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The original was posted on /r/highstrangeness by /u/RedWizard52 on 2025-06-15 17:29:00+00:00.
I've never really talked about this but I thought I would share it and see what people think. It was October of 2001. I had just started undergraduate. I was extremely anxious. I was the first person from my working class family to attend college, and so I had no idea what I was doing (registration, buying books, where to go, all of that was chaos to me). I had never lived by myself, and here I was living by myself with some people I barely knew in a dorm. On top of that, I was having financial problems. My dad wouldn't fill out the government forms for financial aid (in the US it is called the FAFSA--he was afraid of the "guvment" knowing too much about his finances), and so I had, by and by, received a bill past due for my first semester's tuition and it was $20k or something (spoiler: I eventually got financial aid--still paying on it--but at the time I thought I was on the hook for an ungodly amount of money and I worked at Starbucks part time). On top of all this, 9/11 had just happened and it was a strange time. Lots of anxiety was in the air socially and culturally. I hope I made it clear thus far: I wasn't in a good state. I'm getting a little anxious now, even as I type this memory up, as I approach the event. Anyway, one night I was riding in the back seat of my friend's van. We were driving somewhere, maybe to someone's place to play video games or something. I should have been doing homework, but my brain was essentially boiled from all the stress. I was biting my nails to the quick. My friends were bantering back and forth, and I'm not sure what I said, but my friend, who was driving, said something to me, something threatening, like he was going to "whoop my ass," something vaguely threatening, and potentially playful. I honestly can't remember what motivated him to say this to me. Maybe I deserved it? I can't even remember our back and forth. But when he said that, it was the straw the broke the camel's back. I felt nauseous, a deep sense of vertigo, like the van was rolling onto its side, or sinking into the ground, or melting. I immediately felt like I was going to be sick and starting screaming, "Pull over! Pull over!" frightening my friends. My friends were concerned, and I knew I had frightened them. My friend, who was driving, stopped the van and I busted out of the van and started running (we were in the country). I'm not sure where I was running to or what I was thinking. I just remember sprinting like a maniac into the night. And then I swear--I swear--I saw myself running, and I heart this music, almost like meditation music, but it was a frequency, and kind beautiful, like a movie soundtrack. I was hovering over myself running. But I wasn't that person I saw. I was witnessing that little guy, who had been me, running, and I felt sorry for him. It lasted maybe five seconds or so, but then I was myself again, and I was dry-heaving. I guess I assumed it was a panic attack. All the stress had built and built and I snapped. But I'm 42 now, and I still have a subtle sense of dislocation, like... I'm not quite the meat-puppet I pretend to be. It almost felt like I was playing a game, the game was getting too real, and I was like, "Screw this, I'm out," but my body sucked me back into the world. Happy ending to the story: I'm gainfully employed today, happily married, no PTSD, everything is fine in life except for the usual stuff, but this experience has stuck with me. Has anyone else experienced this?
