A (23:19)

All right, we'll be right back after this Quick break.

B (23:27)

Foreign.

C (23:34)

What'S up, world is Vaughn Miller, super bowl mvp, chicken farmer, and now host of Free Range. This is a show where I go off the field and off the script. We're talking what's hot in music, film, trending news, and everything blowing up your feed. If you love football, you'll feel at home. But if you're here for the vibes, the Internet, deep dive dos, the conversation. This is your podcast. Join me every Wednesday. Follow and listen to Free Range with me, Von Miller, everywhere. You get your podcast.

B (24:17)

I drove back to Brooklyn. I was pretty upset about having to leave the residency early. But I just decided I was going to leave it behind me. You know, I had my girlfriend there at the time who was an amazing person. She did a lot to, you know, kind of listen and be supportive of me, which I really appreciated. So, you know, I'm back in Brooklyn, and I slowly started to fall into a very deep depression, and it was sort of unexplainable. I've had depressions in my life before, but this one, it felt really, really heavy, and it felt suffocating and almost, like, inescapable. I'm just doing my daily thing. I'm teaching, you know, I'm painting in my studio. I'm seeing my friends and kind of telling them about what happened. And my friends are being extremely supportive of me. And what was interesting, when I got back to Brooklyn and to my apartment, I did feel like something had changed. It's hard to describe, but it felt like I had taken something back with me. I would just be, you know, making food in my kitchen or something like this, and then it would be like the hairs stood up. And I'm feeling it right now, like, the hairs would stand up on the back of my neck, and I'd be like, ugh, it feels like there's someone in the room. Like, something was behind me, and it gave me chills. Being in my apartment, I at the time was like, I'm just imagining this. This is in my head. It's not anything more than that, and it's not real. And I'm imagining this because I'm freaked out. About two weeks after I had gotten back from the residency, I woke up in the middle of the night, and I. I have a small bedroom, and I woke up in the middle of the night, and to my left, the same black figure standing in my room, and it was probably standing about 4ft away from me. I opened my eyes and looked at it, and it ran and disappeared into a corner of my room. I remember I immediately was like, oh, my God, what is this thing doing here with me? I was still terrified of what had happened at the residency. And when I saw this thing in my apartment, I was still incredibly fearful of it. I did not sleep very well the rest of that night. And it was something that I was like, oh, God, please let this be my mind playing tricks on me. But once again, it was very real to me. It was something that. Even though I saw it in a span of a few seconds and it was dark in my room, it was very clear that I was not in Sleep paralysis. I saw this thing move in my room. The thing that really solidified it as being the same thing that I had seen at the residency was its shape and its feeling. And it's not necessarily because it was a tall, thin man. It was the fact that it was like a void. It's not black. It was like a void of space in a human form. And it seemed to have these edges to it which were mutable. And it sort of seemed like the edges of it moved in this way, which was kind of unexplainable. Almost like there was a space of reality and stuff that I could see. And then once this figure began, there was sort of this space of just like a void. The edges were sort of this undefinable space. They had a staticy look to them. It was like a void of space. The next day I was freaked out. But there was a part of me that was denying what I had seen. And I really wanted to believe that it was in my head. Unfortunately, I kind of knew that what I had seen was real. And I was really, really hoping that I would not have more experiences. Unfortunately, that is not what happened. I started seeing this thing in my apartment on a inconsistent but fairly regular basis. I would probably see it on the regular about once every month. But sometimes it would be, you know, a few days apart. A lot of times it was very similar. I would wake up and then I would see this figure in my room. And it would jump from a place where it was very visible. Once I had woken up, it would then dart underneath my bed or into a corner or outside of the room. Sometimes it would appear like it was a little bit smaller. Sometimes it would appear like it was a little bit bigger. But I also think that I saw it crouching sometimes close to me, and that's when it would appear smaller. Then sometimes I would see it farther away. And it would be standing over me. And that's when it appeared to be larger. But it was always this black void and it was always in a human shape. I would usually wake up around two or three o'clock in the morning and see it for a couple seconds. It seemed like it would realize that I had woken up and then dart into a corner or sometimes and this became the regular thing. It would go underneath my bed. It was confusing. It seemed to be in this weird transitional space of where it would move like a person would, in a very nimble way. But then also it did things which were sort of unexplainable. I did not sleep well for Months after this experience, and I was sleeping sometimes four hours a night. Occasionally I'd get, like, a good seven hours of sleep, But I was very disoriented. And what started happening is while I was in my apartment, I would start to see things out of the corner of my eye during the day. There would appear to be something moving in the corner of my vision. I would look, and it would be a very quick glimpse of some type of figure, and it would move out of the way of my vision. I started to have this intuitive feeling like it was there to siphon energy off of me. The more distressed I became while all this stuff was going on, seemingly the stronger it became and the more I sort of felt like it wanted me to be miserable and underslept and in a state of kind of heightened awareness. And in this place of being in fight or flight mode. I was very paranoid in my apartment. And intuitively it felt like this is what one of its goals was. I felt like pray. I did not know what to do. I kept having these experiences. Occasionally it would go away for five to six weeks, and then I would see it again. And throughout this process, I tried saging my apartment. I got into meditation, and I would have experiences with what I thought this thing was. In my meditations, I was looking for kind of any way to either if it was just part of my imagination to get rid of it, or if it was something in reality. I would try these things, like saging my apartment or asking it to leave, which were sort of like attempts to if this thing was real or maybe just part of my unconscious to sort of get it away from me as I became more comfortable with it. And that's such a strange thing to say. That was when, you know, maybe it would be five or six weeks that I wouldn't see it. And then it was interesting because then when I would see it after five or six weeks, I'd be like, oh, my God, I was hoping you had left. But there was still this feeling in my apartment. Like there was something in there with me. Like, almost like I had a roommate. Just like the worst roommate that you could. That you could ever imagine. The thing that finally broke the camel's back, where I was like, this needs to stop. I am out of my own depth in dealing with this stuff is Christmas of 2024. I was home in New Jersey, visiting my parents. And I had always felt like wherever I went, that I was still carrying something with me. Going over, you know, sleeping at a different location didn't offer a Lot of relief. And I was at my parents in New Jersey, and it was in between Christmas and New Year's, and I woke up in my childhood bedroom and opened my eyes, and above me was. It was a man, specifically. They were in clothes that were tattered and flowing. It looked like a stereotypical ghost. The thing that stuck out to me about it was that I opened my eyes and this thing was floating above me, maybe about five or six feet above me, very close to the ceiling. And I looked at it for so long, you know, it was probably about 8 seconds, which is a long time to be looking at something that is completely unexplainable. I saw the tattered clothes it was wearing, and it had, like, a blue tinge to it, and it was very clearly a man. And I remember it was missing its left leg. And as I was looking at it, this one was a little bit alarming because it was so different than some of the things that I had seen before. The fact that I had been able to just look at it and see the details of its, like, tattered clothing and the fact that it was missing a leg and the fact that it was. It looked like an actual person. I thought it dissipated in front of me, and I was like, wow, that was incredibly real. My windows in my. In my childhood bedroom, the shades were not down, and there was a lot of light coming into the room. And so it was, like, so clear to me. And I remember I woken up the next morning, and I was like, you know what? Any doubt that I had that this stuff was just in my head, it was completely gone. This is very, very odd, and all this stuff is real. And if my mind is making this up, it is because there's something that is going on that's either wrong with me or I am actually seeing these things, and I really need to address it. After this had happened, around Christmas time and New Year's, I. I was working on a art show. And so I was mainly focused on that. And I was also getting ready for a Muay Thai competition. And so I was very distracted. But it was in the back of my mind how I was out of my depth, and I really needed to figure out some way of dealing with this, because I. I just had tried everything that I sort of. I was comfortable trying to. And right around the same time, I was on this dating app, and I had connected with somebody in New Jersey. They were really into spiritual stuff, and we had just gotten onto it by talking about it. I never told them about my issues with this Thing that I kept seeing at night. And I hadn't talked to them in like a couple weeks, but I had their phone number. So I was just, you know, shooting in the dark at that point. I just texted this person. I was like, hey, I've been having this experience. Do you know of anybody who has dealt with stuff like this? And funny enough, they were like, I know a healer who I have an appointment with in about a month. And this stuff that you're experiencing is way more common than you think. And this person will be able to help you with that. More than likely will be able to help you with that. But they're really. They're in very high demand. And so, like, it's kind of hard to set up an appointment, But I will give you my appointment so that you can take care of this as soon as possible. And so I got in touch with this healer person, their name is Julie. And I was very happy to get an appointment because the only availability that they had after that was, like, three months later. I had spoken to them just a little bit over text, and we had this appointment. And I was very skeptical. I at first thought, oh, I will probably have to go to New Jersey, because that's where the healer was. I would have to go to New Jersey and they'd have to see me in a physical way. That was not the case. What they said was they could do everything that they needed to do over the phone. Which to me, at first, when I first heard about this, I was like, wow, that seems like a big red flag. But, you know, I was desperate. And this person came highly recommended from somebody that I, even though I had a very short relationship with them, you know, I. I felt like this person was an honest person. So the time came around for me to see them. We spoke on the phone when the appointment time came up, and she was like, okay, so I understand that you are experiencing something, you know, that's very difficult for you. And I kind of told her, I am having this issue. I'm seeing this thing at night. It's been going on for X amount of years, and I'm not sure what it is, and I want to get rid of it. And so she said, okay, I can do this, no problem. But it also is going to take a little bit longer than usual. Basically, her process was that I was to go someplace very comfortable. So I just laid down in my bed and she was going to. We were going to hang up the phone and then she was going to, from my understanding, somehow project herself to where I was and then do things to, you know, cleanse the area around me. And I did not give her a lot of details. I said very little. And what was interesting about the interaction is that I felt like she didn't need that information either. She didn't really ask me many questions. I. It sort of just felt like she was going to rely on her own experience. And so my job in this healing ceremony was basically to lay in bed and just be still and turn on some music while she came to where I was and then cleansed the area. And so I did that. I think I turned on some Enya, you know, something very easy and relaxing to listen to. And I probably laid there in total a period of about 25 minutes. I was laying down and I was hearing things that were interesting. I heard some kind of snappy things going on in my room. I heard some, like, popping. But as I heard these things, 10 minutes had gone by, or around 10 minutes. I wasn't looking at the time, but I was like, you know, this is an old building. It could be the building. You know, no big deal. So I continue to lay there, and I started to have this very interesting sensation where I felt like my hands and my forearms were getting really, really heavy. Like they were doubled in weight. And there was a part of me, too, that was like, oh, I'm laying down, you know, not moving my body very much. So this could be just something that, you know, happens when you're sitting in the same position for a while. But then I had this sensation as though something that was sort of pressing into my body, into the center of my body, basically down the front of my rib cage, down into my spinal column, and then being sort of, like, moved, almost like it wasn't painful, but it felt like somebody, like, was, like, pressing something through the center of my body, and then like, it was moving up through the top of my head, you know, because of this experience, I started meditating. And so I know kind of what it's like to, you know, have these different feelings if you're. If you're not moving for a while. But it felt unusual. It felt more physical than other things that I've experienced when I've just been sitting and laying down in a specific spot for a while. And maybe after about 25 minutes, my phone rings and it's Julie on the other line. Julie is like, hey, how are you feeling? And I was like, little weird things happened. And I mentioned my forearms, but I very specifically remember I did not mention that feeling of the Thing like, kind of going through and splitting my body. And I was like, yeah, I know. I felt my forearms felt heavy. I feel, like, pretty normal. And I was like, so, like, what. What's your. You know, like, what's what happened? Steve went into a lot of detail about what had happened, and I wrote it all down. Basically, what Julie told me was that she had come into my room, and there was something. And she said that it was not a ghost, and it was something that did not have good intentions. And she mentioned some type of, like, spiritual figure. And she said that her in this spiritual figure had unattached this thing from me. And the way that they did it was by removing these. And she described them as clips from my arms and from my spine. They removed these clips and these attachments that this thing had attached itself to me and then pulled it out of the top of my head. And there was a couple other things that she said. She said it was really coiled around me and specifically around my spine and my forearms. And I had told her about the forearms, but not about the spine part. And so that was very interesting and sort of stuck out to me. And then she mentioned a couple other things, like, she removed this mask that I had over my face. And just some things, like, I didn't totally understand. An interesting thing that she had said was that this thing that was in my room that had attached itself to me was to the left of my bed and in the corner of my room, that I had seen it jump into that corner many times. And she said it was there. And she, with the help of this other entity, which was, I guess, benevolent, she had gotten it out of my apartment. But the other thing that she said, which was really interesting, was that there was a portal, some type of portal that was open, and it was underneath my bed to the right of me. And that makes a lot of sense, if you understand, like, where I sleep in my bed and where my bed is in my room. And this really stuck out to me because I did not tell her anything about this thing going underneath my bed. And she said that she had closed this portal, that it was like an entrance where other things could possibly, like, come in and out of. It was very odd hearing all this stuff. Like, it made sense to me, but then also, like, this is not something that you hear almost ever. It was just kind of, like an unbelievable thing to hear. But it also made sense. It was a very strange contradiction. I didn't ask a lot of questions. I think I was just mostly, like, awestruck. With what she was telling me, she was like, listen, I want you to get up out of bed and I want you to, you're. You're gonna feel weird. And she specifically said, you are going to feel weird because I removed something from inside of your body and there's going to be a space there now. And we sort of need to like readjust your. I don't know how to describe it. Like readjust the soul part of your body back into the physical part of your body because it's sort of out of alignment right now. And I was like, oh, okay. And she was like, do you like doing push ups or jumping jacks? And I was like, yeah, I do them, you know, on a regular basis. And so this is when I had an experience throughout all this stuff which was kind of undeniable. And so I get up out of bed and as soon as I stand up, I feel like my mind is about three feet back from where my eyes are. And it was such a strange experience. It was like my head was not inside of my head, but I wasn't viewing myself like from the back. But if you've ever disassociated in your body, it was very similar to that. The space between my face and where I felt like my, my mind and the conscious part of my body was. It felt like it was very small and in the back of my head and it felt like it was sort of pinpointed back there and that it had. It almost felt like pushed and shoved in the back of my head. And I had this feeling of being very small in the back of my head. And because I felt so small, the distance between myself and the front of my face felt much larger. It was almost like being in a room where, you know, you're in the corner and then you're, you're. You're looking out like a big window in front of you. And I had this incredible tingling sensation throughout the upper part of my body. And it was very, very concentrated on my face. And as I was walking, I go out of my bedroom into my kitchen. And I remember before I left my kitchen into my living room, I was like, wow, I feel so weird. And I just kept saying that. I kept saying, wow, I feel really weird. This is very strange. I feel like I'm like almost outside of my body. And so I go in the living room and I'm like, okay, gotta do jumping jacks, gotta do push ups. And so I start doing that. And you know, over a little bit of a period of time, not even Three minutes. It starts to feel like that sensation where I'm sort of, like, not aligned with my body. It. That starts to go away. The thing that did not go away was this tingling sensation that I had all throughout my upper torso. And the way that I would describe it is that it felt, like, not hot and not cold, but a mixture of those things. And like, it was this sort of tingly sensation where when part of your arm falls asleep or something like this, maybe you've been sitting in a weird position. It wasn't uncomfortable. It felt actually, like, relief. It's like something was being triggered. That was good. It was very unusual. And for about 20 minutes afterwards, I just kept saying to myself, wow, I feel really weird right now. And it almost felt like I had had, like, this new perspective as my face started to feel like it was realigning with my face. I felt like I was seeing things clear. I felt like I was actually more in my body and more had a better perspective than I did the hour beforehand after the cleansing. It was noticeable, very noticeable, the difference in my apartment. I haven't seen anything, and I haven't woken up in the middle of the night. It's been about three and a half months since the cleansing. I feel way more comfortable in my apartment. It no longer feels like there's something here with me. It definitely feels like a weight has been lifted. Occasionally I get a little bit, like, my senses kind of go up or the hair stands up on the back of my neck, but it's not the same feeling. It's just sort of like, ugh, is this real? Am I safe now? And ultimately, like, I've always come back to the answer of yes. I am so thankful that I had this meeting with the healer. I'm really thankful. It just kind of all happened in this really natural way. Even though I had to wait a little while to see the healer, it seemed like it just sort of was serendipitous and happened in this very easy way. And I'm really. I'm very glad that I'm not seeing anything at night anymore, because now I feel so much more connected to the world around me and the people around me and the things around me. I feel like it's taken a lot of the selfishness and the pressure that kind of comes along with a lot of, like, Western American society. And that's been, like, something that's, like, actually been a huge relief. Is it sort of led to, like, an ego death of mine, you know, I still have an ego, but it's it's not in control in the same way that it was before. And that's been. It's been actually like made my life a lot better. There are a lot of things in our reality that are unexplainable and we do not have the capacity to understand. I would say that there was a reason that this, this happened. And I, I like the idea. I don't think it's always true, but I like the idea that we experience things when we're ready to. And I sort of think that this experience, I didn't want to experience it, but now I'm glad I did because overall, what the experience led to was actually a lot of growth and a lot of healing. It got me in touch with a part of myself that I would have not gotten in touch with if the event didn't happen. Most of this place that we call reality, it is not just what we can see, feel and know measure. The experience of having this thing be attached to me has, has really changed the way I think about the.

A (55:46)

Thank you so much to Tim for sharing his experience. Not only did I think Tim's experience at the residency sound terrifying and difficult, it's also just unfortunate because residencies like that are often very competitive and hard to get into in the first place. And when you do get it, it's really an opportunity for this small group to focus on doing great work while they're there. So the fact that this apparently haunted room ruined all of that for Tim and caused problems within this small group is just generally unfortunate all around, on top of being completely terrifying. Even though not all of Tim's experiences take place before or after waking up, some of them do. And this episode did make me think back to an earlier episode where I talked about my own experiences with hypnopompic hallucinations. If you're not familiar with that, this is an all encompassing term for a hallucination that occurs right after you wake up from sleep. There's also a version of this that happens before you go to sleep. I used to have really bad insomnia in my early 20s and ended up developing this condition. During that, I would wake up, get out of bed, and then have extremely vivid visual hallucinations while being completely awake. It was very crazy for me at the time. I have since learned that apparently I had a rather extreme version of this. By the way, this typically does not happen to just random people out of nowhere. This was a result of at least a year of sleeping only three to four hours a night. I was not living well. I was also experiencing vertigo during the day. My eyes were twitching all the time. And I was just generally feeling like shit constantly. So when I started experiencing these, I did not think that I was experiencing something paranormal. It was very obvious that something was very wrong with me. And it was probably caused by me sleeping three hours a night for an entire year. Luckily, I have gotten much healthier. This does not happen to me anymore. And I'm pretty sure I brought this up on the show at first to differentiate between the paranormal and. And these strange medical things that can happen to you when you're not taking care of your body. However, as time has gone on and I've talked to more people on the show and learned more, I've realized how mysterious and fascinating that state between wakefulness and sleep really is. And it's become a lot more complicated for me. As we enter sleep, our body and brain slows down. And our brain can enter a state that is very similar to deep meditation. Many different cultures and religions around the world. Believe that this state might be a way of accessing alternate planes of existence. A sort of liminal space between the material and spirit world. This is also a field that is being scientifically studied more frequently. And there are even some notable figures in history. Who use this state between sleep and waking life as a creative tool for problem solving. Allegedly, Thomas Edison used to nap with a steel ball in each hand. That would drop to the ground and make a noise. Causing him to wake up the moment he started drifting into sleep. And he said that he would often wake up with a solution or breakthrough to whatever problem he was stuck on at the time. And he would find the answer to these things While he was in that state between sleep and wakefulness. Salvador Dali also intentionally used this state as an inspiration for his artwork. With all of that being said, I initially was quite skeptical myself. When it came to experiences that take place place near sleep. But as time has gone on, I've realized that there is so much we don't know about consciousness. Our brain and these highly specific states it can enter. What information it may or may not be able to access during those states. I find it all really interesting. And the more and more I learn about this stuff, the more I realize there are a lot of mysteries surrounding it. That hopefully we'll have answers to one day. But essentially, there's a lot we don't know. I think Tim had a similar evolution as me. With all of these experiences. And especially with what happened to him at the very end of his story. With this energy healer that he met on a dating app. I will say that is a very unexpected way for for all of this to come to an end. But that being said, sometimes an unconventional problem requires an even more unconventional solution, and in Tim's case I would say that was very unconventional. However, everything he said about it I thought was so strange, especially these feelings he was having afterwards and how this energy healer seemed to know what was going on with him, especially with the physical sensations that were happening to him after this session. I thought all of that was so interesting, and quite frankly, I just like hearing a story about a person who has their views challenged in such a powerful way as they were with Tim in this story, even though what he went through sounded very difficult. With that being said, I'm very happy that things seem to have improved for Tim. I'm glad this is not happening anymore. I hope, and I suppose if it ever starts happening again, at least he has somebody to turn to who can maybe help him out. Thank you once again to Tim for sharing this story. This episode was called the Residency and you've been listening to Otherworld. Otherworld is executive produce, produced and hosted by myself, Jack Wagner. Our producers are Theo Schaeffer, Theo Krantz, Haley Pearson and Nikki Kate Delgado. Our theme song is by Cobra Man. The soundtrack of this episode is by Juice Jackal. Our artwork is by Cul de Sac Studios. Please show us your support by subscribing, leaving a five star review and telling your friends about the show. If you want to hear bonus episodes of Otherworld, you can become a patron@patreon.com Otherworld Our social media is Otherworldpod. Thank you to the team at Odysee. Leah Rhys, Dennis, Maura Curran, Josephina Francis, Eric Donnelly, Kate Rose, Colin Gaynor and Hilary Schuff. Follow and listen to Otherworld now for free on the Odysee app or wherever you get your podcasts. And finally, if you or somebody you know has experienced something paranormal, supernatural or unexplained, you could send us your stories@storiesotherworldpod.com.