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Talking To Someone Who's Not Really There

M

mr_macabre

Gone But Not Forgotten
(ACCOUNT RETIRED)
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Not sure if this will be allowed as it happened to a colleague of mine, not me. However the person in question is a very hard-nosed, no-nonsense businesswoman (let's call her Sarah) and I can't for the life of me think why she would make this up.

Also, the creepiest thing about this story is its everyday banality.

Okay so Sarah came home early from work one afternoon at about 2pm, made herself a cup of tea and settled in front of the telly. About half an hour later she heard a car pull into the driveway, then heard the sound of the garage opening and realised it must have been her husband returning early from work too. She heard the garage close again, then the familar noise of her husband coming through the door which led from the garage to the utility room, then on into the kitchen.

She called out: "How come you're home so early?" and the reply came back: "Oh I just decided to knock off a bit early today, I'm just making a cup of tea, do you want one?"

She replied that she already had one and went and joined him in the kitchen and they sat at the table and chatted for a few minutes, before she returned to the front room, looking forward to spending the afternoon curled up with hubby.

But, after about 15 minutes, her husband had still not joined her, so she called out to him. No reply. She got up and went to the kitchen. Empty. She looked in the garage, and was astonished to find that that too was empty: no husband or car.

This is where she started freaking, because there was no way her husband could have got the car back out of the garage without her hearing it. Then the really freaky thing happened: the phone went and when she answered it it was her husband telling her he'd be home late from work that night.

"But you were just here," she said, "I spoke to you in our kitchen."

He laughed and said that was impossible because he'd been at work all day and hadn't even had time to stop for a sandwich.

Weird eh? When Sarah told me this she swore blind that there was no way she'd dreamed it, because for a start there was no sense of nodding off/waking up. The most obvious answer is that she's making it up, but I'm inclined to believe her account because of the type of person she is, plus the fact the story is so banal in its detail until right at the end.

And it's not like she trots this story out at every opportunity, quite the opposite, she doesn't like talking about it at all and I'm one of only a handful of people she's ever told.

Love to hear your thoughts on this...
 
Oh, I love this, thanks for sharing.
When I read it, I remembered that we had a thread on something similar, you would find very interesting. It included quite similar stories, about wives seeing their husbands cars parked outside or hearing them come in. I don't remember if they actually sat down with them [which is the creepiest bit], but if a mod could remember what that thread was called, it would be great to revive it because this phenomenon is more widespread than thought and its one of my favourites.

:)
 
There are a few stories like this around. I'll try and find them for you.
 
The term to search on is "foregangers" or "fetch," but normally the percipiant hears someone comes in, sometimes sees him, but on investigation he's not there; then a little while later the same sequence is repeated when he really comes home. The sitting and talking + his not showing up constitutes two unusual features.

I'd get her a book on the subject, so she'll have a context in which to place it.
 
As I recall there is something in either norse or scandinavian folklore about this. They're sort of like doppelgangers, but not really, and there are many stories of experiencing this 'someone comes home' phenomenon - I think it is probably more common than expected, I myself have often had quite minor experiences of this sort. I certainly haven't sat and chatted with anyone that wasn't there though. As far as I know.
However it could of course be indicative of some kind of neurological disorder for the OP so a visit to the doc for a check might be warranted.
Or maybe it could be a visitor 'leaked' from an alternate reality?

Ah,,,,just found this in wikipedia which is what I was referring to;

The vardøger or vardøgr is a spirit predecessor, from Norwegian folklore. Stories typically include instances that are nearly déjà vu in substance, but in reverse, where a spirit with the subject's footsteps, voice, scent, or appearance and overall demeanor precedes them in a location or activity, resulting in witnesses believing they've seen or heard the actual person, before the person physically arrives. This bears a subtle difference from a doppelgänger, with a less sinister connotation. It has been likened to being a phantom double, or form of bilocation.

The word vardøger is a Norwegian term defined as "a premonitory sound or sight of a person before he arrives"
 
Hold down "Alt" with your left hand, type 132 on the number pad with your right.

Back in the day, if you had a typewriter with a fixed keyset (I'm not the only one that old, right?) or didn't have a multinational ball to insert in your electric typewriter, you represented the umlaut (that's the two little dots over the vowel) by typing an e after it, so "Doppelgaenger." This sort of kind of approximated the pronunciation. I don't know that the search engine would recognize that, though.
 
PeniG said:
Hold down "Alt" with your left hand, type 132 on the number pad with your right.
Click to expand...
ä 8) Yep, that works!

Trouble is, even if I write those instructions down, the next time I come to search for doppelganger I'll have forgotten all about the umlaut, or where I put the instructions, or what the thread was with the instructions on...

Sometimes, life's just too complicated! :(
 
mr_macabre said:
Also, the creepiest thing about this story is its everyday banality.
Click to expand...

Thank you for writing all this down.

Various forums here on Fortean have commented about the banality of unusual knowledge: for example, you know ahead that there's a pink-and-yellow polka dot envelope in your mailbox, but, instead of containing something you need to know, the envelope only contains advertising for a product you'll never use.

Don't know what the banailty is all about, but it is an interesting element in itself.

Anyway, again, thanks.
 
Many years ago, I was living in an old house in London which was part of a terrace. Each house had 3 flats - I rented the middle one in my house. I had just started a degree which was full of people 10 years younger than me, and at the same time my boyfriend had moved away for a job and I was permanently stressed, and terrified of being alone. I didn't know the people downstairs, but I knew the two girls upstairs very well.

One afternoon, I was lying on my bed reading -but definitely awake. I guess I must have registered the house door opening and closing downstairs, because otherwise I would really have freaked at the sound of footsteps. But I just thought, "Oh, that's X coming in from work", recognising her steps. But what did make me pay attention was how terribly worn out and depressed her footsteps sounded. They dragged themselves slowly and wearily up the stairs, past my door and on up the next flight of stairs to her flat. I don't recall the flat door upstairs opening and closing, but once again, I would have been very upset if the foot steps just disappeared. I just thought, "Gosh, I never knew X felt that bad about everything!" and went back to reading. And then of course ... not long after, I heard the house door open again, in X's usual lively, vigorous manner, and she came home really. Feeling bewildered that I had mistaken the other girl, Y, for X, I went upstairs for a chat. X immediately launched into a loud criticism of Y as a flatmate - it can be summarised by saying that she thought Y should cheer up and get a life. I felt very embarrassed because I thought Y was in her room, lying on her bed hearing all this. I made an excuse about going to the bathroom, and looked in on Y - but of course there was no one there - Y was still at work.

I'm not surprised your friend doesn't tell many people - I tried telling a few, but just got a blunt, "You were asleep and dreamed it!" I didn't tell X and Y because it was too disturbing. In fact, although she seemed the most buoyant and outgoing, X had a nervous breakdown a few years later. At the time, I thought maybe the house had a ghost which had copied X's footsteps, but now I wonder if it was a 'foreganger' because under the surface she was very tired and wanted to go home.

Anyway, I'm glad to hear it's (sort of) a common experience.
 
Sometimes, life's just too complicated! Sad
Click to expand...

I never remember either, so i usually just flip open Word or Open Office Writer (Word ripoff) and select insert>special character, might be called symbol in Word proper.

Then pick your character from the big table.

It's über easy. :D
 
Rynner, if you're using Windows, you could use the Character Map feature.
On Windows XP, you can open this with Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Character Map.
I'd say, to make it easier to find this, just drag the shortcut from the menu to your desktop.
Character Map allows you to browse for the character and then copy and paste.
 
rynner2 said:
Sometimes, life's just too complicated! :(
Click to expand...
As a linguist, I run into this a lot.* So my professional advice: just copy the character and paste it. Works every time, and you can always find the variation you need on Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Latin_letters

*) I’ve made a special keyboard layout where I can get the two most common variations on various letters with the AltGr and Shift+AltGr keys. But still ...
 
Thanks to Mytho and boss for the useful information.

I just tried a search on 'doppelganger' and found four threads.
I then tried 'doppelgänger' and got none!
Not even PM's newly merged thread. :shock:

Then I discovered he'd given the thread title as Doppleganger (and no umlaut either!) 8)

So, PM, still some work to be done in rationalising this business!

Perhaps doppelgangers are unaffected by the Mods' merging tools... :shock: (although that would, somehow, be consistent with their very nature...).
 
rynner2 said:
Thanks to Mytho and boss for the useful information.

I just tried a search on 'doppelganger' and found four threads.
I then tried 'doppelgänger' and got none!
Not even PM's newly merged thread. :shock:

Then I discovered he'd given the thread title as Doppleganger (and no umlaut either!) 8)

So, PM, still some work to be done in rationalising this business!

Perhaps doppelgangers are unaffected by the Mods' merging tools... :shock: (although that would, somehow, be consistent with their very nature...).
Click to expand...
It's one of the original Thread titles.
 
I too have never known how to perform the "ä" so thanks.

As for the original thread, the obvious sceptical reaction is to suggest she drifted off and dreamt the encounter with her husband. It would be interesting to speak directly to the person and ask a few questions like;
1) Was there any evidence of the husbands visit....tea cups, boiled kettle, un/locked doors? The person must have looked as it would be the first natural reaction in such a situation...other than running down the road screaming!
2) Does the person have any history of similar things? Hallucinations etc.

The reason I am tempted to think this whole subject is a trick of the mind is because I have experienced it myself about 5 or 6 times. Mostly this has been the usual "waking up, cleaning teeth, shaving, start putting on clothes only to realise you are lying in bed and have only just woken up." HOWEVER, it has also happened once whilst I fell asleep in front of the TV. On this occiasion I had a parcel arrive, the postman knocked on the door as it wouldn't fit through the letter box, handed it to me etc etc. LAter I was cooking dinner and my wife asked if her ebay item had been delivered, I confirmed that something had arrived with her name on it...but couldn't find it. It was only then, about 7 hours after the incident did I realise that part of my day had been a dream.
 
I have very occasionally suffered aural hallucinations for a few years now and they can seem very real at the time. I've never had a simultaneous visual hallucination (I've only ever experienced anything like that once, when I was in bed with a high fever) but I imagine that it could result the sort of weird experience outlined in the original post.

Incidentally, I went to the doctor - filled with trepidation incase he had me immediately sectioned - when I first started hearing things. He told me such hallucinations are fairly common and not to worry about them unless they start happening regularly. So I don't.
 
Up the garden path

I had this experience three times in 2002. I was at the kitchen sink, washing up when I caught a glimpse of my son coming up the garden path towards the sliding double doors of the lounge. I went to the lounge to greet him........nobody there. Perplexed, I went back to washing up and about 5 minutes later, he did indeed come home.

Some weeks later, again in the kitchen, I saw my husband with two white shopping bags coming up the path. I rushed to the lounge doors to open them for him as he had his hands full. This time I was really distressed to find he was not there. Again, he came home for real within the hour, carrying two bags.

The most unsettling was the last event. I was expecting a visit from my stepson and was in the kitchen preparing tea for him. I caught a fleeting glimpse of him alongside a figure dressed entirely in black, coming up the garden path! Nobody reached the house, but very shortly afterwards he arrived with a choreographer friend of his, dramatically dressed all in black. I had never met the man before.

The length of path visible from the window was just a few paces long, so each 'vision' was only of a few seconds duration.

I have risked repeating this story a few times, and have always been met with sympathetic disbelief. The usual explanation is that I had something in the corner of my eye, or it was a reflection off my glasses that my brain misinterpreted.
 
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