Occult Thread

[mdk]

So I recently had my leg cut off. One of the things that can happen after that is called 'Phantom Pain,' which means your leg that isn't there anymore is still hurting your brain. Luckily I never had too much of that -- a spot here and there but it went away, and it wasn't that bad anyway, so awesome. But besides phantom PAIN, there's something else called Phantom Sensation -- which happens when your brain expects to feel something, so it does, even though there's no leg there to feel it with. Now this can be expressed differently in different people, because we're not all wired the same. I think in some ways, we do our own wiring, and then the environment does some, and of course your parents and your genetics get to work some of it out too -- anyway brains are unique. Whatever. So in my case, what I felt was like I could bend and move this 'phantom limb,' but it was like trying to squeeze a fist around a lump of silly putty -- really hard to move, really sluggish, but sooner or later, there's your fist. Well, I didn't really want that feeling -- because with phantom sensations, you never know if maybe you're opening up a wire panel in your brain and short-circuiting your way right into phantom pain, and once you've got that, there's no telling how long it could last. Hours, days, even YEARS. So I tried not to mess with it much, but it's hard to resist, you know? Not many people even get a chance to HAVE phantom sensation, let alone play with it, and so eventually curiosity overtook me (I was on some pretty heavy painkillers) and I started fooling around. I'd curl up my toes, point my foot up and down, bend that knee. Of course there wasn't any toe, or foot, or knee, but that's not important -- your brain feels it, and your body tries to do it. I could run a hand up and down the remainder of my thigh and feel the muscles squirming away at nothing. It felt like a ball in my quads, bouncing up and down as I wiggled the imaginary limb. Soon I started getting better at it -- where before I could just vaguely tell 'Uh, I'm squeezing my toes, I guess,' now I could bend each one individually, or at least I was aware that they were individual entities. Or would have been, if they were there -- it's a novel sensation, what can I say? But I thought, why stop there? If it's imaginary, then my imagination is limitless. I tried to picture myself with six toes. Then with an oppose-able thumb. I sort of expected it to hurt -- and I guess it did, a little, just trying to make sense of the signals. Usually your nerves talk to your brain, but with phantom sensations, your brain is stuck in a loop, telling itself what it should feel and then feeling it -- I was just hijacking that loop and making it behave in impossible ways. And on some level, my brain must have known that it was impossible -- but on another level, it didn't care. I was in charge, and for a few hours I let myself 'run' wild. At some point -- it was pretty late, and I was in bed anyway -- I finally got tired of the game. I let the dogs in for the night and lay back down to go to sleep. I marveled that, when I pulled on the covers, it seemed like I could still feel them rubbing over my toes -- but they were indistinct again, a vague cluster of 'normal' that was fading back into nothingness again, and I welcomed that. One of my dogs likes to sleep with his head resting on my shoulder, and the other one sleeps at the foot of the bed -- we share, it's cute, shut up about it. Anyway I drift off to sleep. I can't remember what I was dreaming -- only that it was very vivid, and somehow distressing. I woke up slowly -- it was the middle of the night still, and dark. I sat up a little -- sometimes I put on some TV to help fall asleep, and I guess I thought I'd hop over to the computer and start up a fresh hour's worth of white noise. When I looked down, I noticed that Kaiser -- that's the foot-of-the-bed dog -- was sleeping in the gap where my leg should've been. It was weird! But kind of.... touching, I guess, touching is a good word. I didn't want to wake him up, but he's a light sleeper, so there wasn't much I could do about it. As I started to right myself, he stretched out his back and yawned. I got this twinge of sensation, like he was brushing up against my toes -- phantom sensations. Cool stuff. I had the urge to twitch, like it tickled or something, and I wasn't sure if I knew how -- I mean, how do you twitch with something that isn't there? But I gave it a shot. Kaiser shot up, howling in pain. He tumbled over the edge of the bed and curled into a quivering ball. What did I do? There was blood on his fur. My god, what did I just do?

[KyzeRUndecided]

So, when I was really little, I used to sleep with my grandparents in their bed. It was almost always hot, their room was cold, and the bed was a cloud. Could you blame me? Anyways, whenever I slept there, I'd sleep like a rock. That is until one night. I was inbetween them, per usual, when I suddenly wake up. I felt nervous, scared. Maybe it was because of how dark the room was. Maybe it was left over from my dream, whatever it was. Or maybe it was because of the thing at the foot of the bed. In the dark was a silhouetted...thing staring at me. I couldn't move. Couldn't speak. Just stared back. Suffice to say, I was freaking out. I wanted to scream for help, to pull to the covers over my head, but I was so paralyzed with terror. A rational part of my brain kept saying, "Maybe it's nothing. It could be a pile of clothes or a chair." while another part of my brain screamed, "CHAIRS DON'T HAVE BODIES. OR SHOULDERS. OR HEADS." Getting over my fear paralysis, I managed to close my eyes and block out the figure. I tried to forget but I could feel it staring...watching... The night went on, but I got no sleep. The thing was gone when I opened my eyes. I didn't tell my grandparents what happened. I didn't tell my parents either. Not friends, not family, no one. Not until my parents and I moved away did I tell people what happened. They'd treat it like a joke and I, in fear of being called crazy, would play along. But now I'm back. I've moved back in with my grandparents due to school reasons. I'm not scared. It was probably just my imagination. I was always an imaginative little girl. That's what I tell myself. But sometimes I feel it. At night. Watching. Staring. Waiting.

well...

Until I realize it's my asshole cat staring at me.

[Mr_pink]

Once I spilled milk but when I looked there was no milk stain. I shit myself

[Larfleeze]

Once I spilled milk but when I looked there was no milk stain. I shit myself

Mr_pink

*Theremin plays spookily*

[Raxacoricofallapatorius]

I get déjà vu a _lot_ because I often dream about things I haven't done yet, forget, and then remember the dream when I do it for real. Not even important things, but funny unique little things. Like the other day when I was testing out the Jeff the Killer makeup I had forgotten I was supposed to Facetime a friend, so of course I called him with the makeup on and had the pleasure of scaring him. After that though we just talked, and about halfway through our conversation I had such a strong sense of Déjà vu I stopped talking because I _knew_ I had experienced this exact moment in every detail down to the couch I was sitting on. You'd think I'd be used to it my now but it weirds me out every time.

[BrobyDDark]

I get déjà vu a _lot_ because I often dream about things I haven't done yet, forget, and then remember the dream when I do it for real. Not even important things, but funny unique little things. Like the other day when I was testing out the Jeff the Killer makeup I had forgotten I was supposed to Facetime a friend, so of course I called him with the makeup on and had the pleasure of scaring him. After that though we just talked, and about halfway through our conversation I had such a strong sense of Déjà vu I stopped talking because I _knew_ I had experienced this exact moment in every detail down to the couch I was sitting on. You'd think I'd be used to it my now but it weirds me out every time.

Raxacoricofallapatorius

The worst part about Deja Vu is trying not to do the things you dreamt about and end up doing them anyways.

[Lucian]

mdk

Dammit, you, I wasted all that time. Not bad for impromptu creepy-pasta, though.

[Frizan]

One time at some god-awful hour of night I was in bed. Had the TV on playing Spaceballs, computer was on sleep mode, pretty normal shit. While I had my eyes closed trying to go to sleep, I felt some force press down on my bed. Being tired and it being really late at night, it freaked me out a bit and I refused to open my eyes. The entity moved around a bit, making parts of my bed shift. I just wanted the fucker to go away. And then something weird happened. The "mysterious entity" meowed at me. It was my fucking cat. She just wanted to share my feather pillow.

[KnightShade]

I've never had anything inexplicable happen to me. My grandma is convinced her house was haunted when she moved in decades ago, someone was killed in it before they moved in and she went so far as to get in a priest. Probably the creepiest thing that's happened to me is now easily explained as my first anxiety dream. I was about nine or ten and I'd thrown a stone at a car to impress my cousins, but the guy got out and started telling me off. He was a very hairy man, so that night I had this vivid nightmare that he was a werewolf and he was shouting at me and putting me down. I was convinced for years it wasn't a dream, and I'm still both terrified by and fascinated with wolves. So many times I'd be home alone watching CSI, and it'd finish with the howl for Dick Wolf, and I'd think shit I have to go to bed now. Even when I was about twice that age and my cousins were telling someone about me throwing the stone I just flat out refused to let them tell the story because it creeped me out.

[Gwazi Magnum]

I once passed the bowl around for people to put in praise and worship... and no one worshiped me. The Heathens!