As The Raven Dreams Podcast - Glitch In The Matrix Stories Ep. 112 | ATRD Podcast

Episode Date: January 15, 2026

Welcome to 112th Glitch In The Matrix Stories Collection! Today we have 16 stories that will make you question reality itself, submitted and posted by everyday people. Today we have stories about disappearing objects, strange happenings, time skips and quantum immortality. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to like or rate the podcast, and leave me a comment with your thoughts if the platform your on supports it! I upload episodes every 3 days, so there are 2 days between new uploads. The podcast consists of new scary story collections, Glitch in the matrix collections, and also what I call the "Dark Dreams" collections (which are older stories, remastered and layered with rain sounds). If you have a story to submit, would like to find where to listen to the podcast, or want to find me on social media platforms, all of that info can be found at https://www.astheravendreams.com You can also send stories into my subreddit (r/theravensdream) or email them to me at [e-mail] Want to check out some ATRD Podcast Merch? ➤ https://teechip.com/stores/astheravendreams Or for signed merch ➤ https://ko-fi.com/AsTheRavenDreams I wrote a novel, "The Insomniac's Experiment" by Raven Adams! Check it out on amazon (Or you can email me for a signed copy!) Join Patreon to get early access and support the Podcast! ➤ https://www.patreon.com/AsTheRavenDreams Check out my gaming channel with my pal Ghost_Ink ➤ @superNefariousBros On YouTube Thank you to all of the authors that have stories in todays episode... Ricken, Marcos, Karley, Cru, Alan M, I am Razzle , Rabbit Rabbit, Laurel G, Liz Emerald, Karen, Jim, Julia Galvin, Terra S, Steph , Reicho Mason As Well As Any Author That Has Requested Anonymity. TimeStamps… Ad breaks after Story 1 & Story 7 1 ➤ 0:31 2 ➤ 3:28 3 ➤ 7:02 4 ➤ 11:26 5 ➤ 15:33 6 ➤ 21:31 7 ➤ 23:15 8 ➤ 26:17 9 ➤ 31:28 10 ➤ 32:55 11 ➤ 37:25 12 ➤ 41:44 13 ➤ 43:52 14 ➤ 45:26 15 ➤ 47:59 16 ➤ 53:13 ----- Disclaimer ➤ Episodes include a content warning for language and sensitive/disturbing content. Listener discretion is always advised. ALL Audio and visuals on this podcast are copyright of AS THE RAVEN DREAMS / RAVEN ADAMS and may not be duplicated, in any format. Bless This Mess. None of my audio is AI Generated, I am a real person reading real stories into a real microphone. Note: The podcast nor the host endorses any advertisements played during the podcast, ads are not chosen by ATRD or Raven Adams, they are chosen automatically by the advertisement systems by the platforms that host the podcast. I do not endorse, support, or promote any opinions or statements made in any adverts played during the show. #ScaryStories #UnexplainedMysteries #GlitchInTheMatrix Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Savour. Admirate. And profite. Viaray. The voice that am I don't intrude for very long today. Just want to say hi.

Ask how you're doing. And let you all know that today we have a collection of glitch in the Matrix Stories. Stories about the weirdness, bizarreness, and oddness of our existence.

So if you have a story you want to send in, go to as the ravendreams.com or email it to as the raven dreams at gmail.com. And of course, thank you. I'm a 76-year-old woman. I've been through a lot, so it takes a fair amount to disturb me. My sister and I had been in Paris with our mother, and while there, one of my sisters bought two beautiful watercolor paintings. I just loved them. When we got back to Australia from Europe, she put them up in the hall wall facing an arch. I used to like to sit in her living room and look at them through the arch. One day I was visiting and the paintings were on a wall in the living room. I commented to her and her husband that I liked them on the hall wall better.

They both looked at me awkwardly and my sister said that they had always been on the wall that they were currently on. I was dumbfounded and said, no, you had them on the hall wall. Both she and my brother-in-law insisted that they were where they are now. I started to think I was losing it, so I conceded. We kept talking over the afternoon, and then my sister brought up when she saved me. What? I have no recollection of her ever saving me. She told me that she came in late one night, and my lamp was smoldering on my pillow while I slept. We lived at home at that time.

You would always remember someone saving your life. No matter how I try to bring it to mind, I just can't, as I have no recall of it ever happening. I was regarded as the family member with the elephant's memory. I was quite upset by the time that I got home that day. I lived in the countryside and had a two-hour drive to get home, and as you can imagine, it was all running around my brain. When I got home, I opened my pantry cupboard to get the dinner ready and nearly collapsed. My pantry was full of supermarket items from a store that I never go to. I have not been at that supermarket for over 20 years.

I couldn't stop crying. I wasn't worried so much for myself, but my son who was having problems. In fact, I was terrified at being in a time glitch that I did not belong in. I cried for two weeks. It still has an effect on me, but there's nothing I can do about it. If I am in a time glitch, then I still worry about my son and what has happened to him. In my current reality, he's quite happy. I've just had to accept what has happened,

I would go mad. I can't fully describe the feeling of being so lost. Hello. My story may sound boring and not as interesting as most of the stories I've heard, but it is strange, to say the least. I'll preface this by saying that I do not drink alcohol. I have no history of any mental illness, nor in my family, and I don't do drugs, and I'm not on any medications.

So, that said, my story begins with my time in Nevada. I had been living in an apartment for a couple of years by this point. Every time I would come home at night, I felt frustrated by how dark it always was. I mean, there weren't any lights to help me see what I was doing at the front door. If I ever fumbled or dropped something, I'd never be able to find it, if not for the lights on my phone. I assumed that most other apartments probably had some kind of lighting, but it was always pitch black where I lived. One night I decided to go out for a meal. I left my apartment, and as I walked down the sidewalk, I noticed that there were little pathway lights or garden lights, whatever they're called, lining the sidewalk.

I was delighted to know that the apartment management finally installed some lights. I walked over to the lights, bent down, and touched them. I'm not sure why, but I almost couldn't believe that there were now lights going the entire length of the sidewalk. I guess I had to be sure that they were real since I never saw anybody installing them. I continued my journey to the restaurant, but I first stopped in at a convenience store that I often frequented. I told the clerk, whom I had become friends with, about the lights. I told him that it was strange to me that there were now lights when there weren't any before, but I never witnessed anyone installing them.

The historic clerk told me that they were probably there all along, but I just failed to notice them. The rest of that night went as you would expect. I had my meal, walked home, and smiled at the sights of all the lights keeping the path illuminated. I went to bed, woke up the next day, and everything seemed normal enough until I went out that night. I had somewhere to be, so I headed out into the night, but what I saw, or I guess I should say didn't see, shocked me. All the lights were gone. The pathway was no longer lit by the little pathway lights. They were nowhere to be found. I used my phone's flashlight to look around for the holes in the ground where they were

because I assume that somebody must have pulled them out of the ground. But there was no evidence of them ever having existed. I thought I was going crazy. I went back to the convenience store and asked the clerk if he recalled me coming in and talking about the lights. He said that he did. Then I told him that the lights are gone. He said that I probably imagined the entire thing. Did I?

Or am I going crazy? I have no idea how to explain this. Well, first of all, I would like to say that I love your channel and your work. So I would like to say thank you from all of your fans here in Brazil. Wow, thank you very much. Okay, so about what happened? Somewhere around 15 years ago, I would like to say thank you. was playing Minecraft and talking with some friends on TeamSpeak. I'm 31 now and that feels like a

long time ago. We did this almost every day in our teens. We used to talk about everything, and I was always the one to search about every topic possible, simply because I had a lot of free time. On this particular day, we were talking about the idea of other universes, the possibility of other versions of ourselves, etc. We didn't talk further about it and continued to play our game changing the topic. While we were playing, my friend's mother called him from downstairs and asked him to help her with something. Another friend was on the call with us, but went to the kitchen to fetch something to eat

a few minutes earlier. So only the two of us were on the call at the moment. I heard his mom calling, him replying, dropping his headset on the table, while he was walking out of his room and going downstairs, and then I couldn't hear anything else from him. A few seconds after that, he was back on the call, talking as if he had never left. At the moment, I didn't pay attention, but I never heard him walking upstairs and entering his room, or picking up his headsets like I always heard. Everything was normal, but he went back to the topic that we were talking about,

about another universe. I didn't find it strange because it was normal to talk about another subject out of the blue like that, but we only talked about that at that moment. He was asking me if I believed it was possible to exist, what I would do if I could go to another universe, or if I could talk with someone from there. My response was that I thought the existence of another universe was possible, but I didn't think we could make contact with them.

The conversation continued for a few minutes when suddenly he went silent. I thought he disconnected from the call or his connection dropped, but then I heard the sound of footsteps, him talking with his mother, the sound of the door closing, him picking up the headset and saying that he was back. I remember clearly this moment because it was so weird. I started laughing and said that it was a good prank. He asked me what I was even talking about, and I said again that it was a good prank.

He got even more confused and asked again what I was talking about, more seriously. I responded that I was talking with him for the last 20 minutes and that he could stop with the prank because it wasn't funny. He said that he was downstairs with his mom and had only just now gotten back to his room. At that moment, I thought I was going crazy and was just imagining everything that happened. But it wasn't late at night, probably around 8 p.m. And I remembered everything. We had stopped talking just a few seconds ago.

He realized that I wasn't playing around and asked me what happened. I explained everything, and only in that moment did I realize that, at the start, I never heard him walking back like I heard. him just now. Or any sound from his house, like when he was on the call before or at that exact moment. We stayed in silence playing the game, and then we kind of decided not to talk about it anymore. After that, I spent probably six months searching every day about parallel universes and such. Only a few days ago, I remembered this story when we were talking about what we used to play

when we were younger, and it popped into my head, and I thought it could be something that you could find interesting. I'm a middle-aged mom with two adult sons. Neither lives with me, nor do I have a partner. I talk to and think about my sons all the time. I had recently moved into a new house, and I hadn't met any of the neighbors. I was driving home from work one afternoon, and it was bright daylight. As I was a few blocks away from home, another car got in front of me, and it looked just like my elder son's car, which is uncommon, and it was playing the same loud, booming music that he would be playing. I always say that I can hear him coming from a mile away. I knew that it wasn't my son, but I thought it was kind of a neat coincidence. As I was behind the car for a few blocks,

they turned everywhere that I turned. Finally, they turned on to my street in front of me, and of course I made the turn too. Then, of all things, I watched them turn into a driveway at the house right across the street from my house. It kind of tickled me that this car was so much like what my son would be driving if he were coming over,

with similar music playing as loudly as he would be playing it, and they were my neighbor. They had parked in a driveway next to another car in the driveway, in front of a closed garage. And I heard the music turn off. As I was grabbing my things and getting myself out of the car, I thought that this was an opportunity to meet a neighbor. I planned on walking over to them as they got out of their car just to say, Hey, that's just like my son's car. I live across the street. Nice to meet you.

I get out of my car after just a couple seconds, and I looked over to where they parked, waiting for them to exit their car. After a couple of minutes, I realized nobody was getting out of that car. It was impossible that they could have gotten into their house in the couple of seconds that I looked away, since the time that I heard their music turn off.

So I slowly started walking toward their house. I wasn't trying to be creepy, or anything. At this point, I was just kind of confused. As I got closer to the car in the driveway, I saw that it was a completely different car. I mean, it wasn't even close to my son's car. The one I had been following had been a green Volvo. There were only two black sports cars sitting in that driveway now. I looked at the houses next door thinking, I guess it's possible. that I saw the wrong house where they turned. There was nothing even similar to a green Volvo sitting outside of any of the houses.

And, since a lot of the houses on the street are rentals, a lot of cars are parked here. All the houses directly across from me each had two cars parked outside of closed garages, meaning no one could have just now parked inside of a garage, and then have another car park outside, said garage in the few seconds. that it took me to get out of my car, and nobody was getting out of any of them. I knew I followed a car for several blocks, and I saw it turn into a driveway right across the street from me.

But none of them were the car that I followed, and nobody ever got out of a car. So what did I see? I've never imagined seeing either of my son's cars before or since, so all I can say is that was a weird experience Oh, and just to add It's been a couple of years since then

And I've never seen a car like my sons Anywhere on this street Hi Raven I love your videos Especially when I go for my infusions I love from Canada Thank you for working so hard to get us stories Thank you so very much

And I'm very happy to be the background sounds To your infusions I went to work as normal. Normal start, get in, get the shift report from the night shift. I work in a retirement home. Anyway, one of my favorite co-workers came in, so I walked with her to the kitchen, where I started filling up my water bottle. Our maintenance manager, I'll call him Ryan for the story, we saw him walking into the maintenance room, which does not have any other doors.

like there's only one way in and one way to get out. So my co-worker and I see him, I'll call her Lainey. She was like, let's go mess with Ryan. And I was like, hell yeah. Now, keep in mind when we watched him walk into the room, we saw and heard the door close. We did not take our eyes off that door because we were already walking towards it to mess with him.

And I want to say that it was maybe 20 seconds from when the door closed, to when I got in the hallway. And for whatever reason, I looked to my left. That's when I saw Ryan walking out the back door. And I'm not saying anything. I'm just stunned. And Lainey was like, no, he's in there. I turned to her and I said, no, he's not.

He's outside. She was like, no, he's not. We just watched him go in there. I turned to her and said, I'm not joking, Lainey. He's outside. We walked to the back door, which keep in mind, like where the maintenance room is in the back door,

it's quite the distance. So even if, for whatever reason, we both missed him walking back out, he would not have had enough time to get to the back door. And we would have heard the door shut again because it's a heavy door and he always lets it slam shut. So she walks with me to the back door where we see Ryan. and we look at each other,

and we're like, what the actual hell? We just watched you go into the maintenance room. Now me and Laney are looking at each other like, holy crap, what just happened? I can't stress enough that if he would have left, that door would have made a sound, and we would have known he left. And he was the only man in the building.

So it's not like it was a co-worker or something. But again, we were staring at the house. the door the moment we saw him go in it. It just makes no sense, and I can't find a way to explain it away. So that was my first story, and yes, it has been a weird day, and this actually happened. If I didn't experience it myself, I would think, wow, that's crazy, and that didn't happen, so please keep an open mind when you hear the second story. So I want to say about a few hours later, Because the first story happened at 7 in the morning, and my second story happened at around 9.30. So I'm with my manager and we're just hanging out with our bird.

So we have a resident bird. And I was probably there for about 20 minutes. It was quite a while. Anyways, the next thing I know, my coworker comes around the corner and she's like, oh my God, I think I'm losing my mind. My wellness manager and I look at her, and I laugh, and then ask why. She's like, I just saw you walking to the bathroom, so I followed you, and I saw you go in it, and I thought that that was my prime opportunity to mess with you.

So I quietly went in after you, and I said, boo. But there was no response. Now, keep in mind, I scare very easily. It's actually embarrassing. So that's when I stood there, and both stalls were empty, and I checked the shower and you weren't there, and I felt my face get cold. So I go to the kitchen and I asked where you are,

and they didn't know, so I came here. I honestly didn't believe her at first. I thought she was messing with me. But she was adamant about it, and you could see it on her face that she was a little spooked because she kept saying, No, I watched you, Carly. I watched you go in the bathroom,

and the door opened and closed behind you. I'm not joking. Fast forward to about 2 o'clock, I get back from break and I asked her again because it's just replaying in my head like it was such a weird day. I said, are you messing with me? Or did you actually see me? And she said yes. Actually, no, sorry, I'm wrong. I asked her throughout the day because I just couldn't believe it and then I dropped it for a little bit and then I went for the break. So, anyways, that was my... day. I realize how incredibly hard to believe these stories are, but yeah. The first one, I

100% saw it with my own two eyes. And if it was just me who saw it, okay, maybe I'm a little crazy. But we both saw it. And my other story, my coworker would have cracked like an hour or two later, and been like, no, no, I was just messing with you. She wouldn't have kept it going because she doesn't have the energy for it. Thank you, Raven, for choosing my story and reading it, and thank you to everyone else for taking the time to listen. Back in 2021, my son ordered a used book on Amazon on the subject of Chinese agriculture, titled Ninth Heaven to Ninth Hell.

Upon receded the book, he eagerly proceeded to flip through. Upon hitting page 50, he was astonished to find the remainder fused. The book had been hollowed out, so as to serve as a hiding place. He went back online to repurchase the title from Amazon or an individual seller, but he can't recall. When it arrived, he was astounded to behold an identically hollowed-out book. That the pair were indistinguishable can conceivably be accounted for by their having been manufactured, though research does not bear this out. That aside, what can't be so easily brushed off is the chain of events, wherein he ordered

the same book twice, both advertised as used from presumably different sources, and both times got a faux book with a secret compartment. Unfortunately, my son, pissed, tossed the pair into the trash. He speculates that the books were crafted for purposes of drug smuggling, though such books could have been used as containers for explosives. I found the single remaining used copy of this title on offer. I just placed the order via Amazon and look forward to surprising my son, and perhaps myself. I'll keep you posted.

Hello, Raven. I've been listening to you for about a year or more now, but this is my first submission. I have experienced and been interested in the paranormal and metaphysical world all my life, but this is the first glitch in the matrix that I have been able to express into words. This glitch isn't scary per se, but was definitely weird. It happened at my cousin's house and was experienced by my cousin's half-sister and myself, while my cousin was not at home at the time. My cousin, we'll call her Leah, was visiting a friend when this happened,

but is directly related to the glitch. Her sister, we'll call her Lindy, and I were sitting on the couch binging a show that she wanted to watch on Netflix. She was visiting from out of town and we were waiting for Leah to get home so we could go out to dinner together so that we could spend some time together before she and I went our separate ways to go home. I'd been visiting for a couple of weeks already and was going to be flying back home the next day. while her sister lived closer than I did and would be driving home instead. So time was waning on and Leah had been gone for a while. So I texted her and she said that she should be home soon.

Now about 20 minutes past from then, the glitch happened. Leah lives in a two-story condo with direct access to the house from the garage in front of the house. Her living room is located in the back of the condo with a short open hallway in between. We're sitting in the living room and hear her garage door open. She and I both waited for Leah to call out to us, but we don't hear anything. Nor do we see Leah walking in. A few more minutes pass and still nothing but silence. Lindy and I both remarked to each other that we should have heard or seen her by now. She also has two dogs who were upstairs in her room that didn't bark when the door opened.

Then, about ten minutes later, after hearing the door open with no one coming through, my cousin comes in the door and her dog starts barking at her arrival. We asked her if she'd come through a few minutes earlier, but hadn't announced herself yet, and she said no, that she had just gotten home. We told her how the door opened and no one came in. She said that was weird, but that she had just got home. None of us knew what to make of that. We all just agreed that it was weird and got ready to go out to dinner.

This world is pretty weird sometimes, and I'm glad that you have this platform for all of its oddities. Thank you for all you do, Raven, and happy New Year to you and yours. This happened last year, and I honestly don't talk about it much, because I still can't explain it, and it freaks me out if I think about it too long. It was morning, peak rush hour. I was at a really big railway station, like one of those major junctions that connects the north and south of state. Always crowded, always noisy, people everywhere. Definitely not the kind of place where you expect anything strange to happen because there's just too much going on.

I was on my way to college, standing near one of the pillars on the platform waiting for my train. I tend to notice people around me without trying, especially people my age. There was a girl standing a little distance away from me, maybe two meters or so. She looked around my age, maybe 19 or 20. She was wearing jeans and a light-colored t-shirt. I remembered the t-shirt because it had some odd quote on it. Not motivational, just something slightly weird like one of those sentences that don't fully make sense.

What stood out wasn't her clothes, though. It was how still she was. Everyone else was moving, shifting bags, checking phones, walking past, and she was just standing there. Not on her phone, not looking around, just staring straight up at the digital board like she was really focused on it.

Not anxious, not bored, just blank. A train came in on the platform right next hours. Not mine. When that happens, the crowd kind of shifts automatically. People move a bit to make space. I glanced at the train for a second and then looked back at her. She was still there. Same position. Then an older guy pushing one of those metal trolleys stacked with boxes passed between us. It blocked my view of her for literally a couple of seconds. Two seconds at most. When the trolley passed, she wasn't there anymore. At first, I thought, okay, maybe she walked off quickly.

But then my brain caught up and something felt off. She had been standing between a pillar and the railing near the tracks. There wasn't much space there. If she had moved forward to backward, I would have seen her. If she had walked past me, I would have noticed. I looked around properly, then left, right, behind me. I even took a few steps to check around the pillar. Nothing.

No sign of her, no T-shirts, no familiar face. I tried to convince myself that I just wasn't paying attention. Crowded station means easy to miss things, right? But I kept scanning the area for at least a minute and she just wasn't there. Then the train on the adjacent platform started moving. As it slowly pulled out, I looked into one of the compartments, just instinctively, and that's when I saw her. She was sitting by the window, same jeans, same t-shirt with that weird quote, same hair and blank expression. And this is the part that really messed with me.

She was sitting between two people in a seat that I'm pretty sure had already been full when the train arrived. I remember glancing at that compartment earlier because it was right in front of me. I hadn't seen her get in. I hadn't even seen space for someone to get in. She wasn't looking out the window or at anyone, just staring straight ahead. She didn't react and didn't turn her head. Nothing. I remember getting this sudden cold feeling, even though it was hot and humid.

it, like my body reacted before my brain did. I just stood there watching the train move away, trying to understand how she went from standing next to me to sitting inside a moving train without me seeing any part of it. I didn't feel like I imagined her. I wasn't sleepy, I wasn't distracted, and there were too many specific details for it to be nothing, and I still don't know what that was. Maybe I genuinely miss something, or maybe my brain filled in gaps wrong? Or maybe for a few seconds something didn't line up properly?

Every time I'm at a big station now, I catch myself scanning faces without meaning to. And whenever a train pulls out, I still sometimes think about that moment and wonder how many things happen around us that we just aren't supposed to notice. Hey, Raven. Love Your Show, and I've submitted before, but here's a new one. It's been going on for a while now. Maybe a year? At least several months. One day I noticed some scattered change outside the side door of the store that I work at.

Not being proud, I scooped it up. Some pennies, dimes, maybe a nickel or two. A day or two later, I noticed more change in the same spot. Now, this has been going on ever since. At least every other day. We've tried to figure it out. The amount of change has increased to $2 as the record so far, and all in silver lately. Here's the kicker.

I went out along the side path near the door to give crows some peanuts, actively looking for change as now it's expected. But there is none. I tossed out the peanuts, turned back around. and took a few steps, and the change had magically appeared. So it's not some OCD guy who has to just drop some coins there. It just seems to appear. Glitch? Maybe, but it's continuous and is still happening. Hey, I'm not great with words due to a brain injury, but I will try my best.

I've listened to you for quite some time now, and I've always debated on sending this story in, but between the speech, something similar I'll add at the end, and just being an anxious person, nothing pushed me until a story you posted not too long ago, and then I decided when I had some free time I would finally do it, as this story only made mine feel a hundred times more crazy. I hope that they hear this, as I'm sure they'll feel the same way. It was about someone who had experienced a glitch in the Matrix. that was in Brighton, UK, and they had seen the same people walk past them twice when there was no logical way of that happening. Well, when I heard this, I got that feeling in my stomach that I wasn't alone, right down to the details.

So this one was for me about 12 years ago in my teenage years. Before I had a brain injury and lost a chunk of my memory, yet this one I never forgot. I also live in South Coast England. In fact, I could get a train directly to Brighton, and often have done so for days out. I'm portsmouth, to be exact, so around 50 miles apart. Again, just like this person, we have what they call the line, basically one long road from one end of the city to the other, broken down into smaller roads. I've, in fact, lived on the line in my last three places.

Along it is a small shopping center with an ASDA, our Walmart, at the back of it with about 10 stores either side of the entrance, and the same inside before the road cuts and creates a square pathway around to the back of ASDA, unless you walk through the shopping center, through ASDA and out their main entrance. I'd gotten about two to three stores in on my way there one afternoon, and I noticed a woman with the same bright blue iPhone 5C that I had at the time who was wearing a matching blue gym top and black gym leggings, with small multicolored rectangles all over them that were prominently the same blue

and even a matching blue sweatband. I noticed her as blue is my favorite color, and I love that she had matched her outfit to our phones. I carry on, thinking nothing more of it. I get about two stores away from the entrance, and there she is again, walking past me, using her blue iPhone, wearing the same blue clothes. I froze, except my eyes. My eyes locked on to her. I snapped out of it and turned to look at her and expected to somehow see two ever-so-similar people, both walking away. But of course, there was only the one.

It made no sense, and still doesn't, over a decade later. To walk past me again, you'd have to walk the whole circle, or half of it, and cut back through the shopping center. But even if you ran, it would take minutes, not seconds. I had to sit on the floor and have a cigarette and try to evaluate what had just happened. Something I still can't answer now, and funnily enough, the only explanation I could come up with whilst I sat there, was, it's a glitch in the matrix. I think about it every time I walk past there, which led me to spending years reading Reddit threads,

but never posting, and then years later finding you. But now I've got the new brain frazzle of the person of Brighton. It's so close by. What gets me the most was both happening on a long road that runs through both cities. Is it an English coastal thing? thing, a city line thing?

It brings so much more mystery to so much for me, and I'm hoping that finally putting this out there might make someone else post their similar story, or have the other poster searching more into it, like I am. Listening to your stories has reminded me of something that happened to me at secondary school in the 1960s. Nobody talked of glitches in the Matrix at that time, but looking back, that has to be what it was. It certainly gave me a very weird feeling of being in a different reality for a few days.

I was fond of writing, and I had written a little book of stories featuring a girl called Minnie and her baby brother called Podge. I read these stories to my six-year-old sister at bedtime. One morning, my sister woke up and told me that she'd been having dreams in which I had read her a strange poem that I had written. I was curious, and I asked her if she could remember the book. poem. She only had fragments, but we pieced together something vaguely resembling what she dreamed she had heard me recite to her. It went like this. On a silly summer's night, I went for a silly summer night swim. Podge came too, but Podge didn't swim. He got drowned, although I tried to save him. I crawled into a lampshade, and the lampshade caved in. I thought this was interesting, but it

really didn't make any sense, except that it referred to my character Podge. But my little stories were cozy family situations and had nothing to do about drowning in them. I did once have a very powerful fantasy about my little sister falling into a reservoir and drowning, which she never did, so the relevance of that may be minimal. Anyway, soon after that, maybe the same day or the following day, I was in school at the morning assembly. This is the UK, and we always had an assembly with the whole school every morning where we would sing a hymn and had prayers, and one of the teachers would give a little homely, perhaps. So this morning it was Ms. Cook, the history teacher, who was speaking words of wisdom to us. Ms. Cook was an oddball, but she started off in a normal sort of manner.

She told us how the modern world was becoming a confusing place, and she was going to read us a poem by a modern poet that encapsulated this sense of confusion. And then, you probably guessed it, she proceeded to read out the poem that my little sister and I had cobbled together. I was an utter shock. I had no idea how Ms. Cook could have gotten her hands on that poem, still less why she would take it into her head to read it to the whole,

school as though it was deep and meaningful. We went back to our classroom, and everything felt unreal to me. I was a very quiet, reserved child who never spoke to anyone. But I was driven to overcome my shyness because I badly needed some kind of reassurance, so I wrote out the poem on a piece of paper and showed it to one student after that, asking them if they thought that this was what they had heard Miss Cook read out during the assembly. They said yes. The next question was, how had Ms. Cook gotten hold of this so-called poem?

I believe I did ask her, and she gave some vague answer about having found it in the school library. Now, it is just possible that I did bring a version of this poem to school and leave it in the library. I couldn't swear that I hadn't. In fact, I convinced myself that that must have been what had happened. But seriously? I didn't make a habit of casually leaving my offerings lying around. And if I had, it would have made more sense if it had been one of my actual poems that I was genuinely proud of, rather than this oddity. Also, it made no sense to me that a teacher would have picked up a random piece of paper

and decided to read it out to the whole school without knowing who had written it, or where it had come from. but Miss Cook was an oddball, as I said, so who knows? Hi, Raven. I love your channel and have been listening for years now. I've been a member of your channel for a while, too. Thank you very much for that. This is a short story, but has confused me for a while now. It happened probably about 12 years ago. My then-girlfriend, were now married,

and I went to Boston for a cold play concert and spent a few days there just exploring. One afternoon we went to one of the piers or waterfront areas in the city and were just taking in the scenery and watching the people fishing on the pier. This is when I looked up in the sky and noticed what looked like furniture, wooden tables, chairs, etc. Floating in the sky. They were floating in a line like a string of balloons. but they definitely did not look simply like balloons with the furniture design.

They looked like actual wooden furniture floating there in the sky. It was a really clear day and not windy, so it couldn't have been something being blown into the air, and it was close enough that I could make them out clearly. I pointed it out to my girlfriend, and she thought it was weird too, but she was not nearly as mind-blown as I was. I looked around to see if anyone else was staring at what I was seeing, but it didn't seem like anyone was. Everyone was just going about their business as usual. It's almost like I was the only one that could tell that this wasn't normal.

Another weird aspect that I think about when I look back is that I did have a smartphone and a camera with me for my trip, but for some reason I didn't think to take a picture. Normally, this would totally be something I would take pictures of as proof that I wasn't crazy. But anyways, that's my story. Hi, Raven. I hope you're all doing well and keeping warm. Doing my best. I have a glitch to report, and thank you for allowing me a place to keep track.

My two sons and I woke up early today compared to most days off, and for teenagers, which was already unusual. but I was happy to begin Christmas. I had walked through my hallway from my bedroom to the kitchen at least three times this morning and never noticed this long screw lying in the hallway until this trip. I've included a picture, apologies to the Spotify audience. I thought that it was odd that I never noticed it and where it came from. There's a square top, whatever screwdriver, and I decided that it looked like a screw from,

a hinge from a door, and there is a door open about a foot away. I checked the hinge and noticed that one hole is empty. I picked up the screw and thought, why did this come out? I was going to begin to put it back in, but there was no hole. How did the screw get there and why is there no hole? And why did I never notice it? I asked my kids if they were playing a trick or something, but they looked at me very confused. There was also that creepy feeling in the air. Anyways, Merry Christmas, everyone. Hello, Raven.

Long time member. I've been meaning to send this glitch for a while now and finally got around to writing it in a somewhat coherent way, I hope. I was married for 10 years. When we got married, we went for a three-day honeymoon to Disney. On the first day, we got those hats with mouse ears that are very popular. and as we were on our honeymoon, we got bride and groom ones. As an add-on, you can have a word or date embroidered on the hat,

so we chose to have our names on our hats. However, for some fun, we decided to put my name on his hat, the groom hat, and his name on my hat, the bride hat. I remember that whole interaction vividly, because the person doing the embroidery seemed a little reluctant to do it, in that way, asking multiple times if we were sure that we wanted it like that, and trying to convince us to put our own names on our own hats. I had to insist that I wanted it that way.

I also remembered other people, both guests and workers, making comments about the name swaps, many finding it cute or quirky. On one of the days, we even switched hats, with me wearing the groom hat and him wearing the bride one, so the names matched the person, and again I remember people commenting on it and making jokes. Fast forward ten years, and we're getting a divorce. We're both purging and packing, and I find my hat on a box. I flip it around to look at the quote wrong name embroidered on the back, and I'm shocked to see that my name is there. I'm staring at it and a loss for words, and he asks me what's wrong. Before showing it to him, I ask if he still has his hat, but he tells me that he

threw it away a few weeks prior. His memory has always been very unreliable, so he doesn't remember if we did or didn't swap the names on the hats, and he didn't really look at his hat before getting rid of it. That means that I don't have any way to validate it other than my vivid memories of having done it, and the hat that contradicts my recollects. I love your podcast and I listen all the time. Thank you very much. I'm a believer of the paranormal and near-death experiences, and I love glitch stories,

but most of the time I feel like a lot of glitches can be explained. But this one I have a hard time explaining. I have a sister. She's about seven years older than me. We have very different childhood memories, and I always chalked it up to our age difference. I was pretty young when she left for college, and even while she was in high school,

she wasn't around much or on vacations with my parents and me anymore. So I just figured that she wasn't there for the stuff that I remembered. But this glitch that I'm writing about seems too weird for me to remember and not my sister, considering it's a phrase that she and her friends made up in college. Some backstory. I'm from a northeast suburb and have a pretty noticeable accent. I often use phrases that are common in this area but are atypical elsewhere.

I also pick up other people's phrases pretty easily if I'm around them a lot, and I'll even say it with their accent or effect, which is so weird, I know, but I can't help it. And people always tease me about my weird phrase collection. Some examples. One of my college roommates was from the south, from a very religious family, that wasn't allowed to say, oh my God. So, instead, they would say, oh, mylanta with a thick southern accent. I thought it was fun, so I started repeating her when she'd said it.

But over time, I started saying it's unironically and still due to this day. I also picked up for sure from a California Valley Girl friend, a hand movement for yes for my friend from South America, and a very specific accent to chow-chow for my Italian friend. And then there's my sister. She and her friends in college made up this weird saying that was kind of like gibberish. I don't even know how to convey through email, but if I sound it out, it's kind of like,

Gra-asha. They would say it with a super weird facial expression and vocal tone. It was mostly an inside joke, but she would say it around me all the time. I'd be like, what the hell does that mean? And she, like an older sister does, would just repeat the made-up word and never explain it. It means grahasha. Okay, whatever, I would say. I wanted to know what it meant so.

bad. I was determined to find out. So when we visited her at school, I eventually heard one of her friends say it, and I asked them. They told me it's their weird way of saying great as S-H-I-T. So then, as I do, I started using it myself every now and again, with the same weird tone and facial expression. When I was in my 20s, I said it to my sister. her once as a joke, and she just looked at me weirdly and was like, what? Me, confused, repeated myself and said, you know, like you and your college friends used to say. She looked at me even more confused and said, I have no idea what you're talking about. I was thinking there's just no way that she doesn't remember this.

Maybe she was just messing with me, so I rolled my eyes and let it go. But then, last week, 10 years later, I brought it up again. It's been over 20 years since she was in college. Surely the joke was up. I said, remember when you used to say gra-a-shah in college? And she responded, What? No, what the hell is that? And I was like, no, come on, stop, don't mess with me.

But she swears that she does not. remember. It really creeps me out how sincerely she doesn't recall what I'm talking about. When I explain, she looks at me like I'm crazy. Usually when she doesn't remember something from our childhood, she'll say, oh, I don't remember that. But this, she swears, just did not happen. It makes me think that maybe all those other memories that she doesn't have are because she grew up in a completely different timeline. She was kind of a dick in my timeline. I wonder what I was like in hers.

Anyway, that's my story. Thanks for reading. Hi, Raven. Longtime fan. Your stories help me sleep at night. Which is strange, because this one didn't. I'm writing from Auckland, New Zealand.

More specifically, Kameu, west of the city. far enough out that the motorway fades close enough that people still call it town Kumayu is farmland vineyards, old barns patched together over decades gravel roads that turn to mud in the winter people wave when they drive past even if they don't know you the land out here feels heavier than it should my name is Ryko and my wife is Savania

these names are fictional but the place behaves exactly like this. We moved on to a small farm just outside the main Kumayu strip. Ten hectares, an old house, a barn downhill from the house, a creek at the back, trees thick enough to block the wind in most of the sky. The previous owner was a woman named Miriama, quiet, and lived there alone for years. When she handed us the key, she stood in the barn longer than necessary, staring at the back wall.

She pointed to an old electrical breaker panel and told me to leave it alone. I asked if it was dangerous. She shook her head and said that it was used to being there. As she left, she added one more thing. If anything starts repeating, don't follow it. I laughed, but I guess I shouldn't have. The first month was normal, busy in the best way, fixing the fences, learning routines, buying a few cows,

getting used to mornings without alarms. We had a dog, big, mixed breed, smart and loud when he needed to be, and quiet when things were wrong. The first glitch was easy to dismiss. I was leaning on a fence watching a magpie. For anyone outside New Zealand, magpies here aren't cute.

They're black and white, aggressive, smart enough to remember faces, and they swoop cyclist in spring and they don't forget. This one hopped. along the fence and then took off. I watched it fly across the paddock, and then it flew across again. Same bird, same path,

same wing beat. I told myself that I blinked at the wrong time. A few days later, I watched the dog run downhill toward the bush line. He reached a fence post, and then suddenly he was behind it again, running toward it the same way. Same stride and same tail movement.

That one stayed with me. After that, the glitches stopped being easy to ignore. There were sounds repeating, a gate slamming shut twice with the exact same echo, Savania calling my name from the house, RICO, pause, RICO. I then went inside and asked what she wanted. She said that she had only called once, but everything was too exact. It wasn't delayed or distorted, just perfect copies. One night I woke up because the floor was humming.

Not shaking, humming. A low vibration that felt like it was inside of my chest. The dog was awake standing by the bedroom door, not barking, just staring. I looked out the window toward the barn and there was a light, not bright and not colored. It was a dull glow near the back wall. It pulsed once and then again, and the second pulse was identical to the first. So I put on boots and I went outside. I don't know why, curiosity or habit, the belief that things make sense if you get closer to them.

The air felt thick and heavy, like right before a storm that just never comes. As I walked, my footsteps echoed and then echoed again. That same sound and same timing. I stopped walking and the echo stopped too. Inside the barn, the glow crawled slowly along the wall like it was searching. The breaker panel was slightly open. Behind it was darkness that didn't behave like a shadow as it had depth. Then everything seemed to happen at once.

The barn door opened and then opened again. I stepped forward and then stepped forward again. My body moved twice. I didn't choose to do so. Then I heard my own voice. I'll just check the fence line. It came from inside the wall. I hadn't said it yet.

I ran back to the house, locked the door and sat awake until morning. The next day, everything looked normal, and that kind of became the pattern. A week later, one of our cows disappeared, no broken fences, no tracks, no noise. Cows don't vanish quietly. Our neighbor, Hemie, came to help look.

He'd farmed in the area his whole life. When we reached the barn, he stopped walking and told me not to stand there. I asked him why, and he said, Some places get confused. Flooding years back, old systems drowned, boundaries were washed away and rebuilt wrong. He said that sometimes the land remembers things incorrectly. That night, the cow came back. She looked fine, but her ear tag was the wrong color, and the number was off by one digit.

When she drank from the trough, her reflection didn't line up properly just for a moment. I decided not to tell Savania everything as I didn't want her afraid of our own home. The breaking point came when I flew a drone near the barn. The live feed would glitch and then stabilize. It showed me standing inside the barn looking straight up at the drone and smiling. I wasn't in the barn. When the drone crashed, I found it later sitting neatly on the barn floor undamaged. beside it was a barefoot human print

it looked like it had been stepped in twice in the exact same place perfectly that was when I understood that the glitches weren't random they were learning they copied animals first and then sounds and then people we left not long after that

not because we wanted to but because the place stopped feeling passive it stopped repeating the land and it felt like it was repeating us So, Raven, if anyone listening lives near Auckland in New Zealand, out near Cumehu, and you ever notice time stutter or sound repeat or your reflections moving wrong, don't investigate it and don't record it, and don't assume that the land wants you gone. Sometimes it just wants to own your reality.

Sometimes it's trying to remember you well enough to keep you. Thanks for the work you do, Raven. and your stories and the community around them mean more than you probably realize. This channel has been a comfort on a lot of long nights, and I'm grateful to be a part of it. Thank you very much. Hey there, friends. Welcome to the end of this episode of the Glitch in the Matrix stories

on the As the Raven Dreams podcast. I hope that you enjoyed this collection of glitchy goodness, the weird, bizarre, and awkward happenings in our existence. If you did enjoy them, please do consider following the podcast if the platform you're on allows that. Also, leave a reviewer rating as that does help the podcast grow. The algorithm favors those who have ratings, apparently. You can also check out the YouTube channel as the Raven Dreams, same name. I do the same stories just a little bit sooner, I guess.

Different formatting, different styling, same stories. We also live stream over there. so if you're free on any Saturday at 6 p.m. Central, I'd love to see you over there. You can join the Patreon at patreon.com slash as the Raven Dreams to support the podcast and channel. And also get early access and other things, depending on what you sign up for. You can also check out the website astherravendreams.com where you can find on my social links, links to other places where the podcast is hosted, find the merch store, send in your own stories as those are what keep the podcast going.

So please consider doing that. And find information on the book that I wrote. titled The Insomniacs Experiment by Raven Adams. Also, lastly, if you're on a platform that allows commenting, please consider leaving a comment just saying hi. I'd love to chat with you.

Just see how you're doing. Talk about the stories if you want. It's up to you. Anyways, friends, I hope you have a lovely rest of your day and that the rest of your week goes just as swimmingly. Hope to see you again here soon, but until then remember that you are loved, you are valid, you are important, and you are the best you that you can be, do not forget it.

And until next time, my friends, much love and sleep well.