Speaker 1: Welcome to the Hidden Gin, a production of I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Minky Listener. Discretion
Speaker 1: is advised many many years ago, in what seems like
Speaker 1: a whole other lifetime. I had been a single parent
Speaker 1: for quite a while, but I got remarried and I
Speaker 1: moved from the DC area to Connecticut, where my new
Speaker 1: husband was studying at a seminary. I'd moved to Connecticut
Speaker 1: without ever having first visited it. I just picked up
Speaker 1: my belongings and my young daughter bundled up in a
Speaker 1: U haul and drove north. And while we lived in Hartford,
Speaker 1: the capital of the state, it was a pretty sleepy place,
Speaker 1: and I soon found myself sprit to fill my time
Speaker 1: and make friends. So I sought out volunteer opportunities with
Speaker 1: organizations that I figured would attract like minded people, and
Speaker 1: I was right. It turned out to be a great
Speaker 1: way to make friends. One of those friends was a
Speaker 1: young woman in her late twenties, a researcher at Yale
Speaker 1: who was volunteering at a relatively new advocacy organization. For
Speaker 1: the purpose of the story, I will call her Sarah.
Speaker 1: She and I were the only women in the group,
Speaker 1: and having spent a lot of time together helping a
Speaker 1: new organization get off the ground, we ended up becoming friends.
Speaker 1: Sarah was petite, but full of energy, incredibly dependable, thoughtful,
Speaker 1: and warm. I took a liking to her immediately. She
Speaker 1: would come over to my plays, hang out with my
Speaker 1: family and other friends, and we'd meet up for coffee.
Speaker 1: But I never went over to her place ever. I
Speaker 1: knew that Sarah lived alone in an apartment in New Haven,
Speaker 1: an apartment that she had moved into fairly recently. Now
Speaker 1: we have been friends about a year when inevitably, one
Speaker 1: day our conversation turned to merrite. Because the matchmaker and
Speaker 1: me can't help but ask my single friends if they're
Speaker 1: looking to meet someone. So I asked Sarah if she
Speaker 1: was open to being introduced to a couple of eligible
Speaker 1: bachelors that I already had in mind. Sarah took a
Speaker 1: deep sigh and said, I'd love to, but I just can't. Now.
Speaker 1: I wasn't exactly sure what she meant by that. Was
Speaker 1: she too busy? Was she interested in someone else already?
Speaker 1: Was she just painfully shy? Sarah went on, She said, Robbia,
Speaker 1: you're going to think I'm crazy. But I have a problem.
Speaker 1: I've wanted to meet the right guy and settled down
Speaker 1: for years, but there's this this thing. It won't let me.
Speaker 1: At that point, I thought, oh, maybe there's a health
Speaker 1: issue she thinks is preventing her from being in a relationship.
Speaker 1: But it wasn't that at all. Sarah went on to
Speaker 1: explain that for years, verse since she was a teenager,
Speaker 1: a gin had been following her. She tried everything to
Speaker 1: get rid of it, prayers and amulets, seeking help from
Speaker 1: spiritual healers, consulting exorcists, moving from one city to another,
Speaker 1: moving from one apartment to another, but everywhere she went
Speaker 1: it followed her. While mostly it didn't bother her, there
Speaker 1: had been times it scared the heck out of her,
Speaker 1: showing her that it was there with her at all
Speaker 1: times and that it was powerful. Once, said Sarah, she
Speaker 1: woke up in the middle of the night, disoriented. The
Speaker 1: ceiling looked much lower than it had before, and she
Speaker 1: thought for a second that she was dreaming, But she wasn't.
Speaker 1: She was hovering, floating a good foot or two above
Speaker 1: her bed, suspended and frozen in fright. She opened her
Speaker 1: mouth to scream, but nothing came. Out. She said every
Speaker 1: prayer she could remember in her heart, and suddenly she fell,
Speaker 1: flopping back into her bed. Another time, she woke up,
Speaker 1: warm and cozy on her blanket, still in bed, but
Speaker 1: her bed had been dragged to the other side of
Speaker 1: the room. And then there are countless times that objects
Speaker 1: moved from one place to another, things disappeared and reappeared,
Speaker 1: Voices whispered from empty corners of her apartment, cabinets creaked
Speaker 1: open and closed by themselves. There was always an increase
Speaker 1: in activity, she realized when she began getting romantically involved
Speaker 1: with somebody else. Eventually, one of the religious leaders she
Speaker 1: consulted he knew about her entire Gin history, told her
Speaker 1: that the Gin was really possessive, and it was jealous
Speaker 1: of any man who got too close to her. That
Speaker 1: for her getting into a relationship might be an impossibility.
Speaker 1: The Gin wouldn't let it happen, because, you see, the
Speaker 1: Gin was in love with Sarah. Now, of course, as
Speaker 1: she's telling me these things, I went through a range
Speaker 1: of emotions. This is ridiculous. I thought she's lying. She
Speaker 1: has to be lying, But why would she lie. She's
Speaker 1: not a lot, sire, She's level headed, smart, educated, honest. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: maybe she's hallucinating imagining things. But over and over again,
Speaker 1: for years and years, I remembered. I wasn't sure what
Speaker 1: to do with my face. She was dead serious, and
Speaker 1: I was confused. I returned home that day and told
Speaker 1: my husband the story as he munched on some cookies. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he said, completely unphased. That happens. He happened to know
Speaker 1: a lot more about Jin than I did, so that's
Speaker 1: when I first began digging deeper into the world of Gin,
Speaker 1: tracking down everything I could find to read and learn
Speaker 1: about them. Sure, I had heard spooky stories growing up,
Speaker 1: and was familiar with some of the scripture that mentioned
Speaker 1: these beings. But the more I learned, the more I
Speaker 1: realized I didn't know. Every rabbit hole led to another,
Speaker 1: And in one of those rabbit holes, I found centuries
Speaker 1: of stories, love stories between humans and Gin. Like in
Speaker 1: Sarah's case, it wasn't always a two way street, but
Speaker 1: in many cases the love of was mutual. Today will
Speaker 1: explore what happens when lovers aren't just star crossed, they're
Speaker 1: supernaturally crossed. My name is Robbia Chaudry, and I'll be
Speaker 1: your guide into the world of the Hidden Gin welcome.
Speaker 1: If you aren't familiar with one thousand and one Nights,
Speaker 1: you might think the only time Agin appears in the
Speaker 1: whole volume is in the Tale of Aladdin and a
Speaker 1: Genie from the Magic Lamp. If so, you might be
Speaker 1: surprised to learn that not only wasn't this story a
Speaker 1: part of the original collection in one thousand and one Nights,
Speaker 1: but also that there are many other Gin stories that
Speaker 1: are Some stories, however, are less palatable for the subject
Speaker 1: of Disney films than others, and certainly, if there was
Speaker 1: one subject that American audiences weren't ready for, it's the
Speaker 1: repeated theme in one thousand and one Nights of love, marriage,
Speaker 1: and sexual relationships between Gin and humans. While these stories
Speaker 1: may seem wondrous and fantastic, they were delivered to an
Speaker 1: audience that not only widely believed in the existence of Gin,
Speaker 1: but in a coexistence between Gin and mankind, in which
Speaker 1: the Gin occupied both supernatural and earthly planes, interacting with humans,
Speaker 1: living alongside them, communicating with them, and naturally, given the
Speaker 1: right circumstances, it was understood and accepted that both humans
Speaker 1: and Gin could and would develop romantic feelings for one another,
Speaker 1: which takes us back to the many tales, the one
Speaker 1: thousand and one of them that Shahrazadey told her king
Speaker 1: to keep him entertained and to keep herself alive, where
Speaker 1: we repeatedly come across this theme. In one story, we
Speaker 1: learn about a far away place called the Mountain of
Speaker 1: the Bereaved Mother, given this name by passing fishermen who
Speaker 1: heard ways and moans whenever they passed by the island
Speaker 1: where the mountain stood. According to the tale, a beautiful
Speaker 1: female Jin, a Ginia from China, had once fallen in
Speaker 1: love with a mortal man, which didn't fare well with
Speaker 1: her Jin family. She was desperate to have him, though,
Speaker 1: and she came up with an idea. She searched the
Speaker 1: entire world for a place that no man or Jin
Speaker 1: could access, and found an island in the middle of
Speaker 1: the Sea of Troubles, And so she whisked her love
Speaker 1: away to that island, with or without his consent, it's unclear,
Speaker 1: but she kept him there for the rest of his life.
Speaker 1: She would secretly visit him, sneaking away from her Gin family,
Speaker 1: and over the years they ended up having many children together.
Speaker 1: Now how she hid that from her family is unclear. However,
Speaker 1: every time she had a child, she would leave it
Speaker 1: behind on the mountain with the other children and their father,
Speaker 1: and the moans and the cries heard by fishermen were
Speaker 1: in fact the whales of lonely children crying for their mother.
Speaker 1: A complic hated love story, if you will, and whether
Speaker 1: or not had a happy ending is debatable. Nonetheless, that
Speaker 1: Ginia got her Man One thousand and one Nights has
Speaker 1: dozens and dozens of such tales of human gin love,
Speaker 1: sometimes ending in socially accepted marriage, other times ending up
Speaker 1: an elopement, abduction, and even death. Now you might be thinking, well,
Speaker 1: these are tales told within a tale and are about
Speaker 1: as real as the vampire human love stories in Twilight
Speaker 1: or True Blood. Maybe, But then you have the real
Speaker 1: life stories like Sarah's and many others, and at one
Speaker 1: point in time it was actually pretty commonly accepted that
Speaker 1: these relationships took place. As one example of how ubiquitous
Speaker 1: and while normal, the very idea of human gen romance was,
Speaker 1: we turned to a tenth century volume titled All Fairest,
Speaker 1: which means the Catalog, and it was indeed a catalog.
Speaker 1: In fact, alphaist is considered to be the very first
Speaker 1: such catalog in history, indexing over ten thousand books inciting
Speaker 1: to over two thousand authors. It was written and compiled
Speaker 1: by the brilliant Bardadi polymath is shock Ibbin al Nadim,
Speaker 1: who himself described the book as such, This is a
Speaker 1: catalog of books of all peoples, Arab and non Arab,
Speaker 1: existing in Arabic language and Arabic script, dealing with various sciences,
Speaker 1: together with the accounts of those who composed them, and
Speaker 1: the categories of their authors, their genealogies, dates of birth,
Speaker 1: length of life, times of death, locations of the cities,
Speaker 1: and their virtues and faults, from the beginning of each
Speaker 1: science to this our own time. That time, by the way,
Speaker 1: was the year b c. The catalog basically indexes every
Speaker 1: book ever written in Arabic up to that point in time,
Speaker 1: over a hugely vast array of subjects, politics, religion, history, science, literature, poetry,
Speaker 1: and yes, the supernatural and I'll know them. Had two
Speaker 1: sections directly relevant to our subject at hand. One section
Speaker 1: titled names of those of mankind who loved the Gin
Speaker 1: and vice versa, and the second section titled Lovers of
Speaker 1: the Gin. These sections contained long lists of human Gin couples,
Speaker 1: including head scratching entries like quote, I'll dre them the lion,
Speaker 1: Judd the Liberal and Walks the Worthless, and another one
Speaker 1: titled All Delfa, her Brothers and the Ginney. Now, whether
Speaker 1: these were love triangles or threesomes, either way they were
Speaker 1: pretty scandalous. But of course, who doesn't like a good scandal,
Speaker 1: And what juicier drama than a love affair between a
Speaker 1: gin and a human, an affair the society had no
Speaker 1: power to stop, in which one lover could appear and
Speaker 1: disappear right out of their beloved is bed. Never mind
Speaker 1: the romance of a powerful supernatural entity choosing a mere
Speaker 1: mortal as a partner. What about the actual physical experience itself. Well,
Speaker 1: you can understand the kinds of things people imagined and
Speaker 1: whispered incredibly seductive gossip fodder, if you ask me, And
Speaker 1: ever more so given that it was believed that when
Speaker 1: a Jin male or female fell in love with a human,
Speaker 1: they would follow that human forever, and once that human
Speaker 1: accepted the love, the gin would impart some of their
Speaker 1: secret Jin knowledge to them, like how to heal disease?
Speaker 1: Having a lover who could teach you powers others didn't have. Well,
Speaker 1: that's quite a French benefit. These cross species trists were
Speaker 1: apparently such a fairly common occurrence at the time in
Speaker 1: the region that religious and legal scholars had debates over
Speaker 1: the rules governing such relationships, about, for example, whether the
Speaker 1: marriages to the gin were actually legitimate, and most scholars,
Speaker 1: by the way set up well not but there were
Speaker 1: some exceptions, and whether the children produced from such marriages
Speaker 1: were legitimate. Now I can't help but wonder if maybe
Speaker 1: sometimes single women had to claim marriage to a jinn
Speaker 1: when they ended up inexplicably pregnant in a society that
Speaker 1: would shun children outside of marriage, and charges of fornication
Speaker 1: and adultery could lead to some very serious consequences. I
Speaker 1: can see how it's very much a possibility that gin
Speaker 1: marriage was well a cover, and some scholars have even
Speaker 1: positive that maybe unions with supernatural entities were a vehicle
Speaker 1: for female liberation and protection. The sexual liberation of not
Speaker 1: having to explain a pregnancy, protection from social or religious
Speaker 1: consequences of such a pregnancy, and from the charges of adultery,
Speaker 1: and liberation from the societal pressures of marriage to a human.
Speaker 1: In a year old story shows how this arrangement could
Speaker 1: protect a woman. The story takes place in the time
Speaker 1: of the Caliph Ali, one of the men given the
Speaker 1: mantle of leadership of the entire Muslim community after the
Speaker 1: profit of Islam Mohammed had passed away. One day, the
Speaker 1: Caliph Ali noticed a child in the area acting strange,
Speaker 1: and he asked who the child was. Someone pointed out
Speaker 1: the child's mother, so Ali asked her who is the father,
Speaker 1: and she responded, I don't know. One day I was
Speaker 1: pasturing sheep for my parents when something in the form
Speaker 1: of a cloud mate it with me. I became pregnant
Speaker 1: and gave birth to this child, and that pretty much
Speaker 1: settled the matter. Whatever purpose human gin romances may serve,
Speaker 1: there's no doubt that there's just a general fascination with them.
Speaker 1: And for the record, the lure of love between the
Speaker 1: supernatural and mortals is not just confined to the Arabian
Speaker 1: Peninsula and the t else that come to us from
Speaker 1: one thousand and one Nights. You find it across different
Speaker 1: cultures and religions throughout history. Those of you who know
Speaker 1: your Bible will remember that in Genesis, the benni Iloheim,
Speaker 1: known as the sons of God were commonly understood to
Speaker 1: be angels that descended to Earth and took up human wives.
Speaker 1: In Celtic and Irish folklore, it's not only believed that
Speaker 1: fairies have long hooked up with humans, it's not uncommon
Speaker 1: even today for families from the region to claim some
Speaker 1: fairy ancestry. And South Asia abounds with stories of love
Speaker 1: and marriage between humans and the mythical half human half
Speaker 1: snake creature called the noggin if male or neguini if female.
Speaker 1: They're said to be irresistibly beautiful and incredibly wise, and
Speaker 1: they often seek to mate with human royalty, resulting in attractive, brilliant,
Speaker 1: noble offspring. There does seem to be a rather universal
Speaker 1: inclination towards accepting and even honoring supernatural romance, says and
Speaker 1: why not. Human curiosity has no limit, and our attraction
Speaker 1: for the unknown, the forbidden, the powerful, for love and
Speaker 1: desire and to be desired sometimes at any cost, is
Speaker 1: very much a part of being human, which is maybe
Speaker 1: why I'll gnaw them so matter of factly compile those
Speaker 1: lists of human and gin lovers in his book The Catalog,
Speaker 1: like It's any other fact of life. One last note
Speaker 1: about the book. Interestingly, All Fairest maybe the first documented
Speaker 1: reference ever in history to the book One thousand and
Speaker 1: one Nights. Unfortunately, however, All Nah Them wasn't very impressed
Speaker 1: with it. He notes in his catalog that it is
Speaker 1: quote a truly coarse book without warmth in the telling.
Speaker 1: I'm sure Shahrazadi would disagree. In the world of Gin,
Speaker 1: there are some who fall in love with a person
Speaker 1: and person do that one love for years, even decades
Speaker 1: a lifetime. But then there are those who are never
Speaker 1: quite satisfied with just one partner. Two female Gin in
Speaker 1: North African traditions are particularly flirtatious and amorous, collecting lovers
Speaker 1: as often as they like. Both of these Gin with
Speaker 1: the honorific title Lula, meaning lady. Their names are Lulla
Speaker 1: Mulicca and La La Mira. As her name, which means queen,
Speaker 1: suggests Lulla Mulca is Jin royalty. She is the daughter
Speaker 1: of a Gin king. Malika is not just regal and beautiful,
Speaker 1: she's chic as well. She likes to be well dressed.
Speaker 1: She only wears garments embroidered with gold thread, and she
Speaker 1: expects her followers those who seek her to likewise be
Speaker 1: dressed beautifully and smelling nice. She loves clothing so much,
Speaker 1: in fact, that it said that she lives inside of wardrobes,
Speaker 1: where no doubt she's planning her outfits. As you may
Speaker 1: have guessed, Mulika is an egg exactly a fearsome gin.
Speaker 1: She's sweet nature and fun loving, often tickling people and
Speaker 1: leaving them with uncontrollable giggles. La La Molika is a lover,
Speaker 1: not a fighter, you might say, and she's a lover
Speaker 1: particularly of married men. When a man gets her attention,
Speaker 1: she unseen to him, passes her hands in front of
Speaker 1: his eyes, clouding them over, putting him in sort of
Speaker 1: a trance, a trance in which he forgets everything he
Speaker 1: knows and loves, even where he lives, and suddenly is
Speaker 1: taken over for a deep longing from Mulika, who he
Speaker 1: hasn't even seen or heard, but his heart already knows.
Speaker 1: Lalla Molicca will then whisper to him, I want to
Speaker 1: marry you. I want you to sleep with me. Because
Speaker 1: these men are usually already married, well, they have to
Speaker 1: negotiate a bit with Molcca. They have to get Lula
Speaker 1: Molicca's permission to continue to have relations with their earthly
Speaker 1: wives before they'll enter into the sacred supernatural marriage with Mulika.
Speaker 1: And that's not exactly a deal breaker for her. After all,
Speaker 1: she has only one use for the man. She's not
Speaker 1: exactly trying to settle down and have a family here
Speaker 1: as long as her husband's agree to her terms being
Speaker 1: clean shaven and well groomed, perfumed and well dressed, and
Speaker 1: of course fulfilling her needs in their marital bed. She
Speaker 1: doesn't much care for what they do in their own time.
Speaker 1: But even more popular and more powerful than La la
Speaker 1: Mulica is La la Mira, a ginia that's both feared
Speaker 1: and loved by those who believe in her. You could
Speaker 1: say Mira is complicated. She's both giving and foreboding. She
Speaker 1: can be playful and charming, but quickly loses her temper,
Speaker 1: and unlike Mulca, she's jealous and possessive of her lovers.
Speaker 1: Mira too has a fancy for married men, but when
Speaker 1: she wants a man, she will not share him. She
Speaker 1: will come to him in his dreams. And I don't
Speaker 1: mean just as a vision. She will actually visit a
Speaker 1: man as he sleeps and enter his dream ames, making
Speaker 1: those dreams well not exactly suitable for children. The dreams
Speaker 1: will get more frequent and intense, even to the point
Speaker 1: of becoming debilitating for the object of her affection, rendering
Speaker 1: him unable to sleep and unable to function when he's awake.
Speaker 1: Because when he's awake she expects him to basically spend
Speaker 1: his time worshiping her. But if she gets bored with
Speaker 1: her lover, he'll know because the dreams will get less frequent,
Speaker 1: and eventually they will end all together. Now, as far
Speaker 1: as Mara is concerned, her lovers should be honored that
Speaker 1: she's even interested in them, and they should be completely
Speaker 1: and utterly fulfilled by her and her alone. That's not
Speaker 1: to say that she will never share a lover. She
Speaker 1: has been known to negotiate terms, set up a schedule
Speaker 1: if you will, but she doesn't like it, and if
Speaker 1: you cross her or betray her, you will pay the price.
Speaker 1: La La Mira attacks suddenly and viciously, leaving her victims
Speaker 1: paralyzed or possess, sing them and leading them into hysterics
Speaker 1: and madness. It's rather interesting that both Lalla Molica and
Speaker 1: Lalla Mira prefer married men over single men, and you
Speaker 1: can't help but wonder about that, especially because it's said
Speaker 1: that these gins sometimes appear to their lovers disguised as
Speaker 1: women they already know. Seems pretty convenient if you ask
Speaker 1: me a ready excuse for infidelity. After all, how can
Speaker 1: you blame the poor married man for being forced into
Speaker 1: an affair with the gin. It's easier and less dangerous
Speaker 1: to just give the gin what she wants instead of
Speaker 1: denying her right, even if she happens to look just
Speaker 1: like the lady from down the street. Not all flings
Speaker 1: with the gin are long term. Brief sexual encounters are
Speaker 1: reported commonly, even going back centuries. The sixth century pre
Speaker 1: Islamic Arab poet Babbitt Ibn Jabber lived a very colorful life.
Speaker 1: While he was known for his poetry about desert life,
Speaker 1: he lived with a band of bandits that raided local tribes,
Speaker 1: and then they hid in the hills and mountains, evading capture.
Speaker 1: Out there, one night in the wilderness, he found himself
Speaker 1: face to face with a female gin. Now it's unclear
Speaker 1: exactly what happened next between the two, but Jabbar ended
Speaker 1: up writing a poem about the meeting, called How I
Speaker 1: Met the Ghoul I lay upon her through the night,
Speaker 1: that in the morning I might see what had come
Speaker 1: to me. Behold two eyes and a hideous head like
Speaker 1: the head of a cat, split tongued legs like a
Speaker 1: deformed fetus, the back of a dog, clothes of haircloth
Speaker 1: or worn out skins. Now, some have interpreted the poem
Speaker 1: to mean that he killed the gin and then he
Speaker 1: just kind of laid on top of her all night
Speaker 1: so he could take the Jin's body back to his
Speaker 1: camp and showed the others. But others interpret the poem
Speaker 1: to mean that Jabbar made love to the ghoul, who
Speaker 1: then revealed her true hideous form, and so he killed her.
Speaker 1: I'm going to go with the second interpretation because, well,
Speaker 1: it just makes more sense. And that's because there are
Speaker 1: an entire class of Gin, both male and female, who
Speaker 1: draw their energy from sexual relations with humans. You've probably
Speaker 1: heard of them too, the succubus a female entity, and
Speaker 1: an incubus a male entity. I didn't realize these creatures
Speaker 1: are gin. Oh, but they are very low le gin,
Speaker 1: on the very bottom of the totem pole of gin.
Speaker 1: But Jin, nonetheless, and both the succubus and incubus are
Speaker 1: after only one thing sexual gratification, and both of them
Speaker 1: tend to sexually assault their victims as they sleep without
Speaker 1: warning and certainly without consent, a terrifying and you could
Speaker 1: say paralyzing experience. The phenomena of being sexually attacked during
Speaker 1: sleep is so common. In two thousand seventeen, the University
Speaker 1: of Leiden in the Netherlands conducted a meta study titled
Speaker 1: Prevalence Rates of the Incubus Phenomena a Systematic Review and
Speaker 1: meta Analysis. The team of researchers reviewed thirteen existing studies
Speaker 1: that took a look at the sleep experiences of eight
Speaker 1: people from across the globe, including Canada, the United States, China, Japan, Italy,
Speaker 1: and Mexico. They found that nearly eleven percent of the
Speaker 1: general global population has at one point in their life
Speaker 1: experienced something that could be described as an incubus or
Speaker 1: succubus encounter, and of course this is not just a
Speaker 1: contemporary phenomena. The researchers noted that the experience of being
Speaker 1: sexually assaulted while asleep has been documented all the way
Speaker 1: back to antiquity, and it seems to occur in every
Speaker 1: single population group and every culture in every nation, in
Speaker 1: every time in history. Each culture, however, interpreted the phenomena
Speaker 1: in their own cultural context. In Newfoundland they called it
Speaker 1: the Old Hag. In Japan, it's the cannashibari. In Brazil,
Speaker 1: these creatures are called the piece of di era. But
Speaker 1: no matter what people call it or how the creature
Speaker 1: is viewed literally and otherwise, the actual experience, regardless of
Speaker 1: the culture or historical context, was almost exactly the same.
Speaker 1: And here is how the study describes it. The incubus
Speaker 1: phenomena is a paroximal sleep related disorder characterized by feeling
Speaker 1: of pressure on the chest while the sleeping individual has
Speaker 1: a sensation of being awake. Attacks are typically accompanied by
Speaker 1: sleep paralysis and compound hallucinations involving a creature sitting or
Speaker 1: lying on the thorax, exerting pressure, and carrying out aggressive
Speaker 1: and or sexual acts. The creature may appear in the
Speaker 1: shape of a human, animal or metaphysical being, or be
Speaker 1: of an indeterminate nature. Attacks may occasionally commands with a scream,
Speaker 1: whereas for the remainder of the time, persons experiencing an
Speaker 1: attack tend to be mute, although they may be able
Speaker 1: to move their eyes. A tonia of astrit muscles prevents
Speaker 1: them from making any other movements. Attacks are usually accompanied
Speaker 1: by the feeling of a sensed presence and by vegetative
Speaker 1: symptoms such as a cold, sweat, hypertension, of feeling of suffocation,
Speaker 1: and sometimes also sexual arousal. The duration tends to be
Speaker 1: in the order of seconds to minutes, culminating and a
Speaker 1: feeling of severe dread and the conviction that one is
Speaker 1: about to die. Around that time, the sleep paralysis tends
Speaker 1: to come to an abrupt ending, and the hallucinated creature
Speaker 1: appears to fall or glide from the bed, leaving its
Speaker 1: victim behind in a state of anxiety and hyper arousal,
Speaker 1: being unable to go back to sleep out of fear
Speaker 1: for repetition. The researchers found that many participants dismissed the
Speaker 1: experience as a nightmare, but for some, repeated encounters led
Speaker 1: to some very other real problems when awake, like off
Speaker 1: the chart's anxiety, anxiety from an increasing fear of going
Speaker 1: to sleep, and the terror of feeling like you might
Speaker 1: actually die. They also found that while there wasn't data
Speaker 1: connecting repeated attacks to sudden unexpected death syndrome, in which
Speaker 1: people who are otherwise healthy and fine die in their sleep, well,
Speaker 1: it was possible. It's important to understand that the framework
Speaker 1: of this study, and indeed most studies on the incubus
Speaker 1: or succubus experience, is within the field of sleep paralysis itself,
Speaker 1: which doctors describe as a perfectly explainable and common sleep disorder,
Speaker 1: and the terrifying creature that so many have described being
Speaker 1: assaulted by during sleep paralysis. It's merely a hallucination, said
Speaker 1: the experts. The sleep demon, they say, is what some
Speaker 1: people see when they're suddenly jolted awake in the middle
Speaker 1: of the rem sleep cycle. Their brain still stuck in
Speaker 1: dreams or nightmares in this case, that are now being
Speaker 1: projected into the dark room around you. Your brain, as
Speaker 1: it does when you sleep, has shut off the signals
Speaker 1: to your body that would ordinarily cause it to move, walk, run, turnover,
Speaker 1: so you're paralyzed, and as you're still in rem sleep
Speaker 1: that segment of our sleep patterns in which we dream,
Speaker 1: you're seeing remnants of a dream projected onto the reality
Speaker 1: around you. That says, science is what's really happening. And look,
Speaker 1: I believe in science. I believe in climate change and evolution,
Speaker 1: in mitigating pandemics through social distancing and wearing masks. But
Speaker 1: there is a part of me that wonders, why are
Speaker 1: all these experiences so exactingly similar and why are they
Speaker 1: always menacing? I mean, we all also have highly pleasant dreams.
Speaker 1: Why don't we wake up paralyzed it in a sunny
Speaker 1: valley of mountains made of chocolate and gems flying through
Speaker 1: the air, surrounded by unicorns? Or why don't we wake
Speaker 1: up in the middle of a dream with a sexual
Speaker 1: encounter with someone that you might actually want to have
Speaker 1: one with. Why is it always a dark, ominous, horrifying
Speaker 1: creature pressing down in your chest, cutting off your breath,
Speaker 1: trying to kill you. I don't know, and a scientific
Speaker 1: explanation only works to a certain extent for me. You
Speaker 1: might be thinking, well, look, what about the fact that
Speaker 1: people in different parts of the world see the creature differently.
Speaker 1: Doesn't that mean that what they're seeing is indeed a
Speaker 1: project of their own imagination? Well? Maybe, or maybe the
Speaker 1: gin who can transform into anything, transform themselves into something
Speaker 1: that can be understood by their victim, that resonates within
Speaker 1: their cultural context. For those who have lived through these attacks, however,
Speaker 1: science may choose to understand them. They are all too real.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and six, Canadian journalist Peter Duffy wrote
Speaker 1: about his first such encounter. I went to bed. It
Speaker 1: was midnight, late for me, and that's when it happened.
Speaker 1: I became aware of a strange presence in the bedroom,
Speaker 1: something emitting waves of malevolence. And then I saw it.
Speaker 1: Something was rearing over me. I don't know how or why,
Speaker 1: but instinctively I knew it was a demon of some kind.
Speaker 1: I recoiled in horror, trying to make myself small, unable
Speaker 1: to tear my eyes away. There was no face. This
Speaker 1: thing had a human form, but it was swathed in
Speaker 1: a black cowl like covering, like some kind of monk.
Speaker 1: And then it was on top of me, soundless and unstoppable,
Speaker 1: smothering me, assaulting me. There's no delicate way to put this.
Speaker 1: I was vividly aware of this creature violating me. I yelled,
Speaker 1: but nothing came from my lips. My struggles were in
Speaker 1: slow motion. I was helpless, and then as suddenly as
Speaker 1: it appeared, the creature was gone. Duffy was so distraught
Speaker 1: by the attack that he reached out to various people
Speaker 1: to try and understand it a psychic, a philosophy professor,
Speaker 1: a priest, and mostly the response he got was that
Speaker 1: it was a stress induced phenomena dig deeper into your life.
Speaker 1: He was told to figure out what's really bothering you,
Speaker 1: But Duffy wasn't so sure. He wrote, the incident was
Speaker 1: so terrifying it haunts me still even now, three weeks later.
Speaker 1: The memory of that dream makes me go cold. If
Speaker 1: it actually was a dream, I shake my head, still
Speaker 1: not convinced what happened to me was actually a dream.
Speaker 1: While the succubus and incubus experiences are terrifying for a
Speaker 1: number of reasons, the fact that they are violations or
Speaker 1: feel like violations, are probably the most distressing aspect. There's
Speaker 1: no asking for or giving consent in these scenarios, but
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean there aren't people who actively seek out
Speaker 1: sexual relationships with the gin. In the fourteenth century, a
Speaker 1: Moroccan magician by the name of Muhammad al Timinsani wrote
Speaker 1: a volume with the intriguing title Sons of Lights and
Speaker 1: Treasures of Secrets. In it, he gave readers the secret
Speaker 1: spell to cast if you wanted to have sex with
Speaker 1: the daughter of the White King of the Jin. Pretty straightforward. Actually.
Speaker 1: First you have to isolate yourself alone in the desert,
Speaker 1: where you must fast for twelve days while continuously chanting incantations.
Speaker 1: After twelve days, a dragon will appear, but you have
Speaker 1: to be fastidious, not get frightened, and maintain your composure.
Speaker 1: If you're successful in ignoring the beast, the Jin Princess
Speaker 1: will appear. She's pale, decked out in gems and jewels
Speaker 1: and walks with an enticing sway. She can be yours,
Speaker 1: but of course it comes with a ice. If you
Speaker 1: sleep with the Gin Princess, you might experience things that
Speaker 1: you can never imagine. But the price that you pay
Speaker 1: is this, you'll become impotent to all the real women
Speaker 1: in the real world. And that's quite the devil's bargain,
Speaker 1: you might say. Thanks for joining us this week. Next
Speaker 1: week we'll be back to take you another step into
Speaker 1: the world of the Hidden Gin. Until then, remember we
Speaker 1: are not alone. If you loved today's episode, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: ask you a big favor. Please stop my iTunes and
Speaker 1: leave me a rating and a review, even if it's
Speaker 1: just one short sentence. Not only is that how other
Speaker 1: listeners discover the podcast, but it's also what keeps the
Speaker 1: podcast going. And for every thousand reviews that I get
Speaker 1: on iTunes, I'll release another Patreon episode absolutely free. That's right,
Speaker 1: We're on Patreon, so if you're a Gin enthusiast, check
Speaker 1: out the Companion Patreon series at patreon dot com slash
Speaker 1: Hidden Jin. Again, that's patreon dot com slash Hidden Gin
Speaker 1: and remember Jin is spelled d j I n N.
Speaker 1: That's where you're gonna find an amazing series of interviews
Speaker 1: between me, scholars, experts, aretas, historians, and every day lay
Speaker 1: people who have had extraordinary experiences with Jin and everybody
Speaker 1: can check out the first episode absolutely free. It's me
Speaker 1: and my husband sharing our gen stories and it was
Speaker 1: a lot of fun. And if you have any Gin stories, well,
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear from you. Email me at the
Speaker 1: Hidden Gin at gmail dot com. Once again, it's the
Speaker 1: Hidden Gin Gin with a D at gmail dot com
Speaker 1: and you might just hear back from me, or you
Speaker 1: might hear your story on the show. And finally, don't
Speaker 1: forget to follow us on social media. We're on Facebook, Twitter,
Speaker 1: and Instagram with the handle the Hidden Gin. There you
Speaker 1: can tweet, post, insta d m me. I'd love to
Speaker 1: hear from all of you, and believe me, I read
Speaker 1: every single message. The Hidden Gin is a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Mankey.
Speaker 1: The podcast is written and hosted by Robbiah Chaudry and
Speaker 1: produced by Miranda Hawkins and Trevor Young, with executive producers
Speaker 1: Aaron Mankey, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. Music for the
Speaker 1: show was provided by smith Sony and Folkways Recordings. Our
Speaker 1: theme song was created by Patrick Cortez. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: from I Heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.