Encounters x290 - Nightmares | In Your Dreams & IRL

This week’s Encounters is all about the kind of paranormal experiences that happen when the veil is thinnest — during sleep — and what might be waiting there to deliver a message… or something much darker. From recurring childhood nightmares to messages from deceased loved ones, these stories blur the line between dreams, hauntings, and spiritual connection. 🛌 We’re talking: A childhood sleep paralysis demon — who looked like a Muppet — returns years later… with kids. A grandmother’s spirit delivers a chilling goodbye… hours before passing away. A terrifying nightmare links two girls who didn’t even know each other — featuring the same Grim Reaper. A listener wakes up in a cemetery with no memory of how she got there — and the bed she left behind is perfectly made. A long-haunting demon with baby-like features is finally banished (maybe). Whether it’s shared nightmares, ghostly goodbyes, or entities lurking in dream-realms, these stories will make you wonder what really happens when you fall asleep — and who might be waiting for you on the other side. Watch the video version here. Have ghost stories of your own? E-mail them to us at [email protected] New Episodes are released every Thursday and Sunday at 12am PST/3am EST (the witching hour, of course). Corinne and Sabrina hand select a couple of paranormal encounters from our inbox to read in each episode, from demons, to cryptids, to aliens, to creepy kids... the list goes on and on. If you have a story of your own that you'd like us to share on an upcoming episode, we invite you to email them to us! If you enjoy our show, please consider joining our Patreon, rating and reviewing on iTunes & Spotify and following us on social media! Youtube, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Discord. Edited and produced by Jaimi Ryan, original music by Arms Akimbo! Disclaimer: the use of white sage and smudging is a closed practice. If you’re looking to cleanse your space, here are some great alternatives! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I'm so excited. I'm getting my whole body MRI scan from Prenuvo in a couple of weeks.

• 0:05Corinne Vien?

  It's honestly so important. It's like one of those things where getting older and aging has provided me so many anxieties about like what's going on.

• 0:12Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I recently had some medical issues in my family and everyone in my family is like, let's just do everything we can to get ahead and take our own health into our own hands. Prenuvo's whole body scan is a radiation-free MRI designed to help provide a detailed, non-invasive look at your body in under an hour, and it helps evaluate across major organs and systems, including the brain, spine, abdomen, pelvis, and more. Prenuvo's whole body scan can help detect many cancers, aneurysms, and hundreds of other conditions. And they have memberships that bundle MRI scans, blood panels, and a personalized results review to track your health year after year.

• 0:47Corinne Vien?

  To learn more about Prenuvo and get $300 off your whole body MRI, go to prenuvo.com/tgog and use code TGOG. That's P-R-E-N-U-V-O.com/tgog. Terms and conditions apply.

• 1:01Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Receive $300 off Prenuvo whole body scans and executive and comprehensive memberships through January 31st. For full details, visit Prenuvo's website to read their terms and conditions and privacy notice. Prenuvo gifted me a whole body scan. A Prenuvo scan is a screening service, not diagnostic. Diagnosis and treatment are determined by your healthcare provider.

• 1:18Speaker 02

  The award-winning American Airlines Advantage program rewards more than travel. It takes your whole life to new heights. Earn miles when you fly, as well as with thousands of your favorite brands, and then redeem those miles for flights, upgrades, and experiences worldwide. Advantage members also enjoy earlier boarding and free high-speed Wi-Fi in-flight. Join for free and start earning towards your next adventure at aa.com/spotify.

• 2:08Corinne Vien?

  Hello.

• 2:09Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Hello.

• 2:10Corinne Vien?

  This is Two Girls, One Ghost.

• 2:12Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Two Girls, One Ghost.

• 2:14Corinne Vien?

  I don't know why I'm gripping my microphone so intently.

• 2:17Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It's like an emotional support.

• 2:18Corinne Vien?

  It is. We are your ghost, this is, that is Sabrina. Whoa.

• 2:23Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  What? Did you mean to do that?

• 2:26Corinne Vien?

  No.

• 2:30Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  That is Kieran. I am Sabrina.

• 2:33Corinne Vien?

  Hands off.

• 2:34Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Do you want to be me today?

• 2:35Corinne Vien?

  Sure. No, I can't. I chose kind of nice ones. You themed this episode, which is an Encounters episode, nightmarish.

• 2:43Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  How'd you pick nice ones for this?

• 2:45Corinne Vien?

  Well, because they were nightmares that became nice.

• 2:52Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay, well.

• 2:53Corinne Vien?

  I got a little bit of everything.

• 2:54Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Oh, you got a little spuss? Well, I picked scary nightmares. But I also found things that were...

• 3:02Corinne Vien?

  You added ish, so that gave me leeway.

• 3:05Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Because the ish was that it was a nightmare or a nightmarish type of experience.

• 3:12Corinne Vien?

  Okay.

• 3:13Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  So I tried to find ones that were waking nightmares, but also a nightmare. When's the last time you had a nightmare? Let's start there. Why do I feel like this is therapy?

• 3:23Corinne Vien?

  Last night.

• 3:24Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Really?

• 3:24Corinne Vien?

  I have nightmares every night, do you not?

• 3:26Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I mean, I have nightmares a lot, but what was your nightmare about? I'm more dream a lot.

• 3:30Corinne Vien?

  Oh, I'm more likely to remember my dream dreams because I have nightmares every time. If I have a regular dream.

• 3:37Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  What are your nightmares about?

• 3:38Corinne Vien?

  Oh, they're usually pretty fucked up.

• 3:40Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah, well, of course. I'm not surprised.

• 3:42Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, um, there's usually like death.

• 3:46Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Blood. I feel like your nightmares are very much like your real life anxieties playing out.

• 3:52Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, some of them, but then some of them are like monsters and stuff like that.

• 3:57Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Because mine are never like my reality.

• 4:00Corinne Vien?

  Oh, really? Mine's at least like this reality. There could be something that comes into it that's a monsterish or like possession wise, but like I'm in the world as we know it.

• 4:09Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah, I feel like my nightmares, I'm often someone else.

• 4:15Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Maybe it's a past life.

• 4:16Corinne Vien?

  Interesting.

• 4:17Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And they're not like the most grounded in reality type of things. But let's find out what kind of nightmares you have. Shall we?

• 4:24Corinne Vien?

  This is from Kendra. It's called Childhood Night Terrors. Okay, so there's, there's a terror.

• 4:30Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Nightmare-ish, yeah.

• 4:31Corinne Vien?

  You will feel crash and Bigfoot or mountain hermit. Hermit. Whoa, hermit, hermit, Herbie the mountain hermit.

• 4:37Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Herbert crab.

• 4:40Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Actually, oh my gosh, tangent for a second. I have been going over to the like little beach near me and it's a very rocky beach. So I like to wear shoes into the water. And thank goodness I did and do because monster freaking crab.

• 5:00Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Clicking away as I was like coming out of the ocean.

• 5:04Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, as a teen, I thought water shoes were so dumb looking and now I don't ever not wear them.

• 5:10Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Oh, I love my water shoes.

• 5:11Corinne Vien?

  They're so nice.

• 5:12Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  They're literally just my sneakers and I wear them into the ocean and then.

• 5:15Corinne Vien?

  You don't have real water shoes?

• 5:17Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I have real water shoes, but I couldn't find them the other day. And so I wore my old pair of like thin Nike running shoes. They feel the same as a water shoe. Like that's how light they are, those sneakers.

• 5:27Corinne Vien?

  Oh, I guess my water shoes are like water sandals. They look like Tevas, basically. There's just this strap on it, but they're super thick rubber soles.

• 5:34Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I go full, I want the ugly tan line.

• 5:37Corinne Vien?

  Like completely covered.

• 5:38Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah, full coverage.

• 5:39Corinne Vien?

  Sock in the, in the water. Okay, which maybe that makes sense because I feel like you, you were more of like an ocean dweller.

• 5:46Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Thank you. That's such a kind thing to say.

• 5:49Corinne Vien?

  My water shoes were purchased specifically for floating down the river in Vermont.

• 5:56Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Lazy river dwelling.

• 5:57Corinne Vien?

  So I'm, I'm lazy river. I've got like little rocks. There's not giant crabs coming for me.

• 6:02Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I'm a mermaid and you're the Loch Ness monster.

• 6:04Corinne Vien?

  That's correct. I'm champ.

• 6:07Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I feel like that is the most accurate description of the two of us, actually.

• 6:13Corinne Vien?

  I feel it.

• 6:14Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  You really are Loch Ness monster.

• 6:15Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 6:16Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And I'm a mermaid that you should be scared of, but will also lure you in.

• 6:20Corinne Vien?

  It was my thing. I just pop up every 50 years and then.

• 6:24Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  You.

• 6:25Corinne Vien?

  Everyone goes, whoa, it's huge.

• 6:30Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 6:32Corinne Vien?

  You're a mystery. You stay hidden from the world. And you're a more creature than you are human.

• 6:41Corinne Vien?

  And knowing you, that's a compliment. If I were you, which earlier I thought I was, that's a compliment. I have a lot more hair than an amphibian, but. No one's seen Loch Ness close up. True. We have no idea. Yeah. Baby hairs all over. Nightmares. Where are we? Hello, Corinne, Sabrina, and Leia, my ghostly ghostesses. I've been listening for a few months and your voices have kept me company while I'm at work. So, thank you. I can't say I'm a believer, but I love listening to your stories. Interesting, given your subject line. I'm not going to shame you because you're listening and we need the numbers. So, thank you, but.

• 7:19Corinne Vien?

  I don't think I have any paranormal experiences, but I do have three stories that you girls might enjoy. So, let me jump into it and then proceeds to tell three paranormal stories. This is common. Yeah, this is common. This is the normal formula of emails people send us. I've never had anything paranormal happen, but here's 12 stories.

• 7:40Corinne Vien?

  Whatever you need to tell yourself. Yeah. Thank you for emailing us. Yeah. As a young child, I often had night terrors and sleep paralysis. None that I could remember, except for one. When I was around eight or nine, I had these reoccurring nightmares. I would wake up and not be able to move or speak. I was able to look from side to side and next to the side of my bed would be a Muppet looking monster standing there, watching me. And I was terrified of him. Every night he would come and tell me these horrific things. He would tell me how he would hurt me, how he would torture me, how he could hurt my family. And this would go on until I would finally be able to fall back to sleep. And this happened every single night.

• 8:25Corinne Vien?

  This is terrifying. Right? Until one night, he came to visit me, but this time with two smaller Muppet creatures. He very casually explained to me that he had to retire because he was a father now. These were his kids. He wished me well and I never had a dream of him again. I have no idea who he was or what he was.

• 8:50Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  What?

• 8:51Corinne Vien?

  Right? This feels so Monsters Inc.

• 8:54Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Well, clearly, the people he passed down this business to did not do their job.

• 9:00Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, maybe the file, the assignment, never got sent to anyone else.

• 9:04Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Well, he introduced her to the two new ones.

• 9:06Corinne Vien?

  No, that was it. Those were his kids.

• 9:08Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Oh, those were his kids?

• 9:09Corinne Vien?

  Yeah. He was a father now.

• 9:11Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It was Bring Your Kids to Work Day?

• 9:12Corinne Vien?

  It was Bring Your Kids to Work Day to Quit Your Job.

• 9:14Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It's also very polite to give notice to all of your victims that you're leaving.

• 9:20Corinne Vien?

  And it's just so bizarre because, like, it sounds like, personality-wise, he totally switched it up. It went from being this, like, terrifying, you know, maybe he was good at his job, great at his job. And then he just came and was like, you know what? I'm so sorry, but I can't see you anymore. I'm a family man now.

• 9:34Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Well, I do like that having children really changed his outlook on life.

• 9:39Corinne Vien?

  Changed his ways.

• 9:40Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Now he's wishing her well rather than describing how she's gonna die in horrific ways.

• 9:44Corinne Vien?

  I wish you well? What is this? I love it, though.

• 9:49Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I love it so much. Like, I would be okay meeting this menacing creature with his children.

• 9:57Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, he changed his ways.

• 9:59Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Wow.

• 10:00Corinne Vien?

  All right.

• 10:02Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah, this listener is so not haunted.

• 10:05Corinne Vien?

  My next story takes place on New Year's Eve. At this time, I was living with my sister and three other roommates, and this was during COVID, so we were celebrating with our little social bubble, which included my boyfriend. While my sister was making dinner, she sent my boyfriend and I to go get more butter. So off we went to the nearest gas station. With the butter secured, we started-

• 10:24Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Was this like a dinner with, like, corn and bread? Because I'm like, what do you need the butter for?

• 10:28Corinne Vien?

  I don't know. Good stuff, everything good. I actually picked this email because of something you said in a previous episode.

• 10:34Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Oh.

• 10:34Corinne Vien?

  With the butter secured, we started making our way back, and that's when we saw a literal fireball in the sky.

• 10:42Corinne Vien?

  Plummeting towards the ground. It was far in the distance and it would have made a big impact outside of the town in the countryside. So I yelled, what the fuck is that? Pointing at the sky, almost causing my boyfriend to drive off of the road. We stared in pure confusion and curiosity, but unfortunately we were on a time crunch and we could not go to investigate. So on the way home, we discussed what the hell that could have been. An airplane, a UFO, what was it? I searched the local news for reports of an airplane crash the following days and for the following weeks. And nothing, not a word about this. So what in the freaky fuck was that? Like, were there unlucky aliens who crashed?

• 11:20Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Huh.

• 11:21Corinne Vien?

  Isn't that weird?

• 11:22Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Or is it just like what I saw where it was some space debris?

• 11:27Corinne Vien?

  It's like, why doesn't that make the news? When there's a meteor shower, it makes the news, but like a giant fireball crossing into our.

• 11:35Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I feel like space debris is constantly coming through our atmosphere, though.

• 11:38Corinne Vien?

  It feels odd to me that like we'll get notifications to like, watch a comet or this or that. Or there was a tornado that almost, almost made a funnel in like northern New Hampshire or whatever. But if a giant fireball is going across the sky and it looks so large that it could end Earth. But we're not talking about it.

• 11:57Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Clearly it's not large enough to end Earth because we're still here.

• 11:59Corinne Vien?

  Well, it just didn't, it didn't hit, maybe. Well, it looks like it hit, but it keeps going across.

• 12:03Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I think they would know if an object is heading towards Earth that is too big to be like blown up by our atmosphere.

• 12:10Corinne Vien?

  I guess my point is, why aren't we talking about it?

• 12:12Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Don't look up?

• 12:13Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 12:14Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Well, now we are talking about it.

• 12:15Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, but like we are, but regionally Kendra doesn't have anyone else being like, did that on Facebook? Being like, did you see that weird thing in the sky?

• 12:23Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I guess here's my other thing is if there are, because I do believe that there's constantly things just like fireballing in our atmosphere, that if the government, every time that were to happen, were like, there's a asteroid heading to Earth. There would be way more panic.

• 12:37Corinne Vien?

  Well, I'm not even asking the government. I'm talking about local news being like, have you looked at the skies? If you, if you were in the Micro Basket Plaza at 4:15 PM last night, you might've noticed a giant fireball crossing the sky. Here's a picture sent in from user Kendra.

• 12:52Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  But did Kendra report it to the local news for that to be talked about?

• 12:57Corinne Vien?

  I don't know.

• 12:58Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  We're, we're all the problem.

• 12:59Corinne Vien?

  We're all the problem. I guess, yeah, I'm upset that no one was talking about my fireball back in like 2007, but I never told anyone.

• 13:04Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 13:05Corinne Vien?

  My last story isn't mine, it's my grandpa's. But some things to know about my grandpa was, he was an outdoorsman until the day he died. He didn't believe in ghosts. He did not believe in the paranormal, especially Bigfoot. He has always said, I've spent the better part of my life in the woods. If there was anything out there, I would know. Well, grandpa, how the hell do you explain this one? To protect their privacy, I'm going to call my grandpa's bestie, Joe. So Joe and my grandpa, they've been hunting buddies their whole life. And still in their old age, they would continue to go out together. On this particular trip, they were going to go hunt bighorn sheep in the Rocky Mountains in their special, super secret spot. This area was a large valley and they would split up and take either side of the valley in hopes of spotting a ram.

• 13:50Corinne Vien?

  If either of them had any luck, they would hear it. And if not, they had agreed to meet at the bottom of the valley by the old hunting shack. After a long hike and no sheep, my grandpa decided that he would make his way back down to the shack and wait for Joe. My grandpa decided to wait in the shack and enjoy a slightly warm beer. So as he's waiting and waiting a very long time, long enough to start worrying about his buddy Joe, he finally hears something approaching the shack from the dense woods. Relieved, my grandpa opens the door and calls out to Joe in the distance. Joe, I was starting to worry. And before he could finish his sentence, he realizes that is not Joe.

• 14:29Corinne Vien?

  Before my grandpa, a couple meters away, stands a large hairy man? Too stunned to speak, he stares and in an instant, this being spins around and sprints back into the woods out of sight.

• 14:43Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Stop.

• 14:43Corinne Vien?

  My grandpa couldn't comprehend what he had just seen. It was just too fast to be a man, but also too humanoid to be a bear. So what was it? If you ask my grandpa, he says this had to have been a mountain hermit that was living in that shack. But if you ask me, my grandpa saw Bigfoot.

• 15:01Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I agree.

• 15:02Corinne Vien?

  Love you ladies, Kendra. And then Kendra said, and please feel free to use my name so I can have my seven seconds of fame.

• 15:08Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Well, now you have 15 minutes?

• 15:10Corinne Vien?

  A lot longer than seven seconds.

• 15:11Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah. Okay. So let's talk about Bigfoot first. It was Bigfoot?

• 15:17Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 15:17Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 15:18Corinne Vien?

  A hermit, I'm trying to like picture, we're not like pigs that just like grow hair and turn into boars in the wild, right? Like, we can become

• 15:29Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Hairy.

• 15:30Corinne Vien?

  Harier.

• 15:31Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  But we're not wearable hairy.

• 15:32Corinne Vien?

  But yeah, there's not hair coating our entire body in the length that we could possibly be confused for a bear.

• 15:40Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I'm also curious how graceful this turn was. It was like a pirouette, was it?

• 15:48Corinne Vien?

  A plie.

• 15:50Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  A little like courtesy and a

• 15:51Corinne Vien?

  Didn't skip away?

• 15:53Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah. But the very first experience with like the nightmare, the night terror creature reminds me a lot of a story a listener told us on Campfire Stories. I think it was last week.

• 16:05Corinne Vien?

  Oh.

• 16:05Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Where their daughter was having a lot of horrific experiences and she was like, I'm not sure if this is OCD or what. But they had like tried to communicate using tarot cards to see like how they'll know if it was the great grandmother. Do you remember the story? And all of a sudden, like really, really dark intrusive thoughts like started coming through to their daughter. And their daughter was so scared that she was like locking herself in her room. And then the minute that she set intentions and like cleared the space, it stopped.

• 16:35Corinne Vien?

  It stopped.

• 16:36Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It does make me think that there are these entities and these beings that just prey on people, especially children, and whisper really, really scary things into their minds.

• 16:46Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, which is so bizarre because I think when we've talked about it before, it's like, it's almost more understandable to think of these spirits or entities or creatures or whatever, cryptids, doing this because they're, they're like absorbing something from it. Like they get, it's in their nature or like it's their way to like feast on energy. But this specific story, country specific story makes it seem like it is a complete choice. It is a job title that you hold. You apply for this job.

• 17:17Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Right.

• 17:17Corinne Vien?

  You get paid to do this job somehow.

• 17:20Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And

• 17:21Corinne Vien?

  And you don't have to do it.

• 17:22Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Right.

• 17:23Corinne Vien?

  But like, there's some sort of like employment branch out there that's hiring

• 17:28Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Right.

• 17:29Corinne Vien?

  And employing creatures.

• 17:31Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  They kind of remind me of the hormone monsters a bit.

• 17:36Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Especially like the Muppet like feature.

• 17:39Corinne Vien?

  It's just so weird.

• 17:42Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay, I'm gonna read a listener story. And this is from our listener Steph. She, her, or they, them. Prepare thine ears for a tale about nightmares. Hello. This is the second time I've written in. Thank you so much for sharing all the spooky, scary, and sometimes emotional stories. And thank you most of all for being the wonderful selves you are. So tonight, I just finished listening to Encounters 106. And I knew it was time to write in again after hearing about all of the experiences with dreams. I didn't think it would be so soon. And I definitely didn't think it would be the story that I'm about to tell, but here we are. I spent so much of that episode, Encounters 106, just being reminded of the fact that I had signs presented to me. So I'm gonna tell that story. It's not just mine, however.

• 18:27Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  So I will be changing some of the names of those involved. It's an uncomfortable thing to look back on now as an adult. So grab your blanket, your wine, and your cat. It's a bumpy ride. When I was very young, maybe five, I had these awful reoccurring nightmares involving a grim reaper and a funhouse. Because of them, I still cannot go into haunted houses or fun houses to this day.

• 18:49Corinne Vien?

  I'm so curious what it was, because I had a similar one when I was little that I've talked about on this podcast.

• 18:56Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I would be walking down a dark hall in a funhouse filled with those neon painted arches illuminated by black light. And when I got down to the end, I would turn to face an old underground elevator. Standing in front of it was a grim reaper inches away from me. He would then raise his scythe, preparing to slice me. And that's when I would wake up terrified. I always assumed it was because I watched too much Are You Afraid of the Dark? Because of that episode with the funhouse, which I think is called The Tale of Laughing in the Dark. I was never sure what the presence of the grim reaper had to do with it. But I've always had awful nightmares throughout my life, but this one has always stuck with me. I used to have night terrors and my parents always attributed it to a new medication that I was put on.

• 19:35Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  But later, my dad confessed that he believed I had actually been possessed by something this specific night. I may never know for sure, and I've had a couple minor encounters of my own, but my history of nightmares is considerably more terrifying. I'm a rather sensitive person mentally and spiritually, and I feel that that nightmare is at the root of it. Well, now I want to know what happened that one night.

• 19:56Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, we don't learn?

• 19:58Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  No, I don't think so. So much later in my life, when I was in middle school, I had another nightmare when I was staying at my friend Sam's house. That particular night was different from a regular sleepover because it was a school night. And my mother and sister had gone out of state for my sister's field trip, and I needed somewhere else to stay to go to school and whatnot. So our parents figured that I may as well just stay there and go to school with them, since I already spent so many nights over there anyway. Sam was my best friend after all, and her family was like my family. That night, I had my first nightmare featuring a Grim Reaper in years, and it was way worse than the one I had before. In this dream, I was running through a dark library, being chased

• 20:40Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  as the tall bookshelves around me were falling over, threatening to crush me. I tried to hide and turn the lights on so I could see where this Grim Reaper was, but all of the light switches were dead. I continued on, and I found a bathroom with a light on, so I tried to hide in there, but I failed as I realized what was waiting for me. I want to give a warning that looking back on it now as an adult, this is one of the most disturbing things that has ever occurred to me in my nightmares. In the bathroom, I saw the Grim Reaper standing with his scythe propped up in his hand like a staff, next to a bathtub. And this is the content warning, it's very gruesome. In the bathtub was a little girl lying down, face down, with a long scar down her back.

• 21:20Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Not a cut like it had just happened, but a scar like it had been there for a long time and healed over. It had clearly been made by that scythe. I think I ran away at that point in the dream, but I don't remember anything past it. When I woke up, Sam's room was mostly dark, and I woke her up because I was so scared and I couldn't go back to sleep. I was afraid she would be mad at me because she could get cranky at night, but she immediately was very compassionate and helped me feel better by turning on a lamp and putting on a CD, so it wasn't totally dark and quiet. She talked with me to comfort me for a minute and said how she understood the pain of not being able to get back to sleep after something like that because she too had nightmares frequently. It was a nice little moment, and before long I did get back to sleep and my dreams were much more pleasant after that.

• 22:02Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Though I did tell her about what happened in the nightmare itself, we shared our disturbing dreams with each other all the time, and this didn't feel that different. We were both very into writing and constantly came up with elaborate stories to tell each other. We had wild imaginations, you know? But fast forward a few years to an actual sleepover later on. Sam was at my house this time with me, my sister, and my sister's best friend, Kelly. So my sister and Kelly are a couple of years younger than Sam and I, but that didn't stop us from having tons of fun, goofing off, watching movies, and being a close group of friends. We played board games, we joked around a lot of the evening, but at a certain point, Sam decided to start telling us one of the scary stories that she had been writing. Her writing is very sci-fi, and sometimes the stories get intense and even scary.

• 22:44Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Some part of what she told us spurred a conversation about nightmares, and after I told Kelly about my oldest Grim Reaper nightmares from when I was five, and about the one I had at Sam's a few years prior, Kelly told us that she too had one involving the same Grim Reaper. From what I remember, she was six years old, and when she had it, it had resulted in her running from him, getting slashed down the back. And the last thing she remembered was waking up telling her dad that her back hurt. She said that he got her with a scythe down her back. As she caught on to the look of shock on my face, I realized something, and I asked her to take her ponytail out and to put her hair down for a second. The little girl in my nightmare that night that I had when I was at Sam's was Kelly.

• 23:29Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It looked like six-year-old version of Kelly. Oh my god, I have chills.

• 23:36Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Here's the thing. What? I had not met Kelly until she had become friends with my sister just earlier that year. And I don't know how old they are, but clearly it's much older than six. The night that I had the dream, I didn't even know she existed. Sam got up from the table, ran into my bedroom on the other end of the house, crying and freaking out. We all had a hard time understanding, but she was terrified. Why would our nightmares be connected? Why did I have it while staying at Sam's house? What did any of this mean? Yeah. We couldn't possibly imagine, and I still don't know what to think. It's been at least a decade and a half. After that night, we didn't really bring it up again. I'm still friends with Sam, but Kelly grew apart from the rest of us, and I don't even know if the others remember. That is the most chilling of all my nightmare stories, but I have others. From Steph. I'm so excited.

• 24:21Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I'm getting my whole body MRI scan from Prenewvo in a couple of weeks. It's honestly so important. It's like one of those things where getting older and aging has provided me so many anxieties about like what's going on. I recently had some medical issues in my family, and everyone in my family is like, let's just do everything we can to get ahead and take our own health into our own hands. Prenewvo's whole body scan is a radiation-free MRI designed to help provide a detailed, non-invasive look at your body in under an hour, and it helps evaluate across major organs and systems, including the brain, spine, abdomen, pelvis, and more. Prenewvo's whole body scan can help detect many cancers, aneurysms, and hundreds of other conditions. And they have memberships that bundle MRI scans, blood panels, and a personalized results

• 25:05Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  review to track your health year after year. To learn more about Prenewvo and get $300 off your whole body MRI, go to prenewvo.com/tgog and use code TGOG. That's P-R-E-N-U-V-O dot com slash T-G-O-G. Terms and conditions apply. Receive $300 off Prenewvo whole body scans and executive and comprehensive memberships through January 31st. For full details, visit Prenewvo's website to read their terms and conditions and privacy notice. Prenewvo gifted me a whole body scan. A Prenewvo scan is a screening service, not diagnostic. Diagnosis and treatment are determined by your healthcare provider.

• 25:39Speaker 02

  The award-winning American Airlines Advantage Program rewards more than travel. It takes your whole life to new heights. Earn miles when you fly, as well as with thousands of your favorite brands, and then redeem those miles for flights, upgrades, and experiences worldwide. Advantage members also enjoy early boarding and free high-speed Wi-Fi in-flight. Join for free and start earning towards your next adventure at aa.com/spotify.

• 26:08Corinne Vien?

  That is so messed up. Because at first, I was thinking, I was like, what if it was her when she was little? And it's like, the gash, or like, it being a scar now and healing, it's just like, indicating how many times she's had the nightmare and continues to like, survive it.

• 26:26Corinne Vien?

  I cannot believe.

• 26:27Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And like, the specification of the Grim Reaper getting Kelly down the back.

• 26:32Corinne Vien?

  Down the back. I'm saying that her back hurt too, when she woke up? It's so weird, like, why is everyone having dreams about this one specific Grim Reaper? It feels very Pennywise for this.

• 26:42Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It does.

• 26:42Corinne Vien?

  One town, this one location.

• 26:44Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Well, it reminds me kind of of Kendra's Muppet. Like, is this just a different iteration of it? And they kind of all appear differently, but it's the same type of role.

• 26:56Corinne Vien?

  It's so disturbing.

• 26:59Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And like, does it mean that Steph and Kelly are connected in some way? And I know that Kelly has grown apart, but maybe Steph and Kelly are gonna get reconnected?

• 27:07Corinne Vien?

  Dreams and nightmares.

• 27:09Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I do think there is a lot more to them than we know, and there's some connectedness.

• 27:16Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, I don't know what's going on, and I feel like this episode is making me feel even more like I don't know what's going on.

• 27:25Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I hope everyone sleeps really well after this episode. Night, night. Sleep tight. Don't let the Muppet grab your toes at night.

• 27:35Corinne Vien?

  Okay, I have a story called, Where Do We Go When We Sleep?

• 27:41Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  That's a good question.

• 27:42Corinne Vien?

  Hello, it's my favorite ghost hosts. I've been listening to you since maybe 2017. And lately I've been binging Your Encounters episodes. And I find those most intriguing because I love hearing other people's experiences. I love true crime, true stories, things that are real and factual. And lately on some of Your Encounters episodes, I think maybe in the 150 to 170 range, there was a question of where do we go when we sleep?

• 28:08Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It's kind of what we just posed of, like, there's something more to our dreams.

• 28:12Corinne Vien?

  Why do we not remember dreams? And someone said that their family member or a medium told them that they couldn't remember their dreams because they were visiting their past family members. I have been tracking my sleep and found out that I am completely skipping my REM stage of sleep. I do not remember dreams and I figured maybe that I just wasn't dreaming anymore. But after I heard Your Encounters, I thought maybe that this is what's happening to me. Maybe I can't remember because I'm gone visiting past loved ones.

• 28:40Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I also feel so sad for you because no REM sleep means that you're not getting the best sleep.

• 28:44Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 28:46Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Are you okay?

• 28:47Corinne Vien?

  How do you feel? Do you feel rested?

• 28:48Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah, because I get, I get some REM sleep, but I don't ever feel rested.

• 28:53Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, so maybe it doesn't make that much of a difference after all.

• 28:57Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Maybe.

• 28:58Corinne Vien?

  And also, I think I get plenty of REM, but if my REM is all nightmares, then, and I wake up panicked.

• 29:04Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah, then I do.

• 29:05Corinne Vien?

  I don't feel rested either. When I was about six years old, my great grandmother passed away. And the night that she passed, I remember having a nightmare and waking up crying and my grandmother coming in and asking me what was wrong. I explained to her that I had a nightmare that my great grandma came in and told me that she would never see me again, but she couldn't explain any further than that. I was crying and I was asking her, why, why can't she see me anymore? I told her I was gonna miss her and that I don't want to stop seeing her. I woke up in tears and after explaining this to my grandmother, she told me not to worry and that I will get to see my great grandmother the next day. So we go back to sleep and when we wake up, we get that unfortunate phone call that my great grandmother has passed away in her sleep.

• 29:48Corinne Vien?

  That was the first time I felt like maybe I have some sort of abilities of some sort. Ooh, I'm getting chills just thinking about this.

• 29:54Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Well, this reminds me of like, a lot of the things that your family has experienced, especially with your grandmother passing away.

• 30:00Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, and my mom has always been, yeah, like, told or... Had been given signs from other people that they're passing. Wow. I recall growing up and trying to make sense of that dream and what happened that night. And later in my life, my dad dated a hopi Indian woman and their beliefs are different. And so she explained that when loved ones pass away, they have a set amount of people that they can go say goodbye to before they get to move on to the next realm. I thought, maybe this explains it. She loved me enough to come and tell me that she was leaving. And I was one of those special people that got to have a message before she left our world. So fast forward to today, I'm about to be thirty this year and my grandma passed just a year ago. I thought to myself, I'm gonna be special enough, she'll come and say goodbye to me.

• 30:46Corinne Vien?

  However, that was not the case. I never got a message from her. I always wondered why. And then I told myself that she had so many people in her life. She, maybe she was just making her way down the list. She'll come to me soon. I'll get a message from her. About three months after she passed, I had a very, very vivid dream. I wrote down that dream because it meant so much to me. However, now, when I look through my notes, I cannot seem to find it. It has completely vanished. Did she not want me to record when she visited? Are those moments only supposed to last in my dreams? But last night, I had a very vivid dream again. This time, we were at my childhood home. My family was there, which never happens because we're not close. And my grandma seemed like she was back in her forties,

• 31:30Corinne Vien?

  walking around, telling everyone what to do, being her same old self that I remember from when I was a kid. Not who I remember as aged or sick, like before she passed. I was so happy to see her. And the only reason I had this dream was I woke up at six thirty to go on a hike, only to read the message that my hiking buddy canceled. So I turned off my alarm and I went back to sleep. And I feel like without the interruption to my sleep, that is when she could come through. And I saw her and felt her. I didn't want to wake up. It felt so real. But eventually I did wake up. I get on my phone as usual. And the first thing I see is a notification, a memory, a picture of me and my grandma from when I was six. And she was the age that she was in the dream I just had.

• 32:16Corinne Vien?

  I felt like this was the sign she was telling me. I know I have chills too. I feel like this was the sign that she was telling me that she was with me in my dreams. I can only hope that that's why I don't remember my dreams each night. But maybe it's just me and her spending time together. All the love and light, Nikki.

• 32:34Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  So this is what you mean by ish?

• 32:37Corinne Vien?

  Ish.

• 32:38Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Cause this is just dreams.

• 32:40Corinne Vien?

  Well, it was a nightmare about, it feels nightmarish to be told that your loved one has passed and that you're never gonna see them again. That is a childhood nightmare, like your relative is dying.

• 32:50Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I will also say the way that the great grandmother told Nikki feels a little bit blunt, like.

• 32:57Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 32:58Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  If I'm a great grandmother going to tell my great grandchild one day that I'm departing this universe, I would say like, I love you very much. While I won't be able to hug you anymore, I'll always be here and I'll always be watching over you. Rather than like, you're never gonna see me again.

• 33:15Corinne Vien?

  Uh, we can't speak anymore. We can't see each other.

• 33:18Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Bye bye.

• 33:20Corinne Vien?

  This is a breakup. Oh, my God. I didn't see this coming. I'm six.

• 33:26Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah, like, excuse me?

• 33:27Corinne Vien?

  Geez.

• 33:28Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah, but um, those are really, really special.

• 33:32Corinne Vien?

  I know.

• 33:32Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And it's very clear that Nikki, you have this connection to both your great grandmother and your grandmother and just your family. And I feel like you are a very open person and that people can come visit on the other side.

• 33:46Corinne Vien?

  And I feel like it is hard too, because I understand Nikki's desire to be someone on the list. Like, if there even is a list. Do we get a list? Do we get a say when we pass over?

• 33:57Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Or is it just who's open and or whatnot?

• 33:59Corinne Vien?

  Or just, yeah, like, yeah, just random. Like, who knows? But I understand the constantly being like, okay, well, who else has gotten a sign? Like, when is it gonna be my time? Cause it is, it is hard and it's something that.

• 34:11Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 34:11Corinne Vien?

  Most people ask for signs when their loved one passes. And it's also kind of like a hard, complicated thing to hear other people experiencing stuff with someone that you love, but you didn't.

• 34:22Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And you didn't. And I think that's the hard thing with just spiritual communication. In general, it's like, and I feel this way about aliens. It's like, why do so many other people have experiences but me who so badly wants to? Hasn't been able to.

• 34:38Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 34:39Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  But even like, like with my grandfather, for example, like I've had multiple dreams with him. But my other family members, like my brother and sister, haven't. Yes, I think I'm more open to it and like I want that. But why aren't they having?

• 34:53Corinne Vien?

  Right.

• 34:54Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  You know?

• 34:55Corinne Vien?

  Well, even if we think about our friend who passed away, like you and I were very careful in telling what we were experiencing to some other friends because, you know, if there was a list.

• 35:06Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 35:07Corinne Vien?

  We were not the top to visit.

• 35:09Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  No, but we had some encounters.

• 35:11Corinne Vien?

  Right. So yeah, it's all, who knows what's going on or how it happens.

• 35:16Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  If I ever die, I will try to haunt all of you. You will all be on my list if I ever die. As if like, I'm a vampire.

• 35:25Corinne Vien?

  Like register, that is an incorrect statement.

• 35:27Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah, well, I'm gonna die and I will haunt all of you. How about that? Back to nightmares. So I learned something recently because I had dinner with my dad. And I feel like I have to preface this every time I talk about my dad. We have a very interesting relationship. It's complicated. He is my dad biologically, but I don't think the relationship that I have with him is what I would hope for anyone to have for a father daughter relationship. And so, keep that in mind.

• 35:58Corinne Vien?

  Also, can I just right up front say that if he ever was willing to have a podcast and you guys wanted to do your conversations together, Dinner with My Dad is such a good title.

• 36:09Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Well, I want to do an episode with him on our podcast.

• 36:11Corinne Vien?

  With him or with what possesses him?

• 36:15Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Well, that's kind of what I'm gonna talk about because, so we sat down and of course, like we don't have much to talk about. So the one thing we do have to talk about is the paranormal, which is great. Because I love getting ghost stories. So there's a lot of stories I've shared over the years about my dad that in this dinner conversation, I realized like they're all kind of connected to the same entity. And that this one entity has been following my dad for like forty years. So basically, it all starts where he was doing this business deal with someone. And I think there was like some drama between them. And the man kind of put like a hex or something on my dad. And that night, and I think I've told this version of the story where it was like a contract that was like signed,

• 36:58Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  basically like proving that my dad was in the right of some, who knows? But that night, my mom and dad woke up in the house. The animals were going crazy. My dog was barking, cats were like meowing and hissing. And that document was gone, disappeared. And I guess ever since that night, my dad has like felt this presence. And sometimes has conversations with him while he's sleeping. And that the experience that we had with my sister, my dad actually thinks was this entity.

• 37:29Corinne Vien?

  Oh, wait, so your dad remembers? Cause I know he was like speaking in other languages and weird stuff was happening when he was asleep. But I didn't realize that he consciously remembered conversing with this thing.

• 37:43Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  So he like doesn't remember what they're talking about specifically, but he will wake up aware that he had had an encounter with this presence. Because the energy that this presence has is so palpable. And I think, cause in the past, I've talked about how my dad did a past life regression therapy. And in that, he learned that a past life was like trying to take over his current life. And that was the voice that he was like battling with at night and speaking in a different language. But now I think my dad is like, he's like, it could be that, but who knows if that past life regression was really real? But now he's like, it could be this entity that's been following me. He's like, it's been following me for over thirty years. And he's like, I don't know what it wants.

• 38:28Corinne Vien?

  Does he wanna do anything to try to figure that out?

• 38:31Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I don't know. He also told me a bunch of other ghost stories that were great. Should I just tell one of them?

• 38:36Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 38:37Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay, so my dad travels a lot to like the Middle East. So I think he was in Dubai or something. And he was at a friend's house. And they were having a pool party barbecue in the backyard. And my dad went upstairs to go to the bathroom. But he went upstairs and he like didn't fully close the door because he's like, I know no one else is upstairs. Everyone's outside like, I just have to pee. I'm gonna like, keep the door open a little bit. As he's going to the bathroom, the door is like forcibly slammed shut. And my dad's like, oh, like, okay, maybe it's just the wind. Weird, whatever. Finishes his business, exits the bathroom and he sees a man dressed in like traditional like Middle East garb. And the man goes, you should close the door when you go to the bathroom. There's a little girl here.

• 39:20Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And my dad was like, you're right. I'm so sorry. That was really rude of me. Like, I should always close the bathroom, like wherever I am. And I think my dad like starts to become aware that he's speaking to a spirit. And then he's like, oh, but who's the little girl? I can't remember like specifically what happened, but basically that conversation ended and my dad starts going back downstairs and he sees like this shadow of a little girl like dart through the dining room. And he goes back outside and goes to his friend who owns the house and he's like, so um, I just had a, and his friend immediately looks at him before my dad can finish the sentence is like, so which one did you talk to? Yeah, and.

• 39:56Corinne Vien?

  Are you kidding me?

• 39:58Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 39:59Corinne Vien?

  I would love to be haunted by these ghosts.

• 40:01Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Right? And I can't.

• 40:02Corinne Vien?

  To actually get to have a conversation.

• 40:04Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Right. So I'm pretty sure the little girl is a spirit that has traveled with this man, like in life. And the spirit in the house is like a new spirit that I think came forth or like is haunting the home to protect the little girl. Like he wasn't an active spirit until this guy who now owns it came into the house with this spirit girl.

• 40:30Corinne Vien?

  Oh my god.

• 40:31Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah. It's a spirit guide that's protecting a spirit. Like spirits have spirit guides.

• 40:36Corinne Vien?

  Well, I mean, she's just a child.

• 40:38Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  She's just a little girl.

• 40:39Corinne Vien?

  Wow. Yeah, that is crazy. They just like look at someone and talks to them and they're dead.

• 40:46Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 40:46Corinne Vien?

  I have never spoken to a spirit. I've seen a lot of full body apparitions, but not so much that I'm like.

• 40:53Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Conversing with them?

• 40:54Corinne Vien?

  That they're there long enough to have conversation with me and for me to have to like, my brain has to like click to be like, is this real or is this not like?

• 41:02Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  But then there's the flip side where he's being followed by something dark for thirty plus years.

• 41:07Corinne Vien?

  Oh my god.

• 41:09Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay, so continuing on nightmares, because someone follows the rules.

• 41:16Speaker 02

  The award-winning American Airlines Advantage Program rewards more than travel. It takes your whole life to new heights. Earn miles when you fly, as well as with thousands of your favorite brands, and then redeem those miles for flights, upgrades, and experiences worldwide. Advantage members also enjoy earlier boarding and free high-speed Wi-Fi in-flight. Join for free and start earning towards your next adventure at aa.com/spotify.

• 41:47Speaker 02

  The award-winning American Airlines Advantage Program rewards more than travel. It takes your whole life to new heights. Earn miles when you fly, as well as with thousands of your favorite brands, and then redeem those miles for flights, upgrades, and experiences worldwide. Advantage members also enjoy earlier boarding and free high-speed Wi-Fi in-flight. Join for free and start earning towards your next adventure at aa.com/spotify.

• 42:16Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  This is from our listener C, and it is called "Encounter: I Faced the Demon. An Update from an Encounters episode." "Hello, Ghostesses. I emailed you years ago, and my story was in an Encounters episode. I forgot the year now, but I called myself C, so I'll continue to do that. I told you a story about me going to Germany and being told that I had a demon inside and/or attached to me. I have an update for you." So, C's original email was read in Encounters 116, which actually came out almost like four years to the date. Oh, so we're reading this now? Yeah. "So, I have an update. I will apologize for the length. It's not even that long, but I need to get it to someone who doesn't know me. I've wanted to write this to you for the last several months, but I have been nervous,

• 43:01Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  too. This was sent to us on Wednesday. I moved to Texas three years ago, and about a year and seven months into the move, things started to get weird." I had been opening myself up to cosmic forces in the world in the form of druidry and nature-based magics under the guidance of a friend of mine who is a practicing witch. She said that I am what she called a battery, constantly giving off energy without knowing it, which caused a plethora of spirits to start visiting us. Most of them were friendly nature spirits or the occasional lost soul coming to say their peace. But that all changed one week, when I began to have these horrible nightmares. And as a lucid dreamer, I occasionally get pulled out of my body. It was so surreal. In all of these dreams, nightmares, were depicted great acts of violence,

• 43:46Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  murder, arson, and many other horrid things. This went on for approximately two to three weeks, and one of the worst things about these dreams was that everything happened to people I cared about, and I could do nothing. As an obvious response to this, I developed a fear of sleeping, and I would fight the feeling of falling asleep every night. Until one night I couldn't resist, and I drifted into that sweet release that is sleep. However, it was not restful, because that night, an entity came to me. At first, it was a shadow lurking in the corner of the nightmare, then a shape in the center, and then it became the forefront of every horrid scene, only ever showing its back.

• 44:27Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  In the last dream from that night, it walked out of the darkness, this time facing forward. My heart froze, because this was something I had seen as a child and convinced myself was not real.

• 44:38Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Ooh.

• 44:40Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I can tell the full story another time, but to summarize, I was very sick with a high fever, and I was visited by something claiming it could make me feel better. I was four years old, and at that age, I accepted without understanding. I remember all of this due to the trauma that it caused, but the last thing it told me was, "Do not tell anyone." This horrid creature... Even now, to describe it has me looking around my room paranoid, but it needs to be done. It's about five foot six with arms and legs slightly too long. But its face, God, its face. Imagine a baby's face with eyes just a little too high on the head and a mouth that was both too small and yet could smile all the way to its ears.

• 45:22Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It looked like it was covered in makeup, making its face have that classic diamonds around the eyes of like a clown. This night, in my dream, when it walked out of the darkness facing forward, it said to me, "I thought I told you not to tell anyone. Now I have to hurt the one you care about most." What in the world? I woke up in a panic, quiet not to wake my roommates. And that is when I felt it, the staring. I slowly rolled over to look at the side of my bed and froze. There, mere inches away was that horrid face staring back at me. I screamed and it laughed. All three of my roommates came bursting in.

• 46:06Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  They believed me when I told them and one of my magically inclined friends threatened it, which was a choice. My one witch friend who has been guiding me through magic even heard it laugh in defiance. Things got worse the next day. The girl I was talking to said I looked tired. I tried to lie and say it was nothing, but she could see through it. When I told her everything, she froze. She looked me dead in the eyes and said that something had been standing in the corner of her room and it looked very similar to this. What is with these creatures like geographically haunting the same spot? Well, literally in the nightmare before, the night said, "I am going to hurt someone you love most." Yeah, I guess. And his girlfriend.

• 46:50Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay, so she's just seeing it? Yeah, for the first time. Oh, oh, oh. In my mind, I thought she like already was connected to this thing. Okay. I freaked out because at the time she was the most important person in the world to me and that was it. I had enough of it. One can threaten or harm me all you like, but no one and nothing will threaten those I care about. So my friend and I came up with a ritual to banish it back to whatever fucking pit it came from. That night, when I went to sleep, I called it. No, no, I challenged it. Telling it, "It can no longer mock me or use the darkness and fear in my heart." "It fell for it, and after a few hours of reciting and channeling magic, "it let out a final laugh and disappeared into the void." "When I opened my eyes, I could truly feel the difference in my room.

• 47:32Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  "It was no longer as heavy or suffocating, and after that, I have been able to sleep fine. "The nightmare went away. "Now I'm living on my own with more spooky but less threatening ghosts and spirits around." "Thank you for reading this." "I also really don't know how far that spell through the horrid thing, so it might be back. "Best regards, C."

• 47:50Corinne Vien?

  I think what I'm realizing through this episode is that there is likely "an entire slate of cryptids and spirits and demons and creatures "that are only existing for nightmares and dreams."

• 48:03Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  100%.

• 48:05Corinne Vien?

  I guess the way I was thinking about it before was like, it was kind of like a fluid thing, "where like they're popping up in both places, but this is really making me think that there is a "dream-specific-

• 48:15Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Realm?

• 48:16Corinne Vien?

  Realm.

• 48:16Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  We don't know how this all works.

• 48:18Corinne Vien?

  No, we don't, but I have one more story to share.

• 48:20Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay. I wouldn't mind if it had more pleasant tree to it.

• 48:24Corinne Vien?

  Um.

• 48:24Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  But I also would be happy if it's scary. I'm fine with anything.

• 48:28Corinne Vien?

  It's somewhere in the middle?

• 48:29Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay, good, cool.

• 48:30Corinne Vien?

  What does a creepy creature in the woods, waking up in the cemetery in my pajamas, "and three ghosts of my then-alive grandma have in common? "Well, my grandma, apparently."

• 48:41Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And you?

• 48:42Corinne Vien?

  Yeah. This is unintentionally a grandma episode. We've had a lot of grandmas.

• 48:47Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  You've had a lot of grandmas.

• 48:49Corinne Vien?

  Okay, maybe I've had a lot of grandmas.

• 48:51Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I've had zero grandmas.

• 48:54Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Corinne has three grandmas, I have, I do have one. In real life.

• 48:59Corinne Vien?

  Hi, Goolies. My name is Rachel and I'm from Melbourne, Australia. Below are my most inexplicable experiences, all tied to one person: my grandma.

• 49:09Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay.

• 49:10Corinne Vien?

  I haven't had an experience since she passed away in 2005, "with the final one being the day that she passed." But this first story is about the time that I lost time and I woke up in a cemetery.

• 49:21Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I was terrifying.

• 49:23Corinne Vien?

  Right. I was staying with my grandma around twenty-three years ago. I was ten years old. She lived in this really quiet, small town, kind of the town between towns. It only had a milk bar, a small pub, and a cemetery. At the time, maybe a hundred people lived there. Why do I love this town? Right. Her house was creepy, to say the least. I said goodnight to her and I went to sleep in the guest room. And in the middle of the night, I woke up after having a really weird dream. I was young and I was scared, so I went to go sleep next to my grandma. She had a water bed. Remember this for later. I fell back asleep. And when I awoke, I was sitting on the ground in the cemetery, which was about one point five kilometers from her house. And it was morning and the sun was out.

• 50:06Corinne Vien?

  From what I know, I had never sleptwalked before in my life. My parents have never said anything to make me believe as much. I had somehow walked to the cemetery. I freaked out. It was freezing. I started crying. I made my way back to the house and I was halfway back when I saw my bike on the other side of the path, thinking, did I bike here? So I picked it up and I rode the rest of the way back so fast, so filled with fear. That's horrifying. I arrive and I throw my bike to the side and I rushed to the front door and it's locked. I knock and my grandma answers. She's confused. She thought I was still asleep in the guest room. She'd only been awake for five minutes before I got there. She had just put the kettle on for tea.

• 50:51Corinne Vien?

  I told her what happened and how I had this really weird dream and I was scared and I went to go sleep in her bed. And she said she's such a light sleeper that even a creak in the floorboards would normally wake her, saying that she would have felt the movement, especially on a water bed, if I had joined her in the bed. She would have heard the front door open. She was sure it was an old, creaky door. She checked me over. I was fine. I had a shower. We went back to the guest room. The bed was fully made up, even with the decorative pillows and my teddy bear, even though I left it a mess when I ran to my grandma's room in the middle of the night after that dream. So now we were both freaked out. We left the house and she drove me back to mine.

• 51:30Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  There's literally no explanation.

• 51:32Corinne Vien?

  I know. I'm like, I have chills everywhere. Like that, why is that house like rejecting her like a child like

• 51:38Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Literally displaced her.

• 51:39Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, pretending like she was never there. This experience has haunted me ever since because I'm like, was this a time slip? Was I really sleepwalking? Was I abducted by aliens?

• 51:48Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  My brain went to aliens too.

• 51:50Corinne Vien?

  Okay, so now is about a time I encountered a yaoi in the woods. I was going on a short camping trip to Wauhala, which is an ex gold mining town in Victoria, Australia. My grandma's hobby was gold panning in rivers and creeks of old mining towns, hoping to find some gold.

• 52:06Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Love granny.

• 52:08Corinne Vien?

  Sometimes she had been successful with these little golden nuggets. Her friends told her of this small creek near the town where they'd found some small pieces of gold. So my grandma was like, ooh, and she invited me and my aunt to join her for a weekend trip. It was the peak of summer and three people sleeping in a two-person tent was not great. It was our final night there and in the middle of nowhere, stinking hot, I needed to pee so bad. So I get up, I make my way about 10 meters from the tent with my torch and I pee. I pull my pajamas up, I hear a branch crack and then a deep huffed breath. I spin my torch around, but I see nothing. I run back to the tent so fast and I get inside, I wake up my aunt, my grandma, I tell them what just happened.

• 52:52Corinne Vien?

  They told me, calm down, calm down, try to just get some sleep. And then they heard the movements around the backside of the tent. We were defenseless. We had nothing but torches, a hammer that we used to get the tent pegs in the ground. My aunt crazily grabbed the hammer and left me in the tent. She went to go check, but there was nothing there.

• 53:11Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I'd rather keep stay in the tent.

• 53:12Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 53:13Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 53:13Corinne Vien?

  We all tried to think of what it could have been. Was it a kangaroo, an angry koala? We lay awake all night until the morning. We get up, we pack the tent, we head back to the town where we had parked our car. And as we're getting ready to go, we noticed four massive square-toed footprints. And then they write, damn it, being the early 2000s and no phone to just take a photo of it.

• 53:38Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 53:39Corinne Vien?

  We left for home freaked out of our minds. It wasn't until later in my high school years that I borrowed a book from the library about Australian paranormal encounters where a man claimed to see a yowie and detailed a four-toed squared off footprint. What the fuck? Okay, and lastly, a story called "The Hallway of Ghosts."

• 53:58Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  This has so many encounters.

• 54:00Corinne Vien?

  Right, and all has to do with grandma. One day, I was coming back from school via a shortcut through the paddock, and usually there are some very friendly horses there. They always come up to me in the past and they're usually looking for treats.

• 54:13Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I literally was FaceTiming my sister the other day, and all of a sudden outside my window I hear, "Ah, the pony! You're famous in this town." And I was like, "What is happening?" I literally look out my window. There is a pony in Marblehead that a man walks around the streets.

• 54:33Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  What? Where does it live? I don't know. And I've lived in Marblehead for a year now, and this is the first time I've seen the Marblehead pony.

• 54:41Corinne Vien?

  Dude, Marblehead pony must have a nice ass house, because there are not that many spots to house a pony. They're not. There are just a few pony yards and you have to have some serious pony cash.

• 54:55Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  But it was literally like the ice cream truck was coming, because I'm not kidding. I saw, as I look out the window to look at the pony,

• 55:04Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 55:04Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  that a couple with a stroller starts like sprinting up the street to get to the pony, and like everyone came flocking to the pony. Are you looking it up?

• 55:14Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 55:14Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I'm so curious if it comes up.

• 55:15Corinne Vien?

  No, there's just like a bunch of old photos of, it keeps saying Marblehead.

• 55:20Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Well, I'll take a picture next time. I was on FaceTime, so I showed my sister and I was just in shock, but...

• 55:26Corinne Vien?

  Oh, wait.

• 55:27Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Did you find it?

• 55:28Corinne Vien?

  There's an article from 2008 on wickedlocal.com. "Things Get a Little Bit Wild on Marblehead Neck."

• 55:34Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  But Marblehead Neck is so far from where I am, and this guy was just walking his pony.

• 55:38Corinne Vien?

  Oh, you know what?

• 55:40Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I'll take a picture next time. Anyway, I was surprised by this pony in the street.

• 55:46Corinne Vien?

  Hey, what the heck happened over here? This is about two alpacas that had got loose, made a break for it on the marble head neck, which means that people own alpacas over on the marble head neck. That I'm not surprised by either. They do have alpaca yards over there. So, okay, but back to the hallway of ghosts. One day I was coming back from school via shortcut through a paddock, which usually had a very friendly horse. It would always come up to me, usually looking for some treats. The whole day just felt off from when I was at school to when I was walking home. And as I was walking through the paddock, the horses didn't move. They just stared at me dead still. They knew me for sure. I always brought something for them.

• 56:28Corinne Vien?

  I carried on eager to get home. My parents were at work. My sisters were at their after school activities. Note that my childhood home was a very long house with rooms coming off of the sides of a long hallway. So I opened the door and I froze. In the hallway, I saw three figures poking their heads out from three rooms off of the hallway. Out of one of them was my grandma as a child, another my grandma in her 30s. The last, I have children, my grandma in her 60s. I stared. They didn't move. They were like static images. As soon as I blinked, they were gone. Safe to say, I sat out on the front porch until my parents got home.

• 57:11Corinne Vien?

  And that night I woke up heavily breathing after having a horrible nightmare, which I couldn't recall any single detail of, but I was really spooked. I walked down the hall to my parents' room at the front of the house. And halfway down the hall, we get a phone call. My parents had a cordless phone in their room and they answer it. I get to their door, we go in, we sit on their bed and we find out my grandma had passed away. Love you gals. Love the podcast. Rachel.

• 57:40Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I'm actually speechless.

• 57:43Corinne Vien?

  It makes me wonder if her grandma was going through her like life review at that point. And she like was getting, if she's so tied to her grandma that she like somehow was getting, especially because she described it as like static images, if she somehow was getting to see part of that.

• 57:57Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I really, I don't, I don't know.

• 57:59Corinne Vien?

  Well, you said nightmare-ish and this danced around a lot of nightmares and had some nightmarish experiences.

• 58:06Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  But waking up in a cemetery, nope.

• 58:08Corinne Vien?

  No.

• 58:09Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah, I really, yeah, I like, usually we have so much to debrief and so many hypotheses to present, but this one, I just, literally leaving me scratching my head.

• 58:18Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 58:18Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Like, I'm like, I just.

• 58:19Corinne Vien?

  Yeah. Well, and I didn't read this one sentence, but basically Rachel was also saying, like, positing the question of why is this all happening around her grandma, like all of these experiences, which are so different, so diverse. She was like, was she just attracting everything paranormal?

• 58:34Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Also, you could ask, why is this all happening around you?

• 58:37Corinne Vien?

  That's true, Rachel. Maybe grandma's asking, what, what's going on with Rachel? Why, why are all these weird experiences happening around Rachel?

• 58:45Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Like especially the way that Rachel described walking through the woods and like everything being still, like even the horses kind of just like being frozen, makes me feel like Rachel was temporarily walking through like a warped dimension that was where grandma was going.

• 59:04Corinne Vien?

  Yeah. Well, just too, everything being still and staticky and like, yeah, it does feel like life was just like, yeah, sucked away for a second.

• 59:14Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah. Damn. Okay. Well, we, yeah, tell us your nightmarish stories. We would love to hear them. Please email us at [email protected]. If you would like episodes one week early and ad free and a bonus episode every month, you can join us on Patreon. Plus we do campfire stories over there. We have book club, so many fun things. So join us over there and.

• 59:39Corinne Vien?

  What's our next book?

• 59:40Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  We haven't picked yet because the poll closes on Friday.

• 59:43Corinne Vien?

  Oh, okay.

• 59:44Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  But we'll announce that in the next encounters. And then this is a pyramid scheme. So you tell two people, make them tell two people and it just goes on.

• 59:54Corinne Vien?

  Thank you to.

• 59:56Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Get sucked into the pyramid scheme.

• 59:59Corinne Vien?

  Shout out to Jamie Ryan, who edits and produces our podcast. Thank you, Jamie. And we love you all. And we will. See you on the other side.

• 1:00:16Speaker 04

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