- Joined
- May 30, 2005
- Messages
- 19
In 1989, soon after I’d graduated, circumstances forced me back home to live with my parents. I was earning money from a sequence of boring temporary jobs, and it was not the happiest time of my life.
One night as I lay in bed, I couldn’t sleep. Each time I closed my eyes and had almost drifted off there’d be some slight noise from inside my bedroom or from the landing: a slight creak, as the staircase settled; or a quiet shuffle as some object or piece of furniture in my room contracted in the cool of evening.
None of these sounds convinced me it had a cause beyond the ordinary – until they persisted, eventually snapping me back into wakefulness from the threshold of sleep so frequently, and with such accuracy, that I started to sense some kind of malevolent presence in the room. It began to feel as if there was an invisible being nearby, determined to prevent me from getting any rest.
I turned over onto my back, sighed, and for the umpteenth time that night tried to convince myself this was nonsense. I let my eyes wander randomly about the semi-darkened room, and they happened to settle on the light bulb hanging from the ceiling-lamp.
That was when something strange happened. No sooner had I looked at the bulb, suddenly it dropped from the lamp onto the carpet.
I’d never seen this happen to a light bulb before – and have never seen it since. It was an ordinary 100 watt ‘bayonet’ bulb, but had suddenly slipped from its fixture onto the floor. I was shocked, and more than a little scared, because the sense of a malevolent presence had now intensified. It felt as if, by affecting the very object I’d been looking at, the presence was telling me: ‘Yes. I am here. And I can do whatever I like.’
More astonishment followed when I got out of bed and examined the bulb, because I discovered it wasn’t the whole bulb – as I’d supposed – which had fallen, but only its glass casing. The filament and base were still secure in the ceiling socket.
I’d always supposed there was a vacuum inside a light bulb. In which case, wouldn’t the casing have shattered if it was breached? Examining the glass, it looked as if it’d been cut around its circumference, a few millimetres above the base. The cut was a fairly clean line, but not completely so.
I went to the light switch and turned it on. The bulb’s exposed filament had survived the removal of the glass and burnt brightly for a second before it oxidised and died.
There were no more dramatic incidents that night. The sense of malevolence subsided afterwards, although I was still fairly scared. At last, eventually, sleep came.
I have no explanation for the self-circumcising bulb, except coincidence. Perhaps this is something that sometimes happens to light bulbs, and it was just coincidence that it occurred as I happened to be watching. But I was wondering if anyone has had a similar experience of glass spontaneously detaching from a bulb without shattering – just so I can completely rule out the ‘malevolent presence’ and sleep more soundly at night!
Duncan.
One night as I lay in bed, I couldn’t sleep. Each time I closed my eyes and had almost drifted off there’d be some slight noise from inside my bedroom or from the landing: a slight creak, as the staircase settled; or a quiet shuffle as some object or piece of furniture in my room contracted in the cool of evening.
None of these sounds convinced me it had a cause beyond the ordinary – until they persisted, eventually snapping me back into wakefulness from the threshold of sleep so frequently, and with such accuracy, that I started to sense some kind of malevolent presence in the room. It began to feel as if there was an invisible being nearby, determined to prevent me from getting any rest.
I turned over onto my back, sighed, and for the umpteenth time that night tried to convince myself this was nonsense. I let my eyes wander randomly about the semi-darkened room, and they happened to settle on the light bulb hanging from the ceiling-lamp.
That was when something strange happened. No sooner had I looked at the bulb, suddenly it dropped from the lamp onto the carpet.
I’d never seen this happen to a light bulb before – and have never seen it since. It was an ordinary 100 watt ‘bayonet’ bulb, but had suddenly slipped from its fixture onto the floor. I was shocked, and more than a little scared, because the sense of a malevolent presence had now intensified. It felt as if, by affecting the very object I’d been looking at, the presence was telling me: ‘Yes. I am here. And I can do whatever I like.’
More astonishment followed when I got out of bed and examined the bulb, because I discovered it wasn’t the whole bulb – as I’d supposed – which had fallen, but only its glass casing. The filament and base were still secure in the ceiling socket.
I’d always supposed there was a vacuum inside a light bulb. In which case, wouldn’t the casing have shattered if it was breached? Examining the glass, it looked as if it’d been cut around its circumference, a few millimetres above the base. The cut was a fairly clean line, but not completely so.
I went to the light switch and turned it on. The bulb’s exposed filament had survived the removal of the glass and burnt brightly for a second before it oxidised and died.
There were no more dramatic incidents that night. The sense of malevolence subsided afterwards, although I was still fairly scared. At last, eventually, sleep came.
I have no explanation for the self-circumcising bulb, except coincidence. Perhaps this is something that sometimes happens to light bulbs, and it was just coincidence that it occurred as I happened to be watching. But I was wondering if anyone has had a similar experience of glass spontaneously detaching from a bulb without shattering – just so I can completely rule out the ‘malevolent presence’ and sleep more soundly at night!
Duncan.
