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Minor Strangeness (IHTM)

Peripart said:
Well, that's all changed with our new work PCs. One of the Windows 10 screensavers is of a beach, seen from a cave. On this beach are two huge rocks, with what looks like very shallow water around them. This is as close as you could get to the beach of my dreams. A bit of Googling tells me that it is Wharariki Beach, on the North end of New Zealand's South Island:
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=wharariki beach&espv=2&biw=1639&bih=794&site=webhp&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiB29qfkMTQAhUlJsAKHeCtBWsQ_AUIBygC&dpr=0.83

Obviously, it's all coincidence, but it's odd that I noticed this image in the very week that I was intending to write about my intriguing dream-beach.
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This image was the first one to come up when I started with Win 10. At first It looked very like a photo I'd taken and I thought Win 10 had rummaged around my photos for a screensaver. But I couldn't place it exactly, and then I realised the rock seemed to be sandstone which would mostly rule it out in Cornwall. So finally I concluded it wasn't my photo after all, although it is the sort of scene I would take. I don't see it so often now, Win 10 seems to have quite a collection of photos to show me!

Did you locate the setting by an image search, or otherwise?
 
I've had similar experiences with dreams, both altered versions of real places, and places that either did't exist or weren't connected to anywhere I knew about consciously at that time. As a child I had a recurring dream of being out on the balcony of a round, domed building. The balcony wrapped around the tallest part of the building. The entire building was bright white and the sky was clear and beautiful. I never saw anyone else there, and I never did anything other than just stand around and enjoy it. It was very quiet and it felt very soothing to be there.

Decades later as an adult I saw a travel poster of domed churches on a Greek island (I don't know which one). It's possible I'd seen a photograph and forgotten the imagery before I dreamed about it, otherwise, I don't know where it came from. I still have never been in such a place in my physical life.
 
That reminds me of the vivid dream I had, about age 18, of a large place near a beach in the mediterranean, planted with trees with a bright sun and warmth. Two or Three years later, arriving in a Camping in the Costa Brava in Spain with my parents, I had a strange déjà-vu impression, when I went to investigate the beach, which was near the camp site. I walked on some kind of place before arriving at the beach and it was exactly like in that dream.
 
Draheste said:
That reminds me of the vivid dream I had, about age 18, of a large place near a beach in the mediterranean, planted with trees with a bright sun and warmth. Two or Three years later, arriving in a Camping in the Costa Brava in Spain with my parents, I had a strange déjà-vu impression, when I went to investigate the beach, which was near the camp site. I walked on some kind of place before arriving at the beach and it was exactly like in that dream.
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Is that place on Google street view?
 
(I thought there was an active classic thread about coincidences. But coincidently, I can't find it).

This morning, I saw an online advertisement for what was called a 'Chesterfield' overcoat- a style I've never heard of.

A few minutes later, on the radio which I had on in the background, I heard the comment "Just like Tony Benn with the Chersterfield by-election of 1984".

An hour ago, I was in a kiosk queue at the supermarket, and there was a woman ahead of me fumbling with a large blue-on-white box of 'Chesterfield' cigarettes (a brand I've never heard of).

Since that was three in a row, I bought a lottery ticket.....
 
Ermintrude said:
(I thought there was an active classic thread about coincidences. But coincidently, I can't find it).

This morning, I saw an online advertisement for what was called a 'Chesterfield' overcoat- a style I've never heard of.

A few minutes later, on the radio which I had on in the background, I heard the comment "Just like Tony Benn with the Chersterfield by-election of 1984".

An hour ago, I was in a kiosk queue at the supermarket, and there was a woman ahead of me fumbling with a large blue-on-white box of 'Chesterfield' cigarettes (a brand I've never heard of).

Since that was three in a row, I bought a lottery ticket.....
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You should have checked first by calling directory enquiries. If you got straight through, then buy the ticket. :)

Bonus points to anyone who recalls that episode of "Shelly".
 
I had been smelling a lovely scent on and off for weeks when alone and the last time I had smelled it was when my eldest was pregnant so we suspected the youngest might be although when she visited she hadn't said anything.
Today the family al went Christmas shopping and at the end sat down to have a drink of coffee and she announced that they were 3 months pregnant.
Everyone then said that they thought so and my youngest granddaughter had apparently said that she thought it would be announced today.
 
Iris said:
I had been smelling a lovely scent on and off for weeks when alone and the last time I had smelled it was when my eldest was pregnant so we suspected the youngest might be although when she visited she hadn't said anything.
Today the family al went Christmas shopping and at the end sat down to have a drink of coffee and she announced that they were 3 months pregnant.
Everyone then said that they thought so and my youngest granddaughter had apparently said that she thought it would be announced today.
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I wondered if it was the Jacobsons Organ picking up a hormone change and the conscious brain mapping in a 'nice' smell as an association.
 
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I’m seeing the doctor about this but it’s so bizarre I thought I’d share it on here. The first “episode” took place about two years ago, I was set on the settee at home reading a book when a strange dizzy, light headed feeling swept over me. Ok so far these things happen, I remember thinking “oh this is strange” and laying the book down on my knee. Now the genuinely strange bit, very briefly I had the distinct feeling that the characters I had been reading about in the book had genuine corporeal existences and that I’d actually interacted with them at some point.
I experienced this a couple of times over the next two days, always along with this strange feeling of “dual consciousness”
Fast forward 6 months or so and I’m sat by a pool in Corfu with my wife, totally relaxed and just chilling as they say when this feeling sweeps over me again. Now this time the “dual consciousness” consisted of me believing that this feeling had first happened to me in the same resort 14 years earlier.
I’ve had this a couple of times since each time with these strange half memories which melt away just like a dream sometimes does when you wake up.
I’ve had an MRI scan, had my brainwaves monitored and given enough blood to float a small yacht in but nothing so far
 
KHammers said:
I can remember just this much of one other one : Went to a Chinese restaurant to buy a loaf of bread bread bread
Wrap it up in paper... Then memory fails me. I suspect whoever knows the rest might be the gatekeeper to my zuul.
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wrapped it up in a five pound note and this is what he said

"MY NAME IS ALI ALI CHICOLEI CHICOLEI OM POM POODLE WALLY WALLY WHISKERS CHINESE CHOPSTICKS INDIAN CHIEF"

:-D
 
I think a lot of "minor strangeness" can be very significant to those who experience it, but anyone else would fail to observe the same significance without you pointing it out from your own view. Like beauty, it's in the eye of the beholder, and once you start to look out for these things quite often you're going to see more of them, be that confirmation bias or a genuine set of occurrences (or a bit of both). However, that's not to say there was no connection to the above events, nor that it might be significant to something else that could be observing.

The question is, what do you do once the weirdness has become apparent? Usually you just have to shrug it off as one of those things, which might well be the most reasonable option. Any good story you get out of it is a bonus, of course.
 
Hm. The phone battery thing I've seen on other phones. My BB's done it a few times and so have the Coalettes'. I think it's a battery problem. Not that this is the case here.

Why are you persisting with headphones btw? In any situation where I might need my wits about me I wouldn't wear them. In other words whenever I'm outdoors.

Overhead whirring can be swifts especially, but it's the wrong time of year. Bats can whir a bit.

I get the thing with the bridge. I've approached features that have never normally bothered me and simply lost the confidence to carry on. I always heed those feelings, treating them as warnings. It might be nothing, infra-sound or 'regular fear' as it's dark and that can happen sometimes, but I take the view than some part of my brain has picked up on something, and it might be as simple as someone under the bridge waiting for you and some tiny movement, noise or change in air flow has alerted the limbic system.

Spooky though. Go another way for a bit and take a feck-off powerful LED torch and close one eye when you use it. That way you'll still have some night vision.
 
drbates said:
It literally sounded like a knobbly tyred mountain bike freewheeling very fast, but there was nothing to see, and was followed by a ust of wind in the trees.
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I asked a serious twitcher pal, maybe a tawny owl doing an 'ochirina' call. Probably has other names but might be worth googling for a soundbite. Also, what about a drone?
 
To keep this thread on the path of righteous minor strangeness, here's another oddity.

I've a small, powerful LED torch (an affordable AA-sized Chinese clone, with what's probably a 1watt diode). It's one of these knurled metal ones that actually make Maglights look inadequate.

It has been about my person for about 18 months, so, new, but headed for being old.

Until last weekend, it has never been in my living room, and has just existed in jacket pockets and bags, or the car....places you'd probably expect to find a need for a torch.

On Sunday, I took the torch into the living room with the intention of investigating a possible leak behind the washing machine, in the adjacent kitchen. Consequently, the torch was sitting on the coffee table, lodged under a fruit-bowl (oh, the domesticity of existence, when sketched-out as still life).

Then yesterday morning....I found the torch lying on the living room floor. Odd in itself, since nobody else in the house would've put it (or anything) on the floor. Especially not a potential trip/slip hazard, such as a cylindrical metal torch.

Very strange, you might think. But here's the even-stranger punchline. Sitting on the floor, beside the torch, was a small A6 folded piece of paper. I picked that up, not recognising it at all, unfolded it, and bingo....it's an instruction guide for the torch.

I've never seen it before in my life. My SO says they've never seen it either (nor did they know or care about the torch being there in the first place). Even if the instruction booklet had existed, when I bought the torch in the middle of last year, it would've been been put straight in the recycling bin.

Just for the avoidance of doubt, what I'm describing just now just as I experienced it is utterly impossible (but, it happened) so I am totally-stumped. I'm completely certain that nobody in the house could've done this (put the torch on the floor, and mysteriously-produced a user manual for it).

So...who knows how the hell that happened...

Maybe when I go downstairs tomorrow both the torch and the instruction book will have vanished from the mantlepiece...
 
Coal said:
Slight drift, but there's a Phillips LED bulb for Mini-Maglights which raises their game somewhat
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Many thanks, have just pressed the button to buy one, using your link.

Ironically (or, strangely, in a minor way) the weakest part of Mini Maglights is the bulb. Followed by the switches.

In fact, they're incredibly tough, but have just mediumly-ok insides. Armoured tanks driven by crystal birds...

(And this morning, both my non-Maglite torch, and the mystery instruction sheet, are still where I left them. Most illuminating...)
 
drbates said:
And when you check the battery....
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That's a suitably Twilight Zone possibility I hadn't considered.

Beyond that, if I find it works without any batteries in it at all, I may just have to jump back in the car and drive forever...

Shall check on my return tonight. May just've been a simple flaw in the matrix. We have to all make allowances.
 
Ermintrude said:
To keep this thread on the path of righteous minor strangeness, here's another oddity.

I've a small, powerful LED torch (an affordable AA-sized Chinese clone, with what's probably a 1watt diode). It's one of these knurled metal ones that actually make Maglights look inadequate.

It has been about my person for about 18 months, so, new, but headed for being old.

Until last weekend, it has never been in my living room, and has just existed in jacket pockets and bags, or the car....places you'd probably expect to find a need for a torch.

On Sunday, I took the torch into the living room with the intention of investigating a possible leak behind the washing machine, in the adjacent kitchen. Consequently, the torch was sitting on the coffee table, lodged under a fruit-bowl (oh, the domesticity of existence, when sketched-out as still life).

Then yesterday morning....I found the torch lying on the living room floor. Odd in itself, since nobody else in the house would've put it (or anything) on the floor. Especially not a potential trip/slip hazard, such as a cylindrical metal torch.

Very strange, you might think. But here's the even-stranger punchline. Sitting on the floor, beside the torch, was a small A6 folded piece of paper. I picked that up, not recognising it at all, unfolded it, and bingo....it's an instruction guide for the torch.

I've never seen it before in my life. My SO says they've never seen it either (nor did they know or care about the torch being there in the first place). Even if the instruction booklet had existed, when I bought the torch in the middle of last year, it would've been been put straight in the recycling bin.

Just for the avoidance of doubt, what I'm describing just now just as I experienced it is utterly impossible (but, it happened) so I am totally-stumped. I'm completely certain that nobody in the house could've done this (put the torch on the floor, and mysteriously-produced a user manual for it).

So...who knows how the hell that happened...

Maybe when I go downstairs tomorrow both the torch and the instruction book will have vanished from the mantlepiece...
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Your house is haunted by the ghost of a technical writer, who wanted to draw your attention to the correct use of the torch.
 
drbates said:
And when you check the battery you'll find that not only is it now a brand you've never heard of, but also that apparently has never existed...
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2016-11-29 22.32.15.jpg

Well, funny you should say that...:eek:

They're what?? I've no idea if these are Lidaldi batteries, or magically direct from Bejing...

Although.. my memory of having put in a pair of Duracells back in mid-2015 is bound to be false..:confused:
 
min_bannister said:
Oh I get the battery thing too. Weird isn't it?
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Yep. Never seen batteries like this ever before.

But in fairness, the levels of technodiversity seen amongst battery manufacturers now seems to know no bounds.

Back last century, everyone in the UK/RoI bought Ever Ready. Only rich photographers and government assassins bought Duracell.

And eventually we started to see Chloride batteries (the Liberal Party of portable power....a few dedicated supporters, but everyone knows that in practice they don't work) and the emergence of hugely-expensive cadmium rechargeables. And possibly Ray-o-Vac.

Oh, and that damn bunny drummer thing. Thank god it was buried at sea, along with Busby and Emu.

Now there are maybe a hundred different manufacturers (I exaggerate, but I've got an operating licence).

Batteries that look like Duracells. Ones confusingly marked 'JCB'. Bright yellow ones that look like sticks of TNT.

Massive silver slabs of batteries wrapped in clingfilm, sold by Maplin/Tandy/RadioShack, which are suggestive of canned lager.

It's an energetic over-diversification, an assault by batteries. I'm positive we shouldn't be negative about this, but it's currently a polarising issue.
 
I once had an affair with a Wiccan woman who was in a coven. One night on a full moon, I was asleep when she came in from work and woke me up in the dark and before I could say anything we were at it hot and heavy. The problem was that I started hallucinating that I was in two places at once, having sex with my friend and an unknown woman on the floor of what seemed like a flower shop or gift shop perhaps. It was to dark to tell. The next morning I asked her if one of the women in her coven owned or worked in a flower or gift shop. She refused to talk about her coven in this regard, so dropped it and her. To bad because she taught me a lot.
 
Elsupremo said:
I once had an affair with a Wiccan woman who was in a coven. One night on a full moon, I was asleep when she came in from work and woke me up in the dark and before I could say anything we were at it hot and heavy. The problem was that I started hallucinating that I was in two places at once, having sex with my friend and an unknown woman on the floor of what seemed like a flower shop or gift shop perhaps. It was to dark to tell. The next morning I asked her if one of the women in her coven owned or worked in a flower or gift shop. She refused to talk about her coven in this regard, so dropped it and her. To bad because she taught me a lot.
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Didn't you say that earlier on another thread?
 
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