[Spoken]
What's up, TIDAL? I'm Julia Wolf and Halloween is my favorite time of year. Especially growing up, it was the biggest deal in my household and Jack Skellington was the first love of my life, so if that doesn't go to show you how invested I am in all things spooky, scary, creepy, I don't know what does. But today's story is about an old Italian wives tale and it's one that I never paid much attention to until it happened to me. So let's get into it. My mother, when she was around my age, started getting sleep paralysis. If you don't know what that is, it's when your body goes into a state of sleep but your mind is still awake, you're very much conscious. So because of that, you are paralyzed, you're trapped in your own body, frozen. It can get very scary, very dark, people experience super sinister visions. So here's my mother, you know, getting sleep paralysis constantly and eventually one day she brings it up to her mother, my grandmother, who for the record was an extremely superstitious, old school, off the boat Italian woman. So when my grandmother hears what's going on, she immediately knows the answer. "It's the Monaciello." Now in Italian dialect, the Monaciello is like a tiny devil, a little devil who's sitting on your chest. So to get rid of him you have to sleep with an open pair of scissors underneath your mattress to cut the ties. So my mother goes and puts the scissors under her mattress and would you believe the paralysis goes away? Now, hold on, hold on, stay with me, I know what you're thinking, it's all in her head, it's placebo, psychological, whatever, she knew the scissors were there, of course it went away, fine, that's fine, let's fast forward now to little old me. So around the same time as my mom I start getting sleep paralysis and it's terrifying, so eventually I don't know, I've had it for years, you know, it goes, it goes by and and I bring it up to my mom I'm like, 'Yeah, mom, I'm experiencing the same thing,' immediately she freaks out, 'Oh, the Monaciello, the Monaciello, it's back, it's back, we need the scissors,' I'm rolling my eyes because now I'm going through it so like, how on earth could a pair of scissors stop this physical thing that I'm going through nightly? But whatever, you can't argue with an Italian woman. So I take the scissors, I put it on the mattress, and would you believe? The paralysis goes away. Now wait, stay with me, okay? Months go by, I'm not experiencing the paralysis. I'm sleeping like a baby. All is good in the world. Until randomly one day out of the blue, it comes back. I'm frozen. And I wake up that morning, I'm like, 'Shoot, the scissors, like, what, what, what went wrong?' So I check under my mattress. The scissors are gone. I start yelling around the house, 'Who took the scissors? How dare you?' Immediately my sister cammy she's like, 'Uh, yeah, I took the scissors, I needed them for school, I forgot to put them back, like, sorry, didn't know was going to be the end of the world,' so to all my skeptics out there, please explain to me how I had no knowledge of the scissors being taken and that same night my paralysis comes back. I don't know, man. It's a little freaky if you ask me. Little bit weird. Something's going on there. Okay, so that's my story. I hope it inspires you to believe a little more, you know, get out there, do some reading, it's fun. And thank you guys for listening. Have the best Halloween ever and get spooky.