The world around us is as scary and mysterious as it is beautiful and intricate. Many people would rather look away from the dark side of life, which is understandable. Because once you start opening that can of worms, there is no going back.
You’re about to read some of the scariest facts shared by some people on TikTok. You probably know many of these already, but you’re also likely reading some for the first time.
For those that flew under your radar, you will likely be tempted to do some Googling. But if you must, prepare yourself as you go down that rabbit hole.
This post may include affiliate links.
History major here, we are already in WWIII. We just don’t know it yet.
I feel it. I'm noticing. There's at least 2 or 4 countries that are instigating and one is located in North America.
I’m a teacher and it’s actually frightening the percentage of children that cannot read… We are trying to teach them in schools, but a lot of the learning happens from practicing reading at home
I am eternally grateful that both my parents were Literature People. They were both comfortable in many languages. We had wall-to-wall books in the apartment. I loved reading from an early age.
The fact that there are people imprisoned in basements, secret rooms, and homes all over the world. Some are rescued, most are not.
I actually do think about this more than is healthy. I just imagine riding along a street and wondering what dark secrets people are hiding in their homes. It pains me to think there could be someone in need of help right now, within meters from me, and I just go along my way without a clue.
We are in the silent depression… the income to cost of living ratio is worse than it was during the Great Depression, but it’s not being talked about
I've always struggled drinking water, but then I learned that the headache you get when you're dehydrated is - and I'mma scream when I say this - YOUR BRAIN SHRIVELING AND PULLING AWAY FROM YOUR SKULL
the fact that 2 people can grow up in the exact same in environment same set of parents experience the exact same traumas, yet can describe entirely different memories and have exact opposite trauma
Siblings aren’t raised by the same parents—not really. Parents evolve with time, shaped by their own experiences and by each child they raise. The firstborn meets a different version of them than the youngest does. One gets the trial run, another gets the burnout, and another might get the calm after the storm. Parenting isn’t static—it’s a moving target, and every child walks into a different moment of it. Oftentimes, the parents and children may not realize that's happening in the moment.
That man has been interpreting the Bible as literal history, when it's psychological symbolism that reveals that the reader has the creative power. The harm that literal interpretation has caused
THIS 👆👆👆 SO FRACKING MUCH! Our lives revolve around Bronze Age principles and concepts that were (occasionally) novel for the time, but are today so completely outmoded and regressive that they're actually holding back our development. The bible (and koran and Torah) belong in the mythology section alongside all the other man-made tales of gods and monsters.
studying aviation, "all the rules made in aviation are written in blood" bcs they are only made after a tragedy
A disproportionate number of CEOs fit the clinical definition of a psychopath.
Psychopathic traits are not always a negative in some fields. Psychopaths can have awareness of what's right and wrong, and be able to understand, not necessarily feel, what empathy is. However, without empathy, they are able to make difficult decisions quicker, void of emotional reactions getting in the way. They are able to think with clearer logic and rationality in a calmer manner, and be able to function well under pressure. Of course, there are psychopaths who use their capabilities for nefarious objectives, and they are often the leaders of organized crime, controversial companies ( think tobacco companies), and crooked politicians.
Prions exist. Knowing that is pretty awful. I should have specified prion diseases exist. CWD in deer, Mad Cow, incurable in humans. Can’t even autopsy without a hazmat room, then burn all equipment it touched. Scary stuff
We aren't going to be able to fix what we did to the earth
"a cured patient is a lost customer"
Men have frontal lobes not as developed as women and we live in a world dictated by their thoughts.
We have the "advantage" of an extra "little brain" hanging around about ½ way down our bodies that many men rely on to do a lot of their thinking for them
Studying wildlife biology. Everything is dying. Species are going extinct at rates that are getting harder and harder to stop. This will eventually affect human food resources.
psych major: if you stare into a mirror in the dark for a while, your reflection will grow disfigured and turn monstrous/something that’s not your face. it’s called the caputo effect.
when they have to remove your digestive tract during surgery, they don't meticulously put it back in the order it's supposed to be, not only because it would take AGES, they don't even have to. They kinda shove it all back into the general area and just make sure nothing is twisted up, and our digestive tract moves back into place on it's own!
Severe childhood trauma can make people into psychopaths and take away their ability to feel empathy
It can also do the opposite and make them almost too empathetic. Most of the kindest, most helpful and selfless people I've ever met had awful childhoods and a lot of them now do everything they can to help others. A lot of people like this can easily get taken advantage of because they struggle to say no to people in need. I've done this throughout my life and will literally burn myself out and let my life fall apart because I'm too busy helping others with their problems.
That you can be in a relationship with someone and they can fool you for years, well into marriage. Can’t comprehend pathological liars, cheaters, abusers.
It could even be someone who's been just leading you on so they have someone, anyone, as a companion, but they haven't been into you as you have been into them.
The climate crisis is FAR worse than they tell you.
I think we know that. Cooling the planet is tough enough, but we also have to fight the lies from climate change deniers.
i probably wont be able to buy a house in my lifetime
Only way I am getting a house is through inheritance. So not looking forward to it.
I am an art teacher and I share all the time that humans can only see 0.0035% of the light spectrum! What else is out there?!
This is a very, very interesting topic for me. We have just 3 colour cones, 4 in rarer cases. Shrimp have 12. Seeing other colours part of the light spectrum, the likes we have never seen before, unfortunately it's near impossible for us to even imagine. We do come across them, but these are considered "impossible colours" and they appear muddy or bouncing between the mixed colours. Try mixing green and orange. Or purple and teal. If we had more colour cones those colours could possible make another vibrant colour we cannot imagine.
That a majority of human history is not recorded and therefore the narrative of humans was created by those in charge at the time
Reproductive adaptation like menopause. Humans, Elephants, Orcas all evolved to value experience over just reproduction, which is rare in the animal kingdom. Women should be valued more among our own.
every financially successful man that I've interviewed fits the full definition of a malignant narcissist
I read once that for men, money is power, while for women, money is freedom and I think it proves the point
Bonobos are literally one wildfire away from becoming extinct and there’s not much we can do about it because they live in the DRC
Mortician here. You could be living your last moments right now and have no idea.
The #1 cause of death for pregnant women in the USA is domestic homicide .
Slavery is still happening after all these years, and there are places where it is legal. It breaks my heart that we can only save so few.
IFyou take the time to read the 13 th amendment, you will find there are about 1.9million leagal slaves in the United States. They are all in prison.I am Canadian and am curious why you refer to your country as the land of the free?
It’s a very well known fact but knowing that NASA gave up on doing research on our oceans and we know more about space than our own waters. 5% of the ocean’s creatures have been discovered. That’s it.
Why would the National *Aeronautics* and *Space* Administration research the oceans?
The fact the civilisation and society would immediately fracture in the event of a major disaster is frightening, take the toilet paper shortage in 2019. Imagine if that was food or water
I don't know what's more disturbing. Selfish people hogging essentials, or that people just let them get away with it.
You can form false memories—vivid, detailed memories of events that never happened. the brain can create entirely fictional experiences that feel 100% real.
Suck for some people. Fortunately, I'm 100% certain that my memory about kissing Saoirse Ronan is absolutely real. /j
geologist here, Florida is almost entirely limestone which is rapidly dissolving due to sea level rise. the entire state will likely be underwater in the next 50 years
unit 731, and how we know the human body is 70% water.
Until Japan has its own Warsaw Genuflection moment ( for younger folks not from Germany: it was a spontaneous gesture by then Chancellor of Germany W***y Brandt, who upon visiting a memorial to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising spontaneously kneeled down in respect for the victims and acceptance of Germany's guilt. It was possible because Germany faced what it had done and refused to look the other way.) Japan still needs to gain the strength to do the same, and until it does, the weakness and sickness will fester in the heart of its society.
The stress a woman’s mother goes through affects her DNA and her eggs. Meaning we are the product of the trauma our mother’s, grand mother’s, great grandmother’s and so on endured.
we are 97.7% the same atoms as a combusted star, so when we die we just return to star dust and travel the universe for eternity.
I believe that Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young covered this in their song "Woodstock."
the fact that u can just die or the world could end at really any time without any warning
They didn’t use any numbness or anesthesia on babies and infants until 1985-1990s. Back then they believed that babies didn’t feel pain so they would perform their work without anesthesia
To this day, there's medical professionals that still believe "babies just cry for no reason." But that is just a front. They knew all along babies do feel pain. They just said babies don't to put worried parents mind's at ease, and so the staff could tuck their empathy aside so they could do their jobs. It was considered dangerous to use anesthesia on babies.
The human immune system doesn’t recognize the eyes as an organ so if you get an eye infection, your immune system could attack them and you can go blind
the universe is expanding, which is scary but I think the scariest part is that nobody knows what it’s expanding into
The universe is so unimaginatively huge, we just can't comprehend how big it is. It goes beyond the observable limits. It will be many millennias before our galaxy reaches anything we should be concerned with. Even then, it's not like we can stop it from happening. I don't find it scary. Just interesting.
Hospice nurse here. Do not choose your husband or any of your daughters as your POA. 9/10 times they are the ones most who will allow you to suffer and die a painful death bc they cant let go.
People do this with pets. If you know someone who's left a pet to suffer because they think bringing it to the vet to be put down humanely is cruel, don't think they wouldn't do the same for you.
Most humans can only tolerate an unstable food source for one week before they start to consider cannibalism. Just one week with unstable food sources and people go on the menu
Unpopular opinion, but I don't think cannibalism is all that terrible. Humans are animals, after all. No, I wouldn't eat my relatives, but I also wouldn't eat my pet chicken unless I have no other choice. It doesn't mean that I have any issue with eating chicken in general. (Now, even if cannibalism was morally accepted, it wouldn't be a popular thing: the human body isn't designed to digest human flesh, very few people would put themselves through the pain of digestive issues when they can eat a cow instead.)
not too crazy but i work in vet med, and when i started i found out how rabies tests were done... The animal’s head is cut off because doctors find evidence of rabies in the spinal cord
Every time you recall a memory it's not a perfect recall, some information will be slightly altered each time you recall the moment, your happiest memory may be true to you, but it really been distort
I still recall the feeling of falling and landing on the floor as a baby. It stung my entired body and my head hurt. I still have a flat indent in the back of my skull. My mom says I fell from the change table. I remember my mom just dropping me from her arms, her shouting then picking me up going "awwww" with a slight grin. I've seen her give me that similar grin whenever she sees me upset about something she's done unfairly to me. There's been an emotional, affectionate disconnect for a very long time between us. She went a very long time without cuddling and hugging me when I was around 5 and 6. Sometimes I wonder if the fall was so traumatic it caused a nightmare I was able to retain in my head. Some nightmares I had when I was 2 and 3, and later have been stuck in my head to this day, but I know them as nightmares. The brain is weird.
When someone dies, you can smell it on them days before.
Even if they get hit by a bus? This is very generalised. surely it depends what they're dying of.
The U.S military is the biggest buyer of glitter. It’s insane the amount they buy. But what for?? No one knows.
Most people have vitamin deficiencies, not mental health issues. This does not include people with true trauma.
Since I started taking more supplements, I've noticed a change in my energy and moods. However, I still get irritable, flashbacks and invasive thoughts. I'm just more chill about it on the outside.
A good chance Uncanny valley exists is because there was something else that hunted us and looked like us
The "uncanny valley" is a phenomenon where something that appears almost but not quite human elicits a sense of unease or creepiness in viewers. This unsettling feeling arises when an object, like a robot or a CGI character, is too close to human-like, but not quite perfect in its appearance or behavior.". Wouldn't be surprised if there's been other primates that hunted our ancestors.
no information is safe in the digital age. anything you think is secret is almost certainly not. coming from a digital crime detective.
one that sticks with me is that you can literally die from a broken heart…the heart strings and muscles deteriorate over time
Heartbreak is painful. Not just an emotion. It can feel like a heart attack coming on, including numbness and pins n needles going down your arms.
Microplastics are in everything, we have no control group to test the effects or impact that it is making. We made plastics, We made microplastics, We cant take that back.
the more stuff we store digitally the more we risk losing it all if technology stops being accessible
The slippery slope between social groups, political groups, religious groups, communities and cults is VERY SLIPPERY. We crave belongingness more than we thought.
How many serial ki**ers could have been possibly stopped if their parents had noticed the signs.
Many serial or multiple ki11ers had at best neglectful parents, and nobody else to provide affection and stability.
Trauma is so common now that behaviors we think are normal are actually severe trauma responses to abuse that we didn’t register as such
Psychosis is terrifying having experienced lower levels of it. The fact that your reality doesn’t match up with everyone else’s version of it. Snapping out of it is worse you can’t remember the truth.
As an epileptic, I experienced some deja vus. They were absolutely convincing, the "feeling" of remembering correctly was so strong I'd waged my annual salary on it. Only my reason would tell me that the deja vu was impossible (eg "this pen cannot have been in this position on this desk before because I bought it only an hour ago"). It tells you a lot about your brain, and also why not to trust those who think something must be true because they are convinced it is. Conviction is a feeling, and feelings can lie.
The blue eye gene came from one common ancestor so everyone w blue eyes is distantly related.
The transatlantic slave trade caused shark migration patterns to change bc of the amount of dead bodies being thrown off those ships
Trees can communicate. So during a forest fire the can hear the trees around them screaming but can’t run away…
The way trees communicate with each other is complex, and they do have social dynamics among each other.
Our future doctors are using ai to pass their classes/exams
Are they? If so, in what ways are they using it? Do they no longer have practical exams? There is nothing wrong per se with using AI as a starting point for writing papers and such and we definitely need to find ways to check if people actually understand things but “future doctors are using AI” without any context is an empty statement.
there is a correlation btw contracting a virus (flu, covid, etc) your second trimester of pregnancy and that child being diagnosed w schizophrenia later in life
When given a transfusion of blood that isn’t your type, one of the symptoms is “sense of impending doom”
So I get the wrong blood and feel the urge to play the famous 1993 first-person shooter game.
1 in 200 miscarried fetuses have cyclopia, that's like over 1,000,000 a year. do not Google cyclopia unless you want to ruin your whole day. I'm still upset about reading the wiki page.
One thing I always, always trust on the internet is the “do yourself a favor and don’t google this…” as I run to the blissful ignorance section of my brain and remain there.
history person here: there's actually a fairly large amount of items made from leather made fr human skin. books, shoes, coin purses, etc. we have a pair of shoes at our local museum. really sad story
From an abnormal psych perspective; you’ll brush paths with serial unalivers more than you will ever think.
The fact that, at this right time, people and animals are suffering, getting beaten, makes me ultimately sad. I feel not worthy for this world.
I really try not to think about it. Unfortunately, we can't be out there 24/7 searching and saving every single being. I wish it were possible.
People who really study consciousness and free will largely agree that "free will" is mostly us justifying our actions after the fact. we have some free will sure but not nearly as much as we like to pretend
If I really had unbounded freewill, I would be up much later than I know I should and I would never go back to my job again. What stops me is I need moolah to live and help support my disabled daughter. I guess one could consider that free will, too. I still have options to change both our lives, however that could be not for the better.
about half the water used in concrete is lost forever. chemically bonded with no efficient way to get it back. makes me think each time i see a skyscraper
the more things i learn about slavery and the "aftermath" if you could even call it that revolts me. theres always something i didn't know and it always shakes me to my core
the brain doesn’t have pain receptors. If someone was literally poking your brain (surgery) your brain wouldn't feel it.
You won't feel it in your brain, but it will trigger other sensations in your body.
if you start experiencing the symptoms of a dementia, you're 10-20 years too late
Career paramedic. A ridiculous amount of people die on the toilet and then proceed to become wedged between the toilet and wall or bathtub.
serotonin syndrome. I'm absolutely terrified of it.
I wonder why they picked on this in particular to be so afraid of? It's an obscure condition that can affect people who are on prescription meds designed to increase their serotonin levels, who for some reason react more than expected and create too much of it as a result. Such individuals are already under medical supervision, and the condition is easily resolved by reducing, withdrawing or changing the medication.
Not scary but quantum physics and neuroscience. The trajectory of your life 1000% depends on your beliefs and mindset about yourself our mind is more powerful then we give credit
I know I hold myself back, and the more self-awareness I get the more it's been apparent for far too long.
Morticians know if you were a hairstylist because you’ll have a bunch of hair behind your eyes
Humans as a species display signs of Zoochosis, we aren't meant to live like this
If you want to, you can easily take a picture of someone’s keys and 3d print them. You can also reverse engineer locks to find which key should open it. I’m in cybersecurity.
Periodontal disease having a link to Alzheimer’s
basically 80% of languages are probably going extinct in the next 20-50 years
Plenty have gone, it's why we can't decipher a lot of the text left behind from the Aztec, Maya, Minoan to name but a few that we can see from what they left behind. The language of many real native Americans is being or has been lost and that is in the last hundred or so years. There are hundreds of cultures and civilisations who's language is gone because they are gone or the younger people moved to find work and dropped their native language. It's happening, it has happened and will continue to happen.
The scary fact that human flesh is similar to pigs. That's why when a body is being cremated, most people think they smell a BBQ
There are sharks that evolved to survive and thrive in underwater volcanoes.
Horses cannot throw up, instead they colic and pretty much die
This is why it's so important to know what to feed horses. Do NOT go up to horses and give them any food you think they may like without consulting with the horse owners. Oats, lush grasses, moldy hay, beet pulp, and anything heavy in carbs and starches can cause excessive gas, causing colic. The horses are okay where they are. They have their food in their pasture. Always ask if you can feed a horse apples, too. I could go on.
The more you discover about life the less you want to live it, it's better for mental health to experience than research
Humanity once came so close to extinction it's estimated that there were less than a hundred remaining. Every modern day human is descended from those survivors.
It's way more complicated than this implies, but the smallest number I found was "100,000 to 1,000." "Less than a hundred" isn't accurate according to the latest science. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_bottleneck
I do know that the brain named itself and I think that's cool
we don't actually perceive the world as it actually is. it's technically upside down but our brain processes everything a fraction of a second. we experience everything at a delay we cannot detect
Elementary school students reading level determines our prison system. Kids who can’t read have a higher odds of going to jail.
Harlequin syndrome babies. My sister would show me those pictures when i was a child to make me literally terrified when i disobeyed
This pisses me off. Harlequin is the rarest type of ichthyosis, and ichthyosis is already uncommon enough. Although infant mortality is high with those born with it, there have been people who've lived into their adulthood with the HI. Skin disorders already get stigmatized. It doesn't need to be stigmatized even more. HI is disturbing to see and not for the faint of stomachs. I don't recommend looking it up. It looks as though the infant is born inside out, if you're curious but don't want to actually see. It's incredibly painful for the infant and horrific for the parents, and absolutely tragic. It is a genetic disorder caused by a mutated gene of the ABCA12, that is carried by both parents. Thus how incredibly rare it makes HI. Although, both parents may not exhibit any symptoms and traits of ichthyosis, making it very difficult to predict if their baby will be born with the genetic mutation. Most couples don't think of testing their genes for these kinds of genetic mutations.
That your brain is lowkey your worst enemy if you fall asleep too fast your brain thinks you died so it jerks the body to make sure you still alive
P****n Ivy grows in areas where soil has been disturbed and is only poisonous to humans. It acts like the Earth’s immune system to repel humans from the wounded areas.
some triceratops ended up having to eat other animals because there was no plant life during the extinction event for them to eat. they ended up dying from meat poisoning
when you die, you see all your memories flash before your inner eye. it's because the brain tries to rapidly find a solution, fast forwarding every situation in life in hopes of finding how to stay
As a CJ major- most cops end up ki**ing people. It’s a lot of people who get ki**ed by cops and it goes “unsolved”
There’s a certain depth at sea where you wouldn't be able to swim back up… the water would just start to pull you down
No, gravity pulls you down regardless of depth. If you hold your breath and descend the increasing water pressure compresses all of the gas in your body. Most people become negatively buoyant at about 30'. The reason that free divers can survive at depths hundreds of feet and pressures of 150 psi or more is because blood from the extremities is squeezed into the torso and prevents collapse. You can swim back up from any depth (as long as you're alive and conscious), but it will take more effort because of your negative buoyancy.
Male mummies are found to be way better preserved because female bodies were not sent immediately for embalming right after death due to fear of necrophila.
Human life could have literally come from extraterrestrial origins via asteroids, etc. we are the aliens
Once again BP knocks it out of the park with a collection of badly summarized urban legends copy-pasted from a TikTok comments section and mislabeled as "facts."
I'm not so sure about the first part, but I am about the second.
Load More Replies...I was hoping for some truly horrifying facts. Alas all I got was clickbait.
Once again BP knocks it out of the park with a collection of badly summarized urban legends copy-pasted from a TikTok comments section and mislabeled as "facts."
I'm not so sure about the first part, but I am about the second.
Load More Replies...I was hoping for some truly horrifying facts. Alas all I got was clickbait.
