Case of unexplained relocation and missing time

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From the Strange Company blog:

In Which Mr. Buchmann Takes An Unexpected Journey
February 21, 2022
Posted by Undine

I find this case intriguing. If this really happened, and if the explanation isn't naturalistic (for example, psychological dissociation), I wonder what are the possible paranormal theoretical frameworks for something like this?

On November 15, 1572, 50-year-old Römerswil farmer Hans Buchmann went to the Römerswil inn.  He carried with him sixteen florins, the amount of a debt he wished to repay to the inn’s owner, Hans Schurmann.  When he found that Schurmann was not there, he set out for the nearby village of Sempach in order to deal with other business matters.  When Buchmann did not return home the next day, his wife sent their two sons to find him.  The boys failed to locate their father, but on the path to Sempach, they did find Buchmann’s hat, coat, gloves, and saber.  The boys immediately came to the conclusion that a cousin named Klaus Buchmann, who had been at feud with the family for years, had murdered their father.  Klaus was interrogated by the authorities and his property searched, but found no evidence that he had been involved with the disappearance.

For four weeks, Hans’ family waited in vain for some sign of their missing relative.  Finally, news came of his whereabouts, and it was probably the last thing they were expecting: Hans was in Milan.  On February 2, 1573, Buchmann was finally returned to his family, very much the worse for wear.  His loved ones were shocked to see that he had lost all his hair, and his head was so swollen he was virtually unrecognizable. (...)

Buchmann’s story was both extremely simple and jarringly weird.  On the day before he disappeared, he went to Sempach.  He said he had very little to drink while there.  When dawn arrived, he set off for home.  As he was walking through the forest, he began hearing an odd noise.  At first, he thought it was a swarm of bees buzzing, but then it began sounding more like strange music.  He began to feel frightened and disoriented, losing the sense of where he was or what he was doing.  In his panic, he unsheathed his sword, blindly swinging it around him.  While he was lunging around, he lost his hat, coat, and gloves.  As he fell into a faint, he sensed that he was being lifted off the ground.

When he finally regained consciousness, he found himself in Milan.  Two weeks had passed.  His head was swollen and painful, and he was weak from lack of food.  As he was unfamiliar with Milan and did not speak the language, Buchmann would have been in dire straits indeed if he had not found a German-speaking guard who was willing to help him get back home.

From the Strange Company blog:

In Which Mr. Buchmann Takes An Unexpected Journey
February 21, 2022
Posted by Undine

I find this case intriguing. If this really happened, and if the explanation isn't naturalistic (for example, psychological dissociation), I wonder what are the possible paranormal theoretical frameworks for something like this?

It's hard enough with modern day cases (like the Adamski case in Todmorden I mentioned recently ), and impossible on cases from 400 odd years ago. :-) The only Römerswil on apple maps I can find is in Switzerland... about 200km from Milan as the crow flies... so I suppose he could have taken a nasty bang to the head, and walked there himself in 2 weeks?

It is weird how people can construct a narrative (buzzing, whirling around) which replaces what actually happened.

There is a great case in Cilia Green's book Apparitions, where a daughter remembers leaving her parents house, walking down the garden path, and turning left out of the garden gate, and reminding herself to be careful walking on the wet leaves as they were slippy, she continues walking some way down the street towards a friends house... then wakes up in hospital. However, from her parents perspective, they saw their daughter, turn out of the gate, slip, and fall. Rushing out of the house, they found her unconscious on the pavement, directly adjacent their garden gate. Yet the daughter distinctly remembers walking down the road, and had no memory of slipping or falling.