Lapses in comprehension that had you freaked out

[Pacing Tape]

I couldn't find any thread with a similar topic but it's hard to word what I really mean by this. Basically I'm wondering if anyone else has had any strange experiences that ultimately either meant nothing or were just you having poor comprehension of things.

My best example of this is from a few weeks ago. I went out to my local river at night with my dog to just sit and listen to the waves and such. After about ten minutes I noticed these red and white lights some distance away that looked like they were on the water, bouncing back and forth at irregular intervals, in irregular places. I couldn't see a ship there or anything, and so I thought there was some weird paranormal stuff going on. It took me twenty minutes to realize the lights were just the head and tail lights of cars on the highway across the river. :/

 

[Some_porcupine]

i got only basic ones, like people supporting bilionaires and people who think social problems can be solved by tech (its been tried, it doesnt)

 

[Ccmodee]

I think a good lapse in comprehension is how we like to think that we are free, when in reality the contrary is true, I will admit it is harder to notice but the notion that people are truly free just isn't the case. We are watched, monitored and malformed into what those controlling us want their subjects to be. I don't really have any less morbid examples though.

 

[InternetGeist]

Years ago I was hearing weird and almost rhythmic static noise at exactly 3 am every night that woke me up. The combination of the frustration of not being able to figure out its source and insomnia even led to me developing crazy schizophrenic theory to rationalize the noise.

One day I realized that it was just my phone charger. It was an old one that made weird noise every time it was fully charged and I have hyper sensitive ears.

 

[MySpace Tom]

Years ago I was hearing weird and almost rhythmic static noise at exactly 3 am every night that woke me up. The combination of the frustration of not being able to figure out its source and insomnia even led to me developing crazy schizophrenic theory to rationalize the noise.

One day I realized that it was just my phone charger. It was an old one that made weird noise every time it was fully charged and I have hyper sensitive ears.

I've definitely had similar experiences. I have a phone charger that will emit a quiet but high-pitched tone when the phone is plugged in. I'd use it at night and would only start to notice it when things were especially quiet. I thought my ears were broken until I realized what the source of the sound was

Between that, occasional phantom vibration syndrome, and checking my own phone when I'd hear one vibrate in a TV show like some sort of Pavlovian-brained simpleton, my phone has left me questioning my sanity more often than any other appliance

 

[Junious]

This may be scary for some of you, but when you walk into a scene of extreme violence or death (IRL) there is a moment of incomprehension that first responders train for. Your brain is taffy and you run and try and get a pulse and start triaging out a scene. When you see something completely shocking your brain will just put a weird blur there as you try to rap your head around what you are looking at, which is why training for such things is essential, so that you go to muscle memory because rationalization has escaped you. A similar moments of adrenaline incomprehension happened to me when I dropped a big dead sketchy tree and it went the wrong direction. My legs just started running on their own in an uncoordinated fashion and I ended up somersaulting and rolling away. That's why its important to have a plan and rehearse a bit your escape route when you are felling sketchy timber.

 

[Ross_Я]

It was an old one that made weird noise every time it was fully charged and I have hyper sensitive ears.

Darn. I'm just happy to meet someone who also hears stuff like that.
Somehow though whenever I hear such a noise, I always know that I have to look for electrical devices to locate the source. Maybe it's because I grew up in the 90's, when tons of things were making similar noises, so I never really questioned the source for multiple nights.
Some examples?
Old TVs, of course. The primary source of a thin, high-pitched noise. I used recordings of that noise (yes, people actually record those) as a clipboard preset for the noise-removal algorithm whenever I encounter similar noises in sound recordings.
Which brings us to the second example: botched recordings. I guess, sometimes it just slips past the ears of the audiotechnicians and producers and they release a track - or even whole albums - with high-pitched noise. Most recent example? Motorhead's Sacrifice, 1995 japanese release catalog number TECX-25981 is full of that.
Several years ago I heard that noise in my kitchen and immediately started taking power plugs out to localize the noisy one. Turns out it was a cheap chinese radio.
Finally, here's an interesting and - I think - unexpected example. Just the other day chinese Voyah electric car was standing in the mall on a display, charging. And at some angles I could distinctly hear a similar, strikingly electric type of noise. Like, fucking hell. I hate electrical cars already. If they will make this horrible noise too, I can't even fathom how much more I will hate them. I just hope they will never become widespread.

Edit:
Actually, why won't I give you an example of a recording from the Motorhead album I mentioned.

You can clearly see the bright line of noise in the upper quarter of each channel. The tech-savvy folk can see it just above 15 kHz mark.
It gets a bit lost when the song picks up the pace, but you can still see it here and there.
And, what's more important, I can hear it. Distinctly. Ringing in my ears. And I do not listen to the music in a quiet environment or something - I listened to that album on a highway in my car, and I still heard that. And it made my head hurt. I can't stand that type of noise.
Good thing I know how to clean it up, but I really wonder how much people actually pay attention to stuff like this. Or how much people even hear that. I mean, they really just mastered an album like that, so that means at least half a dozen of people completely missed the noise for whatever reason. That fact quite puzzles me.

 

[Hypatia]

I think a good lapse in comprehension is how we like to think that we are free, when in reality the contrary is true, I will admit it is harder to notice but the notion that people are truly free just isn't the case. We are watched, monitored and malformed into what those controlling us want their subjects to be. I don't really have any less morbid examples though.

The Slavery of old (not slave trade slavery Roman era type slavery) never really ended it just evolved. Any ounce of freedom you have was either fought for with blood or been found to be more efficient for capital to let you have that minor choice.

 

[dorgon]

i tend to daydream a lot and sometimes i forget that i'm daydreaming so i'll have a unconscious reaction to something in the dream because i forgot it's not real

 

[alCannium27]

Tech has always been what solved problems, like your headache and your tooth decay. Or food storage or your amputated limbs. It's been tried and true, and it freaks me out how people cannot comprehend this basic fact.

Anyways, there's this one time I was in bed in the dark when I woke up, I saw a humanoid shadow with a trilby/fedora by my side looking down at me. I was limp, body too numb to even respond. My mind raced: is this another one of my sleep paralysis epsiodes? I've had many when I was a kid, but it wasn't like this. My heart was threatening to burst and I could feel my face burning.
This lasted for perhaps a minute, as I repeatedly tried to make sense of it. I even squented my eyes to assure myself it was just a shadow - I was, but I could only see it after that time period. I have no idea what changed, but after that brief eternity I did see it was the shade of some my clothes leaning against a chair by my bed.
Which also reminds me of another one: I had this photo my mother took of me when I was a kid, I was standing by some large plant I a public garden, and my kid brain could make out a screaming face in the hollows between the leaves - not a real face, just that the shapes resembled a pair of eye sockets and a gaping mouth. it reminded me of the Face in Mars photo. My mom really loked it and taped that photo on the wall my bed was put against, directly above where my face would lie. We have moved long ago, but that photo had always been a source of d dread to me.

 

[youtherthyf]

This may be scary for some of you, but when you walk into a scene of extreme violence or death (IRL) there is a moment of incomprehension that first responders train for. Your brain is taffy and you run and try and get a pulse and start triaging out a scene. When you see something completely shocking your brain will just put a weird blur there as you try to rap your head around what you are looking at, which is why training for such things is essential, so that you go to muscle memory because rationalization has escaped you. A similar moments of adrenaline incomprehension happened to me when I dropped a big dead sketchy tree and it went the wrong direction. My legs just started running on their own in an uncoordinated fashion and I ended up somersaulting and rolling away. That's why its important to have a plan and rehearse a bit your escape route when you are felling sketchy timber.

i can verify this. i have witnessed car accident deaths and a heart attack (just a week ago actually.. so it is still fresh in my memory). i get this feeling i can only call "now wake up please", not a conscious "oh i wish this was just a nightmare", i am talking an almost expectation for this to end and a feeling of light left, for a lack of a better term, similar to what i feel waking up from a lucid dream.

i apologies if my desertions are weird... idk how else to describe it.. it is weird.