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Do you remember the moment from The Matrix when Neo sees the same black cat pass by twice? That’s what people in The Matrix universe called a glitch, a momentary error where certain rules of reality seemed to shift, bend, or break. It’s an interesting concept in fiction, but what about the times when something unexplainable happens in real life?
We don’t live in The Matrix; we live in the real world, so such things never happen to us, right? Well, after reading these stories, you might change your mind. A few days ago, user @1minuteentertainment asked fellow netizens for their creepiest stories: “Tell me about the strangest glitch in the matrix that has happened to you.”
Strange visions, lost time, deja vus, and many more — these are the stories people claim are 100% real. But what do you think, Pandas: are they just coincidences or proof that reality can be stranger than fiction?
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#1
i bought a very specific vintage mug at a thrift store. a week later i dropped it broke it and threw the pieces in the outside trash. next morning i wake up and the exact same mug is sitting completely whole in my drying rack. the trash bag outside still had the broken pieces in it. my brain is still broken over it.
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#2
My brother and I recorded ourselves singing a song about being brother and sister on a cassette when we were 6 and 8yrs.
We moved houses several times throughout the years but when I’m 15, made friends with the new girl from another town, I’m at her house and she puts on this tape, it’s 1997 so NO ONE has played tapes for a few yrs. IT WAS ME AND MY BRO SINGING WHEN WE WERE LITTLE, THE ACTUAL TAPE we made yrs before. It was weird! I still don’t understand how she had that tape!
#3
Years ago, I missed my bus on Potrero Hill in San Francisco. It was a lovely fall day, so I decided to walk. While walking I called my friend to discuss an idea we had for printing t-shirts. I said, "well the first thing we'll need is a screen printing machine." I looked down, and literally sitting next to me on the sidewalk was a brand new, unused silkscreen printer with a sign that said "free." We are still friends, and to this day we call crazy coincidences "the silkscreen effect"
#4
Once picked up the phone(☎️ 90s dial up) to ring my brother and he was already on the line I hadn’t even dialed the number
#5
I'll try to sum this up in one short paragraph.
3 years ago I was a delivery driver in Manhattan and when I was stuck at the light I noticed a guy in a burgundy sweater walking his black dog and the Asian traffic police yelling at a driver in a blue truck to turn because it's his turn. I just happened to notice this.
Flash forward 4 hours later I was approaching the same light, and watched the EXACT scene unfold as it did earlier with every exact detail. It was a vivid scene that redid itself.
#6
I just finalized my divorce. I was crying on the Seattle waterfront and wishing I could talk to my friend Brian. I kept thinking about him- where are you Brian? A man walked up to me and asked if I was okay. I said yes. He said “Well my name is Brian and I’ll be right over here if you want to talk”.
#7
One time I went to Venice Beach with some friends. One of them mentioned that her dad lived right off the canals, so after walking around the boardwalk and grabbing food, we headed back to his place to hang out.
As we were walking there, I randomly said that I only knew one person who lived in the Venice canals, but I hadn’t seen him in over a decade and had no idea if he still lived there.
I kid you not, I finished that sentence and her dad’s neighbor walked outside to leave. It was him.
#8
Niece died at 1 from spinal muscular atrophy. Her symbol was the butterfly. Her entire room was decorated with them. We were all in the hospital when she died. As soon as she passed in the hospital, what do we see on the outside window on the third story of this children’s hospital? A butterfly. And it just hung out for minutes staring at all of us.
#9
My 2nd wife and I met online. Both divorced. She told me that she had a thing for brown guys(me) ever since she was 15 because every day for a month she would watch a young guy who was doing construction work at her school and had the biggest crush on him. Yeah, turns out, it was me
#10
First night on a solo trip from the US to Australia, I went to eat at a bar and the guy sitting next to me was also American. The glitch is that his office is on my street back home.
#11
When we were young, both my husband and I had in invisible friends. His was named Joan Gribb and mine was named Charlie. The only people who knew this were our parents. Who have all since passed away. Forward to July 2018 we buy a new house and we get a card in the mail addressed to Joan Gribb at our address and no return address. I opened it and it was a birthday card signed Charlie. We traced the entire property history. A Joan Gribb has never lived here.
#12
My daughter (11) and I were on a bus, we saw a distinctive looking guy get on the bus with long curly hair and colourful clothes.
He went to sit behind us. At the next stop the same guy got on the bus again and went to sit behind us, again. We both looked at each other and went: didn’t he just get on the previous stop?
Weird eh? Well, the next week we were on the exact same bus and it happened again…
#13
I dreamed an entire conversation with someone, then the next day they said almost every sentence word for word.
#14
I was at a bus stop in California and didn’t have cash. A woman who looked just like me but older bought my bus ticket, and when i asked how to pay her back she said “pass it on to another girl who needs it”. I think it was me.
#15
I was driving on a U-turn road when a huge truck nearly hit me, it felt like it could’ve been the end. I closed my eyes, and in a split second, I found myself back at the exact spot I was in about three minutes before reaching the U-turn.
#16
When I moved to Florida at 15 years old, it was several months before I was able to call my best friend back in my hometown. When I finally called him his phone was busy. I called back… still busy. When I called a third time he answered and was shocked it was me. He was like, “that’s so weird. I just tried to call you, but your phone was busy.”
🫨
After months of no contact we both decided to call each other at the
*exact same time*
#17
My mom had a ring in her jewelry box that I admired for years. She gave it to me when I moved out for college. It’s been in my jewelry box since. A good decade later mom and I were looking through her jewelry box and there was the ring she gave me. So apparently there’s now two of them.
#18
I was in a pub with some friends, telling a story that took place at a job I had had more than 10 years earlier. I got stuck on the name of a colleague, whom I hadn't seen or heard from since those days. I racked my brain for a bit, until finally it broke through. "I remember. Her name was [Tracy]!" The very moment the name left my lips, I felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked up, and standing over me was [Tracy].
#19
My mom and I used to attend choir practice every Saturday afternoon to prepare for Sunday church back in the early 2000s. My dad would always pick us up afterward, but one day he was running late. My mom asked me to use the landline at the back of the church to call home and tell him to hurry.
I dialed our number. It rang a few times before someone finally answered. Without thinking, I said, "Dad, hurry up. Mom and I are waiting. Practice is over."
The voice replied, "This isn't your dad," in a joking tone. But it was my dad's voice, he was always joking around. I just laughed, told him to come already, and hung up.
The moment I stepped outside, my dad was already there with my mom, waiting for me. I froze. I had literally just been inside making that call.
I ran back to the phone, speed-dialed our number again, and this time no one answered. What the hell.
This still gives me chills to this day. And yes, it was definitely our number. You know how every phone number had its own familiar rhythm when you dialed it? I'd memorized ours by heart. I mean... who doesn't.
#20
I woke up late for a job interview. I had no money and took the bus everywhere. My mom kindly ordered me an uber. On my way to the job interview, I saw that the bus I would have been on got swallowed by a pothole. Got the job. Kinda woulda rather had a settlement from a bus accident 🤣
#22
A few days ago, I was at an event during a trip and ended up sharing a table with an older couple. We really hit it off and at one point we started talking about books. I asked them about their favorite genre and their all-time favorite book. Without hesitation, they said «A Gentleman in Moscow». They love that book so much that every member of their family has read it. We all got shivers when I pulled the very same book out of my purse. I had been reading it for about a month!!!
#23
For years, in Dublin City Ireland, I walked a specific route from my bus stop to my office. And for years I passed the same girl heading the opposite direction, obviously on her way to work. Then I moved to Sydney Australia. I got my first temp job, got off train in city and walked to the office. And yes, there she was, walking opposite direction. We both did a double take on each other. Didn’t speak, just like a WTF moment for both of us as we rushed to work. Didn’t see her again after that.
#24
A song came on the radio and I quickly turned it up and sang along to every word! I hadn’t heard it in forever but didn’t miss a beat. My now husband was like “how’d you know the lyrics?” and it caught me so off guard. I was like “what do you mean?” and he went “the guy just said ‘radio debut’ before playing it” — still to this day have no idea when/how I memorized the song
#25
This is minor...but I swear to god every time I look up at a streetlight, the light goes out.
#26
I used to see the same woman at the bus top in Toronto on my way to work. I went on vacation in the UK for a month and one morning was catching a train from a small Yorkshire town into London and there she was on the platform.
#27
Our orange cat got run over and was laying in the gutter. My mom burried her in the garden and later that they she simply walked back onto our house. 🐈
#28
My husband plays Candy Crush on an iPad for relaxation every night. He’s played it for years, often in bed while I’m reading. One night, he randomly asked me to guess what level he was on. Without looking, I said level 3,423. And it was.😳 For real. Exact. 🤷♀️
#29
I was driving home on a canyon road late at night back in 2017. Going the speed limit, totally focused, wide awake. I heard a crystal clear physical male voice in the car tell me to SLOW DOWN. So I did. A minute later I'm going around a blind corner and had to stop because one of the biggest bull elk I've ever seen was just standing in the middle of my lane. The car was small. I wouldn't have slowed down on time and it certainly would have ended me.
#30
Sold my car to a dealership 30 min away, it had stickers on it, one being the logo of our school district and another was a DMB sticker (Dave Matthew’s Band, not everyone’s cup o tea). . A couple weeks later my kids and I walked out of the middle school to our car driving right in front of us, all the stickers on it. I’m convinced it was another version of us that still had the car. Chances of it ending up at the same school, 30 min from the dealership and us seeing it at that exact moment?
#31
bought a pair of the perfect shade of cherry red converses, brought them home and never saw them again
#32
This is a repeating glitch and has happened countless times. I’ll be out and about and I’ll think I see someone I know from a distance but get closer and realize oh that’s not them. Then within a minute or two, the person I thought I saw shows up! It has happened so many times. I don’t know what it means. Lots of doppelgängers out there messing with me.
#33
Went to England in 1985 to visit a boyfriend, who then took me all over the country, including to a city where they had a big genealogy records place, so I could look up some of my ancestors for my mom. You were supposed to have an appointment, and we had just shown up, but a local person was kind enough to offer me their slot, so I went in. Sat down and started looking for the particular ancestor my mom had asked me to research and the man sitting by me was LOOKING FOR HIM, TOO.
#34
Not me. But my brother-in-law and his friends. They were coaching a basketball tournament and took the kids to get some food. They were parked outside of a restaurant waiting and noticed a car with 3 women pull up. They got out, one adjusted her skirt, one made a joke and another got out of the back seat. A few minutes later, out of the exact same car that hadn’t moved, they all got out again and did the exact same actions. 3 people saw this at the same time.
#35
One time a failed business owner and reality tv show host became president of the USA and destroyed the country …
#36
I met a girl in Bangkok. We did the deed. Said goodbye. Four months later she was in my hotel in Argentina. We did it again. Laughed. Had fun. Bye again. Five months later we ran into each other in friggin' Dublin.
Haven't seen her since.
#37
“All My Friends” by LCD Soundsystem was released in 2007.
I heard the song first. In 2003 on the way home from the hospital after my mom passed away.
#38
One day, a few yrs ago, I randomly thought of this girl from my hometown I used to be friends with in elementary school. I hadn't seen /thought about her in decades (30+ years) so I thought it was odd she popped up in my head. The next wk, Im in the ER (in a diff city) waiting for a doc to see me. Behind the curtains in my shared room, they wheel in another patient , someone got into a bad car accident. They say her first/last name . It's THE SAME GIRL I THOUGHT ABOUT THE PREVIOUS WK!
#39
Was at one of the brokest points in my life, had probably $5 in my account. Walked into a spiritual shop to look around, checked my bank account and I had exactly $444.44 in my account. It wasn’t pay day either
#40
About 26 years ago when we lived in an apt, my husband and I got into a huge fight. Afterwards when he left to go play hockey, I ripped up his St. Louis cardinals T-shirt & put it back in the drawer. The next day, he came out of our bedroom wearing the same shirt but it was in perfect condition.
#41
I lost my wallet on a bus in Vegas back in 2001, the bus driver said he hadn’t saw it and no one turned it in (it was gone). Later that day we got back on the bus on the same bus and in the same seat and my wallet was there!
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