So, lately, I’ve experienced a curious increase in what I sometimes call ‘parallel universe incidences’. A parallel universe incident is something like when you are absolutely convinced in your expectation of some aspect of your surroundings – where things are located, how they look, their colours, etc. --, just to find that expectation suddenly subverted by the realization that things are not where or how they are supposed to be, leaving you with a curious and only slowly subsiding feeling of dissociation and bewilderment.
The latest such incident I clearly remember has to do with my girlfriend’s doorbell. I’ve rang that doorbell quite a couple of times, enough for the act of reaching for and pressing it to be wholly committed to muscle memory. I don’t have to think about where the doorbell is located; I don’t have to look for it. I just ring it, my mind wholly preoccupied with other things. Except, a week or so ago, instead of making the expected contact with the little knob that makes the bell go ring, my extended index finger hits wood. Thinking I may have missed by some fraction of an inch, I look, and there’s nothing there. No doorbell at all where I was expecting it. Looking around, I find it on the outer side of the door frame, while I could have sworn it was located on the inside! I even actually asked my girlfriend, who fortunately has a saintly patience and is accustomed to such things, if the doorbell had always been at that spot, which she claimed it had been; but then, she’s probably just from the parallel universe.
So! Did you have any parallel universe incidents lately? Share 'em!
I’m completely convinced that I have died on three separate occasions. I’m also completely convinced that at the moment of each of my deaths, the time-line split from that point. In one time-line I’m dead, and the other I survived.
Don’t be ridiculous. You can’t explain this with your whacky “parallel universe” theory. Sure, some primitive peoples believe that this is due to shifting between universes but this is the 21st century. We now know that there are whole groups of people who purposely move and change things to make some of us FEEL like we are crazy. Don’t let them get to you and please, please don’t let them know that I am on to them.
If you meet someone who endures your confusion with “saintly patience” then that person is no-doubt in on the whole thing. That little smile they do when you bring up the subject is their enjoyment of a little trick working as planned.
I bought some paint for a project recently. A few days later it disappeared. Nobody in my family had any idea where it went and nobody had ever seen any paint. So I bought some more - same thing again! “What paint, I haven’t seen any paint.” Third time the paint never left my sight until I used it. Next day … The other paint appears in my kitchen and once again, nobody knows nothing. I’m beginning to think my wife is in on it.
Every so often I hear about someone doing something, or dying, and I am absolutely convinced that I remember them dying several years previously. At that point I definitely start thinking “did I slide into a parallel universe here?”
That happened to me the other week. I heard a radio ad for an Arlo Guthrie concert, and I thought to myself that Arlo had passed away at LEAST 10 years ago. (And I definitely remember it as Arlo dying, not Woodie). Anyway, I just checked and in this universe Arlo is alive and kicking, and that makes me happy!
Hmm. I had been thinking for a while that she might be in cohorts with the shape-shifting lizard people… or perhaps, she is one herself (her reaction to cold weather certainly doesn’t seem entirely mammalian). :eek:
Shiftless, the same thing that happened with your paint happened to me twice with my antidepressants. I just blamed ghosts and figured the afterlife must be rather dreary.
Korrigans and goblins, man. They’re in league with the Sock-Eating Monster. All of 'em are subcontracted by Eris and the Discordians. The rabbit hole goes deep, my friend.
Not to me but I have a friend who was absolutely convinced I had ALWAYS put mayo on my peanut butter sandwich. ME?!? MAYO on peanut butter? Absolutely insane idea, but he was going on and on about how I was lying just to drive him crazy.
You know, my wife does tend to dislike the cold weather. I assure you, I’ve checked her carefully for any sort of disguise but the lizard people are nothing if not clever. And she does keep a lot of strange jars and impliments in the bathroom. And she doesn’t like the Three Stooges or fart jokes… oh, my God! There can only be one explanation!
I am backing away from this thread…slowly…This can all be explained as simple slipping from parallel universe to parallel universe. Yeah, that’s all that’s going on here. No need to mention any of this to my wife.
It’s a little-known fact that the parallel universes are classified by the date that Abe Vigoda died. Our current universe is U-0, meaning he hasn’t died yet (the degree of surprise which people feel upon learning that is a way of determining which parallel universe they came from…another little-known fact).
It’s a simple programming error. A 1 where a zero was supposed to be. When you consider that massive amounts of code required to run Half Man Half Wit v.3.0, you’d be amazed that we don’t accidentally put tires on top of cars, asses on faces, and duck bills on platypuses. So ignore the occasional doorbell inversion, sit back in you liquid filled pod, and enjoy the simulation.
