episode 034 - The Most Insane “Glitch in the Matrix” Story on the Internet (The Lamp)

The story that we're going to be covering today is one of the most unforgettable true stories that I've ever come across. It's actually one of the most famous stories that I've ever been shared on Reddit. Personal stories. In fact, I'm willing to bet that some of you, just from the title of this video and what I've said already immediately, already know exactly what story that I'm talking about.

But even if that's the case, even if so, I'm willing to bet that you're still going to stay and listen to the rest of the story again, because it's just one of those stories that stay with you and that no matter how many times you hear it, has the same gripping and captivating effect. It's an unbelievably striking and memorable story.

I first heard about it maybe five, six, seven years ago, and it stayed with me this entire time. So without further ado. Welcome back, guys. My name is Andy Chang, and this is it in stores.

In the late 1900s, there was a fairly normal college student. Let's call him Tim. One day, just by sheer chance, since I suddenly met this girl who let's call Jade now before meeting Jade. Tim. It obviously had a few crushes before, maybe even a few relationships, but everything had just felt very temporary, very shallow. There was never really that deep spark, that instant connection you feel with someone you love with Jade, however, that couldn't have been further from the truth.

She made him feel butterflies. His heart was skipping beats. He was just from the very moment he met her deeply and head over heels in love. And so Tim vowed to himself that if nothing else, he would at least try to get to know Jade better. And if things worked out in his way like he had planned, he wanted to make Jade his girlfriend after what seemed like months of teasing and also beating out a few other guys who were interested.

Tim finally won Jade over and before long they were actually dating. Just two years later, the two got married and very shortly after that she gave birth to a very beautiful baby girl. For Tim, at this point, it seemed like his life was going perfectly. In fact, he had never been happier in his entire life before. He had this amazing, very well-paying job in Minnesota.

His wife could just stay at home and take care of the kids. And when his daughter was just two years old, they soon had another kid together, a son. Every single morning before Tim went to work, he would just go and hang out in his daughter's room and then his son's room and just enjoy their company feeling so happy and so grateful for the life that he had.

All these things that he had dreamed about as a little kid growing up. His ideal family, his ideal life is ideal job. All of these things had finally become his reality, and Tim just couldn't have been more grateful. He was loving life and it seemed like all of the pain and sadness and anguish of his past really had all been completely worth it.

But one day, as Tim was just chilling on his couch in the living room, something in the corner of his eyes suddenly caught his attention when he looked over to see what it was. It was just a lamp that he and his wife had bought maybe two or three years ago. It had been sitting on the table in his living room for God knows how long he couldn't even remember.

But that day there was something about this lamp that just didn't look right. It didn't. It didn't feel right. When Tim tried to keep on looking at it and just make sense of what was off about it, he just couldn't figure out what it was. The lamp kind of seemed like it was in 3-D, but not quite. It looked like it was inverted, but also not quite.

He just couldn't wrap his mind around what was just so off about this lamp that he was looking at, the lamp that he had been looking at for the past. How many years and had there never been a single issue before that? By this point, Tim was just so transfixed by how weird this lamp looked that he just couldn't look away.

For the next three days and three nights, Tim sat there on that couch without moving, just staring at the slip. Now this lamp was red with gold trim on four lakes, a white shade in a square piece. But the more Tim looked at this lamp, the more transfixed he was by it, and the more he just couldn't look away.

He ended up spending all night just sitting there staring at this lamp, even when the next morning came and it was time for him to go off to work like he always did. He just couldn't leave. There was something. Something so off about the lamp that he had to figure out what it was. He had to figure out why he was so captivated by this ordinary lamp for the next three entire days.

Tim just sat there and stared at the slip. He had stopped eating. He had stopped drinking. His wife had come to talk to him a few times. Even his kids had come to ask him, Dad, what's wrong? What's going on with this terrible fear in their eyes and tremor in their voices? But Tim just almost didn't care. He was so consumed by this limp.

And would this limp meant and why it was there, what he was doing was off about it, that he had no other thoughts on his mind and he couldn't think about anything else on his mind. By around day two or so of Tim, just sitting there, Jade even had a professional therapist try and come in to talk to him.

But by that point, Tim was just completely unresponsive to everyone else. It seemed like he had just gone crazy. He'd cracked and his wife was obviously just freaking out, wondering what on earth had happened to him. By day three, G just finally couldn't take anymore. And she decided to drive their two children over to her mom's house nearby so they wouldn't have to see Tim in the horrible state that he was in.

But while she was gone, Tim had been sitting here for the past three days, just staring, scrutinizing, figuring out what it was about this limp. Finally had a breakthrough. He had an epiphany. The lamp was real. His family wasn't real. His wife, Jean, wasn't real. His children, his life, his house. Everything that he had thought was real over the past ten entire years was not real.

The momentum visualized this and fully internalized this. The lamp that he had been so carefully looking at for all this time suddenly started to grow wider and deeper. It still looked off, but it was just growing bigger by the second until it was the only thing that Tim could see. It had completely covered his entire frame of view.

For a while, all Tim could see was just the terrible red of this terrible limp. And then all of a sudden, he suddenly started to hear voices. Screams. Very faint screams, but voices talking. And then all of a sudden, this blinding pain suddenly came. Once you go for him from all directions, and he had this horrible headache that just wouldn't go away.

When Tim tried opening his eyes, he was immediately met with this blinding light, so he immediately winced and just shut his eyes again. But as he began to slowly adjust and test out his vision and he looked around to see where he was, all he could see was that he was now on a sidewalk and surrounded by all these random people who he didn't recognize and had no idea who they were.

But a few of them seemed like they were freaking out for some reason. Obviously, Tim was very confused and was just wondering where his wife and his kids were, but he never got a chance to ask because a police cruiser soon pulled up beside him. The officer got out and just kind of picked him up and stuffed him into the back of the car before driving away and taking him to the local hospital.

By this point, Tim was still asking for his wife tea, but this officer kind of just looked back at him with a strange, confused look on his face before dropping him off and just leaving. Over the next few hours, Tim was constantly surrounded by doctors and nurses who were performing a variety of tests and diagnostics on him. But still, every single time Tim tried asking again for his wife, no one seemed to have any idea of what he was talking about.

He was soon diagnosed with a concussion, and it was only later that Tim was finally able to piece the puzzle together of what it actually happened. Basically, he was walking back from one of his college classes when he was suddenly attacked and beaten up by one of the football players. Apparently, Tim had just accidentally walked in the area of a parking lot where the guy had been trying to drive and this guy had been so angry and irritated by this that he got out of the cart and followed him and assaulted him, beating him unconscious.

And I should also probably mention that this football player was £325, whereas Tim was only £120. But although there were a few people nearby who saw everything unfold and were able to quickly call for medical attention and for the police in the mere few moments that Tim had been unconscious, he lived an entire lifetime of almost ten years of memories and experiences that were just so vivid and so detailed.

As you can imagine, morning over a wife and kids that never actually existed is not something that comes easily or quickly. Tim ended up spending around three years in this terrible depression, desperately trying to cope with the loss of his loved ones in this life that he had terraced so much for a long time. He was really scared that he had just gone insane and he would cry himself to sleep at night, just hoping that somehow he would be able to see Jade's face again.

Just one more time in his dreams. He never did see Jade, but sometimes in these dreams he would see his son. But it would only be in his peripheral vision. And his son would always be five years old, and he would never be able to hear what he was actually saying. It's completely unknown what ended up happening to this guy or where he is today, since he never made a follow up post.

But after this post went viral on Reddit, YouTube and basically the entire Internet tons and I mean tons of other people began coming out and sharing their own experiences as well, where they had smaller but very similar experiences of just getting a concussion or going under anesthesia for surgery or just sleeping and even dreaming at night where they live for months and what feels like even years at a time.

But then they wake up and find out that they've only been unconscious for minutes or maybe an hour. It's truly terrifying to think about and even more terrifying to consider just how much we don't know about brains and what all of this could even mean and why this happens. But it's an incredibly tragic, unforgettable story that I will always remember.

And, well, I guess you'll now always remember to take care, guys. And I'll see you all next week. With that being said, I hope you found today's story interesting. If you did, please share this episode with friends. Get into it as well. Common your thoughts and leave a reading. It goes a long way and really helps make this entire thing possible.

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