Mirror Image

We are a mirror on the wall. Who is the fairest of them all? The mirror laughed and then she said,

don't you know that you're in a long day. You're fast over the spoon. Stay tuned.

One iced coffee. 99 cents please. For real? No way.

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Okay, so we're all trying to get healthier but can feel like shadow boxing general basic diet plans general health advice general supplement stacks and we know we are not general no one size fits all but what if you could measure how your body is aging and know exactly what to focus on next.

That's what true diagnostic does. They test your biological age and key health markers like vitamins, nutrients and information. Then gives you a clear 90 day plan based on what your body needs without the guesswork. And it's easy.

All I did was order online. The kid chips right to your door, picked my finger like they said, sent back the prepaid return package. It takes just two to four weeks to get digital results.

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Okay, so I'm going to tell you about a mistake. The mistake I made in high school. I mentioned here on spooked that explored hypnosis back in high school.

It was fun. Exciting stage stuff. Head folk shouting out strange new languages. Others jumping up the translate. I started out using my brothers as test subjects.

Had them both barking like dogs hilarious. Later friends volunteer. We'd laugh watching them suddenly hold their nose. They're smelling the worst thing ever. Good stuff fun.

And I'm a coil now. I had no idea what I was playing at. It was barking like a dog. That's all well and good. That's chuckles and laughs. But one day I told Alex that he was going back in time back in time to when he was 10, eight, four years old.

And I gave him a pen. And I asked him to write his name. And then suddenly four year Alex, he says, I don't know how to spell my name.

People gas and I was lucky. Everybody had a great time. Even Alex. I should have left it alone. But now I had to push. Now I want to be the man.

Next session. I tell Tammy. I'm setting up the induction. I tell her that we too. We go back in time again. We back in time. Before we go, Tammy, I want you to know when I say the word popsicle.

You're going to immediately collapse to the most beautiful dream of chocolate waterfalls and gun drops and magic rain balls. Okay. Okay.

Now every sound you hear, every breath you take, you'll go deeper and deeper into this state. We're calling it hypnosis, right?

Deeper and deeper and deeper. Now come with me. Deeper through time. Deeper, you're 12 years old. Deeper, you're 10 years old. Deeper, five.

Three deeper, two deeper, one deeper, zero.

Now you're floating in the in-between space. And some people, Tammy, who have passed through this land before, they recall that they once had a other life, a full life they lived before this one.

And now, Tammy, I want you to go back to that life, to the life you had before, okay? Okay. Now go there, go into that life, go into that body.

And as soon as you're there, open your eyes and tell me what you see. Everybody all around, they crowd around in anticipation. This is the big showstopper. The wild moment, the thing everybody at school is going to talk about.

Tammy opens her eyes, and I see, whore, popsicle, popsicle, popsicle, popsicle, popsicle. Her eyes close, her head falls to the side, her breathing resumes deep and rhythmic. And all I know is that my little show, this show is over.

That this game, this is not a game, and I am worse than a fraud. See, it does not take evil intent to do harm.

And I will be forever grateful that this time, for the first time, before putting someone under my ridiculous child's concept of hypnosis, this time I told her about the safe place.

I told her we're at a high, because truthfully, I had no idea what to do, what she saw, popsicle.

Speak, start.

Now.

The next life, the other life,

Let's meet Jenny. It's the 70s, and her family is moving into a rundown house outside of Philadelphia.

In this place, the shadows know how to keep secrets, but sometimes, those same secrets, the way of spelling over.

The next life, the next life, the next life.

We moved in in early August of 1972.

My parents, my sister, and I walk into this house with our three Dalmatians, and instantly it is clear that the previous owners of the house fancied himself an amateur interior decorator.

This elegant living room was black, rooms painted crazy colors, the family room had these like wagon wheel, chandelier things hanging from the ceiling, and zebra striped paneling on walls.

The reason my parents could afford it, though, was that it was in such crazy bad condition.

My father said, let's go upstairs so you can choose your rooms.

The second floor was even darker than the first floor. My sister immediately chose her room. My father picked the room next to it, which was, I guess it was the master bedroom.

I went into the last room on the second floor, and I see this room that looks like a girl's bedroom with these kind of frilly curtains on the wall.

I loved that room, and I said, is this going to be mine? My mother said, no, we thought you'd like to be up on the third floor.

That's where the boys of the previous family, the hunts, had lived.

I went up there and looked around and thought yikes.

It had this creepy vibe. There was an absolutely creepy vibe in there.

It was dark, and it also had this creepy yellow wallpaper that featured what looked like sheet music.

Then there was this bathroom with marks on the ceiling where the rain leaked through the roof.

I said, oh, I have to be up there, but you're all going to be down here.

One of my parents said, well, you can have your own empire. So I was like, okay, I guess I'm going to have my own empire.

One night, my parents went out, and I was determined to scrape off the wallpaper in my bedroom.

I had this can of paint. It was this kind of, you know, electric hippie blue.

And I started tearing up the wallpaper, just ripping it down, left and right.

While I was scraping off this wallpaper, I felt something was watching me.

Something I felt it so, so strongly.

One part of me is just aware of what I'm feeling.

And the other part of me is saying, the way you would, there are no such things as ghosts, don't be an idiot.

I just kept slicing the paper, and that's why I noticed something.

Underneath the wallpaper were all of these scribbles and drawings.

Right there, at shoulder level, there was a line that said, in this room in the year 1898,

lived Dorothy Cummins, who was not of sound mind and drowned.

Pulled off this big chunk of wallpaper, and I noticed below knee level, there were a bunch of children's drawings.

As if someone, you know, a kid had been drawing on the wall and scribble.

There were some wavy lines that might have been the ocean, the sun, the moon, and there was a face.

There was a face of a woman with this long hair.

It wasn't a great drawing, and it had been underneath wallpaper for a long time.

I put two and two together, so there was someone in this room who was not of sound mind, and now here are these drawings.

So I just assumed that it had been that woman in the drawing the one who had drowned.

That's the story I assembled in my mind.

It was creepy, and you know, I'd paint it over, and all those drawings disappeared.

Did you know there's an online cannabis company that ships federally legal THC right to your door,

and they found a way to combine THC with carefully selected functional ingredients to create gummies, big goods, flower.

I'm talking about mood.com. They have an incredible line of cannabis gummies and you can get 20% off your first order at mood.com with promo code SPOOT.

Forget one size fits all supplements, moods of functional gummies are formulated to dial in the mood you're looking for,

like the sleepy time advanced gummy, for mind-saving calm at night, or moods pure relief CBD gummies for gentle relaxation without any psychoactive effects,

plus beyond gummies, mood has a selection of flower, pre-rolls, big retreats, beverages, and everything ships directly and discreetly right to your door.

No dispensary lines, no awkward conversations, just better days and nights delivered to your doorstep, best of all.

Every mood product is backed by a 100 day satisfaction guarantee, and as I've mentioned, let's just get 20% off their first order with code SPOOT.

So head to mood.com. Find the functional gummy that matches exactly what you're looking for, and let mood help you discover your perfect mood.

And don't forget to use promo code SPOOT when you check out to save 20% on your first order, try it today at mood.com.

SPOOT is brought to you by progressive insurance. Physically responsible, financial geniuses, monetary magicians, these are things people say about drivers who switched their car insurance to progressive and save hundreds.

Because progressive offers discount or paying in full, for owning a home and more, plus you can count on their great customer service to help you when you need it, so your dollar goes a long way.

Visit progressive.com to see if you could save on car insurance, progressive casualty insurance company and affiliates, potential savings will vary, not available in all states or situations.

Okay, so we're all trying to get healthier, but can feel like shadow boxing, general basic diet plans, general health advice, general supplement stacks, and we know we are not general.

No one size fits all, but what if you could measure how your body is aging, and know exactly what to focus on next?

That's what true diagnostic does. They test your biological age and key health markers, like vitamins, nutrients, and information, then gives you a clear 90 day plan based on what your body needs, without the guesswork, and it's easy.

All I did was order online, the kit ships right to your door, picked my finger like they said, sent back the prepaid return package, it takes just two to four weeks to get digital results.

My only job now, follow the three most important actions results say I should, for 90 days, then retest the seed progress. Easy.

That's why true diagnostic is trusted by top longevity clinics and health professionals, not just consumers at home.

And right now, spook listeners can get 20% off at truediagnostic.com using code spook at checkout.

That's truediagnostic.com and use code spooked for 20% off today, choose true age, true health, or the combo kit as a one time purchase or subscription.

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Living in that house was all a big, a very big change for us, but also I was about to enter ninth grade.

And that was really scary.

I went to this all-boy school. It was a place where, you know, we had to work coats. We had to work ties. Everything was about football.

I wanted to be a poet. I wanted to be a musician.

When I was home, I'd spend most of my time in my room by myself. It was a place of quiet. It was a place of peace.

And on the third floor, there was this storeroom. In that room, of course, went all of the garment bags and the clothes of my mother and my sister.

As a kid, I play this game called Girl Planet, in which I believed I was an astronaut who had crashed on an alien planet.

But here's the deal. In that place, that girl planet, the atmosphere, changed you into a girl.

It just happened. And your clothes changed to a girl's clothes, too. Bang!

So, you know, on the third floor, there's nobody up there. Every day I come home from school. I go in there, I grab one of the dresses,

and I slip it on and go into my room and pull the deadbolt and sit down and do my homework.

And then when I was done, when it's time to go to sleep, I put them back.

There was one night. I woke up at like two in the morning and I noticed that my dog was growling.

My dog was called Sausage. She was this kind of fat, downmation dog.

And I love that dog like crazy. Suddenly, I hear a creek out in the hallway.

Another creek. So, I got up to check things out.

And then I noticed the door to the bathroom was open.

And I went into the bathroom. And there, over my shoulder, I saw, for a second, in the mirror, this old woman.

She was not terribly old, but she was old enough. And she had long blonde hair, she had green eyes.

She had like a long white nightgown, and I noticed that her hair seemed wet.

I turned around and there was no one there.

So, I'm freaking out. And I run back to my room, clocked the door, and I get into bed.

And I'm just like, nope, that didn't happen. I just lay down there, waiting to fall asleep.

On that third floor, that feeling I had that I was being watched, I always had that feeling.

Sometimes I'd find the bathroom door open, and I don't remember it being open.

Had my mother been up there, had my sister been up there, had I just not closed it.

I don't think my sister or my parents ever felt any of this.

One time, I remember asking my mother, mom, do you ever feel scared in this house?

Do you ever feel, do you ever get the creeps? And she said, oh, of course not.

It made me sad, because it meant that I couldn't explain to her the thing I was feeling.

But, you know, I couldn't talk about a lot of things.

It had been another typical night for me. I'd come home from school and managed to sneak into my sister's bedroom.

My desire was to grab some stuff from her hamper.

You know, that's where she'd throw out her blouse and her skirt at the end of the school day.

So I'd go in there.

There was a green paisley skirt and a blue blouse, and the little blue blouse had these little mirrors in it.

I ran back into my room, of course, and hold the deadbolt.

I did the switcheroo.

And, at that moment, I got that weird feeling again.

I felt the eyes watching me.

I did my homework, but I did the switcheroo back.

It was time to go to bed, but I needed to put everything back where it was.

I went down the creaking stairs, and I stuffed them back in the hamper.

And while I was in there, I thought, oh no, what if they hear me doing this?

So I went into the bathroom, and I flushed the toilet to make it seem less suspicious.

I went back up the stairs to the third floor, got in bed.

I went to sleep.

Somewhere around three o'clock, four o'clock in the morning, I heard my mother screaming.

I turned on the light by my bed, the light didn't go on.

There's this kind of roaring sound, like we're in the middle of a storm or something,

and my mother is screaming from downstairs.

And I opened the door and walked down the stairs to find this waterfall.

Ankle deep on the second floor, pouring down the stairs, and pouring through the rungs on the banister.

My sister is in the hallway, and she's pouring into the bathroom, the one that I'd used before when I grabbed the clothes out of that hamper.

And now I see that the toilet in that bathroom is overflowing.

Water just pouring like a fountain.

So my mother and my sister and I are walking around, and there's just water pouring everywhere.

Now we hear this giant crash from downstairs.

We all go down the main staircase and into the living room, and that's when we saw it.

Kitchen ceiling just collapses, crashes onto the floor.

The plaster is everywhere.

Here comes sausage coming down the stairs.

And we go out into the front hallway, and at that moment, the living room ceiling would burst.

Plaster would just range down on us.

My sister went to the front door, swings it open, and this water just gushes out onto the porch.

So now our house was wrecked.

I mean, it like really, really wrecked. They spent like the next week pumping water out.

My first thought was, this is all my fault.

This is because I fleshed that toilet.

But I remember thinking, what was that girl Dorothy Cummins?

She was a unsound mind and drowned.

And the last time I'd seen her, her hair was wet, and now here's my house.

What does that mean?

It began in earnest the process of changing that house from what it had been into what it was going to become.

New wood flooring went down.

The living room, which had been black, was finally painted a tasteful off-white.

Down came all the old scary wallpaper.

And in a year or two, that house was almost unrecognizable from the place that we moved into.

It was the beginning of kind of the next part of my family's life.

But when I got out of college, I moved to New York City, and I forgot everything about Dorothy Cummins.

I would visit my mother pretty regularly.

My mother loved that house, and she lived in that house all that time.

Just around when I turned 40, I think it was 2001.

We were in what had once been the room with the wagon wheel chandeliers and the zebra striped wallpaper.

Now of course, it was an elegant family room.

My father was long dead by then.

I poured her a gin and tonic, her favorite.

On a Sunday night, and I said, mom, there's something I have to tell you.

And so I told her I was trans.

I'm sorry I never told you when I was a child because I was afraid you wouldn't love me anymore.

And that's when I began to cry and shake and just sob.

But my mother reached out to me.

She said, I would never turn my back on my child.

In my mother's last week or two of life, we had home health care nurses looking out for her.

But one night, one of the home health care nurses quit.

She'd gone into the bathroom and looked in the mirror.

And in the mirror behind her, she saw the face of an old woman.

And she turned around and there was no one there.

So there was still something up there, something still living on that house.

In 2011, my mother died at the age of 94.

You know, we did the thing people do.

My sister and I selected the things of our parents we wanted to keep.

The rest went off to auction.

There was one day when moving vans came.

And I was just kind of overseeing the whole business.

I was there by myself in the house.

And I climbed the stairs and I sat down in what had been that room with the yellow wallpaper.

And I started weeping and crying.

I felt the passage of the years and the loss of my parents, whom I really loved.

And also, I remembered how much I had carried something that I just didn't have the language to talk about.

Eventually I got up and I went to the bathroom.

And I looked in the mirror and there was that old woman looking at me again.

But I realized it wasn't a ghost.

It was me, age 55.

It was the woman that I'd grown up to be.

Thank you so much, Jenny, for sharing your story with the spook.

Jennifer Finney Boilin, just the author of 19 books including I'm Looking Through You,

growing up haunted where you can read more about her experiences living in that house.

Also, her new memoir, Cleavage.

Men, women, and the space between us is out now.

We have links to Jenny's books in the episode description.

The story was scouted by Elliot Lightfoot.

The original scores by Nicholas Marks is produced by Erik Janjez.

Been here before.

Done this before.

You ever watch a child sleep innocent, peaceful?

Who's letting her?

Is to watch his son sleep, little James.

Just two years old, perfect, perfect little boy.

To one night, the screaming starts.

Airplane crash on fire, little man can't get out.

Who's Russian?

The soup is a little boy.

Time everything is going to be high.

But night after night, two a.m., three a.m., this baby boy.

He wakes thrashing, kicking like he's trapped inside something.

What man can't get out?

Well, night his mama told some clothes to this.

Who's this little man?

James looks up at her, terrified, says.

Me.

Little James had never seen a war movie.

Just two years old, he watches Barney plays the blocks.

He starts saying things.

Specific things.

So this plane got shot down and the Japanese did it.

So he flew off a boat called the Natoma.

Natoma.

This pops, it fixes this crazy nonsense.

But for some reason, Bruce searches anyway.

Goes through old records, old books.

And he finds it.

The USS Natoma Bay.

It's real.

An escort carrier in the Pacific, and Benny learns it.

One of his pilots was killed at Iwojima.

His name was James Huston, Jr.

And here, Bruce has to shut down his own little research project for a little bit.

You understand, Bruce?

Who's a race Baptist?

And this reincarnation is not part of his world view.

But his little boy keeps talking.

Little James says he had a friend named Jack Larson.

And it turns out there was a Jack Larson, who flew with Huston on the Natoma Bay.

Little James says his plane got hit in the engine.

I witnessed his saw.

Huston's plane take a direct hit to the engine before it exploded and plunged into the sea.

Little James draws pictures of Aero Comba.

Explosions.

Signs him.

James 3.

Why 3?

Because I'm not third James.

James Huston, Jr.

Was James Huston the second?

And after many more hours of research.

Many more deep family conversations.

Andrea James' mother learns that Hudson's sister Anne.

She's still alive.

James Huston's baby sister.

84 years old and still grieving.

And Andrea sets up a phone call.

And his little boy can speak to a woman he'd never met.

Calls her Annie.

Only James Hudson Jr. ever called her that.

He knew their father drank.

He knew he had to go away.

He knew their mother painted Anne's portrait when she was little girl.

Private things.

Family things.

Things not in any book.

After they put down the phones.

Anne sends a package to young James.

Along with the letter, she includes her brother's belongings, family heirlooms,

gifted.

Return.

Is a fair his own birthright.

A model plane.

Bust of George Washington.

She starts calling him James 3.

He calls her sister.

And James 3 turns 11.

His parents take him to Japan.

They're the childhood T.C. Dima.

The small island nearest to where Hudson's plane went down.

They motor out in a rented fishing boat to the exact spot.

And there, weeping.

James drops flowers into the water.

A memorial.

To himself.

For himself.

From himself.

The story.

It's the most extensively documented cases of past life recollection ever.

No one would thank the family.

For the wrath of interviews.

Riding's even publishing the book Soul Survivor.

The reincarnation of a War War II fighter pilot.

By Bruce and Andrea Lettinger.

With King Gross.

I also want to thank Dr. Jim Tucker.

The University of Virginia.

Who documented this case extensively in his research.

On children's past life memories.

And if you have a story for Spook.

Please let me know.

Spook.

That's snapjudgment.org because it is nothing better than a Spook story from a Spook listener.

Be careful because Spook Studios is sneaking up behind you.

Right this moment.

Don't look back.

Don't back.

Even if you can't see it.

You can feel it.

Don't seek to find it.

It's seek to find you.

KQD in San Francisco is where we hide the secrets.

We've got the special incantations from Spook Legal.

Reading that no snap studio's content may be used for training.

Testing or developing machine learning.

Our AI systems without prior written permission.

On team Spooked.

The University of Virginia Records and producers, artists, editors and engineers.

I remember the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians.

Communications workers of America.

AFL Sea Eye Local 51.

And Spooked is brought to you.

But a team that does not trust mirrors.

Especially Mark Wistich.

He refuses to believe.

That's what he looks like.

There's David Kim.

Zoe Fregno, Eric Jantz.

Elliot Lightfoot, Mercac Dodge.

Miles Lasse, Tailed Decaut, Regina Bettyacco.

Pauline Creeke, Elizabeth G. Pardeau, Dithiamato.

Lula Jamila.

Doug Stewart, Nicholas Marx.

The spook theme song is by Pat McEnie Miller and it was from Washington and I'm pretty

sure that this is my first time through this world, my first pass.

I could be wrong but I can't remember anything else and I hope that one of my time here

is done that I don't feel the need to return.

But I know right now I'm not done. I'm unfinished. See, apologies must first be made.

Wrongs must be right at wines, taste at art, scene, hugs given, stories shared, so so much to do.

But instead of rushing to do it, I find myself doom scrolling through the latest outrage

on my phone. What a gift. What an amazing gift it would be to take that final rest and feel

complete. Like, okay, I did that. Let us laugh together one last time but to make that happen,

I must first get very, very, very lucky and then I must get very, very busy and murder this

electronic thief of dreams because I know, I know, with absolute certainty, my real horror

is regret, never ever, ever, ever turn out light.