Rowan & Pine: A Feminist Folklore & Mythology Podcast - Episode Forty-Eight： Spooky Shadow People - The Feeur (with Megan)

00:00:00.000 i just realized that my microphone was turned the wrong way around for the entire thing now

00:00:06.700 it was picking up my voice but it's going to sound weird for like the first

00:00:10.120 is it gonna be okay still like picked up my thing but it might be a bit echoey 0.99

00:00:15.380 just for the very first like half shit

00:00:18.160 the main edit i had to do with your voice was the difference in volume between your laugh and your 0.68

00:00:30.800 speaking it was and i don't mean to make you feel so gorgeous really it just made me laugh 0.64

00:00:37.300 this is so megan like this is just her like tootie it's a big dirty hearty laugh so it is 1.00

00:00:45.940 yeah 1.00

00:00:46.460 welcome back to

00:00:51.920 Rowan and Pine

00:00:52.660 I've never in my life introduced an episode

00:00:55.980 like that I don't know why I chose to do it now

00:00:57.980 Rowan and Pine

00:00:59.920 Rowan and Pine

00:01:01.040 this is another guest episode

00:01:04.220 with

00:01:04.740 yes he's back

00:01:06.640 back again

00:01:07.780 Megan's back

00:01:11.160 unfortunately she's not back to do

00:01:14.200 astrology part 2

00:01:15.460 because we don't keep our word we'll get there we will get there but um i needed some halloween

00:01:22.440 episodes and megan was very kind to offer to do some and then i came up with idea and then it just

00:01:28.300 had to be her it couldn't be anybody else here we are because you have your life experience with

00:01:32.800 halloween yeah and our um our topic of today absolutely unfortunately unfortunately depending

00:01:40.820 yeah depending on how you look at it yeah yeah we'll get into it for sure yeah thanks very much

00:01:47.460 to everybody who listened for the first time on megan's first episode because we got a little 0.97

00:01:52.260 boost yeah i mean i sent that shit to everybody like all the females in my life at work my friend 0.94

00:01:59.080 group i'm so glad you were proud of it enough to send it oh absolutely i sent it everyone 0.98

00:02:03.340 like dms whatsapps facebook messenger instagram like across the board resurrecting old social

00:02:11.000 media platforms just to message people they enjoyed it like honestly the feedback was was

00:02:16.240 great people like thought that we both sounded very natural together you could tell we knew each

00:02:22.280 other yeah and that we were like vibing away and like quite articulate about the way that we express

00:02:29.260 ourselves and they really enjoyed it yeah it was nice to get the feedback it is it's so nice to

00:02:34.400 like when people listen because that's the one thing about this i know that there's people who

00:02:37.940 know me who listen and they just never talk to me about it yeah like face to face yeah and i don't

00:02:42.860 know if they feel awkward i would feel probably feel a bit awkward if they brought it up to be

00:02:47.120 honest so i don't know would you i yeah i think so i was a bit like coy and shy and i when they

00:02:53.320 brought it up to me it was but yeah very appreciative of it as well because i didn't 0.84

00:02:58.360 expect them to kind of give me feedback on it and your mind starts racing going oh fuck what did i

00:03:03.300 say yeah like where did this oh immediately afterwards i was like overthinking the whole 0.94

00:03:07.060 scenario yeah it's like oh my god did i like mention something i wasn't meant to or whatever

00:03:11.300 it is but also like fuck it you know yeah we're here for i meant this idea ruth told me that she 0.81

00:03:18.900 really enjoyed her episodes because she finds your voice extremely relaxing oh wow yeah that's 0.98

00:03:23.020 the first time i've ever had that said to me me relaxing but i'm not shouting ahead of something 0.57

00:03:29.580 yeah an absolute fucking rag so that's another bit of feedback for you um that's kind yeah thank 0.89

00:03:37.580 you ruth yeah it's lovely like lovely to hear like random stuff that you wouldn't have even 0.98

00:03:42.840 ever thought would occur to anybody no that's really kind yeah so yes this is the first of

00:03:49.220 you're all very lucky you're getting two main October episodes um you will have heard hopefully

00:03:56.760 if I have my shit together and edit it our first little short pine cones episode which would have

00:04:03.740 dropped earlier this week that is about the poem Antigonish also known as the man who wasn't there 0.91

00:04:10.420 are you familiar with that no have you ever seen this is like a freaking deep cut film

00:04:15.200 the film with john cusack called identity no it's like it's a great film i was actually trying to

00:04:20.280 find a link for it um it's basically like it's 10 strangers meet in the middle of a storm at

00:04:26.580 like a dead-end motel in the middle of nowhere and then they all start getting picked off one

00:04:31.040 by one oh wow yeah but the opening of that movie is um they're like reciting this like quite famous

00:04:39.980 creepy poem um and it just goes yesterday upon the stair i met a man who wasn't there

00:04:46.420 he wasn't there again today i wish i wish he'd go away so it's like oh chilling so i thought that

00:04:54.680 actually really tied into this yeah i was just about to say it really does and i've always had

00:05:01.020 like a weird little fascination with that poem i think what reminded me i think they mention it

00:05:06.720 in the haunting of hill house that like netflix series it's one of my favorite like i was actually

00:05:12.660 speaking to somebody in our dms trish from no other crack podcast um i was saying like it's

00:05:18.560 like a flawless tv show it's like one of the best tv shows of all time it's just like a mini series

00:05:22.580 and the cast is so good and all that but it's like i think they say that poem at some point in it

00:05:27.180 because something i watched recently brought it back into my head yeah so i was like i really need

00:05:34.360 look into this poem and so your short episode that kicked off our like spooky October content

00:05:41.440 would have been our short episode on the man who wasn't there now today we are getting into

00:05:49.180 shadow people and shadow people is something that I first time I ever heard of them was from

00:05:57.660 yourself from Megan when did I even talk about this is what I'm trying to figure out

00:06:02.700 i think do you know what i think it was and this will make a lot of sense i think it was do you

00:06:08.720 remember when we were in college in dublin and you were living by yourself oh my god yeah

00:06:13.500 and you were saying to me that you've seen them your whole life but you're like i keep seeing

00:06:19.180 them now when i'm by myself and i think it was like obviously because as we'll get into it it's

00:06:25.040 like when people are going through stress or isolation or anything like that um and i think

00:06:30.640 that's when you brought them up to me and I had never heard of it before and you were you were

00:06:34.760 very matter of fact about it you're like yeah my whole family sees them and I was like wow and you

00:06:39.380 were like yeah my mom sees them yeah and I was like oh I have never heard this and I'm fascinated

00:06:45.300 and it's funny because when you had reached out to me about doing this episode you initially just

00:06:52.420 sent I think it was like a voice note or a message of her whatsapp and like come here you see shadow

00:06:56.580 people don't you and I was like yeah man and what like you were like right well I have an idea for

00:07:04.300 this so it's like okay cool yeah let's do it let's get into it yeah because you are you did say that

00:07:09.920 you were like you were like if you need any help with a Halloween episode yeah I'm your gal and I

00:07:13.840 was like absolutely um and I just same with astrology I just wanted to find something that

00:07:18.920 I knew would speak to you yeah episode for you today for sure yeah so we're going to talk a

00:07:26.080 little bit about shadow people what they are we're gonna Megan's gonna tell you a little bit

00:07:31.900 about her experiences with shadow people and how they manifest for her and then we're gonna get

00:07:36.840 into folklore across cultures of like what the what shadows mean and the symbolism of a shadow

00:07:44.220 and all of that lovely juicy factual stuff that I know I love going down a rabbit hole and

00:07:52.360 thinking about and researching about and learning uh because it's the whole the best part of this 0.87

00:07:57.080 whole podcast apart from like sitting chatting shite with my friends for a couple of hours

00:08:01.400 like it's it's probably the second best part then it's also so cool though to be going through notes 0.96

00:08:08.320 and seeing that shit this is like normal for quite a lot of people and there's so much information 0.51

00:08:13.720 about it like it's studied yeah like i never knew that i was just kind of trotting along thinking 0.97

00:08:20.500 that nobody else really like has experienced this yeah you thought maybe it was just like a

00:08:26.600 your family thing yeah yeah yeah you know that kind of way so then I'm sifting through um your 0.98

00:08:33.420 your research and your write-up about it and I'm like oh shit like this is an actual thing 0.96

00:08:38.020 you know just a little bit of housekeeping before we start we are in a room with a roaring fire and 0.98

00:08:45.560 is quite hot and also there are two sleeping cats in here a couple of prits yes a couple of prits

00:08:52.620 prits is what megan refers to as cats by the way not pricks or anything like that um yeah i think

00:08:59.460 there's only two of them i think the third one bolted uh so if there's any shuffling or random

00:09:05.860 screaming it's not megan it's the cat i'm not like holding her hostage being like please record this

00:09:12.000 thing with me i'm here against my will don't listen to her shadow people arrive at the edge

00:09:19.500 of sight nothing but an outline a fast-moving silhouette that may suggest a human or animal

00:09:25.380 but never offers detail they're flat and featureless no face to read no hands to grasp

00:09:31.860 only shape and motion for many these they experience tastes of fear a chill a sense of

00:09:39.200 being watched, the quickened heart. That instinctive dread does not, however, prove that they are omens

00:09:45.440 of doom. Across accounts, people have tried to name what slips through their periphery.

00:09:50.560 Some call them ghosts, brief, low-resolution impressions of the dead. Others call them

00:09:56.000 demons or creatures of the underworld, pockets of malign intent that pass through a place and move

00:10:01.700 on. Still others read them as psychic impressions, negative energy briefly lodged in a house,

00:10:08.260 at a crossroads, a bedside, picked up by a sensitive presence and then gone. The modern

00:10:14.560 term shadow people was coined by paranormal researcher and book author Heidi Hollis who

00:10:20.220 claims that shadow people have been around since the beginning of time. There is no single explanation

00:10:25.300 that fits every sighting. The shadow figure concept reaches deep into religion, legend and folklore

00:10:30.940 from underworld denizens and ancient myths to modern tales of the hat man. Are you familiar

00:10:36.980 with the hat man megan only since going through this you've seen the hat man no sorry i've gone

00:10:43.700 through the research yeah um was never familiar with that term at all yeah so the hat man we

00:10:54.040 covered him a little in our sleep paralysis episode and that was he was literally the reason

00:11:00.880 i wanted to do a sleep paralysis episode because i remember seeing i think it was like an old

00:11:04.460 channel 4 documentary or something like late at night and it was talking about sleep paralysis

00:11:09.800 which i hadn't experienced at that point but i just thought it was fascinating that

00:11:15.600 so many people in different places across different cultures all see the same yeah have

00:11:21.080 all seen this entity yeah which is and it's strictly through sleep paralysis mode yeah 0.95

00:11:28.280 bone chilling like that's fucking nuts yeah like terrifying and there's like there's the night hag 0.99

00:11:34.740 and like some people see an old lady and all that which is fuck no i know sorry the terror on megan's 0.99

00:11:42.600 face right now i don't want to like i mean i've seen like obviously i'm here because i've seen 0.98

00:11:48.480 some shit but like nothing yeah nothing like as like detailed as that yeah thankfully like i this 0.55

00:11:56.120 will be like a refresher for anybody who's listened to listen to our sleep paralysis episode 0.98

00:12:00.540 my sleep paralysis what i saw was a young man in a hoodie which is i think worse

00:12:06.700 because that could actually be yeah exactly he was hiding behind the door yeah that could

00:12:12.740 actually be somebody and i was living in dublin to attack you yeah specifically in dublin yeah

00:12:18.040 love the place and so i don't know like obviously it's gonna it's your own brain conjuring it or

00:12:24.580 like showing it to you so it's going to show you the worst thing imaginable for you i think i had

00:12:30.840 sleep paralysis once yeah just once and again it was in dublin it was my first year and i think

00:12:37.440 whatever way i'd woken up i was kind of half asleep the corner of the duvet was like right

00:12:43.680 in front of my face when i woke up yeah and i thought it was some romanian woman standing 1.00

00:12:48.420 there you know because of the cloak yeah like um the headdress yeah because of the the clothing 0.88

00:12:54.960 that a romanian woman would wear and i remember like batting it out of the way 0.95

00:13:00.280 and just wakes up ready to be like what the fuck you know and then like that was the corner of my 0.98

00:13:06.960 duvet but whatever it was in that mode i was half asleep half awake i like freaked your brain just 0.99

00:13:14.740 like fills in the blanks and just like to the most random shit ever but yeah once and that

00:13:21.740 would thank god i never got it again like the whole thing of sleep paralysis and like emily

00:13:26.840 and i did kind of thoroughly not debunk it but like offer a lot of scientific explanations which

00:13:31.760 you and i will also do in this which whatever anyone's belief system is if you want to believe

00:13:37.820 in the science part if you want to believe in the spiritual part that's completely up to you

00:13:41.680 Yeah, you just take it how it is.

00:13:43.540 Yep, whatever speaks to you, take what you need and leave the rest.

00:13:47.660 The phenomenon also intersects medicine and neuroscience.

00:13:51.740 Sightings appear in contexts as varied as sleep paralysis, dementia and psychosis,

00:13:57.820 suggesting the brain's machinery plays a role in shaping what we see.

00:14:02.120 Some witnesses insist on malign intent.

00:14:06.280 Others describe neutral or even benign encounters.

00:14:08.880 whatever their motive if they have one shadow people have been reported across decades and

00:14:15.400 across cultures the real puzzle is less whether they exist and more why so many human minds

00:14:22.060 in so many places produce the same pale shivering outline at the edge of vision

00:14:27.540 yeah that's the essence of what we were saying with the hat man and like sleep

00:14:31.860 sleep paralysis is that there's you know people who've never spoken to each other and they can

00:14:36.620 describe the exact same thing you know not as we were talking about a bit earlier there i didn't

00:14:42.860 think that quite a lot of people had this same thing i never talked about it really before

00:14:50.840 because i didn't want to like people thinking that i was like weird and shit you know yeah

00:14:55.760 or yeah have legit seen them since i was a child with mostly within our household is kind of when

00:15:02.940 it started yeah and because you probably know from the last podcast of chatting about you know

00:15:08.900 mom and dad been crazy not crazy religious but like fairly christian they can like see them too

00:15:15.340 i'm not sure about my brother jamie i'm not i'm not 100 on him but i know mom and dad for sure

00:15:21.020 do yeah so when we would all because more than likely we would all collectively see them at the

00:15:28.820 same time right mom kind of claimed that don't be bringing those demons home from like either

00:15:38.360 school or like a friend's house or if I got in like a an argument or she seemed to think

00:15:46.100 from her perspective that it was like a negative energy that I was bringing home so literally a

00:15:52.920 shadow you were bringing home yeah yeah but she called them demons right but when i was growing up 0.69

00:15:59.220 so you can imagine that's fucking terrifying for a child to believe that she has brought home 0.97

00:16:05.060 a demon to her fucking household now i can't help it like i know she obviously didn't intentionally 0.99

00:16:10.860 want to scare the shit out of me but it was like super terrifying as a kid because 0.99

00:16:17.500 they are predominantly always male figures one to me anyway and you do you kind of look at the

00:16:27.540 side of your eye and think that somebody's like standing there or walking by or whatever it may be

00:16:32.800 and then it's gone yeah but I can also see cats which I haven't heard a lot of people talk about

00:16:42.000 maybe i don't know i've never i've heard of people maybe say oh yeah like yeah at the corner of your

00:16:47.820 eye but i also used to see cats in my home house and now in my own apartment cats yeah particularly

00:16:56.380 my dear huff who i lost last year yeah i see him yeah now he's like super close to his mother willow

00:17:04.340 in terms of color so i often had to look to see was it her yeah but she'd be like lying up beside me

00:17:11.620 but I would have like seen and for the first time actual colors like the black and white rather than

00:17:18.220 just the black shadow right and that's the first time that's ever happened usually it's like a

00:17:23.220 black shadow yeah that's kind of like whisking past your vision but this time I could see like

00:17:28.700 spots of white it was like and more of an outline it was very very distinct and like that might sound

00:17:36.780 a bit strange to anybody who doesn't have pets but anybody who does have pets you know their

00:17:43.540 little energies you know their markings you know like how they run yeah you know like the way that

00:17:50.620 they would scurry into a room like you just know like anybody who's a cat or a dog or whatever it

00:17:56.220 is whatever sort of animal that's like loose would be loose around your house you would know it out

00:18:00.400 of the corner of your eye yeah like i can tell which cat is coming down the stairs by the way

00:18:03.860 their sounds everything yeah thankfully i've seen no shadow people as such in my apartment 0.70

00:18:10.880 because i've saged the shit out of the place yeah um to me and i don't know if it's because of mums 0.61

00:18:18.700 instilling in my brain as a child but to me it's a negative thing right yeah it would always come 0.97

00:18:25.320 about when there'd be like shit happening in your life you know you would tend to see this kind of 0.62

00:18:30.860 thing a lot more or where there's a space where there's a lot of energy flowing in and out of it

00:18:37.180 yeah particularly where I work right yeah so this kind of story is a little bit more creepy because

00:18:48.180 with the sightings of the shadow people I call it the man that lives upstairs in the projection room

00:18:54.480 yeah you started to tell me this and I was like oh my god you have to tell this on the podcast

00:18:58.580 now carrie hasn't ever claimed to see these things but she carrie's your friend who also

00:19:04.740 yeah sorry who also works in the same place one of my best friends so she also feels quite uneasy

00:19:10.080 in the same points upstairs within the projection room at my work that i do

00:19:15.240 down by certain projectors yeah and i have seen in the same spot all the time this like male figure

00:19:25.860 this male shadow figure between a certain part of projector one projector two or down by five and

00:19:32.880 six kind of at the back end of the building and what does it like could you describe it like what

00:19:38.540 is this figure doing like are they just like standing and walking you know it's almost like

00:19:44.440 this floating motion right nearly like a loop or something or not really more like a floating motion

00:19:52.140 okay but when you go to look yeah it's not there anymore particularly if you've got your head down

00:19:58.320 and you're in the middle of doing something it is always out of your peripheral yeah that you're

00:20:02.340 seeing this you're not seeing this dead set in vision it's when you're like busy doing something

00:20:07.540 and you kind of look again and then it's gone but with seeing the man that lives upstairs

00:20:16.200 really like so much creepy shit started happening in the cinema

00:20:21.400 right um when I started kind of getting those sightings I guess so there's a very slow closing 0.95

00:20:29.460 door that goes into one of the screens okay um it's particularly designed that it doesn't bang

00:20:36.640 okay yeah so it's kind of moves quite slowly it's got like a I don't know I don't even know

00:20:42.520 it's one of those hinges like yeah that's the word those kitchens that have like the quiet

00:20:47.940 yes so it's one of them because naturally you don't want to bang the doors going in when there's

00:20:52.260 people watching movies but i walked past this particular door and i seen it slam in front of

00:20:59.200 my face what the fuck and then like we used to like let people go if it was super quiet this was 0.92

00:21:07.380 all last winter by the way so we're coming into kind of winter time again place gets creepy so 0.99

00:21:12.800 i used to let some staff go and i because there'd be maybe me and three other people in the building

00:21:17.920 and i'd be like i'll clean up i'll do the bathrooms whatever it is yeah like a cold night

00:21:22.640 you want to let people's home yeah they you know they're fed up they want to go home i'm fine with

00:21:26.760 it i need to make up hours part of my contract blah blah blah whatever it is so um on two i

00:21:33.620 think it was two separate occasions yeah the door slamming was me by myself in the building i had

00:21:38.060 just let one of the lads Liam go and then the other one was I was letting Yulia go and as she

00:21:48.000 was in the hallway with me having a conversation we could hear a child hiccuping oh my god

00:21:55.700 and then she ran away and I was left in the building Yulia ran away not the child

00:22:01.560 yeah julia ran away oh god and i was left in the building by myself and we also have a hand dryer

00:22:09.180 in the male bathroom that goes off by itself all the time just randomly i'll be there during the

00:22:14.260 day doing admin work nobody else is around and this hand dryer will just start going off so does

00:22:20.300 this feel different to the shadow people you would have seen at home growing up this entity or

00:22:26.160 whatever it is, feels a little bit more like it has ill intent.

00:22:32.620 Right.

00:22:33.720 Than just at home, like a friendly float around.

00:22:39.080 Yeah.

00:22:39.460 Although I always just deem, I deem them negatively at home as well.

00:22:43.320 Almost like, well, the ones at home are a negative representation of something, but

00:22:47.160 this one seems more conscious from the way you're describing it.

00:22:49.280 Yeah, this one seems to be always there.

00:22:51.560 Whereas the ones at home come and go.

00:22:53.360 Yeah.

00:22:53.840 Depending on...

00:22:56.160 the nature of that day within your household if that makes sense like whether there's rowing going

00:23:02.780 on or you know passing through to feed off the energy or something or whether somebody is going 0.95

00:23:08.220 through some shit you know yeah but I don't know if that's just because mama has like instilled that 0.95

00:23:15.340 in my brain as a child that you have brought this home I don't know you know that could just be stuck 0.99

00:23:20.300 in my mentality well that's the thing like we find that with I find that like delving into Irish

00:23:25.640 folklore that there'll be something that like say I grew up and my family told me that this means

00:23:31.420 that in folklore or whatever it is and then it's only when I'm actually looking into other accounts

00:23:37.460 or like official records or like official books written on the subject or anything like that it's

00:23:43.240 like sometimes got the complete opposite meaning and you end up going whoa like trying to make

00:23:49.140 sense of it and it's not exactly like it's not as if your family have misinterpreted something

00:23:54.400 but it's just it's the nature of these things it's the way way they interpret them and it's the way

00:23:59.900 that they make sense of it yes yeah and it's the way the stories carry as well one person will tell

00:24:05.520 another person and then sometimes it will get a little bit twisted or moving around moved around

00:24:11.540 the details are moved around a little bit along the way now there was another story that i had

00:24:17.320 kind of seen and i wouldn't really because i didn't know what it was at the time it didn't

00:24:22.460 particularly seem the same as everything else like this kind of shadow entity we were driving

00:24:28.680 up to sligo when i was a kid and you know when you're driving past is it drum cliff where wb

00:24:34.920 eights is buried uh church and drum cliff yeah there's a drum cliff but yeah i think it could

00:24:41.700 be drum cliff yeah whatever area he is buried in we drive past it's the main road to sligo

00:24:47.580 so yeah you can't avoid it i could see this white figure like opening a car door to go into it but

00:24:54.780 it didn't have any features it was just a white figure like solid not even like ghostly or anything

00:25:00.820 it was like a solid white like almost like the michelin man or something you know but had no

00:25:06.480 features no nothing and i was like mom i'm just after seeing something in the car park and she

00:25:11.100 was like you're just seeing things you know yeah but when you see stuff like that and your

00:25:15.460 your family's just like you're just seeing things you know like you're like no i actually seen that

00:25:22.120 like you're a child there's no like sleep paralysis at play for me there was no like

00:25:28.220 drug use or alcohol use back then you know that might like alter your brain chemistry at the time 0.91

00:25:36.420 you're a fucking child yeah so you're trying to be a lot more open to yeah open to those things 0.94

00:25:42.740 you know that I will never forget and I can still see the figure to this day in my head as we're 1.00

00:25:49.480 driving by and I was like what the fuck was that yeah you know and like people must think I'm mad

00:25:56.680 if they've seen me upstairs in the projection room of where I work I'm like asking this thing 0.98

00:26:02.740 that comes and goes I just want to turn on the lights can you please just let me pass through

00:26:07.800 and turn on the lights i literally mean you no harm clearly you live here or whatever it is

00:26:13.380 they're always male though like i said i'll repeat myself again because i feel like males maybe search

00:26:19.540 for truth and maybe it's like a soul that's like trapped somewhere yeah trying to find truth

00:26:25.700 because males are predominantly logically minded and they have a little like they have a harder

00:26:33.060 time of moving on okay yeah you know yeah so in my mind am i like is it like some kind of soul

00:26:41.520 or energy that's like searching for meaning and trying to move on from from this earth you know

00:26:47.900 and it could be something from like the site that the the building's on or whatever somebody did die 0.66

00:26:53.220 there oh on that site oh shit yeah i think it there was a there was a caravan park i think

00:26:59.780 prior to 0.89

00:27:01.140 and I think somebody did die there

00:27:04.040 oh my god

00:27:04.780 so I'm trying to piece everything together

00:27:06.700 and I'm like

00:27:07.460 oh Jesus

00:27:09.180 you know

00:27:09.880 like it is 0.98

00:27:11.020 it's fucking creepy 0.99

00:27:11.960 that is creepy 0.99

00:27:12.920 yeah

00:27:13.500 like seeing a little huff around my apartment 0.95

00:27:15.460 I welcome that

00:27:16.580 I'm delighted that I can see

00:27:17.980 his little shadow

00:27:18.880 just popping up to say hello

00:27:20.400 but

00:27:20.920 this one in particular at my work

00:27:23.460 and I've like

00:27:24.520 I've creeped the shit out of everyone

00:27:26.020 by trying to say this to them

00:27:27.800 yeah

00:27:28.360 at work 0.99

00:27:29.500 you know and they're like what the fuck are you talking about and you're like warning them 0.99

00:27:33.680 there's a man that lights upstairs and creepy shit's happening yeah and the lights are glitching 0.95

00:27:38.880 and i'm not fucking okay with this yeah so everyone's like oh so it's like that like felt 0.79

00:27:45.080 presence sort of thing that's exactly what it feels like and you can feel it yeah you know 0.77

00:27:51.000 and it is that kind of feeling like you're been watched by something yeah you know there's actually

00:27:58.720 in the infra called felt presence phenomenon and they have studied it and i talk about it in our

00:28:03.540 short episodes uh about the poem because they've managed to be able to replicate it

00:28:09.500 in scientific experiments but that's only a very recent thing so obviously a lot of there are a lot

00:28:14.560 of people giving their testimonials about like feeling a presence and feeling like there's

00:28:18.840 somebody else there and they're not alone or they're being watched and all that so

00:28:21.880 yeah i don't know like unless like it's the presence it's stimulating these things in your

00:28:27.200 you know like you could turn it back that way the thing is like you can't explain it as much

00:28:32.900 people can research it and you know they can come up with like so many different theories as to why

00:28:40.640 it happens or why you can see these shadow people or why you have sleep paralysis you know like

00:28:47.480 nobody at the end of the day fucking knows it's just kind of there you just have it or you don't 0.72

00:28:52.900 yeah and there's always you always find that there are exceptions anytime they're like well 0.97

00:28:57.260 it's caused by this they'll always be like one or two people they're like well that's not what

00:29:00.680 happened to me yeah you know yeah or I wasn't like I wasn't experiencing that at the time yeah

00:29:05.660 so yeah it's like psychosis or something you know was another one that I was reading through the

00:29:12.780 notes and I was like no yeah like like I still see it I've been pretty much like

00:29:20.320 I was four years sober for a really long time was still seeing these things you know and

00:29:28.600 I kind of I feel a bit like relieved that it's not just like me and my mom and my dad or something

00:29:38.440 you know that yeah that there's other people oh there's other people and this is a genuine thing

00:29:42.920 you know and there's cultures that even welcome them yeah yeah yeah you know thank you for sharing

00:29:49.720 your shadow people experience and I'm sure you can sprinkle in some more if anything comes up

00:29:54.460 as we talk about this but I thought I would talk about the global roots of shadows as like the

00:30:02.900 concept and what they mean in symbolism and what they have meant how they have shown up in different

00:30:09.900 mythologies and cultures so I of course wanted to start off with Greek mythology

00:30:16.720 uh we'll also be having a short episode if i get my shit together i feel like i should like just

00:30:21.840 put that in the end of everything a short episode on the greek underworld in ancient greece the dead

00:30:27.880 were thought to persist as shades or ski eye phantom remnants stripped of substance thought

00:30:34.900 and body that's kind of depressing like after death like all you are is just a little shade

00:30:42.600 of yourself like a yeah just some kind of entity newly departed souls gathered on the shores of

00:30:48.560 the river Styx waiting for Charon the ferryman those unable to pay his fee wandered aimlessly

00:30:55.020 on the wind on the riverbank for eternity while even those who crossed lived a bleak

00:31:00.520 bloodless existence in Hades shades appear vividly in the Odyssey book 11 the Aeneid

00:31:08.300 big six and Dante's divine comedy which spoiler for the next episode over on a pound here shade

00:31:15.680 becomes a metaphor for the liminal caught between life and death presence and absence light and

00:31:22.020 darkness in Celtic folklore we have the buttock glass um this made me laugh because every time

00:31:28.920 I read buttock glass I think of bodak yellow by Cardi B Scottish Highland tradition speaks of

00:31:36.920 the buttock glass or the dark gray man, a death token that foretells mortality. William Henderson

00:31:44.020 records the story of an earl who, upon seeing the buttock glass during a golf game at St. Andrews,

00:31:51.140 declared, I can play no longer. Something fearful is going to befall me. He died that same night.

00:31:58.440 Like shadow people today, the buttock glass is an omen, a fleeting, unsettling presence

00:32:04.160 whose arrival suggests something just beyond human control so what he was seeing was similar 0.99

00:32:10.420 to like a doppelganger or in Irish folklore sometimes they're called a fetch where you will

00:32:16.520 see if a person's going to die you will see an impression of them in a room where they are not

00:32:22.020 so it could be somebody I've heard it before about people say like you live it's like I live

00:32:28.560 with ewan i will be sitting like watching tv and ewan will be out for the day and i can hear him

00:32:34.320 coming home and saying hi or going to the bathroom or whatever and i'm convinced it's him and then i

00:32:42.360 go talk to him and there's nobody there and then he comes home okay so it's like sending it out

00:32:46.780 ahead of you yeah that's crazy isn't it crazy yeah it's like when people they hear you in the

00:32:53.080 house like exactly like you're talking about mom used to say that she could hear me and she'd be

00:32:58.220 like meg but i wouldn't be there because i'd have been living in dublin at the time or something

00:33:03.200 but she'd like fully hear you in the gav yeah it's madness it gives me the chills like crazy

00:33:10.340 so across europe shadows were often linked to the soul itself a person suspected of witchcraft

00:33:16.520 lycanthropy or diabolic act diabolic pacts might be tested by their shadow because it was believed

00:33:24.140 that one who had sold their soul to the devil

00:33:26.080 cast none. Witch hunters 0.95

00:33:28.380 would corner women they suspected

00:33:30.020 to check if they cast a shadow.

00:33:32.200 I just think, like, that's

00:33:33.600 kind of chilling, like, that if you

00:33:36.340 you don't have a shadow anymore.

00:33:39.160 But I think, isn't there

00:33:40.320 an episode of The Simpsons where

00:33:42.260 Bart,

00:33:43.620 I just can't, like, I've just remembered, like, there's an

00:33:46.220 episode of The Simpsons where Bart, has he sold

00:33:48.240 his soul or something, but he can't, like,

00:33:50.180 automatic doors won't open for him.

00:33:51.940 because he has no soul or something like that tree house of horror ones isn't it yes i think

00:33:57.200 it is like one of the halloween episodes yeah and he definitely has sold his soul that was like a

00:34:01.780 i think i remember that episode yeah i just remember the details of it yeah but it was a

00:34:08.520 very like regular topic in the simpsons yeah for the especially for the tree house of horror ones

00:34:15.720 it was always like something i just remember i'm trying to go in the doors of the quickie mart

00:34:21.080 and they won't open for him and millhouse just like walks in past them like that's just what

00:34:25.620 i remember but that's just for some reason just triggered that memory for me shadows were also

00:34:31.040 seen as vulnerable to corruption people were warned never to let their shadows pass over a

00:34:36.480 grave lest death cling to them or over a cliff edge where it could be lured away folklore held

00:34:43.060 that shadow beings desired blood needing it to be reborn a chilling echo of modern accounts where

00:34:49.340 shadow people feel vampiric or parasitic in ancient sumerian beliefs the edemu were spirits

00:34:56.220 of the dead that could quote suck the life force out of people's bodies and drain the blood from

00:35:01.960 household members it's damn yeah it all connects like mad pagan traditions however sometimes took 0.92

00:35:11.020 a gentler view to see a shadow was not always threatening but could mean the spirit had achieved 0.94

00:35:16.560 peace free to wander unbound by earthly needs in this way european lore reflects both the fear

00:35:23.600 and fascination with shadows as living extensions of the cell i would say optimistic view yeah but

00:35:30.800 i would say that's if you look at that like about how you're seeing huff your little cat yeah it

00:35:36.820 means he's at peace he is no longer suffering and he's just playing in the afterlife but it just

00:35:44.020 happens to be in your house because there's nothing creepy about seeing hoff you know

00:35:49.240 he's just popping up to say hello yeah he's just like how's all my friends doing

00:35:54.660 moving on to islamic and middle eastern tradition we have the djinn one compelling

00:36:03.860 cultural frame links modern shadow sightings to the inch to an ancient idea the djinn

00:36:09.260 in islamic and middle eastern tradition jinn are beings made of smokeless fire who usually

00:36:15.380 there's a sneezing cat smokeless fire who usually remain invisible to human eyes

00:36:22.140 living alongside us in a parallel unseen world paranormal researcher rosemary ellen guiley

00:36:29.280 argued that many contemporary shadow figure reports could be explained as jinn manifesting

00:36:34.980 in a low-resolution, shadowy guise. She noticed that witnesses who report shadow people often

00:36:41.380 describe other uncanny phenomena, poltergeist activity, alien-style encounters, even strange

00:36:48.180 visitations across categories, which, in her view, points to a single shape-shifting force.

00:36:55.260 Seen this way, shadow people are not necessarily ephemeral ghosts or malfunctioning hallucinations,

00:37:03.420 but moments when a different order of being slips into our perception gin lore already allows for

00:37:10.840 moral variety these beings can be kindly mischievous or malicious which helps account

00:37:17.040 for why some encounters feel threatening while others are merely strange it's interesting how

00:37:22.920 she has

00:37:24.180 thought about it from all

00:37:27.160 angles and given

00:37:29.180 quite a compelling

00:37:30.900 argument for why

00:37:32.760 that could be the case.

00:37:34.820 It's funny because when I was reading this

00:37:36.780 I thought the same.

00:37:39.140 I thought there's so many

00:37:41.000 different realms

00:37:42.180 that she's coming from

00:37:45.040 with this.

00:37:47.340 And it was like I was chatting about it in my house.

00:37:50.800 It's not necessarily like

00:37:52.920 malicious but i feel in other places it might be you know because maybe it isn't always going to be

00:38:00.840 one it can be one or the other you know it's a little bit like emily and i touched this touched

00:38:07.000 on this a little bit when we were talking about how basically it was in i think our bennington

00:38:13.200 bennington triangle episode one person's alien account encounter could be another person's ghost

00:38:18.960 encounter yeah or encounter with the fae or the other world and it's all about your cultural

00:38:24.880 perception and your framing and your life experience and what you think it might be

00:38:29.580 for sure if you believe in ufos but you don't believe in ghosts what are you going to think

00:38:33.060 it is yeah you know absolutely it's all about your own perception oh this was one that was

00:38:38.320 completely new to me and i really like i really like learning about it in many african traditions

00:38:43.620 the shadow is tied to the life force or essence of a person in caribbean folklore this belief

00:38:49.920 merged with african and christian elephant christian elements not elephants to create the

00:38:56.500 duppy a spirit that could appear shadow-like feeding on the living or causing mischief if

00:39:02.060 improperly dismissed at death some duppies were protective but most carried menace barry shivan

00:39:08.240 is describe the shadow as an extension

00:39:10.560 of a person's self. If separated

00:39:12.700 madness might follow. 0.96

00:39:15.180 Stories tell of duppies that 0.89

00:39:16.560 throw stones, appear as animals

00:39:18.840 or torment families

00:39:20.460 out of spite.

00:39:22.140 Yeah.

00:39:23.660 So it's like somebody who hasn't

00:39:25.700 been given a proper burial, a proper

00:39:28.640 send off. He's coming back

00:39:30.460 to absolutely cause rockets. 0.98

00:39:32.840 My funeral was a load of balls. 0.97

00:39:35.840 Nobody 0.99

00:39:36.240 was crying. 1.00

00:39:38.240 these weren't sad enough i'm coming back from the afterlife to fuck yous up yeah throw stones at you 1.00

00:39:44.880 or you know take the form of a donkey and like walk around outside your house 1.00

00:39:48.980 be brilliant a fantôme or moongazer meanwhile is a tiring shadowy figure haunting crossroads

00:39:58.600 or shorelines so tall he could be mistaken for lampposts with legs spread wide he waits for

00:40:06.060 travelers to pass then snaps his leg shut crushing victims instantly his whistle is the only warning

00:40:14.100 yeah i don't know how there isn't a hollywood movie about the moon gazer and yeah just linking

00:40:20.260 back to crossroads he's one of the entities that you can encounter at a crossroads which is

00:40:25.960 as we know a liminal space and a space of transition it's a space of encountering

00:40:33.820 things that are not of this earth and i saw some like artists interpretations of the moongazer and

00:40:40.620 they're pretty fucking terrifying like a lot of the times like all you can see is like the legs

00:40:46.280 and then like just a very it starts to get like very shadowy and blurry as it goes up 0.97

00:40:50.400 the choctaw tale of nalusa chito or the soul eater described as if megan's like soul eater

00:40:57.860 no thank you described as a long black shadowy creature but with small eyes and pointed ears

00:41:04.860 he creeps into the minds of those burdened by grief or evil thoughts feeding on their souls

00:41:10.980 the Choctaw also speak of two shadows the Shilup and the Shilumbish I'm so sorry if I'm saying

00:41:19.000 that wrong the Shilumbish was the outer spirit or soul that remained with the person while they

00:41:25.240 were alive and could leave the body during dreams the shillup was the inner spirit or shadow

00:41:31.160 which after death became a ghost potentially haunting the earth for a period before journeying

00:41:37.520 to the land of ghosts a lot of shadow lore in Choctaw mythology yeah that's soul eater it's

00:41:46.640 just there's something quite like melancholy and sad about it targeting people who are already

00:41:53.100 suffering yeah and it's but I get that theory because like when I was speaking about my own 0.93

00:42:00.000 experiences as a child or even growing up it was when you were going through some shit yeah yeah 0.75

00:42:06.460 that they would be more so and like from my mom's perspective yeah it's when you are at an all-time 0.84

00:42:12.340 low this entity or energy catches on to you because you're vulnerable yeah you know yeah

00:42:19.100 and you're leaving yourself open yeah to energies really you know and like i used to think she was 0.99

00:42:24.380 fucking nuts but as i grew up i was like this bitch is right like you know so this choctaw 0.97

00:42:30.360 mythology and their perspective was one of the ones that kind of resonated with me a lot yeah 0.99

00:42:38.520 when i was reading through this i was like oh damn like that's it's dark but and it's isn't it

00:42:45.040 like a wonderful metaphor for depression and the way it can really consume you that like if you 0.96

00:42:52.740 let it get its grip on you yeah like it will literally keep consuming you until there's

00:42:58.940 darkness yeah you know so whether that's that was intentional within the folklore or not like i don't

00:43:06.820 know but i just thought yeah that's super like poignant and like just a really strangely beautiful

00:43:14.000 way of like interpreting what depression and like and grief and grief and people who are like

00:43:20.300 letting the dark parts yeah yeah this is why i love folklore because you can interpret it in so

00:43:26.660 many ways and people from way back when were a lot more intelligent and insightful than a lot

00:43:33.040 of people now i think yeah i feel like they were more in tune whereas we in modern times kind of

00:43:40.980 just pass it off yes or don't talk about it yes or don't come up with even an intelligent

00:43:46.840 theory on it you know or a creative way to express it or we tend to cerebralize a word

00:43:55.120 like it's just well this can only be this one thing and they don't think about how it's it

00:44:00.000 could be to do more with emotion or whatever it is if there's something happening and it's

00:44:05.340 manifesting in a certain way maybe that's because of how the person's feeling it might not always

00:44:10.140 be an external thing you know so you were going to talk about shadow work um and symbolism and

00:44:16.620 the cultural significance of shadows yes so across cultures shadows embody fear mystery and the

00:44:25.520 boundary between life and death they serve as warnings moral lessons or reminders to respect

00:44:32.760 the unseen. At the same time, they symbolise our hidden inner world, the parts of ourselves that

00:44:40.620 we'd rather not face. In Jungian psychology, the shadow self represents those repressed or

00:44:48.680 disowned aspects of personality that dwell in the unconscious. Carl Jung described it as an

00:44:55.440 archetype, an internal other that emerges in dreams, visions or mystical states. Confronting

00:45:03.680 the shadow is rarely pleasant. It forces us to acknowledge impulses, fears and truths we have

00:45:11.520 long denied. Yet Jung insisted that embracing this inner figure is vital. For the one who looks at

00:45:19.060 the mirror of waters first is his own reflection. Only the one who is able to stand this spectacle

00:45:26.000 and not recoil in horror can hope to move forward. This idea resonates with folklore.

00:45:34.180 In German tradition, the afterlife itself was called the Kingdom of Shadows, a realm where

00:45:40.140 souls lingered as insubstantial doubles. Linguistic studies even reveal deep connections between

00:45:47.420 words for shadow and words for soul, breath, or sex. In Indo-European languages, suggesting the

00:45:55.980 shadow has long symbolized the very essence of life. In Russian, for example, sheen means shadow,

00:46:04.760 but it is associated with a ghost of the dead. While in Breton, en means both soul and shadow.

00:46:13.040 At the same time, shadows are not always malevolent. Some traditions saw the shadow's

00:46:18.360 self as a sign of peace, or even protection, echoing Jung's point that the shadow contains

00:46:25.100 not only the dark, but also the hidden creative potential of the self. Shadows are our constant

00:46:32.320 companions. They are infallible, intangible, yet impossible to get rid of. Ultimately, shadows

00:46:40.220 reflect back to us our deepest anxieties and longings they symbolize the unknown forces we

00:46:46.940 cannot control whether natural supernatural or psychological to engage with shadow people or

00:46:54.320 with the inner shadow of Jungian thought is to face the parts of ourselves and the world that

00:46:59.920 resist easy definition I just think it's like shadows are such a hugely symbolic thing and such

00:47:08.500 a massive part of like our folklore and tradition and history and all that like I just love that

00:47:16.480 it's become a whole branch of like psychology and psychological thought and all of that I remember

00:47:22.200 you bringing up shadow work in our astrology episode as well and astrologers describe it as

00:47:28.320 making the unconscious conscious so seeing and accepting all parts of ourselves fully including

00:47:34.240 the bad bits yeah taking responsibility for these traits habits wounds and coping mechanisms

00:47:39.760 faulty as they may be and learning to manage or change them so as to minimize hurt and harm to

00:47:46.540 self and others so like that is how you can incorporate shadow work into if you're into

00:47:52.300 astrology or if you're just on like a journey of self-reflection if you have like those three

00:47:58.280 principles so really looking inward making the unconscious conscious taking responsibility for

00:48:03.740 anything that you don't like that you're seeing in yourself and learning to manage and change them

00:48:08.620 and minimizing the harm to yourself and to other people and that's very much your philosophy on

00:48:13.440 astrology absolutely so you're sort of the opposite of like well i'm a blanky blank and i can't help

00:48:20.160 it you know so no which you've got to sit with the darkness for a while and sift through that

00:48:26.300 yeah and try to come out of it unscathed yeah which isn't always the way but a lot of scathing

00:48:32.800 happens within the shadow work you know because everything gets brought up it bubbles up you have

00:48:38.320 no other choice using shadow a shadow as a metaphor for all of this I just think is really

00:48:43.420 powerful because we've been talking already and we'll talk a little bit more about you know the

00:48:48.540 shadow in the corner of the room and it's something that like feels foreboding and all of that but

00:48:53.300 this is very much about like making friends with your shadow yeah and welcoming it and thinking

00:48:58.820 about how much how it is a part of you and there are parts of you that you have to accept yep you

00:49:06.060 know no matter how much you don't like them unfortunately i think for me it definitely

00:49:11.580 symbolizes that you kind of are going through a bit of a darker time yeah i guess you're within

00:49:19.660 that kind of shadow work era yeah because that's when they start popping up for me you know so i

00:49:25.660 know that okay and like you said it's almost like a direct representation of your mental state of

00:49:32.540 mind and you gotta welcome that yeah and then try to almost like chase it away yeah you know welcome

00:49:41.560 it unravel it and then and then be gone with you yeah and cast it off yeah so let's move into the

00:49:48.180 modern day because while shadow people are definitely creatures of folklore they're part

00:49:52.700 of living memory too. Most reports come from very ordinary people in very ordinary settings and yet

00:50:00.960 the details repeat with airy consistency. In fact shadow people as we know them today really came

00:50:07.900 into the public eye thanks to late night radio. On April 12th 2001 coast to coast AM host Art Bell

00:50:16.960 such a great radio name this is art bill interviewed a native american elder who went

00:50:23.000 by the name thunder strikes that's an even better fantastic name when i was reading that

00:50:28.320 i was like so badass so cool the response was overwhelming listeners flooded the show's

00:50:36.440 website with hundreds of sketches people from all across america drawing the dark

00:50:40.800 silhouetted figures they'd glimpsed in their bedrooms hallways or out of the corner of their

00:50:45.880 eyes. Later that same year, author Heidi Hollis, who I mentioned earlier, published a book that

00:50:51.740 popularized the very term shadow people. She became a regular guest on the program, describing

00:50:57.680 encounters with these beings and even suggesting they weren't ghosts at all, but malevolent

00:51:02.960 extraterrestrials, aliens cloaked in shadow. That interpretation divided people, but it spread the

00:51:09.980 legend far and wide one figure that emerged from these reports has since become infamous

00:51:15.760 the hat man described as a tall silhouette wearing either a fedora or a white brimmed hat

00:51:21.500 sometimes with glowing red eyes the hat man is consistently linked to experiences of sleep

00:51:28.220 paralysis intriguingly even people in drug-induced delirium particularly from large doses of

00:51:35.780 antihistamines so that's your benadryl babes report almost the exact same hat wearing shadow

00:51:42.660 figure benadryl is no joke i took benadryl and went to work one time in canada and had to be

00:51:47.780 sent home it was that bad i tried to count the same five dollar bill about eight times

00:51:52.180 like zach who i worked with was like neve please just leave i was like okay why a fedora though is

00:52:00.180 what i don't know i don't know it must be yeah it's like some kind of like hipster ghost yeah

00:52:06.100 big fan of indiana jones or something i don't know yeah it's just it's a very distinct silhouette

00:52:12.780 for whatever reason but beyond media frenzy and folklore we also have some personal testimonies

00:52:18.820 so these are some that i found across the internet one of the most vivid modern accounts

00:52:24.320 comes from a writer named ian spike he tells it like this growing up he lived in a family

00:52:30.080 compound. After his mother passed away he and his father remained in the main house while his

00:52:36.380 brother and his brother's wife lived in a smaller house on the property. When Ian was a pre-teen he

00:52:41.880 moved into a small room behind the kitchen a place that gave him a little more freedom and

00:52:46.300 independence. One night sometime between six and eight in the evening he was lying in bed in the

00:52:52.600 glow of a single lamp. He wasn't asleep just daydreaming. Suddenly he felt that creeping

00:52:58.220 sensation that he was being watched. He turned his head toward the window and saw a figure staring

00:53:04.040 back at him. At first he thought it was one of his cousins playing a prank. The figure was child

00:53:08.960 sized with a short spiky hairstyle, like something out of a 90s boy band. But the body was completely

00:53:15.840 black. No skin tone, no eyes, no features at all, just darkness. He got out of bed and moved closer 0.96

00:53:23.740 to the window the figure didn't run away instead it receded perfectly in sync with his steps

00:53:30.840 as though it were copying his movements but it wasn't flat like a shadow it had a three-dimensional

00:53:37.520 depth annoyed and thinking it was a trick Ian threw open the door and ran outside right then

00:53:44.380 he bumped into his brother who had been walking over from the other house to get food there was

00:53:49.280 no time for the figure at the window to have slipped past them unnoticed. The yard was fully

00:53:54.000 fenced, the bushes too thin to hide in. Yet when Ian searched the area with a flashlight, there was

00:53:59.780 no sign of anyone. Only later did the shock of it hit him. He might have seen something supernatural.

00:54:06.080 Over time, Ian reflected on what it could have been. Was it a ghost? Maybe, but ghosts are usually

00:54:11.680 translucent, not darker than night. A demon? Possibly. Though he hadn't felt fear, only irritation

00:54:18.620 at being mocked. An alien observer? A trickster fairy from Philippine folklore like a nganto?

00:54:26.080 Each explanation felt possible but none fit perfectly. And what stood out most was that 0.95

00:54:31.860 the figure had been child-sized. When Ian searched online later, he couldn't find other people

00:54:37.680 describing child-shaped shadow beings. Most people saw tall figures, sometimes in hats.

00:54:43.900 His sighting seemed to be an unusual variant and he's never stopped thinking about it.

00:54:48.620 ultimate nightmare i cannot deal with looking out windows no or mirrors at night yeah no i don't

00:54:58.060 know if it was completely dark i can look outside when it's bright but just not when i start oh god 0.93

00:55:01.900 no fucking way you can't say i've ever come across a child's size for you personally yeah shadow 0.64

00:55:08.960 person but yeah the whole thought of it just mimicking and being like mirroring his movements 0.99

00:55:17.380 and being a complete like just kind of trolling him a little bit like oh absolutely not no thank

00:55:24.500 you so we have another shorter one um this is mj weyland story another account this time from mj

00:55:33.320 weyland blends dream and waking terror in her late teens she began to experience violent nightmares

00:55:40.120 dragons thrashing in pools of blood mocking figures cloaked beings demanding her silence

00:55:46.240 One night, while laying in bed, she actually saw one, a cloaked shadow darker than pitch.

00:55:53.720 She felt herself paralysed, unable to scream, while a voice in her head commanded,

00:55:59.340 Come with me.

00:56:00.980 The faceless figure stretched out phantom arms towards her before vanishing.

00:56:06.700 Her account is classic sleep paralysis, with the immobility, mental intrusion, shadow intruders,

00:56:13.760 but like Ian's

00:56:15.560 it left her shaking

00:56:16.900 see the one thing

00:56:18.680 like this said here that it's classic sleep paralysis

00:56:21.680 but usually in sleep paralysis they don't speak

00:56:23.680 so the whole thing about

00:56:25.820 speaking to her 1.00

00:56:26.900 fuck that 1.00

00:56:28.380 absolutely come with me no go away 1.00

00:56:31.700 I'm trying to sleep 1.00

00:56:33.420 get to fuck 1.00

00:56:34.940 I am fucking going nowhere 1.00

00:56:36.220 you couldn't even get me out of bed to go to the shop 1.00

00:56:39.400 definitely not coming with you 0.96

00:56:41.740 cloaked figure man

00:56:42.560 with looming arms 0.99

00:56:45.640 yes absolutely fucking not 0.99

00:56:47.800 so looking across 0.99

00:56:50.040 these reports from anonymous blogs

00:56:52.300 to late night radio and

00:56:54.140 reddit threads and sleep studies

00:56:56.200 several things line up

00:56:57.560 sightings happen at night

00:56:59.800 in dim light or during sleep paralysis

00:57:02.180 the figures are

00:57:03.980 solid black silhouettes often

00:57:05.800 faceless and featureless is that how your

00:57:07.900 shadow can you see

00:57:10.000 through them at all

00:57:10.900 um no they're not translucent really right it's kind of like a solid shadow crazy if that makes

00:57:21.900 sense like it almost like looks like the shadow on your ground but on your ground like on a ground

00:57:29.020 like a shadow that is you know the sun is shining and your shadow is kind of following you

00:57:34.020 it's like that but up okay in real time interesting um like eye level you know but

00:57:43.100 always far away it's never like close yeah from where we're sitting yeah the distances maybe that

00:57:49.980 tables between us you're over on the other couch or particularly further away and why sorry i don't 0.97

00:57:56.420 know what bit you were reading but it's always in fucking bedrooms and hallways it's always in 0.93

00:58:00.560 hallways for some reason i wonder is that because it's like the area that you pass through yeah 0.98

00:58:06.560 hallways are a liminal space in your home yeah so they're a boundary and doorways yeah you see

00:58:13.860 them in doorways um no but i see them in going from one area to another like if it's a big room

00:58:23.120 but you know that there's like an evident line in that room yeah you know that separates the two

00:58:29.560 you will see it in that crossover between one room to the other yeah but it's like let's say

00:58:35.500 my kitchen or living room or whatever i mean like one thing that i'm definitely picking up from this

00:58:40.480 is there are so many different like interpretations and like there's some people that seem seem to be

00:58:46.520 convinced that the hat man is a shadow person and then other people are like no that's exclusively

00:58:50.620 sleep paralysis i see shadow people during the day and like yeah like you see them yeah but it's

00:58:56.860 it's also so hard to explain yeah yeah like it's so hard to explain that to somebody who hasn't

00:59:04.460 seen that before or something you know yeah it's really hard to articulate it in a sentence or a

00:59:11.260 paragraph to explain like what the fuck it actually is yeah or visually how you see because it's a

00:59:16.680 split second it's not yeah it's not hanging around no yeah it's not hanging around for you to be able 0.65

00:59:22.680 to get all of the details of like the outline or the d you know because there are no details it's 0.83

00:59:28.100 just like a flick of a fucking light switch and it's gone yeah it doesn't hang around you know

00:59:35.320 yeah no it's just so like fascinating that like not everybody sees it but there's a subset of 0.98

00:59:42.700 people who do see the same thing yeah you know yeah they almost always appear male or indeterminate

00:59:47.660 feminine shadow people are vanishingly rare which you have said yeah a few times for sure it's it's

00:59:53.680 rarely a female that i have seen a female figure it's predominantly male fear and paralysis are

00:59:59.760 common though not universal sometimes the response is curiosity or confusion instead

01:00:05.040 and finally interpretations vary depending on who you ask these beings are ghosts

01:00:11.180 demons aliens fairies or something else entirely whatever they are shadow people occupy that

01:00:18.420 unsettling borderland between folklore neurology and the paranormal they remain one of the most

01:00:24.640 reported and most debated mysteries of the modern age so because you know it would feel like a bit

01:00:32.660 silly to talk about this and not talk a little bit about the neuroscience that people have

01:00:37.700 theorized and tested around this scientific perspectives suggest that many shadow people

01:00:45.760 encounters are best understood through the interaction of neurobiology psychology and culture

01:00:51.900 one of the most well-documented mechanisms is sleep paralysis in this state an individual

01:00:58.640 awakens during REM sleep while the body's natural paralysis persists the result is a waking

01:01:04.900 consciousness layered over dream imagery, often accompanied by an overwhelming sense of dread.

01:01:13.140 Research indicates that approximately 40% of individuals who experience sleep paralysis

01:01:18.200 also report hallucination, most commonly of shadowy human figures standing in the room,

01:01:24.820 pressing upon the chest, or otherwise approaching the sleeper. These intruder hallucinations are

01:01:31.600 not simply visual they frequently involve tactile and auditory sensations producing an intense

01:01:38.420 immersive experience but that also is not exactly shadow people no as we have been talking about

01:01:46.040 them yeah yeah that's but they do seem to be in a lot of the science around it they do seem to be

01:01:52.180 always lumped together tie in with sleep paralysis yeah or at least maybe it's you know this

01:01:59.880 scientific side of thing the logical mind trying to make sense of it and tie in the two together

01:02:04.900 because it's unexplainable yeah i was guesting on the thick thighs and creepy bodies podcast

01:02:10.920 um such a great name isn't it on monday and i was talking about the witching hour so the hours

01:02:19.460 between midnight and 3 a.m and i was diving into a little bit about that and i mentioned this on

01:02:24.380 their podcast but I saw a video from the Museum of Tarot who were talking about how people basically

01:02:31.700 scanned brains during like sleep and all that there and they found that like there's a lot of

01:02:38.860 sleep paralysis and like ghost sightings and stuff around the witching hour it's so prevalent in

01:02:45.140 folklore a lot of ghost stories or like you know so and so was out walking at midnight and they saw

01:02:48.980 this or whatever it is but they said that like they scanned brains and whatever way they tested

01:02:55.960 but that your brain shows theta waves during that time so these brain waves are the most similar to

01:03:04.720 the way your brain behaves when it's under hypnosis because of the stage of the night

01:03:09.920 and your circadian rhythm and the way that your sleep cycle works so are you depending on your

01:03:16.520 interpretation are you more suggestible or are you more open are you seeing things that are always

01:03:21.480 there you know what i mean yeah um but yeah i just think that's that's fascinating that like

01:03:28.800 biologically our brain behaves in these cycles like we all know our time our body our body like

01:03:37.080 goes through cycles women especially they found like a reason why your brain might be seeing these

01:03:43.960 things or um sensing these things that are already there it'd be interesting to ask people 0.85

01:03:52.060 other people that see shadow people do they sleep with the fucking light on yeah or a light on

01:03:57.620 because i do i do yeah i am like fully at nearly 35 years of age afraid of the dark 0.87

01:04:04.220 and it's solely because in the past when you were a child you are trying to go to sleep and you are

01:04:11.020 seeing these kind of figure things and you're trying to make sense of stuff in the dark and i 0.74

01:04:15.820 was like fuck no yeah i have a hot light on all the time outside the room just crack cracking in 0.96

01:04:24.240 so that i'm able to see everything but often you know something's hanging on the wardrobe yeah 0.99

01:04:29.680 and you're like jesus the hooded figure and then you're like oh no it's just my massive winter

01:04:35.660 how do you know fuck yeah closely related are out of body experiences which can also emerge

01:04:43.020 during these episodes neuroscientific studies show that disrupting the temporal parietal junction 0.96

01:04:48.760 a region of the brain critical for constructing a coherent body schema can reliably induce the

01:04:54.940 sensation of floating outside one's body or observing oneself from a third person perspective

01:05:00.760 In dreams, this region is naturally less active, which may explain why the self can fragment or relocate during sleep paralysis.

01:05:09.900 The shadow person, then, may be understood as a projection of one's own body image, instability, and liminal states of consciousness.

01:05:18.480 I am so happy to say I've never experienced that.

01:05:21.120 I think I would probably go insane personally if I saw my own self.

01:05:27.520 Looking at your self.

01:05:29.100 Looking at myself. 0.72

01:05:30.760 like i've had um what's the word fuck the word association a lot but that's not like

01:05:41.900 i have never experienced association and i find it very hard to understand it's so hard to explain

01:05:47.900 as well yeah i've looked it up because i have like yourself and other friends of mine who have

01:05:52.760 said that they have it and they've experienced it and all that i find it very hard to understand

01:05:57.160 if i'm being honest and i feel like it's one of those things that unless you've experienced it

01:06:01.200 you just but it's not a visual thing you know people often explain it like you're looking at

01:06:05.680 yourself from outside your body but it's not that at all it's like when you start to overthink

01:06:11.200 reality you get completely fucking freaked out that you even exist and that you're a being and 0.59

01:06:17.580 that i don't know it's so hard to explain and then you get like overly anxious about the fact 0.95

01:06:21.540 that you're even fucking alive yeah well the one like this tiny glimpse that i can liken that to

01:06:28.200 is when i watch anything to do with space yeah i start freaking out about how tiny i am in the 0.98

01:06:35.200 grand scheme of things i mean there's people that are like really nihilistic about that and they can

01:06:39.880 get great comfort from like i'm so insignificant yeah the fact that we're nothing yeah i'm not one

01:06:45.380 of those people just like everything's so big but like the visual perspective of you physically

01:06:52.480 looking at yourself oh when you're fast asleep but you're like looming over the bed looking at 0.95

01:06:59.040 your own body like fuck that yeah sleep paralysis sounds terrifying yeah and like i do know a couple 0.98

01:07:06.740 of people that get it quite badly and they they explain it to me and i'm like oh my god because 0.99

01:07:13.260 it's like they cannot wake up from it yeah but they are very much awake at the same time yeah

01:07:19.160 but they can't move their bodies and then all the shit is happening in the room and it's usually 0.99

01:07:24.700 like this like looming fucking shadows creeping over them or trying to fucking kill them or 0.99

01:07:29.200 something and you're like what i'm just very grateful that i don't go through that i mean 0.99

01:07:35.900 i've done some pretty much it in my sleep as you know do we even want to get started on megan i 0.86

01:07:41.720 don't her nighttime adventures and it's so funny because jamie's the exact fucking same like with

01:07:46.720 nighttime wandering and stuff like that but thankfully i don't think either of us have 0.96

01:07:51.600 experienced sleep paralysis just like we are fully asleep going fucking nuts in our sleep 0.79

01:07:57.460 i was staying in a relief house and i was sharing the room with a friend and i was like pulling 0.98

01:08:02.480 back and forth the curtains next to me attached to the fucking wall basically trying to rip them 0.80

01:08:08.560 off and the thing is is when somebody wakes you up out of that you are like so disorientated so 0.91

01:08:14.420 yeah you'll batter the pillows or you'll sit up in bed you don't talk but you do you just make some

01:08:21.740 like speech adjacent noises and then it's kind of like like frankenstein's monster or something

01:08:29.560 like a lot of grunting but like yeah i know what it is now so it just doesn't phase me like i always

01:08:36.240 forget that you do it and then i'm sleeping in the same room and i'm like oh yeah there she goes

01:08:39.940 again anyway we digress we do we digress another important factor is pareidolia the brain's

01:08:46.760 tendency to detect patterns particularly faces and figures in ambiguous stimuli so this is like

01:08:54.080 people saying jesus in burnt toast or they'll see like a face in the clouds or you'll see

01:09:01.680 you know whatever it is that's what pareidolia is if i'm saying that right in low light a coat

01:09:11.080 stand a curtain or even a pile of clothes can be misinterpreted as as a humanoid presence

01:09:16.940 from an evolutionary perspective this bias is adaptive better to mistake a shadow for a

01:09:23.660 potential threat than to overlook a predator in the dark i liked that bit because it was like okay

01:09:28.860 this is just it's your body protecting you stemming from being a human being exactly yeah

01:09:34.480 psychological and psychiatric variables also play a role visual hallucinations of shadowy figures

01:09:41.160 are documented in conditions such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder and are frequently reported

01:09:48.460 during episodes of substance-induced psychosis this megan sent me a very angry voice clip

01:09:55.360 about this 0.97

01:09:56.720 back when I first asked her

01:09:59.240 would she talk about shadow people

01:10:00.720 you were like I'm a bit

01:10:03.100 put out by this because

01:10:04.320 I don't have schizophrenia

01:10:05.880 I was like I know you don't 1.00

01:10:10.700 but you see shadow people 0.99

01:10:11.780 I've been going online and saying I have schizophrenia

01:10:14.220 I'm like I don't think that's what you have Megan

01:10:17.560 I would love if I could like find the voice clip 1.00

01:10:23.080 of you like stomping home from work

01:10:25.080 saying i have schizophrenia sleep deprivation stimulant abuse for example methamphetamine

01:10:32.460 and an anticholinergic delirium for example excessive diphenhydramine can all induce

01:10:41.100 vivid experiences of moving shadows or looming presences extended sleep loss alone sometimes

01:10:47.840 even just 48 hours without rest shout out to our new parents out there god love you and cause

01:10:53.980 shadow-like figures to populate the

01:10:55.840 environment. Neurochemically, these

01:10:57.940 effects are linked to

01:10:59.140 dysregulation of dopamine

01:11:01.940 and serotonin, both of which

01:11:04.120 induce influence perception

01:11:05.880 and threat attribution.

01:11:07.920 I did not know that about dopamine and serotonin.

01:11:10.560 No. Tim used to call it

01:11:11.960 the rats. The rats?

01:11:14.040 Yeah, if you

01:11:15.880 were like on the beer.

01:11:18.560 Oh, like the horrors?

01:11:20.260 Yeah, and

01:11:21.420 he used to call it the rats. The rats?

01:11:23.980 um because you wouldn't have slept and you would yeah you'd start seeing shit because 1.00

01:11:29.840 you're that hungover and fucking tired of your brother isn't he a neuroscientist 0.99

01:11:34.060 he studied it yeah he definitely studied it yeah the rats i've not experienced the horrors but i 0.99

01:11:42.420 remember when i was new to drinking as a teenager and older people talking about it like and telling

01:11:49.160 me like it was inevitable that i would get the horrors like and i've never gotten the horrors

01:11:54.280 where i've like hallucinated or like they were saying oh you'll be like trying to fall asleep

01:11:58.240 that night and you'll see like worms crawling over the walls and stuff and i was like okay

01:12:02.700 the rats yeah i've never experienced that like because of alcohol i would get to fear

01:12:08.000 but i would never experience like hallucinations yeah and now i do have like after a night of like

01:12:15.480 if it was like a heavy night of drinking i would struggle falling asleep like i'd be twitchy and

01:12:20.700 like can't get comfortable and like just feel very very anxious and all out there and that's

01:12:25.460 on top of the fear like thinking that you're yeah but the horror the horrors and the fear

01:12:31.360 are two very different things yes yeah so the horrors are more like nearly like a psychological

01:12:38.840 visual visual yeah yeah like a you can literally every time you close your eyes open your eyes

01:12:45.240 whatever it is you cannot help it like you'll you'll keep seeing things whereas the fear is more

01:12:49.820 what my canadian friends would call padding post-alcohol depression p-a-d yeah so they'd be

01:12:57.560 like i'm padding hard post-alcohol depression yeah i would be like what and then oh the fear

01:13:03.760 whereas we call it the fear yeah capital t capital f the fear the fear the fear do you remember you

01:13:10.520 Do you remember that Owen Colgan

01:13:13.220 Scaled about the fear?

01:13:14.540 Oh my god it's the most hilarious

01:13:17.160 Thing about

01:13:18.180 Like a hangover

01:13:20.340 And he films himself in the bed

01:13:22.960 And it's like this voice talking to him

01:13:24.820 Like well man I'm the fear 1.00

01:13:26.900 You're a fucking shit person 1.00

01:13:29.320 Your family hates you 1.00

01:13:30.760 And you've no house lad

01:13:32.140 Is Owen Colgan the viper?

01:13:34.600 Because that sounds like the voice that you're making

01:13:36.160 He's part of the Hardy books

01:13:39.060 yeah the viper the viper no he's not the viper he's the ginger lad oh the main guy uh no the

01:13:45.980 other kind of red-haired guy with shaved head i can't remember his character's name yes the guy

01:13:50.920 who said met me father and basically talks about how he met his father for the first time they had

01:13:55.540 a fight and then parted ways yes um hardy books is an irish like it was a web series it's kind of

01:14:02.340 like trailer park boys yeah anyone's familiar with the irish version yeah they had like a web

01:14:07.600 series and then they had like a tv show an actual show yeah oh you have you have to watch it it must

01:14:13.940 watch me but it's so funny something you would like to the fear the fear encounters with shadow

01:14:20.680 figures may be understood as confrontations with the unconscious projections of what has been

01:14:26.420 denied or suppressed in this sense the phenomenon is both perceptual and psychological a misfiring

01:14:33.540 of the sensory system entwined with archetypal meaning but i think is that's sort of where we're

01:14:39.820 landing on it it's like your brain is doing these things but it's also that there is a like a greater

01:14:45.440 meaning and there might be a greater sensitivity that you're experiencing so after all this what

01:14:50.300 are shadow people we've traced them from ancient myth the insubstantial shades wandering the greek

01:14:56.680 underworld, the ominous buttock glass of the highlands, the Choctaw's soul-eating Nalusa Chito

01:15:02.760 and the restless duppies and phantoms of the Caribbean. We've seen how cultures across the

01:15:08.420 world connected shadows with the soul, the afterlife and the danger of the unknown.

01:15:14.220 Shadows became warnings, messengers or embodiments of imbalance, the unseen forces just beyond the

01:15:21.140 veil. We've looked at the cultural continuities from the djinn of Islamic lore, shape-shifting

01:15:28.080 and unpredictable, to modern shadow figures that slip between categories, ghosts, demons,

01:15:34.760 extraterrestrials. Each explanation reflects not just belief systems but the human need to

01:15:40.680 make sense of liminal experiences. We've explored the psychological and neurological underpinnings,

01:15:47.640 sleep paralysis, heredolia, hallucinations triggered by sleep loss or chemicals.

01:15:54.140 All of these help explain why so many of us report nearly identical encounters with a figure

01:15:58.860 at the edge of perception. Neuroscience shows us how fragile our sense of body,

01:16:04.520 self and other can be when the brain is in unusual states. Jungian psychology reminds us

01:16:11.520 that our shadows might not only be out there but also inside us the repressed parts of ourselves

01:16:17.760 that emerge in unsettling ways and then there's the modern folklore the hat man the childlike

01:16:25.180 figures the hundreds of stories sent to radio shows and forums the accounts are eerily similar

01:16:31.400 always dark often male never quite identifiable usually encountered in dim light or in states of

01:16:38.760 vulnerability. These testimonies remind us that shadow people are not just a relic of the past

01:16:44.440 they're still with us haunting bedrooms and backyards alike. Perhaps that's the power of 0.94

01:16:51.000 the phenomenon. Shadow people sit at the intersection of science and story, psychology 1.00

01:16:56.560 and folklore. They're part hallucination, part cultural inheritance, part archetype and maybe 0.99

01:17:03.960 something more

01:17:04.760 whether we call them

01:17:06.880 shades

01:17:07.440 duppies

01:17:08.320 gin

01:17:08.940 or simply shadows

01:17:10.140 at the corner of our eye

01:17:11.440 they remind us

01:17:12.580 of a truth

01:17:13.160 as old as myth itself

01:17:14.460 what we fear

01:17:15.680 most often lives

01:17:16.620 in the spaces

01:17:17.340 just beyond

01:17:18.260 what we can clearly see

01:17:19.880 and that is

01:17:27.000 our episode

01:17:27.880 on shadow people

01:17:29.420 so yes

01:17:33.380 I hope you

01:17:33.960 enjoyed it i hope anybody listening goes and checks out my guest spot on thick thighs and

01:17:40.600 creepy vibes it is episode 75 and they're doing a whole month of witchcraft and witchery so be sure

01:17:49.820 to check it out and leave them a comment to show them a little bit of love tell them we sent you

01:17:54.000 as for rowan and pine as i mentioned this is our first of two main episodes this month because we

01:18:02.620 always go hard for october you will also have another short pine cones episode our other main

01:18:08.520 episode will have a let's say very familiar voice i'm sure you can guess who it is so be sure to

01:18:15.040 keep an eye out for that and enjoy the rest of your october thank you megan for helping me out

01:18:21.520 once again and sharing your experience and being vulnerable with us thanks for having me and it's

01:18:28.060 definitely not going to be the last time that you're going to be here because we got to do

01:18:30.920 astrology part two

01:18:32.140 keep an eye on your feeds

01:18:35.220 for the rest of our episodes

01:18:36.980 go follow 0.99

01:18:38.680 Megan because she'll be tagged in 1.00

01:18:41.260 all of the promo for this 1.00

01:18:43.300 and go look at her beautiful photography

01:18:44.920 and thanks for

01:18:47.340 listening and until next

01:18:49.440 time

01:18:50.120 yeah folklore

01:18:52.700 bye

01:19:00.920 I see you.

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Rowan & Pine: A Feminist Folklore & Mythology Podcast - October 22, 2025

Episode Forty-Eight： Spooky Shadow People - The Feeur (with Megan)

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