Endless Thread - Awoken by a Lamp

Episode Date: November 8, 2024

"Have you ever felt a deep personal connection to a person you met in a dream only to wake up feeling terrible because you realize they never existed?" More than a decade ago, someone posted this question to Reddit. It was a popular post with many responses. But one response would go beyond the realm of popularity into something else. Internet canon, perhaps? The Redditor gave a detailed account of their life. It was a good life, they said. But one day, it came to a crashing halt — because of a lamp. The post would go on to inspire hundreds of memes and boggle the minds of countless people. Endless Thread's Ben Brock Johnson brings co-host Amory Sivertson the story of the strange lamp. ***** Credits: This episode was produced by Ben Brock Johnson and Dean Russell. Mix and sound design by Emily Jankowski. Our co-hosts are Ben Brock Johnson and Amory Sivertson.

Support for endless thread comes from Mathworks, creator of MATLAB and Simulink Software, to design and develop engineered systems, accelerating the pace of discovery in engineering and science. Learn more at Mathworks.com. Support for WBUR comes from Is Business Broken, a podcast from the Mayrotra Institute at Boston University that explores questions like, why is innovation in healthcare so hard? Is ESG just greenwashing? And, of course, is business broken? Listen, wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, E.T. homies, it's Benny B. Johnson. I'm going to be straight up with you. This is a tough week to know what to say.

And knowing what to say is a big part of our jobs on this podcast. Every political contest decided by the majority has winners and losers. There are a huge number of Americans who are celebrating, this week. There are a huge number of Americans that are feeling despair. One thing that feels undeniable is that right now our two-party system seems so divided that people on both sides believe that the other side doesn't want to give them the right to exist. Amory and I have thoughts right now, the team as well, a lot of them. And we are working on an episode about how this holiday season is going to go because another

clear and present truth is that these fault lines run through families. We're going to hear more about that next week, and we're still taking your stories about internet debate that may be very IRL when families gather for the holidays. This week, though, we want to take a big old break from what is happening and present you with something that, in a way, still might feel relevant or useful. For a lot of people following this national presidential election, it probably feels like a rude awakening from a happy dream about realizing the world was not the world you thought it was. So here's a story about what that might feel like that has nothing to do with politics. Hope you like it. Take care of yourself and the people you love. No matter who you are,

no matter where you are, we are so, so grateful that you spend this time with Endless Thread. We love you guys. Here's the show. WBUR Podcasts, Boston. Amory. Ben. How philosophical do you get about our existence? Not that philosophical. I guess another question is,

are you familiar with like we're all living in a simulation theory? No. So this is a story that for a long time, for years, I would say, has been very popular on Reddit. Okay. It has a few different titles. One is called Awoken by a Lamp. I was awoken by a lamp the other night. Were you?

A light just turned on. Shut up. In your house? We've been having a little trouble with Mike. bedside lamp. With Mike's poltergeist. Sometimes it'll turn on. Sometimes it won't. Sometimes you turn it on, but you forget that you've

turned it on. Probably not like a paranormal intervention, but anyway, I'm derailing us. Continue. No, it's fine. I'm down for your Awoken by a Lamp story. So this is a very different story. It's one of those things

where like, it's hard to tell if this is a creative writing exercise. or a real story. And since this story first appeared, it has turned into sort of this like repeating meme. But it's one of those things where it's like, it's so referential to this like one story that was posted on Reddit

that most people, when they come across the meme, unless they know the Reddit story, they don't know what the heck the meme is talking about. right? It's one of those deeply referential memes. So I'm going to ask you to click on the first link that I sent to you. Okay. This is from a subreddit called Explain the Doke. The subject line is, I'm confused, what lamp? And they have posted a picture of, is this a character from Monsters Inc? Or does it just look like a character from Monster? I think it's the character. I know. I know. It's both characters fused together. Is that right?

Yeah, I think that's right. That it's like Billy Crystal's character and John Goodman's character. I should know their names. Mike and Sully. Wow. Recess of my brain did I just pull that out. That was actually incredibly impressive. Right?

So it's like a Mike and Sully mashup. The face looks kind of just like straight, mouth, blank stare. And the caption is, when you're happily married for six years, but that lamp starts looking flat. And so then the caption of the title of the post is, I'm confused, what lamp? Yes. And this has 13,000 upvotes I'm seeing. Yes. Which is a lot.

So now look at the other thing I sent you. Okay. So this looks like someone in some sort of battle helmet. Yeah. Another kind of blank stare. And the caption is, me having a perfect life and having the perfect family. and seeing that the lamp looks a little fuzzy. So these are both recent memes,

and they're referring to this story that was posted to Reddit three years ago. Are you ready to hear the story? I can't wait to hear the story. Okay. A parallel life slash awoken by lamp starts with the statement, throw away account because this is really personal.

My last semester at a certain college, I was assaulted by a football player for walking where he was trying to drive. Note, he was 325 pounds. I was 120 pounds. While unconscious on the ground, I lived a different life. Wow. It goes on to tell this story about this person, meeting a woman, falling in love with this woman,

getting a job. The person who's writing this has a daughter and a son. This is in their parallel life or in their actual life? This is where it gets weird. Okay, okay. One day while sitting on the couch, I noticed that the perspective of the lamp was odd, like inverted. It was still in 3D, but just wrong. It was a square lamp base red with gold trim on four legs in a white square shade.

I was transfixed. I couldn't look away from it. I stayed up all night staring at it. The next morning I didn't go to work. something was just not right about the lamp. This person stops eating. They stare at the lamp for three days, and then they have this epiphany.

And they realize, the lamp is not real. The house is not real. My wife, my kids, none of that is real. The last 10 years of my life are not real. Oh, my God. The lamp starts to grow wider and deeper. It still has inverted dimensions.

it took up my entire perspective and all I could see was read. I heard voices, screams, all kinds of weird noises, and I became aware of pain. I was laying on my back on the sidewalk, surrounded by people that I didn't know. Lots of them were freaking out. I was very confused. This person gets scooped up, taken to the hospital by a cop,

goes through three years of depression because this person is grieving the loss of their wife and children and dealing with the knowledge that they never, existed. They say I was scared that I was going insane as I would cry myself to sleep, hoping I I would see my wife and my dreams. I never have, but sometimes I see my son, usually just a glimpse out of my peripheral vision. He's perpetually five years old and I can never hear what he says. Wow. This like blows up on Reddit. This person doesn't add it after it blows up. The person says, never thought anyone would read this. I have never seen.

the movie Inception or the Star Trek episode so many you've mentioned, I will not do an AMA. Hmm. This person says, I've had many personal messages describing similar experiences. A few have asked if they can write a book, screenplay, or stage play, rage comic, etc. Please consider this tale open source and have fun with it.

What subreddit was this posted to? So this was originally posted to a subreddit called A Glitch in the Matrix. And I think that that subreddit is sort of like dedicated to, you know, concepts and ideas of like a thing that like wakes you up from the existence that you're living. I mean, on the one hand, it seems totally preposterous that someone would think, what did you say? It was like 10 years. 10 years.

This alternate reality. reality was a 10-year period that this person unconscious on the side of the road thinks has passed. And that just seems totally absurd. And on the other hand, our memories are so, our minds, our brains are just so very mysterious that, like, who am I to say that could never happen? But I'm also like, all right, prove it. You know, like, let's do that AMA. Because I want to know about the birth of your first child. And let's talk about how much you actually remember, which doesn't mean it didn't happen to the person.

It just means this person maybe has a whole 10 years of material that they're not expounding upon. Oh, you just want to know more. And you will know more. in a minute. At Radio Lab, we love nothing more than nerding out about science, neuroscience, chemistry. But we do also like to get into other kinds of stories. Stories about policing or politics.

Country music. Hockey. Sex. Of bugs. Regardless of whether we're looking at science or not science, we bring a rigorous curiosity to get you the answers. And hopefully make you see the world anew. Radio Lab, adventures on the edge of what we think we know. Wherever you get your podcast.

There is something powerful about the sound of the human voice. Beautifully produced audio has the unique power to connect and inspire. Tell your organization's story with a custom podcast from City Space Productions, the creative studio from WBUR's business partnerships team. Become a thought leader. Recruit new talent. Reach new audiences. Whatever your goal, we can help.

Discover how the magic is made at WBUR.org. creative studio. Okay, we're back to the infamous lamp post on Reddit, which has launched a thousand esoteric memes and a thousand kind of stoner conversations, I think, about whether someone can expand time and live a whole other life in a few minutes of unconsciousness. I feel like these kinds of thought experiments,

if we can call them that, are really interesting because they remind us that, like, as real as things may feel sometimes, it might be worth imagining the possibility that there is a reality behind the reality without going full Q&ONN, of course. I mean, yes, yes.

Well, you know, I think about that all the time and just how freaking slippery the slope really is where we draw the lines of what is believable and reasonable to believe and what is not is often feels just so arbitrary. and whatever is convenient to ridicule in that moment. Yeah, that's a great point. Although I do not practice a religion and didn't grow up with one,

I can appreciate how, I don't know, just fuzzy all the lines are around belief. And I wouldn't point to something and say, that's totally ridiculous when someone else is saying, like, no, no, I really did live 10 full years in another dimension. You do put a lot of faith in the banana dog, and there's no proof that that's... Totally. Like, anything outside of your own mind, so I feel like... Dear listener, Ben is referring to the culinary masterpiece that is putting a small banana into a hot dog bun and covering it in whatever you want. And yes, I do believe that the banana dog is the thing that we should all be. agreeing upon.

Worthy of our worship. And I will do an AMA. About banana dogs. Yes. It'll be real short, but I'll do it. I do really like this point that, like, you know, the things we decide to put our faith in feels very arbitrary sometimes. Have you had one of these experiences yourself? No.

But I have had dreams that have, you know, I mean, I think we all. hopefully we all have had dreams that have felt so real and so expansive, you know? Like, to the point where, like, you're living a completely different life in existence. Yeah, I don't know if I've had dreams from a completely different person. I'm usually, have I told you this before, that I'm a smoker in my dreams? No. Yeah, in most of my dreams, I'm, I have a cigarette in my... Really?

I think about that a lot when people, like if I'm in a social situation where someone offers me a cigarette, I'm like, no, I'm good. I'll have one later. Oh, that's just the best. I love that. I love that. Yeah. That's a classic memory situation right there. I'm good. I'll have one later. But I do think that I and my husband, Mike, are the kinds of, We are really, maybe it's just because we kind of still can't believe that, like, wow, we're adults. And we got married and we live in a house. And we have a rabbit. And it's like, yeah, I have those moments.

Right. I don't know what that tendency is other than just genuine kind of like awe and appreciating the life that we have built together and what it has taken to build that life together. And that's not to say that that will help avoid any of this. And I feel like this is planting a little seed in my brain that now later today I'm going to look at something and be like, is that real? You're going to look at the lamp. Don't look at the lamp, Amory. Even worse, I'll look at a banana dog, the thing that I am most sure about in this world and suddenly go. Is that looking a little too round, too square?

But I do really love these kinds of explorations into the, I don't know, it's just an acknowledgement of, we move through so much of life and like so much of life just passes us by. And it would be exhausting to realize every moment as we live it. Did you, do you know the, you were a theater kid at one point in time? Sure. My fellow theater kid. Do you know the play Our Town? Yes. I know of it, yes.

Okay, but you're not familiar with the lines of it, with some of the, like, famous lines from it. I was more of a damn Yankees kind of, that was my zone. So there's a line in Thornton Wilder's Our Town that it's, you know, it's primarily about this teenage couple, Emily and George. And she has this one line that this story made me think. of where she says to the, there is like a narrator figure here, she says to the narrator, I'm going to get this slightly wrong and actual Our Town Superfans will be mad at me, but she says, like, do people ever realize life while they live it every moment? Yeah. But maybe there's some of that in this, that like you're just moving through life. It's the same damn lamp that you've had

for 20 years or however many years. And one day you just look at it and you, you just look at it and you go, oh, that's different. You just really notice it. And that's what this makes me think of. Like, do people ever really realize life while they're living it every moment? Mm-mm. And so maybe that's a... How very Buddhist of you, Emery.

Maybe you're actually a secret Buddhist and you don't even know it yet. Maybe you're going to wake up a Buddhist. I could wake up a lot worse. She woke up a smoking Buddhist. I could wake up a smoking Buddhist. up a lot worse. I like that. Yeah.

Well, thanks for having this thought experiment with me. And yeah, that's a good spot to end. Please enjoy every moment of your life. Yeah. Notice your lamps. And if the lamp starts looking fuzzy. Well, you're about to wake up on some concrete.