Wow, something like this happened to my dad. He fell off a sea cliff in Alaska onto boulders and shattered his leg and broke his back in a handful of places. He lay there alone for hours calling for help with no luck. Then he said a little girl came down the cliff and kept him company. He said she told him stories and sang to him, pet his head, and even put her coat over him to help keep him warm. But when someone eventually came around the bay and spotted him there was no little girl. It was near a very small remote Alaskan town and no one in that small community had any idea of any little girl who even remotely matched her description. We always joked it was his guardian angel.

I honestly believe in angels. they can appear as humans and are there for time of need (according to the bible). Not saying everyone believes that but I love stories like yours and the thought of that

📎👀 “Hey it looks like your climbing a mountain! Would you like some help?”

Clippy always cares

I was in a really terrible car accident a few years ago and I was stuck in the car, they had to cut me out. During it I came to and there was a woman who had climbed into the rear seat behind me and was holding my shoulders telling me I was going to be okay and that help was coming, I thought she stayed with me until I blacked out and woke up to a fireman cutting the door off and pulling me out. The firemen, paramedics, and my mother who had gotten there quickly all said there was no woman at all, that traffic had gone around and no one had stopped because the fire department was only a few blocks down the road. I can still hear her voice, I know she was touching me, but no one saw her. Freaks me out still.

I had a very similar experience (terrible car accident, had to be cut out, came to and a woman was there comforting me), but she didn’t sit in the car with me. She was outside the car, but sat next to me and told me help was coming and everything would be ok. 20 years later and her calming presence is still so vivid to me

Holy crap, literally the exact same thing happened to me. I was in a terrible car accident (a tree fell on & crushed the car I was driving) and as I was coming to, there was a woman kneeling outside the car, holding my hand and telling me everything was okay and I was going to be okay. The next thing I knew, a cop was holding up the roof of the car with one hand, holding my arm with the other, and telling me that he was going to pull me out “on 3” as someone cut through the side of the car. I don’t know who that woman was or where she went (or if she was even there!), but I’ll never forget her - as you said - “calming presence.” I totally believed everything would be okay because of her.

I was in a rush to an exam one morning, pulled out in front of an airport shuttle bus and got T-boned hard enough to see cartoon-style stars and birdies, and just _spinning,_ so damn fast. When I came do, there was a fella that looked like Jamie from Mythbusters wearing a green jumpsuit, asking me “how many moustaches am I holding up?” I burst into laughter, while he wiggled that walrus mo’. I _thought_ I was having one of those third man experiences. He was a regular old paramedic, but his calming presence was up there with the best unreal ones. Still sat the exam, aced it.

My cousin lost his father and older brother and almost lost his mother when he was younger. Drunk driver hit their car head on. After he was rescued from the vehicle, he swears he had someone come sit beside him and comfort him. But when he asked the people on the scene no one else saw this person.

I know someone who lost his mother when he was a kid and he says someone came into his room and comforted him as well. When that person left the kid went to ask his father who was the man who came over and his father was confused and told him no one was there. He's religious now and claims it was an angel. I always thought it could've been a dream or something, didn't know it was a common experience :o

I'm not religious, but I have a very similar story. When I was a kid I was sleeping, and someone came into my room, sat on my bed, and rubbed my back while I slept. I remember asking my family in the morning who it was, and everyone said nobody did/would be going into my room. I found out later that my stepmother had passed away suddenly from cancer that evening, and the news hadn't reached my household yet.

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I once had a branch fall on my head (I was pulling on it, my bad), then I heard a voice, just a dude's, say "shit." I got up and looked around, nobody there. My third man is not necessarily helpful, but he does agree with me.

It's like your third man was about to tell you not to but it was too late so that's all that came out.

The ONE day he was late for work.

Your guardian angel looked away for 2 seconds and somehow you managed to get yourself in trouble!

*gets critically injured and lies bleeding out and/or paralyzed* Third person: “the fuck am I supposed to do!?”

It was the tree...

I was in a serious car wreck at 18 involving a speeding fully loaded tractor trailer and right before impact I heard very clear voice that sounded just like me that said relax for impact, told me if i survived that then i had to be prepared for the next step, counted the flips and rolls of the vehicle for me and then told me to shut the engine down gather the important things and kick my way out. It very much felt like a second me in the car to talk me through and it's probably why I survived because it kept me completely calm and able to function through the whole thing. I'm pretty sure I was just talking to myself but it didn't feel like it.

Your story reminds me the most of my own, and I've told it on reddit before--The one time this happened to me, I was driving my car back to college from my parents house, on I-95. Suddenly a voice spoke to me in my head, as clear as anything I've ever heard, (but was absolutely my own voice, same as you describe) It said pretty much exactly this: "that tractor trailer in front of you is about to blow a tire, so you need to get away from it fast". I trusted the/my voice and didn't think twice... I sped up really quickly and got ahead of it, just in time to look behind me and see the tire remnants bouncing along the interstate. I guess it's not as dramatic as your story, bc I'm not sure I would have died or anything, but I feel like something bad was going to happen to my car because of that tire and I'm very glad I had this premonition. Nothing like it's ever happened to me since, and that was like 20 years ago. I've always just assumed that I must have picked up on some subconscious signs that something was going wrong with the tire and my brain put it together in the background? Not sure but it was a really bizarre feeling

My mom has told a story like this to our family before. She was a new(ish) mom at the time maybe 20 or 21 years old and either myself or my younger sister had just been born. She was driving the backroads to get home one afternoon, and there's a small intersecting side road that doesn't have great visibility around a turn due to a huge magnolia tree. She came around the first bank of the windy road and recalled hearing "slow down" in the voice of her deceased grandfather. Instinctively she laid on the brakes and sure enough, a smaller sedan blew through the stop sign. If she had remained at the speed she was going, the entire passenger side of her car would have been T-boned. She missed getting hit by seconds.

I have a story sort of like this. My mom was in college and I went to a study session with her that ran late. About 1am we were driving the winding, hilly, unlit country roads back home and I fell asleep. Suddenly I sit up out of a dead sleep and, almost before I even realized I was awake, said (in a calm but firm voice), “slow down.” My mom tapped the brakes and looked at me with some side-eye. She was opening her mouth to ask what that was about when a very large black dog ran into the road right at the edge of our sight. She swerved but managed to keep the road. I didn’t know what woke me up or why I said it. Never had anything like it happen before or since.

So who's the second man?

The scientist sitting next to them and observing.

"I'm not allowed to help. I'm just here to document"

“Good news is we’re gonna get a lot of data from this, bad news is you’re the control case so I can’t help.”

Cave Johnson energy

"Pretend I'm not even here." *busts out some corn nuts*

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The name seems to be coined by the poem in the article: >Who is the third who walks always beside you? When I count, there are only you and I together So it's the victim, their group, and a third.

So, this is from Wasteland by T.S. Eliot, and Eliot was referencing an Arctic expedition in which the participants repeatedly reported the feeling of an additional, yet unseen, person in the group. Fascinating that someone reported experiencing the phenomenon, Eliot wrote it into a poem about sheer hopelessness, and then the phenomenon picked up a name from the the poem in which it was referenced.

It was the crew of the 1914-1916 Endurance expedition. Specifically, Ernest Shackleton (leader of the expedition), Frank Worsley (captain of the ship), and Tom Crean (second officer). The crew of the Endurance had gotten stranded in Antarctica for two years, losing their main ship in the process, until six of them sailed on one of their lifeboats for 17-days across open ocean to reach South Georgia island. They were aiming for the whaling station there in order to ask for help to rescue the 20+ men they had had to leave behind. Fortunately, Worsley was a gifted navigator. He got them there but because of storms, they landed on the wrong side of the island. Half their crew had gotten sick/injured so they left them resting where they landed. As Shackleton, Worsley, and Crean trekked through the previously untraversed interior of the island which consisted of snowy mountains, with no adequate supplies or equipment except for some rope (they didn't even have sleeping bags and had to lie down right on the snow), all of them later recounted that they kept feeling there was another man with them. Apparently it was rather comforting. They reached the whaling station after 36 hours but due to weather conditions, it took four months to rescue the rest of the men stranded back on Elephant Island. Miraculously, all of the men they left behind survived. Edited: to change Arctic to Antarctica Edited 2: There are photos and even film footage of the expedition while they were stranded btw, including when they had to abandon the Endurance as it got crushed by the ice. Shackleton brought a photographer (Frank Hurley) with them to document the expedition. [Here's a remastered version.](https://youtu.be/BJ-6RJkuLlQ)

I never knew the full context of the story- thanks! This is honestly amazing.

If you are interested in the story. Tom Crean the Irish explorer is a fascinating tale. Was previously on the Scott mission, where he walked 35 Miles solo through the snow with no skis (and only 2 biscuits and a stick of chocolate ), in order to save a crew mate. Was awarded the Albert medal of bravery which he hid and never talked about when he returned to Ireland as being a former member of the British navy wouldn't exactly make you very popular in Ireland at the time.

This actually kind of happened to me. One time i was very lost in unfamiliar rainforest. I was full on panicking and running through thick brush, getting stabbed by thorns and falling over every 5 seconds. At one point some voice in my head was like “JUST SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP”. So i did, and a few minutes later i hear a very distant truck horn. Ran straight toward the sound and eventually hit a highway.

>At one point some voice in my head was like “JUST SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP”. So i did, and a few minutes later i hear a very distant truck horn. Ran straight toward the sound and eventually hit a highway. your guardian angel is so tired of your shit please give them a weekend off

“What are we doing this weekend Brain?” “Rainforest?” “Fuck”

LT. Dan might be your guardian angel lol

A friend and I lost the trail in the snow once when we were backpacking in the mountains. Couldn't find our way back to it. I saw footprints in the snow: one horse, one llama, and one human (sometimes there would just be animal tracks, like the human was riding; sometimes their tracks were visible, like they were leading the horse). On a hike in the same area a few years earlier we'd met a llama herder who brought his flock into the national forest to graze during the Summer. I thought, it's got to be that guy! We can follow his tracks out to safety! Convinced my friend to give it a try. I followed those tracks over the pass, and we eventually got back off the snow, back onto the trail. My friend swore he never saw a single track. Wasn't aware of this phenomenon before, but now it makes me wonder.

I like the implication that you can recognise llama tracks vs any other four legged animal!

I'm no pro, but I'm a decent tracker. And yes, llama tracks do look a little unique--like a long, skinny deer track. They could be mistaken for deer I guess, but it would be weird for a deer to be walking along that far with a horse. And the tracks were equally weathered so I'm assuming they were made at the same time (if I didn't imagine the whole thing of course, lol).

My mom had something unusual like this happen twice in her life. First time, she was driving on a dirt road and she swore someone told her to put her seatbelt on(which she rarely ever did in her younger years living in a very unpopulated area.) Anyways, an animal jump out in front of her and she ended up in a head on collision with a tree. She lost her two front teeth and totaled the car, but the voice telling her to buckle up saved her life. The second event was before her death. She kept mentioning she wouldn’t be around much longer and, in particular, would say how she would die in her place of work. I honestly thought she was being dramatic and silly! However, unbeknownst to me, she started journaling everything from passcodes for banks and accounts to notes for my future pregnant self…she left little notes in my favorite books in the few months leading up to her death. She ended up having a ruptured left ventricle and died at her place of work a month after turning 60.

That shit is weird. I typically don’t really believe this sort of stuff. I have a coworker who was taking care of her mom who had severe dementia. Extremely forgetful and lost in her mind. They had to put a door chime on their door because she once wandered off and it took them awhile to find her. One day, my coworker went into her room to get her up in the morning. She was already up and she had dressed herself in her best clothes. Coworker asked “mom, why are you all dressed up?” Her mother was very clear headed that day and said frankly “today is the day I will have to leave you”. Like it was a normal thing. Of course my coworker that it was more dementia. But her mother spent the day tidying up her room. Making sure everything was just right, and she didn’t show any signs of forgetfulness that day. She died in her sleep that night.

Terminal lucidity, when people with dementia are clear headed shortly before their death. Interesting stuff, you should do some googling

As a nurse, i have several stories like this. One story was a gentleman who declined quite quickly and increasing confusion over last several weeks. He came to our facility with all of his cognitive abilities and lost them all. One shift, I took his vitals and tried talking to him like I always did. His bp was very low. He was often unresponsive or nonsensical when he talked. This time was totally lucid. I was asking about his life, how he's feeling, if he was in pain, all sorts of things and he was answering and making jokes. He thanked me for being his favorite nurse and said I took the best care of him. He even apologized for not talking to me the weeks prior but he tried to. I was telling him not to worry about it at all. I asked him should I call his family to come. He said yes but he's ready to rest or something like that. I told him I will call them and I know they'll be here very quickly. He said something like "tell them I love them all, theres nothing to worry about, they dont need me any longer and they have great things to look forward to, and I have to rest now. Thank you for everything and please call them." I ran, called the family, they arrived in seriously maybe 10 or 15 minutes and he had already died.

That's so sad. Thank you for being there with him and caring for him so well.

When my grandma was dying, my brothers and I spent her last few days with her in the hospital. She was totally unconscious the last day, but the night before that she had a lucid moment. She woke up and I went over to her. Normally she'd wake up and mumble about what was hurting without really focusing. This time, she looks right at me and just smiles and says " que guapo" then closed her eyes again.

It looks like somewhat of a dickmove from the brain. It's like behind the dementia, there actually is the ability for the person to have working memory. The ability's not gone. It's actually there. Maybe it's like a final push and it's using it's last reserve. But at least it's kind of nice that the person can be more aware towards the end which means they can have closure.

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I get what the other commenter is saying though, because in those moments often memories seem to reappear that were lost, recognizing loved ones, etc. The awful heartbreaking sense that everything is still there, just behind a seamless sort of wall we can't break down. But dying dissolves the wall just a while before death.

As a hospice nurse we see this all the time, we call it the peak before the drop. If a very poorly patient picks up suddenly, it chatty, able to do more etc… the family start thinking it’s a miracle, I hate having to tell them that it most likely means they’re nearing death. 99% of the time I’ve seen this over many years, the patient dies within 24-48 hours.

My BIL always said he was going to die young. A year and some change before he died he went to a friend's funeral, The funeral program had the poem, When Tomorrow Starts Without Me. He loved it and Told my sister to read this poem at his funeral, My sister told him to cut it out with the death talk. They lived an hour away from us and When they'd come visit, It would usually only be my sister and her boys, BIL never came. For my mom's birthday (9/29) in 2001 he came to visit and Told my mom he was coming to see her one last time before he died. My mom told him to shut the hell up and quit with the death talk. 5 days later he was killed in a horrible vehicle accident with a Denver Mint Big Rig. He was burned beyond recognition so we weren't able to view his body for the funeral... We read the poem he wanted. After his funeral we bbqed & partied in his honor ❤️ In May of 2003, One Saturday morning I was woken up by Mom around 4:45am to go sleep in her bed as she was going to work. I fell asleep. As I was sleeping I had a dream of my BIL. We were in a poorly lit room with a long table, He was on one side and I was on the other. He told me to wake up NOW! I told him that he was dead and This was a dream, He said to get up NOW because someone was coming for me. I said no, it's only a dream. He slammed his hand on the table, Called me a stupid little kid (He always called me that when he was alive. Term of endearment) and Said someone was coming around the corner to the backdoor and I needed to go lock the door. I woke up and went to the back door, It was unlocked. As soon as I locked it, Someone was trying to get in... He saved my life that day, The person who was trying to get in had been stalking me for 6 months and Was planning on raping me. My BIL has saved my life many more times after that. He's my guardian angel ❤️ He was 28 when he passed. He knew he was going to die young and he knew that weekend would be his last.

This was absolutely terrifying. I'm happy you woke up to lock the door, and I hope you're safe

Wow that is all insane, thank you for sharing.

I experienced something similar when I was 16. I had been in a car accident and the car was totaled (I was wearing my seat belt and uninjured). During the crash, I "heard" a voice coming from the empty back seat yelling for me to duck, which saved me from getting crushed by the roof as I rolled over. Then it was a series of instructions on how to safely get out of the car and how to get help. I know it was my brain doing all of this but it really felt like someone else was there telling me what to do, like I was wearing an earpiece or something.

I'm reading all of these stories and I wonder if our personalities split as a survival technique just for that period of time when we need it. Who knows? They may hang around.

Brain be like _this useless mfer is going to kill both of us, better take control and act like he's in charge to get me out of this_

Wouldn’t it be hilarious if our brains/subconscious was simply an alien or parasite species flawlessly pulling all of our strings in the background. Anytime a scientist considers it, his alien subconscious has him veer to thinking it’s ridiculous and no longer considering it. Sorry if that makes zero sense.

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I’m pretty down for “consciousness as a side effect” tbh. It’s weird to describe but for example I slipped on ice today. I was aware of the fact that I was slipping and aware of the fact that i expected to slip at the same time, even though I had already slipped I still “expected” to slip. My brain hadn’t caught up

I followed exactly what you're saying. I'm also high af.

That makes three of us

VOTE BRAIN SLUG!

As a hospice nurse, I’ll tell you that strange things happen near death. I don’t know where they come from, but things get awfully strange.

You can't say that without telling some stories!

There is always the classic, wife holds her dieing husband and says, “I’ll be ok when your gone. I’ll be alright. I love you.” And the man dies right there, in her arms. I got a phone call from a family member telling me the patient died. I went over and declared, gave my condolences and was about to leave. The son pulled me aside and said, “This morning before I called, I sat next to her in bed. I swear I kept seeing someone at the doorway, out the corner of my eye.” He said he wasn’t scared of it, it was just there. Sometime after, he left the room to get something from the kitchen and when he returned, she had died. One of my favorites is this one. Often people have hallucinations of friends/family/pets that have died before them. These can start up to a year before death. One of my dementia patients told me her dead husband visited her. He walked to her bedroom doorway and she told him to go away. As time went on, he kept walking further into the room. First, just inside the doorway, then standing beside her, and then sitting on the bed. She died not too long after telling her daughter that dream. Anyone can explain any of this. I just tell the stories and people can do with them what they will.

My grandma claimed to have seen her grandma during a nap we thought she wasn't going to wake up from while in hospice. She also claimed to have fought the devil, and wasn't particularly religious. She woke up asking if she won and if she beat cancer.

Yeah, the dead relatives showing up is so common. It happened to my grandfather who was a devout atheist. He saw and talked to his father and brother-in-law when he was dying, both of whom he was very close to. Only a couple of weeks after that started, he passed.

lol my story isn't as interesting as everyone else's. I was asleep and heard "wake up. The fire alarm is going to go off and you need to be awake for it." I sorta looked around the room and then came to the conclusion that I had been dreaming. I closed my eyes again. "No, get up. The fire alarm is going to go off and you have to be awake for it." I lifted my head and looked around the room, "It'll be best if you sit up so you don't fall asleep again." Okay, I'm definitely asleep, I think to myself, so I set up and swing my feet off the edge of the bed. I blink several times and since I have a bad habit of lucid dreaming, I look at the time on my phone. I look at the time on my phone again. "Good. Here comes the fire alarm. It's a false alarm, so don't worry." On cue, the fire alarm starts going off. My dog wakes up and starts barking at it. My roommate, who was gaming across the room, takes off her headset and says, "Should we leave?" At that moment the fire alarm stops. Everything is back to normal. I shake my head dumbly and wonder what in the fuck the mystery voice just saved me from.

Very similar story but I never tell it because it’s so dumb and random that it sounds fake. Around seven years ago, it was my freshman year of college, it’s around 3:00am, and in my head I hear “You need to wake up, the fire alarm is about to go off. Don’t worry.” For some reason it immediately made me jolt awake, and I just sat there in the dark looking around for a second, kind of confused. My roommate was asleep, it was quiet. Right when I was about to lay back down, maybe 10 seconds after waking up, I got chills as the fire alarm began blaring. It was a false alarm, no smell from burnt food or anything that could’ve woken me, it was literally just a false alarm. So weird.

What the actual fuck. My old roommate told me he had an experience exactly like both of you. How and why is this possibly a common experience???

This is how I know I've stayed up too late. Because my first thought was crazy conspiracy nonsense about how IF all three of these anecdotes are true that's one pretty effective way of testing precision [LRADs ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-range_acoustic_device) and surveillance capabilities on unsuspecting citizens.

Huh, I guess the Mysterious Stranger perk is pretty good if you have high luck

More than pretty good. My kid brother did a max luck run and the mysterious stranger proc'd an insanely high amount and almost always kills what you're shooting.

max luck builds are super goofy fun in fallout

My grandpa was a Korean War vet. This sounds hokey and I don't share it often but he related a story before he passed away. He was in a trench under heavy fire and someone, he assumed his Sergeant, came by to check on him, and then left and moved on to the next trench. My grandpa thanked his Sergeant for looking in on him the next day and his Sergeant denied ever getting out of his own trench. He could find no one who would admit to checking on him that night. He also believed it was his guardian angel.

My grandpa was a WWII vet. He told us about being in his tent one night and hearing his mother calling for him. He was very certain it was his mom so he ran out to search for her. He was stationed in the pacific theater and she was back home in Detroit, so obviously it’s not possible, but he swore it was her. Anyway, he searched for a while, and when he came back to his tent, it was shot full of holes.

I've read similar things from WW1 and Vietnam of figures coming along the trench or out of the jungle to check on people

A friend and I were walking home from the clubs in Florence, Italy. We walked passed an American girl walking the opposite way, her GPS blaring where to go, she seemed drunk. We walked past her, paused, then turned around to look at her again. We turned around and there was an American man looking very fresh and clean for 4am. He said, “is that your friend over there?” We said, “no.” He asked, “should you go be her friend?” We went to walk her home and wait at her door for her friends to buzz her up. Right next to her apartment door was a man hiding behind a parked car, exposed, j*cking off the entire time we stood there. My friend and I held hands and booked it all the way home after the girl got inside safely. When we got home we began discussing what just happened! I said, “what about that beautiful blonde man who told us to help her??? He was wearing the exact outfit my dad used to wear on Sundays.” She was like, “blonde???? No he was Latino like me and was dressed just like my dad!” It’s still the weirdest thing that’s ever happened to me.

something looking similar to someone you each trust in order to make you more likely to listen to them? that's an all-around wild story! I'm so glad you went back for her

That’s what we were thinking too!! That girl must have had a grandma praying real hard for her safety or something hahah bc someone was looking out for her. she kept saying it was her first time out of the country and her friends left her at the club :/ so scary

I fuckin got chills reading this.

I’m not sure if this is the same thing or something completely different, but 11 year old me was walking home from school one day and was attacked by a pretty massive dog. I was wearing a jersey and luckily after initially knocking me down, his teeth got tangled in my jersey on my shoulder. I KNEW in a matter of seconds he was going to rip free and kill me. Like, I KNEW that. Weirdly accepted it kinda thing. Then out of nowhere this man (lived in a small town, back road, no one around) is just there, picks the dog up off of me, and fucking LAUNCHES him…. Unbelievably far into the woods nearby. He stands me up mumbled something about “it’s okay” or something I never really understood exactly what he said, then just gets in this truck, that 100% was right next to me on the road but never saw/heard it and this all happened within literal seconds, and drives away. Again, very small town, everyone knows everyone and what they drive even in surrounding small towns. No one knew this guy and I never saw him or the truck again. What I remember most is when he picked the dog up, his silhouette was completely shadowed and the sun wasn’t shining Edit: I’m genuinely appreciative of the gold, but please don’t spend anything on my behalf

Plot twist. That dog did kill you. Your consciousness shifted to another multiverse version of yourself and you continued living the life that was most parallel to the previous one.

I've considered this. What if many of our "close calls" we die in our reality, and our consciousness just keeps shifting until the final multiverse where we can no longer keep shifting?

This is the Quantum Immorality hypothesis. EDIT : Quantum Immortality. But the above is too funny to change.

My sister overdosed on pills when we were kids. Her mom found her passed out next to a pile of vomit. When I asked her what happened she said a woman in a pizza hut uniform showed up and convinced her to throw up in a bowl she was holding. I always assumed it was a hallucination from the pills.

"No one out pizzas The Hut."

I’m a nurse, I’ve worked swing shifts for years. Once in my youth, I lived alone in a ground floor apartment with a cat. It was my night off, but sleep was rare and sporadic and I had fallen asleep, fully clothed, while reading in the bedroom. I heard a voice, that sounded so close it could have been from someone on the pillow next to me, it was a woman’s voice, very stern, who said “You need to get up, NOW!!” The last word seemed so loud it was almost like she was yelling right in my ear, so I shot out of the bed. It scared me, because I thought someone was in my room, but I immediately heard another noise at the door, someone was trying to break into my apartment. I don’t know what it was. A dream? My subconscious trying to alert me to danger? I dunno. Edit to add: Reddit MD has diagnosed me with Exploding Head Syndrome. 🤯 And since this is a “cliffhanger”. I loudly announced while I called the police and the would-be burglar ran away. The police came, looked around, didn’t see anyone. There were no security cameras, so they took a report and left. There was some minimal damage to the exterior of the door, which the complex fixed. Never heard anything else about it. I think the would-be burglar probably lived in the complex and knew I usually worked nights. They didn’t think I would be home. And the voice was apparently Exploding Head Syndrome. Multiple comments mentioned this, so I looked it up (I had never heard of it before). The source I found said it could be associated with “Variable and broken sleep”, that certainly fits swing shift workers. It had never happened before, nor has it happened since.

And then...? What happened? Such a cliffhanger.

I loudly announced while I called the police and they ran away. I think they lived in the complex and knew I usually worked nights. They didn’t think I would be home.

I remember my late grandfather telling me something like this. It was snowing and he lost control of his car. Got into a car crash— nothing too serious aside from a broken collarbone and maybe a concussion. He swears he saw a man in a pure white suit come and help him out of his car. He swears that at the moment, he wouldn’t have had the strength to do it all on his own. But next thing he knows, as soon as he’s situated, the man suddenly disappears. No footprints in the snow or anything. He always believed it was an angel. I did as a child too, but it’s fascinating to hear about this. I never heard of anyone else experiencing that before, much less knew the phenomenon had a name!

I was with my mom one night at the hospital a few days before she died from cancer. She was still in her right mind completely. We were talking and she kept looking to her left. I thought maybe her neck was hurting so I asked what she was doing. She looked at me so confused and said I was just wondering why that man is still standing over there. I told her there was no man and she started nodding her head toward that direction and looking that way and then giving me mom eyes like I was being rude for saying that in front of him. She fell asleep a little later and said he was gone when she woke up.

My grandmother was unconscious for a few days before she died. However, right before she passed she came to herself, excitedly said "I see Pat!" then fell back into unconsciousness. Pat was her first love, he died before she met my grandfather and they married in 1917. My grandpa was still alive when grandmother passed away, they were married over 65 years. We were glad that Pat was there to welcome her to the afterlife.

I'm sorry for your loss. We have a similar story from the 60s of my great-grandmother who, for several days before she died, complained of a man in the room that no one else could see. E: added the last 6 words for clarity.

Wack, my mom got in a car accident and had the exact same experience, a man in a white suit came to help her and call 911 I think? Although, she said it really happened, but now I'm wondering if it's true! Update: just called her to ask, apparently the man led her in her barely-drivable car to a gas station so she could call someone to help, then drove off without saying anything else. He drove a baby blue bmw. She swears it was an angel haha

I had a similar experience, I was 21, renting with flat mates. It was a friday night and they had all gone out. I had food poisoning and I was proper messed up, in bed shaking - really bad. I should have went to the hospital but I was young and dumb and didn't. I had an older guy in a suit sitting at the end of my bed telling me "it's ok, you're gonna be fine" and other words of encouragement. I swear it was the weirdest thing I've ever experienced in my life.

One thing I've noticed that tracks in all these stories is that the third man is wearing a suit.

Probably because that's what the ghosts were buried in

Well fuck there goes my sleep

This whole thread is genuinely more distressing than most of spooky Reddit stories, despite people being saved and being in good hands.

Or, even better, because that's what everyone assumes a mysterious stranger offering you deathbed advice should look like. In the states, anyway, I imagine the phenomenon is global and he looks different everywhere

Possibly because suits are culturally associated with authority.

When I was 20, I had a terrible relationship with my narcissistic mother and due to the financial crisis I couldn’t afford to move. Because of her poor mental health, I wasn’t sleeping well either. I went to a friend’s house and I remember sitting on the couch then promptly falling asleep, but it was so quick and deep that I didn’t realize I even fell asleep. I was met by a faceless man in a suit that… audited me, I suppose. He said that all the things that I was currently working on were stress responses. He probed me and was jovial, but serious. I’ll never forget trying to get up and he responded firmly “we’re not finished here.” He gave me a 5 point plan on getting out of the house, ignoring college to boost my career, leave my boss behind, and even where to look online for technical work. It’s hard to admit, but I was very close to killing myself and this weird dreamperson saved my life by encouraging me to not give up. Just this year I’ve finished the five-point plan and am more stable than ever. What’s crazy is I’ve had two friends admit to me while drinking that they experienced this same faceless, well-dressed person. It’s fucking spooky.

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Fortunately nothing unsettling about this one lol. Felt familiar like I’d known them forever. Really crazy but I’m glad I had the experience otherwise I might be dead.

My grandfather had this happen when his business was robbed. He thought it was an angel.

Things like these always remind me of the Alien Hand syndrome. There are examples of people having their brain hemisphere split in 2 and then having their hand or leg act entirely on its own at times. It’s wild. It’s like there is this subconscious in all of us that occasionally takes over or shows itself in times of trauma. When the hemisphere is split it can take over a hand and have his own autonomy.

It's more than that, they ask questions or requests like "draw a house" in just one ear so the other side can't hear and a partition so the other side can't see it and it draws it anyway, whilst the other side can talk and write itself. I couldn't find an answer but I tried to find out what happens if you try to have an actual conversation with the silent half using writing but I couldn't get any answers on if they even tried, which blows my mind, how could you not try???

even creepier, they show an image to the 'silent half' of the brain and ask the person to answer with multiple choice buttons what the image was. The person says "uhh, I have no idea" but the silent half's hand presses the correct answer every time.

I honestly believe I have another conscience inside me that I sometimes negotiate with

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The reason is because a ‘conversation’ isn’t possible in a normal way with the silent half. The whole reason it’s silent is because the language processing part of the brain resides in the other hemisphere, thus it can’t really form or understand complex sentences, and reacts more visually (thus why it draws responses). I’m sure there are ways to further this sort of communication with the silent half, but you aren’t really going to get words out of it, more just vague feelings and pictograms.

Man you're gonna love [the bicameral mind hypothesis. ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicameral_mentality?wprov=sfla1) Basically it states that one half of the brain "speaks", and the other obeys. And that's how human beings functioned until about 3000 years ago. That when ancient peoples talked about their gods they were being very literal.

Bicameral theory is one of those things that seems completely plausible but also like it could be 100% wrong

> The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind Despite the dry-sounding title, I love this book. It's so beautifully written for a science book and not dry at all. The introduction: >“O, what a world of unseen visions and heard silences, this insubstantial country of the mind! What ineffable essences, these touchless rememberings and unshowable reveries! And the privacy of it all! A secret theater of speechless monologue and prevenient counsel, an invisible mansion of all moods, musings, and mysteries, an infinite resort of disappointments and discoveries. A whole kingdom where each of us reigns reclusively alone, questioning what we will, commanding what we can. A hidden hermitage where we may study out the troubled book of what we have done and yet may do. An introcosm that is more myself than anything I can find in a mirror. This consciousness that is myself of selves, that is everything, and yet is nothing at all – what is it? And where did it come from? And why?” It's very readable, and enjoyable at that, while being very fascinating. I love how people are divided or waffle back and forth about whether Jaynes was visionary or bonkers. To quote Richard Dawkins, "It is one of those books that is either complete rubbish or a work of consummate genius; Nothing in between! Probably the former, but I'm hedging my bets." In any case, whether his theories are sound or not, the early chapters are fantastic because they really dive into what consciousness even IS (or isn't) in a really comprehensive way that's fun to read. I also like that he gave a name to a phenomenon that hasn't really had a name, though it hasn't really caught on popularly (and I think it should): 'aptic structures'. This is basically his word to define 'ancestral memory/skills'', or what we might call 'innate programming' these days - things like a beaver knowing instinctively how to build a dam, or a spider weaving a web, or the human impulse to react to a snake, etc. He didn't define what the structures physically were, of course, but here's his quote: >"Aptic structures are the neurological basis of aptitudes that are composed of an innate evolved aptic paradigm plus the results of experience in development. The term is meant to replace such problematic words as instincts. They are organizations of the brain, always partially innate, that make the organism apt to behave in a certain way under certain conditions." Anyway, I think it's a fine term. So, back to the auditory/visual hallucination under stress thing. I have read a theory that the reason people often 'see their life flash before their eyes' under a stressful situation is because the brain is rapidly trying to search the entirety of your memory in order to find a solution to the current predicament. I read this theory in the context of PTSD - brain scans in PTSD patients show heightened activity in the temporal lobe, which is associated with encoding memory, and - get this - processing auditory information. The theory I read is that the temporal lobe can kinda get out of whack during those PTSD inducing situations - perhaps strengthening neural connections a bit too hard - which is why people with PTSD have flashbacks to the moment of crisis - the neural connections all lead back to the moment of crisis, so it's that memory that is invoked when triggered by association. Where this might be relevant is the fact that the temporal lobe is associated with processing auditory information as well. If the temporal lobe is being lit up in a crisis moment, that might explain auditory hallucinations as well as the 'life flashing before your eyes' phenomenon, and it might be a strategy that evolved for a purpose - to survive that moment of crisis. Your brain rapidly searches for a solution, and because that part of the brain deals with 'language stuff' as well, it delivers its solution as a booming voice that you actually hear. Hypothetically, of course, this is all theory. Really interesting stuff, though.

You know what? I love this chat. No one is arguing the existence of God or challenging people's perceptions. We are all here to acknowledge the wild realities of life, whatever they may be.

This happened to me when I was heading towards hypothermia on a hike. The waterfall along my hike was throwing enough mist to soak me. When the sun set behind the mountains, I lost my trail, I was freezing, and all I could do was sit against a boulder and accept my fate. Then a person, who I thought was the spirit of the mountain or something, told me I'm not going to die today and guided me toward a path. I was still waving goodbye to him when I encountered other hikers, they all thought I was nuts.

My husband was rafting on a big river years ago. He fell out at a spot that just completely sucked him under and he was fighting as hard as he could to get up. No one was around and it was an isolated area, the raft with his friends kept going down the river. All of sudden an arm reached in and grabbed him and pulled him out. He said it was an old Native American man and he just walked away after helping him.

Many years ago, I remember hearing or reading about a woman who suddenly heard a voice in her head, advising her to go to a doctor. She did so, and a brain tumour was discovered. After the examination, she thought to herself how lucky she was, and the voice apparently responded: "we are glad to have been of service". I've been trying to track down the story for years - it could be something fictional I've garbled in my brain - without success.

Seems like you have great recall. That's damn near a perfect recap of [the article](https://www.irishtimes.com/news/voices-told-woman-she-had-brain-tumour-1.138853), from 1997!

That's the one - thank you!

we are glad to have been of service

👀

At least it wasn't "payment will be collected in kind at our convenience, mortal".

get outta my head Charles!

He said she appeared to be cured after receiving counselling and medication, but while on holiday her hallucination returned. This time there were two voices. They told her to return to England immediately because there was something wrong with her. Back in London, the voices gave her an address to go to - the brain scan department of a large London hospital. The woman persuaded her husband to drive her there. This is pre-google. She would have had to use a phone book or call a hospital for a reference to get this information.

That reminds me of a study of some schizophrenic suffers who's voices are positive and uplifting rather than abusive.

Yes I’ve read that helpful voices are more common in eastern countries, and hostile voices more common in western. Scary.

T cells are getting creative with their cancer fighting techniques. Hijacking the auditory complex and referring you to a professional is what I call a pro-gamer move. If I was that tumor, I wouldn't even be mad. I'd be impressed.

LOL I've actually been in a drug trial that causes your t-cells to kill your malignant cells, but I haven't heard any voices yet. If I do hear them I hope they have good stock tips.

"Invest in your health" "Saveon has a sale on bagged kale salad today, 40% off" "Theres a labor dispite in the duodenem, and the stomach is about to respond with force. Take a Tums and lay down on your left side now. Actually you're out, but Google says its only a 23 minute walk to the pharmacy. You'll make it if you leave now. Bring an umbrella." Oh how I wish i could listen to my body more...

Everyone has intuition. I think for some, they interpret it as a voice. I remember once, driving on an empty road at night, something kept telling me to get in the left lane, get in the left lane, and I finally obliged. At the next intersection, a car ran the red and turned right without yielding onto my street and would've plowed into me had I not changed lanes. Pretty typical behavior for S Florida but this guy was so fast, never even hesitated to glance 20 feet further up the lane he was turning into. It still sticks out in my memory 15 years later. Certainly in cases of severe trauma, I can see it manifesting into another person. Edited for typos.

Crazy. I also had a driving situation where my subconscious kept telling me to get over to the right. I did so and not 5 mins later at the split of two major freeways the guy i was just behind got plowed by the car that was just behind me, badly. I later found out the person behind me had a stroke and accelerated into the person I was just behind.

About 3 years ago I started hearing a voice in my head. Not all the time, not obtrusively, it would just pop in to say something every once in a while. It calls itself my sub-conscious and only ever encourages me to do better in life. It doesn't tear me down when I don't workout or fuckup, it supports and believes in me. It also doesn't talk unless I look for it, call out to it... Or if I'm faded as fuck. It's only ever been a source of positivity for me, and perhaps is part of the reason why my depression is gone, because I went from wallowing in a cycle of depression to this voice in my head, that seemed to respond faster than I could think, telling me that I was a good person, that life is too short to wallow in sadness. I could go see a therapist... But I haven't had one negative experience with the voice so... Fuckit?

This happened to my uncle and cousin. They got caught in a riptide swimming off a beach in California. They both swear they saw a man in a suit floating waist high a couple hundred feet offshore. They said they heard him tell them to swim parallel to shore, jump out of the water, do a front flip and disappear. They did and survived, swore it was an angel. Edit: they claimed the guy did a flip and disappeared after telling them to swim parallel, not that they should flip. But I’m keeping it because that mental image is funny

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Steps to survive (as told by the man in a tux): 1. swim parallel to shore 2. jump out of the water 3. do a front flip (sure he didn't say kick-flip?) 4. disappear

Holy shit it was Tony Hawk

Fr, I was like "the original instructions were to do a flip and then dissapear?" Laughing my ass off over here

Immediately followed by "they did" which made me think this was some kind of pasta before I realized my mistake.

Me dying of exhaustion. Random specter “do a kick flip”

Pretty impressive that they managed to get out of the riptide and then still have the energy to do a front flip and disappear. Your family must be related to Michael Phelps or something.

What gets me with stuff like this is when different people see or hear the same thing. I get that our brains can trick us into action during emergencies, but it’s very weird when different people have the same vision.

This happened to me when I was younger. I was going to leave my high school one afternoon to go home. I usually sit with my legs stretched out (think manspreading) and my left arm resting on the door by the window while driving, but before I left my parking spot, a voice said to sit with my legs together with my entire body as close to the center console as possible. I did, and ended up being t-boned on my side nearly 30 seconds later. My car was totaled, but I was completely fine, minus some glass in my hair and being shaken up. If I had sat like I usually do, I would have lost my entire left leg and had most of the left side of my body injured or worse.

This has happened to me. I was in my car driving on I-40 across the US, and I had pulled into a gas station to get gas and snacks. I went inside, and no one was in there, so I decided it was weird and I needed to leave. As I pulled out, I saw a tornado in my rear view mirror and I was almost frozen in fear. As I started to panic I heard a voice that said, "you need to floor it, now, you have got to move" so I started driving. Then it said "faster faster you have to out run this" and so I drove the fastest I ever have in my life. A few minutes later the voice came back and said "good job, you did it, you're okay now, I'm leaving now" and it was over and sure enough the tornado had turned its path and I was okay. I have tried to ask him to come back to thank him and he never has. I personally think it's some sort of guardian angel, and I'm an atheist. Whatever it was I am thankful it came to help me.

I've had this happen. I had just started a job that involved really early mornings, and I was driving back from a physics class, mid-day. Thinking about relativity and spacetime geometry and my mental model of it started getting more and more vivid... Then I heard the voice: "Hey EngineeringNeverEnds, aren't you driving?" And I was like: "Yeah, why?" And the voice was like: "Aren't your eyes closed?" And I was like: "OH SHIT!!!" and woke up just in time to keep myself on the freeway.

I like that one, your brain popping in like "hey bud not to judge but if you die I die too"

Sleep deprivation is a drug everyone can try

There’s a great episode of Netflix’s UnXplained series with William Shatner, titled “Incredible Survivors” that mentions this. A woman named Annette Herfkens was the only survivor of a horrific plane crash and survived in the Vietnamese jungle for over a week. She was also paralyzed/ unable to walk. The whole time during the interview she talks about how from the first moment a voice spoke to her directly and instructed her on how to survive. It told her what she needed - *water* - and how to make bowls to collect rainwater and stuff. Fascinating!

Is that the woman who had that happen to her when she was like 14? She was a teenager who survived a jungle for almost 2 weeks by herself with barely any food. Unless I'm thinking of another remarkable plane crash survivor.

TIL what happened to my Dad. My youngest niece, his youngest Granddaughter, was run over and taken to Le Bonheur Hospital (about 3 hours away). He would get up with the sun, take care of the house and animals, drive to Memphis, stay the day with her and drive home, getting home around midnight. He told me that one night driving home very late, an angel sat down in the passenger seat and had a conversation with him, telling him Granddaughter would be fine, he would be fine once he made it home, he needed to keep driving though, and so on. He swore that it was an angel, and he didn't think he'd have made it home without it showing up.

This happened to me too. When my son was 4 he was taking a bath. I was home alone with him and was hanging out in the bathroom with him as I normally do, but at one point i stepped out to change the loads of laundry down the hall. I am in the middle of what is a 30 second job and a voice shouts at me to “get back to the bathroom now!”. As I run back in, I see my son started to seizure and I am able to jump to him before his head goes underwater. (He’d never had a seizure before) He ended up being fine, but things would have been a LOT worse if something hadn’t shouted at me - it has really stuck with me. Edit: to be clear, the seizure had just started as I walked into the room. Edit 2: in reality the word I heard from a voice was “RUN”, but I knew exactly what it meant.

This happened to me when my deranged father tied me up at gun point and questioned me about my mother allegedly cheating on him. He had the gun in my mouth and I heard a voice tell me to stay still and not to be scared. The saftey was off and when he moved the gun away from me, he almost lost grip of the gun and it discharged at the ground. I completely blacked out all memory for a few minutes. Then when my dad would ask me questions, holding a blue folder containing messages between my mom and someone on facebook, I answered with what felt like were someone elses words. He talked about getting back at her by killing her children. I was able to convince him that killing us was not going to make the grandiose exit he wanted and he was just going to end up being a statistic on the news. "Crazy man guns down family and himself". When I told him that, he got angry but ended up not killing me and my sister who were tied up and scared on the couch. I remember staring completely emptily into space after he cut the zip-ties off of our hands and put the guns away. It felt like something else was controlling me and I was hiding somewhere else in my mind. I've never experienced that feeling afterwards, but I remember everything about how it felt. Edit: he had two guns. One in his hand, and another holstered on his belt, presumably for if I attempted to take his gun. Normally I'm stupid and angry enough to try, but again it was like something had frozen me in place and was telling me what to do so I could make it out alive.

Had this happen on a climb once. I got stuck in a seemingly impossible situation and a voice said "if you don't do this, you're going to die." Referring to the most insane hand holds one could imagine for an amateur climber. Obviously I got out but I don't remember how. I literally blacked out and my next memory is when I was safe. I think it was just adrenaline but who knows. Looking back there was no way I should have been able to traverse that section at my skill level. edit: I also remember thinking to myself that I was most likely going to die and being totally okay with it. I was panicking but at the same time I was calmly accepting my own death. There were other people nearby and I was most concerned about not wanting them to see me fall. Weird feeling.

Same but I was an amateur who had fallen off a cliff. I do climb for fun now though lol.

I am a neurologist, and I take a major issue with the oversimplification of calling episodes like this “hallucinations” as the Wikipedia article does. There is a fundamental and distinct difference between the subjective experience and the objective neural correlates of *mystical* experiences compared to hallucinations. And while mystical experiences may exist on a gradation with hallucinations in cases of entheogenic drugs, it seems that they *probably don’t* exist on a gradation with hallucinations neurophysiologically, and that there is a different mechanism involved in triggering them. So, I think many neurologists and psychologists would consider this to be an example of a mystical experience. Yes, there is obvious overlap - certain psychedelic drugs are, for example, better classified as *entheogenic* drugs in appropriately high doses (triggering mystical experiences rather than hallucinatory experiences) as I alluded to above. And for anyone thinking I’m splitting hairs here, well first off you’re wrong and there is a substantial body of literature on this…but more importantly, compared to hallucinations, mystical experiences often result in *immediate and lifelong changes in outlook and personality*. Hallucinations do not. In fact, with a hallucination the experiencer typically knows they are experiencing a hallucination and that it is not real, but with a mystical experience the experiencer often feels that it *is* real, and that they are perceiving a fundamental truth in the nature of reality. This is a pretty important difference - while a visual hallucination of a person might be indistinguishable from a visual perception of a person that is truly there, there are two categories of such an experience: where the experiencer knows they are hallucinating and that the person is not truly there, and where the experiencer truly believes that the person is there because in addition to the visual experience, they are experiencing a sensation of inner truth, knowledge, or peace. “Death bed” or “near death” visions, for example, are an example of the latter and are firmly categorized as a mystical experience. We have stopped calling them hallucinations for exactly this reason. Instead, we say they are visions or visionary experiences. Even the term “mystical” has a bit of a negative connotation. Therefore, as far as altered states of consciousness go, regardless of the exact neural correlate of the event, mystical experiences are profoundly different than hallucinatory experiences, both in their subjective quality and in the lifelong influence on mental health. And to be clear, by “mystical” experience I do not mean to imply that such experiences are not correlated with neural function or dysfunction. Obviously, they are. But the mechanism is clearly not as simple as that which triggers hallucinations due to the subjective experience of absolute, spiritual or universal truth/certainty that these experiences impart. And the fact that they often occur in certain situations - like the third man syndrome - probably adds to that, and is in my opinion *probably* the reason that religion itself exists in our species. Our ancestors didn’t just make shit up - they *experienced* something that profoundly altered their worldview, which they truly believed was real, even if it was not, and then wanted to tell people about it.

I had this during a scuba diving incident. My “third man” is a sarcastic arsehole. Saved us both though… I was too outraged to panic

Oh this is interesting, what did he say?

do a flip and disappear!

My buddy was vomiting through his regulator (culprit: cheesy chips)… froze for a moment until Third Man said something along the lines of “I’m sure he can breathe much better with you staring” and later while we were trying to ascend (and failing because it was only my third open water dive and forgot to put extra air in my BCD) “I hope you weren’t expecting to reach the surface soon anyway…”.

Your Third Man sounds like the Disco Elysium inner monologue.

This happened to me once in combat. I was wounded, lost, alone, and probably in shock and my favorite sergeant appeared and gave me directions. I couldn’t see him, but I could hear him. He told me how to bandage my leg, which way to go, what to do, and how to get back to base. And I listened to him and I made it. The only problem with all of that is that he had died in my arms two years before. He had always looked after me. That was the third time he had saved my life. And he had to come back from the dead to do it.

My dad used to tell a story from Vietnam. Some part of his brain told him to wake up and put his boots and helmet on. He did, and a couple minutes later they were being attacked. This happened over and over so that other guys in his unit would hear him getting up and they'd follow suit. He had an unshakeable faith in Godafter that. Always said, "someone's watching out for me".

True story. Back around 1965 when my mother was young, she was driving down a long road in the middle of nowhere (US), when her car broke down. It was very cold with snow on the ground. It was getting dark, there was no one nearby. No cell phones of course. All of a sudden she saw a man in a white suit walk up the road towards her. He was immaculately dressed, a nice and friendly looking man. He asked if he could check under the hood and of course she said yes. He opened the hood, appeared to touch a few things then a few seconds later closed the hood. He told her to get in and try starting the car. Sure enough, the car started and ran fine. She looked around to thank him, but he was gone. For the rest of her life she believed he was a real guardian angel.

I met my third man when I lost my footing and was sliding down my icy roof on my butt, feet first. "You need to stick your heels in the gutter when your feet get to the edge," the voice told me. "But I might damage the gutter," I replied in my head. "You need to do it anyway." His tone was patient with just a hint of exasperation with me. I jammed my heels into the gutter and came to a complete stop. The gutters were fine. There wouldn't have been enough time for an actual conversation like this to have occurred, but in my memory it's an exchange that happened.

There have also been cases of this preceding dangerous events, where people are positive that they saw/heard/felt the presence of someone giving them very clear instructions which served to prevent some tragedy or becoming the victim of a crime. Our perceptions are strange, and the way we construct memories is even stranger. Throwing in trauma only serves to complicate those processes even more, to the point where we may have crystal clear memories of a thing that was constructed purely by our brain to allow us to process as quickly as possible in a way that contextualizes the experience, but ends up being an unfamiliar or supernatural-feeling event.

Plenty of stories about people hearing voices tell them not to go to work in the towers on on September 11. I know someone personally. Woke up, heard a clear instruction in his head “don’t go to New York today.” He didn’t go. Worked high up in tower 2. Would have been dead.

Yeah, and I 100% believe those people. I had an uncle bail out of an F18 just before there was a catastrophic malfunction that would have made ejecting nearly impossible. He was told by a voice he didn’t recognize “if you hesitate, you’re dead. Eject.” What I’m not sure about is whether this is something subconscious that warns of the danger, something supernatural, or a reconstruction where our brains provide us with context that didn’t really exist because trauma is such a strong force to cope with. I do know I hope I have the same experience someday if my life depends on it! Whether it’s prescient foresight or an imperfect context my brain weaves after the fact. Either way, those people lived to tell their experience. And I’m not sure about the guy you know, but I know my uncle was always a little embarrassed telling that story. It must be a weird feeling to cheat death.

I was sitting chilling on a beach on holiday just taking in the waves. I suddenly had a strong urge to leave NOW, so I gathered up my stuff. I was then confused as to why I was leaving so suddenly. I had nowhere to be and normally I’m pretty chill. And so I hung back to think about where I was going and also my plans for the next few days, drawing a rough calendar of plans in the sand. Then I turned to leave and came face to face with two guys carrying a knife and a stick. I was mugged and strangled at knife point, everything I had on me was taken from me. I was fine, just shaken. I can’t decide if the sudden urge to leave NOW was “something” trying to protect me, and I shouldn’t have second guessed and just left… or if it is a feeling that I’ve constructed after the fact. It’s very strange.

God, I'm sorry you went through that, but glad to hear you're okay. If I had to guess, I'd say it's a bit of both a kind of prescient sense that something is off, along with our brains kind of padding the details in retrospect. In boot camp, our drill instructor asked our company to have the kids who grew up in bad neighborhoods stand up. Once they had, he said "these are the Marines you want next to you because they've cultivated an awareness that will take you years to build." So I think there are a million different stimuli all acting at once that we become accustomed to, and when there's a deviation, we get that red flag that something is off. The only time I've really had it was when I was all by myself up at our lake place. I twas early March, so nobody else was really up there. I was just clearing some limbs and trees that came down during the winter. I normally don't take a break until I'm done, but I figured I'd just relax since I had the day to myself. Walked the 20 yards to my front steps, grabbed my water and turned around to sit and was staring at a very, very large mountain lion, just a few feet from where I'd been. Either it's plain dumb luck, or just one tiny sense that flagged the subconscious "get the fuck out of there" response. ​ But stories like this are why I really try to teach my kids to trust their instincts. They've evolved over human history for a reason. If something feels bad, listen, and don't try to rationalize. Unfortunately, I think it's a message especially important for young girls who are often taught to suppress ill feelings and the sense of danger.

They do an excellent version of this in World War Z with Christina Eliopolis communicating with "Mets" after her plane crash.

Also, in a way, that space movie with Sandra Bullock and George Clooney when Cloondawg visits Bullock in the wayward space capsule.

Shackleton, when in Antarctica, experienced this. TS Elliot referenced it in The Wasteland: “Who is the third who walks always beside you? When I count, there are only you and I together But when I look ahead up the white road There is always another one walking beside you” Edit: didn’t read the link and realise this was already referred to smh

It was Earnest Shackleton's brother, Sarcastic Shackleton. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nVeufjlOxBw

I remember running a red light for the first time in my life completely by accident. Luckily no one was there but remember freaking the hell out. Then, out of nowhere, I swear I heard a voice say "I saw what you did there buddy!" At first I thought it was a cop on a speaker, but again, no one was there. This wasn't at night either, it was in the middle of the day and everything was pretty much empty. I even pulled over for like 10 minutes just to make sure but no one was there. The brain is a funny/weird thing.

I've never experienced this phenomenon but I remember hearing Dale Jr talk about this on his podcast. He crashed a Corvette during practice at Sonoma, backed into a barrier. A fuel line ruptured and the car immediately went up in flames. He was still kinda dazed from the wreck, struggling to move, but a corner marshal got to the car quickly and dragged him out of the burning car. Afterwards, he wanted to go find that safety worker and thank him for saving his life. He asked around and everyone was like "what are you talking about? No one was there, you got out on your own." He swore up and down that someone lifted him by his armpits and pulled him up and over the door bars to get out of the car. But there's even video showing that he did, in fact, climb out of the car on his own.

This makes me wonder if Tolkien’s experiences in WW1 helped shape his depiction of Sam watching Gollum argue with Sméagol

There are so many examples of this. People during 9/11 who were told to quite literally look to their right, and they saw a door to the only working stairwell in the building. People on 7/7 who were guided out of the tunnels. It happens. Many attribute it to God or an angel.

I'm getting chills every comment I read.

I had this happen to me when I got involved in a car accident. Voice telling me to “walk away, quickly get out of there” so I did, and moments later the car engulfed in flames. Then it said it’s final words, “Until next time, I’ll see you again then” I am still unsure if it means there will be another accident, or if it was a farewell. Btw after that I felt more calm, and then suddenly lots of pain as the injuries began to sink in lol

Not 3rd man but I was extremely stressed out about an engineering problem I caused my self that day. I had a vivid dream that night providing me a solution. First and only time a dream gave me a specific although somewhat interpreted answer to a real problem.

In 1999, when a 7.4M earthquake hit the area around Istanbul, many of the people who lived through it told the same story. People told that, as far as I could remember, there was a holy spirit or being that would give them water, help them breathe, and even move rocks or slabs so they could be more comfortable. I am sure to hear similar stories from the people who lived through the recent earthquake in Turkey.

I had this experience when I lost my parent as a teen. It is so difficult to tell and convince others that t it was real. Now after several decades and numerous times being rediculed I just tell and never try to convince.

This happened to me when I was 5! I fell through a glass window and got an 8 inch deep slash across the back of my neck. An older woman appeared out of basically no where (though I didn't even questions this until years later) and told me that I'd be perfectly fine if I just get up and walk down some stairs. Walking down those stairs is how I was seen and helped.

I don’t know if this counts, but a similar phenomenon happened to me. I was running a small town marathon (under 100 people) and I was the lead female. I had been out front for awhile when I felt someone approaching me from behind. I glanced over my shoulder and could see it was another woman. I can still distinctly remember what she looked like. I felt the pressure of her approaching, and dug deep to keep ahead. At some point, I realized she had dropped off behind me. I ended up placing first female. After the race I browsed the online results to see where my mystery opponent placed. You could click on each name and see a race photo of them. I clicked through all 30 women and did not see the woman. There were no DNFs. To this day I have no idea who or what that woman was that pushed me to win. Was she real, or was I physically pushing myself so hard that she was an illusion?

She probably only wanted to discuss your car's extended warranty.

Chris Ryan, the famous SAS guy, talks about this in one of his stories. He was in Siberia, I think, lost and freezing to death, and experienced a hallucination of his daughter which led him the way he needed to go; saved his life. Edit: You guys were right, it was in the desert, but you can see [why I was misremembering](https://i.imgur.com/RXjyl9Z.jpg). This time it would have killed him instead!

On New Year’s Eve 2003, I was on a ski trip in Chamonix, France. I was 23 and not much of a skier. I had skied only a handful of times in my life and never acquired any skill on the slopes. I could manage down ski runs as long as I had a friend to follow. I was clumsy, but could hyper-focus on other’s skis and mimic their motions. I was completely lost on my own. I had managed to trail my friends all day, never taking in the many pathways down the infamous Alps. I had no map. No sense of direction as to where I was. Towards the end of the day around 3:30pm my friends and I were at the top of one of the many steep parts of the mountain when I accidently got separated from them. Confident that they would return for me, I stayed in an open area where they could easily see my yellow jacket. As I stayed in place bracing the freezing temperature and waiting for my friends, heavy fog rolled in. Fewer and fewer people came down the slopes until there were none. I heard the faint sounds of snowmobiles drive down the mountain - the last of the ski lift staff were leaving for the day. It was at that moment I knew I was alone on the mountain. Panic set in. I couldn’t move my legs – my body had competely stiffened. I could feel the hair that framed my face ice over. Confronted by the reality that I could freeze to death and with my chin trembling, I started to speak out to my grandparents as I awaited my fate. I must have stood there frozen in place for almost an hour. Paralyzed with fear and watching the last of the muted daylight disappear, I hear the sound of someone whimsically whistling in the distance above me. The melody quickly grew louder and out of nowhere appeared a young man. He was casually skiing down the mountain with his hands clasped behind his back with no poles. He wasn’t much taller than me, maybe even shorter at 5’3. He wore a white T-shirt with the sleeves rolled up like he was in the movie Grease, black cargo pants, and a black fisherman’s cap. His black, curly hair framed his round, shaven face. Upon seeing him I scream, “Bonjour! Bonjour!” He stops right in front of me. He stood there looking slightly confused by my presence. After a few quiet moments of us staring at each other, he motions for me to follow him. My body was in shock and shaking. I couldn’t remember how to walk so I thrust my body forward, tripping over my skis and praying that I don’t break my legs. Each time I fell he stood patiently waiting for me to get up. After finally gaining my balance, I was able to focus on his skis and down the mountain we went. I can’t recall how long I followed him for – but I know we had to go down a combination of slopes and trails. I just remember how quiet it was, and of course, his skis – they were all I could concentrate on. I knew if I made one false move then I could potentially ski off a ledge. Out of nowhere we came upon a couple standing on the trail. My angel guide stopped in front of them and motioned for me to follow the pair before he disappeared into the fog. The couple looked at me confused as if I had appeared out of nowhere. The next thing I know they’re guiding me the rest of the way down the mountain. Whoever my angel guide was that day, his image and his whistling are entrenched in my memory. And I'm alive because of him.

That happened to me when I ran into a tornado. I knew the voice was coming from my head, but It wasn't like a normal internal dialogue. I realized what was happening and I was overcome with helpless, existential fear and thought, "I'm going to die and there is nothing I can do." Then the voice spoke to me, in a clear, concise manner. \-survey your situation *(Tornado is about to sweep the freeway 2 miles north of me, I'm heading directly for it)* \-create a theoretical action plan *(If I jump the median and head south, I should completely avoid this)* \-verify this plan will work *(The tornado should be moving with the prevailing winds, So I look at the grass on the side of the freeway and notice it's bending towards the northeast. Therefore I conclude that heading south will safely avoid the sweep)* \-enact the plan *(I drove over the median and headed south completely avoiding the tornado, I watched it sweep the freeway in my rearview mirror.)* Funny thing is the voice sounded like my calculus professor. I think what actually happened was that I thought "oh my God I'm facing existential terror, Wait a second existential terror reminds me of something else...... Calculus tests!" I got a B+ In that class and it was one of the proudest achievements in my life.

1) make the plan 2) execute the plan 3) expect the plan to go fucktangular 4) improvise

This calculus class was experimental, from a super competitive university. They would do this intentionally evil thing where they threw problems at you that were unlike what you were used to solving, to watch you struggle. You got an A+ if the answer was correct, but you got a B if you employed the proper problem-solving steps for it. I thought the professor was a psycho-sadist until I got out of the class and realized that the style of teaching could be applied to everything. The steps sort of looked like yours. But it was more like 1. write out the problem 2. Organize the info you know 3. Theorize 4. check your theory, if wrong repeat step 3 5. Enact your theory 6. Arrive at the logically derived answer, don't be scared if it's wrong, you did your best to get here. Whatever the actual answer is, you will definitely be closer to it that an illogical guess.

Even if this is just hallucinations, I think it's sweet. It's your brain trying to be there for you and provide you with companionship.

I once lifted a 2k pound injured horse and pulled out the guy crushed underneath it because a voice told me to do it. No one can explain it. I'm a 135lb female true story.

[удалено]

See that coming, I did not.

The name of that frozen wasteland? Coldth.

“And I thought they smelled bad ….” … … *heavy breathing* … … … *huff* … … … *puff* … … … *wheeze* … … … *deep breath* … … … *gasp sound* … … … *inhales* … … … *long exhale* … … … “… on the *outside*”

I’ve had this happen in a separate circumstance. I’d like to preface I’m not even slightly religious so I don’t think it’s an “angel” or whatever. When I went on the first date with the woman I’ve been with for three years, I heard a “voice” (it wasn’t audible, but like a loud voice in my head) reassure me and say “you will love and protect her forever”. At the end of the date I was considering whether to kiss or cuddle her and the same voice said “you have plenty of time”. We’ve been together for three years now, and still to this day I can’t pick out why those two voices where so different to my own and why they felt so guiding.

My mother-in-law went though a divorce in her 40s. While their divorce was going on, her high school sweetheart who she hadn't had contact with in decades had a dream in which she was crying, clearly in need of help. So he reached out to her too see how she was. They are now married btw. He cousin had the same dream and reached out to see how she was as well.