Copper Shock

Tasha Wheelhouse takes a personal nightmare and places it in a Copper Shock foley episode. Resources for this episode can be found at https://coppershock.com/study-abroad-nightmare-in-japan/

Well hello there constant listener. I have a small offering preview of this week’s episode, “Nightmare of Study Abroad in Japan”:

INTRO:

Have you ever had the feeling like you’re being watched? The wives’ tale explanation is that it’s a primal instinctive feeling that is beyond rational sense. If you feel you’re being watched, it’s likely that you are. However, a doctor in the late 1800s named Edward B. Titchener decided that he’d run a series of experiments to see if this can be quantified. It gets a little complicated when you introduce ideas of consciousness through introspection and other attributes of parapsychology. The long and short of the experiment was that it had no success. The subjects couldn’t tell in a controlled experiment whether they were and were not being watched without their knowledge.

The idea seemed to really stick with people over the next 100+ years who were just so sure that maybe there are different methods of testing this instinct. In 1913 a study resulted in a 50.2% accuracy by John E. Coover. Then in 1983, a closed-circuit television method had a higher confirmation of 74% success rate. This however was highly criticized by the scientific community as having what they call a “result bias”. So from just flat out receiving a negative or at the best inconclusive result, it doesn’t seem very promising, does it?

It’s a little discouraging to know that when science took a stab at this wonderment of human phenomenon that everyone has experienced at least once in our lives… they almost found nothing? And yet after all this time, we experience it so widely as humans, that scientists in parapsychology are just so sure there’s some mental explanation to be laid out and explored.

As I’ve said in a previous episode to quote Arthur B Clark. “Magic is just science that we don’t understand yet.”

So who knows if one day we’ll have a bridged connection to what this feeling of being watched is, and more importantly… when to trust it. 

I’m Tasha Wheelhouse, and this is Copper Shock.

The below story was submitted and adapted for storytelling from Lucas in Cedar City Utah.

BODY:

I’ve been to Bear Lake a lot of times with my family. We have a massive cabin that we use for family reunions about once a year.  This was a familiar and wonderful place to me. What happened in 2014 soured a lot of my experience, and I don’t like going there as much as I used too, even if I’m ok now. I’ll let you guys know upfront, this story gets a little on the religious side. Some people don’t like their supernatural stories mixing with faith. But that’s what some of this is. 

It was the first week of September. All of my friends and I would head off to separate colleges around the state when the weekend was over. Since it was the fall, my parents didn’t mind as much if my friends and I took over the cabin for a weekend trip. The only catch being we had to do general cleaning before we left. 

Bear Lake is beautiful. Even though we didn’t have a speed boat with us, we could still splash around on the beach, have bonfires at night, and generally hang out with one another. On our last night there, I was on the top deck that overlooks the water. The cabin is settled in between a lot of other houses around us, but we’ve got the best view for sure. Bear Lake is a massive stretch of water, that sits inside a bowl of green rolling hills. The hills are pocked all over with big cabins just like my family cabin.

It was night time and pretty late. I don’t remember the exact time, but Cambri (A girl I had a crush on at the time) had just come out to sit next to me and look over the moonlit waterfront. I started to talk to her more and realized, this may be one of the last times I’d actually get to tell her how I felt.

A college student in Cedar City Utah has an entity follow him home. Resources for this episode can be found at https://coppershock.com/followed-home-by-a-water-demon-at-bear-lake-utah/

A woman in the 1970’s is running an old Movie Theater with her mother and elder brother in Provo Utah. Resources for this episode can be found at https://coppershock.com/the-haunted-movie-theater-in-provo-utah/

Tasha Wheelhouse here, i’ve been enjoying mixing the upcoming episode Haunted Movie Theater in Provo Utah. Stick around for a clip of the upcoming episode:

Everyone who has played this game as a young child experiences intense anticipation and suspense. This telling of an experience playing Bloody Mary puts the listener into the shoes of the young child as they speak the words three times. Resources for this episode can be found at https://coppershock.com/playing-bloody-mary-for-the-first-time/

This is Tasha Wheelhouse with Copper Shock.

Many of you who are listening know this horror podcast from 3 years ago. I got about 26 episodes before I let it fall apart. That’s on me, my personal life made it invariably difficult to find the time and I slowly started to sink into an insecurity that my ideas, my writing, my production isn’t good enough. But I’m going to tell you right now. The immediate thought that counters that is two fans from across the world that reached out to me when I went dark. So Brandon and Caitlin if you’re still out there listening, the both of you made me realize I can do this even after all this time. My personal circumstance has changed, as life does, and I’m going to be putting in more dedicated time to Coppershock. I am so VERY grateful for all of you who have been there to support me while I was able to produce what little I could from home between my jobs and dedicated home life. 

Growing up my parents were writers, and were able to make a career out of it full time. They gravitated to storytelling in the vein of Joseph Campbell’s Hero of a Thousand Faces, and Dramatically Theory. Naturally, over the years, there have been other books they have recommended to me, or storytelling seminars. Stephen Kings On Writing, Blake Snyders Save the Cat!, or William Goldman’s Which Lie Did I Tell? All with amazing nuggets of information for story structure.

Where to hear more of my thoughts that expand of these books? By following Copper Shocks Facebook page. In addition to podcast episodes told in the Foley style here, I’ll be posting blog entries of story structure of all manner of horror films. From the Classics of Nosforatu, up through modern horror. 

I’d LOVE to write an essay one day about the evolution of horror and how it reflects modern society’s fears. In the 1950’s “body snatcher” aliens were a metaphor for Communists. People who look like you and me, and yet are a threat. Remember how suddenly Zombies were a huge cultural thing in the mid to late 2000’s? There was a massive terrorist in New York City on 9/11 attack that spurred on the idea that an enemy could multiply around you in moments of sheer panic. I’m very curious to know what the next trend will be here and now during the Coravirus pandemic? What is a common fear we all share? And How do we tell that story?

I hope you have a wonderful day, and cannot wait to give you the next long-awaited episode. Bloody Mary, a personal childhood experience of mine playing Bloody mary for the first time as a child during a sleepover dare.

I’m Tasha Wheelhouse, and this is Copper Shock.

While on a summer vacation to Lake Powell in Arizona, a young woman continues to have bad luck follow her. Resources for this episode can be found at https://coppershock.com/haunting-wendigo-in-lake-powell-and-unexpected-demon-in-air-bnb/

When visiting a rural one-stoplight town in Utah a large family gathering gets more than they paid for while renting off of Aire BnB. Resources for this episode can be found at https://coppershock.com/demon-in-a-small-town-air-bnb/