into it. So people have said for centuries that the eyes are the windows to the soul. But something I've been thinking about recently is this when someone passes away and their eyes are donated so another person can see again, what does that really mean spiritually? Even after someone leaves this world, a part of them can still help someone else see sunsets, their children, or the world around them. And I want to keep this topic very respectful. So to be like very blunt and scientific, um, well, before we get into that, so like different beliefs, obviously all around the world, spiritual traditions, the sp the soul leaves the body completely at death, right? And then there's like energy perspectives. Some believe energy leaves an imprint in the body. And as a scientific perspective, organs are biological structures that carry no consciousness. So the reality of an eye donation is that donated really what happens is that like the whole entire eye they don't usually use, um, they're usually donated corneas. So not the entire eye, but they can restore sight to someone who is blind with the corneas. One don't donor can help multiple people see again, and it's one of the most powerful forms of giving after death. So, yes, in a way a person's vision literally continues helping others experience the world. So, the symbolism of the eye and the soul, across many traditions, eyes are called the windows to the soul again, right? And I kind of want to get into this because there was a movie, it was kind of like a horror movie, but I do believe, like I get like scientifically, okay, they're just donating the corneas, but for me it's deeper, and I do feel like I guess if the soul was really even if the soul isn't still attached to like the shell, right? The body, I feel like if the soul wasn't isn't completely done with their body and certain things here on earth, I do feel like they could still see through those eyes. I do. Um, that's my true belief. Now I know what they say scientifically. People often feel that they can see someone's emotions or spirit through their eyes. Many cultures believe the eyes hold energy, memory, or or an essence of a person. In art and literature, the eyes are usually what people remember most about someone. So I truly believe that organs can when they are donated. I do feel like if that person still has that soul, I should say, has an attachment to their body, which I don't think it's like a material thing or a physical thing. I think it's more like it's still their time here. I do think that they could come through. Um, so yes, I would have to say maybe. I don't know. What do you guys think about it? I want to hear from you on what you think, especially the eyes mostly. I mean, people like get heart, you know, organ donations, and I know like kidneys, you can donate your kidneys and other things, but I think the eyes are like probably one of the most powerful things of your whole entire body, your whole entire soul. Alright, so I kind of want to jump into some dark topics. I'm feeling that tonight. So I want to talk about the dark history of lobotomies. Thousands of people had parts of their brain destroyed as quote-unquote treatment for mental illness in the 1940s through the 50s. Some doctors were doing 20 plus lobotomies a day with an ice pick style tool through the eye socket right into the brain. And I always think these are so interesting, especially working at a place like the Eloise Asylum, because this shit, like, for real happened. And a lot of people, I guess, look at it that it was cruel. Um, but you gotta remember, like, there has to be experiments for science to go on. So I'm I guess I'm like controversial in that way. I'm kind of like a hypocrite too, because I do I am with the science and I am with the woo-woo too. So I'm kind of like, that's the Libra part of me, right? Um, but it's very interesting to know the facts and to see some like journals of like personal accounts from old doctors. So do I think lobotomies are still going on? Probably. They're probably more like chemical, right? And they're more unheard of because it's not very orthodox to do that anymore, but I'm sure in other countries, right? Alright, so again, I'm probably not saying this right, but the voyick manuscript. So a mysterious book written in a language that no one has been able to decode for over 600 years. Linguists, um, cryptographers, and even AI still cannot figure it out. I'm guessing it has to be in a vault. Um, I mean, that's crazy. I'm surprised that with our technology now, I would think it would probably be like in the Vatican, right? All right, then the simulation theory. Serious physicist physicists are debating whether reality might actually be a simulation. Elon Musk and some quantum researchers have talked about it. Elon Musk has talked about this a lot of times. Anybody in the science field, um, you know, I it never like resonates with me completely because I'm like, yeah, okay, I could see that, but it doesn't maybe because I'm not at that level, right? Um, I don't, it's hard for me to like really grasp that. But then there's like a lot of research that I've done and videos that I've seen where I'm like, oh yeah, you know, that I guess that could be a thing. And then of course we got the Mandela effect, and there's always new Mandela effects coming out, and this is just something that thousands of people remember events or details that never happen. And I always love talking about Mandela effects. They're a good, you know, table conversation. Um, they're healthy debates as long as people don't get crazy, right? Okay, so this needs to be fucking studied. And this one I love the dark side of influencer culture, the psychology of social media, dopamine loops, and how platforms are engineered to keep people LinkedIn, right? And like pretty much obsessed. Look, I know it's like the new way of the world, but a lot of these young people don't know what it's like to have real everyday jobs and have to work for a living, and they don't realize that that money and that influencer lifestyle can be taken away in like boom, a second. And I think it's making them go like cuckoo for cocoa puffs. So the whole influencer lifestyle really needs to be fucking studied. Again, I will say that, and that's all you read about, you know, not to sound cold, but you know, it's oh so-and-so commu committed suicide because they were being bullied on the internet, and it's like, well, if you're gonna put yourself out there like that, you need to be prepared for keyboard warriors, right? Because that's how other people make content off your content. And then every time, you know, you go to follow someone on social media and you really like their content, there's a hundred other fake accounts under their name, and like you don't know which one's which. So eventually it's gonna all wean its way out, right? And we can go back to, you know, the fun tick kind of TikToks, but um, and what I mean by that is actual people and not bots and all kinds of crazy shit. So there are some experiments that happened that inspired Frankenstein, believe it or not. Um, some children from these experiments developed lifelong speech problems and anxiety. The study later became known as the monster study because of its cruelty. The experiment that tried to create stuttering. So in the early 1800s, scientists experimented with electricity and corpse. One famous experiment by Giovanni Aldini used electrical currents on executed criminals. Witnesses reported like these people were jolting and seizuring, and basically, like it showed how fast humans can become cruel. Researchers wanted to test whether stutter stuttering could be created through psychological pressure. They took orphaned children and divided them into groups. One group was constantly criticized, told that their speech was bad, shamed when they talked. And that's awful because I had a stuttering problem when I was younger. Uh basically I was talking too fast and my brain couldn't keep up, you know. I'm sorry, my brain was going too fast, and my mouth couldn't keep up with how fast. So yes, I did go through like speech therapy and it was because I had ADHD. I cannot imagine having this cruel, what do they call it? The cruel, the cruel human act and this stutter stutter experiment. I mean that holy shit. And the monster study. So that was in 1939, and they took of course they took or orphan children, right? Um all right, so now we're gonna talk about the Stanford Prison Experiment. So college students were assigned roles as guards and prisoners. Within days, the guards became abusive, prisoners had emotional breakdowns, and the environment became psychologically dangerous. The experiment was stopped after six days instead of the planned two weeks. It showed how quickly people can adapt to cruelty when given power. Alright, so the Tusk, the Tusk G Tuskegee syphilis study. From 1932 to 1972, the U.S. Public Health Service studied untreated syphilis in black men in Alabama. And I remember this a long time ago. Um, very gross. The disturbing part was the men were never told they had the disease. They were told that they were receiving medical care. Even after penicillin became the cure, treatment was intentionally withheld. The study lasted for 40 years before it was exposed. It became one of the biggest ethical scandals in medical history. Unit 731, Japan's secret human experiments. During World War II, Japan ran a secret research unit called 731. They performed experiments on prisoners, including exposure to extreme frostbite, biological weapon testing, surgery performed without anesthesia, infecting people with disease to study how they spread. Thousands of people died. And what makes it even darker is that after the war, some of the scientists were given immunity in exchange for research data. Nearly eight miles down into the planet's crust. But according to a story that was spread around the world, when they lowered a microphone into that hole, they Didn't hear shifting rock or tectonic movement, they heard something else entirely. Voices. So this story still fascinates people because, like, everyone wants to know, right, what is beneath us? So for centuries, people believed that hell was underground. Demons lived below the earth. Caves were entrances to the underworld. So when a story appears saying scientists drilled deep enough to hear screams, it hits that primal fear instantly. The creepy audio that circulates online is almost certainly fabricated. Investigators trace the story back to the 1990s, to a Christian radio broadcast that presented it as a supernatural warning. The audio itself appears to be layered sound effects, mixed crowd noises, and horror audio. But the myth spread worldwide because it's such a powerful story. So I'm gonna tap it and say this. Let's just say there really was a recording. Um, and even if it was fabricated, they would never want everyone to know that because they would not want people being all chaotic and in fear. So never know the truth, but I think for the story to be out there, there is a version of it. So they did hear something that they shouldn't have heard. Again, though, they're gonna cover it up because they don't want people going crazy and you know acting out of fear. Now, this one I love because Paula and I did get to go into the Paris catacombs when we were there. So this is the Paris Catacombs lost man. In 1993, a camera crew exploring the Paris catacombs found a video camera laying on the ground. The footage footage showed a man running through the tunnels like he was being chased. Eventually he dropped the camera and ran. The man was never identified and found. There are over 200 miles of tunnels under Paris. People still illegally explore them. So I thought that was very, very compelling because, like I said, we only explored so much, and it was quite a bit that they, you know, let you tour around. Um, just like Detroit, Paris is filled with underground tunnels. And in case you guys didn't know, Detroit, you know, Detroit, Detroit, whatever. Um, Paris, you know, French came over and named Detroit that. And there is also underground tunnels in Detroit. And I do know that absolutely 1000%, because my brother's old pizzeria off of Woodward Um had a little basement tunnel to it. I mean, of course, it goes all the way all through Detroit, but theirs was, you know, blocked off. I don't know, I can't remember how big it was, but they did have a grow down there, so and I physically have been down there and have seen it. So yes, like Paris, Detroit, even like in New York, there's an underworld. Um, people have literally fallen in holes or have seen for themselves there's like old cars underneath the streets of New York, um, old parking garages and stuff. So, I mean, like I said, they I think there's a lot of that everywhere. Um, whether they want to show facts or not, or you know, of course, they're gonna hide stuff too because they don't want everybody going rogue and crazy. So this is a very interesting story. In 1971, in Spain, a woman noticed a human face appearing on her kitchen floor. When they removed the floor, more faces appeared underneath. Scientists, paranormal investigators, and even media studied the house for years. The faces would change expressions, appear and disappear, and resemble different people. Some thought that it was a hoax, others think it's one of the most unexplained paranormal cases ever recorded. That is super interesting, and I had never heard about that until um I read up on it. Okay, so this is always such um an interesting topic, and I know we've talked a little bit about it on here before, but I've never like really touched in on this, and I there's just so so many different stories about this, but to be broad about it, so it's called the Project Stargate Government Psychic Program. This one is fully disclassified. For over 20 years, the U.S. government funded a program studying remote viewing, they train people to describe locations thousands of miles away, see the inside of buildings, locate hostages. Some remote viewers claim that they could even perceive events on other planets. So okay, so let me tap into this wake. So videos that you see, um, I know like a friend that I grew up with that was a cut like pretty much my cousin, right? She was in like we used to call the smart people, you know, c program classes. She went to a different school. People are now claiming, they're coming out and saying that things happen in these schools that like should have happened, right? And they went underwent all these experiments. So, you know, and they're most of them are 90s, 80s, and 90s kids. So, you know, of course, uh, there wasn't the rules and regulations. Obviously, me growing up, you know, being born in the late 80s, growing up through the 90s and early 2000s, I can definitely say that's true. Um, I think parents are are way more aware now, right? And they're gonna ask way more questions because we know too much, right? It's almost kind of a curse, not a blessing. So there a lot of these grown adults now are recalling things that happen in these Stargate quote unquote special schools, and they're having like nightmares and dreams and remembering these puzzles that they had to do. And it to be honest, all around the world, like all of their stories match up. So uh I will definitely probably do an isolated episode on that because like I said, we just we briefly touched it probably about I think a year and a half ago. So, um all right, so the Soviet dog head revival experiments in the 1940s through the 50s, Soviet scientist scientist Sergei, here we go with names again, Brokohan and Niko, Ronahak and Niko, I don't know, um, experimented with a machine called an auto-jector early heart lung machine. In demonstrations, he reportedly severed a dog's head, connected it to the machine, the head could still blink, respond to sound, and lick its lips. Creepy. The purpose was to prove that life could still be sus sustained artificially through circulation. The footage exists and it's incredibly unsettling. The research later contributed to modern heart bypass machines. So, as cruel as it sounds, again, uh, you know, that's science. Okay, so the third man syndrome, because it raises a chilling question, it's very interesting. When people are about to die, why do so many report an invisible presence guiding them? So it's spiritual, psychological, and a little bit mysterious all in one, right? Um, I have heard countless stories, even from like my own friends. Actually, my one friend that I've been friends with for like over, I don't know, 17 years. She actually just told me a few years ago about her older sister pretty much like dying in this pond that they used to go swimming in. And this I feel like I can't even, I wish she was here to explain it, but I'm gonna interpret it the best way I can. It she's getting ready to go out there to get her sister because she knows her sister's in trouble, right? She's like literally drowning. And out of nowhere, out of the water appears this man in a suit, like looks straight up like men in black, and carried her sister out to the shore and looked at them and just started walking back over to the water and then disappeared. So there are so many, so many stories. And again, not to bring it up, but when I was in the hospital room and my husband had left briefly uh to go get a Gatorade, and you know, that figure, that man that I see next to my bed, um I didn't know at that time that I had lost 70% of my blood after birthing Jack, but I think maybe that mystery man, aka, I think was my dad projecting into my room. Ironically, my dad was dying in the same hospital. I think he was there to see me through, and you know, God forbid if something would have happened to me and Paul was out of the room, like I could literally see him staring, like watching Jack. Um, and no, I do not believe I was hallucinating. Anyways, um, there's so many stories that when people go to die, like, I mean, there's people that have been like on fire inside of a car, and this person appears and pulls them out of the car, then the person's gone. Even house fires, um, you know, like drownings, any kind of near-death experience, peep there are a lot of stories, and they are so interesting to hear. Um, I absolutely love hearing those. All right, so the call of the void. So this one gets psychologically fucked and dark. Have you ever stood somewhere high and suddenly thought, what if I jumped? Even though you don't want to die, that feeling is called La Appelle du Vine, the call of the void. Psychologists think it's your brain checking danger and misinterpreting survival signals, but the sensation feels like a sudden intrusive pull. It makes people question how their own mind works. So, I mean, I don't I'm trying to think, like, do I ever have the need to jump? No, but I do have like many intrusive thoughts, obviously, more now that I'm a mom, a new mom, but like even before, like I've never been scared of heights, but there has been countless times where I've looked down and been like, I, you know, I guess I have, because I'm like, well, what's what would happen to me if I fell off? You know what I mean? Like, would I die right away? Would I not? I'm more like what like what if person uh scenarios type of intrusive thoughts. Um, probably think way too detailed. That's probably the Virgo part, right? But yeah, I guess we've all kind of like thought about that, but I've never like had the urge to jump. So, uh let's talk about this. This is a very interesting topic. The Cotard syndrome, I think I'm saying it right. Um, and that's people who believe that they're already dead. So this is a real psychiatric condition where people believe that they do not exist, their organs are gone, and that and that they're already dead. Some patients stop eating because they believe that they no longer need food. Doctors have documented cases where people genuinely believe that they were walking corpse. It's one of the most disturbing mental conditions known. And it's pretty much, they call it the people who believe it, they're already dead. So they basically people just these these people that have this psychological issue, they report intense feeling of dread. Um, it is known as a psychological phenomenon, and it is even kind of considered an urban myth. Um I guess if you I mean you would have to I would I would hope there'd be enough people around you to tell you. Um, I could see them like not wanting to hear from like doctors or nurses, because I almost look at it like if you're in the hospital too long, it's kind of like an island fever. Like you have the hospital fever, right? Because I I would watch my dad sometimes um like turn into this like totally different character if he was in the hospital too long, and he would totally act out like not himself. So I think there's probably like some island fever, hospital fever going on there, right? Um, but that's that's really shitty. Um so this is another, these are reports, and they're called um the smiling man: the strangest encounters that people have reported. So the smiling man count encounters include some of the creepiest modern urban legends. People report encountering a tall man at night with an unnaturally wide smile. Sounds like a good horror movie. Witnesses have described um stiff movements, silent laughing, exaggerated grin, and sometimes dancing strangely. People report an intense feeling of dread, again, seeing this guy, um, wondering if this is going on in the hospital. It is I I've you know what? I've never ever heard of that before, but that would that would be absolutely fucking terrifying. Okay, so I did watch a documentary on this, and this is about inside the body farms, where science studies death. So, you know, obviously some of these bodies are buried, some are underwater, some are exposed to the natural elements. And you ask why. The reason is to help forensic scientists understand how people die and how long bodies have been dead, and you know, how they naturally decompose. It's very eerie, but also fascinating. Some researchers say that the farms can be extremely unsettling places to work because of the silence and the atmosphere. Well, I would obviously, right? Um, so there's faculties in the US where you know scientists study human decomp decomp decomposition. And, you know, Paul and I have talked about it, I mean, this was even like a decade ago. Like we were like, you know, we said maybe we should go to one of those because why not, you know? Um now speaking in 2026, I don't think I would donate my body to science. Not that I care after I'm gone, like what happens to my body, but I wouldn't want it getting back to like my kid or my other family members that I'm on the black market, you know, because you've heard a lot of other things about these body farms too. So I would probably say in my later 30s, I probably would not donate my body. So we all know about the MK Ultra, the real CIA mind control experiment. Um, this one is 100% real and declassified. In the 1950s through the 70s, the CIA secretly experimented with LSD, hypnosis, psychological torture, and sensory deprivation. Many subjects didn't even know that they were a part of any kind of experiments. Some people were drugged in bars, like not drug, like they drug them physically. Like, I mean, like put drugs into their drinks when they were at bars, um, observed through two-way mirrors, psychologically manipulated. So the twist is that um they wanted to see what happens when humans are pushed past the limits of sleep deprivation. So real experiments showed hallucination, psychosis, identity breakdown. And you know, like um the prisoners, I would call them prisoners, reportedly said that, you know, we are the madness, madness that lives inside of you. So I almost feel like you'd have like an out-of-body experience. Uh my, you know, my husband was in the military, and I remember watching a documentary, and I was, you know, taken back that that like I uh I always thought that that was kind of like a hoax that that didn't really happen, but you know, because I did have a friend that I grew up with that unfortunately um had, you know, went into psychosis in and out through year, you know, I think four or five years. And he always claimed that helicopters were following him and it was the CIA and blah blah blah. And then he would like show up here and be like, Paul, you know, in the military, you know, they give you um shots and they inject you with all this shit and blah blah. And I just thought that was like all bullshit. And then I, anyways, I watched his documentary about what happened with some of the military veterans. Um, and my husband was like, Yeah, that actually did happen. He's like, it doesn't like happen now, at least not where I was, but I was very fascinated and just super creeped out and actually kind of like fucking mad for these people, right? Because I'm like, that's really like really fucked up that they didn't they had no clue that that was gonna that was gonna happen, especially if you're under the influence of drugs, and then you're like tear gassing them and you're you know not letting them sleep and they're not eating, and I mean everybody knows that going without sleep is like way worse than taking drugs because your mind literally um goes into full-blown psychosis. So, yeah, that is uh that's really a thing. Um getting into you know, talking about that, let's get into the Russian sleep experiment. So this is one of the most infamous internet horror stories, but the reason it works is because it sounds disturbingly plausible. So the story claims that Soviet scientists kept prisoners awake for 15 days using a stimulant gas. Supposedly, what happened was that the subjects became very paranoid and violent, they stopped speaking, they began mutilating themselves, and when researchers finally opened the chamber, the prisoners reportedly said that they were crazy and that they basically were seeing all these things and these entities, and I do believe that, and I did also watch a little bit of a documentary on that Russian sleep experiment because there's all there's also like a Chinese torture that goes into this, and that's I believe that's like the droplets of water coming down on your um third eye gland, you know, in the middle of your eyes constantly, and it makes you go crazy, and they um obviously you don't sleep during that time either, so it's a lot like these sleep experiments, but I just think that's horrible that people could be tortured like that. I would not ever want to know what that would be like, and I would never want to know what I did during that time of being tortured without no sleep. Okay, so moving forward, let's talk about the missing 411 phenomenon. Hundreds of people vanish in the U.S. in national parks under bizarre circumstances. Some of the common patterns involve victims disappearing near granite boulders, um, dogs cannot track their scent, and many vanish in seconds. Some people are found miles away in an in impossible locations. So, why do people vanish in national parks? Well, I would say, you know, the geographics, right? Um there are so many variables to this, but if you If you really look at the percentage, the numbers, and how many people are still missing. And you know, I know there's like animals that will coo up, just like being in the ocean, right? But you would think that they would recover bones, right? I mean, maybe not the bears, all the cats, and whatever else lives out there. I'm sure that they eat through bone too. But I think it's absolutely disturbing how many people are actually missing in the US. And it's not talked about enough. It's not advertised enough. And it's actually very scary. I mean, like that show missing, that show always scared the shit out of me. It literally would give me like heart palpitations watching it because I cannot imagine my loved one completely disappearing in thin air and never seeing, hearing, knowing for years and years and years for the rest of my life, not knowing what happened, where they're at, if they're alive, if they're dead. Um, obviously, after so much time, you know, they close a case and say, okay, this person obviously is dis deceased and you know, their whereabouts are not known. I could not live thinking about my loved one like that. And like I said, these parks, these places, people vanish. So well, to maybe take a little bit of a break from that, um, because it, you know, that to me it it that's really sad. And like I said, I stopped watching that show, Missing. Um, I think there's missing and then there's disappeared. That was another one. And they were always in, I mean, don't get me wrong, there was a lot of stories like where they was like daylight in, you know, the middle of like suburbia, right? But most of them were parks and um, you know, ocean fronts and you know, wood, you know, wooded places out the side of the road, they'll find the car, but they can't find the person and blah blah. So yeah, it that it creeps me out. That that is probably like one of the scariest things I think that can happen. All right, so I have touched a little bit on this. Um, the black-eyed children. So people all all over the world have reported kids showing up at their doors or cars asking to be let in. Descriptions are almost identical. The kids are aged from six to sixteen, completely black eyes, no whites visible, emotionless voices, and I don't know, like I think we kind of ran into that when we were in Hawking Hills. Um I'm not sure entirely, but I we've seen the paintings in the cave um at the Moon, God, what is that, Moonville Tunnel. I want to know so much more about these black-eyed children. I haven't really seen a lot of like interviews on people that have encountered this. I wish there was more to go off of. Um, I have asked some of my friends in the paranormal community if they believe in the black-eyed children, and they all say yes. Um, I've seen some like AI videos, like, you know, creepy AI videos, and I would be really, really, really fucking petrified if one or a group of black-eyed children showed up at my door through the ring. I don't care if they were kids or not, I most certainly would not open up the fucking door, and I would tell them, you're not allowed here. Um, get off my property. Because kids are not, and I love kids, but like if all their eyes were pitch black, come on now. Like, who would answer the door, right? I guess somebody elderly or maybe someone just listening to the voice and not seeing them physically. But that is a very disturbing topic for me because it's it's just really scary. Like, I've never I don't I don't knock it, I don't not believe it, and I don't fully believe it. I we did have a situation in Hawking Hills. Um, like I said, the paintings in the cave showed black-eyed children, and then you know, and that's another episode that I've done that was what two years ago. Um, I am gonna touch back on this, so um, I definitely want to do an isolated episode about black-eyed children and get some people on here to talk about it. I think that would be a really, really fun time. But yeah, um, that's all I have for now with the dark and spiral, I'll call it, topics. But thank you guys for listening. And again, you can listen to this podcast on any platform that you listen to your podcast on. And of course, we're spread out through all the social media. And always please message me through the Buzz Sprout site because it directly comes to me. I want to hear from you guys, I want to know about your stories, I want to hear about your feedback, and I want to hear if you want me, you know, if there's a certain subject you want me to touch base on, I want to do that. Alright, you guys, take care. We'll be chatting soon.