Shownotes Transcript
Twinkle, twinkle, pox and poi. What's inside this little poi? Strings and fur and mud and sticks. If you poke it, it'll tick. Ha ha ha ha ha! Listen to Spooked say. Sometimes it feels like the world is moving at hyperspeed and you can't keep up because it's one thing then another. And don't forget the meeting and the yoga class and the dinner reservation, but then...
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I've been wanting to take them. I live close to Oakland's Chinatown, and as soon as you start hearing that pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, you know it's just about time for this massive Chinese New Year celebration. And my little man, who's just two years old, I tell him, we got to get ready because we're going to the festival, right? And it's a beautiful Saturday. Thousands upon thousands of people packing the streets, but I've got a plan. We start early.
Kind of push through the crowd to find a spot on the curb where a tiny boy can actually see what's happening. He's looking around, all wide-eyed, excited, and finally, the procession starts with all these synchronized drummers marching, and he's trying to clap to the beat. They're followed by a kid's dancing troupe decked all in white, and it's angelic. I stare at him, seeing all of this for the first time. It's awesome.
Men stroll by with giant stilts for legs, throwing candy. Then hundreds of elderly women holding yellow and blue lanterns, puppets on strings, a twirling flower show. It is so much color. Then the crowd starts pressing in tight, tight, tight. And I know it's just about time. And there it is.
Gorgeous red and orange and black. 25 feet long, leaping, shimming. Animated by six separate dancers. The dragon tail whipping from side to side. Diving, shaking. It's magical. The drums, the color, the dance of the beast. The dragon's head spins directly towards us. It opens wide its huge mouth. My little boy looks up at the monster and takes off. Running.
top speed through this wall of people. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. I run after him, but I'm a grown man fighting this press of people. Hey, hey, look down. Look down. There's a little boy. Look for a little boy. 10 seconds. 20 seconds. Who sees a little boy? 60 seconds. I'm past full panic. Nobody move. Nobody move. There's a little boy. I'm like a crazy person. Look down. Everybody look down. A little boy. A boy. A boy.
Boy! Two minutes go by. Three, I see two police officers. I need a perimeter. Right there. Right at the curb. He's gone. He's two. Two years old. Don't let him believe. Don't let anybody call. Call somebody. They look at me like I'm crazy. And I'm running again, screaming. Boy! And then I see him sitting on the stairs of somebody's shop.
eating an ice cream cone. Where did he get an ice cream cone? Probably pulled it out of the garbage or something. And I'm weeping. I'm running up to him, hugging on him, kissing on him. Boy, where'd you go? Why'd you do that? Why'd you do that? And he looks up at me like I'm simple. Like he has to explain things to me slowly. I see the dragon. I run away fast.
He takes a bite out of his ice cream cone. He nods like he's confident in that decision. But I'm still out of my mind. I want to holler some more. Tell him not to run away from dragons. But that doesn't even make any sense. So I think about it. And I say, listen, hey, the next time you run away from monsters, take daddy with you. Spookstar. Now, now, you know that parenting can be tough in the best of circumstances sometimes.
21-year-old stay-at-home mom Dawn Presley. She's felt cursed for most of her life because she's able to sense spirits, but she's never seen one. Then one day, she visits her Seattle neighborhood playground, spooked. I was there with my foster mom, and we decided she had the day off work.
We're going to go let the kids play and get some pretzels. So my foster mom is watching my son at the playground and I run in to go to the bathroom. Being six months pregnant, the bathroom is my friend. I came out of the bathroom stall and I looked in the mirror and I see two women in the mirror. One is very young and dressed in vintage clothing and the other is pregnant.
a woman in her 60s or 70s dressed in modern clothing. But there's only one woman standing there, the older lady in the modern clothing. And I thought it was odd. And the older lady is not doing anything. The younger lady looks at me in the mirror. So I'm standing back and she looks at me. And all of a sudden, this vision comes to me of these two girls that are sisters.
And one falls into a frozen lake. And I see a cracked form. And she tries to avoid it. But she falls through and dies. And I feel the emotion of sadness coming from her. As the vision floods my mind, I'm amazed and don't quite understand what's happening. Am I really seeing this? Am I really hearing this?
This girl's looking at me. She's not talking to me, but she's giving me these images. It's like I'm in her, seeing things from her perspective. I get a shiver because I'm cold and I'm watching the hole in the ice kind of start to close as I sink. And I just kind of get this emotional feeling like what the spirit is trying to tell me.
But they were so close. Like literally best friends did everything together that this sister who passed chose to stay with her sister because she wanted to protect her and be with her and love her. And then I just am so freaked out. I, you know, I finished washing my hands and I leave really quick. I just was so shocked. As I'm walking out of the bathroom, I'm taking slow, deep breaths.
very slowly back to the playground. And before I get there, I sit down and I go over in my head again. What did I just see? I knew things I shouldn't know and I don't know how I know them. And all of a sudden I knew that this was the sister of the woman standing in the bathroom and that she had been there to protect her. So I get up, I gather my emotions and I walk.
walk to my foster mom. I tell her I just have the weirdest experience in my life. And this, I walk out of the bathroom and there's one lady standing there, but there's two ladies in the mirror. I tell her what happens and she's kind of speechless. And my foster mom looks at me and she hugs me and she says, I love you. Let's just move on with our day now.
My next experience, the one I think that really taught me the most, to be honest, about a year later, my then husband and I, we moved to Montana. And it was kind of a quiet Midwest, typical small town. My sons are now one and a half and six months old.
Just like most nights, I was positive my neighbors are having another party. I go to the window to look and they're not having another party. There's just one woman. I can hear her yelling, but I can't understand what she's saying. She has brown, wavy hair just past her shoulder. She's got bangs. She's mid to late 20s.
And she is wearing jeans, tennis shoes, and a brown leather jacket, a white shirt with a blue sweater, 80s style clothing. She keeps looking under cars, looking around the bushes, trying to find something.
I said, James, James, get over here. Do you see this woman? She's sitting out here yelling. Can you go talk to her and tell her to be quiet so we can get the kids to sleep? And my husband looks at me in all honesty and says, there's nobody out there. I don't know what you're talking about. I don't hear anything. There's nobody out there. My heart starts racing. I get goosebumps. And I'm realizing this is a spirit. Every night for the next three weeks,
The exact same thing happens. Like she's stuck in a loop and has to repeat herself. One night, I'm looking through my bedroom window. The lady turned and looked at me and we locked eyes and I instantly had a vision. I knew that her son was dead and I knew and she didn't. The landlord was babysitting and the little boy was just being really annoying.
and the landlord pushed him and he fell and hit his head and he died. In a panic, the landlord opened the boy's window to make it look like he had run away, took the kid and buried him by the river. When the mother returned and they couldn't find her son, she was so overcome by grief, she took her life. The minute she realized
I could see her. It was strange. Like, how had she not noticed me before? She looked me straight in the eye and then looked around and then looked me straight in the eye again. I backed away from the window and climbed into bed, pulled the covers up as far as I can. I grabbed my book to distract me. And then it was like I could feel her moving closer towards me.
as she walked into my house. It was like she must have walked through the walls. And I saw out of the corner of my eye a movement down the hall before she walked into my room. I was scared. I didn't know what was going to happen. And I'm sitting up in bed. My husband is asleep beside me. And she walks right up next to me and just stares at me. And I'm terrified.
I could kind of see through her, but she was right there in front of me, just staring at me. She was pale, like sickly. And I just look at her and then go back to my book and pretend that I can't see her. After staring at me for maybe five or 10 minutes, she leaves. And then we do it again the next night and the next night. After about a week,
She started to bring other spirits to stand in the room and watch our interaction. She knew I was afraid of her and wanted to intimidate me with more spirits, just standing there watching. My husband just believes that I'm losing my mind, maybe postpartum depression, missing family, being in another state, and he dismisses it and doesn't believe me.
To not speak of it to anybody, especially the children or him. I'm exhausted because I'm not sleeping and more spirits every day start coming. When I finally decided to confront her, there was probably 15 to 20 spirits in the room. It felt like I had an audience to my sleeping. I said, what do you want? What do you want? And she said, what?
Just tell me where my son is. I know you know. I remember looking in her eyes and there was just such sorrow, sadness, depths that I could have never imagined. I tell her, I don't know. I straight up lied to her. She said, I know you're lying and walked out. As a mother, I really sympathized for her.
I could not imagine my children leaving this plane of existence before me. But I couldn't tell her because I didn't believe myself. At this point in my life, I had been so invalidated with my curse for so many years that I didn't believe what I was feeling, what I was seeing. And I didn't want to give her false hope. One night, I looked at her face.
and said, "I don't know where your son is. I'm sorry." She turned to me and said, "I don't want you lying to me anymore." She walked out of the bedroom, stood next to my son's door, turned, looked at me angrily, and then walked into the room. So of course I got up and watched her from the doorway. She walked up to my son's bed,
I said to her, what are you doing? And she said, you will tell me the information. You'll tell me where my son is. And she put her hand above my son. I believed at that moment that she was fully capable of strangling my son in his sleep. So I told her that her son had been murdered by their landlord, who was also their neighbor. And he was buried by the river next to the bridge under the rocks.
She walked out of the room and I thought that was it. I kissed my kids and I climbed back in bed. About 10 minutes later, I can feel her again. And I get out of bed because I can feel her coming closer. But she feels different. There's no sadness and sorrow coming out of her. And I go look in my living room. She's standing there with her son. They were holding hands. He couldn't have been more than five or six years old. Dark brown hair.
cut short. He was wearing a white turtleneck and dark blue sweatshirt. She has a new light about her. She looks at me, smiles and says, "Thank you." And I can feel her joy. I tell her, "I'm sorry and you're welcome." I feel so bad that I waited so long to tell her because I couldn't trust my own self. I had never been validated. Nobody believed me. After
I told her, you're welcome. They walked away and just kind of disappeared like two or three steps and then gone. Like they had just walked through a curtain. I believe that us running into each other was pure chance. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time for her. But at the time, I didn't realize that that was my responsibility. I started to wonder, well, maybe this isn't a curse. Maybe this isn't so bad. I was able to help someone.
After I had dealt with this lady's son, the other spirits that she brought started talking to me as well. Some of them wanted information that I wasn't always able to provide. Some of them wanted closure. And some of them wanted to just say goodbye before they passed on. They needed to talk to someone and they would just come in.
And it was like a floodgate had opened. It set me on the path of being able to accept myself and to really trust myself with my gift. Thank you so much, Dawn, for sharing your gift and reuniting a family from beyond the veil. I couldn't do it. But Dawn, she helps folks just like her, those who can feel what is beyond the veil.
We're going to have more information about Don's work in our show notes. The original score for that story was by Sudi Watch Press. It was produced by Chris Hembrick. Now, spooksters, we walk this path together. Spook Season 6. And do you possess a power that no one will believe? That you don't understand yourself? That you are scared to tell the people close to you? Well, tell me all about it.
Email us your story, spooked at snapjudgment.org, because there is nothing better than a spooked story from a spooked listener. Let us know, spooked at snapjudgment.org. And let the dark side know that you're ready. Get the spooked t-shirt of your dreams. It's available right now at snapjudgment.org. And remember, if you like your storytelling under the bright light of day, get the amazing, stupendous Snap Judgment podcast, because it might just change your life.
It's storytelling with eight. Spook was created by the team that always tells kids the truth about the sounds that go bump in the night, except, of course, for Mark Ristich. The youngsters know not to ask him any questions.
There's Anna Sussman, Eliza Smith, Chris Hamrick, Ayn Nguyen, Laura Newsome, Davy Kim, Leon Morimoto, Renzo Gorio, Tao Decat, Marissa Dodge, Zoe Ferrigno, Tiffin DeLisa, Ann Ford, Greta Weber, and Doug Stewart. The Spook theme song is by Pat Mussini Miller. My name is Ben Washington, and I understand that people like comfort, warmth, that folk love to enjoy the finer things life has to offer. There is nothing wrong with that.
As long as it doesn't make you complacent, forgetful, lull you into a false sense of security so that you neglect even the basic steps that keep dark forces at bay, no matter who you think you are or what you think you've done. Listen when I tell you. Never, ever, never, ever, never, ever, ever, ever. The lights.