Nobody Believes Me — Something unbelievable happened to you?

Ok so I'm 30, internal medicine, working nights at a hospital just outside Portland. Can't sleep and I've been sitting on this for over three years now so here goes. November 2022. Slow shift, I was eating peanut butter crackers from the vending machine at the nurses station because I forgot to pack anything again. Someone left house hunters on in the break room and you could hear it all the way down the hall, which normally drives me insane but that night it was almost comforting. I don't know why I remember that. We get a patient around midnight, female, mid-40s, brought in by EMS from a parking lot near the Fred Meyer on 82nd. No ID, no phone, no belongings. Vitals stable, labs unremarkable. She wasn't altered, no signs of intoxication, no acute psych presentation. Just very calm and very quiet, which honestly was more unsettling than if she'd been agitated.People who get picked up alone in a parking lot with nothing on them are usually not that composed. I went in to do the admit around 12:40. She was sitting upright watching the IV drip. I introduce myself and she immediately says "you switched already?" I told her no, I'd been on since 7. She tilted her head and said I had different shoes before. Patients confabulate, it happens, I moved on. Started going through the intake questions. Name didn't match anything in the system. Address was vague, like she was coming up with it on the spot. None of this is that unusual honestly,we get patients with no records more than people realize. Then she asked me what time it was. 12:43. She smiled a little and said "so it didn't reset yet." I asked her what that meant. She shrugged, looked toward the door, and said "it will. You'll come back in a minute and ask me all this again.You always do." I finished the intake and left. Charted for maybe five minutes and then realized I forgot to ask about allergies, which is embarassing but it was a long night. Went back in. And I got this immediate, intense deja vu. She was in the exact same position. Same posture, same everything. She looked at me without any surprise and just said "see?" I looked at the wall clock. 12:43. I know how this sounds. I stood there for a few seconds and then asked her what I was about to say. She said "you're going to ask about allergies, and I'll say penicillin, but that's not actually true. I just say that because you need something to write down." That's exactly what I was there for. I asked. She said penicillin. I wrote it down and left. The hallway clock read 12:48 so time was apparently moving normally out there.I went to the break room and sat with another pack of crackers watching house hunters for about ten minutes because I genuinely did not know what to do with what just happened. Thought about telling the charge nurse but what would I even say, the patient in 4 is psychic and the clock is broken? Went back later, she was asleep. She bounced before my next shift. Chart noted no known allergies. No psych consult, no flags,nothing. Like it was a completely unremarkable visit. I don't know. I was tired, it was the middle of a stretch of nights, maybe the clock was just malfunctioning and she was good at reading people. That's probably it. But I started taking photos of the hallway clock during my shifts after that, just a habit now. My camera roll is just hundreds of pictures of a clock. Anyway. Sorry this got long. I just needed to finally write it down somewhere that isn't my notes app.

My grandmother used to tell us this story. She always said it was about the time they met an alien. It happened many years ago, back in the early 1930s. They lived near a forest — just an ordinary forest. They'd go there to pick mushrooms and berries, hunt game, the usual. Then, out of nowhere, people started disappearing. Four people vanished in just one month. You might chalk it up to wild animals, but the only wildlife around there were foxes, hares, and wild boar. So naturally, people became afraid to go into the forest. And then, not long after, a man wandered into their village. They saw him come right out of that very forest. My grandmother described him as oddly dressed, carrying strange gadgets, speaking in a peculiar way. He seemed completely lost, like he had no idea where he was. About those gadgets — she said he had a metal bracelet on his wrist, and after they'd given him a good steam in the bathhouse, he pressed some buttons on it, and within five minutes all his scratches were gone. He also kept staring at some little box that had glowing pictures and numbers on it. He kept shoving it in front of the men's faces, showing them strange maps, asking where he was. So they figured a UFO had landed nearby. They called it in to someone higher up, but nobody believed them and no special services ever showed up. And then the man just vanished. My grandmother said the alien must have sensed something was off and fled. Anyway, when I was a kid listening to this story wide-eyed, I truly believed he was an alien. But now, years later, I think — come on, no alien would blow his cover like that. And that little box of his sure sounds a lot like a modern smartphone. So now I believe that man somehow ended up in the wrong time. And judging by the fact that we still don't have anything like that bracelet he wore, he wasn't even from our time — he was from even further in the future. And what about the people who disappeared? Maybe they were displaced in time too? By the way, after a while, people gradually started going back into the forest, and there were no more disappearances. So the anomaly was short-lived — it lasted maybe a month or two. If it was a time portal, as I suspect, it may have closed or moved somewhere else. As for that man, they never heard anything about him again. Maybe he found his way back, or maybe he quietly lived out the rest of his life there, in that time.

This happened last Tuesday and I still can't sleep properly. I was walking home from work around 7:15 PM, same route I take every day — down Maple Street, past the church on the corner, left on 4th Avenue. I had my earbuds in, listening to a podcast. Everything completely normal. Then I felt this weird pressure in my ears, like when a plane descends too fast. My phone screen flickered and went black for maybe two seconds. When it came back on, the time said 7:04 PM. I thought the clock just glitched. But then I looked around and I was back at the START of Maple Street. Not where I was — I was a full 11-minute walk backwards. I still had the podcast playing, but it had jumped back to a part I already listened to. I walked the rest of the way home in a daze. When I got inside, I checked my phone's step counter. It logged the steps TWICE. 1,847 steps for Tuesday when I usually get around 900 on that walk. My screen time was weird too, it showed the podcast app closing at 7:14 and then somehow opening again at 7:04?? I told my roommate. He said I "zoned out and walked in circles." But I didn't. I went back to the exact spot the next day at the same time. Nothibg happened. I've gone every day since. Nothing. I don't know what happened. But for 11 minutes last Tuesday, something moved me backwards through time, and I walked the same stretch of road twice. No one believes me. My roommate jokes about it. My mom said I should "get more sleep." But the step counter logged 1,847 steps. Explain that.

I was 26, working in marketing. I didn't like my job, but I couldn't seem to change anything about my life. There was never any time — barely any days off, and I honestly can't even remember the last time I took a vacation. Then strange little things started happening, things I didn't pay much attention to at first. I think it started when a printer delivered the wrong order to my office — instead of the pizza parlor brochures I'd requested, I got a stack of hotel brochures for the Dominican Republic. I laughed it off: "Oh, my sister will want these — she and her friends are planning a trip there this fall." A little while later, someone randomly handed me a pocket calendar with the Dominican Republic on the cover. Then my favorite blogger posted about the Dominican Republic. And I thought: well, if I ever do take a vacation, at least I know where I'm going. Then my sister, while booking a flight to Punta Cana for herself, somehow entered my name instead of hers. She swears she typed her own. Maybe autofill kicked in somewhere, or maybe she just made a mistake — who knows. Either way, the ticket was in my name. And something clicked. I told her not to bother changing it, just buy herself another one. I paid her back for my ticket and went to my boss to say I needed time off — I just couldn't take it anymore. They didn't want to let me go, even threatened to fire me (though they never did). So I flew out with my sister, and we all checked into the same hotel. That very evening, I met the man who is now my husband. I'm convinced those were signs from fate, nudging me toward him so we could find each other. And I'm so grateful I followed them.

i dont even know where to start because every time i try to tell this out loud i hear how it sounds myself anyway. three years ago i was traveling to a funeral for a distant relative. bus becausse i cant drive, five hours, i slept the whole way. woke up at some stop — fifteen-minute rest stop, everyone got off to stretch. i got off too, grabbed coffee from a little stand, sat down on a bench. there was a woman sitting next to me. elderly, ordinary looking. we started talking, just to pass the time. she asked where i was headed, i said to a funeral. she said she was sorry for my loss. then she asked, do you think about it much? about death? i said well, lately yeah, stressful job, anxiety. she went quiet for a moment and said "you know,everything is going to be okay for you. you in particular. i can just see it." i didnt think much of it. people say all kinds of things. the bus started moving. i went back to my seat. after a while i looked around — the woman hadnt come back. she wasnt on the bus. i figured she must have gotten off at that stop. okay, fine. arrived, funeral, the usual. two days later heading back. and heres the thing. im waiting for the bus, talking to a distant aunt i hadnt seen in years. i tell her about the stop, the woman. i describe her — gray coat, hair pulled back, thin wire glasses. my aunt gives me this strange look and goes, wait. takes out her phone. scrolls through photos. shows me. it was her. the same woman. my aunt says thats my neighbors mother. she passed away. in april. i was going to the funeral in october. i still think about it — maybe it was just someone who looked similar? maybe i remembered wrong? but i have a very strong visual memory, its actually something people notice about me. and the coat. and the glasses. and the way she was sitting. and thats not even the strangest part. the strangest part is that things geniunely did get better for me after that. and i dont know what to do with that.