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"I need to go to sleep but I can’t put my phone away because of this thread," someone commented in the now-viral Reddit thread. In it, hundreds of people are sharing their replies to "What is the scariest/creepiest theory you know about?" Ranging from theories about space travel to death, the answers are all sorts of intriguing.

"I came into this thread unafraid of death, I’m leaving petrified - thanks!" someone commented and we can't help but agree! More than 65k people liked the thread, prompting it to go viral on the social media platform. Therefore, as always, we encourage you to vote for the theories you found the most interesting! In addition to this, if you have a scary or creepy theory you know about, share in the comment section down below!

More info: Reddit

#1

May or not be a “theory”, but the first thing I thought of was that feeling you get when you’re on top of a building and think “what if I jumped?” Or when you’re driving and think “what if I just swerve into traffic.”

Well it’s actually got a name: L’appel du vide. French for “The call of the void.” I always thought the idea of some ethereal presence calling you towards darkness... creepy.

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Foxxy (The Original)
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I have those kind of thoughts “what if I walked in front of a train” and stuff like that when I have suicidal thoughts. I have no intent on doing it, I just think about what if?

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#2

We’ve all pretty much heard of Uncanny Valley (the creeped out anxious feeling when you look at something that’s humanoid but there’s something clearly wrong with it. Like the wax figures at Madame Tussaud’s or that AI robot Sophia)

But my favorite theory to come out of it is that we get that strange feeling because somewhere along human evolution we’ve learned to be wary of things that look human... but aren’t.

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#3

More of a story than a theory, but it correlates to some of these and makes me think some could be real. When I was younger I had this little stuffed animal dog I named rocky. One night, my younger sisters and I (who all slept in the same room so we could hangout together) were messing around, and I two handed over head tossed rocky into the wall directly in front of my bed. He hit the wall, slid down behind whatever was in front of my bed, and was NEVER seen again. I immediately went to go get him and he just wasn’t anywhere. We tore the whole entire small room apart. We all saw the event occur. Over time the room has been completely emptied out, everything in it rearranged, walls painted, everything- and no rocky. He just completely phased out of existence. Makes me think he glitched out of the system or something.

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Shelp
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I once had a passport that disappeared that way. The room I last saw it in was totally emptied several times, but I never found it back. Had to have a new one made.

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Santa Claus
Community Member
3 years ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I have this hairbrush that disappeared one day. It was very important to me, it was a gift from someone who I didn't get to see often, one day it just disappeared. It was always kept in this drawer, and I knew it was there seconds ago. We searched the room, re-arranged my whole wardrobe, no hairbrush. A few months later it reappeared, in the exact same spot it had been in months before.

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AzKhaleesi
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Same thing with a ring my grandmother gave me before she passed. It was so weird. I literally watched it fall off my hand. I looked EVERYWHERE. I tore the room apart, I even vacuumed thinking I'll hear it get sucked up then retrieve it. Nope. I went to have a good cry in the living room and told my Grandma I was sorry for being a clutz and please give it back. I walked into my room a while later and right in the middle of my floor, in the middle of a fresh vacuum track was my ring. So strange.

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Stack o' Pancakes
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I was reading a book and dropped it on the floor beside the bed and When I went to go get it, it was gone. I looked everywhere and to this day I still don't know how the book ended. It's been years.

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Moezarella
Community Member
3 years ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

You can laugh at me but I do believe there is an overlapping space of some sort to the one we are living in. It might have slipped into a crevice into that space.

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Sasha Kuleshov
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

The bear hit a wormhole and now has a new home in Alpha Centauri where is revered as a deity :D

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Kathryn Baylis
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Had this happen to me, not just in my house but in my car too. Lost a glove that was part of a rather pricey pair my husband got me for Christmas. All I did was take both gloves of while stopped at a red light, because my hands got hot, and put both gloves on the passenger seat. When I went to put them back on, only one was on the seat. Tore the car apart looking for it, and nothing. I have the same car now, and it has never turned up. It’s been about 5 years now.

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Cactuar Jon
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

This has happened to me loads of times. I once found a small powerball when I was a kid, it became my new favourite thing. One day, when out in my back garden, I bounced it and it went so high, it went over the house and into the front garden. I spent weeks looking for it, never found it. Years later, when I was cleaning out my room, I found the exact same powerball under my bed. Still to this day, I can't explain how it got there and how it was never noticed before on previous cleans.

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Flash Henry
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Same thing happened a few years ago at my ex's house--a framed picture fell off the wall, we saw and heard it fall behind a dresser, but it completely vanished.

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Ozzie Ogawa
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

We have lost some items such as scissor, nail clipper, and some small things in the house, we have never found most of them even when we did total cleaning. Sometimes we would find some small stuffs like spoon, scissor (which was different than those we have ever owned), and even ancient coins.

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Kirsten Kerkhof
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I had that happening with the keys of the cash register at the shop I worked in a long time ago. I used the keys to process some returns at the end of the day, switched them back to normal position, and started counting the money. When I wanted to finish, the keys were gone. Never found again, even though I was the only one in the shop and the keys couldn't even be removed! I blamed it on the poltergeist we had though, never thought about a glitch in the matrix.

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Bloxmakesgames2019
Community Member
3 years ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

This happened to me before except I found them in a new spot. I lose my pencils all the time, I put them in my pocket and they just disappear. Today I went to grab a paper from my backpack and 20 pencils that I lost (I know this because I chew on my pencils because I have a bad anxiety problem.) were all in my backpack.

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Sky Render
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

This is usually a processing error related to how we perceive motion, believe it or not. We have a natural mechanism to track motion after something leaves our field of vision, but it works on assumptions that don't actually align with how things necessarily move. Anyone who's accidentally knocked their glasses off the nightstand when waking up knows exactly what I'm talking about here! They're always somewhere that "seems" strange to us, because we didn't actually see exactly how the object moved and have only our intuition of movement to tell us where it "should" be. Likely your stuffed toy was found at some point and nobody said anything. It could also have fallen down a heater vent. Or a pet could have dragged it off. Any number of things are possible.

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Becca Gizmo the Squirrel
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

When I was about 13 for a month or two every time I walked by the fridge a magnet would slide down. Only for me. That same time I was noticing my watch wouldn't work right. Then it just never happened again and my watch started working fine. My mom said I was magnetic for a while.

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MelO
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

For a couple of years in my preteen to early teen years, appliances would malfunction when I used them. My mother became convinced I was breaking things on purpose to get out of doing chores, so she'd sit and watch me. I turn on the vacuum, use it normally, and within minutes the thing is smoking and the belt breaks. Eventually I was only given only chores that did not involve pricey appliances. No explanation, and it stopped happening by the time I was in my early teens.

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Mary Hiers
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

My daughter once tossed up a mini Beanie Baby in the kitchen that went up but didn't come back down. I was resigned to it having gone into another dimension until I changed the light bulb and realized she had inadvertently tossed it into the light fixture.

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Kim
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I also lost a toy the same way, only mine came back 7 years later on the exact same spot where it’d disappeared.

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Mewton’s Third Paw
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

A similar thing happened to me! Except we were outside on a piece of playground equipment, but my parents were there and they couldn’t find it either.

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Abigail Nagel
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

once, i lost a necklace, and i searched the ENTIRE playground (this was at school) for it. Couldn't find it ANYWHERE. just POOF. GONE.

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Devanshi Routray
Community Member
10 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Same thing happened to my bottle, it just disappeared out of existence. I was going to school and it just was gone, it was steel so it would have made a sound if it fell and I thought my mom forgot to put it in my bag and but when I reached home, we tried searching for it but it was just not there.

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Tracy P
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

we had a pot holder do that....it fell behind the stove or so we thought...moved everything out of there...never found that pot holder...

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Lucy Cook
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Be and my brother have had many cards, stuffed animals, and even books disappear. Its quite annoying really.

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¡ Rachel ¡
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

When I was around 7, I did this with a care Bear onto the top of a wardrobe. Same thing happened, he was never seen again!

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Kai Scadden
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Did you check if he got stuck on a board under the bed holding the mattress up?

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Honesty Pearson
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

One time i was in shoprite, i was like 8, so i swore i was crazy. My cousin/guardian bought me my sister and her two sons those 25¢ balls and i was bouncing mine around. Well when we got to the clothes section i had got in trouble and was told to stop so i started doing it lightly. I swore i seen it like go through the floor or something. It was gone.

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Skidanpump
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I had this pink Dino and I must’ve shoved it under my bed. I looked everywhere it’s nowhere to seen. I’ve moved and still can’t find it.

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Lorelai Purvis
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

i have started to think there are little sprites that steal the stuff when it falls down and glitches out of existence

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Cat
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

There's a book called A Place Called Here by Cecelia Ahern where all the things that go missing end up in this place. Keys, shoes, pets, people. Really good story.

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Pusheen
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

This happened to a tamogatchi my brother had when he was five or so.

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R. Lynx
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

There is an old Rod Serling Twilight Zone episode where a kid rolls out of bed and into another dimension, that eventually starts to close up. The original "Poltergeist" film by Stephen Spielberg also has something akin to the same event.

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Himanshu Raj
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

It happens sometimes. Very rarely. The entire world is an elaborate simulation. When the physics engine can't render something extremely unexpected in a scene this seemingly phasing thing occurs as a contingency measure to avoid lagging the environment. The disappeared object is collected in a data dump dimension and cleared from memory later.

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Grazina Strolia
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I lost a ring that way. We were moving, and there was literally nothing left in the living room--walls, floor, that's it. A gold ring my parents had given me slipped through my fingers and dropped to the floor at my feet. I heard it "ting!" We never found it. I guess it must have fallen into some crack, but...

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Edward Rutherford
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Once I was sleeping in my bedroom.. and I was suddenly awaken.. I was hit by a small stuffed dog.. could it be..

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Dogs_are_cool
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

did anybody else not see the “stuffed” part bc i lowkey thought they killed their dog

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Anna Repp
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

My daughter's blankie disappeared that way. She left it on the floor when we went to the movies and when we came back it was not there and was never found. I eventually had to buy her a new one as I looked everywhere. She's 15 now and still remembers that and thinks I took it away from her to break her habit of taking the blankie everywhere with her. I swear I did not!

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Sheena Leversedge Wood
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

was there an electricity sort of smell? this sounds similar to something my mum describes from her childhood (oddly, also a toy dog) only she saw it sort of blinking in and out of being there, then disappearing. never found again. have you heard of wiremen? almost no one outside of people that grew up around that area have heard of them. there was also what they called "nets" and when a tv show covered rods, she was spooked, and said "that's nets"

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Robert Bois le Duc
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

So Rocky now has a stranger's Passport in the Twilight Zone. This could get interesting !

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Robert Bois le Duc
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

So Rocky now has a stranger's Passport in the Twilight Zone, this could get interesting !

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Hannah Marshall
Community Member
3 years ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Glitch in the Matrix. I have lost 3 DVDs which were on my shelf. I don't remember lending them to anyone, but Juno, Rock of Ages, Chicago (had to get a new copy) all disappeared.

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Alan Ma
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I had a book once on strange deaths and one story was an incident sometime ago in Mid West USA when a wife was watching her husband approaching on a horse drawn carriage from across their farming property they lived on when the whole carriage and horse just disappeared into the ground . ....never to be seen again despite there were no holes in that spot and later strange noises were heard coming out from under ground and farm animals would not go near there.

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Powercat
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

My friend and I both witnessed a tea pot lid disappearing in a similar way. We were drinking tea at his appartment and one of us accidently dropped the lid of the tea pot. We both heard it hit the floor. We both looked down to pick the lid from the floor but it wasn't there. We looked everywhere in the room, under furniture, in every corner. The lid just disappeared. When he moved out years later he never found it, even after the whole place was emptied.

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Isabella Vega
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

That’s happened to me too! I lost a favorite toy in my house and thought for sure it was behind a bookcase. We later moved, so when we carried all the stuff including the bookcase out, it was no where to be found

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Nicole
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

This happened with a TV remote at a hotel my boyfriend and myself were staying at. We never had housekeeping or anyone else in the room, and we tore that room apart... it was nowhere

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Nicole
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

My boyfriend and myself have lost a TV remote that way, in a little hotel room... We tore it apart, it was nowhere.

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Ziva Kravdahl
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Wow. That is creepy one. Invisible black hole or temporary portal? Or monsters from under bed kidnapped it?!

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Sue Knerl
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I had a Christmas present just do that a week ago. I swore I put it in a tote in the garage, went to get it and it's gone! Tore it and the house apart and never found it. Still gone,

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Biljana Malesevic
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

There is somewhere a universe of all things we lost. And with a lot of socks.

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Nico C
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

“Somewhere in the cosmos.. along with all the planets inhabited by humanoids, reptiloids, fishoids, walking treeoids and superintelligent shades of the color blue, there was also a planet entirely given over to ballpoint life forms. And it was to this planet that unattended ballpoints would make their way, slipping away quietly through wormholes in space to a world where they knew they could enjoy a uniquely ballpointoid lifestyle, responding to highly ballpoint-oriented stimuli, and generally leading the ballpoint equivalent of the good life." -Douglas Adams

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Ben Churchill
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

The same thing happened to me and my sister when we were little. We were playing catch indoors, and tossing a bright orange ball back and forth. Well, one toss, midway through it just disappeared. We looked everywhere and could never find it. I was very weird as we were both watching as it just poofed out of existence.

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Haunting Spirit
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I just learned from this list that you suffer from schizophrenia :D.

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Debra Robinson
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

We were installing a new ceiling fan in '99 and lost ONE tiny, brassy screw-looked ALL OVER the whole damn room to se where it might have bounced. Guess what? Yeah. G O N E!

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Potato o Doom
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

The easiest way to test this theory is with guitar picks. Throw one of those things and it's gone. Just nowhere. This same exact thing here happened to me with a guitar pick.

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PearlsNotSecretRapCareer
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

And another theory. The aliens are lightyears away and we don't exist yet because we're so far.

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Vikram Bedi
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Once I open a Bathroom door and it felt as if a black figure rushed to attack my foot... turns out there was a black towel hanging on the handle on the other side. As I swung it open ... the wind caused to rush towards me... 🤪

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Seedy Vine
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Whoa! Reminds me of the time I tripped going downstairs and a library book I had went sailing out of my hands, up toward the ceiling, and then into nothingness. I looked everywhere for it but didn't find it. Never could explain it to the library...

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Azure Adams
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

That absolutely happens! I lost four books one day that I had just gotten to this glitch out. Retraced all steps, places, and people and all confirmed seeing me with them and in my house when I was 7 between eating dinner and getting in bed, they glitched out. We never found them and no one was ever in the house but my mom and I.

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Vilma
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

It happened to my fitbit! I needed to clean the bathroom, so I took it off and put it on the couch. When I came back, it wasn’t there. I searched the whole house, but it just disappeared. I had to buy a new one.

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LegendYak
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

This happened to me! I lost my book and my whistle, my sister lost her glove, and my mom lost something that I don't remember what it is. The weird this is that I was always the last one to touch them

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#4

If you're scuba diving above a coral reef, and you know that there SHOULD be fish all around you, but you don't see any, it's most likely that they have learned that for some reason it's important not to be seen.

And since you're a newcomer to this environment, chances are it's not you they're hiding from.

EDIT: the number of scuba divers saying they've experienced this and then noticed a shark nearby is alarming.

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Foxxy (The Original)
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Pretty much anytime your in the ocean there are sharks swimming nearby. We are no their food source so generally don’t bother coming near enough to do any harm. They are no out to get us, it’s just that sharks explore using their jaws which unfortunately has a lot of razor sharp teeth that will do a lot of damage. Very very rarely has a person been eaten by a shark, most of the time the person is let go once the shark realises we are not tasty and the person dies from drowning, shock or blood loss.

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#5

Our “world” is out perception of our surroundings in our 3 dimensional life. It’s possible that we are living amongst beings, things and events that we cannot experience because we are 3 dimensions and they are not.

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JessG
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

A famous Victorian school teacher wrote “Flatland: a Romance of Many Dimensions” (which Carla Sagan has cited in his docs) It illustrates how a one dimensional being would see the world, just lines. And when a 3D sphere visits, he can only see a line. I think about this often actually. I find it fascinating to think of all the other dimensions we cannot perceive. I think about insects, and how they perceive our world, like a fly with a thousand eyes. Their view of this many faceted world is not wrong, it is their 3D world. So who’s to say that our view of the world is The “correct” view, and not the way an insect sees it? I dunno, just food for thought

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#6

If the human body senses trauma it is unable to combat, it will switch off metabolism, pump endorphins, and slip into a pain free dissociative state.

In essence, shutting down. Its been seen in air crashes and lots of places really.

Basically your body can switch itself off.

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Ann Abdelzaher
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

my body takes it to a new level. I suffer from Neural Basal reactions. When I have sudden pain (pinch my finger, cut myself etc...) My brain shuts down and I pass out... usually resulting in some secondary injuries that I often do not feel right away or at all. I also tend to stop breathing in these episodes and wake up hyperventilating.

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#7

The Gaian Bottleneck theory. Basically the reason we've never encountered or been contacted by aliens is because they're all dead. Every alien species that evolved to form advanced societies eventually outgrew their planet and destroyed themselves. Like we are.

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Francis
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

even if they found us, they probably see the dinosaurs or nothing when th're looking at us right now. the light needs a looot of time to travel

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#8

Cosmology can be disturbing.

For instance, I recently learned of dead end trips. There are some destinations that you shouldn't try for. It's possible to travel so far away from where you started, that the expansion of the universe will exceed the speed you were travelling at.

You can't return home, because home is receding faster than you can travel.

You can't reach your destination, because it too is receding faster than you can travel.

You can no longer get anywhere, only get further away from everything.

You cannot reach any destination, even if you travel forever.

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#9

Humans are scared of things that mimic them too perfectly, the theory is that we developed this because there was a super predator of some sort that would mimic us and kill us. But we never knew what happened to it

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#10

"There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened." - Douglas Adams

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#11

That there is no secret society controlling everything, and humans by themselves are destroying humanity and themselves. And it's just easier to think that it's someone else behind all the evil .

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Dynein
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Uh... that is what I actually believe...? It seems to me that current as well as historic events make the most sense if you assume that no one has control over everything. Sure, there's people who try, but even in tight dictatorships you get rebels and unforeseen random events. I definitely think that conspiracy theorists are overwhelmed with the unpredictability of the world and hang onto whichever theory puts their "preferred enemy" into the group of control... it implies a) everything bad that happens is due to the people I already think of as bad, b) I'm definitely and always one of the good people, c) I'm so special for catching on, d) even if I don't control events now, I might in the future if I fight my enemy. I definitely think of it as lazy, both in respect to self-awareness (you don't need to question yourself) and level of intellectual difficulty (it turns highly complex issues of the world into simple black-and-white problems).

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#12

The theory that we're all quantum immortals and when someone dies in our reality for them they just keep on going in a reality where they didn't

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#13

That we have so little data about the deep dark parts of the ocean and don’t truly know what lurks there

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Phunny Philosopher
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

It might be sunshine and rainbows and Narwhal parties! Jk, we know enough about physics to know that’s not possible. But still- why do the things in the deep ocean have to be bad? Because our imagination. That’s it.

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#14

It's scary that there are thousands of serial killers out there at any 1 given time who often just blend in with the rest of society and live normal lives. Many will never be caught.

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#15

If you die by being beheaded the last thing you might see is your decapitated body.

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#16

That humans almost went extinct. 70,000 years ago a volcano in Indonesia erupted. There’s theories that we have a genetic bottleneck around that time. Took our population down to 10,000-3,000 (like the size of one small town). Lots of fresh genetic material died with those who were lost and the resulting inbreeding could have resulted in some genetic diseases that have made their way into humans today. Without this event, we may have advanced faster and be healthier people today.

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#17

Not a theory but reality. Schizophrenia can happen to anyone, at any age, even to perfectly healthy people. Imagine being normal and then waking up one day and seeing and hearing things that aren't actually there. That is really scary and creepy.

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Lärry
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

My brother (35) has paranoid Schizophrenia. He is awake the whole night and sleeps the whole day. I told him once, it would maybe be better if he's awake when we all are to spend more time together (my kids love him much), and that he maybe should try to change that. His answer was: yes, I know. But I'm too scared to sleep at night.... Broke my heart.

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#18

I had a professor in college who taught physics and he explained why we will likely never come across aliens. The universe is about 14 billion years old. Over the course of that time, it’s likely that intelligent life, besides life on earth, has existed. However, 14 billion years is an INSANELY long time. Other life forms have probably risen and fallen thousands of times over. Extreme dynasties with technology we can only dream of having have probably existed. Life forms could have lasted hundreds of thousands of years and still not even be close to our timeline. The chances of other intelligent life forms existing at the same time as humans, in the 14 billion years the universe has hosted a possibility for life, is really unlikely. Statistically, intelligent life to have formed, prospered, or even existed at the same time as humans is extremely small simply due to the absolute drop in a bucket that we are on terms of time. We may very well be completely alone in the universe.

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Nikki Sevven
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

It's not merely time that is the issue, but also space, which is mindbogglingly huge.

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#19

Ok this one is rough so please bare with me,

So the common time travel question is would you go back and kill baby hitler?

Well imagine if that was you, to us in the current timeline you would be a hero that killed someone truly evil before they had chance to corrupt or endanger anyone but to the people of that time you are a monster, a baby killer.

They couldn’t exactly explain to people, I was sent from the future to kill this baby to save hundreds of millions of lives. No-one would believe him and would just assume he was some nutcase, or maybe they’re not allowed to tell anyone as per the agreement with the future government?

It makes you wonder all the people through time that have been called monsters for killing babies, what if they were just heroes from the future saving us all? They couldn’t tell anyone either?

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Truth Monster
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Hitler was just the lightning rod. Chances are, someone else would have become the lightning rod if you murdered baby Hitler. Hitler is still a terrible human, I'm not excusing him at all.

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#20

The dark forest theory. This explains the Fremi paradox, why we haven’t seen any other advanced life forms despite the vastness of the universe. Other advanced life forms don’t send out signals into the rest of the universe because they’re worried that something more advanced and dangerous is going to find them first. There’s another idea that other civilizations know there’s something out there but don’t send any signals because it has no reason to not wipeout the entire planet.

There’s a science fiction book based on this and I think this quote explains it better than I can:

“The universe is a dark forest. Every civilization is an armed hunter stalking through the trees like a ghost, gently pushing aside branches that block the path and trying to tread without sound. Even breathing is done with care. The hunter has to be careful, because everywhere in the forest are stealthy hunters like him. If he finds another life—another hunter, angel, or a demon, a delicate infant to tottering old man, a fairy or demigod—there's only one thing he can do: open fire and eliminate them”

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#21

That you might be aware of everything happening to you during surgery, the anesthesia keeps you from moving and causes you to forget.

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stimpy avatar
Stimpy
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Nice creepy theory! But just as a comfort for anybody who might be taking this too seriously: we know very well that this is not the case. We can clearly show which brain regions are active when people are in pain, and they are not active when people are anesthized. Don't worry!

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#22

During the Challenger accident from 1986, whenever the shuttle exploded, the ground crews had the astronauts EKG’s and vital scans....after the explosion, the astronauts were still alive. Theory has it that they were cognizant the entire time until they crashed in the ocean.

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The Dave
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

It is a known fact that the astronauts were not killed by the explosion itself. The theory is that they died after cabin depressurization and oxygen depletion.

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#23

The theory that scented candles starting getting poor reviews at the same time COVID hit the US. Makes you wonder how many people have mild COVID before we even knew about it, pairing the lack of taste and/or smell as one of the main symptoms associated with mild COVID cases.

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Kirsten Kerkhof
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

The other option is that, because people were at home much more, the scent was less noticable (you grow used to familiar scents) so people thought the candles smelled less. Though I think the OP has the more likely idea ...

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#24

Some people have had some strange NDEs (Near Death Experiences). Going through websites cataloging them can be a trip. I'm willing to attribute some of them to brain damage and some as "legit" though I'll never be able to tell which is which.

Death bed visions give me a warmer sense of security. I can't imagine how peaceful it must be to die and see your deceased loved ones there to ensure you make it safely to the other side.

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#25

The universe could be dying, and we'd have no way to know until we just suddenly vanish from existence.

There could be a sort of quantum energy wave, can't remember what it's called because it's been so long since I read about it. Zero point collapse, maybe? Vacuum bubble burst? But whatever it is, it's an energy wave that starts at some point, and spreads outward at the speed of light, annihilating any matter, energy, and even spacetime in its path.

Because the wave travels at the speed of light, it is invisible. We would have no way of seeing it coming, because any light emitted by it would hit us at the exact same time that the wave itself hits us.

So, all of a sudden, the sun might just vanish from existence. We wouldn't notice because the sun's light from eight minutes ago would still be reaching us. Eight minutes later, the earth just vanishes from existence. No warning. No trace.

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Shelp
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Well, this is unsettling. But how can space and time be wiped out?

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#26

The theory that the last moments of consciousness before death can feel like a literal eternity, and where your mind can create entire realities from blissful to horrifying. So in a way the threat of enduring a hellscape of eternal suffering is very real no matter what you believe.

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#27

Spontaneous combustion. I watched a strange but true episode about this as a child and was convinced I'd randomly burst into flames one day. I'm over it now but that was my top fear for a long time.

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Stimpy
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I was afraid of that too. About at the age where I also thought that quicksand was a much more common problem than it actually is. Maybe that was just also one of the common story tropes in the 80s, and we picked it up as real?

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#28

The theory that there is an infinite number of parallel universes branching out at each moment with all possible outcomes for each situation.

Let's say this is true and you play Russian roulette. Five out of six of possible "you" would live and one would die but no matter how many times you play there would always be versions of you that would survive. This would give those versions of "you" the illusion of immorality. This would mean that no matter the risks you would take, there would always be some version of you that would survive.

If this is true, it would mean that you could live your life completely free of the fear of death and take on any risk. But the only way to know if this is true is to expose yourself to high odds of deaths, repeatedly.

Also this would mean that as time passed there would always be a more decrepit and invalid version of you surviving, maybe forever...

Anyways that or lizard people.

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#29

The first man in space (some Russian cosmonaut whose name I can't remember) was not the true first. The actual first was a cosmonaut whose mission was unsuccessful and he either died in orbit or on reentry. Once it became apparent that he was doomed the Russian authorities cut off communications, leaving him to die in isolation, and covered up the existence of the mission.

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#30

I saw a theory that we truly live through our entire again in the moments before death, but that it's a loop. When you reach your moment of death during your moment of death, you relive it again. And again. And again. Trapped in a loop with no difference, no awareness, forever.

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Luna
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

The thing about this, is you don’t know if you are living through that right now

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