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Slipping Through Dimensions

I've never expereinced anything close to a shift like those recounted here, but I wonder, and I a character in other people's shifts? I have a face-shaped face, nothing too unusual, nothing too generic.

But I have repeatedly , over the years, been stopped by people on the street, in the market, at fairs and festivals: "Do I know you?! Are you related to so-and-so? Are you sure we don't know each other?!" They sometime are very insistent. Once or twice, fine it can happen to anyone. But this has gone on my whole life. Wearying after the tenth or eleventh time.

Not once has any of them seemed even slightly familiar.
 
a bit OT

Fallen Angel said:
I've never expereinced anything close to a shift like those recounted here, but I wonder, and I a character in other people's shifts? I have a face-shaped face, nothing too unusual, nothing too generic.

But I have repeatedly , over the years, been stopped by people on the street, in the market, at fairs and festivals: "Do I know you?! Are you related to so-and-so? Are you sure we don't know each other?!" They sometime are very insistent. Once or twice, fine it can happen to anyone. But this has gone on my whole life. Wearying after the tenth or eleventh time.

Not once has any of them seemed even slightly familiar.
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Quite often, young children or older folk will call me "Chris" (not even close to my name!) Even if I know them, or if someone else corrects them, they insist on calling me Chris.
Makes me wonder who they are REALLY seeing! ;)
TVgeek
 
Even if I know them, or if someone else corrects them, they insist on calling me Chris.
Makes me wonder who they are REALLY seeing!
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Just hope it's not that cheery, funboy, Chris Evans.
 
A tv geek?

incidentally, a year or two below me in my school there used to be a girl who looked EXACTLY like me. People used to mistake me for her and make "jokes" etc etc. At one point a friend of her mothers (i think) said hello to me in the street, thinking i was her... is it because i is effeminate?
 
(I couldn't seem to keep up with the thread, so I'm jumping ahead.)

I suffer from one of those 'brain glitches' that have been mentioned. I 'black out' but continue to
function--sometimes perfectly, sometimes a bit oddly. I've been known to order things I neither want, nor have any use for, from catalogs; begin to wash the dinner dishes, only to find them the next morning neatly stacked in the drainer, but unwashed. You get the picture. (Yes, I'm receiving treatment from a neurologist!) Anyway, my sense of 'reality' is subject to change without notice, and I've become accustomed to that over the years. Nothing much surprises me anymore.

The worst experiences, though, are the very vivid, realistic dreams I have. Sometimes I have to call a friend in the middle of the night to find out whether whatever catastrophe I think has happened is true or was just a dream.

I'm not at all familiar with this 'slipping between dimensions' or 'realities'. Do my experiences fit with any of that, or is it more likely just my 'brain glitch' (which they can't find any cause for, btw)?

:confused:
 
The "glitches" I experience are similar to what Sally seems to experience. For example, I'll have a recollection of a conversation with someone, but then I can't for the life me figure out whether I really had that conversation, whether I made it up in my mind, or whether I dreamed it. It's kind of like when you're looking for something and you try to imagine where you might have left it by envisioning the location...err....or am I the only person who does this?? (Still never find what I'm looking for, btw :p )
Where was I?? Oh! It's not that I have no memory of doing things, cos I do. What I don't have is surety that what I rememer really happened, or whether it's a product of my mind, or a dream, an incorrect remembering, or...well....slipping around dimensions. The very big problem is that some of my memories of things have equal voracity and lucidity....kind of like what normal memories are like without the multiplicity. Damn...I get the feeling I'm not making myself 100% clear here. Uhh....
Ok...example.... I'll remember having a conversation with someone. The REASON I'll not know whether the conversation was real or not is because I also have memories of doing or saying other things at the same time. And I don't know whether ALL of it is real, or none of it, or 1 of it. Don't get me wrong, this doesn't happen ALL the time....just now and again.
I think I'll shut up now.
 
Re: Unsettling

FraterLibre said:
Are you aware of any trauma that might have happened to you as a child? Even a severe illness or surgical procedure or anything like an accident or even, forgive the suggestion, abuse?
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Nope, I never went in hospital in my life. My brother, on the other hand, spent most of his childhood there. He also maintains that he was beaten by my Dad, although neither my Mom nor myself remember that.
I've never been diagnosed with anything, apart from a mild depressive episode when I was 18. That said, my Mom, who's a shrink, says my brother and I both have schizophrenic tendencies.

My episodes are more like Fayaad's than Wildlife's. I never black out, I just feel as if events are 'unreal'. It's more irritating than anything else, as I can't take anything I remember at face value.
 
My only experiences like this

For me, I've only had two really weird things occur that seemed like it could be dimensional shift, and they are alarmingly average things, nothing earth shattering.

1) I thought there was a year (it was the year that Mickey Rooney made some lousy Christmas tv movie abut a dead man who is given a few more days of life to show his grandson the "Meaning of Christmas"). My memory is that Mickey died that year about two weeks after the film was broadcast, and I remember retrospectives about his life and the irony of his last film coming out at the time of his death. Then, lo and behold, he continued to live, and it was really jarring - I didn't realize it for a few years (Mickey not keeping a high Hollywood profile) and when I did, I couldn't believe it.

2) Back in the late 80's, the old Night Stalker tv show was played latenight as repeats. I was taping them all, but one of them (The Spanish Moss Murders) I fell asleep for a minute and missed restarting the tape after a lenthy commercial break, missing about 3 minutes of the show. I felt horrible about it, and the family all remembered at the time that it was that episode that I botched.
But then, when I got to rewatching them recently, I noticed that Spanish Moss Murders was complete and uncut!!! How could my family history & my memory both went wrong?
 
Doom's Loom

Sally - If your mother's a shrink you're probably doomed anyway, eh? At least you recognize the feeling and can be annoyed by it, which is a step in the right direction.

R.I.N.G. - Micky Rooney may well have died a few times, just so his ego could bask in the retrospectives and eulogies.

As for the NIGHT STALKER episode -- great show, by the way, why not bring it back on cable to make up for X-FILES having bloated, decayed, and cancelled? -- sometimes the Time Lords are kind, eh?
 
I've been subscribed to this thread for a while, and I keep seeing stuff that reminds me of a book I read, House of Sleep by Jonathan Coe. It has a character with Narcolepsy, who experiences many of the things people mentioned in this thread (most recent example: Wildlife).

So that frater doesn't accuse me of lapse researching, here's a website about it:
http://www.narcolepsy.com/

Basically in the book the girl doesn't know if things actually happened or if they were part of a dream. Also the dream version of things replaces the actual version in her reality. Scary disorder.

pinkle
 
Nods & Winks

Pinkle - I don't accuse, I merely mention. LOL

As for narcolepsy, it may be more prevalent, on a lower scale of intensity, than we realize. Sleep researchers have recently discovered micro-sleep patterns, whereby people who are doing repetitive tasks, such as driving, especially at night, will actually nod off and be asleep, but only for fractions of a second at one time.

Cumulatively, these can lead to real sleep and accidents, of course.

However, I must wonder what the effect of these micro-nods might be to those of us walking around doing our daily string of tasks. Example: Might we not have odd experiences, just as Pinklefish suggests? And would we necessarily know if they're real or not?

If we don't even know we've been asleep for a few fractions of a second, then how can we be expected to know we've just dreamed that shadow being, or the wildlife, or the tree that wasn't there, et cetera?

Narcolepsy might end up explaining a great many experiences we might otherwise be forced to categorize as paranormal or supernatural.

Proving this, however, would require years of intensive, detailed research, and who's likely to fund that?

Pharmaceutical companies might.
 
That's a damn good point Frater, it could explain all sorts of weirdness. I have fallen asleep a couple of times whilst actually doing things and have carried on doing them mechanically. I've known I've been asleep when someone wakes me up though.
I hope to god I never do it while driving
 
Probably Have

Beak - Sadly, you probably have. I believe all of us probably have, for fractions of a second at least. Without really noticing.

Some call it "spacing" or "zoning" out. Others may never notice, if no one's there with them. I've noticed some folks daydream at stoplights, or, if one is conversing with them, and they're doing something else, often they'll pause, have a blank expression, a kind of mental lull -- as if shifting gears -- before answering.

Could be we set the bulk of our attention elsewhere as we do repetetive taks, and end up dozing without realizing.

When writing fiction, I often lose all sense of my surroundings, yet continue selecting words, crafting sentences and paragraphs, etc.
 
I seem to recall that when we drive, we are sort of on mental autopilot most of the time, and that this is actually A Good Thing. Our reactions are a bit quicker than they would be if we stopped to think about it.
I remember all these ridiculous snippets of information, but never where I got them from. Could have been from the Lancet, or the back of a Cornflake box. ;)
 
Without intending any diversion into brain=computer debate there are some similar mechanisms involved and so a limited analogy might be useful.My knowledge of brain/mind/memory and the like is reasonable considering it's merely an interest but I'm still a hobbyist not an expert.Apparently though, if Microsoft and my clients can be believed I can offer info on computers with a degree of authority. I hope its of interest.
The clock is always running and with each tick an event occurs, no matter what. Even if there's nothing to do or even if the explicit instruction is to no nothing, there is always something that gets done- which is to monitor any change in that instruction. Tell it to be idle for 10 cycles and it can't - it stubbornly works at counting them. The instructions to do stuff come from various sources, which are cycled round to check for new input. These input points are not equally important but prioritised. audio and vision data is dealt with at the brain at the same rate, but due to the different frequency ranges our ears and eyes accept data at different rates. Consequently the eyes sends all its stuff, the ears, being slower sends what its got, and the scan for input goes round. By the time the ears are done the eyes might have been asked for input 5 more times. So, we end up looking out of the window. This fact, commonly taught to speakers, teachers, presenters etc, is why pointers, slides, arm-waving and so on, is used to keep attention.
But, ints not all input. There are background tasks, and often these are fitted in as and when, Sleeping, for example, boredom, or a quiet road at night stopped at red, especially lacking sleep since by then some dream-time tasks are overdue.
These tasks will be automatically attended so long as no other higher priority task is required and we cant' prevent it. We can delay it though, by introducing something that must be done first, such as listen to the radio etc.
My point is that having no stimulus present is not the same as disregard for simulus present.
Or, daydreaming at a stop light is not minor-narcolepsy. One is boredom and the other an affliction.

Although if you are the person in the lime green uno in front of me last night, you really should get to a doctor, cos there's something seriously wrong with you.
 
Will whoever is behind the mikeymichael thing please make themselves known. I'm going out of my mind here!
I read a short story years ago in Omni magazine (is that still going? It took all my pocketmoney), written by a computer, and he just reminds me of it so much.
 
No, I don't think I am a back-issue of Omni or any other magazine, if that's what you refer to.
On the other hand you might be confusing me with my nephew who does indeed resemble your pocket money.
I'm not a story am I? That would be silly.
I can't be the computer because I have the ability to write stories.

No hang on you might be right after all.
A computer can't really write stories. For a second there I imagined they could and I apologize for that stupidity.

I am that computer. And God could I do with a defrag.
 
From 8pm till now (nearly 9pm) I have experienced at least 2 to 2.5 hours.
I thought the clock had stopped, but I noticed it was only 8.40pm about an hour and half after I got in (8pm).

The last ten minutes have been more like thirty minutes.

Something very strange is going on here... hmmm

pinkle "it smelt ok" fish
 
Hello! Perhaps someone has had a similar incident to me....let me know! (Similar incidents have happened to me over the years)
I was on a bus going to visit my friend who was going to pick me up at the bus depot. I was on the bus and as we were about to stop at the bus depot we drove by a convenience store. I saw my friend inside the store at the till, like she was buying something. She was wearing her trenchcoat that she often wore at the time. She was very distinctive looking in appearance, therefore I knew it was her, and could not be mistaken for anyone else. I thought to myself at the time that I had hoped she would be at the bus to pick me up, if she had forgotten to come get me. About 30 sec. later we pulled up at the bus station and as I got off the bus, there she was waiting for me! And she couldn't have walked from the store to the bus in a matter of seconds, since the station was at least a few blocks away. I asked her - was she at the convenience store just now, as I saw her inside at the till buying something? She replied she hadn't been at the store just now, since she had been waiting for me at the station. I said she was wearing her trenchcoat when I saw her just now. She said, she had however, been to the store the night before and had been wearing the coat, but had not worn it when I met her. Was I seeing something from the night before?? In the present time?? Any one with similar stories out there?? Please get back to me.....
 
I just read that post and had the oddest feeling that it should have been green, of all things, which seemed uncannily like the sort of bizarre incident described on these pages.

Imagine my relief, then, when I found it was just a double post!

Phew.
 
Taking the idea of these 'shifts' into a wider fortean sphere, discounting any sort of psycosis, and stating that we do and can cross realities occassionally. Perhaps these shifts are responsible for nearly all fortean phenomona.

An aeroplane flying at 30,000 feet. The pilot looks to his left and spots another craft which shouldn't be there. He radios the contol tower and they have nothing on radar. The UFO then dissappears just as quick as it had appeared.
The pilot logs it and later on, when talking to other pilots back at the airport he is told that another man experienced a similar event in the same location a week previously. Because two sober pilots spotted the same thing at different times in the same place it leads the pilots to call that area of air 'haunted' and the rumours begin.

What actually happened was that one plane 'crossed the reality' of the other and both pilots saw each other, briefly, before returning to their own reality.

This idea can be extented to almost any paranormal phenomona, SHC, someone momentarily slips, for the briefest microsecond, into a reality where someone is holding a lit candle and the clothes catch fire. It doesn't necessarily have to happen to the whole body, the merest piece of the flame could cross the realities, the effect would be the same.

I realise the absurdity of this idea and I would be very dissappointed in the humour of the creator if things could be explained by this.
 
Wow, this is a great thread.

I find myself waking up with the feeling that 'something' has happened... that feeling you have when your reality has been comprimised by a death, or other life-changing event... and then am reluctant to accept that all is well and good. Nothings happened? Oh.. Ok then. Are you sure? :?

Feels like a weight on my shoulders sometimes.
 
I was watching a science programe recently that theorised people in the future will be able to perfectly simulate a persons life within a computer, like the computer game sims. They said that the environment would be indistinguishable from our own lives. One scientisit went that one step further and said that the technology may be so easily available that every university in the world would be able to have such a computer and they would be able to simulate hundreds if not thousands of lives. The question he finally posed was that there may be a point where there may be so many simulations it would be impossible to tell wether you were in one now. The realy depressing side of this is that you may be in a simulation created by another simulation.
I suppose the up side is that you dont have to worry about simulations, you have to get on with your life. Philosophy has its place, when youve got nothing better to do.
 
Does Reality Have "Scalloped" Edges

Where different realities join together, might there be "scalloped" edges?

If so we may pass back and forth from Reality A to Reality B many times in our lives and possibly on a daily basis.

What's that? Did I forget to take my psych meds today? Yes, you're right, how ever did you know. I'll go do it right now.
 
The question he finally posed was that there may be a point where there may be so many simulations it would be impossible to tell wether you were in one now. The realy depressing side of this is that you may be in a simulation created by another simulation.
Click to expand...

This is not that new an idea. Versions are explored in The Matrix, eXistenz and more humorously in Red Dwarf's 'Better Than Life' game.

I have come across it in philosophy too but we'll need a real philosopher to explain it for us. ;)
 
...and don't forget Dark City.

Surely living in a simulation is really no different from living in a Universe created by a God? In both cases you're living in a custom-built world in which you serve an integral purpose. Both scenarios offer the hope that you might somehow petition the 'owner' of the universe you inhabit in order to improve your lot. And both offer the possibility that the 'owner' might -for whatever reason - temporarily suspend the normal rules of the Universe or, for that matter, change them entirely.

In essence, isn't it really just a magical worldview wearing scientific trappings?
 
I supose another depressing part of talking about simulated realities is that the matrix films always gets mentioned. i truly love the films ,they had many enjoyable moments of people kicking the crap out of each other, but it grates on my nerves how it is always mentioned as if it was the film that came up with idea.

The last post also made me think that most people, including myself, have an aversion to the idea that we are buried in loads of simulations and that we want to belong to the true reality. Perhaps we have it better off than the guys who are slaving away making the thousands of simulations work.
 
Re: Does Reality Have "Scalloped" Edges

OldTimeRadio said:
Where different realities join together, might there be "scalloped" edges?

If so we may pass back and forth from Reality A to Reality B many times in our lives and possibly on a daily basis.

What's that? Did I forget to take my psych meds today? Yes, you're right, how ever did you know. I'll go do it right now.
Click to expand...

Theoretically parallel universes are closed systems (they'd have to be as they might work on different laws of physics. Also connecting between them would probably violate a lot of the laws of physics especially the conservation of energy ones).

That said soe of the weird phenomena at places like Skinwalker Ranch might be best explained by something like this - in particular I'm thinking of the strange events that would appear for a week or two and then disappear again - for example, they reported odd flocks of bright red birds.

-------
I'm not sure how you'd test this - I came up with soem ideas for the inter-dimensional blanket but I'm not sure how that panned out:

www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=25783

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Its a tricky one as our memories are less reliable than we think theya re so can you ever be 100% sure?
 
There's also all those cases in which UFO detritus, "angel hair," "star jelly" (pwdre ser) and so on have been carefully collected and "preserved" in sealed glass Mason jars, only to utterly vanish minutes or hours later. My supposition is that when such substances are seen and collected the experiencers/observers are briefly in the substances' reality.

I suspect that the "physics" of our reality and that of the next one on over aren't going to be very different - just enough to be interesting and create "paranormal" events.
 
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