September 29, 2012
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Yeah, um, I’d like to try on a hat. ‘Tin Foil?’ Yeah, how’d ya guess?
Sorry folks but this is dead serious, as opposed to my usual confusing blend of truth and fiction.
The strangest, most unexplainable thing just happened a few hours ago and I’m still in shock. Read on.
Today. Saturday morning. Wide awake at 7AM and taking a short drive to the nearby gas station for cigs. The only place allowed to be open on Shabbat. I get to the traffic circle and suddenly HEAR A VOICE inside the car. I hit the brakes and look around for maybe a cop with a megaphone. No one in sight.
I check the radio, even though the head is disconnected and I only ever used it once. Nothing happening there. Finally I check whether my phone, a cheap little bare-bones Nokia, is in my pocket. Yes. So maybe it accidentally dialed someone? Well, the display does say ’7′, since I’d forgotten to lock the keyboard.
And then I quickly recalled what the VOICE had said. Half Hebrew (Something like ‘hai’ag’ta et ha-mispar- (‘You dialed the number..’) followed by the plain-english word ‘Seven‘. That word I remembered as clearly as the nose on my face.
I checked the call history, hands shaking. No dialed #s, no incoming, no missed, nothing. Yet the Phone had TALKED TO ME!
There is no voice program on this phone; it barely makes calls. So, as they say, WTF???Ok, here are the options, as far-fetched as they sound, but in the absence of any other explanation:
1) The phone does secretly have an ‘Easter Egg’ voice routine which runs only after one dials ’7′ and leaves the phone unattended for an hour? I tried to reconstruct that, and no voices were heard.
2) The phone just decided to call someone ‘off the record’, someone who correctly guessed(?) that I had accidentally dialed a ’7′? possible, but unlikely.
3) And now the scary part, hence the title. I simply hallucinated the VOICE. It sure didn’t sound like a delusion, and I have no history (till now) of hearing phantoms while wide awake and alert. But I guess millions of other(?) sufferers also will swear that the voices they hear, telling them off-the-wall stuff like ‘Vote Republican!’ are REAL. I know mine was real.
So how to make it happen again, or make it stop. Or at least know the truth about it? I’m at a loss, which is of course why I turn to the putative sane readers of Xanga.
Folks, this has nothing to do, nothing at all, with my seeing little oddly-dressed ladies wearing hats, out of the corner of my eye, three times a day at least. That one’s nailed down; Bonet’s Syndrome, caused by the holes in my field of vision, and the boredom of visual-processing neurons somewhere deep in my battle-scared brain.
But at least the ladies don’t tell me what number I dialed in error on my phone.
Do I need help? And what kind of a metallic-foil hat goes well with my outfits this fall? Maybe they put the tin in the lining? Anyone know?
Comments (20)
yikes, that’s a tough one. I will say that in your situation I would fear hallucination, but secretly in my most pragmatic and sensible heart of stable hearts, I’d guess technological idiocy. This is something I’ve done before: I have unwittingly assigned numbers to speed dial, not even numbers of people I regularly call but numbers of people like the exterminator or the guy at the pizza place we only tried once. And THEN, I’ve accidentally butt-dialed those numbers.
you checked the back seat, right?
@ordinarybutloud - ’Butt-dialed’, how I count on you for current US argot:) There was only one guy I discovered in the back seat, but he was both a mime and a monk, so no luck there.
Seriously, I’m kinda on the line: tech-bugs gets me off the hook, sanity-wise, yet audio hallucinations sounds like a shortcut to hearing what your inner child really has to say. I’ll will keep you abreast.
Sounds like Samuel….I could give you the same answer Eli gave Samuel except the voice did not call your name.
So, onto the foil… Reynolds Release, non stick is good foil.
@jsolberg - I keep the phone in my bra and boob-dial sometimes.
This is too much. It’s killin’ me. Rec’d.
That is a serious problem. You shouldn’t worry about it. In the worst case, senile dementia will make you a comical geezer. Everybody loves an old clown. I learned to shrug off these symptoms when they first appeared. Now I know the parking meters and lamp posts are laughing WITH me not at me.
@seedsower - Aha. I did wonder if the ’7′ had some meaning: seven good years or seven lean ones, yea unto nematodes throughout the Land. Still, for my Boss to call on Shabbat, don’t make no sense.
Something is up here. Wonders me if I’ll ever know what.
Hmm, boob-dialing; a call straight from the breast of plenty
@sleekpunk - Thanks for Rec-ing it to a wider audience, possibly, perhaps. I’m rarely serious, but this Joan of Arc routine was downright un-nerving.
@we_deny_everything - Love your first line; like the AA mantra, ‘Life and Death, but not serious’ Just when I somewhat got used to memory lapses, I have this unforgettable bizzarro-ness to deal with.
JB, it’s a bootstrap problem: Even assuming it was a vivid hallucination, how did my inner script-writers know what was on the phone? It happens also in dreams, where phantom characters explain tech details, I awaken and check Google and damn, the guy was right. Learn something new every night.
I have a very bad feeling that your phone has a gambling problem. It is shooting craps behind your back (or in your breast pocket, as the case may be). Check your financial records for any sudden and unexplained debits.
Scientific studies have shown tin foil hats may increase the reception of voices. Good luck.
@elgan - El, I’ve pretty much ruled out the phone misbehaving. It just isn’t a do-able explanation. Look, when you stand in your kitchen, and a voice from the pantry whispers ‘El, you have $29.63 Canadian in your wallet”, and he’s right, and there’s no one in there, then you can appreciate how unsettling this incident was. I’m in touch with the ‘Hearing Voices’ movement. I wont just let this go, in the ‘unexplained’ column.
@an_OM_aly - Good point (oh, and we miss you madly). Once I get the frequency nailed down, I can design the cavity/wave-guide to optimize reception, actually. I wanna know what these forces have to say, even though it scared the dickens out of me.
Aluminum foil should work! My brother made hats like that!
Beth not only boob dials, she has boob texted me before!
But Beth can do as she please, she is the Queen of Xanga!
All Hail the Queen!
May the force be with you.
Oh! But I was not as lucky as you – you got a 7! Mine was more like:
adkjghasfurq
@Donkey_Guy_10 - Yes, Beth sure is divine./
And I’m listening carefully now for follow-up messages; can’t be that the Meaning of Life is simply ‘seven’
@an_OM_aly - My luck the Force will be a farce, and it’ll be fierce.
Any possibility you simply had too much food at dinner? Hallucinations do happen. It’s when they repeat that you have to worry.
You see vowels. I hear voices. Usually they sound like co-eds cooing my name from hidden corners in crowded restaurants or from behind Nicolet National beech trees. I’d say don’t worry about it. Not a big deal. I mean, I learned to ignore them. Got easier after I outgrew co-eds. There is still this angry, boomy voiced authority figure that snaps my attention. Six or ten years ago I dared him to show his faces – not one appeared and he no longer haunts my waking hours – now and again he yells me out of sleep – the coward.
If you are with someone, learn to ignore the voices fast. It can make lovers crazy – “What did you say?” becomes a 50:50 chance of looking interested:psychotic. I find that when naked, the best policy is to not answer unless I see lips moving.