Today I went to see How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. One of the guys I was with was wearing the exact same shirt as one of the guys in the movie! It was weird.
I took the Subject A test the day Douglas Adams died. The code number for my college (UC Santa Cruz) was 42.
Hmmm.
I used to live in a rural town, which was known for klan activity (even today). One night when i was about 9 i was in my backyard and in a field about 1/4 of a mile away i think i saw a burning cross and people dancing around it. That was about 13 years ago.
My mom’s sister, when she was little, said she saw a ghost in the house she grew up in. He wore a long black coat, had a big brim black had, and floated instead of walked. When i was reading a book about ghosts a year ago (i forget the title), there was a description of a ghost who fit that description exactly terrorizing a totally differnet person in another part of the country at another time period.
One time i went to visit a friend in a town about 100 miles from where i lived. He, his dad, brothers and sister came to pick me up in their van. As we drove back to their place, we were driving along a country road (the type where there is only 1 house every 1/2 mile or so) when we drove past a house with about 15 guys hiding in the bushes wearing black masks/outfits and carrying rifles, about 4 or so were lined up at the door. The rest were scattered around the house in bushes or whatnot. There was also a newsvan in the yard. I have no idea what happened, but it must have been semi big.
When i was spending the night at a dorm i’d never been in, i placed my things in the wrong room (not knowing it was the wrong room). i went to the bathroom, then left. WHen i came back i went to my room, but it was a totally different room. I spent the next hour & 1/2 wandering the dorms looking for the room where i put my stuff originally, as every hallway looked identical. One hallway would be identical to the one i put my stuff in, but the bathroom didn’t have a tub in it. It was mildly disorienting, to be in a place that looked identical except for one minor difference. I eventually found it though.
When i was about 12 i decided to go toilet paper someone’s house. So i dressed in black pants, black shirt, black ski mask, and carrying a black bag full of TP. I walked down the street, when i saw a car coming. I was in the middle of a 3 way intersection, so i hid behind a large sign in someone’s yard. Just my luck, cars came from all 3 directions at the exact same time. I’m certain at least one of them saw me, a guy in a black ski mask & black outfit carrying a black bag hiding in someones yard. I wonder if they called the cops.
The most surreal experience of mine was when I was coming back from a weekend Montreal with a couple friends from school. We got off the interstate in Montpelier, hoping for a Ben and Jerry’s break. Anyway, as we were trying to find the interstate again, we pulled into this side street and down a short, steep hill into a little housing development. “This is totally the wrong direction,” we whine, turn the car around, and head back up the steep hill. Out of nowhere, this kid on a scooter appears, gliding down the hill in what seems like slow motion, his mouth moving but his words unintelligible over the radio.
We all look at eachother, and then behind us, but the kid is gone. And then I realize what he was saying: “Doooooooo nooooooot enterrrrrrrr”. Our car was positioned directly over white “do not enter” letters on the pavement. Whoops. Thanks, kid.
Back when I worked in the college bookstore, I had taken a load of boxes over to Shipping & Receiving. It was an old corner of an old building, a big room with lots of junk lying around.
So there I was, the only one in the room, bent over the cart unloading the boxes, when suddenly something hot splattered across the back of my head and shoulders. Some of it missed and splashed on the cart: it was molten metal!
My yell brought the shipping guy and a custodian running. They looked all over the place, even checked the room above, but couldn’t figure out where it came from, and concluded, “You must have had that on you when you came in here.” Wankers.
Shocked and bemused, I made my way back to the store, where my boss and coworker helped pick clots of metal out of my hair and shirt. Good thing I had long hair and a thick shirt, I only got a few little burns.
Where the hell had it come from? I never found out, but I got witnesses to prove I didn’t imagine it. I think I still have the shirt, with a few bits of metal still embedded in it.
Once when I was 7 or 8, I was playing ping pong at a local recreation center with my friend and our sisters. As I recall the room we were in had a fairly high ceiling, and the wall I was facing had windows along the top of it. At some point, just for fun, I hit the ball as hard as I could. Our eyes followed it as it went up and hit one of those windows. From there it bounced over to a ceiling fan (which was running). Instead of being deflected, the ball was apparently picked up and was shot further in the same direction, to another fan. From that fan it fell… right back to the table, in front of me. Very strange.
IThinkNot’s Surreal Experience #1
I live way out in the country now, but I grew up in a huge metropolitan area. It was a major culture shock to move from a place with Indian restaurants that delivered 24 hours a day to a place where the only Oriental restaurant in the area had no idea what dim sum is.
So I’m running along this gravel road in the summer. It’s really hot and I’m tempted to take off my shirt (I’m a girl) and throw it by the side of the road and pick it back up on the way home. I almost did that, but as I reach down and grab my shirt, I see this shimmering silver way off in the horizon. I look up and I see this huge skyline. It’s not the skyline of my old city (I would have recognized it) but just this vast, huge skyline that stretches throughout the entire horizon. It was beautiful. There was a bridge and a skyscraper that looked like the Empire State Building and freeways that crisscrossed all around the buildings. I looked back and I could still see my house through the trees. I look forward and there was a tiny dot zooming across the sky, in between the skywalk and the ground between two humongous buildings.
I blinked, shook my head, and it was gone. Zap. Poof. Just gone. All that’s there is this empty cornfield, an expanse of blue sky, some trees off in the distance, and the blazing sun. I turned around and ran back home, sprinting the last way.
I never told anyone. I’m just a kid, and I wasn’t using anything besides water, so certainly no alcohol or drugs or anything caused it. I wasn’t overly tired or exhausted (I’d only been running for a few minutes.)
Surreal to the 100th power. Crazy. I have never experienced any hallucinations beyond that ever since then.
Once I was walking near one of the Sandia Mountain overlooks outside Albuquerque. An old man was standing at the edge of the overlook as I walked past it. I turned away for a couple seconds to see where I was going, then glanced back to discover–much to my surprise–that the man was gone and there was a raven hovering in the spot where he had been standing moments before. There were no trees or rocks near the overlook that he could have gotten behind during the few seconds I was looking away.
It freaked me out, but later I laughed it off and jokingly told my friends that I’d seen the Norse god Odin up on Sandia Mountain.
There was once a wild turkey in my backyard. I live in the middle of the suburbs. No wilderness of any sort for at least several miles around.
And once my friend Colleen and I were sitting on her porch when a deer ran by. That wasn’t so surreal, though, because some guy from the zoo came by in a truck a few minutes later and asked us which way it went.
The side panel of my computer had the screws out of it, and would sometimes come off, but I left it on, just shoved on. This is the only explanation for the fact that when I took it off to put in more memory, I found a CD between the motherboard and the other side of the case. It was very difficult to get out, I can’t really imagine how it got in there.
One thing that never fails to be surreal for me is when it is raining, but instead of it being dark its still bright as a cloudless day. I know its perfectly natural, but I still away have to stop and stare.
Anther thing is that sometimes I just know things. Its strange. When playing a quiz game (Trivial Pursuit, Jeopardy, etc.) I’ll yell out some answer to a question think is just pure nonsense and I’ll be right. Always seems kind of weird to me.
Jogging tonight, I saw a doe with her head STUCK in an automatic driveway gate. Not just stuck, but caught between the two gates as if they had closed on her! Her head and shoulders were caught high up enough that her front hooves were suspended off the ground. She wasn’t moving, I couldn’t tell if she was alive or not. A small fawn was calmly resting on the ground a few feet away from her. No less than three police cars were there with their reds and blues flashing. Several cops were standing around, looking at the trapped deer, and probably thinking “well, what the f— are we supposed to do this?”
Adoptamom, Cecil has written a concerning street lights that explains why lights “go out.”
When I was about ten years old, I was with a group of friends taking horseback riding lessons. The horses were old and calm…in fact, they were just about impossible to ride because the only thing they cared about was munching the grass on the side of the path.
Our instructor, who was on foot, was trying to get the horses to cooperate, but they just didn’t want to do anything. Without, one of the horses let out a strange sound, and took off down the road at an incredible pace, with my friend Stephanie still mounted! The poor girl was screaming her lungs out, and hanging on for dear life. The instructor looked like she was going to pass out. We all sat there, shocked, not knowing what to do, as the horse ran off in to the distance.
Suddenly, we hear the shrill call of a bugle sounding charge, and from beyond the treeline, the calvary appeared! Seriously! The Calvary, fully dressed in blue and gold, with swords and six shooters, charging after Steph while the bugle rang. It was like something out of a Western. They caught up with her and rescued Steph and the horse.
Turns out that they were a reenactment group that was practicing in the area, heard someone scream, and did what they did best; reenacted the Calvary! Still, for a moment, it was like there was a time slip.
Let’s see if I can compete… nope, but I’ll post anyway.
Story 1: I was camping with my parents and younger brother. My brother was ill and the rest of us went into a nearby town to find something simple and quick to eat. We would have settled for McDonald’s or something. Anyway, we find a large shopping mall with its doors widely ajar. Figuring there must be a hamburger restaurant in there, we enter.
Every single shop is closed. There is not a single human being in the building. It’s devoid of life. It was amazingly eerie. Malls, like schools and office buildings, are built to be full of people. The worst moment for me was when we got to the center and there was an escalator, which was still operating. Literally the only thing moving in the entire mall.
Eventually, we exited, figuring they were closing up or something. Never underestimate the power of denial.
Story 2: I saw a leprechaun in the corner shop. Seriously. He was like five feet tall, tops, dressed entirely in green and sporting a bright red beard. I didn’t dare stare at him and no-one else seemed to notice.
Story 3: Crossing a parking lot, a van is approaching me. It stops, and the driver gets out. I get the impression that he wants to ask me something, so I slow down. He doesn’t care about me, though, instead he goes over to an oil patch…
…bends over, scoops up some oil on his finger and tastes it.
He went over to another patch and repeated the procedure. I left, wondering what he was trying to do; identify the patch his car had left? He had a wife and three children in the van. Weird.
sunlight during a full eclipse of the sun. There are these squigly shadows on the ground. I’ve seen two full eclipses, they’re wierd.
Also green sunlight at the edge of the eye of a hurricane or a very bad rainstorm.
Once I was driving down the interstate and I saw the end of a rainbow. It ended on the right front fender of my car. No pot of gold though. That would have been better.
My ex and I bought close to 50 acres and the first time we visited the land this skink (harmless lizard about 5-6 incles long) ran out of the woods and climbed to the top of my head and then scurried around all over me, even under my shirt. It was hard to catch but I finally did and then set it down only to have the whole thing happen all over again three or four more times. We happened to have our camcorder taping what the land looked like and my ex got it all on tape.
Sureal news story: back around 1980 a man was camping in Frisco Campground on Cape Hatteras, N.C. when a tornado came through. It picked him up and stripped the tent off him along with all his clothes and dropped him in a ditch some good distance away. Othere than mild scratches, cuts and bruises to body and pride he was unharmed. Lucky guy to be alive.
Once while heading back in from a day offshore in my boat fishing for tuna we came upon a squall. No going around it at all, it was fast. The seas built and it rained so hard I couldn’t see more than a matter of yards, Swells seemed to be coming from every direction, so much so that my compass was having a hard time showing North. Once the squall started to lighten up I found myself smack dab in the middle of a south bound navy task force. That was scarey, those things can’t turn to fast. I had a ship right in front, one behind and some to the left and right. I don’t know how we didn’t get sunk. Down to the briney deep, Davey Jone’s locker, arrrrgh! Sure is a lot more funy now than back then. I needed a radar real bad that day.
Can I just say, I would absolutely kill to have that birthday. I love things like that.
Hey, I just realised that I turn 25 on 05/05/05. Unfortunately I wasn’t born at 05:05 (missed it by 35 minutes :(), so your’s is cooler, but still…
I haven’t read through all the oh so interesting posts here yet but my experience is something like yours Daowajan. A friend and I were going somewhere and I was driving on the freeway when it got a little slow. Something was obviously causing rubbernecking which is a pet peeve of mine but when I saw what it was I had to slow down and gawk too. There was a van broke down on the very small shoulder of the freeway and sitting cross legged on top of the concrete barrier separating north and southbound lanes was an extrememly happy looking monk in a bright orange robe complete with scalp lock and everything. Why he chose to perch there instead of waiting inside of his van for a tow truck was beyond me. Or maybe it was prayer time or something. 
I just remembered something else that totally freaked me out at the time. I have three young sons and it always was weird to me how babies would look and smile at things that just weren’t there. Like they could see angels or something. Anyway my middle son kept up this unusual habit a lot longer than the other two and when he was 2 1/2 I was laying down with him one day hoping he wold take a nap when he started staring at a fixed point in space and smiling and nodding at it. Well I kept trying to see what he was looking at when he noticed and looked at me then at the “thing” situated between the bed and the ceiling and said “Daddy”. I asked him what he was seeing and he told me that daddy was waving bye and he happily waved and told daddy bye bye. Needless to say I lost my breath and couldn’t quite catch it again until I had my husband on the phone. I just knew that he had died and was saying goodbye to our son. But not so. I don’t know what my child was seeing that day.