Once put one of those plastic wrapped potatoes in my uniform apron to put back in produce at my first retail job (got abandoned in the mac and cheese section). I then completely forgot and took it home. Took it out of my apron and put it on my desk next to my car keys because “I’ll remember to take it back”. I did not. Lived with me for a week or something when I finally put it in my apron again because I wasn’t remembering. I took it to work. I completely forgot about it and never returned it. It made this trip several times. I put it back on my desk because this wasn’t working out, surely I’ll remember if I see it.
Then I forgot about it for like three months. One day I look over at my desk and it’s a shriveled potato with a new potato growing from its own husk…
In essence, potatoes are amazing and horrifying. Just like my short term memory lol.
Then you plant the potato, determined to pay it back with interest. Months later, you harvest 5 potatoes that make it back to work but end up forgotten and back at home again. You even remember them at work frequently, but never when you’re in the right section of the store.
You do remember to plant them the next year though. The first year, you just put them in a pot in your back yard, this year they get a small dedicated place in the ground. The 5 potatoes turn into 34 and no longer all fit in your apron pockets. But you do remember to return the 4 you have on you one day at work, and then forget to grab more before the other 30 are all sprouting the next year.
So the potato garden gets bigger year 3. You build a small shed to store the couple hundred you harvest. You’re getting good at growing potatoes.
You eat one, not because you think you deserve it, but to make sure the potatoes you still want to return to the produce section are up to the high standards your employer’s customers expect.
It’s pretty good.
No, not just good. Your potato is amazing, the best you’ve ever tried. Wait, no, your work’s potato is the best you’ve ever tried. You vow to repay that potato, hardening your resolve. You bring a whole bag in on your next day.
It only takes you three days to remember to drop off the bag of potatoes with the others (after a colleague asks about the bulge on your back where you were carrying them under your shirt). But then you realize with horror that the colour of the bag you made doesn’t match the others. They are beige while yours is a bright beige. You return home that day with your bag plus a work bag, just so you can match the colour properly.
It takes you two more years to finally master the potato bag making craft. It wasn’t just the colour that was off, you also had to match the font and placement of the text and then noticed that your stitching holding the bag closed was pretty different.
Your potato garden had taken over your entire back yard by then and you knew with dread that you wouldn’t have enough space to plant them all next season. But your neighbour lets you use some of their 50 acres in return for two potatoes a day. You feel a bit guilty because they aren’t your potatoes, but you justify it because it’s an investment.
You don’t forget about returning potatoes at work anymore. You can’t forget. Potatoes have all but taken over your life at this point. You bring in a bag and fill your pockets with them each day and take each chance you can get to casually pass through the produce section and leave some potatoes without anyone noticing (which is difficult because you’d been promoted to the deli counter).
You’ve grown strong from getting used to carrying a bag of potatoes while still walking normally, not to mention the slight of hand tricks you use to pull it out of its hiding spot and leave it with the other bags without anyone noticing.
But you’re still gaining potatoes overall, filling the shed and the storage building that replaced it. You consider high jacking the truck that delivers potato orders to your work, but you know Ed in receiving would notice something was up if there was an extra delivery they didn’t pay for. You had already heard some confusion about potato shrinkage being negative and worried you’d never be able to repay your debt.
Then a complaint came in and you thought it was all over. A customer bought a bag of potatoes and they were all trash compared to the last one. The store was going to trace the batch number, which you had just been making up and even having a bit of fun with.
You felt a confused relief when you heard that the trace had led to nothing unusual being discovered. Turns out the trash potatoes were from the usual source and you wondered if that earlier bag was the one from you.
And then one day your nightmare comes true. You had just stealthfully placed three potatoes with others–that were much smaller and didn’t look nearly as good (you were considering sending some anonymous tips to the producer so yours wouldn’t stand out so much)–and made eye contact with one of your colleagues who was standing by the carrots. She saw. It’s over. My whole potato empire is about to crumble to nothing and I’m going to prison for theft.
She looked dumbfounded. A little too dumbfounded, actually. You were wondering if this was a bigger deal than you had thought when you notice a bright orange object fall from her sleeve to the ground. It was a carrot. And it looked significantly better than most of the carrots your work had on display.
I see you’ve seen my Stardew Valley games lmao thanks for the laughs this was great!
You might have ADHD lol
I have definitely wondered the same myself lol I am also pretty shit with time management…
Potato: the traditional ADHD houseplant. (Reminds me, I should see if any of my bag of potatoes have volunteered to be planted/have sprouted yet)
Why didn’t you just eat the potato?
Honestly never occurred to me lol I was 17 and that was Work’s Potato, it needed to go home to Work.
So pure of heart
Probably not as interesting, but I was woken up as a kid (teen?) by my mom screaming and running into my room/in my bed. Woke up to see my dad standing in the doorway with a steak knife. She had asked him to go to rehab. That was it. We’re good though 🤙🏾
They tried to make me go to rehab 🎶
and I said 🔪🔪🔪
I think in hindsight, we can all agree, that Amy Winehouse should have indeed gone to rehab.
There’s literally a video of her doing coke while performing. Like mid song.
There’s also the duet she did with Charlotte Church where she was so blitzed out of her mind that she could barely stand and just slurred everything almost incoherently. I knew she wouldn’t be around much longer when I saw that.
It’s sad. I wish people didn’t get addicted. It’s never a good outcome for them.
rehab doesn’t “fix” people. do you have any experience with addiction? if there was a magic cure, there would be no addicts.
rehab is a lot better of an idea than nothing
It’s a joke you cabbage
one that perpetuates an acceptable level of ignorance. Addiction is hell. You’re joking about people being in unimaginable pain. It’s disgusting.
You’re in unimaginable pain
Banned from my instance. Have the day you deserve.
Rehab can work for those who want to use it, it very rarely works for those forced to go to it.
There, feel better now?
I’m a 51-year-old married man, and I have owned multiple online girls jn BDSM relationships over the past 4 years. I’ve controlled their food and what they wear. I’ve had then send me videos of them spanking and hurting themselves at my my direction. My wife has no idea about any of it.
So you cheat on your wife and force young women to self injure? That’s not really very nice at all.
I agree with your comment, but he’s here to give you what you wanted: scary and unsettling. This is the dude who understood the assignment.
No, he isn’t. That’s not scary at all, just loser behavior he wanted to get off his chest.
Stop cheating on your wife, loser. I must assume that was the abuse he was after by confessing it.
That’s fine, but cheating on your wife isn’t nice and I’m going to say so, and neither is abusing much younger women. Young women have been murdered in violent BDSM relationships. It’s honestly toxic in my opinion. Which I know isn’t popular, but also don’t groom young women and cheat on your wife.
And after what happened with Neil Gaiman, I have to wonder how consensual such situations like this are. In fact, I originally thought this was a Neil Gaiman reference, but he’s 64.
I’ve been reading court cases lately of sexual assault cases that happened in BDSM relationship contexts as a result of Gaiman on the Canlii website. There’s a lot of nonconsensual behaviour by the men charged, and one even left a woman in a collar in his basement when she didn’t want to and she died in there. I don’t have a lot of faith in consent in those relationships. And I think they’re disgusting to be honest. Get therapy.
Yeah. I am sure there are plenty of women who are actually into BDSM, but this just feels creepy and disturbing to me with the way he is putting it. Which I guess is the point of the thread, but it still feels like I’m reading the confession of a rapist who doesn’t realize that’s what they’re confessing to.
I sure hope I’m wrong.
There was this pair in my province who in 2012 met on FetLife because of a shared interest in rape fantasies. So after doing things to each other for a while, they ended up snatching this poor young teacher walking home one night, raping and killing her, and are in prison forever. I grew up with the Ken and Barbie killers, Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka, in my city and attended a victim’s funeral. They killed Karla’s little sister so they could rape her. They filmed the rapes of all their victims. Bernardo was also a serial rapist in Scarborough.
I don’t care what people do in their sex lives. I think it’s important to have an off button and self control, and if you’re preying upon young women and cheating on your spouse like the dude above, you’re just a predator.
I would be more hopeful to believe it was consensual was except they bragged their wife doesn’t know. I’ve been in enough situations through chats to learn people like this exist and managed to abuse others—even virtually. There can be healthy relationships in BDSM, but the community often attracts predators for a reason.
And the people who are only online and not telling their spouse are significantly more likely to be predators. I’m not saying irl communities don’t have predators, they absolutely do, I’ve been abused by someone I met through one, but being part of irl communities means that if you get reported as an abuser (and the community comes to the conclusion that the report is valid) you can’t just change your username and show up to the same events and spaces
Right, it was the much younger women and not telling his wife parts that made me a little concerned about how consensual the relationships are.
but cheating on your wife isn’t nice
i understand the sentimental writeup but there was no requirement to be nice, only scaring and unsettling facts
It’s not scary.
It’s certainly unsettling. Is that why you omitted it?
You don’t get to make a post like this and be judgmental too
Says who? This is borderline pedophilia to me. I’ll judge if I want.
You are uniquely disqualified. I think it’s gross as fuck and I’m judging the shit out of them.
Okay, I didn’t make the post. I’ll be the one to be judgmental. Because this person sounds like, at the kindest possible interpretation I can come up with, a sexual predator. Fair?
You sound like an example us irl folk give to draw people away from online only
When I used to be spiritual I had a very small cult following of 12 people whose extreme believe in my lies actually showed me how frigthening Religion is.
Go on…
Okay, found some time. First some background, what actually happened at the bottom.
Background on me
At the time (before smartphones and useful Wikipedia) I subscribed to some vague new-age gods-and-auras-and-spirits-and-energy beliefs loosely based on Germanic Neopaganism with some modern Druidry flavors. But I knew I was just going through the motions. I wanted it to be real and I wanted magic to exist, but I was also quite educated and no matter how much “knowledge” of the subject I acquired, I was still a little bit conscious of the fact that I was just a teenager/young adult lying to myself.
Background on the situation
I was charismatic, convincing, a compulsive liar and a horny teenage asshole. I was also the leader of a big guild on an active Ultima Online roleplay server that had quite a couple of attractive female players which I, through some very convenient coincidences, had convinced that there must be something true about my beliefs and my claims of shamanism.
For example: I often had long talks with one of the players, often deep into the night and one time she asked me to pay her an astral visit, if I was able to astral-project, and tell her stuff about her room, so she could verify. I now know that what I did then was basically cold reading her answers and being vague enough that she could interpret everything I said as accurate. She was impressed.
The piece de resistance was a lucky coincidence. To scare her a little and impress her more, I made something up about there being somebody with her in the room, not necessarily in the physical world, but that there was a presence there with her. She denied that for some time, got even angry as she caught on that I might be lying to her (I actually tried to imply it might be a spirit)… until the cat that never, never enters her room appeared behind the curtains and meowed at her.
This completely turned her anger into awe.
She hadn’t know the cat was there, the cat never got into her room except that night, I had “known” something about her room that she didn’t… she could not explain that. So her explanation was: He really visited me, he really has some magic powers. And she told the story to everyone in the guild, earning me more awe from the other players. I on the other hand knew that I had completely made that shit up and hit the jackpot through sheer luck… but the taste of all their awe felt soooo good. So I, with more lucky coincidences, more cold reading, more confident lying and just being charismatic slowly got into the heads of my guildmates and enjoyed all the attention of the girls. My character basically acquired a harem for naughty roleplay and I would try to do the same.
My chance arrived at the IRL-camping trip meetup.
What happened
It was supposed to be a fun trip, a weekend of camping with friends and guildmates, meeting the people we only ever interacted online with, some booze, some barbeque, a warm summer night under the stars. It started out great, we talked and talked and had lots of fun, drank a lot, smoked (no weed), danced around a fire. Sometime around evening I found myself surrounded by my guild talking about spiritual bunk that I mostly just made up on the spot. Viking pyramids, Ley lines, my ability to sense dark and bright presences, shit like that. My goal was to impress the girls and maybe scare one or two a little, so I could later protect them from evil spirits by inviting them to my tent… again some lucky coincidences lent me a hand.
We saw a meteor that night, and I don’t just mean like a tiny falling star, we saw a big-ass chunk of rock break apart in the atmosphere and burn up in a bright orange fireball.
Later we had a stroll around the local lake and I kept insisting that there was some bright energy coming from the lake but that a dark presence was gathering at a little wooded area in front of us. I don’t know what actually was in there, most likely some roe deer or maybe wild hogs, but when we got close a wind from behind us blew towards the forest and made it shiver just a little, we made two steps more and then the little forest started shaking violently. I think whatever animal had hidden in there just fled, but the others were instantly convinced that I had known there was something and that we should not go that way and that it would come after them.
This was a breaking point for some. As the night fell, booze and crowd dynamics took over, mass hallucinations set in as the mood turned from a relaxed, happy, cozy evening to frightened paranoia. I can’t tell you how scary it is if you make up a neat little ghost story and feel in control of the things people believe, try to (mildly) scare some girls into your tent when suddenly people take it seriously, take it up and absolutely massively run with it, starting to create their own narrative. They suddenly started seeing things in every little thing. A crying fox to them suddenly was the death cry of a women who had drowned in the lake. We actually didn’t know if someone had ever drowned in it, but they just as ready made things up and believed them as I had made them up… only I had known it was bunk, I was in control… they were not.
It was scary, I was suddenly left the only sane person around, they clung to me, asked me a thousand things and every answer I gave, no matter how reassuring it was meant was turned into something frightening. It was very Life of Brian (“I’m not the messiah!” - “Only the messiah would deny to be the messiah!” - “Ok, I am the messiah.” - “He said it, he IS the messiah!!!”)… No matter what I did to get it back under control their beliefs had escaped me and group dynamics meant it spiraled out of control. The evening was lost. Two people just left and I spend the night with 3 guys and 8 girls on the (apart from us) empty campground, the mood was bad, frightened, my idea to get girls into my tent had worked but there was no thinking about anything naughty. All of them shivered, were deathly afraid, paranoid and some were sobbing… And I was the only one who knew that I had caused that, with lies. I had ruined their weekend, frightened them to the core, I had hurt people who believed in me, looked at me with awe and I myself spend the rest of the night and some of the next morning afraid that some might start hurting themselves.
It was the most impressive example of group dynamics I have ever witnessed, it was extremely scary and I am absolutely certain that this is exactly how religions start… somebody lies and suddenly everything gets out of hand as others take up the ball and run with it, only they don’t know that it’s all just made up.
His name was Derek. But he went by ‘the Prophet’ when times were good, or ‘the Law Giver’ when times were bad.
I moved onto his prayer farm with 45 other members of the Salvation Star Boys, who died in a mass suicide. But not me. 'Cause I don’t like root beer. And I only drink what I like.
After it was all over, I called Lois to pick me up. She was mad. But she’s what Derek calls an Oppressing Doubter.
May the light of Derek’s Invincible Diamond shine through you.
My dad once made me dig my own grave.
…We were building the family niche at our local cemetery and he needed help to dig the base
Working in IT, I see far too many of your passwords, and you suck at passwords.
With that being said, if you use Windows and your hard drive isn’t encrypted, it is ridiculously easy for me to break into your account, access all of your files and take full control of your computer… Provided I can get physical access to it.
Stop using the same passwords for everything. Do you want to get “hacked” because that’s how you get “hacked”. Disclaimer, this isn’t hacking, it’s social engineering attacks with extra steps. The people trying to exploit you and steal your accounts put little to no effort into getting your stuff specifically. You just happened to get caught in their net… Good luck, you’re fucked.
Probably should have had a backup, and used a password manager huh?
Also it’s ridiculously easy to lock yourself out of your own accounts by enabling 2FA/MFA. Most people have zero idea what is even involved in 2FA/MFA and the vast majority do everything in their power to turn it off. They would rather expose their account to the risk of it being taken over by some scammer, than be bothered to enter a six-digit code sometimes.
The reality is, as an admin, I can, with a fair amount of ease, monitor everything you do, when you do it and for how long you do it. The only reasons I don’t is that 1. I’m pretty sure there are laws about it (but you’d have to prove I did it to have those laws enforced… GL, YF.) 2. Morally it’s “wrong” to do so. And last but not least, I wouldn’t give a single shit about what you do with your computer, whether it’s a work machine, or personal system. Just don’t make it my problem and we’ll get along splendidly.
Also, the number of you people who use company laptops and cellphones for your personal correspondence and/or your only computer/phone is kinda ridiculous. Understand this: any company assets, and all the data held within, are wholly, immediately, irrevocably and perpetually, property of the company. So any texts, including sexts, dick pics, nudes, lude messages, personal banking info, emails sent to you personally,… All the data that is sent to, and stored on, the device that work provided to you, is property of the company.
Given that, and what I’ve seen when these devices are ripped from your hands when you inevitably leave the position, whether voluntarily or not, you all should be more ashamed of yourselves.
Y’all need Jesus or something. IDK, I don’t believe in the guy, but you need something to straighten you out. Holy fuck.
2FA is scary - if someone grabs this phone, I can’t do any work, can’t log in to email to change passwords, can’t log in to the bank to report stolen cards, can’t even buy another phone online.
This is the issue with the current state of 2FA. It’s either text driven (SMS) or it’s app driven, like the Microsoft authenticator, as an example.
Often “backups” overlap. Like people will use SMS as a backup to the Microsoft authenticator, when the MS authenticator is on the same device as the phone number for SMS verification.
Real, actual, good MFA, only has the problem that people don’t keep backup tokens around. If you use a Fido2 keyfob, you really should have a second one that authenticates the same systems the same way, but stored securely away from the one you carry with you.
In that context, backups are actually valid, because if the authenticator is on your keychain and you lose your keys, you have access via a backup on your phone (TOTP or similar).
If you lose your phone, you still have your Fido2 key as primary authentication.
If you lose both, you go and retrieve your backup security key and use that.
It becomes much more difficult to lose access if you’re aware of the limitations of the systems you use. For me, I use a password manager, for login I have biometrics from my PC, biometrics from my laptop, two security key fobs, and a backup TOTP code stashed away. I also got recovery codes and sent them securely to a trusted friend.
The only things not using a password from my password manager is my main email, which is used as a backup/recovery email for most services, my password manager itself, and my primary bank. For all of these I use unique, memorized passwords that are not short. Any service that can use MFA has MFA set up, with the only exception being those that only support SMS as MFA. Fuck that. If fido keys are allowed, then I set those up If not, I use TOTP.
The TOTP keys are backed up and stored securely in an online system built for security for this kind of data.
I have contingencies on contingencies for my own access, but many people don’t even have one, or even a plan on what to do if things go sideways.
It’s a phenomenon I’ve noticed a lot, it’s like Rose colored glasses for getting things set up. People like to see how it works and get everything operational and happy, with absolutely no thoughts towards what happens when it fails? How will it fail and what will we do when it does? How do we recover? How do we continue to operate until everything can be put back together?
They see it’s fancy and works for them, and they’re super secure because they have MFA, but it’s only one kind of MFA, and they only have one of them. But they feel good because they have it.
Then they act shocked when their single MFA method breaks and they lose their accounts because they’re stupid.
With that being said, if you use Windows and your hard drive isn’t encrypted, it is ridiculously easy for me to break into your account, access all of your files and take full control of your computer… Provided I can get physical access to it.
That’s a big if there. If you can get physical access to my home computer, I think you “breaking into my accounts” is the least of my concerns.
Working in IT, I see far too many of your passwords, and you suck at passwords. […] Stop using the same passwords for everything.
While that is generally not so bad advice for some people, there’s also a legitimate use of shitty passwords - for about every stupid resource that forces an account on you for trivial shit. Also, throwaway accounts of anything.
You store passwords in plaintext?
Also, I was asked to unlock a former employee work layout. I did expect to be able to do it, but it was fast to easy
My coworkers make fun of me, but I bring in laptop with a LTE card to work to do any non work stuff. I don’t do anything non work related on company machines.
I do assume IT has too much to do that track what any of us do on our work PCs unless someone gives them a reason.
You’re correct. We’re too busy and couldn’t possibly give any less of a shit what you’re up to.
The only time we care, at all, is if someone makes it our job to care. Usually management cracking down on some bullshit, looking for a reason to give someone the boot.
Unless management tells me that I’m supposed to care, I don’t.
Just please, for the love of all things digital, do not do anything illegal on work computers. I still don’t give a shit that you can or do, what I don’t want, is for you to get caught and I have to do a forensic investigation of your system. That’s a whole pain in my ass that I don’t need.
In general, do not do illegal stuff, but if you’re going to do anything illegal, think of your IT guy and do it on your own devices.
This is probanly way too boring and mundane for this thread, but I can’t feel hunger or fullness. (Never had a doctor look at it because it doesn’t make my life worse)
My mom when I was a baby asked the doctor how much baby food I should be given after breastfeeding time was over. The doctor said “just give him enough, he will stop”. After many jars of food, my mom had to stop because I wouldn’t stop.
To this day I can feel my stomach expanding before I will stop. At my university all-you-can-eat cafeteria (back when I was super fit and tracked every calorie) I ate about 10kcal and didn’t feel full so I stopped. I also did a 21 day water (and salt+vitamins) fast without that much trouble (but my mouth would still water and I would still have taste cravings)
Fucks up my relationship with food though because I eat when I am bored, just eat whatever is in front of me without realizing it, or if I am busy I will just forget to eat.
As I said, probably not really unsettling or scary, but not a fun fact lol.
I think I have this to some degree. I never feel hungry/hangry if I haven’t eaten by specific times. I just eat because I’m bored and it kinda heats me up. I can go days without, I just don’t because of habit and because sugar and caffeine have effects that help me concentrate
Neither can I anymore. No hunger, no thirst. I have an eating disorder that’s not related to body image called ARFID. Here’s my post about it in this thread: https://lemmy.world/comment/14558547
I’m curious, why do this over two different comments?
Because I couldn’t get it to accept two images in the same post and I couldn’t find a gif of this scene and I’m dumb
and I’m dumb
This is an acceptable excuse. Carry on.
How did his wife take it?
Through a tube.
deleted by creator
Mortified.
When I was in the emergency services, I was first or among the first on scene to serious mass casualty events on multiple occasions. The most any of them got in the news was local papers and traffic disruption reports, because unless it’s terrorism the nationals aren’t interested. If any of us died in a car crash tomorrow, the world wouldn’t care.
Just a few
- a childhood friend and neighbour got killed by his mother, his sister managed to flee the scene and call the cops
- my elementary school’s director got arrested for paedophilia, he killed himself in his cell before getting judged
- my sister in law died in her sleep less than a meter away from me (a wall was between us still) and my partner and I were the ones to find her, I’ve had to call and tell her parents
I had half of my face ripped off by a dog when I was a kid. Skin and flesh was just hanging off of my face and I almost lost my right eye.
Doctors did a great job patching me up and you can’t even tell that anything happened unless you know where the super subtle scars are.
Oh wow. They did great work then. My niece has her face attacked by a pit bull, has had several surgeries and some laser work, and you can still tell unfortunately. She kind of developed some transient anorexia about it unfortunately, which my asshole MIL went out of her way to aggravate. Glad you did well though.
I’m so sorry your niece went through that. I hope that she can find some peace and heal someday.
I think she’s much better now, thanks. Not thanks to the malignant narcissism of my MIL though. Ugh family.
Family can be the best and worst
After taking a car door to the head during heavy winds, I experienced immediate and recurring night terrors/sleep paralysis for two years. They started out pretty extreme, with me waking up on my stomach with some kind of creature pinning me to the bed. I’d struggle enough to lift my head a few inches, only to find my pillow was filled with distorted, open-mouthed faces stretching out at me from the material.
As time went in the hallucinations gradually waned in extremity, though never becoming anything comfortable. I would open my eyes to see a phosphorescent grid encompassing my walls, or millions of flies on my bedroom ceiling. Once my cat was staring up at them too, and I believed what was happening was real, only to wake up a moment later facing a different direction, and my cat fast asleep at my feet.
Eventually it’s as though my soul became heavy or something. I slept on the top floor of a two-story home, with a very old colonial-era basement below it. I would constantly find myself one or two floors directly beneath my bed, all but glued to the ground and trying with all my might to crawl out of the damp, dark cellar towers the stairs, but too sluggish and/or paralyzed to do it. I felt terrified down there in the darkness. Eventually the adrenaline would wake me up safely in my bed.
Throughout the entire ordeal I would somewhat frequently open my eyes to see some sort of ghostly or transparent entity looming over my bed, leaning over or staring down at me. The last night I ever experienced an episode, I woke up to see that very entity, but I realized suddenly that the entity was me. It was me standing there, looking down at myself. I became angry. I felt like these episodes had ruined my life, and made sleeping something I no longer looked forward to. The rage came to a head. I activated every nerve in my body to try to break free of the paralysis. I gritted my teeth as I succeeded, groaning the words “FFFFRUUUUCKK YYRRROOOOUU!!!” as I bolted up from my bed and lunged through my own ghost. Then I never saw it again. In fact, I never had another night terror since. It’s been years now. A decade at least.
It’s weird, as soon as I became aware of my sleep paralysis I became able to control it and I’ve never had another either
I still experienced it after I knew what it was, but not nearly as often. The last time I remember it happening, I dreamed I was at work. Laid down in a hallway to nap. Woke up from the dream nap with one of the execs standing next to me, looking down his nose. Couldn’t move. “Hell of a time for sleep paralysis,” dream-me thought.
Then real me woke up with sleep paralysis. At work, with my head down on a conference table at 3am.
I do not miss those sensations.
I have always had hypnagogic dreams but no paralysis. The scary hallucinations only happened when I was stressed
Normally the hallucinations were benign
I grew up deeply religious. Mom used to cast demons out of the house when I was little, and that ain’t the half of it. Needless to say, I entered puberty with some fucked up perspectives. I started getting night terrors soon after I started masturbating, which was an accidental discovery of mine. The fact that I couldn’t stop freaked me out. I thought it was demonic and no way was I gonna talk to my parents about any of it.
Fortunately for me, I was always fascinated by science and sci-fi. I loved sharks, astronomy, history, and Star Trek. For middle school I attended private Christian school or home school, but for 9th grade I demanded to return to public school. My parents relented. The demonic night terrors still tormented me nearly every night, but one day I read an article about sleep paralysis in a science magazine in the school library. It explained everything I’d been going through for several awful years.
That same night I experienced another episode. I felt lucid enough to remember the article and realize what was happening. Instead of impotently begging Jesus again for help, this time I simply thought, “fascinating.” Then immediately woke up.
It has never happened to me since.
The people who fuck with libraries can all burn in hell. Libraries save lives, from exactly those same people.
That reminds me of the first time I did shrooms. I looked in the mirror and my head turned into a demon head. It made me laugh because I don’t believe in such things and I was aware I was on shrooms, but I bet it would have freaked a religious person out. I can definitely see why some religious people use psychedelics because they think it gets them in touch with the spirit world or whatever.
Sleep paralysis is so terrifying. I get episodes when I’m under incredibly severe stress, so I’ve only had about 4 episodes. When it first happened, my heart was thumping so quick and fast that I thought I’d for sure have a heart attack.
I love your story. I overcome attempted nightmares in a very similar way.
I rarely get anything close to a nightmare nowadays, but I used to get dreams where someone/something would chase me. Then one night, I felt it was about to happen, and thought, “I’m so tired of this. You know what? I’m done.” And… the thing disappeared.
Ever since then, if any scary shit starts happening in a dream, I just tell it to fuck off. Sometimes that moment leads to a small bit of lucidity, and I go, “Oh hey, I can fly away.” Run, jump, take off, and it’s pleasant dreams from then on out.
The power of the mind is incredible.
I actually just had a moment like that (sudden lucidity during a dream) in my last sleep. Probably would have lost that memory entirely if this comment hadn’t reminded me. Even still, I can’t remember the context, just that something was happening that was mildly annoying and I realized I was dreaming.
I just said, “wait a minute, this is my dream, I’m in control here” and then I think the dream shifted into something else or something because the memory fragment ends there.
One day, I missed a train. The next one had to stop one short of my home station due to “personell damages” or something similar, which I didn’t really grasp, but I was annoyed that I had to take a detour to get home.
I later found out that a guy at my home station jumped in front of the train I was supposed to get.
My joints slip out like that’s what they were meant to do. My hips will dislocate during sex, it’s a not at all fun-for-me party trick
Joint hypermobility!
