For today’s episode, Sheryl tells us about sleep paralysis demons. But before that, we talk about a nude carjacking alien abductee, how your dog can catch ‘werewolf syndrome’, and a family that was assigned a haunted council home.

The News

-Nude Car Jacking Alien Abductee

-Werewolf Syndrome

-The Haunted Council Home

TRANSCRIPT:

You know what this is, don’t you? This is voodoo. Nonsensical research and experimentation. Witchcraft. You don’t believe me, do you? The cult is full of superstition, mysticism. We’re scientists. All this talk of scientific explanation. It’s gentle, that’s what it is. It’s your imagination, I think, my imagination. It’s not, I tell you. Here, I know what it is. It’s here.

Probably Cursed. Welcome, Probably Cursed listeners, to episode 17 of the Probably Cursed podcast. For today’s episode, Sheryl tells us about sleep paralysis demons. But before that, we talk about a nude, carjacking alien abductee, how your dog can catch werewolf syndrome, and a family that was assigned a haunted council home. This is your host, Chris.

And I’m Sheryl. So as we do at the start of every episode, we will calibrate our Lord Carnarvon Curse-O-Meter, the amazing device that helps us determine the cursedness of all things. And we feed it three news stories from recent articles we find online. The quirky, the weird, the strange. And our Curse-O-Meter will tell us exactly how cursed they are.

On a rating of seven different levels of cursedness. I will feed in the first news story here. The title of this article is Florida Man Claims Alien Abduction After Nude Carjacking Attempt with Knife. This was from January 6th by Jack Hobbs for TheMirror.com. If Florida Man, we should do a Florida Man episode.

We should do a Florida Man episode.

Like we were talking earlier off air about if a person can be encrypted. And I think Florida Man. Florida Man counts. A Florida Man reportedly told the Palm Beach Police Department that he had been abducted by aliens and that he wanted to die after they arrested him for attempting to steal a car while completely nude. Police who were responding to the call stated that the man was caught outside of a residence around 5.30pm by a witness who stated that the man wielded a large knife and was carving his initials into the side of a car.

Sounds like something somebody would do after being abducted by aliens.

It’s true. You gotta get the message out. Something like, you know, the doom is coming.

Yeah, or ST plus CM equals heart. Exactly.

Yes. Deputies added that in addition to his initials, he also carved several pictures and symbols on the vehicle’s exterior, which I was not able to find pictures of, which is a little… Disappointing, yeah. It’s a bummer.

Yeah. The owner of the car who reportedly knew the man said that when he came out, the man demanded the keys to the vehicle while threatening him with his knife. When the victim attempted to retreat, he followed him, prompting the man to make a break for his home where he was able to shut and lock his door. When they were unable to enter the home, he went back to disfiguring the car and even punctured the tires. Which is just insult injury.

Yeah. Police, who arrived at scene shortly after, found the man completely naked in the driveway. The owner of the car later told deputies that he had never seen the man act this way. The man was booked into jail on counts of attempted carjacking with a weapon and criminal mischief over a thousand dollars.

During an appearance in court on Friday, a judge signed an order for the man to be placed under house arrest and ordered that he undergo a mental health evaluation before being released from custody.

This is going to be like that story of the car with the three naked people that happened here in Alberta where they drank tea. They shouldn’t have been drinking.

Oh, right. Yeah. I thought you were going to talk about the one from South Korea where that lady came out and saw a man fully on making love with her pink car.

Oh, I mean, that is also accurate. But this feels more like the people from near us that…

Yeah, that weird… That whole story was weird.

That whole story was weird. They drank some tea that had hallucinogenic effects. Which is what they claimed. Yes. And ended up stealing a car and a few people and drove around naked. Yep.

I think they thought the world was ending.

Yes, that’s correct.

Which, I don’t know if your car is going to get you away from the world. No.

I 100% think that’s what this is. The guy drank the accidental tea.

He probably donated the food bank when he was next. Right? Cheryl will feed in the second news story to the Curse-O-Meter.

This is an article titled UK Warning Over Dog Treats Linked to Werewolf Syndrome. This is from July 15th by Neil Shaw for the Bristol Post.co .uk. The Food Standards Agency is advising dog owners to not feed their pets a list of dog treats from China, following concerns with possible link to serious behavioural changes which have been now called Werewolf Syndrome. Oh. Freddie didn’t even move.

No. Symptoms include panic attacks, aggressions, spasms, epileptic fits, and in some cases death. Wait, so how is that Werewolf Syndrome? Like the aggression? Okay, sure. But the rest that just doesn’t fit.

Well, you know how werewolves

just straight up and die on you. Just pitch right over after their heart stops. That’s right. The head agency, or the head of incidents at the Food Standards Agency said, while there is no confirmation, there’s no confirmed distribution of affected products to the UK, there is a possibility that some consumers may have purchased these online from international sellers.

Amazon. Yeah, no safe dog shoes, no unsafe dog shoes have been identified. But based on the international investigation so far, we are advising dog owners to avoid feeding the affected shoes to dogs as a precaution. There is no evidence to suggest that these products may pose a risk to human health. Okay, first of all, don’t order your dog treats off Timu or AliExpress. Yeah. Just don’t. And don’t eat your dog treats.

Yeah, those are for your good boy or good girl.

I mean, we have, I will admit, in my childhood, I did eat some carob dog treats that kind of looked like chocolates, but I learned that they taste nothing like chocolate. It was severely disappointed.

I tried one of Freddie’s dehydrated chickens that we picked up in Montana. Tasty.

Yeah, okay, good. Yeah. Sweet chicken.

Sweet honey glazed chicken with all the water taken out. Nice.

I mean, but that wasn’t from China. Those were made in the United States.

That’s true. Who knows what’s in there? That’s right. Bird food these days, but this was last summer. Yeah. It was probably just bird cold.

So that was our second story. It’s Chris’s turn to feed in our third story.

The story I have is titled, Family terrified by paranormal activity and big council for new home after objects fly around. This is from December 23rd of last year by Anthony Clements, thrower for the mirror.co .uk. A mother told a court paranormal activity in her council home left her terrified for her children’s safety as objects in the house flew around after being moved to a new house due to a mold problem. The new property they were moved to has caused her to be fearful for her children due to paranormal activity.

If that’s all it takes for them to move you to a new home. I mean, may as well try something new and see if you can get a better home. Yep. Yeah.

I want no mold. Oh, and I also want no ghosts. And I also don’t want werewolf syndrome in my dog. Yes. The mum explained since they moved in numerous objects in the new house have been flown from side to side while doors and a table and chair were moving in front of our eyes. Objects flew out of the cupboard she opened while making food for her children. The mother said she contacted the previous occupant of the house who wrote them a letter she described as beyond traumatic.

She claimed she brought the letter to the attention of the council but was laughed at in a meeting. She said everyone deserves a home. I never asked for a mansion. I asked for a safe home for my kids. There was no information on how this was the most traumatic letter she’d ever been written.

The handwriting was atrocious. She couldn’t read it. She’s like, this is awful. It was a doctor’s writing. And her grammar. Her spelling. How dare they.

The judge told her he understood her concern about the second house experiencing paranormal activity and her fears for the safety of her children. But a third house would mean a new application to the local authority.

Sorry guys. The judge does not believe in ghosts and is not doing anything.

It’s true. There’s still bureaucracy that you need to follow. You need to fill out the proper forms. You need to get moved to the correct house. Yep. Alright. So all three news stories have been entered into the Curse-O-Meter. We will now get it to tabulate the results. Please stand by. And for the first news story about the alien abductee who is stealing a car, the Curse-O-Meter says definitely cursed.

Yeah. That guy, he’s seen some things or he’s experiencing some things.

We need the photos of what he carved into that car. Yeah.

To make a full determination.

Like what if the aliens were warning us? Yeah. What if they were warning us about that planetary alignment from last month?

Or what if they just want to set up some sort of trade route and they want to trade our goods for their goods and then we could get alien technology.

The space silk road. Yeah. The results for the second news article about. Werewolf syndrome. About werewolf syndrome. The Curse-O-Meter says. Definitely cursed. It’s not good for your dog. What’s worse is they don’t even turn into a werewolf.

No. It just sounds like it kills them and puts them through extreme suffering. Yeah. As I’ve said earlier and I will reiterate again, do not buy dog treats from Timu or AliExpress. I know the stuff is cheap, but it’s cheap for a reason.

You don’t even know what they put in there.

No. If you can’t read the ingredients on a container, do not consume.

Unless you’re feeling very, very immortal. Uh huh. And the results for the third news story about the family seeking a new home because the second home they were given was full of ghosts. The results say probably cursed. Yeah.

No one wants to be put into government housing only to find that their house is haunted.

You’re already on social welfare programs, so you’re not doing so well economically. And then you’ve got a ghost living in your house, throwing dishes around, not cleaning up after themselves.

On the bonus side, if those dishes were provided by the government, they’re just going to have to keep you buying you more dishes.

Especially if you hate that dish. The ghost tipped it over. It’s on the floor in pieces because there’s ghosts in this house. That’s right. Well, we have the Curse-O-Meter properly calibrated for Cheryl’s topic for this episode. But before we move on to that, we’re going to head over to the probably cursed museum and gift shop for today’s artifact. Today we introduce artifact 17 into what we affectionately call the probably cursed museum and gift shop. A collection of cursed looking items we have curated during our travels to thrift shops, antique stores, and estate sales. Every month we put one up from our collection for sale. Artifact 17 is a clay piggy bank sculpture of a small girl holding a kitten.

We originally picked up this item from the thrift shop due to its striking appearance. Its outfit is white and crimson, and the crimson paint is cracking. The girl has a vacant expression on its face, which makes it look even more unnerving with its all black eyes. It’s a black eyed child. Yep.

No other way of describing it is literally a creepy black eyed child.

Yep, the girl has all black eyes like the supernatural tales of the black eyed children. Which if you’re unfamiliar with black eyed children, they look exactly like the name describes.

We might do an episode on them eventually, who knows?

Yep, they’re not, they don’t seem quite human, and they seem a bit unhuman. They’ll knock on your door and window and insist they get inside and people who have encountered them feel an overwhelming sense of dread with the black eyed children. Cheryl was able to track down this artifacts origin to likely be from the 1970s, made by the Universal Statuary Company. And now defunct sculpture company that was sold in the 80s and has been passed around to various owners ever since. If you’d like to take a look or have it for your very own self, go to probablycursed.etsy.com to take a look. Your purchase helps fund our podcast and goes towards our future plan of having our very own physical, visitable museum.

The item in question is also very fitting with the paranormal activity that has happened in our house as of late. A couple nights ago, I woke up at 4.30 in the morning to what sounded like a little girl giggling in my ear.

Yeah, I wonder if it was artifact 17.

Could have been. I know last month we did an experiment with our previous item, but maybe we should have done it with this one.

Yep, we can still do it. You can keep an eye on our social media to see if we also try to commune with the spirit attached to this item.

Yeah, it was a little unnerving and pretty much after that I did not go back to sleep, so my night was done.

We don’t have children.

No, we have zero children in the house. We have a bird who sometimes cackles but does not sound like a little girl giggling.

Yep, sounds like a parrot. And our dog does not sound like a little girl either.

No, I’m disappointed in him that he didn’t try to save me from the giggling girl ghost, but what can you do?

He’s getting a little bit lazy. I’ll have to punish him. Yeah, and earlier that same night I swore I heard thunder in the middle of the night.

Which for those of you who don’t know, we don’t get thunder typically in the winter in Canada. In January. Yeah, no, it just doesn’t happen. So to hear that, we actually went to go look up to see if there had been earthquake activity.

Yeah, I thought it might have been an ice quake, which is a thing that happens.

Yep, couldn’t find anything, so no clue what that is.

No, spooky night thunder. That takes us to the end of our Probably Cursed Museum and Gift Shop segment. We’ll move on now to the main topic of today’s episode.

So as I’m sure some of our listeners are aware, which by those listeners that are aware, I mean our friends, I struggle with chronic insomnia. For those of you also struggling with chronic insomnia, you are not alone and it sucks. And this episode is dedicated to the rest of us who cannot sleep at night.

The ones who live in the darkness and don’t sleep through it.

So today I want to discuss sleep paralysis creatures and monsters from a movie monster to a Slavic goddess and some random ones in between. Let’s take a look at some literal nightmares.

So to start, let’s talk about our movie monster and the creepy real life origins of a dream-invading medis. Of course, I’m talking about Freddy Krueger. The namesake for our dog, Freddy. Freddy.

He’s passed out. He’s invading people’s dreams as we speak.

It’s very cute watching him bork and twitch in his sleep. Also wondering if that’s a sleep paralysis demon.

Dogs have their own sleep paralysis demon dogs.

Anyway, if you haven’t seen the Nightmare on Elm Street movies, I would recommend them.

You’re showing them all to me bit by bit. I think we’re about halfway through.

Yeah, they’re a good time. For those of you who don’t know and maybe want to determine if it is the right movie for you, Freddy Krueger is a child-killer who was burned to death only to return as a ghost to seek revenge for murder by killing the oldest child of the people who killed him. Oh, the eldest child. Yeah, it wavers back and forth, but it did start as being the eldest child of.

I didn’t know that. I thought he was just sort of… Randomly killing children. Yeah, whoever was in the cast.

Yeah, I mean, as you saw with one of them, it has nothing to do with the town at all. The only character that is actually from the original that their parents may have killed Freddy Krueger is the reoccurring lead. Everyone else has nothing to do with that original story, so it kind of goes off the rails. Okay. Yeah, but it started that way.

Right, he’s putting it together as he goes.

Yes. I don’t think they thought they were going to get a second movie, so.

When you’re a dream murderer, I mean, you got to improvise.

So, although the story of Freddy Krueger is fictional, Wes Craven has actually admitted that the story was inspired by true events. Wow. So a bit of preface here. I don’t know what I was expecting when I wrote up the part about the true story behind Freddy Krueger. I think originally I was hoping it was going to be entertaining, but it’s actually very sad. So I apologize in advance. If you don’t want to hear this part, maybe skip ahead five minutes, itch.

I don’t think you need to apologize if Wes Craven already turned it into entertainment.

You’ll see what I’m talking about. Okay. Yeah, maybe skip ahead about five minutes and it should get through what I’m talking about. So a decade before Nightmare on Elm Street hit theaters, a young boy died after confessing to his parents that he was worried he was going to be attacked in his dreams and never wake up.

The boy had immigrated to the United States with his family after escaping the killing fields of Cambodia. One moment as the ambulance passes. Fire truck. Someone just got killed in their dream.

Freddy, what did you do? So for context, the killing fields were following the end of the Vietnam War. More than a million Cambodians were executed and their bodies were buried in various sites which are now known as the killing fields of Cambodia. Many Cambodians fled to the United States, Thailand, France, Australia, and Canada to escape the chaos.

More than 100,000 Cambodians resettled in the United States. It is suspected that the boy had PTSD due to what he had seen in Cambodia, which caused the vivid nightmares, and then which in turn turned into the fear about nightmare attacks in his sleep, causing him to stay up for many days at a time.

He was dreading falling asleep?

Yes, he was worried about being attacked in his sleep and dreading. He stopped sleeping altogether to try to escape his recurring nightmares. Unfortunately, there are only so many days one can stay awake without ill effects.

And it’s not that long. No. Get your sleep, people.

Yeah, and the risk of falling asleep dramatically increases the more you stay awake. When the boy finally fell asleep, it brought a bit of relief to his parents to see him finally go to bed. However, in the middle of the night, they woke up to the sound of their son screaming in his sleep, and they ran into the room in the hopes of waking him up from the horrible nightmare only to find that the boy was already dead. He had died mid-nightmare.

Crazy. Yeah. Just like he thought would happen.

Just like he was worried was going to happen. The boy wasn’t the only Southeast Asian refugee in the United States to die under mysterious circumstances while sleeping. Over 100 men between the ages of 19 and 57 died in their sleep in the United States by the time the first Freddie Krueger movie was released.

Wow. Most of the deaths occurred between 10pm and 8am with some reports of paramedics arriving to find the men with rapid heart rates that could not be slowed. Autopsies were done on the men and they were found to have no previous conditions like health conditions that would have led to cardiac arrest and no potential causes of death linked to damage to brain or lungs. No poisons or unusual toxicology findings were reported and the condition was eventually named sudden unexplained death syndrome. It’s got a death curse. And researchers discovered that the longer the refugees lived in the United States, the lower the risk became for men dying from the sudden death syndrome.

Well, the American dream is pushing out the nightmare.

I guess so. There has been some mention of men who that the men who died may have had slightly enlarged hearts. But not all the sources I tracked down mentioned the heart sizes being a problem. So of note, the CDC is asking people to report any known occurrences of the syndrome to their organization.

So if you got a friend that this happened

to, the CDC wants to hear from you. He would like to know. I can’t tell for sure if it still occurs because that sort of stuff is not usually made public.

It’s true. And it’s hard to find any information online now. That’s firsthand and also truthful.

But if it does still occur based on the fact that it’s getting less and less the longer people live in the United States, it’s likely to be low occurrences if it occurs at all. As you’re all aware. This is technically a comedy podcast. It’s entertainment. It’s entertainment. So let’s lighten the mood by talking about the goddess Morana. So in Canada, we’re just at the tail end of our winter season.

Goddess Morana. She’s the one who fights with Maui against volcano monsters.

Yeah. No, it’s definitely not the same. Although that would make for a very fun topic. I wanted to see that in the next Disney. You should message your sister and tell her that that’s the next Morana movie. We’re pitching Morana. So the reason she is the perfect topic for this time of year is not only is Morana the goddess of nightmares. She’s also the goddess of winter, witchcraft and death.

No, those all coalesce together.

Especially when you live outside. Morana is seen as a prominent figure in Slavic mythology. So she’s known by many names. So Marzana in Serbia, Slovakia and Macedonia. Marina in Russia. Mora in Croatia. Mara in Ukraine.

Maron in Germany. Mare in English. She may have even been the reason why we call bad dreams nightmares. Nightmare.

Yeah. Stories about Morana vary from region to region. But the most common story is that Morana is the daughter of the Thunder God Perun. And twin sister of Yaro. And when the twins were young, Yaro was kidnapped by the God Welles and taken to the underworld.

Now at the time Morana was the goddess of nature and Yaro was the God of agriculture. So when Yaro returned from the underworld, neither of them recognized each other at this point. They didn’t remember what the other one looked like.

They didn’t know if I was right. But they’re twins? They’re twins. So they’re just like that person looks just like me? Yeah.

Well, they actually fell in love and got married. Oh. That’s how much they didn’t recognize each other.

I mean there are those couples that get married that look strikingly alike.

It also happened like a lot in Egyptian times. Just married or sibling. There’s nothing wrong with it.

I guess so. This is why you and I, we don’t like traditional values. We like more progressive values.

Yes, more progressive values. Their marriage brought balance and peace to the natural world. It was great for farmers and their crops. So nature was in balance with agriculture.

Our marriage brings you spooky tales.

However, like most stories of Gods, Yaro couldn’t keep it in his pants. And he ended up cheating on Morana. Yaro. Morana lashed out and ended up killing Yaro. This betrayal ended up making Morana bitter and cold, which led to the wintery persona that she is known for today. This feud is also the reason we have seasons.

So you can blame Yaro and not being able to keep it in his pants.

Yes, for why we have really, really cold winters. It’s all in his fault. Each autumn Morana kills Yaro and spends the winter stewing over the situation. And then in spring Yaro returns with the Goddess of Spring, which I couldn’t find the name of who the Goddess of Spring was. Karen. Sure. And kills Morana. So that’s why neither Morana or Yaro can exist at the same time.

They’re just bitter exes.

They can’t move on. They kill each other year after year for the rest of eternity. To add insult to injury, the death of Morana is celebrated every year on the spring equinox. And it’s a popular festival in Poland, where an effigy of Morana is either drowned or burned as a way to celebrate the end of winter. Wow. But yeah.

You get cheated on and then people celebrate your death. This is, she’s an unfortunate lady.

Yeah. Goddess. Yeah. I don’t know. Seems very unfair. At this point, some of you might be asking, well, what does this have to do with nightmares and sleep problems? Well, it’s been said. Nightmare.

Yes. It’s been said that Morana has control over nightmares and could enter the dreams of mortals, often bringing illness or even death to those who slept for too long. So don’t sleep in guys. Oh. Yeah.

Maybe that was something Yaro also did. He would just sleep until noon and wouldn’t do any chores because he was asleep all the time.

Yeah. Now she just gets angry anytime anyone sleeps past like eight hours.

She’s going to bust her way into your dreams and wake you up. Yeah. Make sure you do the vacuuming.

Normally, Morana is depicted as a woman who sits or rides on the chest of her victims to conjured nightmares. So like a sucky-bye. Yeah. She also causes sleep paralysis and drinks the blood of men. Okay.

Yeah. Like a vampire.

Yeah, sucky-bye. Yep. Morana can affect both humans and animals and take on the guise of an animal, commonly the form of a cat or a horse. She has been observed in some stories to be even a tuft of hair that strangles its victim. Which like that is the lamest thing to turn into.

That’s kind of the most Freddy Krueger. Yeah. Because he would turn into random things and kill them.

Yeah. Didn’t turn into animals, it was just random objects.

Just a tuft of hair. Yeah. Your hairbrush on the counter starts moving and then all the hair pulls itself free and it starts spider crawling towards you.

Yeah. Yeah, that would be Morana, I guess. It is also claimed that she would enter the dreams of men and torture them with saucy and seductive dreams only to share those same explicit dreams with their sleeping partner. Their partner or spouse that is sleeping next to them at the same time. Oh.

Yeah, so. Your private dreams. Your private dreams, your sexy private dreams are being shared with your partner. It’s not a good time. I’ve had exes in the past who get angry at me because something happened in their dreams and I wish I could have told them it was Morana, it wasn’t me. Yes, that’s right. I’ll message those people out of the blue now.

You’ll just send them this episode like, you’ll be like, look.

Remember that dream you had that made you very angry? It was Morana.

Mm-hmm. I found also some references to Morana being a demon who is formed of the souls of the dead but could also be formed by the souls of living women who were never married. Which. That’s my sister. Yeah. It sounds a little bit, I don’t know, Christian influences maybe? Yep. Unmarried women are the devil.

It’s funny like how much misfortune befalls a woman who just doesn’t get married. Yeah. They become demons or part of the body of a demon. Yeah.

So thank you for saving me from being a part of Morana’s birth into the world. I’m not sure how it works. You’re welcome. Yeah. In all honesty though, like just leave all the single and lovin’ ladies alone. Yep. They have every right to. They got hobbies. Yeah.

They have the right to do whatever they want. Either way, Morana is described as a pale woman with black or light blonde hair carrying a sickle or a scythe. And can be either a beautiful woman or a demonic creature with claws and fangs.

Depends how she’s feeling that day. She’s feeling fancy.

Yeah, I was gonna say, she likes to shake things up a bit. She’s not one dimensional. Which, that’s mostly information I could find. But it’s also a good segue to talk about some other of my favorite sleep paralysis creatures from around the world. There are so many to pick from. And I could only pick a few. But I tried to pick the most interesting ones. Okay. So.

The hits. The top tens.

Yes. And before anyone starts to complain about what about the old hag? Why didn’t you mention the succubus although Chris did? You’re welcome. Yes. These entities are so popular. There are so many stories that maybe at some point we might decide to do an episode on them separately.

There’s enough there to be its own episode. There’s definitely, especially old hag stories. Yeah. Yeah. So, because I don’t want this episode to take forever. And also, I don’t want the episode to take 24 hours worth of research for me to put this all together.

So this will be part of a series of sleep paralysis demons.

It might. I had a boat theme going on, but I’ve kind of kiboshed that for now just so that we don’t get too many boats in the row. Yeah.

Messages if you want more boat episodes. Boat episodes. Or dream demon episodes.

I’ll get into these stories when I feel like it. So don’t judge me. Anyway. I digress. On to my other favorite stories. So in Kashmiri mythology, there is an invisible creature known as a rush. Everyone has a rush in their house, but the rush only attacks you if your house has not been cleaned.

Oh, I didn’t do all my chores today.

I didn’t. I haven’t done them in like three weeks. It has also been noted to torment people and take who take pleasure in other people’s misfortune. Okay.

Yeah. So no shot and Freud. No. There’s also a spirit from Arabian folklore called Mokhthi

who appears as a man with a golden fez.

Just a regular guy and a golden fez.

Yeah. And he shows up to torment women who are tired or suffer.

Have you seen this man with a golden fez? Uh-huh.

Yeah. So women who are tired or who are suffering and stops them from moving. I don’t know why he’s picking on these four women. Probably single women too. It is believed that if you break free from Mokhthi’s grasp and steal his golden fez, he will grant you one wish. Just to get it back.

Yes. But he’s also likely to visit you more frequently. But at least when he visits you more frequently, it’s in a less harmful way. He’s not going to attack you again.

Do you… So this just gives… This creates a more opportunity for you to steal his fez and get another wish.

Yes. That’s correct. Okay. The infinite wishes. But I don’t know if that point like once he’s stole his fez, he’s like, yeah, we’re friends now and he doesn’t even try anymore. Yeah. Like he just shows up to be like, hey, how’s it going? You’ve bested me.

And he just wants to be friends. Yeah. He sees you as an equal. Yeah. But what if you let him down and you wish for him not to come back?

I don’t know. Didn’t look into that.

Probably just breaks down in tears.

And ladies, don’t worry. There’s actually a way to protect yourself from Mokhthi. All you need is to put your husband’s hat near your pillow when you sleep and it will protect you from his visit. So just sleep with your hat next to you.

Imagine the first person who figured that out. Yeah. And did you know like they didn’t show up or did you put it on the pillow in the middle of the night? You saw him enter the room and he’s like, ah, there’s a hat on the pillow. Turns around and leaves.

Yeah, never mind. I don’t know. Or is it just like the correlation versus causation effect where like somebody was like, ah, I’ve been sleeping with my husband’s hat next to me. And everyone else in town is like, I haven’t terrorized with this creature and like golden feathers that keeps trying to bother me.

And she’s like, ah, but I have my husband’s hat next to me. That’s gotta be why I don’t see him. There are also similar tales from Sardinia in Italy. You guys are gonna have to bear with me here. But the name of this demonic creature is the Atmuttadori. And it sits on the chest of its victim to suffocate them. And it has been reported to tear at the victim’s skin with its nail. This might also be a cat. Yes. Leaving scratches and bruises for people to find in the morning, which I’ve definitely woken up and found strange bruises. Hmm.

You were visited by a matadori? I guess so.

In some areas of Sardinia, the Atmuttadori is adorned with seven red hats or caps. And if the victim manages to steal one of the red hats, they will find their way to a hidden treasure when they wake up.

Yeah. I wonder why there’s so much hat related fortune.

I have no idea. But it’s maybe because dreams come from the head and the idea is that if you, I don’t know, steal one of the hats, your head is protected. Maybe. I have no idea.

We’re gonna have to test this out. If we ever go to Italy and we see a weird creature sitting on our chest with seven hats. Yeah.

It’s got to be Sardinia. Oh, Sardinia. Yeah, Sardinia in Italy.

We’ll find a reason to go to Sardinia.

Yeah. And the final one that made this list that I feel a lot of pet owners can relate to is Peasanta from Catalonia. So Peasanta is an enormous black dog looking at Freddy. Sometimes described as a cat.

Yeah, as a cat or a dog. You know, they all look alike.

It’s just an enormous black thing with ears. It sneaks into people’s houses through the keyholes of their door.

I’m glad our keyhole doesn’t extend into the inside of the house.

And lies down on the chest of its victim. The victim, the pinned victim will have horrible nightmares and describe feeling crushed, making it difficult to breathe while they’re sleeping.

Bad dog. Bad cat. Is, um, is it wearing a hat?

No. Although I feel like they should all be wearing hats. The Peasanta is described as a black hairy creature with steel paws, but the steel paws have holes in them so that the creature is unable to grab things or pick things up.

Oh, it just falls right through its hands?

Yep. To avoid a visit from the Peasanta, one must spread millet on the threshold of your bedroom and place a broom next to your bed.

To clean up the millet after in the morning?

Not sure. Um, my thought was Freddy is really afraid of our broom, so.

Oh yeah, her dog’s afraid of the broom.

And he’s mostly black, so.

If his toy rolls into the kitchen and it rests against the broom, he can’t approach the toy.

Yeah, so that was kind of my thought was that if it is a large dog, it’s afraid of brooms.

He is a sleep paralysis dog. He is. He just doesn’t lie in our chest.

Yeah. So before you all go to sleep tonight, gather up your broom and some millet. Maybe your spouse’s hat and set them in the correct relocations for the night. And if you don’t end up with a sleep paralysis demon, it’s probably because the preventative measures are working.

You can thank us. Yes. You can leave us five stars on our podcast.

Send us a couple episodes suggestions.

Yep. If you manage to score a wish out of our episode, also leave a message and take a photo of yourself with the golden fez.

Yeah. We would love to know what you wished for if you’re allowed to share that secret.

Well, I liked your collection of sleep paralysis demons. Thank you. We will take your sleep paralysis demon topic into the Curse-O-Meter here and get it to spit out the results. Please stand by.

And the result says definitely cursed. It’s true. Even if sleep paralysis demons aren’t a thing, not sleeping is terrible.

And if it is a thing, like now you got to knock off some stranger’s hat.

Yeah. Or keep a broom next to your bed and sprinkle millet all over your floor. Just to go to sleep. Yeah. Just feels very inconvenient. Yeah.

And if you have relatives already doing this, I hope we explained a few things to you that you’ve always wondered about. Yeah.

Be like, why does my aunt keep bringing my uncle’s hat to bed with her every night? You’ll now know why.

Or who is this strange man who keeps visiting my aunt after she won the lottery? That’s right. Well, I very much enjoyed that story of sleep paralysis demons. I’m going to keep an eye out when I go to bed tonight. I’ll have sleep with one eye open to see who comes visits.

Hopefully it’s not the giggling girl from the other night. Yeah.

I don’t think she was handing out any wishes was she. No. Just laughing. Yeah. Don’t come into our house and laugh at us in the middle of the night. Yeah.

I wouldn’t appreciate it.

That brings us to the end of today’s episode. We will be back again next month on the first to bring you another topic, one I have yet to pick. But I bet it’ll be good. I only choose things that I enjoy. So if you enjoy it, then you’re just like me.

If you skipped ahead for whatever reason for our last episode, you can now find us on Blue Sky.

Yep. Find us on Blue Sky. Also Tumblr, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram. Unless by the time this airs, Facebook’s been canceled out completely.

And TikTok has been removed. Yeah.

Yeah. And TikTok’s been deleted. Yeah. You can see us on the Blue Sky.

You can also email suggestions for podcast episodes to probablycursedpodcast@gmail.com.

And you can view the artifacts we release with every episode on probablycursed.etsy.com. If you also have a cursed object or artifact that you need to get off your hands, we will take it off your hands. Just send us an email and we will set all that up.

Contact us through any of our socials if you’re not comfortable giving your email address for reasons.

Yep. Type in all caps. That way we know that it’s urgent. That the doll is running at you with a pair of scissors and you need it out of your house now. And until next time, stay spooky everyone.