AIBU to believe FIL time slip experience?

[elsiesbonnet]

FIL was round yesterday evening for dinner with his wife. We were talking about the Uncanny podcast & recent TV episode then he told us of two experiences he'd had in the same place a number of years apart. After I went & did some research & asked a couple questions today, he's told us of another experience he had in the same place that was similar to one of the other experiences but that happened when he as a child.

I'm quite sceptical about paranormal type events I guess because I've never witnessed anything myself but am generally quite open minded. I don't believe FIL to be the type to make this sort of thing up & he was almost unwilling to tell us in case we thought he was crazy. He's never told anyone before.

AIBU to think what he experienced could've been real? In one of the instances he interacted with people in the past, his recall was quite genuine & he had some significant detail that you couldn't just make up. Has anyone else experienced a time slip or some other paranormal event they couldn't explain? I'm intrigued!

I can remember my Biology Teacher, Mr Hankinson, telling the class about an experience he’d had in France in WW2, he was with the BEF so before Dunkirk.
It was 1981/82 so obviously no internet or anything.
He was a very serious Man and a brilliant Teacher, he spoke about his Unit entering a Village with an old hotel, it had an inner courtyard and they spent the night sleeping there, when they woke up there was an old fashioned coach and horses and people milling around in Victorian clothes, that’s about all I can remember, it was 40 years ago. It’s always stayed with me.

@overcooker Thanks, I'll take your word for it as I'm operating from a position of near-total ignorance when it comes to astronomy.

Stone tapes it is, then. Or something else entirely.

I didn't state that there's a portal in Liverpool. I just said we don't know that there isn't one.

I think what happens is people dream something a little similar to the event that subsequently happens in real life.

The memory of the dream then become retrofitted to fit the RL event more closely. Likely not consciously, humans like to see patterns and make sense of random things.

Not a time slip but when I was a teenager I was walking home with my friend when I saw two guys stood by the side of the road. They looked like they had been in an accident. My friend couldn’t see anyone/anything. They were there the entire time until we passed them and then they disappeared. Walking past them made me feel really calm 🤷‍♀️

@Graciebobcat I think that's one explanation or variant of this phenomenon, yes. But I believe others exist & they're as provable as anything to do with dreams currently is. (I've always wanted to have a machine which records dreams so they can be played back & viewed. I think it would be useful, entertaining & hilarious.)

I think these are hallucinations, not time travel

We don't know that there aren't mice in teapots circling Mars with advanced technology that hides them from our view.

Yes, I believe people have odd experiences all the time. Also that they often misinterpret them, understandably: all sorts of factors can affect our perception of reality. A misperceived experience is still an experience.

I should know; I've taken mind-altering substances, been royally gaslighted and seen Derren Brown's shows 😁

The inflexible thinkers in this type of discussion aren't the cynics: they're the ones fervently clinging to their beliefs without further evidence and angrily dismissing the possibility of other explanations.

But nevermind. This is why I'm an atheist, and we all know how that one goes 🤷

Yes, I agree that if people are genuinely having these experiences, then there must be an explanation other than actual time travel. I’d say hallucinations are by far and away the most likely explanation but there could be some other, currently unknown/unproven cause.

It’s just a small thing but something that confuses me. I clearly remember watching ‘nigella bites’ in a flat I lived in until 1997, but it just wasn’t on then, it hadn’t been made. I remember making a couple of the things from the programme on the counter we had that was sort of between the kitchen and the living room. It’s not a big thing but it’s always confused me ever since I found out when it was made.

Have you ever heard of the Mandela effect?

No, we do know.

I've got a similar thing with TV. I was searching for a series that I couldn't remember the name of, but I had a clear recollection of watching it - specifically, where I used to sit in my living room and having my laptop on the arm of my chair playing a pinball game while watching.

When I finally tracked it down, I discovered that memory was totally false as I'd been living somewhere different the year it was on. It couldn't have been a repeat I saw - the series was 'Space Cadets' and it was heavily covered live in the media on the 'will they/won't they twig' angle which I followed avidly.

False memories are universal - we all have them. The sensible response to realising that something you remember actually couldn't be true is to understand that your brain has constructed a false memory. Most of our false memories are probably quite plausible and go undetected. It's only when something makes you think 'hang on, that can't be right' that you can catch one, as it were. There's nothing weird about it at all, it's very mundane.

The really spooky thing, I think, is how little we can trust our own brains

Of course they usually do us well enough to get by, but it's not surprising that such an enormously complex biological organ doesn't actually function anything like a man-made machine.

Oh you're so clever and witty! 🤨

I'll just point out that in Galileo's day most educated people knew that the earth was the centre of the universe.

CesareBorgia - I’m glad it’s not just me! I still
cant work it out though it’s just bizarre

My brain is a complete T**T and doesn't really represent the rest of me.

This is so true. I have proved it to myself a few times that my 'memory' is wrong and had to accept it. Memories are not recordings of what happened - they are what we experienced diluted by the number of times we revisit them and influenced by any number of other factors including suggestion, time, media etc.

I remember being at a certain house with my parents but I wasn't born then - I'd seen a photo of an older sibling there, imagined what it was like and then ran with it for years until being put right. I accidentally convinced my own child he was the star of a particular film as a baby (he was scared and I daftly said it's just you as a tiny baby) and he can "remember" filming it.

Like a pp said - memories can be implanted, they can be removed and they can be altered. Just watch Derren Brown.

That is definitely not to say that there isn't 'something else', just that trusting your own memory, deja vu experiences or dreams (let alone someone else's) as the truth is not convincing so I understand why many don't come forward.

Having said that: MUM, YOU DEFINITELY SAID LOUISE COULD STAY OVER WHEN I WAS SIX...mum said she never committed to it when she then said no, but I REMEMBER.

No, they didn't really. Also, hardly anyone ever thought the world was flat.

Just disappeared down a Bold St rabbit hole thanks to this thread 👍🏻

You're going to use Galileo as evidence for your belief in the need to prove a negative? What do you think he'd have to say about your thoughts on a Scouse time portal?

The fact that they "laughed at Galileo" isn't why he was a genius. He didn't know that the mice in teapots didn't have him in an immersive simulation his entire life.

Have you actually read any of my posts before deciding to show everyone how superior you are?

Would you care to point out where I asked anyone to prove a negative?

Or where I stated whether I believe in a scouse time portal?

Have I shown everyone I'm superior? Cool. All I was trying to show was the ridiculousness of the statement "we don't know there isn't a time portal in Liverpool". Given the state of your responses, I seem to have managed it, so that's good. Can't believe you tried to invoke Galileo of all people to lend weight to it. That was unreal.