Loreplay

In this episode of Loreplay, we step inside the massive stone walls of the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum—a building that was never meant to hold the suffering it ultimately swallowed.
Opened in the mid-1800s as a progressive mental health hospital, the asylum was designed to heal through light, fresh air, and compassion. What it became instead was a cautionary monument to overcrowding, neglect, and what happens when care turns into control.
As patient numbers exploded from a few hundred to well over two thousand, treatment methods shifted from moral therapy to restraint, sedation, and experimentation. Patients slept in hallways. Violent and non-violent individuals were mixed together. Understaffed wards relied on isolation cells, forced labor, electroshock therapy, insulin shock therapy, and lobotomies—often performed on people whose greatest crime was being inconvenient, impoverished, traumatized, or simply different.
We explore documented patient cases, the rise of medical “solutions” that caused more harm than healing, and how the asylum’s history reflects broader societal fears about mental illness, gender, class, and control. And, because this is Loreplay, we also examine what lingered after the doors closed—reported hauntings, unexplained phenomena, and why so many believe the building never truly emptied.
This isn’t just a ghost story.
 It’s a story about people who were silenced, mislabeled, and forgotten—
 and the institution that was supposed to save them.

  • Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum Official Site
     https://trans-alleghenylunaticasylum.com
  • West Virginia Division of Culture and History
     https://wvculture.org
  • Kirkbride, Thomas S. On the Construction, Organization, and General Arrangements of Hospitals for the Insane (1854)
  • Mental Health America – History of Mental Illness Treatment
     https://mhanational.org
  • Smithsonian Magazine – History of Lobotomies
     https://www.smithsonianmag.com
  • National Library of Medicine – Insulin Shock Therapy
     https://www.nlm.nih.gov
  • U.S. National Archives – Institutional Records & Census Data
  • Contemporary interviews and archival materials cited by:
    • West Virginia University Archives
    • Ohio County Public Library historical collections

Creators and Guests

Host
Dayna Pereira
Show Host of Multiple Chart Hitting Podcasts. French Fry and Wine Enthusiast

What is Loreplay?

Dayna Pereira is the sarcastic solo host of Loreplay, serving up paranormal stories, haunted history, creepy folklore, and weird legends with a playful twist. Equal parts storyteller and skeptic, she blends dark humor, spooky vibes, and a love for the bizarre into binge-worthy episodes for fans of ghost stories, urban legends, and true crime with a paranormal twist.