Multiple hauntings, messages from beyond and much more on this edition of the Campfire!

-RITUAL-

Try Ritual’s new probiotic, Synbiotic+

Ritual is offering my listeners 10% off during your first 3 months. Visit ritual.com/campfire to start your Ritual today.

-CALM-

We’re so happy to partner with Calm. Calm is the app designed to help you ease stress and get the best sleep of your life.

Calm is offering Campfire listeners a special limited time promotion of 40% off a Calm Premium subscription at CALM.COM/campfire

-STAMPS.COM-

Stamps.com takes the pain out of shipping by giving you access to deeply discounted shipping options and convenience. There’s NO risk. And with my promo code, campfire, you get a special offer that includes a 4-week trial PLUS free postage & a digital shipping scale. No long-term commitments or contracts. Just go to Stamps.com, click on the microphone at the TOP of the homepage, and type in campfire.

TRANSCRIPT

Highly haunted houses on this edition of the Campfire.

Welcome to our gathering tonight. Here we share stories of ordinary people who have experienced extraordinary things. Sit back, relax, and warm yourself by Jim Harold’s Campfire.

JIM HAROLD: Welcome to the Campfire. I am Jim Harold and so glad to be with you once again. If you are new to the show, what we simply do is tell highly haunted stories. Today we’re going to talk about highly haunted houses and many other topics. What we do here is share true stories of the strange as told by real people. We don’t add music, we don’t embellish; we just have them tell it like it is and explain these strange things that have happened to them. Sometimes they’re UFOs, ghosts, cryptid creatures, or my favorite, headscratchers – but whatever they are, they are fascinating and they are true. Welcome to our show.

If you have been listening for a while, couple months, a decade, we would appreciate it if you would put in a review sharing your thoughts about the show if you like what we do, and I would appreciate it very much. Also, make sure that you have followed or subscribed in the podcast app of your choice. That is so, so important. And finally, I would say simply tell a friend. There are so many people out there interested in the spooky, but there are so many people that have no idea that our shows exist. So please help remedy that. We would appreciate it oh so much.

I thank you for tuning in to this edition of Campfire, and we will not disappoint. Here’s our first great Campfire story.

Alex is on the line from Los Angeles. He heard about us from the Last Podcast on the Left. I love that name, and I know that’s a super popular show. We thank them for mentioning the Campfire. Alex has, well, a story about a home he moved into a couple of years back, and maybe he got a little more than he bargained for. Alex, welcome to the show and please tell us what happened.

ALEX: Thanks for having me, Jim. This is mainly a secondhand story of my wife’s, and I trust her completely because we’re both – or we were atheists until these experiences, and it’s changed her perspective on life.

The main thing here, the first thing that happened was our firstborn was about six or five months old when we moved into this house. We were asleep one night, and she was having a dream. In this dream, a normal dream – usually she says she’s not lucid in her dreams, but in this particular dream she became aware that something was wrong and she turned around to look at our son in the dream. In this dream, there was a man with a hat on who was hovering over our son. She panicked. She knew something was wrong. All she knew was that she had to get our son away from this man.

She said she tried running to him, and she ran in total panic in this dream, running and running in a frenzy, and just as she was running to her son, the man started to look at her, and our son yelled and screamed in reality. So she woke up suddenly. Now, she knows when she’s awake or asleep because it’s a newborn and she has to feed him continuously throughout the night. So she can differentiate between the two things.

As soon as she awoke, there was a man – there’s the wall, then her, and then our son, and then it’s just the edge and you can stand on the other side of the bed. There’s a man standing there, trying to feed him something. He had something – she said it was Western style clothing. He had a big old hat on, a top hat style hat, but not tall, just a shorter version, cowboy style, a flat top. She said he was taking some piece of food or object. It was dark and he was silhouetted against the blinds. I asked her, “Was this a shadow man? Was he darker than night?” I interviewed her again last week to refresh my memory before coming on the podcast. She said no, he was not darker than the dark around him.

She actually thought someone broke in at first, and she was terrified. She froze and she stared at this man, and he realized that she was awake because she sat bolt upright. She said she saw this thing that he was trying to put into our son’s mouth – who was facing to his right, towards the man – and the man was placing this piece of food on the bed. She felt like he was trying to feed it to him but he couldn’t feed it to him directly; our son had to eat it of his own accord. Which his terrifying to think of.

Then he noticed my wife and she sat upright, she stared at me, and she said she hadn’t prayed the Lord’s Prayer since she was a little girl, and that’s the first thing she started to do because she didn’t know what else to do. She knew she couldn’t scream. For some reason she knew that was not the right thing to do. She knew she couldn’t get out of bed. All she knew was she grabbed our son and ripped him away from this entity. Then the entity grabbed whatever he was putting on the bed and casually looked at her and started to eat it.

Once he ate it, he became cocky. She said he walked back but he didn’t walk back; it was such a smooth motion that he almost floated back. He rotated slowly away from the bed, and he went to a corner between the wall and the window where there was darkness, and she was so terrified that she was clutching our son and watching him. I asked her, “Did you get up and have parallax in your depth of vision? Was it just a leftover remnant in your eyes from the dream?” She said, “No, no, I thought this was a man. I could see light slightly on the contour” – you know if someone’s in the room, even if it’s dark, you can sort of see form.

So she said, yeah, he was a real person in the room, or that’s what she thought until he started to merge with the shadows, watching her. It took a total of five minutes for him to dissolve into the shadows, and that was the end of that. Next morning, she’s like, “We had a visitor.” Normally my wife and I are very critical thinkers; we were both very anti-religion before because we grew up in super strict religious families. But we’re finding ourselves back into the spiritual route in our own way.

So that really opened our eyes, especially because she was always the one to – not mock things like this, but think critically and always find an excuse to explain it away. So for her to be terrified, for her to tell me, I instantly believed her. Especially when you see the person you love and the terror in their eyes.

JIM HAROLD: Of course.

ALEX: After that, we had a second experience when our second son was born. This is two years later now, so actually this last November. One night, my mom was here. Because of the religious stuff, we don’t have the best relationship. She was here to help for a few days and we had an argument over religion again. It was a very heated argument, and I was very stressed out. There was a deadline at the same time. Our son had gone through surgery. It was just a really stressful time for the family, and the edges were fraying, essentially.

I slept in the other room with our two-year-old son at this point and my wife slept with the newborn in her bedroom, the master bedroom. My mom was sleeping in the guest room. Around three in the morning, roughly around there, my wife said she heard a loud banging on the door She was upset. She was like, if it’s me, “Why doesn’t he just come in?” And if it’s her mother-in-law, “Why is she banging on the door so hard? This is crazy.” So she said, “Coming,” and she put her bathrobe on and got ready. The light was on because she was already feeding our son, so she was already up.

She opened the door and there was no one there. The hallway, she always hears me whenever I try to sneak past for a late night treat, she always hears me, calls me out on it, going down to the fridge. So she would’ve heard me walking away or walking to, but there was this loud banging. And as soon as she opened the door she felt this temperature in the entire room drop and she felt as if a bucket of ice was pouring from the top of her head to the bottom.

She immediately again resorted to the Lord’s Prayer. That’s the only thing she could think of, and she basically spoke to this entity and said, “You are not welcome, whoever you are.”

JIM HAROLD: Good for her.

ALEX: Yeah, and she slammed the door shut and held on to our son. So those have been our biggest quite scary experiences. Yeah, that’s it.

JIM HAROLD: Do you have a feel for the genesis of this? Something about that house, the history of the house? Do you know anything about it?

ALEX: This house was built early 2000s, so it’s not that old. It’s quite a new build. Everything’s pretty new. The only thing is that before we moved in, the previous owner said that the previous owner was a real estate agent who wrecked this house because in the 2008 financial crisis, he lost the home. I don’t know what happened to him, but he was super upset that the bank was taking it, so he actually wrecked the home. Then the previous owner had to basically buy it and rehab it.

That’s about as much as I know. I don’t know anything further than that. The only thing is we live next to – we sort of live in the desert area of LA, and there’s a large creek, a very beautiful river that fills up in the winter, but the rest of the year it’s pretty dry. I don’t know if it has any historical context, but it’s pretty wild wilderness out there. I don’t know, we’re right next to nature. That’s the other thing I can think of. Nothing else.

JIM HAROLD: Interesting. Maybe that person had such an energy about them, the real estate agent was so upset, maybe – who knows? My goodness, that’s some story. Well, Alex, I wish you all the best in the house. Things seem to have quieted down?

ALEX: Yep, things are good.

JIM HAROLD: That’s good. Maybe when your wife said “Hey, you’re not welcome,” maybe whatever this is took heed. We can only hope. Alex, thank you so much for being a part of the Campfire.

ALEX: Thank you.

JIM HAROLD: Next up on the Campfire is Tim from New Hampshire, and we’re so glad to have him on the show. He found out about us from New England Legends, that great podcast by Jeff Belanger, so please check them out. Tim is going to tell us about his home. Tim, welcome to the show and please tell us about what’s going on.

TIM: Thanks for having me. I guess I’ll start at the beginning and give a quick little bit of background here. We live in the southwest part of New Hampshire, and in 2006, we purchased a home. It had been built in 1850, and we were the first non-family members to live in that house.

Pretty much right away, we started having experiences of various sorts. Different apparitions, voices, whatever. We even had three house sitters in a row bail out on us because they didn’t want to stay overnight again. It kind of developed a reputation within our circle of friends and whatnot.

The most common thing was to hear a woman’s voice. Very often that was associated with an animal, and at that time it was our cat, Socrates. There’d be times I swore I heard my wife talking to the cat and I’d be like, “I never heard the car pull in.” I’d go downstairs and he’d be sitting there acting like somebody was standing over him, giving him a belly rub or something. I’d say, “Hey, what’s going on, buddy?” He’d look at me and then he’d turn and look above him like somebody was standing over him.

JIM HAROLD: Huh.

TIM: Yeah. This became so common. My wife was hearing it, too, so both of us were hearing it from time to time, and it became so common we got used to it. But the thing is, you talk about it among your friends and you’re like, “Are we priming them to hear stuff?” or whatever.

The story I’m going to share is my favorite because it involves people that had no prior knowledge. Along about 2014, we opened a small brewery on the property. We built a whole new building, and people could come out, visit the brewery, sample some beer and buy some to take with. It was a lot of fun while it lasted.

One day, we have a husband and wife show up, and they were new to the area. They’d never been to the area before. They were on vacation. They had two dogs with them. They said, “Hey, is it okay if we park off to the side in the shade of the tree and roll down the windows?” I said, “That’s fine.”

So we’re in the brewery, in the tasting room, and we’re talking and we hear somebody out there talking to their dogs. We figured it was a walk-in, because we hadn’t heard a car, but that’s not a big deal because there are rental properties within walking distance of the brewery. So it wasn’t uncommon to have a person walk in.

So we continue talking for a while, and suddenly we’re like, “Wait a second. That person never came in.” I go to the door, poke my head out, don’t see anything. “Well, maybe they were just buying eggs,” because we had a box out there where you could buy eggs, self-serve. No big deal. So we continue talking for a while, and this time, very distinctly, we’re hearing somebody talking to their dogs, cooing over them, playing with them.

I walk out there and you can see the dogs are at the window of the car, acting like there’s someone standing next to the car. The husband goes out there and looks too, and the wife, and they’re like, “This is weird.” I said, “Okay, I’ve got to tell you guys this story.” I tell them the story of the woman and how my wife and I hear it so frequently, it’s very often associated with our old cat we used to have. At that time we had our own dogs, and from time to time you’d hear it sound like she was talking to our dogs.

He thinks it’s the coolest thing in the world. You can tell his wife’s not that into it. We go back to talking beer and stuff and whatever, and now for a third time, we hear a woman talking to their dogs, cooing with them, and we go out there and the voice continues for a while and the dogs clearly appear to be interacting with someone.

At this point he’s super excited like this is the coolest thing he’s seen in his life. His wife, unfortunately, really emotionally went off, just panic, almost, to the point where he felt it was necessary to leave. He tries to get her to calm down, they go out, they get in their car, and then they head off.

It wasn’t hugely spectacular stuff flying around, but for me, what was significant about that was these were two people who had no reason to suspect anything. They had heard about our brewery online; they knew nothing about it. And very distinctly, all three times, all three of us heard this woman’s voice clearly speaking to their dogs. So to me, that was a pretty significant happening. That’s why that one really sticks with me.

JIM HAROLD: Yeah. Again, if it’s just you, you can second-guess yourself or even your immediate family members, but then if people who have nothing to do with you or the place and no knowledge or anything, they’re experiencing the same things, that gives it a certain level of validation, doesn’t it?

TIM: Yeah, it does. Exactly like you say. There’s been many other things that happened, but it’s usually just me by myself or maybe my wife by herself or maybe a friend of ours who we told stuff about and said “Oh yeah, listen for this.” So they were primed to be looking for it. To have two people with no prior knowledge, and for that extent of time – because these three incidents happened probably over the span of, oh gosh, 15 minutes or so as we were talking there.

I’d love to know the origin of it. I’ve tried to do a bit of digging and couldn’t really come up with anything. Talked to some of the relatives of the people we bought the place from, and they didn’t really have anything. So yeah, I don’t know what it is, but to this day we still occasionally hear her.

JIM HAROLD: Well, sometimes, Tim, the most fun thing about this is the mystery, and sometimes we have to live with the mystery. But it is fascinating indeed. Thank you for joining us and sharing this Campfire story.

TIM: Thank you for having me.

JIM HAROLD: Jim Harold’s Campfire is brought to you by Stamps.com. When you’re running a small business, every second counts. You can’t afford to waste a single moment. So why are you still taking time out of your day to go to the post office when you could be using Stamps.com instead?

Listen up. Stamps.com makes mailing and shipping quick, easy, and cost-effective. I want to get this point across real quickly. Some people might say, “Hey Jim, I’m not a businessperson.” Well, do you have a small Etsy shop? Do you sell things on eBay? Believe it or not, you’re a small business. And Stamps.com will save you time, money, and stress. I absolutely love it. We use it here at Jim Harold Media all the time. I am a small operation, so I look for what I call “force multipliers.” The whole idea is, how can I match up with the big boys without spending a lot of money, without spending a lot of time? And Stamps.com is the perfect definition of it, and we love it here and use it all the time.

And it’s not just me. For more than 20 years, Stamps.com has been indispensable for over one million businesses. Stamps.com gives you access to all the post office and UPS shipping services you need right from your computer, and you get discounts you can’t find anywhere else, like up to 30% off of USPS rates and 86% off UPS rates.

Streamline your shipping process with Stamps.com’s easy-to-use software. All you need is your regular computer and printer. No special supplies or equipment, and that is much appreciated, I can tell you. You’re up and running in minutes, printing official postage for any letter, any package, anywhere you want to send it. Plus, Stamps.com seamlessly works with Shopify, Amazon, Etsy, eBay, and more. So whether you’re an office sending invoices, an Etsy shop sending your products, or a warehouse shipping out your orders, Stamps.com is your mailing and shipping solution.

And we have a fantastic deal for you today. Stop wasting time and start saving money when you use Stamps.com to mail and ship. Sign up with promo code CAMPFIRE for a special offer that includes a four-week trial plus free postage and a digital scale. No long-term commitments or contracts. Just go to Stamps.com, click the microphone at the top of the page, and enter code CAMPFIRE. That’s so good, it bears repeating. Just go to Stamps.com, click the microphone at the top of the page, and enter code CAMPFIRE. We thank Stamps.com for their support of Jim Harold’s Campfire.

You’re listening to Jim Harold’s Campfire.

JIM HAROLD: Robert is on the line from Minnesota, and we’re so glad to have him on the line. He’s going to tell us a very interesting story about some things that happened in Chicago with a roommate and so forth. Very interesting. But he’s also going to tell us about a very special art exhibit at the end of this call. Robert, welcome to the show. Thank you for joining us, and please tell us your experience.

ROBERT: Thanks for having me, Jim. I have had supernatural or paranormal experiences happen to me and lots of loved ones as far back as I can remember. I was born on Halloween, so maybe the spirits are watching because of that. [laughs]

One particular instance that has always stayed with me happened collectively to a group of friends. I was living in Logan Square neighborhood of Chicago in 1993 to 1997. I lived with a friend of mine and then a couple, and one of the members of that couple had a mother who was a Sentara; she was a priestess in the Santeria religion. She would come over and sit with us and do readings and talk to us about things that were going on in our lives. She would throw divination stones. We were all very interested in this, but I wasn’t sure that we were all taking it as serious as we should’ve.

One day, she heard a story of how a friend of ours was having dreams that a ghost was having sex with her, so she had declared that our friend Chantelle had an incubus, and there was a whole cleansing that had to do with getting rid of that incubus. Other things that were interrupting our relationships or giving us problems at work, my friend Tony’s mother would actually see it as different spirit entities that were coming between us, interfering with relationships, blocking paths, and often asked us to leave particular offerings in places to Orisha, or to light Catholic candles.

So those were the kinds of things that were happening. We had had a party and nobody was drinking or doing drugs; it was just a gathering. A friend of mine, I remember from this party, looked down the corridor in our apartment and saw a featureless, large, six-foot-tall entity glide from the living room into our friend Richard’s room.

JIM HAROLD: Oh my.

ROBERT: Jonathan, who’s a very pragmatic, skeptical guy who I’ve known since fifth grade, walked curiously down the hall, leaving us from the kitchen, and then coming back and looking perplexed. He later told me that that’s what he had seen. And others had had dreams about this featureless, almost like Gollum creature coming into our rooms or taking things off of shelves and throwing them on the floor. A few of us had had nightmares about this.

So when Tony’s mom heard about this, she was alarmed and felt that it was this entity that had gotten into our house or was sent out by my friend Richard’s estranged wife, who he was trying to get divorced from. It was going to be amicable, but she wasn’t signing papers and it was becoming this prolonged thing that Richard was concerned about. And because it had seemed to be entering his room, she felt like it had something to do with that.

So she had the entire house do this ritual that involved a cleansing and a number of other kinds of things, and it ended with us each being responsible for sweeping up the dirt in our private spaces, collecting it in a bag, and then Richard and I drove out with that with 100 pennies, a cigar, and this bag of dirt to the gates of a graveyard, left it behind there, had to say this incantation, and then lo and behold, Jim, the next week Richard’s divorce became final. And a lot of the other strange things and ripples at work that were happening with some of us died down.

Tony’s mom’s explanation of this was that this entity was permeating all of our unconscious, but also we were carrying a little part of it into our other daily lives. It was obstructing things. So once this cleansing had happened, this whole house cleansing, it dissipated and it went away. That was something I’ve never forgotten because the dreams stopped and a whole bunch of other kinds of things leveled out.

JIM HAROLD: That’s really interesting. I do think that there are people who have powers and have these abilities. Whether you’re pro one of these practices or you’re not pro one of these practices, I think they do exist and I do think that they can have power, absolutely.

ROBERT: Right.

JIM HAROLD: How did that change you? Did it give you a lifelong fascination with these topics? I assume so, since you’re listening to a show called Campfire.

ROBERT: Yeah. I had seen ghosts or heard things, watched paranormal activity play out with witnesses of doors open, door knobs jingle, things move around on a table. These kinds of things have been things that have happened around me.

But this kind of relationship to something and going up to it in this ritual way that Tony’s mom suggested, and appeasing it in some way, or appeasing the Orishas that might have had some control over it, and having it be removed in that way, that cause and effect and that engagement with the supernatural is not something I had ever really thought was possible. They just were things that happened. But this seemed like it was a communion on another level that helped alter the presence of this thing in our apartment.

Whether folks will believe that or not, this is an essential part of a lot of people’s sacred practices across religions, so seeing it from that perspective was something that was new for me.

JIM HAROLD: There’s something you’re doing that’s very cool now in terms of artists and art and the paranormal. Can you tell us a little bit about it and where people can find it?

ROBERT: Sure. I was the curator of an exhibition called Supernatural America: The Paranormal in American Art. It’s in its last week at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, but there is a large, comprehensive book on the subject, and also an audio guide that is accessible anywhere from our website, which is artsmia.org.

A lot of artists who are people who have had these experiences from history that we know were central to their worldview or their experiences because they wrote about them in correspondence or diaries or gave interviews about them, or living artists who have had this idea of spirit contact or an engagement with the otherworldly and then making artwork about it, are all part of this exhibition, which includes work from the 1780s to 2021. It’s arranged thematically so the past and the present are speaking to one another.

It’s the first of its kind. There’s been probably exhibitions that are relatively recent that are starting to take mediumship seriously, but this really looks at the omnipresence of supernatural and paranormal subject matter in American culture over two centuries and many generations from many different perspectives. So it’s something that will have a much longer life in the book than in the exhibition, but it’s up now at Minneapolis.

JIM HAROLD: And give us that URL one more time.

ROBERT: Sure. Our website is artsmia.org. If you look for the exhibitions, Supernatural America has all sorts of extra stuff on its webpage, including that audio guide where you’ll hear from artists and mediums and other kinds of community members talking about their real lived experience with the supernatural and the paranormal.

JIM HAROLD: Thank you so much for sharing it. In fact, we’re going to do an interview on one of the other shows with Robert to talk more about this in depth, so stay tuned for that. Robert, thank you for sharing that and sharing your Campfire story.

ROBERT: Thanks, Jim.

JIM HAROLD: Velma is on the line with her husband, Todd, from Texas. Velma’s been on the show multiple times, and she just told me she started listening Campfire Episode 11. If there was some kind of prize, I’d give it to her, because that’s way back. Velma and Todd, welcome to the show and please tell us your story.

VELMA: Thank you so much. I’ll get started and he’ll jump in. This actually occurred back in June of 2017. We actually live right outside San Antonio. I was part of a Girl Scout Troop at that time with my daughter, so we wanted to do a trip down to the coast, which is Corpus Christi. It’s about a two and a half hour drive. We were going to go spend the night at the haunted USS Lexington, but that’s not part of the story. That’s just how the story starts. We were going to spend the night on that ship.

Anyhow, the coast is very humid, ad I did something you’re not supposed to do: I slept with my contacts on.

JIM HAROLD: Uh-oh.

VELMA: Yes. I woke up in the middle of the night and I took them out because they were bothering me so much, but no sooner after doing that, my eyes started tearing and burning. I woke up my friend – we were sleeping on those bunks, you know how they are on the Navy ship. I woke her up and said, “Hey, wake up!” My friend’s name was Gina. I go, “Wake up, Gina!” After a few painful hours, she was trying to help me, she tended to me. My eyes were burning and hurting, what have you.

We decided to drive back to San Antonio so that I could go to the hospital. I didn’t want to get stuck in Corpus, so we made the trip back into the city. She drove my car back to the house, and my husband was literally waiting for me in the driveway so he could help me get into our other car and he could drive me to the ER. Guess what my diagnosis was? I ended up scratching both my corneas.

JIM HAROLD: Ooh.

VELMA: Yes. So, everyone, do not sleep with your contacts. That’s not a good idea. When that happened, it actually felt like when you have sleep in your eyes. It’s blurry and you can’t focus. It was super blurry. Anyhow, Todd, you can get started because we went to the ER and we left, and then you helped me leave.

TODD: Yeah. We were at the ER and she was in a lot of pain. She’s got low pain tolerance. I won’t say anything about that, but she was in a lot of pain and she couldn’t see. After they diagnosed her and prescribed something for her, I was having to walk her out of the emergency room and get her out of the hospital. She couldn’t really see anything, so I was holding her by the hand and getting her out of the building.

I pulled her off to the side of the building, in the area where I could pick her up. We had parked a ways away, so I told her, “Just stand here against the wall and I’m going to go get the car and I’ll come back around.” It rained that day, so I had to jog out to the car – a light jog because it was kind of a ways away. Made it back to the car and got in and drove my way back to where she was standing, and as I was driving up, I noticed there was a man standing next to her, close to her, like he was maybe talking to her or maybe keeping her company. I didn’t really pay too much attention to it other than thinking in my head, maybe he noticed that she was by herself and asked her what was wrong or something.

I kept driving closer to the building and when you pick her up, it’s a U-shaped entrance to get her, so you have to go up the right side of the U and then do a turnaround to pick her up on the other side. There’s a little wall there also in the middle of the U when you do that. So I lost vision of her for maybe three seconds when I did that U. But when I came back around, she was there by herself. And there were no other cars in front of me, so I didn’t stop or anything.

I pulled up in front of her and got out of the car and I went around to the driver’s side and told her I was here and grabbed her by the hand and got her into the car and everything. I got into the car with her and started driving and I said, “Hey, who was that guy who was standing with you? I didn’t see him there, but I saw a guy talking to you.” She’s like, “There was no one standing with me.” I go, “There was a guy right next to you. I figured maybe he was keeping you company or talking to you or asking you how you were doing.” She goes, “No.” She seemed kind of confused. I said, “I know I saw someone ether.” She goes, “No, there was no one there.” I was like, “All right.”

I didn’t really think nothing about it other than what I said. We just drove home, and we had to go get her prescription, so we really didn’t talk about it too much more until later on the next day, we went to her mom’s house and we told her mom what had happened, and I told her mom that I had seen that guy – man, should I say. Not a guy, but a man, standing next to her. It was weird because he couldn’t have really walked away that fast.

JIM HAROLD: Right, you would’ve seen it.

TODD: Exactly. I would’ve seen him walk into the building, at least, or walk down the sidewalk more, walking away from her. I figured maybe he saw my car pull up and maybe he would’ve walked away, but I would’ve at least seen him walking to the parking lot or something. But I didn’t see anything. And when I was driving her, I was looking around to see if he was in the parking lot, walking somewhere, but I didn’t see that.

So I was telling her mom about that, and her mom said, “What did he look like?” I started thinking. I said he had short, dark hair and he was light complected. I don’t really remember seeing his face or seeing any facial features. I know he had khaki tan pants, and it looked like he was wearing a jacket, like one of those jackets from the ’80s, like a Members Only jacket. I don’t know if you remember those.

JIM HAROLD: Yeah, sure.

TODD: It was kind of like one of those, but I don’t think it was one of those, but it looked similar. Then her mom got a look on her face and she said, “Do you think that was your dad, Velma?” Then we just looked at each other and it hit me, and I was like – and I never met her dad because her dad passed away when she was very young. I’ve only seen her dad in pictures, and when her mom said that, I got a chill and I said, “You know what? I think that was him.”

Thinking back, the features that I saw, and even his physical build – he was a medium to small man, so even that was similar to him. I said, “I think that was him.” It was very, very strange. We started talking more about it and we figured maybe her dad was there next to her, I guess protecting her or maybe looking over her.

JIM HAROLD: Sure, because she had been at the hospital, in the emergency room. After that did you maybe look at photos of him to refresh your memory, just to compare and check yourself?

TODD: Yeah, I did actually. I did look at photos. I was like, let me look at some photos. I had some photos on my phone, and everybody says that our son kind of looks like him. I looked at him and I was like, I think that was him. He had a crew cut from the ’60s, ’50s era, the crew cut they had back then. I’m pretty positive it was him just from everything that I looked at in the photos and his build and everything, and the weird way that he was gone so fast, and the situation she was in. Because she was really in distress. She didn’t really tell you how much distress she was in when she spoke about it, but she was in a lot of distress.

JIM HAROLD: When your eyes are in pain, that’s a very sensitive area. And then it’s kind of scary because you think about, “Oh my goodness, am I going to lose my eyesight or something like that?” That’s a natural concern. Velma, how did that make you feel?

VELMA: After thinking about it, it’s almost like felt like he was saying it was going to be okay. And I was. After I want to say two or three days after the fact, I was able to see again. But I really felt like he was there to comfort me and it was going to be okay.

JIM HAROLD: That’s great. A lot of times on the shows – and Velma, as long as you’ve been listening, you’ve heard me say this many times – we think about the paranormal and the supernatural as something that’s scary and frightening. And it can be, and there are things that are scary and frightening, but there’s also stories like this, which are actually kind of neat.

VELMA: It is.

TODD: Right.

JIM HAROLD: Velma and Todd, thank you so much for listening all these years, and thank you for being a part of the Campfire.

TODD: Thank you, Jim.

VELMA: Thank you.

JIM HAROLD: Jim Harold’s Campfire is brought to you by Calm. They are the number one mental wellness app to give you the tools that improve the way you feel.

I think it’s important to look at ourselves. We’re always so busy in the workaday world, tending to our jobs and our families, but sometimes I think we have to ask this question: how have I been caring for myself lately? How have you been caring for yourself lately? And whether it’s taking longer baths, going on evening strolls, or indulging in midday naps, pair your self-care ritual with Calm and take your wellness to the next level.

We’re so glad to partner with them. They have such a quality app and a quality service. Reduce stress and anxiety through guided meditations, improve focus with curated music tracks, and rest and recharge with Calm’s imaginative sleep stories for both children and adults. There’s even new daily movement sessions designed to relax your body and uplift your mind. And if you go to Calm.com/campfire, you’ll get a special offer of 40% off a Calm premium subscription, and new content is added each and every week.

It’s not just me and it’s not just my family who all love Calm, and we use Calm; it’s over 100 million people. And those 100 million people around the world use Calm to take care of their minds. Calm is ready to help you stress less, sleep more, and live a happier, healthier life. Again, we love Calm in the Harold household. We all use it and enjoy it, and I know that you will, too.

And we’ve got a great deal for you. For listeners of this show, Calm is offering an exclusive offer of 40% off a Calm premium subscription at Calm.com/campfire. Go to Calm.com/campfire for 40% off unlimited access to Calm’s entire library. That’s Calm.com/campfire. We appreciate Calm’s support of Jim Harold’s Campfire.

Follow Jim on Twitter and Instagram @TheJimHarold and join our virtual Campfire Facebook group at VirtualCampfireGroup.com. Now, back to the Campfire.

JIM HAROLD: Leah is on the line from Niagara, Canada. We’re so glad to get to speak with her. She’s been listening for a few years, and we really appreciate that. She has some interesting experiences while she’s sleeping and then she wakes up to something – well, let’s say it’s a little strange. Leah, welcome to the program. Thank you for joining us, and please tell us what happened.

LEAH: Sure. Thanks, Jim. I’m so excited to be here.

JIM HAROLD: Good to have you here.

LEAH: Thank you. I wanted to share the stories tonight about some experiences I had when family members have passed. But yes, it all does occur while I’m dreaming. The first is my grandmother. She developed cancer at 81 and was given about six months to live. I spent an awful lot of time up at her house in that whole summer right before she passed that September. She was having a lot of visitors, we were doing a lot of dishwashing.

I went home one week and I was sleeping and having this dream that I was at her house, washing dishes because we had a bunch of guests, and there was a huge black bug on her kitchen curtains. I ran into her living room, she’s sitting in her favorite chair, and I’m like, “Nana, there’s a bug!” I went and hid. She went in, calm as anything, grabbed the bug, and said, “Leah, it’s okay. I’ll get rid of this.”

The phone rings, wakes me up. It’s my mother, and before she has a chance to tell me why she’s calling, I tell her my dream and she pauses and says, “Leah, they just put her on new medication and she’s seeing black bugs all over the floor. She’s hallucinating.”

JIM HAROLD: Huh.

LEAH: Yeah, so that was the first thing that happened in all of this. Then we all managed to be with her when she passed, so we had that beautiful experience of being with her to support her as she took her last breath. We got into the funeral and her one sister – she was from a large family, very close with all her siblings, and everyone had made the pilgrimage to come visit her except for one sister because she had had a stroke and didn’t feel well enough to make the trek.

She was telling me after, though, that she had a dream she was at my grandmother’s house, sleeping over like she used to, and she got up in the middle of the night to go to the washroom and my grandmother called her in her room and they had this whole chat. She said, “Leah, I didn’t get to see her, but I had my goodbye.” So it’s like my grandmother was traveling as she was passing.

JIM HAROLD: I’ve heard this before. I think Dr. Raymond Moody did some work on this. People in different parts of the country, or the world, would see the same person as they were passing, have visions of them simultaneously.

LEAH: Yes, exactly. She was preparing herself. It was really interesting. So now we’re at her funeral and my mom had this great idea like the Egyptians that we were going to put things in her coffin with her. I think I threw in a pair of my ballet slippers because she loved watching me dance when I was little, and my mom put in a telephone. This is the ’90s; it’s one of those push button old jobbies. But we put the phone in there because she didn’t drive, but she loved visiting. She was a really social creature, and she said, “I can visit everybody through the phones.” My mom thought, “Perfect! We’ll put a phone in with you and away you go.” [laughs]

About a week after the funeral, I’m back at home and I’m driving to work, and all of a sudden I recall this dream I had. I’m on the phone with my girlfriend and call waiting beeps through, and it’s her. And she says, “Leah, I’m here. I just want you to know I’m okay.” And I said, “Oh, who are you there with?” She said, “I’m here with my mother.” I said, “Did you hear us? We were with you when you died.” She said, “I heard everything. Yes, I did.” I said, “Is Auntie Eda there?” Auntie Eda was one of her sisters who’d predeceased her. She said, “No, Leah, Aunt Eda’s not here. She had to go back. She had things to do.” Interesting.

That’s the only message I got, but it didn’t hit me till I was driving to work, and it was like a gut punch. I just realized – the whole thing came flooding back and I said, she has visited me. She came to me and told me – and I’m a vivid dreamer, Jim. I have all kinds of crazy dreams. But this was different. I have no doubt that it was very different.

So that was the first experience I had, and then my brother unfortunately passed away prematurely at 44 from heart failure.

JIM HAROLD: Aww.

LEAH: Yeah, it was a very tough time. Actually, the coincidental thing is today is his actual birthday. I think that’s why I wanted to tell his story tonight. But there’s a bunch of strange coincidences around that on top of the dream.

He was a juvenile diabetic, and unfortunately by the time he hit 40 it had done a lot of damage to his body. He was an electrical engineer, a brilliant, creative, sensitive person in his own right, and he just couldn’t function normally by the time he hit 40, so he was on long-term disability. I remember probably when he was about 43, saying to my husband, “I’ve got to call and have a talk with him. I don’t have a good feeling and I don’t want him to give up.”

So I called and had that awkward conversation with him. Did some small chat, and then I said, “You’re just so special and you’re brilliant, and the world needs you. Don’t give up. Hang in there.” He was really good about it, took it in stride, and said, “I know, Leah. It’s okay.” This is May 2011.

My cousin – again, we grew up a very close family; it was one of my uncle’s three sons, and we all grew up together – but he passed tragically in a skiing accident right around my brother’s birthday. My brother didn’t go to the funeral because he wasn’t well at the time, but we all went. It was up north because we’re from northern Ontario. We passed through and had lunch with him because it was around his birthday, but actually that was the last time I saw him.

Then fast forward, it’s a quiet night in September, I’m gearing up for a busy weekend, my mom and dad, snowbirds, are in Florida already. I settle down to bed and I have this very odd dream where I’m back up north at our home, so I knew I was up in Sudbury, where I was from. We were going out together with a group of friends, and we often went to someone’s place and hung out first and pre-partied, and then we went off to the bar. So that’s what we were doing.

It was in a basement apartment, and the person hosting the party – that was the weird thing. It was a friend of mine from my current work life. He was a very tall, handsome man that I worked with that I really considered a brotherly type of friend. He was hosting the party, so he was out of context there. But then we go to leave and we’re about to go party at the bar, and he stops me on the sidewalk and he grabs me and embraces me with these tight, tight hug and he says goodbye in my ear, and he backs away from me and there’s tears in his eyes. I’m like, “Why are you crying?” And he turned into a bird and flew off into the sky.

Phone rings, 5 a.m., it’s my mom calling to tell me that my brother’s passed. And again, none of this registered for me. I don’t think I slept much after that, but I was preparing muffins – I’ve got to go up north to the funeral; I’ll bring something – and gut punch again. This dream comes pouring back.

Here’s how I pieced it together – because my brother really struggled with his physical body while he was here. I think that he came to me in a physique that he knew I appreciated, for one, and someone that I had a strong connection to. Saying goodbye and then flying away – it just gave me so much peace to think he’s okay. It didn’t even occur to me till I was piecing the story together for you, but I think he came to me because I had that conversation with him and he wanted me to know that he didn’t give up.

But the other strange coincidence is that in the last four years my brother was on long-term disability, he lived in his basement. He couldn’t really move around the house a lot; he had to sleep sitting up. So the basement apartment – it was weird that it was so pronounced in my mind that it was in a basement apartment.

The last odd thing, though, and the reason why I brought my cousin’s death forward is because – I mentioned my cousin died right round my brother’s birthday; my brother actually died on the day of my cousin’s birthday. His birthday was September 17^th, in the fall. A very weird synchronicity there. Long Island Medium was all the rage back then, and I said to my mom about eight or nine months later, “Let’s go see a medium. I think it’ll give me some peace, and I’d love to hear what information she has.”

She did confirm that a young man was there when he crossed, so I was like, “Wow. That’s so crazy.” It was just so affirming, though, and gave me so much peace. And again, I think I’m the family fringe lunatic a little bit, but I think if people see your comfort, they take comfort in that. So I think that was the method to it. But it’s extraordinary, and it’s opened up other things. I will call back and tell you some stories about creepy experiences, but these were my fond loving ones.

JIM HAROLD: I think those are really important. I’ve said this many times on the show, but I really do believe that the supernatural is a continuum, and there are those spooky, creepy things, but in a way, doing this show over the last 13 years has reaffirmed my faith that we live on, and that our loved ones live on. So in a weird way, it’s been a very soothing thing. You wouldn’t have thought that, doing a show of spooky stories, but it’s been that for me.

LEAH: Yeah, I completely agree, and I do think there are negative elements, certainly, because my other set of stories is around that. But it’s interesting when you think about it. And it gave me a tremendous amount of comfort in those deaths. You just feel so special that they came to you.

JIM HAROLD: Absolutely.

LEAH: Yeah, it was great.

JIM HAROLD: Leah, thank you so much for being a part of the Campfire tonight.

LEAH: My pleasure. Thank you.

JIM HAROLD: Jim Harold’s Campfire is brought to you by Ritual and their new probiotic product, Synbiotic+. Ritual has a question for you: Does your probiotic contain clinically studied strains? Well, meet one that does. Ritual’s Synbiotic+ contains two of the world’s most studied strains with over 350 publications of human clinical trials.

I had actually thought about starting a probiotic, and coincidentally, Ritual, who has been on the shows for years now, and I take their multivitamin each and every day and have enjoyed that – they said, “Hey, we’ve got a probiotic product. Would you like to try it?” I thought that was perfect timing, and I did, and I’m so glad that I did.

When it comes to Ritual, I trust the way that they operate. They’re science-backed, they’re research-stacked, and especially when you compare them against the leading direct-to-consumer and top-selling probiotics on the market. I like the way that Ritual does business.

Synbiotic+ is more than a probiotic. Actually, it’s three in one, with clinically studied prebiotics, probiotics, and a postbiotic to support a balanced gut microbiome. Single nested minty capsule, one daily capsule for simple, streamlined gut support. And Synbiotic+ is designed to thrive. They use a delayed release capsule designed to help reach the colon, not the stomach, and the colon is an ideal place for probiotics to survive and grow.

This next one I really appreciate because I used to think that you had to refrigerate a probiotic. Not so with Synbiotic+. Synbiotic+ is designed with moisture-controlled bottle technology to protect probiotic strains. Synbiotic+ and Ritual are here to celebrate, not hide, your insides. There’s no more shame in your gut game. That’s why Ritual is offering my listeners 10% off during your first three months. Visit ritual.com/campfire to start Ritual or add Synbiotic+ to your subscription today. Again, so good I’m going to repeat it: visit ritual.com/campfire to start Ritual or add Synbiotic+ to your subscription today, and we thank Ritual for their support of Jim Harold’s Campfire – and my microbiome.

You’re listening to Jim Harold’s Campfire.

JIM HAROLD: Stephanie is on the line from Maryland, and we’re so glad to have her on the line. She has a story for us. Stephanie, thank you for joining us. We appreciate it. Please tell us your Campfire story.

STEPHANIE: Thank you for having me. When I was a child, I grew up in Missouri; I grew up in a suburb of Kansas City. My family lived in a suburban standalone house. It wasn’t that old. I know there were people who lived there before us, but I don’t know anything about them.

I’m not sure how old I was, but I think probably seven or eight, and I was home from school that day. I remember my mom put me down for a nap and she went to her room, and I did not want to sleep because I didn’t like taking naps. [laughs] So I was sitting up in my bed, and I saw a figure go by my door. It was tall, and it was cloaked in black. My first assumption was that it was my older brother whose bedroom was at the end of the hallway and he was wearing a blanket over his head, because he had a blanket that was big and black and it had cows on it.

So I got up and followed him, or what I thought was him, out of the room and down the hallway. But when I looked in his room, there was absolutely nothing there. The lights were off. There was no one in the room. I was just like, oh, that’s weird. And I went back and I got back into bed and I took a nap.

JIM HAROLD: Huh.

STEPHANIE: Yeah. I asked my mom about it later. I was like, “I saw older brother; he was in a blanket. He went down the hallway and I followed him to his room and there was no one there. Isn’t that weird?” She was like, “Uh, there’s really no way because he was at school.” I was like, “Oh, okay.” She wasn’t too thrilled by that. She is very religious, so she had me go around the house and pray with her. I never saw anything like that again in that house, but it was very strange.

JIM HAROLD: Yeah, that’s always weird. These stories where it’s either a direct doppelganger or someone you assume is a person you know, maybe if they’re shadowy, or like you said, a figure in a black cloak, that kind of thing – it feels very intrusive. To me, that would be very intrusive. Something or somebody is in my house, maybe trying to make me think that it’s a family member or something like that.

STEPHANIE: Right.

JIM HAROLD: Wow. But you said in your email that you feared that they would come back, but now you would be more comfortable. What did you mean by that?

STEPHANIE: For a long time – I’d seen that, and then later we moved to West Virginia and we had a new build, and I saw something like a similar cloaked figure in my room. I basically just covered my head up with a blanket and prayed under the blanket until I fell asleep, and the next morning it was gone. But I always had this feeing when I was younger that if I talked about it or if I said something about seeing these things, it would somehow make them manifest again. Still, I sleep with – once the lights go out, my eyes are closed. I don’t want to see anything.

JIM HAROLD: Well there you have it. Stephanie, thank you so much for joining us. I’ll tell you, I know that I would not like to see that, for sure. Thank you for sharing your story tonight on the Campfire.

STEPHANIE: Thank you for having me.

JIM HAROLD: Jim here with a quick note. Check out one of our newer podcasts. It’s called Unpleasant Dreams. On Unpleasant Dreams, we cover creepy cases. We’ve covered the Betty and Barney Hill story, the UFO abduction story, the originator. We’ve covered the question of Robert Johnson: did he sell his soul to the devil, that famous blues musician? We’re going to be covering the Enfield poltergeist. We also covered Teresita Basa. Did this woman mete out justice from beyond the grave? And just recently we talked about the Donner Party and a chilling tale of human cannibalism. This and more. Find Unpleasant Dreams wherever you listen to Jim Harold’s Campfire, available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, all the podcast apps, and jimharold.com. Thanks.

Amy is on the line from Maine. She’s been listening for several years, and we appreciate that very much – and we appreciate the fact that she decided to come on Campfire and tell her story, specifically about a historic place that she worked at. I love these workplace stories. Amy, welcome to the show and tell us about this creepy old place. 

AMY: Thank you, Jim. Starting in January of 2011, I was the costume rentals manager for a theater in Mid-Coast, Maine. We rented costume packages for organizations putting on musical theater productions, so we would rent full costume packages and ship them out to any organization throughout the country and Canada. We didn’t really do any individual costume rentals like Halloween costumes, but we did try to support local historic – what are they…?

JIM HAROLD: Historical societies?

AMY: Yes. Oh my goodness, my mind went blank. Thank you.

JIM HAROLD: Mine does it all the time, so don’t worry about it.

AMY: So we tried to help local groups, the local college or churches, that kind of thing, but not individuals. We had 7,000 square feet of storage space in an old mill. This mill was built in 1812, and originally the site was a Native American settlement, and then of course it became a trading post for the white settlers, and then it became a fort, and it was along a river, and then in 1812 they built the mill. They first started making yarn out of wool, and then it became a textile mill, and then a shoe mill, and then it went abandoned for a little bit until 1980, when it was purchased so that it could be renovated, and they made a lot of office spaces, artist studios, storage units on the third and fourth floors, and stores and restaurants.

So it was a pretty neat space, and they did a lot of work to update it and make it bright. It was well lit. The building itself is four stories tall, and then they have a basement and a sub-basement. It’s an L-shaped building and the walls are 18 inches thick. I think the walls are 15 to 18 feet high.

JIM HAROLD: Wow.

AMY: Yeah, so it’s a big space. So we rented 7,000 square feet on the second floor, and then on the fourth floor, the theater rented a storage cage. It was a pretty big space, and it had a metal fencing around the outside of it. But one wall did have windows, so it was brightly lit. Right next to it was this old elevator shaft, and it is an elevator that you have to close both gates before you can operate it, and you have to push the button and you have to land on the floor by releasing the button right at the certain time so that it would stop on the floor you needed. Not anywhere near the modern people elevators.

That elevator was right outside our space, down a hallway, so it was pretty easy to go from our space to that elevator, up to the fourth floor to our storage cage, which we had to do a lot, almost every day. As you walk in the front door of the 7,000 square foot space, straight back towards the back wall with windows was the office. It was also a break room, so it had a refrigerator and a sink and two desks. To get there, you pass three closets on the left-hand side, and on the right was a huge workspace with several large tables and sewing machines, and then we had rows and rows and rows of costumes.

When I first started working there, I was all alone. It was just me managing everything. I could not walk past a certain point in the space without just feeling almost sick because it was just – there was an eerie, terrible feeling, like I wasn’t welcome. That was hard to get through because I had to be back there. And with it being winter in Maine, and I’d just moved there, had a lot of work to do, I didn’t really know anything, so I’d stay late to organize things. The business itself was only about a year and a half old when I started, so there was still a lot to put away and sort through.

So I’d sit on the floor and sort through accessories like ties and other things that needed to go someplace and have a place to live. Costumes in racks next to me, I would notice would just kind of wave. It wasn’t because the heat was blowing on it or anything. Just the bottoms of it would wave as if something had passed by it. So that was unnerving.

Then I was able to hire somebody part time, and she and I went up to the fourth floor, to the storage cage, because we had to inventory some stuff. We heard rustling across the room near the windows, but there was nothing over there to rustle. It was just furniture. Not really sure what was going on. And then I look up above the window on the brick wall and I see a solid circle that looks like it could be a reflection, as if the sun was bouncing off of something back towards a mirror onto this wall. I have no idea.

I look at my friend who was working with me and I said, “Did you see that?” She said, “Yes.” I said, “What did you see?” She saw just a smoky swirl. So we both saw different things, but in the same spot. That was freaky. So we wrapped it up quickly and ended that project because it was just odd.

Then over the next year, other people would come and work with me, and one girl came to my office and she was putting costumes away and a face appeared under the racks in between the costumes and smiled at her. It was an old lady’s face with curly hair, she said. Then later, another employee was putting costumes away and a face appeared over a costume rack and smiled at her. Of course, they’re done. They don’t want to work anymore. [laughs] Not for good, but at least for the day. They’d gotten scared.

JIM HAROLD: Of course.

AMY: So then they hired another full-time employee to work with me. I think right now we’re in the fall of 2012, so he and I were working. We didn’t have bathrooms in our space, so if we had to use the restroom, we had to go all the way out of our space, down the hallway, and come back. So I was coming back in and walking back towards the office, and I look down a row of costumes and I see him. He’s walking towards me, and then he dives off into another row of costumes.

I didn’t think anything of it until the door opens and he comes in through the door. He has also gone to use the restroom. I just look at him and my face is white, and he asks what’s wrong. I said, “You just were over here, and now you’re coming through the door.” [laughs]

JIM HAROLD: Doppelganger much?

AMY: Exactly. We searched the place, of course, because then I thought maybe, because we left the door unlocked, somebody came in. That had happened a couple times while we were working there. People would just walk in and get lost in the space. But nobody was in the space. I was really thinking, I wish I knew somebody that could come in and get a sense of the space, help me out a little, maybe even relieve my fear.

This lady from the local historical society was planning her October events and needed to have period costumes so she could represent the major historical figures of the town. She was there and I was asking about the events, and she said that she had hired a psychic medium to go through an old building with various groups at various times. I was like, “Really? Who is this psychic medium?” She gave me her information, and I looked her up, and she was very willing to come help me.

She actually came the first time with a team of people, and they did their own thing and walked around and got a feeling for the place, but they noticed that – I think it was three or four of them at that time, and they noticed that in the closet that was closest to the office, there seemed to be the impression or spirit of a girl that was hiding behind the door. I said, “That’s so weird,” because I just couldn’t go in that closet.

They got this feeling that this girl had been chased at one point – before we had moved in, obviously, into this space, but a previous tenant. She was chased in the space, her ponytail was pulled by this person. She went and hid behind the door, and then she took off and ran down this other area in the space. That’s the impression they all got. I said, “Was she murdered here?” They’re like, “No, no, it’s residual – because she was so scared. Her energy has stuck here.” That’s all they had for me on that one. But I still couldn’t go into that closet even after they had left, or any other time.

But then they came back just with the medium and a woman who was filming, and they had me go stand in the closet, which was terrifying for me, and they filmed me. They said, “Call the spirits to you,” which I was like, “Uh-uh. I’m not going to bring these people to me.” [laughs] But they said, “You’re protected.” They helped me figure out how to protect myself so that I wouldn’t be scared or feel like they might take over my body or my soul. So I stood there, and they did catch on film orbs floating into the closet towards me. That was freaky.

And then they came another time – they wanted to do what was called a redirection circle. I didn’t understand what it was, but it’s basically people sit in a circle and imagine a tunnel of white light in the middle of the circle and think positive thoughts, have a happy heart and a welcoming heart with the intention of helping any spirits who want to to cross over. If anyone’s stuck, if anybody needed help.

That was fascinating. We got permission to do it on the fourth floor next to our storage cage, in front of this old freight elevator, and at one point the medium and I were sitting next to each other and we scooted our chairs away from each other. She looked at me and goes, “Why did we just do that?” I said because it was almost like a train car full of people coming out of this freight elevator. Not physically.

JIM HAROLD: Wow.

AMY: Yeah, and we were both seeing it, so we had to make room for them to get to the light. [laughs] They just kept coming, just kept coming.

Before that happened, though, we were focusing on the light and we were all holding hands, and the medium starts to giggle. I was like, “What’s going on?” She said out loud, “No, you don’t have to take that with you. You can leave it here.” I looked at her and said, “Is that the Gibson girl?” Because I was envisioning a Gibson girl in the light, really hesitant to go. The medium was seeing the Gibson girl wanting to take her loom with her. So the medium was like, “No, you don’t have to take that with you. You can leave that here.”

It was just crazy how when I’m sitting in the circle – and I’m open to a lot of things. I’ve had a lot of experiences. But I felt kind of silly. I’m doing something I’ve never done before, and with a group of people I don’t really know, and we’re singing songs like “This Little Light of Mine” and we’re envisioning light. But then these almost tangible images were happening.

And then after we felt okay about – well, actually, while we were still up in the fourth floor, someone else in the group said, “I feel like they’re coming from not just in the building, but the surrounding area.” Apparently the parking lot outside of this mill, there used to be a cemetery out there. I think they moved the bodies. But we were all seeing that they were coming from the parking lot and coming from the surrounding area because we had this light that was like a beacon, a lighthouse, and it was drawing people to it.

I don’t remember how we closed out that circle. We went back down to the second floor where our space was and did the same kind of circle in there. Where we were sitting, the medium is like, “Why do I see the base of these costumes on fire?” They weren’t on fire, obviously, but she was seeing them on fire. I said, “These are costumes packaged for Sweeney Todd.” She goes, “Oh, that’s it.” Just relating them to the actual story.

But I found out something really interesting. Costumes carry the energy of not only the people that wear them, but also the emotions that they carry while they’re in the role that they’re playing.

JIM HAROLD: Interesting.

AMY: Yeah. We had a policy that anyone who rented from us had to dry clean or wash the costumes before they returned them to us, and she said that that was imperative because it’s not just the cells of our own bodies getting on the clothing, but also that resets the energy of the costumes.

JIM HAROLD: That’s an interesting theory. I never heard of that. Amy, it is a great story. I understand you no longer work there, but you miss your spirits, you say?

AMY: Oh yeah. I really do. I drive by it every day. I do miss them, yeah.

JIM HAROLD: Maybe one of these days one will wave, who knows? But Amy, thank you so much for having been a part of the Campfire.

AMY: Thank you so much. Have a good night.

JIM HAROLD: We have a return caller on the Campfire. I’m talking about Christie from California. She’s going to tell us about a shared dream. Christie, welcome to the show and tell us what happened.

CHRISTIE: Hi. Thanks for having me. I want to say this was about 25 years ago. At the time, I was dating my current husband. We were camping on the central coast of California at this place called Lime Kiln Campground. Basically, it’s a historic area where they had originally started mining for lime, and then they would take the lime over to San Francisco and then use it when they were building up the city. So these lime kilns were really, really old. It was a really neat campground. You could camp on the beach, and then you would just walk underneath the PCH and you would be in these beautiful redwoods. So it was basically the redwoods meeting the beach. Probably the most beautiful place you could imagine.

We were 20 years old; we were obnoxious and a little self-centered and doing stupid things that 20-year-olds do. There were all these wonderful camp trails. You could hike to the waterfalls, you could hike to the abandoned lime kilns. You weren’t supposed to venture off trail. So we hiked to the lime kilns and these things are massive. I want to say maybe two story tall.

We started climbing on the platforms and climbing underneath the kilns and looking for little nooks and crannies, and everything you’re not supposed to do, we were doing. We were having a good time; we had another friend with us and we were just taking pictures on the kilns. We decided to venture off trail, so we were hiking in the forest. Basically, if you saw Star Wars and you remember when they were finding the Ewoks and they were in the forest, that’s what it looks like there.

We were just walking around, really stupid because we could’ve gotten lost – I don’t remember if bears were there – and we came across what looked like an old abandoned campground. There was broken pottery, there was broken white china with the blue print that you would see at the turn of the century, and there were broken lanterns. I thought, “Oh, this is really neat. I’m going to take a piece of this china home with me.”

So I grabbed a piece of china, and we’re walking around. Also, on our way back, when we were trying to find the trail, we came across this – it looked like a cave or like maybe an abandoned mine. We decided we were going to walk in there and see how far it went. It was myself, my husband, and our friend, and we’re walking in there and just being goofy and laughing, like “Oh, the bear’s gonna get you!” We’re getting deeper and it’s getting darker and it’s getting smaller. The farther you walk in, the smaller it’s getting.

All of a sudden I started getting this panicked feeling and I hear this voice in my head say, “Out. Get out.” So I grabbed my husband and I said, “We need to go.” We ran out, we left the cave, and we were laughing, like, “What happened in there? That was kind of scary.” We decided to go back to the campground and hang out with my family. It was five or six families; all my cousins were there. Everybody was having a great time. We were sitting around the campfire and just enjoying the night and the stars.

Around midnight, I’m tired, I’m ready to go to sleep. There’s a whole bunch of tents set up, and I was getting ready to go in the tent with my then-boyfriend at the time. My dad got really upset. He was like, “You’re not sleeping in that tent with your boyfriend! You need to go sleep with your sister and her friend.” I’m like, “No, I’m sleeping with my boyfriend. There’s nothing you can do about it. I’m 20. I can do whatever I want!” Just being disrespectful and just a 20-year-old. You’re kind of self-centered and maybe a little cocky and not really thinking about other people’s feelings.

So we go to sleep, and I start having this really strange dream where it’s dark, I’m in a tunnel, and I’m being pulled down by hundreds of arms. They’re just pulling me deeper and deeper and deeper into this tunnel. I’m trying to scream, and I start screaming and all these hands are on my arms, and I’m screaming and I’m screaming and I’m screaming, and I wake up and I sit up – and next to me, my boyfriend is screaming. He’s screaming and screaming, and I look at him and I’m like, “Oh my gosh, what’s going on?” He’s like, “Oh, I just had the worst dream. I had this dream that I was being pulled down this deep tunnel and all these arms were grabbing onto me.” I look at him and I said to him, “I just had the exact same dream.”

JIM HAROLD: Oh man. Ooh.

CHRISTIE: What’s really scary is that when we woke up, we were both holding each other’s forearms. To this day, we can’t explain it. We’ve been married 20-something years; we’ve never had a shared dream before.

I remember the next morning I woke up, I took the piece of china, I returned it to the site, I apologized to the gods for being so incredibly disrespectful to my dad and the gods of the forest or whatever, and ended up sleeping in the tent with my sister for the rest of the camping trip.

JIM HAROLD: This shared dream experience – I’m hearing more and more of it. I go back to the early days of Campfire, where we had a caller who called in about a shared dream experience that may have saved her life and maybe the life of her boyfriend, and then we’ve had other ones. We seem to have more of those recently. I’d be interested if anyone out there has experienced this. I think it’s really, really an interesting phenomenon. I don’t know what’s behind it, but it does seem to be a real thing that does happen.

CHRISTIE: It was real for us that night. I slept with a flashlight for the rest of the camping trip.

JIM HAROLD: Can’t say I blame you. Christie, thank you so much for joining us tonight on the Campfire. I appreciate it.

CHRISTIE: Thank you.

JIM HAROLD: Well, we did it. We made it through another Campfire. Thank you to all of our fantastic storytellers. We appreciate you sharing your stories with us. You make the show possible – along with our sponsors, of course. Please do support them and try their products and services, because they are a huge reason that we’re able to do what we do if you enjoy the shows. 

And the other reason we’re able to do these free episodes for 13 weeks, each episode is out for 13 weeks for free, is our Paranormal Plus Club and our members over there. So thank you, Plus Club members. We appreciate it. Basically, the Plus Club is where you can get all the classic episodes of Campfire, you can get all the classic episodes of the Paranormal Podcast, and eight exclusive bonus content episodes that cover various subjects, like ghosts, UFOs, cryptid creatures, spirituality, and more.

You can tap in to all that goodness, all of those classic shows beyond the free 13 weeks we give for the Campfire and the free 13 weeks we always have for the Paranormal Podcast – if you combine those two shows, I think that’s over 1,200 episodes of those two shows combined that are no longer over on the free feeds, but they are available at jimharoldplus.com and on our Spooky Studio app.

So get in on the fun. You can get your first month for only 99 cents with the promo codes we have linked over at jimharoldplus.com. Or if you say, “Jim, I’m all-in. I want to be a Paranormal Plus Club member for a long time,” you can get your first year for only $49.99 with those promo codes. Get all the details over at jimharoldplus.com. That’s jimharoldplus.com, and click on the banner with my smiling face and you’ll get all the details.

Again, can’t thank our Plus Club members enough. They’re the reason I took the plunge to be full-time. I said, you know what? I can rely on these folks. They’re going to support me. They’re going to support the shows and further the production of these shows because they enjoy them, they believe in them. So I thank each and every one of you so much.

And I thank all of our listeners. Whether you’re a Plus Club member or not, you are all extremely valuable to me, and I thank you for listening, whether you’ve been listening for a decade or a day. And maybe this was your first episode. We hope you enjoyed it.

We’ll talk to you next time, and as always, stay safe and stay spooky. Bye-bye, everybody.

You’ve been listening to Jim Harold’s Campfire. Tune in again next time for more stories of ordinary people who have experienced extraordinary things.