Episode 179: The Other Sam

Welcome to Otherworld. I am your host, Jack Wagner. This story comes from somebody named Forrest. They are a 34-year-old who currently lives in Boulder, Colorado. But Forrest was born and raised in Melbourne. Not Melbourne, Australia, but Melbourne, Florida. And that is where the story in this episode takes place. And to me, this is a very Floridian episode. Florida is a strange place, and Forrest had a very unusual upbringing in Florida. He grew up in a foster family. Eventually, in high school, Forrest made a friend named Sam. These two instantly clicked, and they even moved in together after they turned 18. But not long into their friendship in high school, something about Sam seemed a little off. This episode is called The Other Sam, and you're listening to Otherworld. Hello? Is this Bobby? Yes, it is. At its core, the science, you can't argue with. A story about. All of a sudden. Up in the sky. Up in the sky. Up in the sky. It's almost frustrating that it's happening. I'm literally, I'm going to die. I was like. It was just looking. Its limbs were just like, wrong. It was just there. Everybody moves back into the light, even if it takes them a minute. my name is forest i'm 34 i currently live in boulder colorado uh i was born and raised in melbourne florida currently my main job is i am an on-call caretaker for my partner's elderly mother i also have a part-time job where i stock shelves for you know a local grocery store and in my free time i'm also a i do video game streaming on twitch melbourne it you know it's not like a huge city it's right on the east coast of florida it's you know like give or take maybe like an hour drive to the canady space center it's it's like right there growing up it was just my mom and my grandma and me my family situation was always kind of rough when i was around six my mother decided she didn't want to be part of the family anymore so she just kind of left me in the care of my grandmother and i was living with my grandmother until she passed away when i was in my teens uh i ended up living with my uncle after that but there was some complications with that so i ended up in like the foster care system for a couple years until i was 18 and then i was pretty much on my own from there which it's uh you know it's not an uncommon story you know these things happen i try not to dwell on it too much i just kind of feel like you know that was the hand i was dealt and i've uh i did the best i could with the knowledge i had at the time and now i'm here today so my grandmother passed away when i was uh 13 14 in that area she had developed lung cancer from many years of smoking and uh yeah she ended up you know not surviving unfortunately so i went in to live with my uncle he lived in the same town it was him his aunt and their four kids and basically uh the toll of having a fifth kid they weren't able to deal with you know so they handed me off to the state essentially from there i went to like a group home with other like teenagers before i got placed in a foster home i was with them until i was 18 there it was a very cool couple they were a little weird they uh were a member of the city like orchid society so they had this little like handmade greenhouse in their backyard that had like 200 species of orchids in it it was like it was like weird but also like kind of cool because it's like why you know so like i was with them until i was 18 in the state of florida when you turn 18 in the foster care program you receive a stipend and i would get that as long as i was in school it was in my junior year at that high school where i had met my friend sam which we will talk about i met him through my girlfriend at the time she introduced me to her friend and her friend's boyfriend was sam yeah so i i meet him and we we pretty much like hit it off like right away you know like we liked all the same bands we loved all the same video games we had the same slightly dark sense of humor we like even like almost kind of had the same fashion sense it was kind of like two brothers meeting that had never met it was like we were just so similar to each other we were that like 2010s like rocker you know like uh hot topics spencer's metal militia you know bantees and torn deans hoodies in the middle of summer that that would describe me and him and my girlfriend his girlfriend was kind of more of that like you know that 2000s like goth girl like black makeup black lipstick black nails the like big baggy pants with the chains all over them and our like group of friends was kind of like a mishmash of that you had like punky rocky gothy just teens in the 2010s when i first met him he had like this long hair you know like went down to like his shoulder blades he he always had like these deep brown like if you you imagine the purest brown eyes he was just such a nice guy but eventually i did meet what the friend group would call other sam so the first time that this happened it was the four of us we were at a cafe that's one of these ones it's like open 24 hours breakfast all day but they only serve breakfast and we're we're just hanging out there we're all in our booth and this is the first time i had experienced it it was like that moment when someone says something really awkward and it sucks all the air out of the room and everybody gets really quiet and it's not like one person said something it was just like there was a shift in like the aura around us that caused everybody to pause and like his body language was like a different person normally he's kind of like relaxed a little bit fluid he was like rigid like sitting up politely like you're like at like a ceo's meeting it was a completely different vibe in the air coming off of him it wasn't until like maybe like the third time that this had happened that he had said something weird and i was like what do you mean when you say stuff like that like because even like as a teenager like i'm aware of like mental disorders and things that can happen to the human brain basically those were my thoughts at the time is that it was just like a mental thing and by the end of the dinner like before we left it was like when we were like paying he had flipped back again and he was like oh are we done it was like yeah we just finished we're about to pay the check and he's like he was like oh it must have happened again like i'm sorry that you had to deal with that he said that he didn't remember the whole rest of the dinner after it happened basically it's like he was talking to us and the next thing he knew we were standing up and paying he didn't remember eating his food i mean like it was it was a little awkward like i said it's kind of like that situation where someone says something that's like out of pocket and everybody's like like the tone of the room changes for a bit and like you know like you have a conversation you get past it he was basically like i didn't say anything weird did i i didn't like throw anything or anything i didn't freak out and we were like no you were you were pretty calm for most of the dinner he's like okay good i i wouldn't have wanted to have caused a scene you know but yeah he couldn't remember anything for an hour we were eating the next like big time that this happened we were at the birthday party for this girl i believe her name was like arwen or something it was a very tolkien name we were at her birthday party and we were you know like we were having a good time uh me him and some Some other guy that was at the party, I can't remember their name, but we were talking, and I feel it again. I feel like the air gets sucked out of the room. The party is still going on, but I can sense that something's different. I just look at Sam, and I can see his body language is different again. He's straightened up. I'm like, oh, okay, here we go again. But I can tell he's kind of anxious. Up until then, he's been kind of calm. He talks weirder, acts a little weirder, but it was nothing out of the ordinary. This time, he's looking real anxious. I look at him, and I'm like, hey, man, what's going on? Are you all right? He looks at me, and normally these bright brown eyes, it's almost like there's a little bit of a dullness to him this time. He goes, someone's going to die here in a few minutes. I said, I don't want to. I said, I don't want to be here. I was like, what? What do you mean someone's going to die here? We're just having a birthday party. We're all like 18, 19. Nothing's going to happen. No one's even drinking here, which we kind of did at that age because we had older friends. They were able to get liquor for us, so we kind of started drinking at 18, 19. Then he's like, no, someone's going to die here in a few minutes. I don't want to be here when it happens. I'm going to leave. He started walking out the door. I was like, well, you were my ride here, so I guess I'm going to go with you. I leave with him. I apologize. We're going to go. It was great being here. He didn't switch back until we got home. He was laser focused. No, this is happening. I'm leaving. Right now, I'm going to my car. He just walked right out the house to the car. I was like, all right, wait, I'm coming too. We just drove home. We pretty much drove in silence for 25 minutes until we were home. It wasn't until we were on the doorstep and we're unlocking the door that he snaps back. He's like, oh, what are we doing here? I thought we were at Arwen's birthday party. I was like, no, you said something weird and just wanted to leave. You were just gone, so I left with you. At the time he was in this, he always would do this. He would always apologize. He's like, oh, I'm sorry. I hope I didn't say anything too weird. I hope I didn't miss anything up. He never fully knew what he was doing because he would have that missing time. I imagine that if you're somebody who once a week, just hours of your day disappears, and you're magically somewhere else, that that's really stressful and that you're going to be like, oh, I'm sorry. I hope I didn't do anything. He was kind of stressed out about it, especially since this was kind of like a big gathering with all of our friends. He didn't want to do anything uncouth. Two days later, it was Monday when I went back to school and I saw my girlfriend during one of the downtime in between periods. She's like, did you leave the party this weekend? I was like, yeah, Sam was saying something weird and he was really anxious about it, so we left. Why? What happened? She's like, Arwen's dog died during the party. There was a whole big thing. She was crying. The party was over. We all had to console her. I was like, oh, what the fuck? How did she? My first thought was more, how did he know? I didn't even know she had a dog. The dog wasn't even walking around during the party. Now he's saying that he said someone was going to die and now I'm being told that not even two hours after he said that and left, the dog died. It was just this weird coincidence, but it almost felt like he predicted it somehow. It's part of me makes it feel like this is like a threatening statement almost. Like, did any part of you wonder, like, did he do that to the dog? Like, it's weird to, you know, the timing of it is strange. The Sam I know would not hurt an animal. And the limited times that I was with this, like this other Sam, I didn't get the sense that they were dangerous either. Like, sure, he was, you know, maybe a bit more, you know, like focused and serious, but I don't think he had done anything to the dog. And like I said, I was talking to him and someone else when the switch happened and he started saying this. Like, I had eyes on him before he had his, like, mental switch. So, like, I didn't see him do anything. And I don't remember him, like, going sneaking into her bedroom where the dog was or anything like that. The next time that he said something weird was almost like the complete opposite type of comment. So this was, like, 2018. This was, our favorite band at the time was the band Avenged Sevenfold. And this was right around the time when their drummer had died. He died of an overdose and Sam was, like, huge. He was huge into Avenged Sevenfold. Like, he very famously cried at one of their shows. And we all kind of made fun of him for it. It was, like, his favorite band in the world. And, like, one of the members just died. And, you know, he was, you know, he was in that, like, fan mourning stage. So he's, you know, he's super bummed out. He's so sad. Like, a member of his favorite band just passed away and he's mourning. And, you know, like, we're just, we're sitting there on the couch in my apartment. We're watching the TV. And I just feel him. I could feel him shift next to me. You know, again, the air just changes. And I, like, look over to him. I'm like, hey, man, what's going on? You know, like, at this point, you're like, all right, I should just expect this. I'm just going to treat him normally. I'm not going to act like he's a different person, you know. This is still Sam. You know, like, Sam's still there. So, like, I'm just going to treat him normally. And I'm like, hey, man, what's going on? He's like, like, I'm just kind of thinking about death and stuff. And he looks at me and he goes, do you think your grandma felt the cancer in her lungs when she got it? And I just look at him with, I think, maybe the most dumbfounded face. Because, like, it wasn't a secret. Like, I had told him, you know, my grandma had died. She died of cancer. I never told him what kind of cancer. I was like, how do you know it's, how do you know it was lung cancer? I don't think I've ever told you that. And he's like, I just kind of know, like, I could, I can tell from you that your grandma died this way. And I'm just like, what the fuck? You know, like, not saying it out loud, but in my head, I'm like, oh, he's, he's either fully crazy right now. Or, like, he's been, like, doing research about me behind my back kind of thing. Because, like, he should not know this. So from there, like, I started, like, questioning, you know, because, like, he's, all right. So, like, I'm like, okay, so he has this weird mental thing where he switches for any reason. He predicted that someone was going to die in that same night. One of our friends. Dogs died. Now he's, like, saying something about, like, my past that he shouldn't know. So I'm, like, I'm kind of dwelling on this, you know. I'm, like, trying to, like, what is going, like, like, I did get, like, a little bit paranoid. I'm like, you know, did he do something? Is he looking into me without me knowing? Is this some kind of weird, like, at this point, is it just kind of, like, some kind of social experiment? He's, like, playing on friends. Is there some shit like that? So, like, I started having questions. Two weeks after that was his next switch. And that time, I was, like, okay, I'm going to ask other Sam some questions. Like, I'm now going to treat him, like, differently. Like, I need to know what exactly the extent of this is. So, like, he switches. This time, we were at home. And this is the example that I've told the few people that I've told this publicly. Is one of the things I asked other Sam was, how old are you? You know, Sam's 20 at this point. He goes, right now I'm 20, but once I was 80. And, like, you're, like, what? What do you mean? So, like, some past life stuff. And he's, like, no, I just used to. be 80 and now I'm 20 and he He would say cryptic stuff if you ever tried to talk to him about him when he was Switched, if that makes sense. It's like this other personality didn't want to be clear when talking about itself. So if it wasn't something like that, it'd be like, oh, I'm older than the trees. It's like, hey, other Sam, what's your favorite food? It's like, oh, they don't make my favorite food anymore. People forgot how to make that food. Stuff like that. I've always been of the mindset that if I can't prove it's fake, who am I to say it's not real? I now know he does this because I'm experiencing it. I can feel it happening. I can see the changes in him. So I know there's something there. So if it wasn't for the lack. I want to call it ominous. It was like an ominous feeling whenever he changed. It just felt like when he changed, something was going to happen. It might not be now, it might not be tomorrow, but something is going to happen. And if he'll say something and you're like, that's going to happen. Or he'll say something and you're like, how do you know that? You shouldn't know that. So it's like he was getting. I don't want to say something was telling him. But he just had this knowledge of things that are going to happen soon. And things that happened in the past that he would have no way of knowing either way. And it just baffled me. So the weeks go by, I'm talking to him, I'm talking to the other him. And every time, if it's not about him, it's just whatever. It's a normal conversation. If it's about him, it starts getting weird. Again, like. If it hadn't happened to me, I would say, you were lying if you told me this story. But I believe deep down that this wasn't being faked at this point. So basically, there was only two ways that he knew what happened when he switched. It was either one of us telling him, like someone who experienced it with him told him. If it happened and no one was around, no one knows. Like if he was home alone and he switched, no one would have known about it. But then there was some rare occasions where the other Sam actually wrote notes to himself to tell him what he did while he was switched. The biggest example of this, there's two big examples I can think of. There was one night we were asleep. I came home from work, he was already asleep. I went to bed. Woke up, he was gone. I didn't hear from him for a week. A week goes by and he calls me. And I'm like, dude, where are you? Where are you? Are you okay? Like, I came home and you were here and you've been gone. And he goes, yeah, I'm in Georgia. I woke up in the cabin that my parents used to rent when I was a kid. And there's a note here and $5,000. And the note, he showed me the note. I wrote it. I've held the note in my hands. And it says, Sam, you're welcome for the money. You might want to throw away the baseball bat. And I'm going to say allegedly because there was never like, as far as I know, there was never investigation or anything that connects that I know that connects him to a crime. But it was reported like later that a gas station was robbed by a guy in a ski mask with a baseball bat. Yeah, it's crazy. It was like. I've known his handwriting, like, you know, like he has like, you know, like nice handwriting. But this note, it was like it was like chicken scratch, you know, like so I told him it was like I was like, one, you're crazy to what are you going to do? And he's like, well, I don't know. I guess I'm going to drive back and try to spend some of this money like it like he like he said, I don't have the pictures anymore. It's been like forever, you know, but like he showed me he's like, it's like, you know, like two stacks of cash and this note and there's like a baseball bat in the cabin with him and I'm like, Sam, this is serious, you know, we'll gloss over the fact that maybe you have switched personalities and committed a crime, you know, we're going to glance over that, just get back home safe, you know, like I'm I'm fucking worried about you. You've been you've been AWOL on everybody for a week, like his parents couldn't get him that week. I couldn't get him that week. His girlfriend. Couldn't get him that week. So it's like, OK, just just get home, you know, and that was like, I think the most serious thing that ever happened. There was another time where a similar thing happened where he he switched, lost the time and he found a note that told him that they broke into a car and stole a phone. And sure enough, we found out that a car is the apartment complex. Next to our complex, a car got broken into and like a phone, a wallet and a couple of things were stolen out of that car. And I'm going to say again, allegedly, because like, I don't have any proof that he did this. We I wouldn't say we lived in a bad area, but we were like in an area where stuff happened. So, you know, it wasn't out of the ordinary, but it just seemed like, OK, now whatever's going on. What's going on with you is starting to like commit crimes. So we need to like get you to a psychologist or something, because if something if this like turns out to be you, you you need to be able to deal with this. And I don't think he wanted to accept that he was doing those kind of things because like the normal Sam, I know wouldn't do those things. And then like out of the blue, you you you get these like letters from like a mysterious third party saying, hey, we committed a crime. Better hide the evidence. You know, it's like, what do you do with that when you're 18, 19, living on your own? What he ended up doing is he ended up buying a guitar on the way here. It was like a three thousand dollar guitar. And he showed up and he was a mess like he was in the clothes that he fell asleep in. So like he had the one set of clothes for like a week. And, you know, it was like he was sweaty. He was he was like, oh, my God, I can't believe I did that. I don't know what it's like. Am I going to go to jail? I'm like, no, I'm not going to, you know, I'm not going to tell the police. We can't they can't prove that you did this. Just like just kind of, you know, relax. You like throw the note away, burn it or something. You know, I know it kind of sounds like, you know, like we're trying to cover up a crime here, but like this is some weird stuff. Again, like I did the best I could with the knowledge I had, you know, and it's like it's like I'm 18, you know, I'm not going to jail for my crime. My crazy best friend, you know. That was the last like big thing before things really snowballed. All right, we'll be right back after this quick break. The Unsolved Mysteries podcast is back. I'm Jordan Murphy, and each week I'll take you inside a new investigation. It could be an unsolved murder, an unexplained disappearance, the search for a wanted fugitive, any mystery that still needs answers. We'll follow every new lead, every break in the case and the moments when a mystery is finally solved. Because after all these years, one thing hasn't changed. Someone somewhere knows the truth. Listen to and follow Unsolved Mysteries. Available now, wherever you get your podcasts. Now we like skip ahead a little bit. It's 2011 now. We'll be right back after this quick break. Something to her and it was the last straw and she no longer wanted to be with him because of his other self. So like he had a switch. He said something to her. She was like, I'm done with you and this. And so she broke up with him. And after that, he started getting really into the occult. He starts getting, you know, he starts looking into Wicca, paganism, because She was kind of into that stuff, you know, she's like that like pagan goth style girl you know like the most i know is like she like she had some crystals maybe she did like a little candle ritual every once in a while to pass the test or something like that but she wasn't like doing like curses or stuff like that you know like that typical like teenage we're doing magic you know like we got the candle from the spirit store so i think it started as a way for him to try to get back with her kind of you know like trying to like go into something that she had like a vague interest of but like going too far into it he got a ouija board brought to the house he bought a pendulum that was listed on ebay as being haunted he turned our laundry room into which it wasn't really a laundry room the apartment had a room with connections but we didn't we didn't have the money for a washer dryer so it was just like an empty storage room he turned it into like his like little ritual chamber um so i come home this was after one of my college classes because i'm still taking the college classes at this time but like you know it's like it's like two classes during the day and then i'll get free for the rest of the day so like i did my college classes i came back it's maybe like 2 p.m in the afternoon and i come in all the lights are off and i can see uh there's light in the our like laundry storage room and the door is closed and i'm like oh my god i'm gonna go to the bathroom and i'm like oh my god i'm gonna go to the bathroom and i'm like okay this is weird i didn't leave that light on so i'm just gonna turn it off real quick i don't know where sam is but we like whatever so like you know i open the door like i'm not thinking there's gonna be anything in there you know so i don't knock or whatever i just open the door like why would i suspect there's anything in there and yeah he has this black cloth maybe like the size of like a regular rug it's just like solid black he like had like it was either like white paint or chalk and he had like drawn like a whole elaborate pentagram with symbols and he had like his little altar that he had set up when he started doing all this occult stuff and i walk in and he like he like he stops what he's doing he looks up at me you know he wasn't expecting me to be home obviously and i see he has like you know like uh they call him like an ethame or something like that it's like a knife you use for like pagan rituals and he has that in one hand and his other hand is just like slit fully across the palm and like he's bleeding like into the middle of the circle that he's in and he's like oh my god i'm gonna go to the bathroom he made and like i at the time i was just pissed i was furious i'm like dude like no fucking like the books the candles the stones all that shit i'm fine with we are not doing like you know basically a fucking satanic ritual in my fucking apartment like what are you doing and i like freaked out on him and i think that was like the first time that me and him actually got into like almost like a physical fight i was overcome with the rage that he would do something this extreme in our house i was like what the fuck are you doing uh you know like he like he gets up and he's like you know like he like puts the like the knife down on his altar and he's like he's like yelling at me like at one point like i just i grabbed the rug and i like fucking like flipped it over and like threw it to the side of we are not doing this i am not dealing with this you're done like you are not doing this in this house we are setting a rule right now this never again and like uh at this point like i'm yelling at him this is normal him like well i'm yelling at him you know because like like at this point you know like i can tell which one i'm talking to and i'm like he's like no he's like no like you don't understand it's it's not like as bad as it seems i'm like i do not care do not try to justify this to me you're done i am not going to deal with that like it's like because i'm like what's going to happen next i'm like i'm not going to deal with that i'm not going to deal with that i'm not going to deal with that i'm like what's going to happen next sam am i going to come up next weekend there's going to be a decapitated goat or something in our apartment like no we are stopping this now before it gets like into serious danger like you you just cut yourself what do you mean and it just it was just this big argument and you know like we were we were so close to like almost like physically fighting and i'm i'm not usually a very angry person but when i saw this i was just overcome with rage i'm like this was like my last straw almost i wouldn't say like you could see bone but it was like deep enough that we we went and got him stitches i mean it was maybe like an hour later after we had had the fight and calmed down and be like you know like we put we hadn't like wrapped it up and stuff but like you know he was like bleeding through the bandage and like no we really need to go we'll just say like you fell you like grab something and cut your hand or whatever so it kind of dulled down from there never did any type of thing like that at least not in the house that i know of if he did it outside the house i don't know there was other stuff too going on with that like at one point he was convinced that there was like a girl that was haunting the playground across the street and he would go there like in the middle of the night with his ouija board to talk to her and stuff like that so i don't know it was it was like the breakup with his girlfriend you know like broke him too i think like he did have good intentions when he first started but then i think like based on what happens next that his intentions got warped by this other personality inside of him so this is fall 2011 it's me sam and my friend at the time his name is kyle and so we're sitting on the couch sam is sitting on the floor i remember like the exact things he was playing he had a nintendo 64 sit up he was playing mario kart 64 just by himself he was like because he was like trying to get like better at it like he wanted to beat like his old scores and uh we had we had got some weed we were we were smoking and we weren't like super high i had maybe had like two hits when this happened so i was like i was fine so we're so me and kyle were on the couch and we're sitting there we're watching sam and like kyle just starts coughing you know like he like like he choked like you like you take a drink and you choke and you start coughing and he like starts slapping my like arm i'm like what dude what and he points and we both look and we look down the hall it's like so the way the apartment is set up is you have the living room and an attached kitchen and then there's like a little hall and then there's like a little room and then there's like that has three doors so that's the bathroom the bedroom and the utility room so it's like a big rectangle and peeking out from our bedroom is it's this tall creature its head is up to the door frame it has this big head but like the eyes are like gone so it's just like these big sockets like you could probably put like a fist in each of the sockets it was that big no mouth its skin is just red like a rusty you know like dr pepper can kind of red its fingertips are black that kind of like if you have frostbite in your like in your finger it turns black that's what its fingertips look like and it's leaning out from our bedroom looking into the living room at me and kyle and it's just holding on to the door for me and kyle and it's just holding on to the door for me and i'm leaning out well my first thought is what the fuck is that we need to we need to go in there my second thought is uh like this summer i caught sam doing that ritual sam has summoned a demon in my house and i'm gonna die it's gonna kill me and my friends tonight i saw that like that wasn't a hallucination because kyle saw it too we both saw it so it's like there's no way that we're both like in my throat like for a good like 10 minutes i was so sure that like we are dead like there's a monster here it is going to kill us it was terrifying it was like time stopped it's like a moment encapsulated you don't know what to do you don't know what's going on you're seeing something you've never seen before you're 19 years old with just like your friends that are your same age and it was just supposed to be a nice night of playing like video games and then all of a sudden it's like everything's flipped upside down and like we're all like scared it's like a something i'll never forget it's like burned into my brain yeah so we get up we get up from the couch like immediately we rush to that door and it's like maybe 10 feet from the couch we look into the bedroom and the way the bedroom is set up it's my bed there's a nightstand there's sam's bed you know it's just it's very simple you know like two guys one one bedroom apartment kind of layout and it's the window's not open the blinds aren't even open not like there's the sheet the beds are all still made the closet's not even open there is nothing in the room there's like no lights on but you can but there's enough light coming from the living room that you can see everything in there and it was empty it was if it was as if it just disappeared it was never there and we were like we checked the closet we opened the blinds at the outside we check under the beds we don't see anything and we're like oh my god we're like oh my god we're like oh my god we're We're like, we're panicking for a good two minutes. like what the fuck what the hell what is this like definitely afraid for our lives in that moment and we come back out you know sam is still like crisscross on the floor playing his game he looks up at us and he's like what what's wrong why did you guys rush into the bedroom real quick and we're like dude we saw this fucked up thing and we described it to him and he's you know he's confused because he's like how do you how did you see that i've seen it before but i've only seen it in dreams and we were both looking at each other and looking back at him just dumbfounded and it's like there's still like this air of like we're gonna die you know like we are genuinely afraid for our lives and now my friend is telling me like oh yeah that thing that you you saw that's causing this i've seen it before my dreams and he's not even like afraid they're like dude what you mean you should be panicking right now and uh you know we kind of just sat there in the room and like he went back to his game he's like he was trying not to think about it we were sitting there we were like we were on edge all night until until kyle left you know shortly after that kyle basically messaged me he was like i don't know what that was i don't want to see it again i don't think i'm gonna come over anymore and then i never heard from him again did you have any further conversation with sam about this i would only bring it up to like the normal him because i feel like i feel like normal normal sam was the one that was having these dreams you know i don't know if ultimate personalities dream i don't know you know i don't know how the human mind did that enough i don't think anybody knows that much about the human mind but i'm talking to him he's like yeah like i see it in my dreams every once in a while when something bad happens you know like intensify like your real world issues into like a horror scenario in your dreams and that's how he described it to me i don't even know what to think at this point i know there's like the occult ritual stuff like what is this did you summon this recently has this thing always been with you messing with you we were living together for a little bit after that nothing nothing to that level ever happened again whatever if whatever he switched uh we i wouldn't bring it up you know like because like there's also like the thought in my head it's like what if like because you know this is occult stuff going on what if this other personality has been like a possession this whole time and i just saw what was possessing or something i don't want to talk to it now and bring up that i saw it if that's what's going on uh eventually he moved out over an argument about someone that he started seeing like december he started seeing this girl uh she had a cat that's not the issue like i have three cats myself i love them but she had a cat she brought it into the apartment it was infested with fleas this one like one-year-old kitten somehow infested my entire apartment with fleas to the point where like you could step out of bed and like put your foot on the carpet and there'd be like 50 fleas on your foot i was like no she has to get the cat out he let her keep the cat there because her parents wouldn't let her keep the cat at their house oh gee i wonder why sam look at this and you know like that led to a fight where he's like you know what if you're not going to support me with this girl then i'm just going to move out and me and her will get a place so we'll have the cat there and i'm like that's if that's what you want to do fine you know and he moved out shortly after that i do not know if he's with this girl still the last time i tried to talk to him was in 2023 so it was a long time before i actually talked to him again the last bit of my time in florida was like i finished up school i ended up going to to india for a couple of months it was part of the studies i was doing because i was taking a course in religious studies and i got the opportunity to go abroad for three months and study you know a religion firsthand so i ended up going to india for a couple months but i came back to florida and you know this was my first time actually traveling out of state seeing the world and like i came back and i remember like i'm just sitting there like it's the same apartment you know but it's just me now and i've just felt like i feel like i am suffocating and that's when i just took like all the money i had i ended up getting on a greyhound and coming out to colorado and uh you know like i was homeless i was homeless out in colorado like in denver for maybe like a couple months i found a job right away so i wasn't you know like homeless for long and uh i was renting his house from a guy and that's how i ended up meeting my partner and me and my partner have been together ever since so like i kind of just like like after you know like experiencing like the bigger world out there like i just felt like i needed to spread my wings and i kind of just left like i didn't tell any of my friends where i was going i didn't like even talk to like the girl that i was dating for like those two years until like five years after i had already moved to colorado it was nothing to do with like anybody it was just me it's like i need to see the world this leads into like new information that i received later this was if i'm getting my time right it was either 2018 or 2019 it was right before the pandemic me and my partner we were working at the stanley hotel they were doing a film festival and we were working with the film festival you might know the stanley hotel they have a resident psychic she's been there for many years uh we all ended up as me my partner and his friend who was also working there she was the one that told us about it we're like hell yeah we want to do that that sounds fun uh we each had like some readings it was just like private one-on-one and that's when she tells me that i have she has a message for me and i'm like a message for me it's like i don't know anybody who's died recently you know and she goes well i'm like all right so what's the message and she says i'm like i don't know anybody who's died recently you know and she goes well i'm like all right so what's the message and she says i don't know anybody who's died recently you know and she goes well i'm like all right so what's the message and she says that i have a message from sam and my first thought is my heart my heart just drops like i'm kind of like reliving it like hearing that like you could i'm like getting a little bit emotional right now because like my first thought is like oh my god my best friend is dead okay not what i wanted to hear tell me more and she's like i have a message from sam and he says sam is fine i'm the other sam i want to let you know that i'm going to leave him alone and at that point like i was speechless like what you know it was like this weird bombshell that was like unrelated to everything at this point but somehow like connected to everything and like so i'm like okay so how do i process this now and basically what i was told was that it wasn't like a spirit or like a demon or anything attached to him it was more like a psychic manifestation of his other personality so like i'm taking this information i'm reliving everything back in my head i'm like so what you're telling me is like that night when we saw like the most this the most terrifying thing i've ever seen in my life that it was like his other personality psychically projecting itself so that we could see what it looked like and she was like yes that's exactly what i'm telling you after that uh i got furloughed from my job during the pandemic i got like super depressed i got it you know like i was getting unemployment but like you know like i'm stuck at home there's a pandemic i don't have anything to do i can't leave the house i was like i'm like so depressed and i start seeing it in my dream never saw it in real life ever except for that one time but i started seeing it in my dreams and it was the same thing it's like oh i'm worried about the pandemic dream about everybody i know like dying from being sick you know oh i'm i'm worried about not getting a job again like dreaming about like dying homeless homeless and jobless and stuff like that it was like everything i worried about i would get dreams that were like a thousand times worse than what i actually had to worry about and which was strange for me is because i have always been the kind of person where like my dreams don't have me in them like i always have like those like cinematic movie dreams if i'm ever actually in my own dream then it's going to be like a nightmare kind of thing the last time i ever dreamt of this thing was in late summer 22 because this is when uh i had a cat that passed away it was my first pet as an adult so it hurt like a lot the my cat like he was playing one morning and then just fell over we rushed him to the er uh he had a pulmonary embolism so there was literally nothing they could do you know we unfortunately had to put the cat to rest and you know it was terrible and we i had a dream maybe a month later where i'm in my like the new apartment like present day the one i'm still in now and i'm alone and there's no furniture anywhere it's like i'm in my apartment but it's empty and it's just me and i'm looking around and like where is everything where's my stuff and i see my cat and it's like sitting like the one that just passed away and it's sitting on a windowsill and like the window is open and i'm like oh i was like oh you're here i'm like i get like this sense in my dream that this is not going to be a nightmare this is like my cat coming in to check on me one last time so it's like you know what the dream is like you know like this is so bad you know and then just these two red hands with black fingertips and black nails come out of the darkness through the window grab my cat and yank it into the darkness and i wake up bolting into a sitting position just out of breath and i never saw it again i do not think that it had anything to do with my cat passing away when i take it again it was you this like extrapolating like making it so much worse than what had actually happened and like making me have a nightmare it was like burned into my psyche i have never had any any experience with missing time it's like i never had any of all that he had i just saw it in my dreams and i don't know if it was like you know it was a very ominous message that this like i just saw it in my dreams and i don't know if it was like you know it was a very ominous message that this psychic gave me because it was like i'm gonna leave sam alone oh but now i'm seeing is it's like whatever this was coming to me and like based on like my conversation with this psychic and like a second psychic that i saw another time is that their impression from the messages they received and these were both both of these were like separate but like widely considered to be legitimate psychics were like this was a psychic manifestation created by him and like you seeing it has put like a like just like the littlest sliver in your head so it's like an imprint so you're gonna associate things to it and that's what it wanted i feel i feel like whatever this was yeah i genuinely feel that like he had this other personality that you know like had some kind of knowledge that it shouldn't have and it somehow like you know manifested itself separate from him and it's burned into my memory because it's actually like there's a i guess it's like there's a concept of something called a tulpa which is like if you imagine something so much and believe in something so strongly that it does become real i think that's what was happening with me and him and all of this like some supernatural force that's like psychic in origin not spiritual like something like on that like mental i don't know if you call it like a mental plane or something not like the spiritual plane but like like that higher mind and it was like the higher mind letting us know that there is like something else i don't know how to explain it any further it's just like something that'll pop up now every once in a while that i don't think it's directly doing it i think it's like burned into like my mind because of just how shocking it was and now like having seen it i associate stuff to it and i think that's what it wanted i don't think it ever like wanted to possess him i think it wants if it was like some kind of possession thing i think it just wanted this other personality to possess him and i think this other personality wanted people to know that it was around and it wanted people to remember that it was around i'm like i tried to reach out to sam like a couple times like uh when i started doing my my video game streaming he has like a hobby i was like hey man do you want to like do you like work with me on this like you like do music you can like make like some music for me or something like that he was like into that and then he like dropped out of it because he was like i don't know because some stuff was going on he's not really active on social media like i tried i tried reaching out to him like just like two weeks ago and i was like hey man i'm thinking about you like are you doing okay and he hasn't responded yet but like his last post that i saw was uh 2023 he had got a new car and he was like all excited about his new car so like i i i assume he's okay i haven't really been able to talk to him like in depth about the things that happened after me and him left just that we know each other are okay and like alive and like want to still be friends but we haven't really because of like distance and work schedules and like the whole pandemic hit so like we never really got to like getting back into like that deep conversation and like me being able to ask him if like is this still going on with you you know looking back because i say sam i would still consider him my best friend even today even though we barely talked in like 15 20 years because we our connection like we were so deep we were like the best friends we were inseparable and then like this crazy series of events happened to us and like if he listened to this and or if he ever replies to me i would just want to know that you know he's doing okay and i i would want the opportunity to talk to him and be like hey i was told this you know like i got a message saying it's leaving you alone has it are you are you not is this not happening to you anymore there's just like that one like thread that's like loose that i haven't like tied up i'd really like some closure one way or the other okay thank you so much to forest for sharing this experience with us i worked with forest to try to track down and contact sam we ultimately did find him i think on the internet both myself and forest reached out multiple times to talk to him but did not have any luck we hoped that if we could talk to him we could ask about whether this alter actually did leave him alone like the psychic explained but also i think more than anything forest was just hoping for some closure on this very strange saga that unfolded during the most formative years of his life while sam was never officially diagnosed with anything to many listeners including myself it's hard not to think this sounds very similar to dissociative disability disorder now that disorder is very controversial in its own right people have a lot of different opinions on that so i don't even think that would be a very clean explanation if you were to believe that but while it is very possible sam was struggling with this disorder or something else it still leaves the question what was that strange creature they all saw that shared the same description of what had been repeatedly haunting sam in his dreams not only that what about all the other strange things that happened over the course of their friendship one thing i wanted to mention is i found that part about the dog particularly unnerving when forest first told me about this i asked him is there a chance that sam somehow killed this dog and that's how he knew about it forest told me that this would be extremely unlikely he never even thought about himself just given the way that this dog passed away it didn't seem to involve foul play and also as strange as this story is i don't think forest thought his friend sam would be capable of doing such a thing and why would he do such a thing i want to mention it because it did cross my mind that being said i think if that was the case it would only make this whole thing even weirder a really interesting aspect of this story for me is the concept of the other sam being a tulpa or thought form this is an idea that was introduced to forest by the psychic he visited for context a tulpa is a psychic manifestation of concentrated thought and emotional energy that can autonomously enact its own personal will this idea comes from the cross-cultural exchange between theosophical and tibetan buddhist thought in the early 1900s a similar idea to tulpas is egregores. This is a term which goes all the way back to the book of Enoch, which describes watchers or fallen angels that give humans hidden knowledge. Modern occultists use this term today to describe an independent psychic entity that is created out of the collective thought, emotions, and the rituals of a group. Basically, to sum that all up, this is the idea that you can will something into existence purely by believing in it really hard. And I think that's an interesting way to look at this story. The other Sam, being a tulpa or egregore, made sense to me, thinking about the way the whole friend group was aware of Sam's altar, but most especially Forrest. And he was perhaps feeding it with a lot of his knowledge. And I think that's an interesting way to look at the kind of concentrated psychic power that ultimately allowed it to manifest itself into that strange entity they saw when they were hanging out. This is an idea that I think about sometimes and one that can apply to so many episodes of Otherworld. The idea that even if there was an explanation for something, you could then will it into existence by believing in it hard enough. I think no matter what you think about this story, explanations or otherwise, this is ultimately the story of Forrest going through a very, very strange saga with his closest friend during a really important part of his life. I was hoping to get some more answers for Forrest. Maybe those will come one day if we ever hear back from Sam. Again, this episode has been called The Other Sam, and you've been listening to Otherworld. Otherworld is executive produced and hosted by myself, Jack Wagner. Our producers are Theo Schaefer, Theo Krantz, Hayley Pearson, and Nikki Cade Delgado. Our theme song is by Cobra Man. The soundtrack of this episode is by Wicca Faze, Springs Eternal, Juice Jackal, and North Americans. Our artwork is by Cul-De-Sac Studios. Please show us your support by subscribing, leaving a five-star review, and telling your friends about the show. If you want to hear bonus episodes of Otherworld, you can become a patron at patreon.com slash otherworld. Our social media is at otherworldpod. Thank you to the team at Odyssey, Leah Reese Dennis, Maura Curran, Josephina Francis, Eric Donnelly, Kate Rose, Colin Gaynor, and Hilary Schuff. Follow and listen to Otherworld now for free on the Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. And finally, if you or somebody you know has experienced something paranormal, supernatural, or unexplained, you could send us your stories at stories at otherworldpod. otherworldpod.com Shaq here. What's it like to buy a car from Carvana 100% online and get it delivered to your door? Let me tell you. Your car is here, Mr. Shaq. Thank you, Mr. Carvana guy. Can't wait to take it for a spin. Only the best for you, Mr. Shaq. Hey, have you always been so big, tall, and handsome? Not always. 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