Whether you’re a fan of the iconic 1999 film or not, the idea that we may be living in a matrix probably sounds crazy. How could that even be possible? Well, you might change your mind after experiencing some serious déjà vu or a bizarre encounter that you just can’t explain.
Threads users have recently been sharing the strangest “glitch in the matrix” experiences they’ve ever had. From jewelry vanishing then popping up somewhere else months later to people seeing into the future, it’s clear that some things just can’t be rationalized. We hope you enjoy reading through these stories, even if you’re a bit skeptical of them, and be sure to upvote the ones that make you wonder if we might be living in a simulation!
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In the 90s, My grandma said she saw a ghost… a lady in a white dress who was crying and dropped a silk belt. She thought it was me at first; but said it couldn’t be because I was a kid and I was in bed.
In 2022. I found myself in that same bedroom, wearing a white dress, with a silk belt. I was crying. It was my wedding day. It was me. She saw me in the future.
One morning before sunrise, I had to run to the store. On my way home, I stopped at a red light. As soon as it turned green, my car shut off. I got ready to panic, but a car blew threw the red light coming from my left. If I'd gone through the intersection, we would have collided. I started my car right up & that never happened again.
When I was a teenager, I went to the thrift store and bought a floral dress. It was dated but I liked the fabric. I showed it to my mom and she had made it in 1990 to go to my dad's company picnic. She donated it shortly afterwards, so it had been circulating through thrift stores since the year that I was born.
As ridiculous as it may sound, some people believe that it’s actually possible we may be living in a simulation. Just ask MIT computer scientist Rizwan Virk. He wrote a piece for Fast Company where he claims that the rapid advancement of Artificial Intelligence actually supports the idea that we’re living in a matrix. Because of this, Virk believes with 70% certainty that our world is a simulation.
“In the past few years, the rise of generative AI like ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, and X’s Grok has proceeded rapidly,” Virk writes. “We now have not just AI, which has passed the Turing Test, but we already have rudimentary AI characters living in the virtual world with whom we can interact.”
I had tickets to see Motörhead in Austin. Had to miss the show to fly home for my mom's funeral.
I got off the flight, alone in the Charlotte airport, and thought to myself "I could really use some Motörhead right now."
Reached into my carry-on, to fish out my iPod as I walked, and recognized something out of the corner of my eye. I turned to look and Lemmy was standing 5 feet away from me. I guess they had just played Charlotte and were on their way to the show I had to miss.
Shook his hand.
My aunt sent me a birthday gift in the mail when my mom and I lived in a different state. The package never came. About 15 years later when I was about to finish high school living with this same aunt, the package she sent all those years ago came back to her front door ‘return to sender’. There was a coloring book and a little outfit and some other things, but I eventually got my birthday gift.
The tennis bracelet my dad got me for graduation was missing for about 10yrs and then one random day it showed up on the patio outside the door at my step dad's house after he [passed away].
Virk believes that because of how rapidly AI technology has advanced, we’re getting increasingly closer to the “simulation point.” According to Virk, this is a theoretical point where the virtual worlds we create become indistinguishable from reality. When this happens, AI beings will also be indistinguishable from biological beings.
“In short, when we reach the simulation point, we would be capable of building something like the Matrix ourselves, complete with realistic landscapes, avatars and AI characters,” he explains.
I was out with the future grandparent shopping for baby stuff a LONG way from home. I met a doula she gave me her card.
Next day I wasn't well and called dr. They said to go to nearest hospital asap. Before mobile/cell phones. I had no way to reach anyone. Doula card in back pocket. Called and she was there already. Stayed with me 5 days in ICU with eclampsia.
Looked after the 15th old in hospital as well. Called to thank weeks later. She did not exist. I still have her card 27y later.
I flew to Bali wearing my favorite earrings. Took them off, left them on the nightstand, and by morning they were gone. Searched everywhere.. nothing.
Three months later, back home in the US, I opened my jewelry box, saw the case, assumed it was empty… opened it, and my earrings were inside.
How do you explain that?
Once at a music festival, I made this specific kandi... Very specific phrase, color combo & beads, and left it on the leave one, take one table in the campgrounds. My husband had no idea I made it or left it there, and the day we got home, my husband showed me the kandi someone traded to him and it was the same one I made and left at that table. 30000 people were at that festival that year, any of whom could have kept it, but the total stranger who found it ended up trading it to my husband.
But not everyone believes that we may be living in a simulation. Some physicists say there’s simply no way that the nature of reality could be created on any computer.
“If such a simulation were possible, the simulated universe could itself give rise to life, which in turn might create its own simulation,” Professor Mir Faizal from the University of British Columbia Okanagan says.
However, Faizal does not believe that this is the case. “It is impossible to describe all aspects of physical reality using a computational theory of quantum gravity,” he explained. “Therefore, no physically complete and consistent theory of everything can be derived from computation alone.”
On our 10th anniversary, my then husband upgraded my wedding ring to a beautiful Claddagh with an emerald. Unfortunately, a short time later, we decided to divorce. On the day he left my BFF took me to a beach and I threw the ring in the ocean. 5 years later, I found it in a box in the garage.
Are you sure you threw out the same ring? You said there was two, and I'm sure you were in an emotional state when you threw out one of them.
I think I made someone questioned reality. My apartment was on the 2nd floor and I usually took the stairs down. When I went down, there was this guy sitting on the stairs. He glanced at me as I walked passed him and I went to my car (out of his view). Suddenly realized I forgot something, instead of turning back on the stairs, I took the lift up, then came down the stairs again. The same guy was still there. When he saw me again, he looked completely shocked, like "didn't you just pass me?"
We had an aquarium with a few fish, including five Neon Tetras. One day, all five vanished without a trace. We completely emptied the tank, scrubbed every decoration, and deep-cleaned the filter, searching for any sign of them, but we found nothing. We eventually refilled the aquarium and put the other fish back in. A few days later, the five Neon Tetras were suddenly back in the tank, swimming as if nothing had happened.
Are these stories making you wonder whether or not we’re currently living in a simulation, pandas? Keep upvoting the ones that blow your mind, and let us know in the comments below if you’ve ever experienced anything similarly perplexing. Then, if you’re interested in checking out another article from Bored Panda featuring similar tales, look no further than right here!
I lost twin boys at 22 weeks (born Jan 7 and they passed Jan 8). They both had very unique names. Years later my son was playing with a new friend. The little boys first name was one of my son's names. I asked his middle name and it was my second son's name (again-not popular names). I broke down crying. What are the odds that my son found a friend that had both my son's names?
I lost my GoPro on a hike. Tore my (small) backpack apart. Examined the entire rental car. Nada. Bummer. I grieve, I accept, I move on.
Days later, I pull up to a new trailhead. Toss my backpack on the front seat. Tie my hair, put on sunscreen, tie my shoes, go to grab my backpack -- the GoPro is *sitting on top of the backpack I had just tossed.
Still can't figure that one out.
I made a joke to a friend about switching timelines and he mentioned that I had seemed different recently. We went to coffee and I asked him why he wasn't wearing his wedding ring. He said he needed to get a new one because the titanium ring had been digging into his finger. My brain stopped for a second. Because, that was the reason he had gotten rid of his titanium ring...over 8 years earlier. He had been wearing a gray silicon ring for years.
My mom [passed] in 1994 in Alabama. In 1996 i moved to Georgia and was at my dads house and it was their anniversary and my dad sat down to read an old book he had and a piece of paper fell out of the book said 'I Love You' And had my mom's name on it.
My friends and I stopped for fish and chips and were standing at the counter ordering when my mind filled with the image of a car ploughing through the deep fryer not more than 2 meters from us. Screamed at my friends to get out of the shop and pushed them onto the footpath within seconds of a car ramming through the side of the shop straight into the deep fryer. 2 staff [passed].
I saw my now husband sitting outside a bar when we were first dating. I called him because he was supposed to be at work. He was very confused and sent me a video of him very much at work.
Saw the same dude a couple of times when I was with husband, and they look alarmingly alike.
My remote fell from my kitchen bar INTO my sink. My daughter and I both watched it happen. We never saw it again, dug around the garbage disposal, cleaned everything out. It was completely gone.
I have this thing when I will casually mention something or someone I haven't seen in years, and then like the next day something related do that will happen, or that person will show up at a random place I'll happen to be.
This happens a lot.
My mom lost her class ring boarding a train.. 3/4 years later boarding the same train, at the same station and time as when she lost it, she looked down and her ring was shining in the gravel between the tracks. She picked it up and sure enough had her name and class year engraved in it.
I had a green jeep for over two years. Then one day I went with my gf at the time to this shady buy-n-sell store so that she could get a used CD player. When we came back out I look around the very small parking lot "where's my Jeep?" She points at a black jeep that looks nothing like mine. After several "no my Jeep is green" / "no you have a black Jeep". I check my key. I open the door and all my stuff is there. It's my jeep, but the completely wrong color somehow.
I don't know if this counts but when I was little, we were moving and had to give a cat away. We drove out to a home with huge property owned by a friend of my parents and said goodbye, cried, promised we'd visit. The next morning, moving day, my dad was outside getting the U-Haul ready and my cat came trotting up the road and back to the house. He had to cover about ten miles to get back to us. He was thirsty but totally fine. We took him with us and he lived a long life. His name was Phoenix.
There are many family photos from the 90s with two cats and we only ever had one cat. Not a single member of my family remembers the second cat.
I sobbed uncontrollably for what I thought was no reason one night at my mom's house. I could not explain the grief that took over me. Hysterical, curled up in a fetal position, gasping for air, felt like my heart was being ripped out, sobbing.
By the time I calmed down, my cousin called & said our grandmother had passed and the doctors had been trying to resuscitate her for a half hour. I think my soul felt her transitioning. Still makes me tear up when I think about it.
I lost my car keys. Looked for them for an hour then used the spare keys. Came back and searched again.. couldn't find them for 3 days. Went out to walk the 3rd day. Came back and found them where I normally put my keys RIGHT NEXT TO THE SPARE KEYS !!!. I have not been able to get over this.
Put on a jacket you don't normally wear, go for a drive, hang the jacket in the wardrobe with the key in the pocket. Forget that you used that jacket when searching for key. When going for a walk, wear same jacket. When putting it on you feel something in the pocket, pick out the key, hang it in it's place without thinking and go for walk. Come back home, find key in right place.
For my birthday I had been gifted my great grandmothers ring. On that birthday I decided to wear it to dinner as I cherished that ring and I wanted to honor her. After coming home that evening, I took the ring off and put it on by side table in a specific ring holder. In the morning it was missing. I tore my bedroom and house apart looking for it. 5 years later I went to my childhood home to open up a safe that hadn't been opened in 10 years by anyone. It was sitting in a ring box in the safe.
When my husband and I were settling into our new home, I wanted art for the walls. I found a painting I loved online, and looked at it a million times before deciding it was more money than I could responsibly spend.
A year later, we were on a vacation to Montreal. Randomly, I started to think about that painting. "Remember that painting I wanted? I wish I had bought it."
We stumbled upon an art festival like five minutes later. Guess what original, one of a kind, painting was there?
My younger sister passed after a long battle with cancer. That night I was in bed sleeping. I heard my sister. Shuffling down the hallway making noise. It's very distinct because she couldn't talk. I jumped up. Got out of bed. Threw my bedroom door open. It was the middle of the night. Everyone was asleep. I walked down the hallway. In the living room, my dad was laying on the couch. "Did you hear that?" I didn't mention my sister. He said, "Yeah, I heard your sister." 9 months later he passed.
I had this really bad cyst and ended up going to the hospital. They operated on me the next day to remove it.
A few days after the surgery, I met up with my dad. I hadn’t seen him in almost 10 years, but we’d only just started talking again a few months before all this. He lives in another country, but he came over to see me.
While we were talking, I found out something that honestly freaked me out a bit.
He’d had the exact same thing…same kind of cyst, same symptoms, same operation, just on the opposite side.
But the weirdest part is that the day his cyst showed up… was the exact same day mine did.
When my sister and I were teens, we were talking with some friends about dreams. I described my recurring dream. My sister had experienced that same dream. Chills.
(It was that the basement storage room in our house opened into a beach restaurant. We described the same decor. Mind you, we lived in a landlocked province!)
Last month i was in my car leaving out of my apt complex. as i was driving to the exit, i see a car pulling in that is the EXACT same make, model, year, color as mine (white 2013 VW CC), even had tinted windows like mine (couldn't see the interior). Had never seen that car before then & haven't seen it since.
Most car models don't change all that much within the span of a few years. The CC got a makeover in 2012 and VW didn't change anything on the model after that, and it was discontinued in 2016/2017. So, while OP did probably see another white VW CC with tinted windows, there's usually no way to immediately know the exact model year of a car just by looking at it. It's unlikely it was a 2013. I have a 2001 VW Eurovan (T4), and it looks exactly the same as a 1999, 2000, 2002, and 2003 VW Eurovan.
Everytime, I think of something, whatever it was that I was thinking about, will always pop up on my news feed. It's super scary. It's almost as if there's a chip in my brain that my phone is connected to. It really freaks me out.
I was putting together orders for my business in 2020…I went to a dollar store to get a few packing items including bubble wrap. I got everything but that and as I was walking up to my car I said “shoot, I forgot the bubble wrap” and as I walk up to my car door, some bubble wrap rolled by my feet out of nowhere.
I was getting on the freeway and noticed a huge pothole, attempting to avoid it, i swerved but lost control of the car and went spinning across all 4 lanes, it was around 4pm on a weekday so I was bracing myself to get hit. When I finally got control of the car, I looked over expecting to see a bunch of cars about to hit me, but there were NO CARS, when I straightened out the car and kept driving, I looked in my rearview and all the traffic was there as normal.
I had a purple pyrex dish I would use when I had to make desserts or whatever for gatherings. It was my sister's, and I inherited it after she passed away.
This past Christmas season, I was making a dessert, and I pull out the pyrex dish, and it is BLUE. My brain glitches, I remember it being purple. Look in the cabinet, no purple dish, only clear ones. My brain hurt, lol.
A month later, I pull out the dish, and it's purple. No blue dish anywhere.
My youngest brother [passed] in May 2025. In life he was a big practical joker. Loved to hide stuff. Mum lost her glasses. Looked everywhere, I finally got some readers from the chemist for her. Next day, I go into the laundry, look on the floor, there are her glasses! They were pushed back into a corner that you couldn't walk past. Next day, watering the plants, there is her other pair of glasses! Sitting in the middle of her ivy plant.
I’m from Oklahoma. I lost a ring in Colorado. It was not ANYWHERE in my luggage, asked my dad and aunt to both search my luggage after me just to make sure. Nothing.
A year later, in Oklahoma, my childhood friend’s older sister shows up at our door, holding the ring, asking if it’s mine because she recognized it. It had the same zigzag scratch on the band. No idea how she came to find it.
I was driving on a U-turn road when a huge truck nearly hit me, it felt like it could've been the end. I closed my eyes, and in a split second, I found myself back at the exact spot I was in about three minutes before reaching the U-turn.
I saw my ex's mother lying in her bed with a oxygen mask on and her eyes were tearing up. She looked devastated and her eyes were so blue it shocked me. She said nothing. I went outside and told my ex that she was home, she usually was at work during the day. He said her car's not here. We went in and none was there in the bed not anywhere in the apt. She was diagnosed a week later with terminal pancreatic cancer. She [passed away] two months later in hospice. Idk why I saw that. I was sober.
I once saw someone who was dressed exactly like me at a fair, right down to same hair and beard. Same sneakers, same hat, same everything. Same height, same basic profile, same everything. I would not say the face was identical, but we were both wearing sunglasses so it would have been hard to tell. When he caught me staring, he made the "shhh" gesture and literally ran away. I never saw him again.
I was in a restaurant in Senegal with my sister. A guy came in close to the end of our dinner, acting weird. We felt threatened so paid and left quickly. Once back at our hotel, I realized that in the rush, I forgot my favorite cardigan, that I ALWAYS wore, on the back of my chair. (I took it off earlier in the dinner.) I was devastated but we couldn't go back, as we were leaving early the next day. The next morning I unzipped my suitcase to pack. My favorite cardigan was nestled deep inside it.
I went on a trip to Houston and I brought my AirPods with me (i live in nj). On my last day as I'm cleaning up, I couldn't find my AirPods anywhere. So I had to get on the plane with no airpods or headphones. when i arrived back at my apartment, a pair of airpods were sitting on my kitchen counter. I've never been able to reasonably explain that occurrence. I only ever bought one pair and I lived alone at the time. But I had them on the way because I used them on the plane departing.
This happened three weeks ago. I was running at a local beauty spot, and a guy in a black cap walked past. Turned the corner and two minutes later he was there on the path ahead of me.
Unless they were twins wearing identical outfits, there was no way he could have gone from A to B in that time without doing a 2 mile walk. Proper glitch in the matrix.
I had a dream that myself and a friend were in bed under the covers - her at one end, me at the other. And we were both reading books. I told her about it and we laughed.
A few years later we ended up dating. Well, one night we found ourselves in bed, sitting at opposite ends, both reading.
And at that moment we both looked at each other like, "Hey!"
Once I turned down a road I've never been down in my home town I drove around for 5 minutes looking at all the nice houses saying "man I didn't know we had houses this big in my town" that was a year ago. I can't find the road again til this day.
When I was about 8-9 my mom came home from work one night telling us that she gave a young girl a ride home, who was hitch hiking in the rain. The next day we were getting in the car and my mom realized the girl left her sweater. So we drove to the house my mom says she dropped her off. She got out of the car, and knocked on the door. She gave them the sweater and returned to the car pale. She got in and just sat there for like a solid 2 mins just staring at the wheel.
I was a kid so I didn’t think much of it. A few days later, I overheard my mom telling my aunt the story over the phone, and she said that when she knocked on the door to return the sweater, the girls mother said that yes, that was indeed the girls sweater. But the girl had [passed away] a few years ago on that same road. My mom won’t talk about it, but when I bring it up she gets all pale the same way she did that day.
Theres this certain part of town i drive thru going home from work and there is this man who is always walking down the street every time i pass thru he is there walking. Then last week i stopped by a friends house and there he was walking down the street right in front of my friends house. Its so weird.
Hiking in the Columbia Gorge, a friend who is closer to the veil than most of us walked over a rock with shrubs on either side. Called back, “I smell cigarettes & perfume. Either or your grandma’s smoke?”
Mine did when I was really little. Stopped me cold.
Later she turns to me, “grandma’s back!” and I walked right through the scent of cigarettes and my grandma’s perfume. It happened at a time when I was completely falling apart & wished she was still alive.
A few days after my hysterectomy, my glasses disappeared. I figured they’d fallen off my nightstand. We moved the bed and nightstand, checked behind the mattress, moved everything on that side of the room...no dice. I gave up, recovering from surgery and too tired for this nonsense, and repurchased them.
3 months later I am under my bed looking for something else, and what’s sitting there right at the edge between bed and nightstand as if placed there for me to find? My glasses.
There was this MASSIVE thunderstorm and my moms boyfriend at the time was blasting music so loud - out of nowhere I start screaming at him to turn it off, he finally turned it off and seconds later a bolt of lightning hit my moms tree. It fried the other speakers that were plugged in.
I dropped an earring and it truly looked like it vanished. I hunted everywhere I thought it fell and couldn’t find it. They were ones I’d bought on a special trip and I was heartbroken.
The next day I picked up a pair of black leggings that had been on a table next to where I dropped the earrings—and the earrings fell out!
Maybe they bounced off the chair, but that was a weird trajectory for them to have taken!
I was with a friend who had a pair of sunglasses on her head. We got into an uber, and suddenly she realized she had TWO of the EXACT same pair of glasses on her head. She had randomly thrifted these glasses a while before this. We have a photo of her moments before with just one pair…I think about this weekly tbh.
One day while tanning at home I took off my necklace so it wouldn't leave a mark on my chest. This was a very special necklace. I specifically sat it where it wouldn't get lost. I searched for several days and never found it. About a year later long after I moved to a different place I was at my aunts house one day and she said do u know who's necklace this is? It was my lost necklace.
A funny one that happened: I was watching TV with my husband and we got an ad for Pampers. I was joking with him like, “Why do I keep getting these ads? What am I a big baby?” And the very next ad was, I kid you not, for adult diapers. As if the universe was joking back with me.
I once turned left onto a street in the local university area and came across buildings and sidewalks I had never seen before. I turned around and got out and then home. I tried to find it again layered and to no avail.
Looked all over the house for a hand-sized particular item, specifically under the couch several times. I even moved the couch around. Tossed the entire loving room looking for it. Searched my other room. Traced my steps outside. 3 weeks later why was that thing I was looking for underneath the couch where i was sitting.
Two months ago, I took off a ring that my grandmother had given to me before she passed and I placed it in my cup holder in my car. I then went to the car wash the next day and, when vacuuming, heard the dreaded sound as the ring was sucked up… I left my information with the car wash for them to notify me if they happed to find it when emptying their debris bins at the end of the night but never got a call… I resolved that the only heirloom I had inherited from her was gone. Fast forward to a few days ago, I decided to switch up my usual rotation of earrings so I went to my jewelry box that I never really go in to and my grandmothers ring is front and center, safely nestled in the ring slot.
Always put my ruby, heirloom earrings in the linen closet when I was going out of town. Went to get them one time and they were gone! Like take everything out of that closet gone. About a year or so later I was packing to move and those earrings were on the floor in that closet.
My husband worked a job where he couldn’t wear his wedding ring and early on, he would take it off and then put it back on when he was driving home. One night he went to put it back on and couldn’t find it anywhere. Searched for days, tore the car apart and it was gone. I found it under our hamper in our bathroom closet 8 months later.
Happened yesterday. I was shopping in a CVS. I saw the same man... looked like a Texan straight off the set of a Paramount+ show. I saw him in every aisle I went down even if I had just left him in another aisle. When I checked out he was two people behind me in line. I finished my purchase and walked outside to my car where he was walking towards me in the parking lot. I left that man in line behind me in CVS.
I didn't even question it. I've seen too much in this life already.
I dreamt of some glyphs and the next day I draw them on a chalkboard. A day after that, I found a piece of paper on the street with the exact same glyphs.
Once I was walking in a park with my girlfriend and, out of nowhere, I thought about a friend of a friend. I asked her, "What was that guy's name again? Oh yeah... Isaul!"
Right after I said it, the actual guy turned around next to me looking confused, and said "Hey, what's up!"
Decades ago I was babysitting for our neighbors. The kids were asleep. I was thirsty so I went into the kitchen for a glass of water. I was NOWHERE near the sink when the faucet suddenly turned on, then the handle switched from the hot side over to the cold side. To say that I was flabbergasted is an understatement! After I had filled my glass with water I said "Thank you for your help" to the faucet and then turned the water off.
One time we couldn’t find my ex’s phone and so I called it and we could hear it ringing in the car but we still couldn’t find it and then we got home and it was on our bed.
I got in a rollover car crash in 2015. Another car hit me, my brakes went out, I fishtailed and then started flipping. We were on the freeway so I was flipping through the air fast—towards oncoming traffic. I somehow walked away from that wreck mostly unscathed. A witness who saw the crash gave his statement to the police and said, “it was weird. Her car was flying through the air towards oncoming traffic and then it’s like it hit a wall. It just stopped mid air.”
I was at work and I could’ve sworn the customer was supposed to pay $40 after the job was done (it was on my screen). Lo and behold, as soon as the job gets finished and I refresh the page to post the new update, the customer pay turns to $0. I thought the client team had edited it but I checked and there were no history or records!!! It was crazy. I thought I was insane and no one even seemed to believe me.
About a year ago I was driving home. It was maybe 1PM. I’d made this drive on I405 thru Bellevue HUNDREDS of times. I drove SB thru downtown Bellevue approaching Factoria (south of downtown Bellevue) and instead passing thru Factoria I somehow found myself driving right back thru the stretch of downtown Bellevue I’d just driven thru. I FREAKED. Called my wife spooked cuz I was listening to my local sports station and that conversation was still cohesive. It didn’t skip but somehow my drive did.
My cousin picked me up & when I got in his car, he was playing the same song I listened to right before leaving out.
I have a towel with sharks on it. ONE towel with sharks on it. But every time I find it, the thing is either brand new or falling apart. It switches constantly and I know we only bought one like 12 years ago.
Some of these are kind of wild, but most of them seem to be nothing but weird coincidences. I'm a believer in the supernatural, but these just weren't the spooky and interesting stories I was expecting.
Some of these are kind of wild, but most of them seem to be nothing but weird coincidences. I'm a believer in the supernatural, but these just weren't the spooky and interesting stories I was expecting.
