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Ok, What Was It?

Jodie

Philosopher
Jodie
Joined
May 7, 2012
Messages
6,231
I'm going to start back from the latest experiences that happened and work back to childhood.

This is really minor, it was 6 + months ago. I was coming out of my house and my neighbor was getting gravel bags out of her trunk for her landscaping. She drives a Toyota Corolla and left the trunk lid up while she was making trips back and forth to the car. We got into a conversation and while we were talking we both saw her trunk lid move up and down three times. There was no wind.

The next incident was at a Christmas party at an old plantation house about 5 years ago. The party was during the day during work hours. There was only one bathroom added onto the back porch. Over the years the porch level had dropped making the door jam uneven. This made it difficult to close the bathroom door without really shoving it closed.

I went to the bathroom and couldn't get the door shut so I just pushed it to. The door was in my direct line of vision the entire time I was in the bathroom except when I got up to wash my hands. When I turned around to exit the bathroom the door was completely shut and the latch hook lock was down. There is no way to shut the door without hearing it scrape the frame. And the only one who flip down the latch hook lock would be me.

So explain to me what mechanical failure could cause the trunk lid of the Toyota to go up and down? How did the bathroom door get closed and locked while I washed my hands?
 
Here is the next incident. A few years back I went into my office about 30 minutes early the Monday after Thanksgiving to get caught up on some things before everyone started coming in later that morning. It was extremely quite, there was only one other co worker there working in their office. I heard a soft scraping sound and looked up to see a kleenex being slowly pulled back into the box. My first thought was that there was a mouse inside the box so I picked up a manual and whacked the kleenex box flat. There wasn't anything in the box other than kleenex. Although it was a minor thing to happen, it was odd, and I could never figure out how it was done.
 
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Was it possible you were exhausted and seeing things? Not kidding... I've had periods in the military where I got downright hallucinogenic. And it looked extremely real to me at the time.
 
I don't know how productive this exercise is going to be. Reconstructing how something happened long after the event based on someone's possibly flawed recollection of it is never going to be easy. I think we can say with some confidence that whatever it was in each case it wasn't magic, fairies, elves, psychic powers or Bigfoot, but beyond that there will be little anyone can say.

Jodie said:
I'm going to start back from the latest experiences that happened and work back to childhood.

This is really minor, it was 6 + months ago. I was coming out of my house and my neighbor was getting gravel bags out of her trunk for her landscaping. She drives a Toyota Corolla and left the trunk lid up while she was making trips back and forth to the car. We got into a conversation and while we were talking we both saw her trunk lid move up and down three times. There was no wind.
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The description is so vague there's nothing much to say. Maybe a bird landed on it and then flew away.

The next incident was at a Christmas party at an old plantation house about 5 years ago. The party was during the day during work hours. There was only one bathroom added onto the back porch. Over the years the porch level had dropped making the door jam uneven. This made it difficult to close the bathroom door without really shoving it closed.

I went to the bathroom and couldn't get the door shut so I just pushed it to. The door was in my direct line of vision the entire time I was in the bathroom except when I got up to wash my hands. When I turned around to exit the bathroom the door was completely shut and the latch hook lock was down. There is no way to shut the door without hearing it scrape the frame. And the only one who flip down the latch hook lock would be me.
Click to expand...

As described the incident is impossible or close to it, so the most likely explanation is that you misremembered something. Most likely you shut the door and latched it yourself in between standing up and washing your hands while thinking about something else, and by the time you finished washing your hands you had forgotten about it.

That or Elvis did it.

Here is the next incident. A few years back I went into my office about 30 minutes early the Monday after Thanksgiving to get caught up on some things before everyone started coming in later that morning. It was extremely quite, there was only one other co worker there working in there office. I heard a soft scraping sound and looked up to see a kleenex being slowly pulled back into the box. My first thought was that there was a mouse inside the box so I picked up a manual and whacked the kleenex box flat. There wasn't anything in the box other than kleenex. Although it was a minor thing to happen, it was odd, and I could never figure out how it was done.
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Gravity.
 
The most likely explanation for the door latch is that you did it and your were not recording it to memory at the time.

Everyone has that feeling when they suddenly realize they're driving their car but have no memory of the last few minutes. But the cars don't crash. The reason is that you were awake, aware and reacting the entire time. You've just hypnotized yourself and don't remember it. It can happen with mundane activities such as, oh, closing a bathroom door.
 
Loss Leader said:
The most likely explanation for the door latch is that you did it and your were not recording it to memory at the time.

Everyone has that feeling when they suddenly realize they're driving their car but have no memory of the last few minutes. But the cars don't crash. The reason is that you were awake, aware and reacting the entire time. You've just hypnotized yourself and don't remember it. It can happen with mundane activities such as, oh, closing a bathroom door.
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Sort of a related musing, I remember driving a close friend to a concert here about 20 minutes in he asks me which way I'm taking to get there, I was heading in the opposite direction and had no clue where I was going or why.

Best I can figure is my brain is auto wired to head in a certain direction on the main highway as I take that way to get to work.
 
Mister Earl said:
Was it possible you were exhausted and seeing things? Not kidding... I've had periods in the military where I got downright hallucinogenic. And it looked extremely real to me at the time.
Click to expand...

Just a few minutes ago, I looked to my right and thought I saw a mouse run across the room. I scolded the cat for not doing her job (she ignored me). Soon thereafter, I looked toward the same part of the room again and saw exactly the same movement, but this time I realized it was actually a small floater in my right eye. There's lots of ways the mind can play tricks on you.
 
The kleenex box, could be various things, but perhaps just gravity. A tissue is partly pulled out, usually held by the box that way, but relaxes and falls back in.

The bathroom door, a common occurrence in an added room if construction is not sturdy. If the room has settled so the door does not shut, there's probably at least one point at which pressure somewhere on the floor or elsewhere will change the shape enough. I have a bathroom like this, in which not only do slight variations cause flexing, but the door behaves differently according to the season. If the bathroom is attached to a porch, it's even possible someone elsewhere on the porch, or above it or below it, might be enough. A bit of wind at just the right moment might blow it shut. Many doors will shut better if pushed in a particular way, or at a particular angle. Way too many possible variants to ascribe this to anything but glitchy construction.

The trunk lid: Many possibilities, but if the trunk uses gas filled struts, these are notoriously unpredictable especially when they age and become weaker. They may hang up and lift later, sag and then recover, be in a delicate state of balance so slight that a falling acorn can change the level, or rise and fall as the sun's heat varies.
 
Where's the video? And if this kind of stuff happens, where are at least a few videos that are not suspect because someone is selling the things as a ghost encounter TV program?

I'm sorry my answer is to dismiss your experience as a misinterpretation of the actual events, that may not be satisfying to you. But our misinterpretation of actual events is a common occurrence given how the brain works.

You think you saw the Kleenex go back in the box. If it happened again you'd see you misinterpreted the event. But you can't go back and relive it. So you need to use other examples.

Ever see something unclear in the distance that you were certain was something, like a dog for example. When you get closer you see it's really a plant, or a curb, and even though you swear the dog was moving, now that your eyes are focused on what it really is, you know it didn't move the way your brain was sure it had?

That's how our brains work. The brain fills in missing data with what the brain expects to see.
 
Nay_Sayer said:
Best I can figure is my brain is auto wired to head in a certain direction on the main highway as I take that way to get to work.
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My friend Chad used to say, "All else being equal, you will drive to work."
 
you know many years ago, I rented a very very run down little old flat. it was barely habitable, probably should have been condemned, but it was mine.... I had a friend over and we were getting ready to go out... it had a screen door on the inside and a solid old door on the outside. the screen door had for some obscure reason a lock on both sides of it... we heard a noise and went into to kitchen to discover that the outside screen lock had flicked itself over. the outside door was currently closed so there was no way we could have done it. we had to climb out the window to undo the outside lock.
I have no idea how it happened, but it was a very very old place, and even as a teenager, I wasn't inclined to ascribe any supernatural agency to it...but interesting just the same....
 
It was all ghosts, obviously. The trunk, the bathroom door, the tissue. Ghosts like things tidy, closed and latched. I wish I were haunted, I need help managing chaos.
 
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