I posted this before under a different username - update it to say this happened about 20 years ago:
This will be outing so I'd better name change soon! But I experienced a time slip in London about 15 years ago.
I was sent on an errand to another office so left work on a bright clear day. I worked in the Cheapside area of the city - where a Christmas Carol was set. I walked up Cheapside/ Poultry in the direction of Bank of England. To my left was a street that was either Old Jewry or the street adjacent to it. So I take a short cut up that street. Nice day, escaped from the office, stills fairly new to London and loved it - all was good. Walked up the street, all fairly bland offices, modern and tall. I was the only person on the street. Suddenly out of nowhere I felt the most indescribable terror come out of nowhere - I almost expected to hear someone shout 'run'' It felt like something or someone was coming for me. I glanced at the offices but suddenly they were different - they were lower than ground level so that the pavement bisected the windows, and the buildings were now old - they looked like old fashioned sweet shows with those windows with the small square panes and occasional round bit jutting out. All around me I could hear noise - hustle and bustle, hooves on cobbles, barrels rolling, voices talking and shouting out to each other. The sky was dark and the air thick with a brownish mist (smog?) My head was hurting and I just lost it and ran towards the end of the street like my life depended on it.
And then everything was normal. Sky was normal and blue and clear, buildings were as they should be, no noise out of the ordinary. My headache went instantly, my feeling of terror went instantly - I felt completely ok. Freaked out by what just happened but completely my normal self.
The funniest thing was there was a chap smoking across from me and as I stood there baffled he jumped a mile and said 'where the hell did you come from?!' When I told him he said he'd literally just walked out of there and there had been no one there - so now as well as my own time slip I wonder if I feature in some bloke's story about the girl who appeared out of thin air!
and I followed the post with
it took me about a year to pluck up the courage to go back and when I did, really hyped up, it was all so ordinary. I checked every street in case I'd got confused about the street I'd originally walked through but nothing even close to what I'd experienced (it felt more Victorian than medieval).
The odd thing is that I am not woo but seem like I should be. I loooove stories about the paranormal and ghosts, I'm a creative type (artist, writer, actor) with a huge imagination and everyone always assumes I live in a fantasy land, but I'm actually seriously scientific and logical. I so want to believe, I really really do, but without hard proof I just can't.
Except for the time slip. No matter what I think of I just can't explain it. Wasn't a film set or actors - I didn't see any people (except shop - see below) and it definitely wasn't a set. Why would a prop house be built halfway below a modern pavement? Inside I could see an old man in Victorian attire, spectacles- he had a kindly manner and was moving back and forth like he was getting things from shelves. He had white hair a male pattern baldness, a soft round face and wide nose. He looked kind. He was passing things to a small lad in brown cap and trousers, white top brown jacket and like a dark ribbon tied around his neck, like a tie but not quite. He was slight and had dark hair. I can still see them but they weren't solid - not as if I were to see a real person. But they weren't see-through either. It was like they were indistinct and vague - like seeing someone through mist.
Sorry, off track there! But if it was a hallucination what caused it? I was in fine health, not stress. And what about the guy who saw me come out? Why didn't he see me when he walked through? He should have.
If someone else told me this story I'll be honest, I wouldn't believe them. Because I am known to have a vivid imagination I don't tell anyone any more as I get a few eye rolls (my mum believes me though!) But with woo stuff normally I'm trying to find evidence that it was supernatural, and failing. This time I'm trying to find a logical explanation and failing!