While trying to work on our upcoming new episode (with a special guest), Eric and Jordan discovered that our technology is having some issues (Jordan blames poltergeists, because that makes about as much sense to her as computers)! Since we need a bit more time to fix our problems so we can have a two-way conversation with our interviewee, we’re resurrecting another one of our Season 1 episodes (now with a new intro) from the Horrific History Podcast Crypt for your squeamish delight!

 

The Waking Nightmare: Sleep Paralysis

Have you ever had the experience of waking up but being unable to move? Did you feel the sensation of “the intruder” in your room restraining you? At least 40% of the population has had this experience and people from different times and places have had different explanations for it. Eric Slyter and Curtis Bender, your co-hosts, explore folklore and the paranormal as they dig into the history of sleep paralysis through the ages.

 

Discover how these “waking hallucinations” have taken the form of witches, demons, vampires, fairies, ghost children and more (as well as which new theme only appeared after the space race)! Nightmares such as these have been connected (usually erroneously) to all sorts of things in the waking hours, from the Salem witch trials to UFOs and alien abductions! It all depends upon which dream interpretation (or doctor!) you choose! But, if you see in your life the expected result after such an encounter in your waking dreams, would it be a case of causation or correlation?

 

When people from all parts of the world from all across time have similar experiences but see or interpret it differently depending upon their cultural background and time in history, could it be that it’s all the same thing? If you’re religious you’re likely to experience demons or possession. If you like horror movies, sci-fi or conspiracy theories it might be aliens or monsters. And, those with exposure to fantasy or fairy folklore may see goblins or similar fanciful creatures. Depending upon the dream, it wouldn’t be at all uncommon to even have an erotic angle (though we’re not sure if that is more or less traumatic if you’re dreaming of aliens, demons or monsters). Hopefully, you would take to it like Tina Belcher from Bob’s Burgers and her dreams of zombies.

 

Gastric distress, raccoon scrotums, and house spirits, this episode has it all! Whether you’re interested in things that go bump in the night or how cultural influences can impact your dreams, you’ll find it in this brand new Horrific History Podcast episode! And if this edition inspires a dream, we hope you’ll tell us about it!

 

So sit back and enjoy this episode through one of your favorite podcast services (iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn and more)!

 

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Some of our favorite resources from this week’s episode:

 

Horrific History Podcast

 

Commercial break music by Dead but Dreaming.

Slideshow Painting By Henry Fuseliwartburg.eduimage, Public Domain, Link

Blog Image: The Nightmare by Johann Heinrich Fussli

How have people through history thought of and approached reproduction and family planning? Would you trust their birth control methods or consider it another case of the fallacy of ancient wisdom? Join our co-hosts, Eric Slyter and Jordan Watney, as they explore the history of documented birth control methods in ancient Egypt and the evolution of reproductive theory from antiquity to modern history. How do the solutions they devised fit into the context of the culture and their understanding of how conception worked; were their ideas a result of causation or correlation? Why was crocodile dung so significant in ancient Egypt? What does modern science indicate […]

Horrific History Podcast has hit (and exceeded) a new milestone, so we’re bringing you a special episode with a guest host you’ll remember from Season 1: Curtis Bender! We hope you’ll enjoy this special recording for our 10,000-12,000 download milestones! So join us for this change of pace and hear about how the destruction of an old hospital gave Curtis rat problems, how the air quality is impacting him at work, and how all of that ties into this brand new special episode.

 

Listen now to learn how the 1952 Great London Smog fits the theme […]

While working on our upcoming new episode, Eric and Jordan discovered that there are three noteworthy celestial events coming up! Since they need a bit more time to finish the summer tour of one of our other programs which goes to libraries all across the Pacific Northwest for Summer Reading programs, we decided to raise another one of our Season 1 episodes (now with a new intro) from the Horrific History Podcast Crypt for your squeamish delight!

Harbingers of Doom: Celestial Events and Superstitions

 

Aztec Sun Stone

What kind of superstitions or myths do you think of when you look up at the stars? Every culture has them; there have been stories developed all over the world to explain star constellations or natural phenomena like solar and lunar eclipses, comets, meteors and more. When the sun provides warmth to help the crops grow and night skies are used to measure the passage of time, it’s not surprising that any unexpected or unusual phenomenon is assigned meaning when the science isn’t sophisticated enough to distinguish between causation and correlation. Horrific History co-hosts, Eric Slyter and Curtis Bender, explore beliefs related to celestial events from across the globe.  Hindu serpent demons, China’s dragons (or dogs) and modern conspiracy theorists watching for alien spaceships, we have a lot of “bad omens” for your enjoyment.

 

Lunacy and humours, werewolves and witches, […]

While working on our upcoming “Forbidden Places” episode, Eric and Jordan discovered that one of our intended subjects no longer qualifies as an area off-limits to the public! So, while they scour the planet for other inaccessible locations we thought we’d raise one of our Season 1 episodes (now with a new intro) from the Horrific History Podcast Crypt for your squeamish delight!

 

For a Healthy Glow: Radiation Poisoning (Episodes from the Crypt)

A finger, hand, limb or life…. What would you give up for the advancement of science? Would you give up as much as the Radium Martyrs of All Nations?

[…]

For what purpose would you willingly use raw water? Drinking? Cooking? Bathing? Join Horrific History co-hosts, Eric Slyter and Jordan Watney, as they look at more instances of raw water usage, both in the past and modern history (including some history humanity is making right now). Learn how John Snow, one of the founders in the field of epidemiology during a period when Miasma theory was prevalent, found Patient Zero in 1854 after cesspools contaminated raw water supplies with cholera. How did raw water help bring an industry to the point of economic collapse around 1925? In what ways have history and modern natural disasters impacted the current safety of raw water in Puerto Rico?

 

As this journey through the history of raw water comes to the present, and with a better understanding of the progression of water safety, a brief examination is made of some current events relate to raw water contamination. Discover how wells dug by the United Nations to prevent exposure to surface water bacteria created debilitating new problems for […]

Α reconstructed appearance of Myrtis, an 11-year-old girl who died during the plague of Athens and whose skeleton was found in the Kerameikos mass grave, National Archaeological Museum of Athens

Just how pure is your raw water source? Do you trust it? Would you drink it? Join your Horrific History co-hosts, Eric Slyter and Jordan Watney, as they take several trips in the Horrific History time and space machine to look at cases in history when trusted water supplies turned deadly and how some earlier societies handled water quality concerns. Learn how waterborne diseases can help determine the outcome of a war, encourage societies to develop regulations on industry and even kill already starving settlers in a new (to them) land. We’ll also take a brief look at how people have viewed and measured water quality through history (hint: up until recent history water quality was assessed only by human senses), and natural contaminants which can be harmful (or deadly) when you’re drinking water to achieve that healthy glow.

 

How did scientists prove that typhoid helped determine the outcome of the Peloponnesian War between the Spartans and the Athenians around 430 BCE, and what conditions allowed it to help wipe out an estimated 1/3 of the population in Athens? Is it true that people in the middle ages only drank beer instead of water because the quality was so bad? What made the water so toxic […]

10 Apr / 2018

Time to Float

Would you drink raw water? Listen to your co-hosts, Eric Slyter and Jordan Watney, give you a special preview of our upcoming raw water episode. While our nonprofit had to briefly pull our volunteers from the podcast to do a week of programming for Knights of Veritas and this delayed our scheduled release, we’re on-track to release our new episode next week. Hear some things you can look forward to learning more about in the new episode, what ate up their time and how you have an opportunity to be included in an upcoming episode! Come back next week for raw water but in the meantime, you can listen to Eric Slyter do his Pennywise the Dancing Clown impersonation… just remember, no squeam allowed!

 

If you want to prepare yourself for our raw water episode, we recommend listening to our Season 1 episodes: For a Healthy Glow & Too Much of a Good Thing. Don’t get caught floating in the sewers while you wait, and we’ll catch you next week!

 

If you’d like to hear more behind-the-scenes audio content, Patreon-exclusive episodes and receive other great perks, become a patron of our podcast on Patreon!
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Blog post photo credit: pavlinajane Winter puddle via photopin (license)

Slideshow photo credit: Curtis Gregory Perry Puddles via photopin (license)

A facial reconstruction of “Jane of Jamestown” is seen during a news conference at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, Wednesday, May 1, 2013. Scientists announced during the news conference that they have found the first solid archaeological evidence that some of the earliest American colonists at Jamestown, Va., survived harsh conditions by turning to cannibalism presenting the discovery of the bones of a 14-year-old girl, “Jane” that show clear signs that she was cannibalized. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

From the last episode, we know Jamestown’s English settlers got their colony off on the wrong foot; this week, join your Horrific History co-hosts, Eric Slyter and Jordan Watney, as they get to the meat of the subject and explore both the period accounts of cannibalism in addition to the recent related archeological finds. What led the Jamestown colonists to experience such desperation that they would themselves engage in murder, grave-robbing, and the eating of human flesh? Which famous person from the colony wrote a book to profit off those same horrors?

 

We’ll also explore the more recent historical accounts of the 1972 Andes Flight Disaster, also referred to as the Miracle of the Andes, when 45 people aboard a small aircraft crashed atop an unnamed mountain (later named Glaciar de las Lágrimas, or Glacier of Tears) which straddled the remote mountainous border between Chile and Argentina. When the remaining survivors heard on the radio that the search parties had called off the rescue efforts, they had to give up hope or find a way to survive. Hear about the lengths they went to survive the crash and the journey to, without provisions or equipment, climb down a mountain to let the world know they were still alive and needed help. Could you go to the same lengths, eating your deceased family, friends, or even your wife? […]

Have you ever felt your body wasting away? Most of us know what it’s like when we forget to eat for too long, often described as the physical sensation of the stomach “eating itself.” But, what occurs in the body and mind when it’s true over a prolonged period? What more horrible stories from history can still be told about winter cannibalism? Join your Horrific History Podcast co-hosts, Eric Slyter and Jordan Watney, for the debut episode of Season 2 as they explore the gruesome effects of starvation and the events which would lead up to cannibalism in Jamestown!

 

Discover what scientists learned about prolonged semi-starvation through a World War II study called the Minnesota Starvation Experiment […]