Transcription
We're in the right place for it, which is a very spooky house. Yeah, have you got a story that suits the surroundings? I do. I do. I actually, there's a story, um, that I think is one of the best ones I've ever told. So I'm setting some pretty high stakes here. But, uh, for reference, I, I told this one live last year in Texas to a sold-out crowd at the Paramount Theater, and this story had a, a big reaction to it because the twist at the end is something else, and it's house-themed.
So, uh, in 2004, there was this guy named Mitch who was going to a university in Louisiana, and he's a senior. And there's this girl in his class named Kayla who's also a senior, and he just loves this girl. He, he wants to date her more than anything. And, you know, he's tried several times to, to, you know, woo her, but she's not that interested. You know, she's kind of playing hard to get, but he could tell there was something there. Maybe, maybe she likes him. And, uh, eventually she does kind of acquiesce and say, "Okay, you know, like, let's go on a date." You know, and they hit it off. You know, and Kayla hit it off. You know, they're an item. And they end up graduating. And after graduation, they get married. And by 2006, Mitch and Kayla have bought their actual, you know, white picket fence dream home in Louisiana. And, you know, life was great. You know, they, they loved their careers. They both of them were very intentional about spending time together on the weekends and really making, you know, their time together as a couple very important. And then by 2007, so they've lived in this new home for a year now, they have, have they welcome their first child, uh, their daughter. And then two years after that, which puts us in 2009, they have their son. And then, then they're done at that point. They got their girl, they got their boy, and it's like life couldn't be better. You know, Mitch loves his job, his wife loves her job. They, they had this, this thing where every morning, the, the dad would, uh, he would sneak into the kids' bedroom and he'd like spook them to wake them up. You know, it was a playful thing. And they always had, you know, family game nights on the weekend. And, and, and Mitch and Kayla made a point to still have those romantic dates, you know, anytime they could. They always got babysitters to to spend time together. So this is like a, it's the American dream in many ways. You have this, this, this young family living high school sweetheart, white picket fence, two and a half kids, dog. That's it.
So it's 2009, and, uh, Mitch is at this, this little dream home, and he's watching football. He's sitting on the couch watching football. And, you know, it's just like any other day. And as he's watching the game, there's this lamp that's in the back right corner of the room. This, this non-descript, you know, you know, Target lamp. You know, it's a red lamp. And Mitch, he's, he's seen this lamp a million times. It's in his house. And he's watching football, but at some point, he, he notices something odd about this lamp. And he looks over at it, and for some reason, the lamp itself, not the light bulb, but the actual physical lamp, like the base, was blurry. The rest of the room is in focus. There's plenty of light in the room, but the lamp is blurry. And so Mitch, he's, he's, you know, he's looking at the lamp. He's, he's rubbing his eyes to see if there's something in his eyes, but still, the lamp is, is blurry. He goes back to the TV, not blurry. You know, Mitch has good eyesight. This doesn't make any sense. And so Mitch finally, you know, he's, he's worried about this, you know, there's something wrong with me. And he stands up and he walks over to the lamp. And as soon as he gets up to it, it's still blurry. And he touches it, still blurry. And he's like, "Okay, I don't know what this is about." But he does the typical, you know, kind of dude reaction, like, "Whatever, the male medical problems." Yeah, it's like, "I'm probably having a stroke," but, you know, whatever. Uh, so he, he turns around and he goes back to the couch and just does his best to ignore the still blurry lamp.
And so he's watching the game. He's watching the game. He's glancing periodically, but he's mostly focused on the game. And then at some point towards the end of the football game, the lamp changes. It remains blurry, but, you know, out of the corner of his eye, he sees it moving around. And he looks, and the lamp, with having not been interacted, no one's touched the lamp at this point, but the lamp is now turned upside down, which is, you know, it's not possible. It's flipped upside down. And now it's blurry. And so now, now Mitch is, he's looking at this lamp thinking, "Okay, huge problems here. There's something wrong. I, I, I might very well be having some sort of medical emergency." But for some reason that Mitch just could not place, he couldn't bring himself to call the doctor. I mean, this is a, this is a situation where you call the doctor. There's something wrong, and he knew it, but he didn't do it. Instead, he just could not stop looking at this lamp. He's, he's not watching the TV. He's just staring at this upside down, blurry lamp.
And at some point that day or that evening, uh, his wife Kayla and his two kids, they come home. And the second she comes in, you know, Mitch kind of breaks out of his, his, his fixation. And he thinks, "I should tell Kayla about this lamp. I'm having a medical emergency. I should tell her." But again, he doesn't. And in fact, he quickly thinks to himself, "I can't tell her. I'm, I'm going to pretend this didn't happen." He kind of forgets about the lamp. And he goes and he sees his wife and his kids. And it's a normal night. She, she is none the wiser that he spent the day staring at a lamp that's blurry and upside down. And, you know, when Kayla came in, the lamp was not blurry and upside down. She's not experiencing this.
So that night, regular night, you know, they put the kids to bed. And, you know, Kayla and Mitch, they go to bed too. But then after Kayla had fallen asleep, Mitch is wide awake. You know, he can't sleep. And there's something telling him to go down and look at that lamp. And so Mitch gets up and he sneaks downstairs and he goes to the couch. And, you know, the light is not even on at this point, but even in the darkness, he can tell it's still blurry. It's still upside down. And he sits on the couch and he just stares at the lamp. And all night, Mitch sits on this couch and stares at this lamp in absolute silence.
And then in the morning, Kayla gets up. She comes down. It's, it's, you know, during the week, so it's a work day. She comes down and she, she finds Mitch on the couch. And she's like, "What are you doing?" And he kind of breaks out of it and he's like, "Oh, you know, I wasn't feeling well last night. You know," he's lying to her. "I wasn't feeling well, so I came down here." And in fact, he tells her, "You know what? I, I feel so sick. I, I can't go to work today." And Kayla's like, "You've never taken a day off from work ever, and you don't, you don't seem sick to me. Like, what's happening?" And he's like, "No, I just, just not feeling up for it." And so Kayla's like, "Okay," but she's, she's thinking there's, there's, there's a red flag here, you know, but she doesn't know what it is. And so ultimately, Kayla and the kids, they leave for the day, and Mitch stays home. And he just stares at this lamp all day. He is staring at this lamp.
And by the evening, when Kayla comes home, this is like 8, 10 hours later, when she walks in the house, all the lights are still off, except for the red lamp. And she sees her husband, who now is not breaking out of his trance. He's sitting on the couch, and he is absolutely focused on this lamp. And when she walks in, she's like, "What's going on with you?" No reaction. Mitch is fully locked in on this lamp. He's completely unresponsive. And so Kayla is like, putting it together that, "Oh my God, something's obviously wrong." And so she, she grabs the phone and she calls the doctor to be like, "What do I do about this?" And she's at the same time, kind of yelling for Mitch on the couch. There's no reaction. She's shooing her kids away, you know, "Go upstairs, you, we'll deal with this." And so as this is happening, Mitch, who can kind of tell, you know, his wife is on the phone with the doctor, eventually he can't even hear her anymore. She disappears completely. And he's left with just this lamp.
And the lamp begins to change for a, a second time. Now, in addition to being upside down and blurry, the lamp begins to grow inside the room. And so as it's growing, it's taking up more and more of this field of vision until this lamp is so big, he now is basically consumed by the lamp. And it's at this point that he begins to feel this blinding pain in his head, and he doesn't know where it's coming from. And then he hears a ringing in his ears. And then all he hears is just people screaming everywhere. And it's total darkness. The lamp is gone.
And then he opens his eyes and he looks around, and he's surrounded by a sea of people that are all looking at him. And he's on the ground. It's broad daylight. He's not at his house anymore. And he's looking around at this crowd of, it looks like college kids. And he's looking for his wife and his kids. He can't see them. And he stands up and he's, he doesn't know what's going on. And as he's yelling for his wife and kids, Kayla, he was yelling for his wife and kids, a police officer comes charging through the circle. And he grabs Mitch and without saying anything, he lifts him up, a grown man, and just runs with him to his police car. And the whole time, Mitch is like, "I don't know what's going on here." His head's still like, you know, he's still got pain in his head. He has no idea where he is physically. He has no idea where he is. And he gets thrown in the back of this police car. Obviously, there's some emergency happening right now. And, and the cop, without saying anything, he hops in the driver's seat, and they, they start speeding down the road. And as they're driving, Mitch just starts saying, "Where's my wife and kids? What's going on?" And the police officer was like, "Sir, you just hit your head. I'm bringing you to the hospital."
And so ultimately, the police officer brings Mitch to the hospital. And they end up, you know, he gets treated by the doctors and nurses. But he discovers what's actually happened. Mitch was a senior in college, and he got tackled by a football player and he hit his head on the ground and he was unconscious for a fraction of a second, like 10 seconds or something. And in those 10 seconds, his brain constructed an entire life with a wife, with kids, with the white picket fence, the house. None of it existed. He never had a wife. He never had his kids. They, they're not real. And so he realized what had happened when he was at the hospital. And he had to grieve the loss of people who never existed. And it wrecked his life. He did this huge Reddit post, this Ask Me Anything, where he tried to tell people what it's like to have basically lost your entire family who don't exist. And he said, to this day, he still has dreams where his little son will come running around the corner, and he's perpetually five years old. He, you know, and then that was his life. And so it, it wrecked his life, and it never existed. It was just a figment of his imagination. Dude, pretty crazy, right? Wow. Yeah.
Have you reached out to this guy, given that you've had so, you've given this story so much attention? Yeah. And what's he like? No, he doesn't want to talk about it. He did his AMA, and that's it. The dude wants to disappear. He goes to therapy for this. I, he basically gave permission, but doesn't want to be a part of it. I mean, he's trying to cope. And he'll be about our age now or something, maybe. Mhm. Yeah. I mean, for him, I mean, how do you go about dealing with something like that? Because to other people, it's like, "Well, it never really happened. You know, come on." But for him, it was like years that in his brain was implanted, like an entire history, an entire family. I mean, that's real loss.
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