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A Series of Unsettling Events

Started by 3pin, February 15, 2005, 12:45:15 AM

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3pin

Even though I rarely post, I read CaB more than any other website (probably) – it's almost always the first site I go to when I turn my computer on and it's something I used to always assume would be there.  The first time the board broke, it really fazed me.  I had to stop for a minute and try to work out what was going on and, after many refreshes, try to think back to what I used to read to kill time when I should have been working.  Now it's not so shocking just annoying.  

Anyway, that was just an introduction to my weekend unsettling event which still makes me feel strange when I think about it...

For various periods in the last 7 years I've walked over Waterloo Bridge practically daily to get to uni/work/etc., always looking at the same large clock, on the side of the Savoy (or maybe it's the building next to it).  As far as I am concerned, this clock IS time.  It's hands are connected to time itself and if it says 9.50am I know I have exactly 10 minutes to get across that bridge and into the 10 o'clock lecture.  

So, on Sunday afternoon, I was going across the bridge and got to the usual point at which I now, purely out of habit, look up to check what the time is.  
About a second after I look up the clock started going backwards, quite quickly.  The most horrible feeling came over me, like I was about to die, as this clock is time itself something terrible must be happening.  I looked around but no one else seemed worried about the inevitable apocalypse.  To be honest (and I'm going to sound mental here) I half expected things to be going backwards.

As no one else seemed to have noticed, I thought I must be dreaming.  I then realized that it was real life so I pulled myself together, tried to be rational, and thought that the clock must've been set to the wrong time and they were only adjusting it to the correct time.  I looked at the time on my watch and waited for the clock to stop when it got to that point... But it didn't – it kept going backwards.  It made me feel really sick.  I couldn't look at it any longer, and I felt weird for the rest of the afternoon, like I was waiting to wake up.  (I didn't do the 'pinch yourself' thing though, as I've tried that when dreaming and it doesn't work.)  

I think that even posting this is just a way of confirming that this is real.  

So, has anyone else ever had this?  When will the weirdness stop or am I just weird to be so affected by it?  

The only other time something like this happened was when I had been playing Sonic at 4am and had got to the Starlight level without dying once.  Then, I misjudged a jump and started falling and I knew I was going to die.  For the whole time of falling I truly believed I was about to die and started freaking out and having one of those life-flash-before-you moments.  I hit the bottom of the screen and just got reincarnated at the top of the level.  I didn't move for about 10 seconds.  The other person who was in the room just laughed at me when I explained why I had had such a panicked look in my eyes.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

QuoteSo, has anyone else ever had this?
.evah I yas t'naC

Wow. That's brilliant. If it did really happen and you're not just stark raving doolally, it should be easy enough to confirm. All you should have to do is find out exactly which building the clock is on and ask them. But do you dare? The moment they furrow their brows and tell you the old clock hasn't lost a second or gained a second and has certainly never gone backwards in its long proud history, you'll know. You're mental. You'll probably start believing that there is some massive conspiracy afoot with the Savoy Hotel in league with crack FBI Taliban enthusiasts or somesuch. And that'd be awful. Probably best just try and forget about, find a new route into work and try not to dwell on the next episode.

flumphead

ever watched that cinematographic meisterwerk  'Final Destination'?
(when things start going wierd it means your bucket it  about to be pushed)

burpmitosis

Don't want to alarm you but do you have a family history of epilepsy?  Sounds like it could be a Temporal Lobe Seizure.
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/001399.htm

The other solution is that there was a power cut, which can make clocks do that spinning thing until they reach the right time again.  How long did you stand looking at it?
I agree with others who said you should try to find out if there was a problem with the clock that day.

3pin

I don''t think there's any family history of epilepsy.   Thanks for your concern though.  If I start displaying any of the symptoms such as
QuoteAbnormal mouth behaviors  
I'll check back, although I think I may have one of them already
QuoteChanges in vision, speech, thought, awareness, personality
As I wouldn't normally post.

If I try to find out if the clock did go back and they tell me it didn't, I will  be seriously freaked out.  

If they tell me it did, they'll think I'm a weirdo for asking.

gazzyk1ns

QuoteAbnormal mouth behaviors

If that's not a good name for a band then I don't know what is...

I loved the Starlight Zone on Sonic, updownleftrightAstartdowndowndown...till you got to there. The music was great and if you were bored you could run at the fans for a few minutes to see if the programmers had included a thing whereby you could beat them eventually. I hated Labyrinth 3 though, it got genuinely panicked when you had to beat the rising water at the end.


Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannd relax. As my old PE teacher used to say.

Quote from: "3pin"If they tell me it did, they'll think I'm a weirdo for asking.

Better a weirdo than a loon.

Spiney Norman

Heh, I remember when they spent loads of cash making a nice new bus station in Carmarthen, and it had a big clock on it. When they finished it the clock ended up running backwards for about a week before they fixed it..

Either that or I dreamt it or am a bit mental as well...

Dan

JesusAndYourBush

I had a weird time-slowing-down experience a few months ago.

I was at a gig and it was going great, then about 1 minute into a song there was some sort of fault with the drum machine.  Maybe the voltage shifted or something, but it slowed down almost imperceptibly, and the band, totally unawares, slowed down to match it.

At this point, from my perception everything seemed to be in slow motion.  My eyes scanned the room.  Everyone was moving in slow motion.  The people at the front were dancing in slow motion.  The music however didn't sound in slow motion, although it sounded a tad slow.
The slow motion bit kinda reminds me of that scene in one of the terminator films, the bit in the nightclub where it all goes in slow motion just before the shoot-out.

I looked around the room for any recognition from anyone else, but everyone else seemed to be enjoying the gig.

Let me say at this point that I don't indulge in any "substances", and I'd not drunk excessively.
As everything was moving in slow motion I seriously considered that someone had maybe slipped something into my drink.  It was a really unsettling experience.

When the song ended (It was a long one so I'd experienced around 7 minutes of "slowness") everything was back to normal, and after the gig I spoke to the band and only one of them noticed that there'd possibly been "something wrong" during the song in question, and they said they'd been having problems with the drum machine, but nobody else had experienced what I had and everyone who I told thought I was nuts.

Gazeuse

Is that the clock on the Shell building???

When I concentrate on work, I seem to shut everything out to the extent that I forget everything that's around me. If I get jerked out of this, say by someone asking me a question (Or rather shouting a question at me) I can get very disorientated. Even to the extent where I hear what the person is saying but I can't connect the words up so it seems like gibberish for a while. That's a bit odd.

3pin

Quote from: "Gazeuse"Is that the clock on the Shell building???


That's the one!  I was trying to work out which building it was this morning by thinking along the Strand.

I looked at the clock this morning - it was normal.  I couldn't do it yesterday just in case it was still spinning backwards.

hencole

It could have been a radio clock. I've got one at work and if for some reason it looses radio contact and then looses enough time before gaining contact again it will whiz backwards for a while until it work out the correct time.

slim

Could it not have just been someone testing the hands after fixing something?

Suttonpubcrawl

The answer is clear, it's the London version of that clock in The Hudsucker Proxy and it was being wound backwards by the mysterious old man who lives inside it to turn back time and undo some bad event that had occured.

Beagle 2

Quote from: "3pin"

As no one else seemed to have noticed, I thought I must be dreaming.   When will the weirdness stop or am I just weird to be so affected by it?  


I knew that was going to happen

slim

I missed the mysterious changing logo, did anyone save it?

JesusAndYourBush