Ever glance at a reflection of yourself and not recognize it? Happened to me a couple of times. Equally humiliating was thinking, “Who is that wierdo out there? Wait, that’s my reflection!” :eek:
I recall once standing on the T train in Boston and seeing a young woman with purple, blue, and green hair in little pigtails all over her head reflected in the window. I thought Wow, she’s … interesting. Cool hair, though.
Then I realized that I was looking at myself, and that a week was far too long to go without sleep. 
It happens to me when I’ve been sitting and talking to / looking at one single person (usually female, because I’m a girl and all) for a long period of time. I get so accustomed to that person’s face that when I see my own again, I’m momentarily confused because mine doesn’t look like that.
From The Outsider, by H.P. Lovecraft:
*As I approached the arch I beheld in full, frightful vividness the inconceivable, indescribable, and unmentionable monstrosity which had by its simple appearance changed a merry company to a herd of delirious fugitives.
I cannot even hint what it was like, for it was a compound of all that is unclean, uncanny, unwelcome, abnormal, and detestable. It was the ghoulish shade of decay, antiquity, and dissolution; the putrid, dripping eidolon of unwholesome revelation, the awful baring of that which the merciful earth should always hide. God knows it was not of this world - or no longer of this world - yet to my horror I saw in its eaten-away and bone-revealing outlines a leering, abhorrent travesty on the human shape; and in its mouldy, disintegrating apparel an unspeakable quality that chilled me even more.
Nearly mad, I found myself yet able to throw out a hand to ward off the foetid apparition which pressed so close; when in one cataclysmic second of cosmic nightmarishness and hellish accident my fingers touched the rotting outstretched paw of the monster beneath the golden arch.
I know now that I am an outsider; a stranger in this century and among those who are still men. This I have known ever since I stretched out my fingers to the abomination within that great gilded frame; stretched out my fingers and touched a cold and unyielding surface of polished glass.*
He had a way with words, did old H.P.
Note: The above text was slightly abridged to fit the post. Left to himself, old H.P. could consume gigabytes.
Who’s that hot chick? Oh yeah, me!
I had a cute flowered cotton sheath dress run up for me this summer, copied from one Marilyn Monroe wore in Something’s Got to Give. I’m walking down the street thinking, “Oh, I look so Audrey Hepburn, so Jackie Kennedy.”
I caught a glance of myself in a shop window, and realized I looked like Molly Goldberg on her way to the deli.
Oh boy- that’s happened to me twice recently! Both involving photos.
My husband dragged out some pictures that needed sorting and I very briefly wondered who was that old fat girl at the cabin…oh, me.
Then my sister was cleaning house and mailed some very old pictures. DH and I were looking at them and I identified one person in a picture as my sister. DH says “No, that’s you.” I’m contending that the picture is of my sister walking her dog. After some disagreement, DH says “Look, you sister never had boobs like that!”
OK, so those are my boobs, but what were they doing on my sister?
My mother and step-father were walking at the mall. As they passed a store display window my step-father turned around and went back to look again and suddenly looked crestfallen. When asked by my mother what was wrong he said that as he walked by he had seen a very ugly guy, so ugly that he needed to take a second look. Then he realized he had seen his own reflection in a mirror. 
I was waking up a few mornings ago, and turning over sleepily in my bed with a yawn, when I caught a glimpse of an arm and foot poking out of my blankets in the mirror.
Cue panicked hyperventilating and shivering, wide-eyed terror… until I realize it’s my arm and foot in the mirror.
I’m really not at my best in the mornings…
I was building our Pigs in Space masks out of foam for Hallowe’en. Realizing that it was taking longer than planned, I ate my dinner while I was working. Chewing away as I worked.
I got paint on my hands and went to wash them. I was still chewing when I glanced up at the bathroom mirror…
That’s what I look like when I eat??? … Hideous!
Note to self: No restaurants for a first date ever again!
. . . or just don’t order the crayons . . .
Yes, it happened to me this past Saturday night. I was feeling really foxy, all dressed up in a new evening gown, arriving at the Opera Ball at Music Hall in Cincinnati. You had to walk up a couple of flights of stairs to get to the ballroom. At the top there was a huge mirror. I caught a glimpse of a woman of whom I snarkily thought: “Jesus Christ…doesn’t she look like a drag queen?” It was me…
wimper Mommy…
That’s gotta be the worst, when you’re all proud about your fancy outfit and then you realize that, no, it doesn’t work at all. And you think “how did anyone let me out of this house this way?”
Related:
I know an artist named Chris. One day he decided to dye his hair a bright, fire engine red. You have to let the dye set and you’re not supposed to get it wet for a few days after you do it. The results were exactly the way he thought they would be. Just the way he wanted it! He styled is all artsy-snazzy then he went off to class.
He got caught in a rainstorm on the way to school, which kinda sucked, but it did not ruin his good mood. He had ultra-red hair! It was da bomb! He strutted, he puffed out his chest. And ho, everyone noticed. Oh, yeah. He’s cool. Everyone looked at his new, cool, hot red hair! They pointed. They talked. “Look at Chris!” That’s right, the talk of the town. strut, strut, strut, strut…
Then he caught his reflection as he was strutting past a glass case. The rain had dissolved his fresh dye job in a frightening red mess that looked like he was suffering from a massive head wound. Wet red streaks of “blood” dripping down his face, all over his shirt collar.
People weren’t “envious” as much as “horrified”.
My sister:
Look, you can see that girl’s panties!!
There are times that I’m glad I’m nearsighted… I can just picture myself doing exactly that…
Wow, me too. (Back when I had long hair and was skinny. I’m a dude.)
Often, recently, I find myself thinking, “Who is that old broad and what is she doing in my mirror?”
“Now there’s a reliable disappointment.”
-Harvey Pekar in a mirror. (As used in the movie “American Splendor.”)
I have similar moments. Only in my case it’s, “Woah, what’s my dad doing here?”
Sort of related story from WWII. Some GIs were in a pacific island battle. They were unable to leave their foxholes all night as they were pinned down by Japanese fire. During the night, they hear one of their buddies screaming in terror for a minute and then silence for the rest of the night. They spend all night worrying about him, unable to call out for fear of revealing their position. Come morning, they are able to sneak out and they find him perfectly fine in his hole. He is forced to admit that his arm had fallen asleep and when he rolled over during the night it landed on his face and he thought a Jap had jumped into his hole. So for about a minute this guy had been locked in hand to hand combat with his own left arm.