this is so wild, this guy thought his landlord was going into his house and leaving him post-it notes but he just had an extreme case of carbon monoxide poisoning
Modern ghost story
Did reddit save this dudes life
What the fuck
NO BUT I READ THIS WHOLE THING ONCE.
he got the CO detector out, saw that it was in dangerous levels (there was a problem with an underground parkade in his building, iirc), calmly went “shit”, and went to the hospital. If he didn’t get that advice, he would most likely be dead now.
The best part? He didn’t get a webcam app or anything. He just made a folder, called it Webcam, and called it a night in his carbon monoxide induced delirium.
This is honestly one of my favorite Reddit stories.
That was completely wild. This is also one of my favorite explanations for both historical and modern tales of haunted houses.
In the story of that historical incident, the 1921 “Mrs. H” account, they experienced many of what we think of as the really classic signs of a haunting. Aside from moving into a run down, semi-creepy house – that’s how these stories always start, right? – they experienced things like mysterious noises as if someone was violently rearranging the furniture in the middle of the night. They heard voices, felt as if they were being watched or followed, heard tapping in the walls. And it was as if there were ghosts acting on them physically: shaking the bed, holding them down, yanking away the sheets. “Mrs. H” sees ghostly figures sitting at the foot of her bed, and describes them in detail. And it all turns out to be a carbon monoxide leak: the furnace is fixed, and the haunting immediately comes to an end.
What’s scariest about carbon monoxide IMO, and what’s really illustrated by that reddit story, is how quickly and thoroughly carbon monoxide poisoning can just disconnect you from reality. You think you’re taking appropriate action and thinking clearly and remaining essentially yourself, while half of what you’re doing, pretty much all of what you’re experiencing, turns out to be sheer hallucination. It has to seem so real on every level, but none of it is. It’s scary to think how easily our entire perception of the world can just be wrong, and we have absolutely no concept of it.
(My other favorite explanation for hauntings is infrasound. I don’t necessarily disbelieve the idea of some sort of life after death or things like that, I try to maintain an open mind because our understanding of our universe is seriously not as thorough as we’d like to think, but the scientific possibilities for what could cause the symptoms and sensations of a haunting are completely fascinating. Like who would’ve figured you could get such vivid, convincing, visceral effects from something as obscure as sound outside your ability to actively hear, or gas you can’t detect.)
hey all, firefighter here, i seriously cannot stress enough how important it is to have CO detectors. this guy absolutely would have died if someone hadn’t suggested carbon monoxide poisoning. it can and will kill you without warning – you probably won’t even realize it’s happening. do yourself a favor and get a detector, especially if you live in a cramped and poorly ventilated home or apartment, they’ll save your life
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just moving along like everyone else 