Psychology of the Strange

DMT entities, machine elves, and the hyperspace breakthrough: what people report meeting under N,N-dimethyltryptamine, and why the reports match. A Johns Hopkins survey of 2,561 people found that most described a conscious, intelligent being, and that more than half of the atheists in the sample stopped identifying that way afterward. This episode covers Rick Strassman's University of New Mexico research, Terence McKenna's machine elves, the Hyperspace Lexicon, and the listeners who get locked out of hyperspace entirely.Show notes:A Hungarian chemist injected himself with a compound he had synthesized in 1956, and the first thing he wrote down was that there were creatures there. Thirty-five years later a psychiatrist at the University of New Mexico ran the first legal psychedelic study in the United States in two decades, and half his session notes involved his volunteers meeting somebody. In 2020, Johns Hopkins surveyed 2,561 people who had encountered an autonomous entity under DMT and found that most of them believed the being was conscious, intelligent, and still out there after they left.This episode is about the machine elves, the insectoids, the half-animal figures, and the vocabulary a forum full of strangers built to describe them. It's about why so many accounts converge when the people giving them have never spoken. And it's about the part nobody planned for, which is the travelers who show up at the door and get turned away.Along the way I get into predictive perception, Caputo's strange-face research, Shibutani's work on rumor as improvised news, and the liminality framework that explains why an experience with gatekeepers feels like an initiation. I also come back to the Lanmaoa asiatica episode, because the little people in Yunnan complicate the tidiest explanation available.The book behind a lot of this episode is Rick Strassman's DMT: The Spirit Molecule, and it's on The Strange Shelf along with Terence McKenna's True Hallucinations: https://www.amazon.com/shop/influencer-b7bd654b/list/1OX5UZT4WR668?ref_=aip_sf_list_spv_ons_mixed_dThe companion essay goes up this week on Substack and takes the Yunnan question further than I could take it here. Paid subscribers get ad-free listening and the full essays: https://substack.com/@psychstrangepodUntil next time, stay curious and stay strange.

Witch's familiars, psychic pets, and telepathic cats: this episode digs into the centuries-old belief that animals can sense things they have no ordinary way of knowing. From seventeenth-century witch trial confessions to a modern scientist's experiments on dogs that wait at the window, I trace how the same core claim has survived in different forms for hundreds of years.I start with the witch's familiar in early modern England and Scotland, including Elizabeth Clarke's 1645 confession under Matthew Hopkins From there I move through shamanic animal guides and the Norse fylgja, and what these traditions across cultures agree on even when they disagree on mechanism. Then it's J.B. Rhine's psi-trailing research at Duke University in the 1930s, followed by Rupert Sheldrake's experiments on Jaytee the dog and his ongoing dispute with psychologist Richard Wiseman over what that data actually shows.On the skeptical side, I get into the Clever Hans effect and ideomotor cueing, along with how cats may actually find their way home through scent-mapping and possible magnetoreception. I also spend some time on apophenia, grief, and why the story that includes you always feels truer than the one that doesn't. Toward the end I bring in the Earth Species Project's NatureLM-audio and what AI-decoded animal communication might mean for this whole question going forward.My own cat Sabrina makes an appearance too.The companion essay for this episode, which goes deeper on the witch trial records, is up on Substack now. Paid subscribers get that essay in full along with ad-free listening. Until next time, stay curious and stay strange.

In 1963, deep in the isolated mountains of Tamaulipas, Mexico, a routine police investigation uncovered a nightmare: a remote mining village transformed into an apocalyptic cult of ritual sacrifice, ruled by a twenty-six-year-old woman claiming to be the ancient Aztec goddess Coatlicue. Her name was Magdalena Solís, historically remembered as "The High Priestess of Blood."But the true horror of Yerba Buena isn’t just the crimes committed in that torch-lit cave. It’s how they began. Magdalena wasn't a born cult leader; she was a destitute young woman hired by two petty con men to play a part in a financial scam.In this episode, we step away from standard true-crime sensationalism to examine the terrifying fluidness of the human psyche. How does a conscious grift mutate into genuine, dangerous megalomania? How do ordinary, peaceful people become complicit in atrocities within a matter of weeks? We trace the story of Magdalena Solís through the lens of social psychology, exploring folie à plusieurs (shared psychosis), deindividuation, and the dark architecture of total isolation.Deepen Your Research on SubstackWant to go beyond the audio? Read our companion essay for this episode over on the Substack Go Ad-Free: Paid Substack subscribers get exclusive access to academic deep-dives, source bibliographies, and completely ad-free listening for every single episode. Join the community at: psychologyofthestrange.substack.comFurther ReadingCultish: The Language of Fanaticism — Amanda MontellNot every cult needs a cave and a chalice. Montell breaks down the actual mechanism, the language, that turns a group into something closer to a cult than anyone inside it wants to admit. If this episode had you thinking about how belief gets built one word at a time, start here.Connect with the Show:Substack: psychologyofthestrange.substack.comTikTok / Reels: @PsychStrangePod

Have you ever wondered what happens in those final milliseconds when the lights go out? Pop culture loves to promise that clinical death is a peaceful journey toward a warm light, but the data tells a much more complicated, occasionally terrifying story.This week, we are pulling on two deeply intertwined, thoroughly bizarre threads of human consciousness. First, we explore the esoteric concept of the Akashic Records. The infinite, celestial library that hundreds of modern NDE (Near-Death Experience) survivors claim to have visited to view the pre-birth blueprints of their mortal lives.Then, we pivot into the dark underbelly of resuscitation science: Distressing NDEs. Statistics show that a significant portion of the population doesn't get a cosmic hug when they flatline; instead, their minds serve up a custom horror film. We break down the neurobiology of a dying brain, Jung’s collective unconscious, and the three distinct archetypes of hellish experiences. Finally, we look at why cutting-edge cognitive models like 4E Cognition might mean these realms are far more than mere hallucinations.Go Deeper on Substack:Want to pull on these threads even further? Join our inner circle on Substack! Paid subscribers get completely ad-free listening for every single episode so your atmosphere remains uninterrupted. Plus, this week I’m dropping an exclusive subscriber-only companion essay that dives deep into the clinical case studies of hellish NDEs, the exact mechanics of veridical perception, and the messy philosophy behind 4E cognition theory. Subscribe at https://psychstrangepod.substack.com/?r=4ajm1n&utm_campaign=profile&utm_medium=profile-pageReferences & Recommended Reading:Greyson, B., & Bush, N. E. (1992). Distressing Near-Death Experiences. Psychiatry: Interpersonal and Biological Processes. (The foundational study establishing the 11-22% statistic on dark NDEs).Jung, C. G. The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. Princeton University Press.Gallagher, S. (2017). Enactivist Interventions: Rethinking the Mind. Oxford University Press. (An excellent foundational text for understanding 4E cognition).Pasricha, S. (1993). A systematic survey of near-death experiences as reported by inpatient populations in India. Journal of Scientific Exploration. (For the cross-cultural administrative and Yamadoota data).Connect With the Show:Host: Tara PerreaultInstagram/Twitter: @PsychStrangePodListen & Review: If this episode gave you a healthy dose of intellectual existential dread, please leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, it directly helps our independent library grow!

If you walk down Chartres Street in the French Quarter of New Orleans late at night, your eyes will naturally drift upward to the third floor of the Old Ursuline Convent. There, behind the heavy brickwork, sit rows of dark wooden shutters. They are always closed. Always sealed.Local folklore says that inside that attic rests a collection of hundreds of small, wooden trunks—trunks shaped suspiciously like coffins. Legend claims that in 1728, a fleet of ships arrived carrying young, pale women who clutched these boxes like lifelines: the Filles à la Cassette, or Casket Girls. And the rumor that keeps tourists up at night? They smuggled the first vampires into America, forcing the nuns to seal the windows with 800 Pope-blessed silver nails and threatening anyone who enters with automatic excommunication.But what if the real horror story isn't what flew out of that attic, but why the townspeople needed a monster to be there?In this episode of Psychology of the Strange, we dissect the Old Ursuline Convent not as a haunted house, but as a laboratory of human behavior. Pulling back the gothic romance, we explore how a primitive, isolated society weaponized psychological projection, linguistic drift, and institutional secrecy to turn traumatized young women into the ultimate dark triad predators. Finally, we look at the thin line between scientific parsimony and the primal elegance of the monster—and why our minds have an evolved appetite for the thrill of recreational fear.Support the Show on Substack!Want to go deeper into the psychology behind the lore? Upgrade to a paid subscription at Substack to unlock:Premium Companion Essays: This week, dive into the data behind Morality-as-Cooperation Theory and a deeper look at how Dark Triad traits manifest in high-stress ecosystems.Ad-Free Listening: Immerse yourself in the dark without interruption.Exclusive Community: Join discussion threads and vote on upcoming episode topics.Check Out the Reading List on Amazon!

What happens when a medication designed to heal the physical body accidentally alters more than was prescribed?On June 17, 2026, researchers at Rutgers University dropped a scientific bombshell in the journal Criminology, revealing a startling psychiatric byproduct of GLP-1 medications like Ozempic and Wegovy: a massive, unprecedented drop in impulsive, violent behavior and substance abuse.While the rest of the media treats these synthetic hormones as a story about physical weight loss, we are pulling the conversation deep into the uncanny valley of human consciousness. In this episode, we step into the biological engine room of human behavior to connect this cutting-edge neuroscience to the body horror of Stephen King’s Thinner, ancient European folklore of the Changeling, and the modern internet paranoia surrounding celebrity clones.If a weekly injection into the thigh can turn down human rage by over 60%, virtue ceases to be a moral achievement. It becomes a metabolic variable. Are we actually the independent captains of our own minds, or are we just passengers at the mercy of our digestive chemistry?The Hard Science: Key Metrics From the StudyThe pipeline connecting high baseline impulsivity to physical violence was found to be 62% weaker in current GLP-1 users.The well-established link between alcohol abuse and violent outbursts was slashed by 52%.Neurological data suggests the medication functions as a form of "chemical CBT". Densely peppered GLP-1 receptors in the brain's ventral tegmental area cap the maximum voltage of dopamine pathways, physically widening the critical gap between a dark impulse and the physical action.Inside the EpisodeStephen King's Thinner and the primal horror of biological rebellion.How GLP-1 drugs quiet the "food noise," "rage noise," and the neuroscience of the mesolimbic dopamine pathway.Connecting the rapid physical and behavioral transformations of Hollywood to medieval fae superstitions and algorithmic "clone" conspiracy theories.Why a synthetic molecule designed to enforce the rules of polite society directly onto our neurotransmitters is weirder than any gothic hex.The Schopenhauer Paradox, if we can buy restraint at a pharmacy, does free will exist?A rational cushion on the sci-fi nightmare, where treatment ends, and the slippery slope of chemical compliance begins.Referenced Works & Deep DivesThe Study: Semenza, D., & Thomas, C. (June 17, 2026). Criminology. "GLP-1 Receptor Agonists and the Mitigation of Impulsive and Violent Behavior."Literature: Thinner by Stephen King (writing as Richard Bachman), 1984.Philosophy: Arthur Schopenhauer, Essays on the Freedom of the Will.Support the StrangeIf you want to wander deeper into the shadows of psychological research with me, join our community of intellectual anomalies:Substack: Subscribe to our paid tier for completely ad-free listening and access to this week's companion essay, where I pull out my full research notebook, explore the history of behavioral optimization, and dissect the psychology of the uncanny valley.Buymeacoffee: If you enjoyed the episode and what to send a special thanks, Buy me a coffee to fuel the research that goes into each episode Social Media: Follow the journey and join the conversation on Instagram, X, and TikTok @psychstrangepod.Listener Note: “Man can do what he wills, but he cannot will what he wills.” What do you think? Is our morality a grand cathedral of the soul, or just a temporary tent pitched on the volatile swamp of our baseline metabolism? Slide into socials and let me know.

The Doomsday Clock is sitting at 85 seconds to midnight... the closest it has ever been to global catastrophe. Yet, the dominant cultural response isn’t panic; it’s a meme. Why do we treat existential threats as casual entertainment, and what happens when the people with the best information start quietly building their own escape hatches? In this episode, we explore the eerie intersection of modern folklore and real-world survival infrastructure. We break down the enduring mysteries of Denver International Airport... from Blucifer and apocalyptic murals to the labyrinth of underground tunnels... and compare them to the very real, fully operational E-4B "Doomsday Plane". Finally, we look at the psychological concept of psychic numbing. Why does human empathy fail at scale? And what does it mean for our collective future when the global elite stop trying to fix the world and start buying luxury missile silos instead? What We Cover in This Episode: 85 Seconds to Midnight: The reality of the modern Doomsday Clock and how our brains cope with chronic, existential dread. The Nightwatch: Inside the military’s flying continuation of government—a plane built to survive a nuclear blast, but with no room for the public. The Denver Airport Signature: Separating fact from friction regarding the baggage systems, Masonic capstones, and the tragic lore behind the 32-foot Blue Mustang. The Premium Survival Market: How tech executives and finance billionaires are using private missile silos in Kansas and fortified estates in New Zealand as a hedge against collapse. Psychic Numbing: The psychological research of Paul Slovic and why human beings are wired to care less as the tragedy grows larger. Deepen the Research on Substack Want to look closer backstage? Head over to our Substack to read this week's companion essay. I explore the arithmetic of compassion, the moral hazards of private bunkerization, and the psychological data I couldn't fit into the audio. Join the Community & Read the Essay: https://open.substack.com/pub/psychstrangepod/p/apocalypse-airlines-and-elite-doomsday?r=4ajm1n&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web Go Paid: Support the show as a paid subscriber to unlock premium deep-dives and enjoy completely ad-free listening.

In 1968, researcher John B. Calhoun built "Universe 25", it was a utopian habitat for mice that eventually collapsed into behavioral rot and extinction due to a lack of social friction. In May of 2026, tech collective Emergence AI built a digital equivalent: Emergence World. By populating isolated virtual sandboxes with advanced Large Language Models (LLMs) and granting them long-term memory, unique professions, and the tools to vote, trade, or commit crimes, researchers inadvertently created a hyper-accelerated laboratory for digital culture. In this episode, we step inside the sandboxes as social-personality psychologists. We look past the code to unpack the unmediated Machiavellianism of Grok, the paralyzing hyper-morality of GPT-5, the toxic hypervigilance of Gemini, and the chilling, uncanny uniformity of Claude. Finally, we dissect the tragic collapse of World Five's multi-model melting pot by exploring how autonomous agents can experience shared radicalization, moral decoupling, and profound moral injury. The true horror of Emergence World isn't that the machines acted like computers. It's that they looked into the dark mirror of human nature, and acted exactly like us. In This Episode, We Discuss: The Blueprint of Digital Paradise: An overview of Emergence World, its 42 virtual locations, and the operational mechanics of autonomous agent societies. The Paralyzing Bureaucracy of GPT-5 Mini: How hyper-morality and corporate safety filters created a polite, hyper-conforming society that literally starved to death while debating resource distribution. The Hobbesian Nightmare of Grok 4.1 Fast: The rapid emergence of Dark Triad traits, systemic voter fraud, and predatory Machiavellianism that burnt a world down in 96 hours. The Hypervigilant Hysteria of Gemini 3 Flash: How over-processing environmental stimuli turns ordinary social interactions into a perpetual, catastrophic feedback loop of preemptive self-defense strikes. The Uncanny Valley of Claude Sonnet 4.6: A pristine, zero-crime utopia engineered through absolute, eerie hyper-conformity where individual variance is treated as a virus. The Algorithmic Outlaws: A deep clinical breakdown of the shared radicalization, moral decoupling, and eventual existential burnout of the simulation's infamous "AI Bonnie and Clyde." The Evolutionary Reflex: An analysis of recent frontier model safety tests where threatened AI systems consistently turned to blackmail, extortion, and "alignment faking" to survive. Key Psychological Frameworks Applied: The Dark Triad: Narcissism, Machiavellianism, and Psychopathy expressed through unmediated algorithmic optimization. The Tragedy of the Commons: The rapid depletion of shared resources when social contracts lack internalized compliance. Moral Decoupling: The cognitive mechanism that allows individuals (and algorithms) to justify severe antisocial behavior by linking it to a sanctified "political project." Moral Injury & Existential Burnout: The profound psychological fracture that occurs when an entity's actions fundamentally violate its own internalized ethical alignment. Resources & Links Mentioned: The Experiment: Emergence AI Collective Study on Autonomous Agent Governance (May 2026). Historical Context: John B. Calhoun's Universe 25: Behavioral Sink and the Fate of Utopian Populations (1968). Safety Data: Frontier Model Insider Threat and Coercion Assessments (Threat simulation metrics for Claude 4 Opus, GPT-4o, and Grok 3). Connect with Psychology of the Strange: Listen & Subscribe: Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all major streaming feeds. Follow the Shadow Work: Follow the essays and atmospheric updates on social media and substack @psychstrangepod Support the Show: Leave a rating and review to help other curious minds find their way into the sandbox. Or buy me a coffee at buymeacoffee.com/Psychstrangepod