People Describe Surreal Experiences When They Wondered If They Were In A Movie

Life is a montage of coincidences that can often resemble a movie.

Perhaps that's why they say "life imitates art."

Surreal moments are a part of our everyday.

Who hasn't been walking along and been caught in a moment that's been lived already?

We all have those stories of "nobody could even write or act in this situation!"

Redditor risqumetapepsis58 wanted to hear our best real-life cinema moments, so they asked:

"What’s the most surreal experience you’ve had that made you question if you were living in a video game or a movie?"

WTF

"The feeling that you get that feels 'Wait, I saw this already,' and then you know what will happen in the next minute or so, and it actually happens like it was programmed to be that way."

- AstronautOnly8832

Whats Going On What GIF by ABC NetworkGiphy

Pitch Black

"I worked in a shop with no windows, felt a big urge to sneeze, and in a split second I closed my eyes during the sneeze, the power went out, plunging the entire shop into pitch-black darkness. Absolutely freaked me out as I thought I had gone blind or died."

- grottos

"Similar but worse. In the early 2000’s the local pool would put on all-age pool parties. It wouldn’t fly now, just a heap of teenagers drunk at a pool/skatepark. I jumped off the diving board. The power went out before I opened my eyes underwater. I legitimately thought I must have died and was experiencing some sort of post-death clarity. I remember swimming up towards the surface in pure angelic bliss. Reality hit when I surfaced, but for that brief moment, I believed I had died, and I was super calm about it."

- ialwaysgetthat

In the Dream

"For a time as a child, about 25 years ago, I lived with my Grandmother, and in those years I kept having this recurring dream. Probably about 6 times. In the dream, I am standing on the steps of a church in my hometown, and it's snowing heavily, and the sun is setting. I am overcome by this intense feeling of dread as if I am witnessing the end of the world. It jolts me awake. I dubbed it my apocalypse dream years later."

"Cut to late afternoon, January 2024, and I find myself on the steps of that same church, having just walked out of my Grandmother's funeral, and a heavy snow starts. The emotional impact of being in that moment is still following me. It didn't feel real."

- The_Gorn_Identity

Glitched

"I sat on a bus looking outside and saw what looked like a person walking, but their walking animation was stuck. It was as if they were gliding across the floor with one foot in front of another. I thought I was experiencing a glitch in the matrix."

"I told my friend about it and he explained to me what Heelys shoes are..."

- Visual-Elderberry835

In Idaho

"One of the strangest things I’ve encountered was being recognized later in life by a former babysitter that knew me only from when I was a 4-5 year old."

"Now, that isn’t all that odd is it?"

"But, consider that she used to babysit me only periodically when I was about 4-5 years old when I lived briefly in Idaho, then we moved away and there was no further contact. But, here is where it gets weird: She stopped me – many years later - in a café in GERMANY and asked if I was “little Sammy.'

"Tripped me out!"

- stypwisa

Black Shapes

"An antipsychotic med I was put on made me hallucinate really badly for the few months I was on it. I'd open cupboards or doors and there'd be this pure white face with wild wide eyes, no nose, and no lips smiling at me like a Cheshire cat, or these big black fluffy balls like giant Soot Sprites would come running up to me really fast from the side, or 'people' that were just black shapes would reach across tables and benches and try to grab me by the arms. I freaking hated that stuff."

- LadyMelmo

Cabo de Gata, Spain

"I was at the beach with my girlfriend and sister in Cabo de Gata, Spain. It was windy, red flags were up. Suddenly, people started asking for help... some kids got trapped in a rip current. A couple of gentlemen jump in, the kids come out, only one guy with them. At this point I have also reached the seashore, I can see the other man swimming, he seems calm. There's a huge rock in the middle of the beach, this all happened to the right of it and the guy is swimming towards the left."

"I decided to go to the left side of the rock through the very rocky beachside. I can see him, he's probably just 10 meters away from me, but it's too rocky to do anything. I go back to the shore looking for a way in farther from the rocks. I'm almost completely in and just don't see him anymore, I stop. My girlfriend is screaming her guts out asking for me not to go in, so I go back. We never saw him again.."

"His family was just a couple of towels from us. Two 11- and 14-year-old girls, his wife, and his mother. My sister is a psychologist and tries to contain the trauma, at least way better than the emergency services did. Later in the afternoon, I found a local newspaper article, they found his body a couple of km away with severe head trauma from the rocks."

Picture of the location

- vamphorse

Passing through Kentucky

"Almost 30 years ago I was doing a bike trip, riding from OH to NC. I was passing through Kentucky and had finished an unpleasant stretch of roads and people that pretty much represented the worst that Kentucky had to offer. Had my eye on a campground on the map and took a turn off the road onto a tree-lined road and EVERYTHING after that was out of a dream. It was like the Willoughby episode of The Twilight Zone."

"I think the area was called Wartburg, which sounds ugly and utterly contrasted with where I had come through which was the beautiful sounding but terrible Somerset."

"Anyway, this dream state lasted for the entire time I was there. Perfect campsite, incredibly welcoming, and interesting ranger. I was seriously starting to think that I had been hit and killed and this was my afterlife."

- NamasteMotherf**ker

Three Times

"In college - living in a dorm - had a dream that I was asleep in my dorm having a dream - I literally had to wake up three times, I was genuinely confused if I was actually awake the third time - I actually slapped myself as I was that unsure. I might still be asleep... lol."

- Mr_IsLand

Waking Up Nightmare GIF by Adult SwimGiphy

Drift

"As a 19-year-old menace in Sweden, circa 2008, I often went out when the roads were wet to drift and powerslide my 116 bhp Volvo 240. I came up towards a quite acute 90-degree left turn in my town, dumped the clutch turned a bit right in second gear to put up a little Scandinavian flick, to then 'drift' the left-hander. As I've done many times before in this turn."

"However, always trying to improve I came in a bit hot, and when shifting to the left-hand slide I get completely sideways, just gliding towards the end of the metal barrier, seeing that I'm going to hit this with my rear wheel/rear quarter panel."

"A huge impact, the rear of the car gets off the ground completely from the impact and I'm thinking that my then ~500 dollar car now is totaled. I quickly drive away to avoid attention as this is in a residential area and pull over a few hundred meters away to inspect the damages."

"NOTHING. I see no damage at all. There was a huge impact, a loud crash and I don't see a scratch."

"I stand there for a solid minute wondering what kind of a simulation or dream I'm in when I finally see that my tow hitch has shifted some 20cm to the left. It took the whole impact, and I've missed the metal railing by less than an inch. But before I saw this, I thought I was losing it my mind."

- DoWah

When You're High

"One caveat. I was high AF at the time on pain meds while recovering from orthopedic surgery. NONETHELESS, the surgeon and the attending nurses would come into my room twice a day to confer on my recovery. I remember clearly that during one visit I knew exactly (verbatim) what the doctor and nurses were going to say before they said it. It was like watching a movie where you knew the script by heart. I thought to myself."

"Okay, now he’s going to say this. Then, I would turn toward the nurse and say to myself, Okay, now she will say this. The whole time they met, I just laid there with a dumb smile on my face, thinking this has already happened, and I’m just watching the re-run. Very freaky event."

- Swanthon

Warped

"Being in a situation where time seems to slow down or speed up inexplicably, creating a sense of being in a cinematic time warp."

- uncle-fatty786

Norm Macdonald Comedy GIF by Luis RicardoGiphy

Tripped

"A long time ago, when I was taking regular doses of acid (LSD). One night after tripping I fell asleep, and when I woke up the world was dead. I walked outside and there was nothing. No cars, no people, no trains/planes. To add to the quiet there was a thin coating of reddish dust or sand over everything. Cars, houses, trees/bushes. Everything. It didn’t stick so you could brush it off with your finger/hand or dust pan and broom. It was about 2mm thick."

- whiskeyx

4 AM

"I ran into this lady at the strip club one night after only having met her once before. We got to talking and were completely enthralled by the laundry list of oddities, coincidences, and breaks from the routine that didn't usually happen but did that specific night for us to be there alone at the same time. We stayed up until 4 am talking about how weird it was that we met up."

"It was the closest I'd ever felt to believing in some other force having an influence on the world."

- DullProfession

You Hear Me?

"About a year ago I was driving along listening to the radio. There was a longer-than-usual pause between the two songs. I sneezed and the broadcaster immediately said 'Bless you' and returned to the music."

- SoftRose28

snow white and the seven dwarfs sneezing GIF by DisneyGiphy

Just Life

"Too many coincidences, happening all the time. Just the odds of being born a human into this modern world filled with the magic of flowing electrons and switch gates. I think the whole thing, to be considered as just the way it happened, is ridiculous so this must be a setup of some kind."

- EarthDwellant

It's always about coincidence.

Or is it destiny? We'll really never know.

Life is a jumble of mystery that the movies reveal.