SPIRIT TALES AND MAGIC
Our host; Dr.G had his first paranormal experience at only eight years old. With over five decades of storytelling, magic and paranormal story collection he is an award winning story teller on a mission to revive firelight and the telling of stories!
SPIRIT TALES AND MAGIC
Your amygdala called; it wants its campfire back
The story that won’t leave—why does it cling while others evaporate? We set the scene in a sweltering Phoenix afternoon and follow a listener’s challenge: unpack the mechanics of a tale that keeps replaying. From there, we take apart the gears of a haunting: how emotion primes memory, how empathy pulls you into a character’s skin, and why ambiguity is the hook your brain can’t stop biting. This isn’t vague spookiness; it’s a practical tour of the psychology and parapsychology behind unforgettable storytelling.
We dive into the chemistry—cortisol’s alertness, oxytocin’s bonding, dopamine’s oh-wow hit—and show how the right moment can brand a line into your mind. Then we put the theory on its feet with lived texture: a defunct Detroit bowling alley with two working lanes, a tense room of tough people, and a name that breaks the air—“Jerry Millar’s been dead for a week.” Specificity beats cliché, because place, detail, and risk give your senses something to hold. We explore the craft choices that matter: leave a crack in the door, let the audience work to close the loop, and keep the language clean so the images carry the weight.
To test it all, we end with three compact ghost stories designed like magnets for memory. Short, sharp, and unresolved—each one shows how a single turn can make your chest tighten and your mind race to fill the blank. If you love ghost stories, performance craft, horror writing, or the neuroscience of memory, you’ll find tools you can use and chills you can’t shake.
If the ideas or the images stayed with you, share this episode with a friend, subscribe for our October arc, and tell us which moment lodged in your head. Your story might be the next one that refuses to let go.
Hey everybody, it's Dr. T, Spirit Tales and Magic. I hope you're doing well. It's about three o'clock in lovely downtown Phoenix. We're actually not in downtown, but here's the quiz. Do you know what fall means in Phoenix? Nothing. It's 98 degrees today. We're going to have a couple of days where it goes over 100, and then we're going to, in theory, cool off a little bit. You heard the podcast yesterday. We talked for a while about this story that just gets in my head. Can't get it out of my head. So shortly after the podcast aired, and usually I try and work it out. So when October starts, it's of course the next day starts on the East Coast before the West Coast. We don't need to explain that. But let's try and make them early enough so the folks on the East Coast can get them. I do not always succeed, but approximately seven minutes early after the podcast, I get an email. Doc, I've got this story that sticks in my head. And I can't get it out of there. So instead of just telling another ghost story, can you maybe touch on why some ghost stories stick in our head and others we just discard? I started researching one about a year ago, he says. And it started out as just something I heard. And the minute I got into it, it became an obsession. And even though I researched it into end, I find it cropping back up in my brain over and over and over again. That's an interesting concept. So let's give it a look. And I'm gonna try and experiment, and I'm gonna tell you three exceptionally short ghost stories, and then email me, you guys, and tell me if they get in your head. There are certain very short ghost stories that are designed to make you remember. That's ten episodes in a row, how we get there. So remember that we use psychology and parapsychology to do a storytelling magic show that has been a sellout for the last four decades. For ghost stories to get in your head, as far as I'm concerned, they they have to contain elements that are well that psychologically resonate with either your personal fears, anxiety, maybe it's your empathy. Stories you forget are more likely to rely on generic cliches or lack of a strong emotional core. Maybe they have a less immersive, if you will, presentation. So there are some actual psychological factors. So we talk about, say, emotional resonance, resonance. Sorry. For a story to be truly haunting, it has to make you feel something intense. Now that's something intense. It can be laughter, fear, anxiety, sadness, any of that that resonates with any of your emotions, you are more likely to remember that one over one that doesn't. But let's not overlook the release of neurochemicals. So engaging with an emotionally compelling story could trigger the release of chemicals, let's say cortisol, it's a stress hormone, or oxytocin, it's basically a bonding hormone. So this cocktail of chemicals can cement the experience in your memory. Some stories cost you to release dopamine. Dopamine is your friend. It's the oh wow, what does the color blue taste like? That kind of thing. Dopamine is released at a certain time when you're having sex. So dopamine's a very powerful thing. Sometimes it's empathy and identification. So let's say a compelling ghost story makes you care about the characters in the story or what's going to happen to them. When a character you empathize with experiences something terrifying, your brain mirrors that as if it were happening to you. Now, if something really super great is happening to them within the storyline, your brain can also be like, wow, isn't that great? Everything's great, we feel great. So it's a roller coaster of emotions. If a story lacks any type of emotional hook, it becomes forgettable. One of my favorite is always the power of the unknown. Some of the most frightening ghost stories often leave some things to your imagination, which can be really more terrifying than anything explicitly shown. It could embrace ambiguity. Stories that answer every question and explain away the ghost often lose their punch. But by leaving certain elements unresolved, the story will linger in your mind. And it's human nature at that point for us to fill in the blanks. Some people call it matrixing when you look at a bunch of dots, and I see a certain picture in the dots, and you see a different picture. Don't even get me started on Aurora Shock, but your brain always wants a finality. It wants to see the picture, it wants to know the story. If you have facts, A, B, C, somebody skips a D and you get to E, then your brain is like, oh, wait, wait, wait. We got to go back and figure out what the other one was. It's human nature. Sometimes it's the atmosphere or the immersion. A ghost story is more memorable if it creates, let's say, a strong, all-encompassing atmosphere. There would be sensory details, powerful stories that use a vivid description that engage all your senses. Feel the cold draft or the sound of the creaking floorboard. And it's that descent of decay in the air. These details make the narrative feel, well, more immersive. It's called narrative transportation. There's a neural coupling. Research has shown that a listener's brain can synchronize with the storyteller's brain actively during a compelling narrative. This neutral coupling, if you will, enhances your comprehension and causes you to be instantly invested in the story. So those are some of the things that make the story very memorable to you. And I could really go off here for about another hour and a half on this thing that I researched, but he he's a character throughout October in my podcast. And when we get to the end, the Halloween episode, you know, we'll try and put him down and and we'll do sort of a recap on him and what I believe he was and that sort of thing. That's what I believe. Despite the fact that that isn't an activity I've ever taken boarding, ever. Not one time. But it just feels like I have. Or that it's the perfect way to share a scary story, especially with the sounds of the forest wrestling around you and stars overhead. That just seems like the way it ought to be. We used to tell stories in the basement of our house with some friends around the gas fireplace. But it just didn't feel the same. And some of the stories were very short. So, Doc, my question is to you, how long does a ghost story have to be to be worthy of telling? I remember a long time ago in Detroit. We were in a bowling alley that had been defunct, closed for about a decade. It's basically in ruin. The building's still intact, the electricity still works. Um it has long not been open to the public. And a bunch of cops and excuse me, bodyguards and people like that started hanging out in there. The owner kept the liquor license on the building, so it was not open to the public, but you know, you could come in, and I think two of the lanes out of the 20 actually still worked. And he kept those alive just for people who felt like bowling and a couple of TVs and you know that sort of thing. Just a place to go and unwind and tell stories, go figure. You could tell he was angry. And we tried to not prod him about you know what was going on. Because sometimes when you're how do I want to put this, when you're an invisible person and you've had a rough day, uh, you don't want people getting in your face going, well, what are you so mad about? What'd you go through today that was so tough, right? In some circles, that's not a conversation you want to start. But we noticed that he would kind of take a moment to stare at each one of us. So I'm sitting with a member of my team named Darius. Darius looks at me and he says, Well, Doc, you're up. Go see what's eating him. Great, let me approach the guy that I know is wearing at least four guns. So I walked up to him and I said, uh, Dave, what's eating you, man? Might just had an argument in the bathroom with Jerry. He said he can be such an ass sometimes. Jerry. Jerry Millar. Um Jerry Millar's been dead for a week. He never forgot that. That stuck in his mind. And you're gonna hear about Jerry Millar later in other episodes, so I'm not gonna go into that story, but he believed that they had a conversation. And so that ghost story ended for him when all I said was Jerry Millar's been dead for a week. Something he never forgot. Now, usually I save it till the end of the podcast, and I say, remember, there is indeed a world unseen, a world that exists all around us all the time, and every now and then, for whatever the reason, we catch a glimpse of it and to dick it in. And then I'll ask you, what's your story? But I'm gonna do all that before I finish this because I'm going to give you my three incredibly short ghost stories, and I'll say my goodbyes now because at the end of those stories, we'll just go dead. Tell us your stories, give us a like, give us a share, follow us, spread the word. That's the only way we can keep going with this, is if it keeps growing. And as always, tell a ghost story. It's good for you. Paranormal stories, by the way, don't always have to be ghost stories. Look that up. There's a lot of things out there, especially in this world now, that are so paranormal. Having said that, this is a short ghost story I found on Reddit. It always sounded like there was a puppy working in the basement. So one day I had to go down and see what it was. Mommy yanked me up out of the basement. She yelled at me. Mommy had never yelled at me before, and it made me sad and I cried. Mommy told me never to go into the basement again. But then she gave me a cookie, and it made me feel better. So I didn't ask her why the little boy in the basement was making noises like a puppy, or why he had no hands or feet. Michelle Furlough young had a strange experience with her two-year-old daughter. Submitted to a movie plot. When my daughter was two, I found her twirling paper towel tubes, tied with twine, back and forth in the air, and I asked her, What are you doing? She said, Well, I'm practicing my nunchucks. I was a bit confused, and she had no way of knowing what those even were, and I'd asked her what she meant, and she said that Adam had told her how to make them, and showed her each night how to use them. She went on to say that Adam told her how to practice, because she may need to know how to defend herself someday in the future. I almost freaked out, but I asked her what Adam looked like. She said he was tall, blonde, and that he had blue eyes. Then she said, Mommy, you know how he looks. You know him. He died of a headache. I had to leave the room, you see, four months before she was born. My tall, blonde, blue eyed martial arts pro friend died of a brain aneurysm at the age of twenty seven. She has not spoken of him since that day. So I'm sure if I scared her with my reaction, or perhaps did she just complete her lessons. I began tucking my son in my bed, and he tells me, Daddy, can you check for monsters under my bed? So I look underneath just for his amusement, so I can tell him that it's okay. Only there's another him under the bed, staring back at me, quivering with tears running down his face. And he's barely able to speak when he says, Daddy, there's somebody on my bed.
