I booked a hotel room and was appalled to open the bathroom door and find 4 crickets hopping about. I shut the door and came back about 2 minutes later and the little guys had totally vanished. There are no cracks or holes anywhere so it seemed they held a quick impromptu meeting and took the party elsewhere via the shower drain.
Now here's where it gets strange. I was lucky enough that my empty water bottle fit perfectly snug over the drain (snug enough where it stops the water from draining) and I figured it'll close off their little highway. So the next day, the drain was plugged and I noticed one just next to the shower curtain. For a millisecond the curtain came between me and the cricket and then it was suddenly gone. Now the bathroom is over sized and mostly tiled in white with some light browns. While it only takes 5 seconds to find a large black cricket in a white room, I spent the next 5 minutes baffled. It wasn't on the shower curtain, my towel, nor on me; it was simply gone.
Not disputing your observations especially as it occured in a pristine environment but I had been thinking of posting this little bit of minor strangeness and it sort of fits in. However I'm not meaning to cast aspersions on your experience.
My silly bit of minor strangeness:-
Came down the stairs glanced into the sitting room and saw my son on the settee. Carried on towards the dining room and heard washing up being done in the kitchen beyond and that had to be my son as there were only us two (and the dog) in the house!!
Yikes !!!!!!!
I was
terrified reality had suddenly shifted, if son was in the sitting room
and in the kitchen there must be two of him and what would happen if son in sitting room came through and met son in kitchen ... which would be the 'real' one?
This was way too scarey to contemplate and all sorts of quantum reality stuff went through my head but before concluding that there had to be a simpler explaination I went down the route of wondering if it was the dog moving his food bowl round but no, for various reasons that couldn't be it! A ghost? mmm. By then I had bravely (ha ha yes I was that spooked lol) and it was indeed my son so who the hell was in the sitting room? Nervously I went back up the hall and peeped in.
Fekin eejit ... my brain and eyes and yes my
belief that he would be there had made a whole son out of a patchwork throw that had slipped so as a wide blue jeans coloured border was vertical from seat to floor. duh!
So why didn't I think the obvious first? The image of my son in the sitting room had been so complete is why. An image constructed with a minimum of visual clues and based on what I expected to be there not what actually was.
So it actually turned out to be not strange at all but was a personal illustration of how easily our brains can be deceived. It also illustrated to me how much our
beliefs can override our observations and other evidence. I dont think it hurts from time to time to do a spring clean of our beliefs ... what are they based on how did we come by them? One of the reasons I so enjoy this forum is that seems to be exactly what is happening here.