After Jim Carrey’s recent public appearance at the César Awards in Paris, the internet did what the internet does best: zoomed in, compared old footage, and started asking questions. Almost immediately, conspiracy theories exploded online. Some people believe he’s simply changed. Others think cosmetic procedures altered his appearance. And some are convinced something much stranger is going on including theories connecting him to the late Val Kilmer.

But this episode isn’t really about whether any of those theories are true.

It’s about why moments like this hit such a nerve and why conspiracy theories spread so quickly when someone who once felt culturally familiar suddenly seems different. What happens psychologically when a celebrity who helped define an era no longer feels like the same person? Why do we struggle more with change than with impossible explanations?

In this shorter, current-events episode, I explore the psychology behind celebrity conspiracies, internet speculation, parasocial relationships, and modern folklore forming right in front of us. Because today’s urban legends don’t spread around campfires they spread through timelines, comment sections, and viral posts.

And sometimes the story we choose to believe says more about us than it does about the person at the center of it.

What makes the Backrooms so unsettling — and why do they linger long after you stop listening?

In this episode of Psychology of the Strange, I explore the psychology behind the Backrooms, the internet’s most disturbing modern myth, and why endless hallways, fluorescent lights, and empty rooms trigger such deep unease. This isn’t a story about monsters or jump scares. It’s a story about liminal spaces, derealization, and what happens to the mind when familiar environments lose their meaning.

I begin with a real experience of getting lost in underground hospital corridors — a real-life Backrooms moment — before moving into an immersive storytelling segment that recreates the quiet horror of endless space. From there, I break down the psychological mechanisms behind the fear: predictive processing failure, free-floating anxiety, social absence, and existential threat.

This episode connects the Backrooms to modern life — burnout, bureaucracy, and the feeling of being trapped in systems you didn’t design and can’t escape. I explore why adding monsters actually weakens the horror, how liminal spaces destabilize the brain, and why the Backrooms feel less like fiction and more like a mirror of the world we’re living in.

If you’ve ever felt unsettled in an empty hospital hallway, an abandoned mall, a quiet office after hours, or a place that felt familiar but wrong — this episode is for you.

Topics include:

• The psychology of liminal spaces

• Why the Backrooms are so disturbing

• Derealization and depersonalization

• Predictive processing and anxiety

• Environmental meaning and fear

• Modern folklore and internet horror

• Burnout, bureaucracy, and existential dread

• Why some horror stays with you

Listen now to understand why the Backrooms don’t end when the hallway does — and why some spaces swallow you long after you leave them.

Psychology of the Strange is part of the Darkcast Network-- Welcome to the Darkside

Haunted People Syndrome, recurring paranormal experiences, and the psychology of feeling watched — why do some individuals report unexplained events across different homes and stages of life, and what does psychology reveal about ghost experiences and perception?

In this episode of Psychology of the Strange, I explore the idea of haunted people through cognitive science, perception, and meaning-making. I begin with a documented case of a man who experienced persistent disturbances in his home, but quickly move beyond the question of whether the events were supernatural to examine why certain experiences feel intentional and emotionally charged.

Drawing on research into sleep disruption, hypervigilance, pattern detection, absorption, and what researchers call Haunted People Syndrome, this episode explores how the brain interprets ambiguity, and why the boundary between external threat and internal perception can sometimes blur.

I also reflect on the modern context of storytelling, including how sharing extraordinary experiences publicly can shape interpretation and meaning, while recognizing that similar patterns have been documented long before social media existed.

As part of this season’s exploration of the psychological line between good and evil, I consider how cultures have historically framed unexplained experiences as supernatural or malevolent, and how psychology offers another way of understanding the same phenomena.

This conversation isn’t about proving or disproving ghosts. It’s about understanding why certain experiences feel haunted, why they linger, and what they reveal about the human mind’s relationship with fear, belief, and uncertainty.

Topics explored:

– Haunted People Syndrome

– Psychology of haunting and ghost experiences

– Recurring unexplained phenomena

– Feeling watched and hypervigilance

– Sleep and perception

– Meaning-making under uncertainty

– Social storytelling and interpretation

– Fear, ambiguity, and the line between good and evil

Follow Psychology of the Strange for weekly explorations of folklore, perception, and the psychology behind the experiences that unsettle us most.