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Wiped From The Face Of The Earth

Oh wow. If I'd been you, I would have been heartbroken! I've spent several days 'missing' dearly loved friends I've met only in dreams. The last instance was an enormous fluffy dog who appeared to me minuted before waking, and whom I was absolutely besotted with. Maybe I'm just a big softie!

Your experience reminds me of a couple of 'brain blips' I've had in the past. Directly after each, I've felt like I had 'slipped out of time and space'. They tend to last a fraction of a second, but seem to involve my brain being bombarded with a far longer timespan's worth of imagery and 'knowledge'.

One of these happened when I was sitting calmly at my desk, when I was suddenly aware that I was, or had been at some point, sitting in front of a stage. There was the impression of a cacophony of noise and movement, all the actors turning their heads to the 'audience' as the curtains were drawn open. I also 'saw' the actors wearing lavish 18th century theatrical clothing. While it was happening, it all seemed so very commonplace. "Oh, of course", my mind seemed to say. Only when it had passed did I find myself sitting very still, staring into space with a puzzled expression.

Hope you're feeling ok after your experience!
 
Could be a problem with the Corpus Callosum - the bunch of stuff that lets each side of the brain communicate. When it fails (for a variety of reasons) your brain can just 'make stuff up' to fill in any blanks in you "memory".

Might pay to get it checked out.
 
Perhaps our original poster was recalling a forgotten dream, as someone has already suggested? "It happened to me"!

In my twenties I once woke from a dream absolutely CONVINCED I had actually married someone in a registery office, a man I knew in reality, and had dated a few times. I lay there going over the details of the dream, they were so realistic. Difficult to put into words, but for the whole day I had a terrible uneasiness that somehow I had indeed married, and the dream was a recollection of the event.
It was all nonsense of course, but it was the waking anxiety that I found the most distressing.
 
Crookshank said:
spoke to my daughter, told her I was just going to see... at McDonalds - could't remember the persons name - looked at my phone expecting to know the number - only family numbers on there and a couple of friends.

Did you go along to McDonalds just out of interest? I'd have gone along just in case someone there remembered me. In that position where you would have been questioning reality then would you not question whether the meeting was real but the numbers vanishing from your phone and your failure in memory was the faulty version?
 
Crookshank said:
The thing about time travel I suppose I'm trying to say is, that if someone was able to travel in time and interact with people from the past they could alter the timeline kind of like - if you were to go back into the past and kill someone, that could change how the new future pans out... you gt me?

[...] but think about it, what would it be like if someone did alter the past, how would we experience it? I think most of us would carry on and not notice - and I think some of us would notice especially if we really loved the people who disappeared... you see?

I would think that if someone altered the past, all of our pasts would be altered. The lives we've lived now would be replaced by a different timeline. E.g., say someone from today went back to when I was 3 and killed a family member of mine. Well, I'd grow up with that family member dead. Someone killed them when I was 3. I wouldn't live with that family member until 2013 and then they'd suddenly disappear and everyone would suddenly forget them. The timeline between when I was 3 till now would be replaced by the alternate one created by the time traveler, I would think.

Beltania said:
One of these happened when I was sitting calmly at my desk, when I was suddenly aware that I was, or had been at some point, sitting in front of a stage. There was the impression of a cacophony of noise and movement, all the actors turning their heads to the 'audience' as the curtains were drawn open. I also 'saw' the actors wearing lavish 18th century theatrical clothing. While it was happening, it all seemed so very commonplace. "Oh, of course", my mind seemed to say. Only when it had passed did I find myself sitting very still, staring into space with a puzzled expression.

Wouldn't that be a waking dream? I sometimes have those. Sometimes they don't last as long as the action in them would have taken - much like normal dreams, I guess. I found that taking Benadryl at night tends to encourage that for me - and read later that it is a known side effect. I guess it disrupts your sleep in some way that affects your brain the next day.

So I'd ask both you and the OP - could anything have disrupted your sleep - not waking you up, but just preventing you from getting a proper sleep cycle? Sometimes medications, stress, alcohol, or other factors can do that to you. Then you might be prone to a waking dream, or dream-like elements while you're awake, the next day.
 
Reading through this thread makes me wonder if it could account for people who have thought they knew me but I had never met them. When I was younger, in my late teens, it happened several times where someone I had just met would look at me and say "I know we've met before." I always felt this was rather scary, like a symptom of mental instability where I would completely forget a person I had met and spoken with. One time it was almost comical, the Missus took me to a seminar dealing with Art Therapy, and a couple of people came over and said "Doctor (so and so) !! So good to see you here at this seminar." When I greeted them and spoke with them, they seemed slightly uncomfortable, but didn't say anything about mistaking me for someone who looked like me. Once I was waiting for the Missus outside a Chinese restaurant and an attractive woman walked right up to me and said "Well ! here you are, and you look great, but you you didn't wear your cowboy boots like you said you would." She thought I was her date for the evening !! I was completely flustered. Now, looking back I wish I had asked her a few questions.
 
Professor_Pretorius said:
When I was younger, in my late teens, it happened several times where someone I had just met would look at me and say "I know we've met before."

Was it always a person of the opposite sex?

Pickup line, usually employed by women. :)
 
Mythopoeika said:
Professor_Pretorius said:
When I was younger, in my late teens, it happened several times where someone I had just met would look at me and say "I know we've met before."

Was it always a person of the opposite sex?

Pickup line, usually employed by women. :)

No, I only wish that it had been !!! Quite the opposite, in fact. And it happened as recently as 2007 when I met a chap who thought we had met before.
I was just speculating that I have slipped, or the person asking had slipped from a universe next door.
(Had it been ladies saying that, I'd not be reporting the incident.)
 
Crookshank, you mention that you suddenly realized that you didn't have any of their numbers. Did you, previously, think that you did?

This is a fascinating story and I dislike seeing it buried back here on page 4 in IHTM, so may I gently suggest posting to Reddit's A Glitch In The Matrix thread?
 
Cochise said:
I think I put in the 'minor strangenesses' thread about my odd visit to the dentist where the receptionist and hygenist were entirely different to the normal ones, the appointment system was different, and when I queried it the receptionist said that it had always been the way it is now and she'd been there for years.

I've since found the appointment card for the appointments on the system they never had with the hygenist who was never there (!). A slight glitch in the matrix maybe? Or just a brush off from the new receptionist?

Missed this. This sounds fascinating which page is it on? Have you shown the "new" dentist the "old" appointment card?

How can you describe this as minor strangeness? You might have actual proof of a glitch in the Matrix.
 
The dentist was the same one, it was the receptionist that was different.

The cynical answer would simply be that the receptionist couldn't be arsed to explain what changes had been made, alas. Or possibly that there was something embarrassing about the departure of the previous personnel they didn't want to go in to. So its not really proof of anything just something slightly odd.
 
Cochise said:
The dentist was the same one, it was the receptionist that was different.

The cynical answer would simply be that the receptionist couldn't be arsed to explain what changes had been made, alas. Or possibly that there was something embarrassing about the departure of the previous personnel they didn't want to go in to. So its not really proof of anything just something slightly odd.

Go on though ask the receptionist!
 
The OP kinda reminds me of Philip K. Dick when he said he'd went to the bathroom in his own house one day and tried to switch on the light using a pull-cord. It was an instinctive, normal reaction, one he'd performed thousands of times.
Then he realised that room didn't have a pull-cord, it had a normal wall switch.
Freaked him out, like he'd fallen from one reality with a pull-cord into a different one with a wall switch.
Anyone that's ever read his books will have an inkling of how he felt, as he was so good at creating that same feeling in the reader.
 
There's a door where I work which seems to swap from 'push' to 'pull'.

I've used it at least twice a day for over three years and I still get it wrong sometimes. The thing is, you can tell that everyone else has the same issue....nobody ever just confidently strolls through it, there's always at least a pause.
 
CarlosTheDJ said:
There's a door where I work which seems to swap from 'push' to 'pull'.

I've used it at least twice a day for over three years and I still get it wrong sometimes. The thing is, you can tell that everyone else has the same issue....nobody ever just confidently strolls through it, there's always at least a pause.

I've encountered such doors. The one I most remember was at a rock club I used to go to at least twice a week.
 
PeteByrdie said:
CarlosTheDJ said:
There's a door where I work which seems to swap from 'push' to 'pull'.

I've used it at least twice a day for over three years and I still get it wrong sometimes. The thing is, you can tell that everyone else has the same issue....nobody ever just confidently strolls through it, there's always at least a pause.

I've encountered such doors. The one I most remember was at a rock club I used to go to at least twice a week.

I waas always flummoxed by a door with lift on it. Never managed to do that.
 
Missing lesson

I remember a strange thing happening to me at school. I came out of a lesson one day absolutely convinced there was another lesson straight after it. I remember walking down the stairs feeling dazed and confused as my friends talked of heading out to the yard and then felt positively panicky on seeing streams of students leaving the building and walking across the field. Why wasn't anybody in the school staying for the next lesson? It was, in fact, lunch time. After a few horrible minutes I just accepted it with relief and assumed I'd probably mixed up my days or something, but I've never experienced anything like it again.
 
Until I read this thread, I didn't realise that this had "Happened to me!" but I have a somewhat similar story...

I belong to a group of six or so friends, who by association, are connected to another group of friends of an equal number. We see each other at parties, but don't mix such a lot beyond the usual pleasantries. Even after meeting this other group on several occasions, my partner and our mutual friend didn't know their names terribly well.

At one of these parties we were told that "Ralph" would be joining us after work. It got late and the three of us (as we discussed after the event) wondered where the person we thought was Ralph was. Later in the evening someone addressed one of the chaps already there as "Ralph", much to our surprise! On the way home the three of us admitted that we hadn't realised that was Ralph and that we all felt there was someone missing, someone we had mistakenly assumed was Ralph at a previous gathering. So, who were we all waiting for?

We've been to numerous parties with these other people since, and even discussed our confusion with the larger group, but there is no other friend who is unaccounted for, no acquaintance who only appeared the once. There really wasn't anyone else it could have been, because the Ralph we imagined was an integral figure in the group, not a hanger-on, but a close friend of those present! I honestly remember seeing him pop up on social media and the like!

We've taken to calling this missing person "Other Ralph" and have been quite amused by the whole situation. Until today, that is! After reading this thread I realise that my feelings mirror the OP's quite closely! I feel confused and disoriented by the whole experience. After finding this thread I sent a text to my (luckily!) Fortean friend, who is at the center of the "Other Ralph" phenomena, and whilst he doesn't feel that it's anything paranormal, he admits that he has trouble thinking about or concentrating on Other Ralph and that described my experience exactly! It's like something I can't quite grasp, something intangible. I don't know. It really does feel like someone blinked out of existence. I feel like I knew what this person looked like, but that the memory's disappeared somehow! The oddest thing.

I realise this is easily explained away as social confusion amongst a group of people I didn't know particularly well (which I'm sure is the actual explanation). But for three of us all to have a vague awareness of Other Ralph strikes me as slightly odd, especially coupled with the slightly dizzying emotions that go along with it, after reading this thread!

Make of it what you will! Just thought I'd share as the case seemed somewhat similar! Other Ralph will live on forever in our hearts! :p
 
brilliant post! :D

*shivers at the thought that it could be any of us that flickers out*
 
Fascinating!
Do people wink in or out of existence, as in (a) a virtual reality, (b) constantly-changing timezones or alternate realities, (c) alien abduction & editing of everyone's memories or (d) other dodgy explanation?
Also...the nature of memory is very subjective and personal. Different people often have very different recollections of events, for example.
 
lone_concertina: There are actually a few Reddit posts in the larger "Glitch in the Matrix" thread that sound eerily similar to your account. You might wish to pop in on there and share your story.
 
Re: Missing lesson

Ilikepencils said:
I remember a strange thing happening to me at school. I came out of a lesson one day absolutely convinced there was another lesson straight after it. I remember walking down the stairs feeling dazed and confused as my friends talked of heading out to the yard and then felt positively panicky on seeing streams of students leaving the building and walking across the field. Why wasn't anybody in the school staying for the next lesson? It was, in fact, lunch time. After a few horrible minutes I just accepted it with relief and assumed I'd probably mixed up my days or something, but I've never experienced anything like it again.

I had a similar experience to this - it was the first time I used the phrase "David Lynch moment" to describe some bit of oddness that happened in the course of daily life...

It was when I was working at a shopping center and it was time for lunch break. I left the shop through the front door (like usual), turned right (like usual) and headed toward the food court, like I did every day. Then, suddenly, I was lost. It was bizarre, as if reality had shifted sideways for a moment and I was no longer sure of where I was or where I was going. It took a few minutes to reorient myself.

I don't think it was a seizure as I was conscious the whole time and it didn't last that long. But it was a strange enough experience that has stuck in my memory all this time (this was in the 90's, so it's been a while). yes, leave it to me to get lost on a simple route I'd taken a hundred times before. :p
 
I've mentioned this before, possibly on a thread about Pan ('panics' being confusion caused by Pan, or something) so I'll try to find it.

Anyway, I had a job involving house calls and one day, after doing the same route for weeks and months, I forgot where I was. In fact I forgot everything and had to pull up and root through my bag to find out where I should be, what I was doing and even more or less who I was. :shock:

Worked it out in the end and got on with the job. Had no ill-effects and it's never happened since.

I've put it down to a brain-fart of some kind.
 
Many years ago (15+ years), I went back to my home town in another country for a visit, as I do every few years. My husband accompanied me, as he sometimes does, as he has friends there, too. I was particularly anxious to visit a really great shop in the eastern part of the city as I recalled it had really fantastic clothing and objets d'art. When we got to my home town, however, and I'd started looking around at the old streets and admiring the new buildings that had gone up since I'd last visited, I realised that the fantastic shop I'd remembered had never actually existed. I didn't realise it until when I walked through the area where I "knew" the wonderful shop was, that the streets were nothing like the ones in my remembrance of the shop or the neighbourhood. I don't know whether I had a dream that was so real that it had become part of my memory (do such things exist?), or whether it was just a bizarre fantasy that somehow intruded on my life.

This sort of things has happened to me twice before, both times in my late
childhood. I still have trouble thinking of these "memories" as anything except real memories, but I know they cannot be true because they were so ridiculous and unrealistic.

Has anyone else experienced this sort of thing?
 
Poozler - very interesting story, that. Can you think back and determine at what point this memory evolved? That is, can you think of a time before you "knew" this shop was there and a point after which you "knew" it was? It would be interesting to figure that out, IMO

I haven't had that exact experience, though I have had the exact opposite (going into a shop that was a replica of one I'd dreamed about).
The closest was probably a false memory I once had, in which I clearly recall being on a bus, reading a specific article, by a specific author, in a specific magazine. I remember the author's photo, the information in the article and even the shop where I'd bought the magazine. For 17 years, I'd had no reason to doubt any of it. Then I discovered it was false - all of it but the bus! There's a false memory thread around here somewhere - I'll write down the details if it's ever bumped to the top again.
 
I think one gets dreams that insinuate themselves into the memory unless you guard against it. I often dream about our house in America, but it isn't our house exactly - it has extra rooms and things. There is nothing freaky about the dreams that I can recall, but I can recall getting the exact feeling of unease in the dreams that people have described above in waking life.

I feel I have had the exact experience of having gone back to find places which it transpires are not there (and never were) but I can't remember specific instances, and I think I am either remembering dreams which I didn't wholly remember while awake, or my memory is filling in blanks.

As it happens, I'm currently doing some contract work about 5 miles from the office I was working when I met my wife, and I've tried (not terribly hard) to find said office, but it doesn't seem to be there although the pub we used to go to (and which I remember as being next door) certainly is. However, I'm getting no strange vibes and I think my memory is simply screwed :). I'm down there again next week - maybe I'll go for a better look.
 
Has anyone else experienced this sort of thing?

Oddly enough that happened on my first ever visit to Amsterdam with a coffee shop I found, I'd picked quite a distinctive one in an alley not far from my hotel... tried several times to find it again without success.

The only other time I've lost a shop it was an east asianey clothes shop in Covent Garden that I happened upon by accident while exploring London after a meeting with work. Quite a few years later I found the explanation for that was because I'd actually lost all of Covent Garden :oops: and the time I'd found the shop I'd almost certainly come out of Leister Square tube station the wrong way without realising ie I'd been looking in totally the wrong direction.
 
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