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It Scared Me At The Time

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Anonymous

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This is fortean, paranormal or...well, I'll just relate the incident.

When I was younger (I must have been around nine or ten), my little sister and I shared a bedroom.
It was a fairly large room, and it was separated by a divider that my grandfather had made for us, so that we'd feel like we each had our own side of the room (my sister is two years younger than me, and we were very territorial). This happened during the summer, and it was our habit to try and wake up before each other, the idea being that whoever woke up first would get control of the television for the morning.

On this particular morning, I woke up exceptionally (I thought) early and, as was my habit, I looked on the other side of the divider to make sure that my sister was still asleep. Sure enough, there she was sound asleep with the blankets pulled up around her. I could clearly see part of her shoulder and her entire head, I could see her body moving with her breathing...entirely convincing me that I'd won and that control of the TV would be mine! <insert maniacal laughter of choice>

I ran downstairs, ready to watch whatever it was I watched at that age, and was stopped stone dead in my tracks. My sister was upstairs asleep, right? Then how did she get downstairs before me? In the space of much less than 30 seconds, she'd flown past me down the stairs and plopped herself down on the couch...no way!

I was so convinced that I'd seen her in bed that I ran back upstairs. Sure enough, though, she wasn't there.
It freaked me out at the time, but I kind of kept my mouth shut. My brain had played me a dirty, and had tricked me into seeing what I'd expected to see, based on previous experience.

Anyway...just thought I'd share...

-Behemoth
 
That's a really strange story, and I don't have anything that could come close to trying to explain it, except maybe a time rip? Or maybe it's your sister who is the one who should be laughing maniacally, because she has powers of the occult?

-Fitz
 
The same vague thing happened to me a while ago, except with my grandad and his desk. At the time I got a little freaked.
 
I actually have an explanation for this type of occurance (assuming that the supposedly seen person is alive, and "seen" in a location where that person would usually be, at a time when they'd usually be there).

Our brains are wonderful at pattern recognition. In fact, they do it really really well. So much so that they're constantly monitoring changes in a scene and comparing them from one moment to the next...if something changes, we notice it. At that particular time, I had expected to see my sister there, so I saw her there. I imagined it.

There's an experiment that has been done numerous times wherein a test subject is wired to an EEG so that the visual cortex can be monitored. That test subject then looks at an object, and the activity in the visual cortex is recorded. The object is then removed and the subject is asked to imagine, or visualize the object that they just looked at, and the activity is again recorded. When compared, there is no difference in the type of activity occurring. To the brain, seeing something and imagining that same thing are indistinguishable.

I'm sure that many people have had the experience of taking a sip of something and expecting it to be something else. Say it's orange juice, but you're expecting milk. In the first few seconds after the liquid hits your tongue, you taste milk and then the taste changes to orange juice. Alot of our sense of taste and smell relies on memory, our brain compares the current taste or smell against the memories and searches for differences.

I'll stop rambling now.

-Behemoth
 
I'm pretty sure Derren Brown's done things like this to people, which lends credence to that theory, as I assume that he would produce this through neuro linguistic programming and pattern interrupts designed to persuade and lead mental processes in a specific direction and conclusion, whereby the result is identical if not the same.
 
Never heard of Derren Brown.... I just remembered something else you can do that can mess with people's perceptions. I've done this a few times to a few different people, and it has always worked for me.

If you place yourself in a location where people aren't expecting to see you, it will take them awhile before they notice you, it's like hiding right out in plain sight. We've all probably experienced the frustration of not being able to find something, only to discover that it was out in the open in plain sight the entire time, we just weren't expecting to see it there. For me to hide in plain sight is a pretty good indication that people aren't as conscious as they'd like to think they are (I'm 6'10" and weigh about 350lbs).

-Behemoth
 
nah, you wouldn't have heard of Derren Brown, he's more of a UK thing at the moment. But if you're interested in things like you're hiding in plain sight thingumabob then research him, you'll be impressed.
 
This is sort of related . . . If anyone has seen the film version of Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas they will know that there is a part where Gary Busey plays the highway cop who pulls Duke over . . . toward the end of that scene he asks Duke if he can kiss him . . .

My wife and I both swore up and down walls at people that when we first saw the film in the theatre that he actually did kiss Duke, but that apon viewing it on video and dvd that the scene in question had been cut out. People argued with us, and we stood firm to our belief.

Over the years my assurance has started to slip away, and just last night the wife and I were sitting on our balconey and somehow that scene came up in our conversation. We both finally submitted to agree that the scene in question must never have existed, and we imagined it. But even as we were admitting that to each other I said to her "But, the funny thing is I can still remember the way that scene looked exactly." She said "I can too, it's creepy".

It made both of us completely question every memory we have.

-Fitz
 
You should not only question every memory you can, but also your active perceptions. Think about what's happening around you on a regular basis, but you have no idea about it because you're not conscious of it. Your brain won't let you experience the totality of what's around you...it's a creepy, but cool thing to think about.
H.P. Lovecraft wrote a story called "From Beyond" that illustrates the hidden world around us in a rather sinister way.
Another thing to think about is that the data that we use as sight, sound, smell, taste is already out of date by the time we're made aware of it. Nerve impulses and synaptic activity don't occur instantaneously.

Oh lord, I'm rambling again....my wife hates it when I do that...

-Behemoth
 
I wonder does the brain have the ability to send false signals to the eyes or summat? When my parents moved into the house we're living in, there were two huge mirrors in the two bedrooms. I now have one in my room, and my parents had one in their room but they took it down years ago. To this day when I go into their room I momentarily glimpse my "reflection" in the non existent mirror, then I realise I'm looking at a blank wall ... can be quite unnerving
And as for being hidden in plain sight - Behemoth, there must be something peculiar about being over 6 feet tall where shorter people don't register that the large shape in front of them is a person, I regularly get people stepping in front of me when I'm waiting to pay for things in shops ...
 
I had a similar but different ;) experience as a kid.

We moved into a house my parents had had built when I was about 5. In our old house, my 2 sisters & I had to share a bedroom. In the new house, we each had our own room. My parents were surprised, then, when we all slept in the same room (2 of us on the floor), rotating whose room we slept in each night.

Now, my oldest sister was a "morning" person (I'm not at all!), and she would get up early to watch the sunrise. One morning, I was awakened by her getting up and leaving my room (we were in my room that night, so I had the bed). I don't know how much later it was, but I woke up again and noticed her in the room again - but it was strange; she was fully dressed and standing by the closet, facing the corner. But I was too tired and I just fell back asleep again.

When I finally got up, I found my sister hadn't changed into her day clothes yet.

It didn't freak me out, because I was accustomed to having nightmares that seemed very real, and this was hardly a nightmare! I assumed I hadn't fully awakened and in a half-waking, half-sleeping state had dreamed I saw her there.

Like I said, not quite the same, since she was in a place & position I would NOT have expected. Another thing that's similar to my dreams about it is that in my dreams I never see people's faces (except in nightmares, if it's a scary face); in this dream/whatever, she had her back to me, so I didn't see her face.

[edited to add:] Re: Lobelia's mirror -
After our family cat died, I used to see her "out of the corner of my eye" all the time, for several years... I know this is pretty common, actually.
 
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