Have you ever had a moment that you felt wasn't "real?" A strange deja vu moment or something that made you feel the world wasn't quite right? If you've ever thought we're plugged into the Matrix, maybe you shouldn't read these stories. It might freak you out to learn about the experiences of these people--some of which just can't be explained by natural law. Read on to learn about their glitches in the matrix.
And Just Like That…It Was Gone
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“I stopped at the gas station on my way to work one morning. I took out my debit card and brought my car keys with me and left everything else in the car. I paid for my stuff and threw my debit card in the metal cup I have in my car, and literally half a second later I looked down and my card is gone. I pulled apart everything trying to look for it and couldn’t find it. I go to work and go home to find it sitting on my desk. I double checked my bank account to make sure it was the card I used and it was. To this day, I still have no idea what happened.
There was no carbon monoxide leak, we have a monitor in our house and that was the first thing I thought to check. I didn’t pull up to a pump just the normal parking in front of the gas station and I was there maybe seven minutes in total. And I’ve had no concussions in my life ever. The card just disappeared from my car and reappeared on my desk, like it was nothing.”
He Saw “Pure Evil”
“I was driving home from work one morning and was waiting to turn right at a stop sign on a somewhat rural road. A number of cars were turning left onto the road I was on. As the last one passed, a blue minivan, I locked eyes with the driver. I am 100% convinced that I either saw a demon or some physical manifestation of pure evil. The minute I noticed him, the hair on my neck stood up and I felt physically sick.
From what I remember, he had no deformities or anything explainable but something still felt so…off and terrifying about him. It was like looking at something ALMOST human. I did make eye contact, only for maybe a second, but that was all I needed to feel the way I did. This was probably two years ago now and I’ve never forgotten that otherwise boring ride home.”
Doppelgangers Galore
“This happened to people I know, not to me directly. A woman who works with my mum was out doing her grocery shopping one night and ran into ‘me’ at the supermarket. She told my mum about the encounter the next day and asked why I didn’t recognize her as we saw each other once every few weeks when I’d go and help with any heavy lifting at their store. My mum confirmed that it couldn’t have been me, as I was at home. The woman also mentioned feeling oddly nauseous during the interaction. I was about 16 or 17 at the time.
Another woman I know said she didn’t know I walked through the park near her home after work. Dumbfounded by her observation, I listened as she explained that she’d seen me every so often after work, walking briskly through a large park (which I do know of but have only driven past) as if I was exercising. She said I walked close by her the previous evening and she was going to speed up to catch up with me and say hello but as she started to, she began to feel ill so she slowed down and then sat on a bench for a few minutes. By then, she’d lost sight of me. This happened about three years ago and both occurrences were miles apart.
The next occurrence happened when I was 20. I was living on campus on the ground floor of a three-story building. There were only 36 people in the building so I knew everyone by sight at least when this happened. A new guy moved into the third floor. We’d exchanged pleasantries and I knew his name and what floor he lived on but not much else. I was coming out the front door one morning and he was coming down the stairs. He said, ‘Oh I just saw your sister going up the stairs!’ I asked him what he meant and he said, ‘Your sister, she’s here all the time. She wears her hair the same as you.’ I used to change my hair a lot. At the time it was midway down my back and fire truck red. There was nobody on campus with hair like mine. I noped out and went back inside.
I think about it a lot, to be honest. I have been to the park a few times since my friend (and co-worker) told me the story. I’ve also drilled them for more information. The way she described seeing ‘me’ was creepy as heck. I’d love to see this other ‘me’ but on the other hand, I’d also hate it.”
The Mysterious Case Of The Lost Phone
“One day I visited my father for the weekend. At night, I put my phone on the charger next to my bed and went to sleep. The morning after, the phone is gone. Like, literally gone. I spent the rest of the weekend searching for it, inside every pot, box, drawer or small tea locker, I searched through my old man’s ties and underwear looking for it. I looked in every nook and cranny in the stupid 50 square meter apartment and found NOTHING. I tried calling it multiple times from his phone, but of course, my battery had died during the night.
I had to buy a new phone. About 10 months go by and I visited my father a couple more times. Last week, I took my wife with me. It was raining and we got soaked. She went to change in the small guest room and thought there were spare clothes of mine inside a small drawer (there should not be, by the way). She found a small folded pair of socks that weren’t either mine nor my father’s.
Inside the socks? The lost phone. For some time afterward, I just assumed I threw it out the window or something while sleeping. The fact it showed up somewhere I had already looked for 10 freaking months later was the weirdest of all.”
Alakazam…Here’s Your Missing Stuff
Shutterstock / GBALLGIGGSPHOTO
“I lived in a house where little things would go missing often. For example, one time I was trying to change the batteries on the remote and dropped the backing. Both my mom and I saw where it landed, but we never found it again. We searched everywhere.
In November, I changed the time back on a small clock we had on a bookshelf in the hallway. I thought I put it right back, but a while later, my mom asked me where the clock was. We looked all over for it and never found it.
Fast forward to February, it’s about 3:30 am and I’m watching TV (I worked swing shifts, so I was often up late after work). I start to get chilly because it’s February in Denver, so I go to grab the blanket off my bed. I don’t even have to go into my bedroom because my bed was right by the door. The house is tiny, so I’m no more than 15 feet away from the chair I was just sitting in.
I go back to sit down 20 seconds later, and in the middle of the chair is the clock and a dinner knife.
We were always losing the remote in that chair and digging in it, so it’s unlikely the clock was in the cushions, but I still spent a long time trying to set up the clock and the knife so they would pop out onto the cushion. I couldn’t do it. The bookcase was too far away for them to fall without force, which created a problem as well.
I sat down and watched television a while longer because I didn’t want to admit it was creepy.”
A No-So Quiet Coffee Shop
“This happened to me several years ago while I was living in California and working a great job in a downtown coffeehouse. I loved everything about that job: I worked with fantastic people and our shop was located in the city’s historic district in a very old, very beautiful building that had once been a hotel in the 1800s, but had since been converted into apartments, lofts, and of course, the big coffeehouse on the main floor. Being an early birdie and living only a couple blocks away from the coffeehouse, I was always scheduled to work the opening shift, which started at 4:15 am. It was the most unpopular shift, but it happened to be my absolute favorite one because I loved walking to work in the quiet of the early mornings as the rest of the city was sound asleep. Normally, downtown was quite loud and busy, full of people and constant activity, but in the early hours of the morning, it was still and silent and I felt as if I was the only person in existence, walking through a ghost town.
Every day, I arrived about 10 or 15 minutes early for my shift and would wait for my manager on the patio outside of the shop. It was always just the two of us working that early shift, and my manager was often running a little bit behind and never arrived before I did, but I didn’t mind at all. I liked to spend some time by myself on the patio outside of the darkened shop gathering my thoughts while I waited for him to walk up with his keys to unlock the doors.
One morning, as I was walking to work and approaching our building, I noticed that the coffeehouse was brightly lit up, as all the lights were already turned on and shining through the store’s giant glass windows. I was about 10 minutes early that morning, so I was very surprised to see that my manager had arrived before me and had already started opening up the shop. I walked up to the glass door and pulled on the handle to let myself in, only to find that it was locked shut. That wasn’t really unusual, as we often kept the doors of the employee entrance and main entrance locked while we got everything ready for the day and went through our morning procedures until 5 am, which was our official opening time.
What was unusual, though, was the sound of music I could clearly hear drifting through the speakers inside the store. This was during the holiday season, so we were playing Christmas music throughout the day, but we never turned it on until around 9 or so in the morning, out of respect for all the tenants living in the apartments above us. But on this particular morning, I could hear the Christmas music already playing its familiar loop at a rather high volume inside the store. I thought it was odd, but decided that maybe my manager was just feeling extra festive that day and wanted to listen to some tunes while we worked. I knocked on the employee entrance door and waited for my manager to come and let me in. I looked through the glass and watched for him. He didn’t come, so I knocked again and waited some more. He still didn’t appear, so I knocked again. And again. I then walked to the main entrance doors and tried knocking on those, with no luck. I checked my watch and saw that I had five minutes until I needed to clock in. I knocked again, much louder this time, and looked inside through the glass door for any signs of my manager. And that’s when I heard the muffled sound of voices coming from the back of the store, where the kitchen of our coffee shop was located.
At that quiet, early hour in the morning, every sound seems to be amplified, and what I could distinctly hear was two male voices talking and laughing together. That was very unusual, as I had mentioned before that it was normally just me and my manager who opened up the shop, but I figured someone had probably just needed to pick up an extra shift. I knocked yet again and continued to listen to the sounds coming from the coffee shop. The men kept talking and laughing (loudly). They seemed to be having a really great time. In addition to the music and the talking and the laughter, I began to hear the sound of clanging dishes and also the sprayer of the three-compartment steel kitchen sink being turned on and off, which was very, very unusual as there would be no dishes to wash before the store had even opened. I was also confused as to why my manager–and whoever was with him–were in the kitchen in the back of the store, because so much of our opening procedures–setting up the pastry case, brewing the coffee, preparing everything for the espresso machine–were done at the front of the store, where I was waiting to be let inside. At this point, I was getting a bit irritated as I was supposed to start work in just a few minutes and I needed to punch in on our time clock. I hated clocking in late for work. I dug out my phone and dialed my manager’s cell number. He didn’t pick up. So, I dialed the number to our coffee shop instead and the two phones inside the shop–one in the back office and one up front by the register–started ringing. Once. Twice. Three rings and no answer. Now four rings. And five. I hung up and immediately dialed again, annoyed that they were making such a racket in there with the music and all the talking and the laughter that they probably couldn’t even hear the phone at all. Just as before, nobody answered. I hung up and re-dialed the store for the third time. The phone rang and rang and went unanswered, and so I banged on the door yet again–to no avail. I looked at my watch. I was officially late for work.
As I was standing in front of the locked door with my phone against my ear, becoming more and more irritated, I noticed a pair of headlights reflecting in the glass, rolling up behind me. I turned around and saw something I did not expect at all. It was my manager. ‘I’m so sorry I’m late,’ he said as he climbed out of the driver’s seat and shut his car door and hustled up to the shop’s entrance. ‘I tried to get here as fast as I could,’ he said, as he moved toward me and fumbled with his keys trying to find the one to the shop door. ‘You’re mad,’ he said, ‘I can tell. I’m really sorry.’ Completely confused, I put my phone away and turned to head into the store with him. And that’s when I lost my breath for a minute.
The coffee shop was totally dark. None of the lights were on. Not one single light. And it was dead quiet. The Christmas music had stopped and so had the voices and laughter–all of the loud noise had disappeared. Every sound I had been listening to just seconds before had suddenly vanished. ‘I promise I’ll be here on time tomorrow,’ my manager said as he fit his key into the lock. ‘I’ll even be early! You’ll be shocked!’ Little did he know that I could not possibly be more shocked to see him than I was at that very moment, as he opened the door to the silent, completely empty coffeehouse.”
A Terrible Dream
“My family and I go to a garden center near my town every winter because it has pretty Christmas lights. Well this one year, the day before we were supposed to go, I had a dream that on our way, one of our car’s tires came off and we crashed hard.
It was such a horrible, graphic dream, my mum’s legs had been crushed, my dad stuck etc. Well I told my mum in the morning and she joked that she’d check the wheels. She actually must have because she said the car had felt weird and the dream unnerved her. Lo and behold, the tire was loose and needed to be taken to a mechanic. It was a really weird experience, especially as I’ve never had a dream feel so real before.”
Teleportation In The House
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“My bedroom at the time led into the living room, where you could see into the kitchen. We also had a bathroom that was directly off our room, in the corner. You couldn’t get to it unless you were in our room.
I woke up one afternoon. I remember sitting up, checking my phone, and lighting a cig. I got out of bed, opened the bedroom door, walked into the living room to turn the thermostat up. I saw my ex in the kitchen fiddling around with the coffee pot. Then he started walking towards the back of the house, into the other bedroom. I said ‘Hey! You’re up early.’ He looked at me and kept on walking. I went back into our room and sat on the bed.
After a few minutes, I called his name, and he opened the bathroom door and said ‘Yeah?’
Apparently, he was in the bathroom the whole time. I was very confused and super freaked out because I could have sworn I saw him in the kitchen. There’s no way it was him if he was in the bathroom. It shook me up pretty bad.
It was so freaky, I didn’t like the feeling at all.”
Did They Both Imagine It?
“Early last month, I went online to pay a bill, as I’ve done for years. I get to the last page before finishing and the webpage freaks out, with a multitude of display issues before finally receiving an error message. After several attempts to pay, I give up, assuming the site is having issues. I go back two days later and pay my bill, and it goes through normally, with me getting my usual text and e-mail notifying me I paid.
I’m very confused a few weeks later when I check my e-mail and find a notice from the company whose bill I paid, with a semi-threatening e-mail saying the bill is due that day and do I need to set up a payment plan? I’ve been dealing with the company for almost a decade and have never been late in paying. I check my credit card account, and there’s no record of me paying, not are the text or e-mail I received still in my records. I pay the bill and chalk it up to a senior moment on my part.
Last week, I get my one credit card bill. It says I never paid my last bill, so now I’ve got that bill to pay, plus the interest. I find my previous bill, open but with the invoice in place, in my living room.
I’m physically disabled and can’t drive, and I always pay that credit card bill in person after they messed up my payment years ago. A family member always takes me to my credit union to pay that bill, and like me, he remembers us going down to pay the bill they say I never paid. He and I even remember a conversation we had on the way down to the credit union, and going grocery shopping afterward. But yet the bill is unpaid and the bill is in my possession still.”
An Out Of Body Experience In The Hospital
“I was staying in the hospital after a concussion at 15 years old. I fell backward eight feet and landed on my back and head, on concrete. I had been out for a few days, only waking for short periods, and I was not able to keep food or drink down. They gave me multiple CAT scans as I wasn’t ‘coming to’ as expected, so they thought I was badly brain-damaged.
My hospital bed (I was told later, as I had no memories of the visit except for when I was rolled-out in a wheelchair), had the side rails up, and I was somehow strapped-in as my equilibrium was messed up, so I couldn’t get out of it without nurse assistance.
Except I did get up, somehow. This is hard to write, it’s just so hard to explain the feeling of this moment. I got up, stepped over my mom who was sleeping on a mat on the floor and walked to the window to see the amazing view of the hills cast in the early dawn light. I looked at the cars way down in the parking lot, the trees behind that wall, the houses, roads, and nature leading to the hillside. I felt, I guess, reset. No pain, no memory, no idea why I was there or where there was. I knew it was me, the way you do, but all the ‘stuff’ that would’ve normally been running through my head was absent. I felt completely lucid, still, fresh, new and very much at peace. I have never felt that way before or since.
Except I didn’t get up, I couldn’t have, it wasn’t possible. Yet I know to my core, in the way you feel yet can’t describe in words, that I saw what I did, and I know that I was there, awake, looking out that window at one of the clearest visions my eyes have ever witnessed, with this incredible feeling of redemption and renewal. I don’t know, but it felt incredible and so true to my humanity.
The next few weeks I needed help walking, eating, etc. It was months before I was ‘okay’ again. I still have minor equilibrium issues 20 years later.
I was at the hospital with a friend recently and saw the view from the same floor but on the wrong side. It gave me chills. I feel like maybe that was the first time I became aware of my ‘soul,’ but everyone experiences that, and most don’t need concussions to get there.”
“I Want Grandma!”
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“When my son was about 4 years old, one night he started hounding me to ring his Nana. I thought it odd to begin with, as he had never asked to call her before so I just put him off for an hour or so, and he came back and insisted that I call her.
It turns out she was sitting in her lounge experiencing a massive tachycardia event and couldn’t breathe. I called an ambulance and met her at the hospital. The same week, she had a pacemaker and defibrillator unit implanted to fix the problem. To this day, I cannot explain what drove him to get me to call but I’m very glad he did. He doesn’t even remember it.”
The Mundane Clairvoyant
“I occasionally have dreams where a few months or weeks down the line, I experience that moment. But I always forget what the dream was about right up until it happens.
My first experience was in 6th grade when I had a dream where I was having a conversation with my teacher in a desk at the front of the class, though at the time I was sitting in the back of the class. Fast forward two and a half weeks and I’d been moved to the front of the class and it happens. There she is, talking to me about some work I need to do because I was absent for a few days and then I have this déjà vu moment and as she’s speaking, I’m staring blankly at her remembering this conversation. I told her and her reaction was the exact same as in my dream, facial expressions and all.
To this day, I still occasionally have these dreams and moment, and to this day there’s no way I can explain them.”
Dream Deja Vu
“I dated this girl a few years back and our first date was really weird. She was a friend of my brother’s and we had known each other a while before going out because we were kinda friends.
Anyway, we’re on the date and she tells me that she had a weird dream about me. I had also had a weird dream about her that evening. She goes first:
‘I was driving my teacher’s car on my way to see you. We were on the phone trying to find each other. You kept saying I just drove past your apartment but I was in the middle of nowhere and got really confused.’
Without really thinking about it, I replied:
‘I was on the phone with you as you constantly drove past my apartment. But it wasn’t your normal car and you were really confused.’
She’s just staring at me like I was pulling her leg. Then it dawned on me, ‘Holy heck,’ we had the same dream!’
We shared 4-5 more dreams throughout the relationship at totally random times. She was a nice woman, but we were awful for each other.”
