Hello, I am Robert G. Male. Welcome to WraithStop™. Here you will find links that I think are of interest. Furthermore these are links that I want to keep track of because they have given me either ideas or some other form of inspiration for my writing. Links are listed in order lowest to highest both in the date they are given and the order in which they appear (meaning: read them from the bottom up for a certain day's list). Some of these sites may require you to sign up for free. Without further ado, the links...

Newest Entry

November 17, 2009

• What is not to like about this location? Lots of fodder to be had in places like this. It is of course very reminiscent of Centralia a.k.a. Silent Hill. It's very interesting and kind of spooky how these things burn for decades. The whole door thing adds another dimension to the story ideas that can be derived from this place.

• I asked myself is this linked article for real use in some kind of story or is it only an interesting factoid? It is true anything might spark an idea, but how would you integrate sound being more frightening with closed eyes that isn't already done? Closed eyes or darkness lets the imagination run wild when other senses are aware of stimuli. The part about the areas of the brain that are involved in the difference is interesting though, as is the idea this knowledge can be used in the treatment of disease.

• It's one thing to choose your own reality and what that entails, but what happens when someone else forces their version of the world on you, literally. Certainly there is even some horror to stepping away from the real world. While from a technical standpoint horror might come from mass enslavement and forced implants to provide the enforced augmented reality, it is the singular, more personal applications that can be the most chilling. Consider a more subtle approach such as an augmented reality haunting or constant mind warping companions. See also the TechStop™ discussion on this article.

October 25, 2009

Here are the links to the blog entries thus far. Enjoy.

October 6, 2009

Welcome to the 13 Nights of Hallowe'en 2009. Click here to see the list of all thirteen movies. Hit your local video store, snail mail rental services or legal download service and watch along. Click the cover to buy a copy from Amazon.com. Each day you can click the movie's name to read the R.G. Male's Dark Corners' blog about the movie.

September 8, 2009

• Stephen King's novel The Dark Half was many people's first introduction to the word psychopomp. Another example is in the movie The Crow. Neither of these particularly fit the archetype of the psychopomp in the different lores from around the world. That both of these examples involve animals leaves it open to a bit of a surprise to learn that many psychopomp examples from the lores are human-shaped figures. Even more interesting is that some of them are living people. {Ref#6 - Others}

• Of all the animals commonly found the owl is one shrouded in mystery and cloaked in superstition. This page delves into some of the lore about owls, the good and the bad, from different places around the world. The symbology is pretty simple, but lends itself to good use. Some of the magic surrounding them and using them is interesting. Don't forget the connection to witches--like so many other things.

• This one needs a little background. Searching for "necropolis" yielded an interesting bit of trivia from Encyclopaedia Britannica, but they of course want money for you to see more than a couple of lines, which soon segues into a hit up for money, so off I went for the same information elsewhere to share. That led to this article, which briefly mentions the salient fact, that a necropolis was often situated on the road out of town--to lead angry spirits away, apparently. What this page has aside from general info on a necropolis and "grave goods"--very Egyptian sounding process of burying people with things they enjoyed--is some fascinating and gruesome information on the burial of black plague victims. The numbers were huge and the entire process was not without its own non-decaying-kind of corruption. Corpse "bearers" were a rough lot more interested in money than the danger of moving the dead from the plague. Grave robbing was common in and out of plague years, even including bodies stolen from homes, perhaps even under threat of or involving actual violence against the living. Also of note were "homicidal nurses who robbed the dying and then perished themselves", and corpse gases causing explosions. Lastly, Enon Chapel (I mistook it for at least a triple-take as Enron Chapel) had over 1000 buried in its basement as part of some scheme.

August 25, 2009

• Hypnagogia generally refers to the time falling asleep and hypnopompia as waking from sleep. Beyond that though, and of interest, it is about the ability of dreaming during these times, not just dreaming but doing it with an awareness of the waking world. In other words, dreaming with your eyes open. Hypnagogia involves full on visual and auditory, for lack of a better term, hallucinations, because the brain is dreaming. It can be a debunkers reasoning for the dismissal of visions, shadow people, and even alien abductions. Throw in some sleep paralysis and hypnopompia is the explanation of Old Hag syndrome. Two interesting facets of the hypnagogia article are the neuroscience of sleep, and the connection between the hypnagogic state and the inspiration of inventors, authors and song writers.

• Pareidolia is a visual or auditory form of Apophenia, that ties in with some of the theories of encounters with Shadow People. In and of itself it is good fodder for a number of ideas. It's very primitive, and instinctual, part of the process that the brain requires to detect threats. The interaction between that guttural draw of attention and the psychological predilection to believe it over other harder evidence could play into several conflicts of the three (argumentaively four) types. Apophenia would seem to be essentially a false sense of synchronicity beyond the essential base description of seeing patterns where there are none.

• The first article contains some interesting bits that are not seen elsewhere. First a qualifier/caveat, this article also mixes things together by not properly separating theories. People have made connection between these shadowy figures and thought forms/egregore/tulpas. A particularly interesting theory includes alien thought forms. The best part, and its very brief but very evocative, is that some of these entities may be drawn to ghosts. Note also a bit about shadow people acting as harbingers/warnings in a way they tie to Mothman. The Wikipedia article in the "Scientific explanations" section contains a look at drugs and chemicals that induce hallucinations. There it also gets into Hypnagogia. {Ref#5 - Others}

August 11, 2009

• This is a fairly common phenomenon across the globe. The names and meanings ascribed to it are fascinating and have enough variance given the undeniable commonalities. The name in Mexico is particularly evocative, "a dead body climbed on top of me". A lot of the time it is described as Old Hag syndrome and that has its own particular mythology to it and fits into a larger subset of beliefs regarding the superstitions revolving around sleep and night time.

• This is a sad thing. The title says it all about what is going on, but the scale, and the impact of it has to be read. It's hard to imagine the difficulty of not giving a loved one a proper burial and leaving it up to the government. These government required burials and cremations are in addition to the numerous transients and other unidentifiable or unclaimed bodies. Also of note are the statistics on deaths and the numbers for coroner services.

• This is a news story about a real plague in the modern world and the efforts to bring it to a swift and safe end for as many as possible. When it came to my attention it came with an expression of disbelief from the person quoting the article. Something has to be done to grab a plague and stomp it out saving as many lives as possible. What kind of world is it where action to save lives is seen as too extreme if people have to be inconvenienced for a couple days to save them? This alone is of interest to explore in fiction, let alone the setting potential of a place locked down for safety dealing with some other threat that is only exacerbated by the seclusion.

Looking for something less dark? Try our sister site "TechStop"

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