Acid for Squares E116: Eleven Stories Fact-Checked
Eleven viewer videos, one movie theater, and the question of what holds up: lights, mantis beings, near-death experiences and sleep paralysis, fact-checked.
Eleven people, one movie theater, 79 minutes: in episode 116 of “Acid for Squares,” hosts Tanya Dahl and Cody Blue Snider screen videos their community sent in for the first “Cosmic Confessional” — stories about lights in the sky, beings met in meditation, near-death experiences and moments when the world supposedly “glitched.” The episode went up today (Oct. 20, 2026); viewers have until the end of 2026 to vote, and the winner becomes a guest on the show. We watched it, sorted the stories, and checked what can be backed up and what remains storytelling. For anyone who knows experiences like these firsthand, or wants to learn how to read them fairly.
Contents
In episode 116 of “Acid for Squares” (Oct. 20, 2026, about 79 minutes), hosts Tanya Dahl and Cody Blue Snider screen eleven video submissions from their community for the “Cosmic Confessional”: stories about lights in the sky, mantis beings, near-death experiences, out-of-body experiences and “timelines.” Documented are general findings such as how common sleep paralysis is and the results of the AWARE study; the accounts themselves are personal and have not been cross-checked. The community decides the contest winner through comment votes until the end of 2026.
The hosts screen eleven community submissions and let viewers vote through comments; the winner becomes a guest on the podcast.
Source/tradition: Acid for Squares E116, episode and video description (Oct. 20, 2026)
A facial burn healed fully overnight, and the storyteller then switched “timelines.”
Source/tradition: Account by Caleb (from 2:05); no medical findings, no evidence
Time dilation and the feeling of leaving the body occur in mortal danger.
Source/tradition: Stetson, Fiesta, Eagleman, PLoS ONE 2007 (memory effect); Blanke et al., Nature 2002
A voice and a blue ball of light before a car crash delivered a message.
Source/tradition: Account by Jessica (from 11:51); personal interpretation
Afghanistan lies on a portal between dimensions.
Source/tradition: Statement by a third party according to Aaron (from 17:21); no evidence
Lights in the sky answered the wishes and questions of skywatchers.
Source/tradition: Accounts by Justin and Taylor (from 22:50 and 30:45); Metabunk discussion on CE-5: no control group
Two contributors met mantis beings in meditation or vision.
Source/tradition: Accounts by Michael and Katie (from 41:01 and 46:58)
In the AWARE study, about 9 percent of fully interviewed survivors described a near-death experience; only one case was classified as confirmed perception.
Source/tradition: Parnia et al., Resuscitation 2014
A near-death experience proves life after death.
Source/tradition: Interpretation in Connie’s account (from 1:04:29); the research leaves the reading open
Sleep paralysis affects about 7.6 percent of the general population over a lifetime.
Source/tradition: Sharpless and Barber, Sleep Medicine Reviews 2011
Sleep paralysis is a message from a “team of light.”
Source/tradition: Interpretation in Connie’s account (from 1:07:50)
VERIFIED = verifiable in scientific or official sources · TRADITIONAL = historically or culturally recorded · LIVED PRACTICE = widely practiced, experiential knowledge · NOT PROVEN = spiritual interpretation, not scientifically established.
The episode at a glance
At a glance
“Acid for Squares” E116 is not a conversation episode but a collection: eleven viewer videos about supernatural, spiritual and psychedelic experiences, screened in a movie theater. The stories are personal and moving — but they are single accounts without cross-checking. What can be documented is that people have such experiences and how common some of them are (near-death experiences or sleep paralysis, for example); whether the interpretations hold (extraterrestrials, timelines, portals) cannot be decided from these videos.
| Show | Acid for Squares (podcast and YouTube channel @acidforsquares) |
|---|---|
| Hosts | Tanya Dahl and Cody Blue Snider |
| Guests | No single guest: eleven community submissions (the “Cosmic Confessional” contest). Who are they? According to the episode, listeners from various countries; we use the first names they give themselves. |
| Date / length | Oct. 20, 2026 · about 79 minutes (4,735 seconds) |
| Link | youtube.com/watch?v=vPAMyDVFuGs |
| Three key points | 1) The community decides who wins the contest — voting through comments until the end of 2026, and the winner becomes a guest. 2) Many contributors speak publicly about their experiences for the first time. 3) A second part, a Halloween special with darker stories, follows the week after, according to the hosts. |
Official video from the channel, embedded from YouTube. We show no thumbnails and no photos of the people involved.
Chapter guide with timestamps
The episode has no official chapter markers. We derived the times below from the transcript; they are accurate to about a minute. The names are the first names the contributors give in their videos.
| Time | What happens |
|---|---|
| 0:00 | Welcome, contest rules, voting through comments |
| 2:05 | Caleb: fire accident, kung fu vision, “timelines” (until 11:51) |
| 11:51 | Jessica: car crash in Orlando, blue ball of light, a voice (until 17:21) |
| 17:21 | Aaron: blue lights, a teacher in Nepal, an encounter in Afghanistan |
| 22:50 | Justin: triangle over Loveland, Colorado (May 4, 2024) |
| 29:17 | Sponsor break (Ozark Mountain Publishing, Midwest Grow Kits) |
| 30:45 | Taylor: somatic channeling, Fisher Towers in Utah, a fleet of lights |
| 41:01 | Michael: mantis being in meditation, an insect at his car |
| 46:58 | Katie: automatic writing, a ship, a mantis being |
| 53:38 | Brian: two weeks of “surgery” after a stay in Peru |
| 57:26 | Mike: orange lights over the Hudson (short clip) |
| 58:04 | Beck: childhood experience, out-of-body experience in 2020 (until 1:04:29) |
| 1:04:29 | Connie: three near-death experiences, her path to tarot (until 1:16:36) |
| 1:16:36 | Wrap-up, call for new submissions, preview of the Halloween special |
Deep dive: seven patterns, put in context
Eleven stories do not make eleven claims, but recurring patterns. We picked seven, describe what is said, and set beside it what research and the available sources offer. Everything the contributors report is their account — we do not doubt their sincerity, but we cannot verify it either.
1. Body and “timelines”: Caleb’s story
What the episode says: Caleb says his face caught fire during a fire-breathing performance. Afterward he treated himself with energy work, spoke light language, and by the next morning everything had healed. Later, he says, he switched “timelines”: a rideshare car with his number drove past him, and the psychic saw him “disappear.” He plans to study kung fu in China (from 2:05).
Context: The account combines a dangerous situation, the effect of plant medicine (he mentions ayahuasca and other “medicines”) and an interpretation he himself calls “jumping through timelines.” The hosts do not comment; the format is deliberately storytelling without pushback.
Our assessment: Not documented. Whether burns heal fully overnight can only be judged with medical findings or photos; medicine knows of no such rapid healing for higher-degree burns. Experiences of time and place under the influence of substances and after a shock are, by experience, unreliable, and memory is reconstructive. Important: anyone who has been burned should have it checked by a doctor, and fire plus substances is, as Caleb himself says, a bad combination.
2. Time stands still, a zipper, an excursion: the crash and “out of body”
What the episode says: Jessica says that just before a serious car crash in Orlando time felt “stretched,” a blue ball of light shot past, and a machine-like voice said: “You are not getting out of this” (about 13:17). She felt something like a zipper running from her skull downward and felt herself outside her body. Beck describes (from 58:04) spontaneous out-of-body experiences and a scene with a panel of older men in white who gave “lessons,” the first about time.
Context: Time dilation in danger and the feeling of leaving the body are well-known reports in research. The pattern is seen as a protective reaction of the brain in mortal danger (dissociation).
Our assessment: Partly documented. An experiment by Stetson, Fiesta and Eagleman (2007, PLoS ONE) had volunteers fall from a great height into a net: they remembered the time as longer but showed no faster perception in the test — so the dilation is mostly a memory effect. Blanke and colleagues (2002, Nature) triggered the feeling of leaving the body in a patient through electrical stimulation of the brain. Neither explains every detail, but together they show that the brain can generate such experiences itself. The voice, the blue light and the panel remain personal interpretation.
3. Blue lights, a portal in Afghanistan: Aaron’s signs
What the episode says: Aaron reports blue “stars” he has seen since a period with a teacher in Nepal, which give him confirmation of his thoughts. In Afghanistan, he says, a stranger told him a portal between dimensions lies there; the lights later helped him in a card game (from 17:21).
Context: Aaron says he has lived in many countries; the encounter reassured him because he had at first thought he was going crazy. According to his account, the portal idea comes from a third person, not from him.
Our assessment: Not documented. The brain can produce flashes of light in the visual field (phosphenes) by itself; whether they “tell” the person something is interpretation. C. G. Jung described meaningful coincidences as “synchronicity” (Jung and Pauli, 1952) — as an idea, not a demonstrated mechanism. That Afghanistan holds a “portal” is a third party’s statement without evidence. Aaron says the experience helped him stop doubting himself. Anyone who finds such perceptions distressing can talk it over with a professional.
4. Lights that answer: skywatching in Colorado and Utah
What the episode says: On May 4, 2024, Justin saw a triangle with a second object over his house in Loveland, Colorado, for 18 seconds, heard a “springy” sound and filmed with night-vision binoculars; later, he says, lights responded to his wishes (from 22:50). Taylor says she and two friends built a “portal” in Utah through “somatic channeling”; afterward lights appeared that answered questions by blinking (from 30:45). Mike briefly reports orange lights over the Hudson (57:26).
Context: The approach resembles the “CE-5” protocol (contact attempts by humans) promoted by Steven Greer, a physician; the hosts mention it indirectly (“Greer-style”). Justin ends with an invitation: “Open your heart, open your mind, drop your skepticism, and just be grateful” (about 28:29).
Our assessment: Not documented, but possible to check. In a discussion on Metabunk, skeptics name satellites, aircraft and distant lights as everyday explanations; Mick West points out that there is no control group and that failed sessions are not recorded. The call to “drop your skepticism” is understandable as an invitation to wonder — scientifically it is the opposite of testing. A genuine measurement series exists for the Hessdalen valley (see Keep reading). That three people see the same light documents a shared perception, not its cause.
5. Two mantis encounters in one episode
What the episode says: Michael, who introduces himself as a physician in Los Angeles, sees a giant praying mantis head in a meditation and feels protected; the next morning a real green praying mantis sits at his car and “speaks” to him telepathically (from 41:01). Katie tells of automatic writing in 2020 and a vision in which, aboard a ship, she meets a mantis being that tells her “secrets” (from 46:58).
Context: Mantis beings have appeared in the experiencer scene for years; there are dedicated online forums. Katie says her mother recognized the description immediately — so the image was already known in her circle.
Our assessment: Told, not documented. Two accounts with a similar motif look like confirmation, but they can also show how images spread through a community: people who know them are more likely to meet them in dreams, meditations and hypnagogic states. The meeting of a meditation image and an insect the next day is a classic synchronicity motif; insects are common in everyday life, and the image in the mind makes them meaningful.
6. Three near-death experiences and a path to tarot: Connie’s account
What the episode says: Connie, by her own account a certified medium, describes three near-death experiences: a life review in a white room, a tunnel with light during cardiac arrest, and a meadow with children and a figure she recognizes as Jesus. Afterward, she says, she came to reading through a tarot deck; her first reading for a stranger was confirmed (from 1:04:29).
Context: Life review, tunnel and light are among the most common elements of reported near-death experiences. Reading them as a sign of life after death is disputed.
Our assessment: Documented as a phenomenon, open in interpretation. The AWARE study (Parnia and colleagues, 2014, Resuscitation) examined 2,060 cardiac arrests in hospitals: of the survivors, 140 spoke with the researchers and 101 completed the second interview; about 46% recalled something from the time of the arrest, about 9% described near-death experiences, about 2% recalled clear seeing and hearing — and only one case could be confirmed as genuine perception. For our own overview of the follow-up study, see “Keep reading.” There is no data on Connie’s tarot reading, only the story.
7. Sleep paralysis as a “message”
What the episode says: Connie says that after her first near-death experience she often had sleep paralysis: a humming, an inability to move, a voice saying “You must rise.” Today she understands it as a call from her “team of light” to raise her own vibration (from 1:07:50).
Context: Sleep paralysis is a transitional state between sleep and waking in which a person is conscious but the muscles are still “asleep.” Sounds and figures often accompany it.
Our assessment: Documented as a phenomenon; the message is interpretation. A systematic review (Sharpless and Barber, 2011) found a lifetime prevalence of 7.6% in the general population, 28.3% in students and 31.9% in psychiatric patients. Sleep paralysis is therefore widespread and usually harmless; whether it means more than what the brain itself generates in the transition cannot be answered.
What is new about this format
The format is new: until now “Acid for Squares” lived on conversations with a single guest (most recently Susan Slaughter in E115, Morgue in E114, Darryl Anka in E112). E116 hands the stage to the community and makes it the jury: by their own account, the hosts “screened” the videos in a movie theater, and viewers vote through the comments; whoever gets the most votes across both episodes by the end of 2026 becomes a guest. It is also new that many contributors speak publicly for the first time — the hosts describe that as courage. How claims are handled stays ambiguous: the hosts do not comment, and the channel’s description notes that views are those of the guests. For the second round they announce a Halloween special, and submissions for another “Cosmic Confessional” are to reopen if the episode is well received.
Source check: documented or told?
Source check
Documented or told?
Tap each statement: is that what the studies say — or is it an interpretation?
0 of 4 revealed
Voices from the community
The episode is only a few hours old, so the comment section is thin (as of Oct. 20, 2026, YouTube). We show what is there; we have not yet found Reddit or X debates. The mood is friendly, skepticism is absent so far, and open questions are rare.
What the community writes
“How did I miss this!? I have so many crazy stories.” — a viewer who would submit their own next time.
“I really wanted to be a part but my story wouldn't load….” — someone whose upload failed technically.
“So Fun! Thanks A4S Team Love SPooky Season!” — enthusiasm for the episode’s autumn mood.
“This was such a fun episode!” — short praise for the episode.
The picture is one-sidedly positive but also small; it is no substitute for a debate about the content. Anyone with a critical or especially warm voice is welcome in the channel’s comments.
Why this matters for the “new world”
For us, the value of E116 is not in whether every story is “true.” It is that people get a stage where they can talk without ridicule about experiences they otherwise keep to themselves. That fits what we call “the new world”: a conversation about consciousness that takes experience seriously and still checks it. For readers, that means in practice: write experiences down (date, place, circumstances), note interpretations separately, rule out everyday explanations first, and talk with people who listen without judging. And where an experience is distressing — sleep paralysis, anxiety or confusion, for example — a medical or therapeutic evaluation can help; spirituality and medicine do not exclude each other. We neither recommend nor advise against substances as a route to such experiences: we give no instructions and no promises of effects. Those who stay curious but stick to the facts carry the debate forward.
Critical questions the episode leaves open
1
Who checks the stories?
The format deliberately skips follow-up questions. Would a second, critical round with the same contributors be conceivable?
2
What does the selection filter?
From “so many submissions” came eleven. By what criteria were they chosen — drama, variety, video quality?
3
How strong is the community’s influence?
Mantis beings appear twice. How much of that is shared culture and how much independent experience?
4
What about the health-related statements?
Several accounts mention healing or substances. Does a format with this reach need a note about risks?
Glossary
Cosmic Confessional
Name of the Acid for Squares submission contest: video confessions about supernatural, spiritual and psychedelic experiences.
Near-death experience (NDE)
Conscious experience close to death, often with light, a tunnel, a life review; documented as a reported phenomenon, interpretation open.
Out-of-body experience (OBE)
The feeling of leaving one’s own body; can be triggered experimentally (Blanke et al., 2002).
Sleep paralysis
Transitional state between sleep and waking in which a person is conscious but unable to move.
Synchronicity
Term coined by C. G. Jung for meaningful coincidences without an apparent cause.
CE-5
“Close Encounter of the fifth kind”: the approach coined by Steven Greer of initiating encounters with extraterrestrials through meditation and calling; not scientifically confirmed.
Light language
Spontaneously spoken or sung sounds interpreted as a language of light; not a language in the linguistic sense.
Pareidolia / apophenia
The tendency to see patterns or meaning in randomness; does not explain every case, but many.
FAQ
What is Acid for Squares E116 about?
Eleven video submissions from the community about supernatural, spiritual and psychedelic experiences, which the hosts screen in a movie theater and release for a contest.
Who wins the Cosmic Confessional?
The community decides: whoever gets the most votes in the comments across this episode and the Halloween special by the end of 2026 becomes a guest on the podcast.
Are the stories proven?
No. They are personal accounts without cross-checking. Only general figures, such as how common sleep paralysis is or the results of the AWARE study, are documented.
Where can I watch the episode?
On the Acid for Squares YouTube channel (@acidforsquares) and on the usual podcast platforms. The video is embedded above.
What is a “glitch in the Matrix”?
A colloquial term for moments when reality seems “faulty,” such as déjà vu, strange coincidences or distortions of time. There is no scientific definition.
Keep reading
Sources
- Acid for Squares, E116 “Real Life Glitches In The Matrix (You pick the winner!)”, YouTube, published Oct. 20, 2026, video description and transcript.
- Parnia S. et al.: AWARE — AWAreness during REsuscitation, a prospective study. Resuscitation 2014 (summary, Stony Brook University).
- Sharpless B. A., Barber J. P.: Lifetime prevalence rates of sleep paralysis: a systematic review. Sleep Medicine Reviews 2011 (PubMed Central, PMC3156892).
- Stetson C., Fiesta M. P., Eagleman D. M.: Does time really slow down during a frightening event? PLoS ONE 2007.
- Blanke O. et al.: Stimulating illusory own-body perceptions. Nature 2002.
- Metabunk: “Needs Debunking: CE-5, humans initiating UFO sightings” (forum discussion, started May 15, 2020).
- Jung C. G., Pauli W.: Naturerklärung und Psyche (1952); Jung: Synchronicity as a principle of acausal connections.
Note: Stetson et al., Blanke et al. and Jung/Pauli are cited from background knowledge and were not freshly retrieved for this article. All contributor reports are their own accounts.
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