Imagine you have met the love of your life and over time, you get married and have children. You have a long, happy 10 years as a family and everything is as it should be.
Then, you look at your living room lamp and it just looks… weird. Still 3D but somehow inverted.
You can’t look away from this lamp. For days on end, you just stare. Your wife is worried, nobody can distract your from this. Then, you realise, thanks to this lamp’s distortion, that your life isn’t real. Your wife, your kids, your home, none of it is real.
This is apparently what happened to Reddit user u/temptotasssoon, who said: “My last semester at a certain college I was assaulted by a football player for walking where he was trying to drive (note he was 325lbs I was 120lbs), while unconscious on the ground I lived a different life.”
He explained that while he was staring at the lamp, it got ‘wider and deeper’ but still with inverted dimensions before he eventually woke back up.
He said: “I heard voices, screams, all kinds of weird noises and I became aware of pain…. a fucking shit ton of pain… the first words I said were “I’m missing teeth” and opened my eyes.
“I was laying on my back on the sidewalk surrounded by people that I didn’t know, lots were freaking out, I was completely confused.”
Following the accident, he was still haunted by the memories he made when he was unconscious.
He said: “I went through about 3 years of horrid depression, I was grieving the loss of my wife and children and dealing with the knowledge that they never existed, I was scared that I was going insane as I would cry myself to sleep hoping I would see her in my dreams.
“I never have, but sometimes I see my son, usually just a glimpse out of my peripheral vision, he is perpetually 5 years old and I can never hear what he says.”
Now, the story has taken off on TikTok with ‘The Lamp Theory’
Now, TikTok has given the story a new lease of life and users are sharing what their dream lives would be before realising the lamp was weird.
Grandma Droniak, a creator with 14 million followers shared her own, saying: “When my parents tell me how proud of me they are because I wanted to be famous since I was a little girl. They always believed in me but then the lamp starts to look weird.”
Another user, Nalle, said: “When I finally don’t feel excluded, I don’t compare myself to others, I actually feel good about myself and I’m not the angry daughter anymore but then the lamp starts to look weird.”
Is the lamp theory possible?
While the Reddit user’s grief may be enough to believe this really happened to them, any skeptics can rest assured that scientists widely agree that we still don’t fully understand consciousness, meaning that we definitely can’t dispute this.
Help and support:
- Mind, open Monday to Friday, 9am-6pm on 0300 123 3393.
- Samaritans offers a listening service which is open 24 hours a day, on 116 123 (UK and ROI – this number is FREE to call and will not appear on your phone bill).
- CALM (the Campaign Against Living Miserably) offer a helpline open 5pm-midnight, 365 days a year, on 0800 58 58 58, and a webchat service.
- The Mix is a free support service for people under 25. Call 0808 808 4994 or email help@themix.org.uk
- Rethink Mental Illness offers practical help through its advice line which can be reached on 0808 801 0525 (Monday to Friday 10am-4pm). More info can be found on rethink.org.
