The Orb and the Visions – Ep. 189

[00:00:00] Raus aus der Schule, rein ins Berufsleben! Bist du bereit für eine Hammer-Ausbildung oder ein duales Studium? Dann komm zu Straßen NRW und gestalte die Mobilität von morgen. Gemeinsam mit unserem tollen Team sorgst du dafür, dass Millionen Menschen sicher ans Ziel kommen. Ob Technik, IT, Verwaltung oder Baustelle, bei Straßen NRW kannst du in unterschiedlichen Bereichen ins Berufsleben starten. Also, worauf wartest du noch? Bewirb dich jetzt bei Straßen NRW unter straßen.nrw.de slash karriere. Wir machen Straßen fürs Leben!

[00:00:30] Odd Trails is a true paranormal podcast. If you have a story to share, send it to stories at oddtrails.com. Enjoy the show! Forget facts. Forget logic. Forget everything that seems real. You just... Trust. Believe.

[00:01:28] Alternate Mees by Emma Dee I don't know much about alternate timelines, but I believe they exist. I even think that's what deja vu is sometimes, like we cross over for just a second and can't understand why something feels so familiar. I also believe dreams can show you things, even if only glimpses. This may be odd, but hey, look where I am. Odd trails. So here we go.

[00:01:58] The women in my family have always been perceptive. My mother used to dream of plane crashes. Inevitably, a day, a week, or even a month later, one would appear in the news. She started writing them down in as much detail as possible. And more often than not, they matched up in some way. The one that freaked her out the most? It matched the make, the city, and the flight number.

[00:02:27] I've never had anything like that. But I did have this ability to see whether something was going to happen, or just not work out. My mind would visualize it like a radar in front of me, with a needle pointing left to right. Left meant not probable. Right meant very probable. Eventually, I taught myself to trust those feelings. One morning when I was 13, I woke up and my mind tossed a picture at me.

[00:02:56] It was a little girl with dark blonde hair standing in front of me, maybe 5 or 6 years old. She had on black Mary Jane strapped shoes, white knit socks that reached her knees, and a Catholic school plaid jumper. Over it, she wore an unzipped pink winter coat. Her longish hair spilled around the fake fur lining of the hood. She just stood there, looking up at me. No expression.

[00:03:26] Just looking. Her light blue eyes locked onto mine. Years later, I was picking up my daughter from kindergarten at St. John's. And bam! Everything coalesced for just a moment. That girl I had seen back when I was 13? It was her. I remember the world kind of gelled. Everything fit into place. And when I blinked, it all went back to the present.

[00:03:55] That was the first moment I realized, maybe I've seen more than I thought. And now I want to tell you about my alternate me's. I've never told anyone this before, but listening to the stories on this podcast, it felt like the perfect place. Throughout my life, I've envisioned several types of lives for myself. I'm a 55-year-old woman now, with MS. I have two grown daughters and a husband who's an OTR truck driver.

[00:04:25] Nothing amazing, nothing special. But I know I've caught glimpses of other versions of me. The first alternate me. This is the strongest one, the most vivid. I live in an old farmhouse, painted red with black-framed windows, white ledges and gutters. A long gravel driveway is flanked by a wooden split-rail fence.

[00:04:51] There's a dark green SUV parked off to the side, near a mailbox on a post by the street. It's winter. I'm in jeans, brown suede shoes with red laces, still damp and salt-stained at the edges. I'm wearing a navy blue cable-knit sweater, with a white mock turtleneck underneath. Sleeves pushed up, because I'm baking chocolate chip cookies.

[00:05:17] I glance at the gold-toned analog watch on my wrist as I reach for the cookies in the oven. 3.20 She'll be home soon. Just then, I see her, my daughter, running up the driveway. Same girl. Pink and white Hello Kitty backpack in one hand, lunchbox in the other. The school bus pulls away slowly behind her as snow begins to fall. The second alternate me.

[00:05:47] This one's brief, but clear. I'm an anthropologist, a professor at a university. I live in a two- or three-story old row of apartments in Massachusetts. I'm hurrying down a dimly lit staircase with dark green carpeting and carved wood rails. The lighting is warm, with antique-style sconces on the wall. Through the window in the foyer, I can see it snowing lightly.

[00:06:15] The streets below are wet, but not covered. A worn leather messenger bag hangs across my body, bouncing against my hip. I'm wearing navy blue chinos, a white-ribbed sweater under a tan wool blazer. Sensible brown leather boots, a gold watch on my left wrist. I know I'm heading to a class I teach, not attending. The third alternate me. I'm a successful author.

[00:06:45] I'm walking slowly and confidently down a white marble staircase. There's a man waiting at the bottom, smiling up at me. He has dirty blonde hair and the most striking green eyes, a neatly trimmed mustache. He's in a tuxedo. I'm in a dark blue velvet dress, white gloves, a gold necklace. My hair is styled up, soft curls by my ears. I reach the bottom of the stairs.

[00:07:15] He takes my hand, and we walk into a crowded room. I know he's my husband in this life. The fourth alternate me. This one is hard. I'm alone. I live in a drab green trailer at the edge of a tiny, dirty trailer park. It's old, worn. I don't have the money to fix it. And I'm not saying this to knock anyone who lives in a trailer park. Not at all.

[00:07:46] It's just that, in this version of me, I have no one. Except a pale orange tabby cat. It's winter. I'm sitting in front of the TV, eating something I don't even want. I'm wearing old jeans and a white sweatshirt with frayed cuffs and some kind of stain on the front. My dry hair is pulled into a ponytail. That's all I get of this reality. And honestly, I'm glad.

[00:08:15] It's too sad to dwell on. Each of these versions of me has certain common threads. Navy blue. White. Green. Tan. Gold. Gold. And it's always either early or late winter. The loved ones in each life? Dirty blonde hair. Just like my real-life daughters. Just like my husband. Does it mean anything? I don't know.

[00:08:44] But these details always show up. I've considered hypnosis or maybe researching past lives. But I'm not sure if I want to go down that rabbit hole. For now, I'll remain who I am. A 55-year-old woman who believes there is more to this life than we know.

[00:09:25] The Orb and the Visions by Kat Otto Winter 2020. When COVID was at its peak, I was depressed and scared, like so many others during this time. I remember sitting in my bed, asking these deep questions about the universe, the meaning of life. Wondering why these horrible things on Earth were happening. I even asked myself if God was real.

[00:09:53] Mid-meditation, I felt this huge presence in my room. I opened my eyes, and there it was. A big green orb. It was about the size of a TV, just levitating there. I didn't even have time to think. I was just trying to process what was actually happening.

[00:10:17] After staring at me for just a moment, this orb started sending me telepathic messages. Honestly, it was an overload of information that my human brain just could not handle all at once. It knew exactly what I wanted to know. It sent me all of the answers telepathically, with visions. I saw sacred geometry, what God really is, why things on Earth happen the way that they do.

[00:10:47] And all of this happened in about five seconds. Telepathy is intense. It was so overwhelming that I began to cry. I told it to go away. And it did. It flew right through my window glass, like it was nothing. I sat there and cried for a good 10 to 15 minutes. Then I went to sleep. But my entire perception of life was completely changed.

[00:11:15] I felt like I was vibrating physically for a day or two afterward. My depression, however, was gone. It's been almost four years now, and I still have little to no answers. Was that a 5D entity? A spirit guide? Me from the future? What was it? Now, I do want to add that I have never to this day taken any psychedelics or any heavy drugs.

[00:11:44] I don't even drink. I haven't told my family because they think everything is demonic, and I don't want people thinking I'm crazy. But I know what I experienced. Now, here's what the orb told me. The first thing it showed me was the flower of life. It showed me how it's formed, a continuous pattern that overshadowed my entire vision so much that I couldn't even see my room anymore.

[00:12:15] So, it's basically a bunch of circles. The first two circles formed the vesic episcus. When the first seven circles are in place, they form the first seed of life, like how God created earth in seven days. And the circle just kept going on and on and on. It told me that God isn't just one entity. God is everything. And we're all a part of that.

[00:12:44] Stones, trees, darkness, light, matter. Every entity. I am literally one with the darkness under my bed. In fact, I am the room. Everything is everything. Does that make sense? Everything comes from it, and it is everything. Everything. It then showed me a vision of a triangle with different sections inside of it. At the top of the triangle, there were horns.

[00:13:12] It showed me the mythological entity, Baal. It told me that even the devil is imperfect. And reality? Well, it told me that reality forms around what we believe. If you believe life is full of misery and suffering, that's what you get. But if you live believing in miracles, that's what you'll find. Reality shapes itself after our belief systems. And finally, it told me this.

[00:13:41] It's all going to be okay. Being scared and living in fear is pointless. It's a waste of energy. The bad things happening on earth are because of our collective fear manifesting into reality. If we want peace, we have to choose better beliefs. Earth is special. So many things happen here. It's heavily guarded by higher entities who watch over us with a love like no other planet.

[00:14:11] And we know all of this before we come here. We come here to learn, to experience this unique life, and to make earth a better, more peaceful place. All of that information just got blasted into me in about 5 to 10 seconds. No wonder I started crying and waving my hands for it to go away. The orb didn't tell me exactly what to do with this knowledge. It just gave me puzzle pieces.

[00:14:39] I know I'm probably mistranslating some of it. It happened so fast, and I've forgotten chunks. There was so much more, but this is what I remember the most.

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[00:17:24] This happened when I was 15, back in 2011. My family lived in northern Illinois, kind of out in the country. Far enough away from any big town that things got pretty quiet at night. My grandpa had been living with us for about a year after his health started to go downhill. He had Parkinson's and some other complications that made it hard for him to live alone anymore. I was close to him.

[00:17:49] He used to live just a few streets over when I was little, and he babysat me a lot when I was growing up. He always told me stories about the old days, some of them probably exaggerated, but I ate them up. Anyway, he passed away in our house, peacefully in his sleep. I was home that morning when my mom found him. It was quiet, sad, surreal.

[00:18:15] He was cremated, and for a while we kept his urn in our living room, on this bookshelf that had pictures of him and a few other family keepsakes. Now here's where things start to get weird. About a week after the funeral, I was up late on a Saturday night. Everyone else had gone to bed. I was in the kitchen, pouring a bowl of cereal, and as I'm standing there at the counter, I heard the TV turn on in the living room.

[00:18:44] I figured maybe my mom had gotten up and was watching something to help her sleep. But when I peeked around the corner, the living room was empty. No lights on. No one there. But the TV was definitely on. Not just a black screen or static. It was playing an old western, like, really old. Black and white. I don't remember the title, but it was something I'd never seen before.

[00:19:13] I turned it off, kind of weirded out, but not enough to panic or anything. I chalked it up to a fluke or maybe someone rolled on the remote in their sleep. But that wasn't the last time. Over the next month or so, it happened at least four more times. Always late at night. Always when no one else was around. And it was always some kind of western or war movie. The kind of stuff my grandpa used to watch when I was a kid.

[00:19:43] He'd fall asleep to those all the time in his old recliner. The TV he used back then? The exact same one that was now in our living room. We'd moved it when he came to stay with us. I finally told my mom about it after the third or fourth time. I expected her to laugh or maybe scold me for making up stories. But she didn't. She got quiet and just kind of nodded. Then she said,

[00:20:11] You're not the only one who's noticed. Apparently, she had seen the TV on twice when she came down early for coffee. Once it was playing a baseball game from who knows when. Another time it was some old war documentary with a scratchy narrator voice. Then she told me something that really stuck with me. When my grandpa was in hospice care during his last week,

[00:20:39] she asked him if there was anything he was scared of. You know, like anything he wished he could do before he died. And he said, I just want to sit in my chair, watch my shows, and not be in pain. That's it. He didn't care about traveling or seeing anyone else. He just wanted to relax and watch his movies. Well, if you believe in that sort of thing, maybe that's exactly what he was trying to do.

[00:21:09] After a few more weeks, it just stopped. Just nothing. The TV never turned on by itself again. We still kept his urn on that shelf, still dusted it and kept the area nice. I even remember once placing the remote on top of the bookcase, way out of reach, just to make sure no one was accidentally hitting it. It still happened that night. I don't have a dramatic ending to this.

[00:21:39] Just a quiet man who seemed to come back to watch his favorite movies one last time. And maybe, once he was done, he moved on. To this day, I'm not sure if I believe in ghosts in the traditional sense, but I believe in something. Some kind of lingering energy, maybe. I don't know. But it felt peaceful. Not scary. Not even really sad. It was just like he was there.

[00:22:09] Anyways, thanks for reading this. I know it's not as wild as some of the stories you guys get, but it stuck with me for over a decade, and I figured that meant something.

[00:22:36] My Skinwalker Story in Oregon by Nightmare3. I live in a small town in Oregon. I won't say which exactly, just for privacy. But usually, I just do my usual thing. Go to school, play basketball, skateboard. You know, angsty teenage stuff that a kid does when they're bored. I was getting off my bus on a Friday night, so I was planning to stay out pretty late with my friends,

[00:23:06] skateboarding and going to the store, probably getting kicked out for messing around. But before all of that, I went to the Minute Mart. I go to that Minute Mart almost every day, and I know every worker by name. But this time there was a new worker, a tall, lanky guy with a really curly, long beard that almost reached his waist. He had this weird scar on his arm that I couldn't match to any animal I've ever seen. I went to the back of the store,

[00:23:35] grabbed my drink and snacks, and rang them up. About $5 exactly. He didn't say much, just, is that all? And have a good day. But right before I grabbed my board and was about to leave, I heard him mutter something to himself, and I asked, what? But he just kept on muttering. I figured he was probably high or drunk. My town is known for addicts.

[00:24:03] It's not as bad as Portland or Salem, but it's not great either. So I left. I thought about it for a second, but not much. I'm used to this town. I've lived here almost my entire life, besides a couple of years in Portland and Bend. But then, I looked back. I heard the door of the minute market open, even though no one else was inside. And there he was. The same guy standing there.

[00:24:33] Only now, the scar was gone. And he was staring right at me. Nobody else was around, which was weird for that spot. There are other stores, cars and the lot. People. But not this time. I jogged away, trying to play it off, telling myself he was just another druggie. But he kept following me. Slowly at first, but every time I looked away, he was closer. It was like,

[00:25:02] he moved closer every time I turned my head. I made it home. My mom doesn't get home until about 6, and my dad doesn't get home until about 9.30. I got home at 4.30. So I did my usual, just more cautious this time. I unlocked the door, shut it, locked all three locks. I set my backpack down and started my chores. Then came a knock at the door. I went into my sister's room,

[00:25:32] as it has the best view for the front door, but people outside can't see the window. When I looked out, I audibly gasped. It was the same man from the Minute Mart, but this time his scar was back, and on both arms. I rushed around, locking every window that I could find. I grabbed every weapon I could think of, wedged a chair under the doorknob. And the more I did, the more aggressive the knocking got.

[00:26:02] It was like the knocks were everywhere, on the walls, the windows, the door. I didn't call 911. I should have, but instead I called my grandma. We are Native American, and she is a very religious woman. She had her own experiences with this kind of thing. What she told me almost made me hang up. She said, It knows your scent, your voice, your weight, and your height.

[00:26:32] It knows where you live. The only way you'll get through this is to burn sage and ashes around the house, or on the walls inside the house. Well, I did the second option, because there was no way I was going outside. What happened next nearly made me pass out. He, or It, began cutting itself while using my voice. It said the exact order I placed for my snacks.

[00:27:01] Can I get peanut butter M&Ms, and this energy drink please? I know that sounds kind of funny, but trust me, it didn't sound normal. It sounded like a deaf person was screaming, barely knowing what they were saying. I burned the sage as fast as I could, made ash, and surrounded my walls with it. After about ten minutes, the thing left. It hasn't come back yet. This morning, I woke up to the sound of something

[00:27:30] falling in my room. I heard three noises under my bed. Even today, one of my skateboards fell off my skate rack, which is hooked to the wall. It just didn't make any sense. I suspect something is going to happen soon. I'll update you all if it does.

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[00:29:03] Use our code TRAILS to get a free gift with your journey pack. Head to tryfume.com That's T-R-Y-F-U-M dot com and use code TRAILS to claim this limited time offer today. My Weird New Place by Madeline I just started listening to your podcast and figured I'd share something

[00:29:32] that happened to me last year. It's not terrifying or anything, but it was enough to leave me feeling unsettled and I still don't have a good explanation. I moved into a small duplex in Milwaukee after getting out of a relationship. Nothing fancy, but it was my first place on my own. The unit had been vacant for a while before I moved in, and everything inside had been freshly cleaned and repainted. From the beginning, I noticed the place

[00:30:02] had a weird kind of vibe. Not bad, just off. I remember the first night sleeping there. I kept waking up, thinking I heard someone walking around. At first, I blamed it on my upstairs neighbor until I met her and found out that the other half of the duplex was still empty. After that, it was little things. I'd come home and find the kitchen light on when I knew I'd turned it off. Once,

[00:30:31] I woke up and the bedroom door was halfway open, even though I always closed it before bed. I convinced myself I was just forgetful or stressed from the move. But there's one night that really stuck with me. I was up late going over some work stuff at the kitchen table. Everything was quiet. Around midnight, I started hearing this low tapping sound. It was coming from the wall behind me, the one I share

[00:31:00] with the empty unit next door. It wasn't pipes or heating or anything mechanical. It sounded deliberate, like someone tapping with their knuckle. Three taps, then a pause, then two more. I didn't move. I just sat there listening. It kept going for maybe 30 seconds, then stopped completely. I didn't sleep much that night.

[00:31:30] I told the landlord about it a few days later. He kind of brushed it off, but admitted that the last tenant had moved out in a hurry. She apparently even left behind some stuff and never even asked for her security deposit. A few weeks later, someone finally rented the other half of the duplex. And since then, nothing weird has happened. No sounds, no lights, nothing. I don't know what it was.

[00:31:59] I'm not saying the place was haunted. But something about that wall, those taps, it didn't feel random. It felt like someone or something was trying to get my attention. Anyway, love the podcast. Figured you'd appreciate the story. We do. Thanks.

[00:32:38] Opposite Day by OtherCantaloupe4765 This is so bizarre, and honestly, it scared the shit out of me. I was so unsettled that I contacted my mother at 4am just to tell her about it. Let me give you some details about a couple of objects first. I keep a wedge pillow on or near my bed because sometimes I like to sit up in bed to read or play on my phone. It's more comfortable to do that

[00:33:07] when I can lean back against that pillow wedge. It's fairly large and bulky. It's somewhat heavy, mostly because it's dense, unlike a normal pillow. And I also have this light that's for migraines. It's a cylindrical object that emits green light when it's on. However, it can also emit normal white light when you turn it upside down. The charger port is located on the top when it's set to show the green light. I cannot charge it

[00:33:37] when it's set to show the white light because that means the charger port is on the bottom and it's on my nightstand. So, I get home to my apartment and I change into my pajamas. It's about midnight, but I'm not super tired because I had just been at a friend's house and we had been drinking coffee while we talked. But I wanted to actually lie down, so I sat on my bed, tossed my wedge pillow onto the floor away from my bed, and plugged in that lamp

[00:34:07] because it was completely dead. Obviously, if I had it plugged in, it was oriented to show the green light. I plugged my phone into its charger and snuggled into bed. My phone screen settings are set to always be on. It doesn't go to sleep automatically. I have to physically turn it off if I want it to be off. Three hours later, I woke up slumped against the wedge pillow in bed. My lamp

[00:34:36] was unplugged and showing the white light. My phone had been turned off and the charger was unplugged from both my phone and the outlet. I was immediately confused, and that confusion quickly turned into fear. If it were just one thing, I probably would have brushed it off, but it was multiple things. And I remember with 100% certainty that I left everything the exact opposite. Well, maybe you did it in your sleep.

[00:35:06] Well, guess what? I don't sleepwalk ever, but let's explore that explanation anyway. So you're saying that in my sleep, I walked across my room to get a big bulky pillow, situated it on my bed, unplugged and flipped my lamp upside down, shut off my phone, and unplugged the charger from my phone and the outlet. I don't think so. I was terrified. Honest to God, I immediately contacted my mom because I was panicking. She suggested

[00:35:36] it was some kind of glitch in the matrix, which is pretty much the only explanation I can think of. It's so bizarre. I'm scared just thinking about it.

[00:36:07] Raus aus der Schule, rein ins Berufsleben. Bist du bereit für eine Hammerausbildung oder ein duales Studium? Dann komm zu StraßenNRW und gestalte die Mobilität von morgen. Gemeinsam mit unserem tollen Team sorgst du dafür, dass Millionen Menschen sicher ans Ziel kommen. Ob Technik, IT, Verwaltung oder Baustelle, bei StraßenNRW kannst du in unterschiedlichen Bereichen ins Berufsleben starten. Also, worauf wartest du noch? Bewirb dich jetzt bei StraßenNRW unter straßen.nrw.de slash karriere. Wir machen Straßen fürs Leben.

[00:36:38] All right, all right, all right. I'm a little dizzy still. Yeah. But I think I'm here. I think I'm okay. Nothing like having vertigo and watching vertigo. Did you watch vertigo?

[00:37:18] I did. I was drunk and on a merry-go-round and ate too much Halloween candy and just, it would not go away and it was just pure torture. I can't even really talk about it because I just start, like, I can start feeling it impacting me more. So, like, right now I'm okay but it's a, if I turn my head or if I start moving around I can't walk a straight line but whatever, woe is me, blah, blah, blah. I'm getting better. That's all that matters. So, here we are. Let's talk about some stories. Yeah, that's good.

[00:37:48] Speaking of vertigo, I watched it when I was younger and I really liked it. I remember watching it at a friend's house, one of our mutuals. I was really into it. He wasn't necessarily that into it because it's an older movie. It's an acquired taste for younger kids but I grew up watching older movies so his mom and I actually kind of bonded over it and we talked about it a lot and it just became like a running thing where we would reference it and stuff. That's cool. I like that. Yeah, I really liked it and I watched it again

[00:38:17] recently with our mutual Armando. It's one of his favorite movies and I could safely say that I think it's my favorite Hitchcock movie after re-watching it and having watched most of the other big ones. Interesting. For a while it was North by Northwest. Yeah, yeah, or Rebecca. Oh, I love Rebecca. Rope is a really good one. Slept on, I like rope a lot. Yep, yep, it's a good gimmick too, that single shot or the illusion.

[00:38:47] Yeah, very, very cool. But anyway, getting back to our stories, The Alternate Me's, I really liked this one. That was a good one. I always like a good alternate reality story in this case we have like, what, like four or something from Emma, Emma D. Yeah. The trailer park one that was a little, I don't know what to make of that because I happened to live in a trailer park for like two years of my life but it was a nice one. It was like one of those things where like old people retire

[00:39:17] and live in those trailer parks except for whatever reason that's just where we lived for a couple years. Yeah. I enjoyed it. There weren't any orange tabby cats to speak of and there wasn't any sort of isolation but it was, it was like out in the middle of nowhere in deep Southern California right along the border of Mexico Yeah. And it was really cool. It was like right out of a movie. I don't know. Can't think of a more creative analogy there but hey, there are worse

[00:39:47] alternate realities to take part in I guess being in a trailer park. It's all in the eye of the beholder. I wonder if like if these parallel timelines exist as some like subconscious connection to our present reality. Are we looking into the future? Are they occurring alongside reality? I don't know. Like what do you make of these? Are they just vivid daydreams or are they trying to teach us something? I don't know. Natalia, my wife, she had

[00:40:16] a bit of a prophetic dream recently and it was she described it as what she was in her alternate reality. She described it as an alternate reality. This is what my life could have been if such and such would have happened in the past. Almost like that reality is existing parallel to ours and she kind of visited it in her dream which made me go off on a tangent of we're all in a simulation and we're just experiencing different simulations and alternate realities

[00:40:46] blah blah blah. I can't remember any of the details of her dream. I can remember all of mine all the time but I can't remember hers for some reason but I think that we're constantly weaving in and out of these different realities and I think that's probably what they're talking about here. Yeah or like sitting down for a game of chess you didn't move the E4 pawn but you could have in a sense we're playing the same game of chess over and over just the outcome is a little bit different. Yeah. Could be something like that some sort of butterfly effect thing.

[00:41:16] Yeah chess is the same exact game you just play it differently each time. That's a great analogy. I never thought of that. The rules are still underlining underlying yeah. Yeah. Speaking of trailer parks that brings back such fond memories because I had a cousin and his family man uncle they all lived in a trailer park. It was a not so nice trailer park. You probably wouldn't want to walk down there alone at night in a not so nice part of town. However we

[00:41:46] still had so much fun in her tiny little trailer just playing Mega Man and all these other NES games. They were one of those computer families where they had like four computers in their house in the early 90s and they were all playing computer games from the moment they could walk and sit up at the computer which is really cool. It was fun to go over there and just marvel at what computers could do and go home and just play my Atari. But I really did enjoy my time there. In fact

[00:42:15] when we were shopping for houses we actually looked at a lot of different trailer park manufactured homes just because it feels so good. It's a very comforting environment for some reason if you find the right one. It's stripped down. I like it. I do too. I would totally get a double wide and buy some land somewhere. I'm not opposed to that. The problem is if you are in those trailer parks you're still renting the space to put your mobile home that you own or your double wide that you

[00:42:45] own. Yeah. You gotta be the owner. That's the real winner right there. Owning land. Yeah. It's good to own land. Yes. It really is. Landing gold is what they say. Yes. Far away from the road. The road. Stay going to fix our roads. Not the government. I tell you that much. Yeah. But I think that this may represent her deepest fears of isolation and missed opportunities.

[00:43:16] Yeah. The winter wonderland type of thing. I think there's some rawness to her experiences. It might not be the most comfortable truth or maybe it's like astrology. I've heard it mentioned in the sense like it's not like a blueprint telling you hey this is what's going on but it's like a way to have you reflect and meditate on different areas of your life that you may not have considered that are worth visiting. Maybe these are just

[00:43:46] some sort of message that she needs to reflect on and they could be taken literally or symbolically who knows. Yeah. But yeah lots of interesting environmental markers with like I said the winter and the recurring color schemes. Yeah I did really like this story though. Her choosing not to pursue hypnosis or past life regression was interesting to me. I've always wanted to do that and anytime I've had dreams of different

[00:44:16] reality like because I have such vivid dreams anytime I've had dreams where I was living a different life and you know when you're in a dream you believe what's going on in the dream. It only becomes a lucid dream when you realize that it's a dream but you believe everything that's happening when you're in a dream and that's why it is a dream you know because it's tricking you and anytime that I wake up from those dreams I always think man I really would love to have a past life regression and go under hypnosis and just find out

[00:44:45] whatever I can about my past you know it's interesting that she chose not to. I'm gonna have to try to find this guided meditation. Sure. It's on YouTube somewhere but somebody recommended it and it was pretty cool. I like to think that I wasn't just tricking my mind or anything like that but I followed it and there was a word or like a theme that I kind of felt and I wish I could remember what it was but after the fact I searched it and

[00:45:15] it was tied to some like island or some peninsula type of thing that had a lot of Native American history to it and that was kind of like the visions I saw it was like very there I saw horses and fire pits and I didn't really see the faces of people but I felt like I had just a daughter at the time and we were outside somewhere and this name just kept recurring in my head and ended up being like some area with a lot of native history

[00:45:45] and it was ended up being close to the Pacific Northwest where I do have family indigenous family up there so maybe it was a subconscious thing maybe I had heard the name before but I swear like I have zero recollection of having heard it before but that meditation tape on YouTube it for whatever reason it conjured up in my memory and I did some more research and sure enough it had some indigenous ties. That's so interesting that feels so serendipitous or I guess

[00:46:14] kismet. You can use any of those words you want to. At least you can pronounce them. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. That's a beautiful story. Thanks for sharing that. You're welcome. Thank you. Let's go into your stories. Let's talk about that green orb. I like that one. That was pretty cool. Before we talk about the green orb let's just talk about the skinwalker story now that we're talking about Native Americans and their stuff. Yeah. With all due respect I know we're supposed to like censor ourselves and

[00:46:44] like throw salt over our shoulders but we shouldn't be conflating these with cryptids. Sure. But nonetheless we've talked about how the mind can create things and who's to say that all these people created some variation. It's a possibility. Yeah exactly like kind of like the tulpa like we talked about last week. Yeah. Or a misattribution altogether but either way it's something. Yeah. Yeah. Well it was funny because in this

[00:47:14] story I was thinking wow this is a really creepy story really interesting and then the curveball was oh I'm also Native American let me call my Native American family member that can help me out with this. I'm like oh okay that came out of nowhere. That's how we refer to ourselves too. Yeah I know. My mom. Hi my Native American mom how are you doing today? Yeah I know. I know. I know. Just thinking of that it's so silly. Yeah. Have you had her

[00:47:44] bread that she makes the fry bread the indigenous fry bread it's so good. I can't believe neither of you have ever offered that to me. I've been over to your house so many times so many family gatherings family gatherings and never never once. Never. We'll fix that. To be fair anything that I've come over to your house for as far as family goes it's always your dad's side of the family. I haven't actually met any of your mom's side of the family. They're all in Washington so you know we'd have to take a trip. We should. One of the million trips we should

[00:48:14] take as long as you're you know alive and able to walk. Yeah without vertigo. At this point give me vertigo I just want to get out more like I'll deal with it it's okay. It takes being bedridden to really make you appreciate and want to be outside among all of the just disgusting awful people out there those cretins. Yes. But it really does it makes you miss it. Ironically enough yeah it makes you really value the world because as I was going through it I just felt

[00:48:44] like well there's a chance this could just be my everyday normal moving forward it's not going to get better this is just it. I know I hate that feeling. Yeah I went through all the stages of grief I just kind of accepted it like all right cool I can't really do anything that I love anymore I'm just going to have to exist and keep my head still and smile and try to keep a good attitude but I'm getting better so it's okay and it gives me like you said a greater appreciation for the

[00:49:14] smaller things that we don't really consider as we go through life. Yeah the thing is I know you well enough that I know that you would just thrive and you would be perfectly fine. Yeah I'd make it work. After some time yeah you would absolutely as most people would but yeah going back to this story it's slowly unraveled like it was kind of weird at first things being different and then all of a sudden so the guy's scars disappear on his arms then when he shows up at the house later on the scar reappears but it's two scars now

[00:49:44] on each arm each arm has its own scar. It's like this guy was going through this transformation all throughout this story and like he was shifting back and forth almost like kind of like the men in black stories that you would hear from the Mothman prophecies book it was like he was like wearing a human costume and it was constantly changing. It's a really weird story and I really liked it but I guess the burning of sage and spreading the

[00:50:13] ashes around the house worked. According to him this thing hasn't come back and there hasn't been any other incidents so I trust in these Native American rituals. Yeah it's not just like some casual cleansing it's very much a sacred act. Yeah taken very seriously and I think it works for a reason. It's not just for the sake of a tradition. Yeah one other thing is with the scars changing and moving around that reminded me because we're talking about dreams

[00:50:43] that reminded me of how dreams work and how the properties of a dream change constantly like and you just accept it like I said anything that happens in a dream you just believe that it's happening and you like look at text and it'll say something you look away and you'll look back at it and it'll say something completely different and you're like huh that's weird but you just keep you just buy it you just believe it and you move forward with the dream because you're you're still sleeping and that's kind of like what happened

[00:51:12] with this guy and also what happened you know in one of the other stories that I was talking about with the upside down light and stuff but just specifically this story the fact that things kept changing throughout it felt like a dream like what happens in a dream and AI images are so inconsistent like you can ask AI to make something and you can ask it to make a copy of that photo but it'll be slightly different things will be different like there'll be too many fingers or something the color of something will change

[00:51:41] and that got me thinking that AI is so similar to dreams like the images that it creates and the videos that you see especially those videos that it generates the weird ones where things just are transforming almost like a hallucination that's exactly what dreams look like things just don't look quite right and they kind of transform as you're looking at them but they're believable enough exactly it got me thinking like why is AI showing us images and videos

[00:52:10] that are so similar to our dreams and functions so similar to our dreams is this another sign of the simulation being a real thing of simulation theory being true that the first thing AI starts creating when we ask it to create images is something that's in our dreams it somehow reaches into our subconscious and mimics exactly what our dreams are like that's proof of the simulation to me that's just my my theory here that I'm working on yeah I think AI could just

[00:52:38] be us doing the reverse engineering thing we figured it out we were cracking the code and we're peeling back some layers and we're yes getting closer to our core if we are in a simulation I think that's what it is and a lot of people will say well AI is just not good enough to do hands or text right but it's like hands and text are two of the main things in dreams that are like dream signs that yeah will wake wake you up into a lucid dream those are the two things that are constantly inconsistent your hands

[00:53:07] look weird and text doesn't make sense that's us cracking the code exactly and even now like it's getting a lot better with hands especially it's a little alarming but hey whatever it's yeah cool to see and to an extent I'm not going to get all doomsday and repeat everything I've said before but it is cool from like a utopian oh this is cool I like technology yeah yeah exactly but whatever I guess the story about the orb does kind of tap into this idea we can talk about that for a

[00:53:37] minute yeah I enjoyed the story because it kind of affirmed a lot of the stuff that you would hear about in a lot of near-death experience stories about how we all are part of this one consciousness this god consciousness we incarnate here on life we choose to come here to learn they're talking about how they almost died and they I guess they were clinically dead for a certain period of time and they go through this religious spiritual experience and they just make it so cheesy on YouTube

[00:54:06] when the person telling the story is great but it's always cheesed up on YouTube but the general story or I guess the general message from these near-death experiencers is it's usually the same or at least similar to we choose to come here we come here to learn and we reincarnate over and over again to learn and learn and learn and that's kind of what this orb was telling this person in this story I found it really fascinating yeah exactly like how the author mentioned how our collective fear could be what's

[00:54:35] manifesting the worst parts of our world we're just creating more misery for ourselves in a lot of ways yeah exactly and that is also another near-death experiencer thing that fear is the is the enemy it is it's ultimately what these negative entities feed on that we exist with here on earth in this simulation or whatever it is I like the idea that we chose to come here despite knowing some sort of challenge or challenges rather that we're gonna face yeah we

[00:55:04] know better we still re-enter the simulation though yeah unless we're not able to unplug that'd be kind of terrifying but you know we're here and we're happy that is a scary thought that's the whole idea of soul contracts where you sign these things before you incarnate here on earth and there's some tricky tricksters out there in the spiritual realm that trick us into signing away these spiritual contracts I just gotta say the billion-year contract you gotta sign with

[00:55:33] Scientology Sea Org just saying oh yeah get 50 bucks a week though so hey the parallels are insane but it's true it's very similar to these soul contracts where we sign these contracts that's a theory and we have to keep reincarnating here on earth over and over again it's like we're trapped and every time we die and exit we get tricked again we get tricked again into doing it yeah even like the dark stuff like the evil and darkness in the in the

[00:56:02] world I think that is all just part of a bigger lesson to the yin-yang balance you know like how they say our failures are actual failures as long as we learn from them yeah it's all part of a bigger picture it all makes sense in the end yeah I think so too you know what makes sense though also would be getting some Taco Bell I've been craving that and that's like my guilty pleasure when I'm sick and feeling bad so been eating single ingredients and like really good healthy food lately but I think I'm gonna reward myself with some Taco Bell after

[00:56:31] going through all this vertigo crap oh yeah treat yourself time to take the bus over there I guess yeah for sure Taco Bell's like one of the only fast foods I can eat and not feel totally awful it's for some reason I can stomach it really well same I always feel great after eating it hot foods too give me all the habanero whatever and it's no issue no issue no issue going in oh shucks anyways yeah thanks everybody so much for listening and if you have

[00:57:01] a story to share make sure you send it to stories at odd trails dot com sign up for a patreon to get ad free versions of the episodes at patreon dot com forward slash odd trails and listen to the new episodes of my other podcasts like let's not meet in the old time radio cast we'll see you guys next week everybody stay safe peace out

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