4 ms·

This reminds me of the time that a couple on vacation saw me and made a hand motion and muttered what sounded like nonsense. I saw it out of the corner of my ey

This reminds me of the time that a couple on vacation saw me and made a hand motion and muttered what sounded like nonsense. I saw it out of the corner of my eye and didn’t fully process the visual motion initially (being peripheral) but heard the audio. At that moment, my hand stumbled and I dropped my brand new phone with case (except screen) onto the pavement, which happened to impact the screen with a rock and cracked it. While the obvious explanation is that it was due to my own clumsiness along with bad luck, I had the distinct sense that they were experimenting with (what they likely thought of as) voodoo or magic, mind control or influence, etc. It was surreal and all happened in slow motion. In another incident I was with classmates at a school basketball game on the sidelines. I’m a terrible shot with no shooting ability at all. My classmate quiets everyone down and says “watch this” and throws me the ball. A big group of people in the stands are now focused on me and I chuck the ball at the rim line drive style and sunk it. Everyone erupted. To this day I’m convinced they said some prayer or otherwise did magic. Group positive energy. Who knows. Fascinating subject and highly relevant in today’s interconnected world.

lsh 7y ago
Upvoted. Prayer and voodoo are the most logical, rational explanations here.
- gameswithgo 7y ago
  lolol
- hutzlibu 7y ago
  Since both definetely have heavy influence on the mind, sure. (in both examples he directly witnessed people influencing him, not that they were hidden in a dark room somewhere else)
- dang 7y ago
  Please don't post unsubstantive comments here. Also, please don't snark. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
gameswithgo 7y ago
its like you missed the entire enlightenment era
mirimir 7y ago
Yes, fascinating. The first one makes sense. My wife does that to me often. Except, in her case, she's trying to help. But more often than not, her advice just ends up distracting me. For the second one, I gotta say "N=1". Most of the time, "watch this" doesn't turn out so well.
viscanti 7y ago
> I had the distinct sense that they were experimenting with (what they likely thought of as) voodoo. Thanks for sharing. I've traveled several times and have sometimes heard people having entire conversations in what sounds like nonsense. You could be on to something here with an association between vacations and people muttering what sounds like nonsense. I've been lucky that none of that nonsense caused me to drop my phone. Your story does make a lot of sense though. In a world where magic and voodoo exist, it would certainly be used to make sure that tourists drop their phones. I'm wondering if we should avoid vacations or if there's some kind of counter-voodoo that we can learn to defend ourselves. Phones are getting more expensive every year so it's prudent to take some kind of action if we can.
- HeWhoLurksLate 7y ago
  > some kind of counter-voodoo that we can learn to defend ourselves. Phones are getting more expensive every year so it's prudent to take some kind of action if we can. Ummm, a $50 case for your $1,000 phone?
  - arthurcolle 7y ago
    An anti-voodoo phone case for $299, you say? With special sigils on it for added effect? Definitely could make for a very disruptive startup, especially considering that horoscope app just raised $5M
crooked-v 7y ago
Do keep in mind survivorship bias, in that all the instances where unlikely things didn't happen are the ones you don't vividly remember.
sudosteph 7y ago
It's interesting because I've heard similar experiences described by my close friends who are avowed atheists and skeptics. It's hard to convince people to share these sorts of experiences, but I like to hear them. Personal experience is still a data point in my view, even if a very fallible one. To my point, one friend described visiting a historical site that was an ancient tomb and feeling fine until a young couple started chanting some weird stuff. After that she said she experienced a feeling of total fear and dread and felt the need to run out of there. She says it's a feeling she never felt before or after, and she's not the superstitious sort overall. Heck, even my husband and I once shared an experience that is impossible to explain outside of the ideas of ghosts or some other shared hallucination phenomena. Had it been just one of us witnessing it, it would be so easy to dismiss, but try as we might we still have no good explanation. I'm still a skeptic to my core, but the experience certainly made me more curious about hearing from others about their experiences and not dismissing them as pure fabrications or delusions outright
- fwip 7y ago
  You think maybe the young couple visiting the historical site was just, y'know, talking in their native language? Maybe a prayer? It's not that unusual for white people to feel terror and dread on hearing somebody talk in a different language. The "they must have been doing voodoo" is a cute rationalization, though.
  - sudosteph 7y ago
    Well, she described it as a chant, so a prayer does seem likely. But again, this is a person who mocks religious practices and has traveled extensively and isn't freaked out by languages. The fact that it was a burial site or crypt makes me think the setting was key to that response. Maybe movies or something predisposed her to be freaked out in that setting. Her theory was that the burial site itself was chosen for geographic features that made it make people feel freaky. I'm not sure if that makes sense either, but it's interesting considering how people try to explain unusual things to themselves.
    - 7y ago
simple_phrases 7y ago
I chalk it up to serendipity and confirmation bias. Our minds are constantly trying to link cause and effect, even when there is more noise than signal.
nkrisc 7y ago
What about all the times someone near you said something and you didn't drop something? Have you documented those cases as well?
- evolvedcleaning 7y ago
  I had never heard such utterances from a human, and haven’t heard any such utterances since then.
  - nkrisc 7y ago
    But surely that doesn't mean it has never happened, only that you didn't hear it.

lsh 7y ago

Upvoted. Prayer and voodoo are the most logical, rational explanations here.

gameswithgo 7y ago
lolol
hutzlibu 7y ago
Since both definetely have heavy influence on the mind, sure. (in both examples he directly witnessed people influencing him, not that they were hidden in a dark room somewhere else)
dang 7y ago
Please don't post unsubstantive comments here. Also, please don't snark. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

gameswithgo 7y ago

its like you missed the entire enlightenment era

mirimir 7y ago

Yes, fascinating. The first one makes sense. My wife does that to me often. Except, in her case, she's trying to help. But more often than not, her advice just ends up distracting me. For the second one, I gotta say "N=1". Most of the time, "watch this" doesn't turn out so well.

viscanti 7y ago

> I had the distinct sense that they were experimenting with (what they likely thought of as) voodoo. Thanks for sharing. I've traveled several times and have sometimes heard people having entire conversations in what sounds like nonsense. You could be on to something here with an association between vacations and people muttering what sounds like nonsense. I've been lucky that none of that nonsense caused me to drop my phone. Your story does make a lot of sense though. In a world where magic and voodoo exist, it would certainly be used to make sure that tourists drop their phones. I'm wondering if we should avoid vacations or if there's some kind of counter-voodoo that we can learn to defend ourselves. Phones are getting more expensive every year so it's prudent to take some kind of action if we can.

HeWhoLurksLate 7y ago
> some kind of counter-voodoo that we can learn to defend ourselves. Phones are getting more expensive every year so it's prudent to take some kind of action if we can. Ummm, a $50 case for your $1,000 phone?
- arthurcolle 7y ago
  An anti-voodoo phone case for $299, you say? With special sigils on it for added effect? Definitely could make for a very disruptive startup, especially considering that horoscope app just raised $5M

crooked-v 7y ago

Do keep in mind survivorship bias, in that all the instances where unlikely things didn't happen are the ones you don't vividly remember.

sudosteph 7y ago

It's interesting because I've heard similar experiences described by my close friends who are avowed atheists and skeptics. It's hard to convince people to share these sorts of experiences, but I like to hear them. Personal experience is still a data point in my view, even if a very fallible one. To my point, one friend described visiting a historical site that was an ancient tomb and feeling fine until a young couple started chanting some weird stuff. After that she said she experienced a feeling of total fear and dread and felt the need to run out of there. She says it's a feeling she never felt before or after, and she's not the superstitious sort overall. Heck, even my husband and I once shared an experience that is impossible to explain outside of the ideas of ghosts or some other shared hallucination phenomena. Had it been just one of us witnessing it, it would be so easy to dismiss, but try as we might we still have no good explanation. I'm still a skeptic to my core, but the experience certainly made me more curious about hearing from others about their experiences and not dismissing them as pure fabrications or delusions outright

fwip 7y ago
You think maybe the young couple visiting the historical site was just, y'know, talking in their native language? Maybe a prayer? It's not that unusual for white people to feel terror and dread on hearing somebody talk in a different language. The "they must have been doing voodoo" is a cute rationalization, though.
- sudosteph 7y ago
  Well, she described it as a chant, so a prayer does seem likely. But again, this is a person who mocks religious practices and has traveled extensively and isn't freaked out by languages. The fact that it was a burial site or crypt makes me think the setting was key to that response. Maybe movies or something predisposed her to be freaked out in that setting. Her theory was that the burial site itself was chosen for geographic features that made it make people feel freaky. I'm not sure if that makes sense either, but it's interesting considering how people try to explain unusual things to themselves.
  - 7y ago

simple_phrases 7y ago

I chalk it up to serendipity and confirmation bias. Our minds are constantly trying to link cause and effect, even when there is more noise than signal.

nkrisc 7y ago

What about all the times someone near you said something and you didn't drop something? Have you documented those cases as well?

evolvedcleaning 7y ago
I had never heard such utterances from a human, and haven’t heard any such utterances since then.
- nkrisc 7y ago
  But surely that doesn't mean it has never happened, only that you didn't hear it.