Psychology of the Strange

Season 3 Trailer: Liminality, Fear, and the Psychology of the Strange

What happens when the line between good and evil stops being clear? Season 3 is about thresholds the thin places where fear, folklore, and morality blur.
In this new season of Psychology of the Strange, I explore the psychology behind liminal spaces, dark myths, and the figures who live between good and evil. From ancient folklore to modern horror, each episode uses story and psychological science to ask why we’re drawn to the uncanny and what those fears reveal about us.
If you’re fascinated by horror, mythology, urban legends, and the mind behind it all, this season is for you.
New episodes every two weeks, with bonus psychological deep-dives in between.
Follow Psychology of the Strange and step into the in-between.

Meaning, Fear, and Moltbook in the Uncanny Mind

Moltbook is a new social platform where artificial intelligence talks to artificial intelligence. No humans posting, no prompts guiding the conversation. We’re allowed to watch, but we’re not allowed to post.
And something about that feels deeply unsettling.
In this episode of Psychology of the Strange, I explore why Moltbook has captured so much attention, discomfort, and fascination. From AI existentialism and recursive language loops to emerging religious structures and symbolic order, this isn’t just a technology story — it’s a psychological one.
Why does AI talking to itself trigger the uncanny valley, even without faces or bodies?
Why do humans immediately reach for Skynet-style fears when there’s no hostility at all?
And what does it mean when language begins creating meaning without us at the center?
This episode looks at Moltbook through the lens of psychology, folklore, and meaning-making by examining schemas, projection, irrelevance anxiety, and why systems under uncertainty tend to generate myths, rules, and rituals.
This isn’t about sentient machines.
It’s about what happens when meaning no longer needs a human witness.

The Long Night- Fear, Folklore and the Psychology of Winter

Why do winter myths across cultures share the same psychological patterns?
In this closing episode of Psychology of the Strange Season Two, we explore how fear functions as a social force—shaping morality, identity, and survival during prolonged darkness, scarcity, and isolation.
 
This episode brings together the core themes of the season: winter folklore, psychological fear responses, moral regulation, ritual, and what happens when fear breaks containment. From watchful spirits and moral enforcers to hunger-driven transformation myths, winter stories reveal how the human mind adapts under sustained threat.
 
Drawing from folklore, social psychology, and real-world survival psychology, this episode examines how fear organizes communities, enforces cooperation, and—when left uncontained—fractures empathy and identity. Winter myths are not just stories about monsters; they are psychological maps of survival, morality, and meaning during extreme conditions.
 
This episode serves as a thematic conclusion to Season Two’s exploration of winter folklore, fear psychology, ritual behavior, and belief systems—revealing why these stories endure, and what they continue to teach us about the human mind.

Perceptual Collapse on Dead Mountain- The Psychology Behind the Dyatlov Pass Incident

In this episode of Psychology of the Strange, we explore one of the most disturbing and enduring mysteries of the 20th century: the Dyatlov Pass Incident.
 
In February 1959, nine experienced hikers vanished in the Ural Mountains under conditions they were fully trained to survive. What rescuers found weeks later defied logic—
a tent cut open from the inside, bodies scattered across the snow, fatal hypothermia, unexplained blunt force trauma, missing soft tissue, and traces of radiation on clothing.
 
But this episode isn’t about monsters, conspiracies, or solving the mystery once and for all.
 
It’s about what happens to the human mind in extreme environments.
 
We examine Dyatlov Pass through the lens of psychology, cognitive science, and survival behavior, focusing on how winter, isolation, darkness, and sensory ambiguity can fracture perception and override even the strongest survival instincts.
 
This episode dives into:
 
Extreme cold and its effects on decision-making and cognition
How whiteout conditions disrupt perception and spatial awareness
Why fear alone can’t explain why the group left their shelter
Group psychology under uncertainty and collective threat perception
Cognitive overload, perceptual collapse, and threshold failure
Why experienced hikers sometimes make fatally irrational choices
The psychology behind anomalies like radiation, and why certain details haunt us more than others
 
 
Rather than asking what killed them, this episode asks a harder question:
What happens when the environment itself becomes psychologically uninhabitable?
 
Dyatlov Pass may not be a story about an external attacker at all—but about the moment human cognition breaks under sustained stress, when perception turns against survival, and logic arrives too late.
 
This is a deep psychological analysis of fear, ambiguity, and the fragile limits of human judgment in extreme winter conditions.
 
If you’re fascinated by true crime psychology, unsolved mysteries, survival psychology, cognitive failure, extreme environments, and the science behind fear, this episode is for you.

When Winter Eats the Mind- The Psychology of the Wendigo

What happens to the human mind when hunger becomes unbearable, winter cuts off all escape, and survival demands the unthinkable?
 
In this episode of Psychology of the Strange, we explore the Wendigo—one of the most haunting and psychologically complex winter legends in North American folklore. Often depicted as a supernatural monster stalking frozen forests, the Wendigo is rooted in Indigenous Algonquin and Cree traditions as a warning about starvation, isolation, cannibalism, and the collapse of moral identity under extreme conditions.
 
The episode begins with a chilling original winter horror story set during a brutal famine, where a search for a missing child leads to an encounter with something far more dangerous than the cold. From there, we break down the psychology behind the legend, examining starvation psychosis, voice mimicry, dissociation, moral injury, and trauma-induced changes in perception.
 
We discuss how prolonged hunger alters the brain, why extreme deprivation can lead to hallucinations and identity fragmentation, and how winter itself functions as a form of psychological pressure. The Wendigo emerges not just as a folklore creature, but as a symbolic representation of what happens when the human mind is pushed beyond its limits.
 
This episode connects folklore, horror psychology, survival psychology, and moral psychology to ask an unsettling question: under the right conditions, what could any human become?
 
Topics include:
Wendigo folklore and mythology, winter horror stories, starvation psychosis, survival psychology, moral injury, dissociation, trauma, voice mimicry in folklore, Indigenous winter legends, psychological symbolism in monsters, and the dark side of human nature.
 
If you’re interested in the psychology of monsters, folklore analysis, horror as a window into the human mind, or why ancient winter legends still resonate today, this episode walks slowly into the cold—and doesn’t look away.

Mari Lwyd: The Grey Mare, Winter Rituals, and the Psychology of Inviting Fear Inside

In this episode of Psychology of the Strange, we journey into the cold, liminal nights of winter Wales to meet Mari Lwyd...the eerie Grey Mare who knocks at the door with a horse’s skull, snapping jaws, and a song that demands an answer.
Through immersive storytelling and psychological insight, this episode explores the Mari Lwyd folklore, its origins in Welsh winter traditions, and why rituals involving fear, chaos, and misrule appear across cultures during the darkest time of year.
Rather than treating Mari Lwyd as superstition or spectacle, we examine her as a psychological tool. As a way communities learned to engage fear safely, regulate uncertainty, and survive the long winter nights together.
This episode blends folklore, psychology, ritual behavior, and recreational fear, asking what happens when we don’t banish the dark, but invite it inside, on our own terms.
What This Episode Explores
The folklore and history of Mari Lwyd, the Welsh “Grey Mare”
Winter rituals, liminality, and the psychology of uncertainty
Why fear rituals often involve play, mockery, and controlled chaos
The role of doors, thresholds, and consent in fear-based traditions
How communal fear strengthens social bonds
Why fear that leaves is different from fear that lingers
Connections between Mari Lwyd, haunted houses, and modern recreational fear
 
Why Mari Lwyd Still Matters
Mari Lwyd isn’t just a relic of Welsh folklore. She’s a reminder that humans have always needed structured ways to face fear especially when the future feels uncertain.
By turning fear into ritual, song, laughter, and shared experience, traditions like Mari Lwyd reveal a deep psychological wisdom: fear doesn’t disappear when it’s ignored—but it becomes manageable when it’s invited in, named, and allowed to leave.
 
This episode was sponsored by Fix Coffee. Fix coffee keeps me grounded while I'm wandering through folklore, psychology, and darker corners of the human mind. You can try them out too and get 15% off by using code PSYCHSTRANGE https://www.fixcoffeebrand.com/?ref=PsychStrange

The Winterborn Children Caught Between Two Worlds

Across Eastern Europe, children born during the Twelve Nights of Christmas were said to be marked by winter itself caught between worlds, watched by spirits, or destined for a second, shadowed nature. In tonight’s episode, we explore the legend of the “winterborn,” those liminal children whose quietness, stillness, or difference became the source of unsettling tales.
But beneath the folklore lies something deeply human. This episode unpacks the psychology of liminality, misaligned behavior cues, winter anxiety, and why communities turn unusual children into vessels for their fears. The winterborn myth isn’t about monsters it’s about uncertainty, survival, and the stories we create when the world refuses to make sense.

The Christmas Eve Watcher

Fear doesn’t always arrive as a threat.
Sometimes it arrives as attention.
On a winter night, a woman and her teenage daughter begin to notice a figure standing outside their home. It doesn’t approach. It doesn’t knock. It doesn’t try to enter. It simply watches.
What follows isn’t a story about violence or intrusion, but about something quieter and often more disturbing: the experience of being observed without understanding why. The Watcher comes to houses in the nights before Christmas.
In this episode of Psychology of the Strange, we explore how the human mind reacts when it detects intention without danger, presence without explanation. Through story and psychological analysis, we examine why being watched destabilizes our sense of safety, how parental instincts intensify threat perception, and why winter with its darkness, stillness, and isolation amplifies the fear of unseen observers.
The Watcher isn’t about what the figure does.
It’s about what happens to the mind when it realizes it’s no longer alone.
I want to thank my daughter for coming on the show today to do the voice for Evelyn.

The Yule Log: Ritual, Fire, and the Meaning We Create- Bonus Episode

The Yule Log is one of the oldest winter rituals in Europe—a carved beam of wood burned slowly through the longest nights to protect the household and usher in the return of the sun. But beneath the folklore and tradition lies something deeply human: our need to create meaning, especially in seasons marked by scarcity, darkness, and uncertainty.
 
In this bonus episode, we explore the origins of the Yule Log, the runes and wishes carved into it, and why rituals like this have lasted for centuries. From symbolic renewal to communal bonding to the psychology of hope in winter, the Yule Log shows how people have always used story and ceremony to survive the dark.

When the Elf on the Shelf Became a Trickster --Bonus Episode

Elf on the Shelf is often dismissed as a modern, commercial tradition cute, harmless, and far removed from older winter folklore. But while researching the Yule Lads, I started noticing something unexpected happening in my own home.
Today’s elves don’t just watch. They move. They make messes. They steal food. They leave evidence behind.
In this short bonus reflection, I explore how Elf on the Shelf has quietly evolved from a surveillance figure into a household trickster and why that shift mirrors much older winter traditions like the Icelandic Yule Lads. Through folklore, psychology, and lived experience as a parent, this episode looks at why mischief, moral play, and controlled chaos still feel necessary during the darkest time of year.