Doug's anomalous experiences

@Doug

What a great story, thanks for posting it ! Worthy of publication, IMHO (Fate magazine?). That's an eventful life you must have had...black jack dealer having to deal with drunken bums and "jerks" (as you put it) all the time. Was it just a coincidence that the bulb exploded at the exact crescendo of your anger ? Probably not  

Thanks Doug that's very interesting. I suspect it may be more common than is thought. 

I remember reading about a person who was attempting to establish whether they had had contact from a deceased relative or friend. At one point, in an emotional outburst they shouted "I need clear cut evidence" and immediately a glass paper weight in front of them on their desk split cleanly into two. Subsequent analysis could not determine the cause other than that it was not caused by the application of physical contact. Interesting no?

I believe Jung reported it during an evening spent with Freud (As I remember) discussing that very phenomenon...right on cue there was a loud rapport and the top of Jung's oak sideboard split (which was impossible so he said)

Thanks Doug that's very interesting. I suspect it may be more common than is thought. 

I remember reading about a person who was attempting to establish whether they had had contact from a deceased relative or friend. At one point, in an emotional outburst they shouted "I need clear cut evidence" and immediately a glass paper weight in front of them on their desk split cleanly into two. Subsequent analysis could not determine the cause other than that it was not caused by the application of physical contact. Interesting no?

Thank you for this account, Obiwan! It's short and very much to the point.

Something similar happened to a friend of my brother's. For some reason, this friend arrived at another friend's house in a real pique. I can't recall him explaining to me why he was so angry, but the group of guys sitting around the table in the friend's house didn't seem receptive to his pain. I think that might have enraged him further, because he suddenly jabbed his finger at a glass ashtray on the table and announced he was going to break it. In a burst of anger right afterward, the ashtray broke loudly into two or three pieces.

Yes, emotional states seem to play a big role in psi phenomena, especially of the spontaneous PK variety. Psychology seems to be all important in explaining such phenomena, in that it deals with the question, "why did this happen" rather than "how did this happen". In an idealist reality, I think that approach has more explanatory power than some curious collection of physics equations that are themselves disputed by most physicists.

I believe Jung reported it during an evening spent with Freud (As I remember) discussing that very phenomenon...right on cue there was a loud rapport and the top of Jung's oak sideboard split (which was impossible so he said)

tim, my currently scheduled 6th account (titled "Bookcase") deals with a very similar phenomenon, and as an aside, I reference Freud and Jung's appraisals therein.

Thanks Doug that's very interesting. I suspect it may be more common than is thought. 

I remember reading about a person who was attempting to establish whether they had had contact from a deceased relative or friend. At one point, in an emotional outburst they shouted "I need clear cut evidence" and immediately a glass paper weight in front of them on their desk split cleanly into two. Subsequent analysis could not determine the cause other than that it was not caused by the application of physical contact. Interesting no?

What I like about this incident too is the wordplay, the phrase "clear cut" being illustrated by an object which was itself clear, then being cut. I notice a lot of dreams include a play on words, an event or an object being an expression of a phrase or idea, maybe using a rhyme like some dreadful pun. Sometimes I think the dreamworld and our waking lives are more alike than not. I tend to find symbols in dreams, and interpret some relevant meaning from them, and in everyday life I find things express themselves in dream-symbology too. I've been doing this for so long that it comes naturally to me, but I don't talk about it because to most people it makes me seem that I've lost the plot (I think I've found it).

tim, my currently scheduled 6th account (titled "Bookcase") deals with a very similar phenomenon, and as an aside, I reference Freud and Jung's appraisals therein.

I look forward to it, Doug ! I just checked the Jung story (above that I quoted from memory) There was a loud rap (two in fact) but it doesn't mention the split in it. I might have read that outside of his autobiography.

03 - Doorknob (1/2)

Although the phenomenon observed in this incident can be classified as being a non-standard example of PK, it is probably best described as an example of MMI, or mind/matter interaction. It took place in Las Vegas on Wednesday, July 17th, 2007. I know this because I emailed a friend with the details shortly after the incident, and I've been able to reread that email to get the date and other details.

At the time I was living in southern California, earning an income as a professional gambler. I played video gambling machines in the local tribal casinos for very large progressive jackpots (compared to relatively miniscule ones in Las Vegas).

It happened that a  long-time friend of mine, J, died of liver cancer in a Toronto hospital, and some family members and a best friend were flying in from Britain and Shanghai to help his sister clean out his apartment in Las Vegas. Most of them were to assemble in Toronto, then fly together down to Las Vegas. I was informed of the death in late June, and resolved to drive back to Las Vegas to help out. I suffered from pretty severe chronic fatigue, and wasn't looking forward to the trip, but it was something I had to do to honor my departed friend. What lightened the burden a bit was that I already knew my friend's older brother and his best friend. I got along well with both of them, and looked forward to seeing them again.

I arrived on July 13, and went right to work sorting through my departed friend's belongings, alongside his family members and friend. I was also able to show up for the next three days before exhaustion forced me to take a couple of days off to rest.

I stayed with my stepfather in my parents' house, sleeping in my bedroom there. At about 11 AM on the morning in question, I woke up for the third and final time. I really hadn't slept much during the last 45 minutes, yet I felt totally brain dead as I stumbled toward the door in the dark room, on my way to the bathroom for the third time. I wasn't looking forward to the new day, even though my plan had been to stay home and rest.

As I opened the bedroom door, it swung inward about a foot before the doorknob suddenly detached itself from the door! I stood there, momentarily dumbfounded as I held the knob in my hand. Then I swore to myself because I thought the long mounting screws that held the doorknob in place must have corroded away. Or worse, perhaps the holes in the knob's round trim (also called "rosette") had corroded to the point where they were too large for the screw heads to hold them. As exhausted as I was, I would have to go to Walmart or Home Depot to get some screws or try to find another doorknob set that matched the now useless one in my hand. I wasn't at all happy at the prospect, because I was looking forward to a full day's rest.

I set the doorknob on a small bookcase near the bedroom's entrance and went out to the bathroom. Then I got myself a Diet Coke from the refrigerator and went outside to smoke and read the newspaper. I didn't think about the doorknob until about an hour later when I casually told E (my stepfather) what had happened. I then spent some time on his computer, going outside every so often to smoke. Another hour might have passed when he told me he'd looked at my bedroom door and didn't see the problem I spoke about. He mistakenly thought I'd said the hole in the door that accommodated the doorknob assembly had somehow enlarged itself so that I'd pulled the whole knob assembly through the door as I opened it. He saw the outside doorknob was still in place and was therefore confused.

Some time after this conversation I retrieved both halves of the doorknob assembly and laid them on the kitchen table, where E and I could inspect them under the bright kitchen light. I recall pointing out to him that there was a bit of dirt in the drive slots of one of the mounting screws attached to the outside knob. (I'd looked at the screw heads while carrying the doorknobs down the hall.) I should also add that it had occurred to me earlier, while sitting outside, that the doorknob, and probably the screws, were made of brass (or plated with it), and brass doesn't corrode.

It turned out the black screw heads were in great condition. No sign at all of corrosion on the heads. In addition, and most importantly, there was no recent sign of the kind of shiny marks that a screwdriver often makes when it's used on a screw. The screws were in pristine condition, lacking any evidence of  having been touched since the house was built some 40 years earlier. It was the same for the two screw holes in the knob's circular trim. They looked perfectly round.

It suddenly dawned on me that something anomalous might have occurred, so with mounting excitement, I removed the screws from the outside doorknob, then put them through the holes in the trim of the inside knob to see if they'd fall through. They didn't. I pulled on them to see if I could get the screw heads through the holes. Nothing doing. I rotated them every which way and tugged hard on them to pull the heads through the holes. My efforts were all in vain. The screw heads were simply too large to pass through the holes, as you'd expect with undamaged screws and trim holes. Next I handed the screws and the inside doorknob to E so he could try to force the screw heads through the holes. He failed the task just as I had done.

It took a few hours for the realization to sink in fully that either the screw heads momentarily dematerialized as I opened the door, or the material around the holes in the trim momentarily dematerialized, or both.


Note: To those for whom my description of this anomalous event is unclear, let me illustrate with an example of a simple wall hook:
                         
Imagine buying a wall hook like the one pictured above, and fastening it to the wall securely with the two custom fitting screws also provided in the package. Now imagine getting many years of dependable service from the wall hook, only to hang your jacket from the hook one day, and watch it and the hook drop to the floor. Upon inspection, you see that the screws are still set firmly in the wall, yet they somehow failed to hold onto the hook! You look them over and see no signs of corrosion, nor are there any signs on the holes inside the hook, which now lies on the floor. "How did that happen?", you ask yourself.

This was the riddle confronting me as I observed the pristine screw heads and trim holes in the doorknob assembly.

03 - Doorknob (2/2)

Later, after my return to California, a friend to whom I related the incident "explained" it by confidently stating my stepfather simply played a joke on me and dismantled the doorknob assembly while I slept. It was the only acceptable explanation for a skeptic to offer, and frankly, I didn't see it coming.

Nevertheless, I responded immediately with a defense of my stepfather, stating that he was definitely not a practical joker. However, if some truly weird mood had provoked him to play a practical joke on me (his first ever since our meeting in the mid '60s), he wouldn't have chosen to risk damaging parts of his own house for laughs. That's because, although competent with tools, he was also a bit of a klutz with them, and while unscrewing the the screws holding together the doorknob assembly, the screwdriver would certainly have stripped the slots in the screw heads, leaving nicks and shiny spots which I would have noticed while inspecting them under the bright kitchen light.

Furthermore, I'm a light sleeper, and his noisy activities would certainly have woken me several times while setting up the "joke". There's simply no possible way my stepfather could have monkeyed with the doorknob while I slept.

Moreover, he couldn't have monkeyed with it before I came home and went to bed, either, because I slept with the door closed, and had to get up at least three times in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. The doorknob would have fallen off in my hand on the first of those occasions, not the last, as was actually the case.

As to the ultimate source of the anomaly, my dead friend J certainly was a bit of a practical joker. If he'd been hovering around me when I opened the door for the last time, and knew it was within his power to split the doorknob assembly into its two constituent parts, he would have split it with a healthy bout of sustained laughter.

It didn't, however, occur to me that J could be responsible for the doorknob coming off the door and into my hand. The thought never entered my mind. This was because I felt strongly my own unconscious mind was behind the anomaly. It seemed probable that it was in some awkward way acting out my desire to stay in bed by trying to prevent me from opening the door.

In addition, twice during the previous four days in Las Vegas the image of a doorknob suddenly entered my mind for no apparent reason. I made a mental note of each occurrence, wondering if my apartment in California was secure. This is because I'd left a large amount of cash behind, owing to the realization that, if for any reason, a California Highway Patrol cop were to pull me over, he'd doubtless find "cause" to search me and my car and would steal the entire bundle of cash using the highly immoral and legally questionable asset forfeiture laws that every state has supposedly put in place to deter drug smugglers and terrorists. Two of my friends had already been victimized in separate incidents of coproach thievery, to the tune of hundreds of thousands in cash, and I wasn't about to have the same fate befall me.

What I'd done before leaving California was to swap the original doorknob to my spare bedroom with a locking doorknob already in my possession. (I'd done the same for my bedroom doorknob shortly after moving into the apartment a year before. I changed the knobs like this in two of the California apartments I'd lived in so that nosy apartment complex managers wouldn't be able to enter my bedrooms while I was away, or would find entering them a lot more difficult.)

A few hours after the incident, I recalled the doorknob images mentioned above. The recollection caused me to reason that my unconscious mind had simply used material already "at hand" (i.e. the images) to focus on and produce the anomaly. I also recognized the possibility that the images were the result of precognition. That is, I might have symbolically precognized part of the anomalous event days in advance.

That said, the passage of time has inclined me to back off the contention that my unconscious mind was almost certainly behind the phenomenon and entertain the possibility that it might have been the mind of my deceased (and still playful) friend, J.

02 - Flood lamp

[Apologies in advance for the long buildup, but I feel I need to share enough background information in order for readers to properly understand the irrational rage that grew within me, nearly causing me to explode.]


This is a more conventional incident that took place in Las Vegas in October of 1975, where I was a blackjack dealer at the Money Tree Casino. Business was slow that day, so it was probably a Monday.

Back in the day the Money Tree was a tiny casino, having just four blackjack tables and about a hundred slot machines. Tips were meager, and at times it seemed that every fourth or fifth blackjack player to come through the door was an obnoxious bastard. Some of them were degenerate gamblers who'd lost most of their money in the large establishments on the Strip. Others were better-paid dealers from Strip casinos who went slumming, intent on venting their own work-related frustrations on personnel working in little dumps like the Money Tree. A few players were nearly-broke alcoholics who shouted for cocktails before sitting down and placing their first bet, then played as slowly as possible while waiting to get their free drinks.

In addition to having to put up with so many unpleasant players, we dealers were expected to win. The management didn't want us to cheat (as if we even knew how). They just wanted us to win as often as possible, especially while dealing to the bigger bettors. We were told to change our shuffles or burn cards during losing turns at the tables, and one boss I worked under even took to switching dealers frequently when a table was losing big. When all else failed, he himself stepped in to deal. Of course, none of these measures had any real effect on the house's bottom line (although they drove away a lot of business from locals), but it was no use trying to explain this to that boss or to the owners. As you might expect, the work environment was often quite stressful. At times I felt like I was in an insane asylum.

That said, I'd worked at the Money Tree for about a year and a half, so I'd gotten used to most of the crap. In addition, I was very good at my job and highly valued by the owners and bosses I worked with. I should have been happy, but instead I was absolutely miserable on the day of the incident. That's because a coworker I was very fond of had quit her job and left the country a few weeks before. I missed her terribly and hated working at the Money Tree without her. I was seriously thinking of quitting my job too.

I was the only dealer at work that day. The other dealer must have called in sick, quit or gotten fired. Moreover, my pit boss was out too. I think he was in the hospital with a serious health issue. C, the slot manager/technician filled in for him, but he spent more time in the back room repairing slot machines than he did in the 21 pit. Normally I wouldn't have minded being alone, but in the afternoon that day I started losing, and my table began to fill up with players. In these circumstances it's good to have a pit boss behind you, just in case one of the players tries to rip you off. It's also good to have a qualified witness, in case you lose so much money that the owners might later call your honesty into question. Finally, when you're the only dealer on a busy table, you need someone to give you a break every so often, even if it just means standing in for you while you go to the bathroom.

Now it happened that the player directly opposite me was a loudmouthed jerk. He'd been the first to sit down, having bought in for ten or twenty dollars. He'd started winning early on. Before long his bets increased from one or two dollars a hand to five dollars or more, and I had a  dreadful feeling in the pit of my stomach that told me I wasn't going to beat this guy. From time to time in my dealing career I'd had that feeling, and it seemed to be a reliable predictor of immanent losses on my part. I'd also had the feeling as a blackjack player, and it seemed accurate in that context too.

Anyway, the guy kept up a near-constant stream of verbal abuse, among other things, bragging that he was "going to take every chip in my rack", "beat me like a stepchild", and the like. His bravado was often comical, and would normally have had little effect on me, but on this day it only added to the misery I was already feeling. It also didn't help that he was winning and not tipping me. Mind you, I had no philosophical problem with stiffs not tipping, but I did tend to get angry inside at obnoxious stiffs who beat me for good money. If for no other reason, I felt I should be tipped for taking the abuse they dished out.

Over the next hour or so, other players found their way to the table. Eventually the table was full with seven players, and all of them were winning! They laughed themselves silly at the insults coming from the jerk in the middle of the table, and some of them added their own abuse for good measure. I don't think I've ever dealt to so many hostile, obnoxious and stiff players at a single time. No doubt they let loose on me because there was no pit boss around to keep things under control.

I'd been dealing to the guy in the middle for about an hour and a half and was getting fed up with him, as well as the other players. I was also getting fed up with the Money Tree and began to fantasize walking off my table and out the front door, never to return. C should have come out of the back room 45 minutes before to give me a break. Also, he must have known I had a full table of players, and he should have at least checked to see how I was doing. As things stood, I was down well over a thousand dollars and could have used a fill (i.e. a delivery of more chips to my chip rack). But he was nowhere to be seen, and I'd lost so much money by that point that I was afraid to tell one of the passing change girls to get him. I continued dealing in hopes of my luck changing, yet feeling ever more bitter over a situation that was rapidly becoming hopeless.

Before long the jerk in the middle was betting $20 a hand, the table max, and he was killing me! He must have had four or five hundred dollars in front of him. In addition, some of the other players were up as much as one or two hundred dollars each! These were folks who'd bought in for five or ten bucks and a match play coupon not an hour before and began playing with one dollar bets!

I also began to fantasize lunging over the table and strangling the jerk. He was a big guy, possibly as tall as me but a lot heavier and more muscular. He probably would have killed me if I'd attacked him. But I didn't care, given the emotional meltdown I was experiencing. I was seething with anger, and I knew it wouldn't be long before I'd either walk away from the table or go for the jerk's throat. I was trying to decide which way to end my career as a blackjack dealer.

Now the jerk started shouting "Bust!" every time I had a stiff hand and needed to draw a card. He kept shouting it until the round was over. Soon the other players joined the jerk in chanting "Bust! Bust! Bust!". After that I started to bust nearly every hand, while also losing most of the hands that didn't bust. The crowd then shouted "Pay me! Pay me! Pay me!" each time I lost. Finally, my chip rack was almost empty, and I'd had enough torture. I busted one more hand, and then I snapped...

What took place next happened in a split second, I suppose, but I can recall three distinct phases. First, after busting the last hand and paying everyone, then collecting the used cards and slamming them into the card rack, I stopped and glared at the jerk in the middle. The time for action had come, but I still couldn't decide whether to grab the jerk's throat or leave the table and walk out the front door of the casino. On top of the rage I was feeling, my indecision added a strong sense of despair. Then everything in view suddenly turned a shade of red (a blood vessel in one of my retinas must have broken). Almost simultaneously, I heard what sounded like a really loud gunshot. Instinctively I ducked for cover. I imagine some of the players did too.

After that the table was dark, and the round, convex bottom of the overhead flood lamp was lying a couple of inches in front of my chip rack, right where my dealer's cards would normally be placed. When the flood lamp exploded, the bottom broke cleanly away from the rest of the bulb and fell straight down to land where my dealer cards went.

On seeing the flood lamp had exploded, the jerk made a wisecrack which everyone laughed at, including me. Suddenly the sick feeling in my stomach was gone and a powerful sense of relief came over me. In addition, I no longer saw red.

At hearing the explosion, C finally came out of the back room and into the 21 pit. I handed him the glass bottom of the floodlight and nursed a cut to my hand caused by a tiny shard. It bled profusely for a few minutes before stopping. (Although I don't remember it, I must have taken a short break from the table to go to the bathroom and take care of the cut. C must have stood in my place at the table while I was gone, to guard what was left of the chips in my rack.)

After I resumed dealing, the insults stopped. Most likely this was due to C's presence in the 21 pit. I wonder, however, if some of the players had connected my enraged demeanor with the resultant explosion of the flood lamp. The jerk in the middle must have seen me tensing up and glaring at him just before the light exploded. Nevertheless, neither he nor any of the other players spoke about the incident. They just played on, making the kind of banter you normally hear at blackjack tables. I had the sense, though, that some of them were a little nervous after the explosion. But even if that's so, C's presence in the 21 pit might explain the behavior.

I should add that almost immediately after the explosion, the jerk and a couple of the other players started tipping me. Eventually, most of the players wound up doing the same. Some of the tips went straight into my pocket. The rest were bets for me, placed in front of the players' bets. Sadly, most of those lost because my luck had changed, and I started beating them mercilessly! In less than an hour I won back most of the money I'd lost previously. One by one the players left until the table was empty, and I had time to ponder what had taken place. Needless to say, I was grateful that the flood lamp exploded, because if it hadn't, I would have exploded instead. That bulb saved me from ruining my dealing career, and it might have saved my life.

Over the years, I've wondered about the incidence of exploding flood lamps. I can say that it must have been exceedingly small from the 1970s onward, because the average casino uses dozens of them, and I've spend a lot of time in casinos over the past 40-plus years. I can't remember ever hearing a flood lamp (or any other bulb, for that matter) explode in a casino.

About my mental/emotional state at the time, I can say that I've never felt so miserable, so despairing and so angry as I was just before the explosion. Fortunately, the confluence of circumstances that led to my meltdown has never occurred again since that day in October, 1975.

It's readily apparent to me that my emotional state brought about the explosion. Unfortunately, there's no way to prove my contention. All I can say in favor of it is that I'm not the only person to experience this phenomenon while under great stress. Sandy B. used to mention blown light bulbs on her old blog. I don't recall if any of her bulbs actually exploded, though. But I think there must be at least a few cases of exploding bulbs in the literature, under emotional circumstances similar to mine, and probably dozens of cases involving blown light bulbs.

Along these lines, I can also say that I believe I often have an adverse effect on the electronics around me when I'm feeling extremely anxious.

I am very much enjoying your stories Doug! Not too much detail.  

I completely believe this is a poltergeist type of event. I had a couple of poltergeist light bulb episodes I guess about a year or so ago. Details are too personal to share, but just like in this case there was a buildup of negative emotional energy and then a very specific point in time where that negative energy sharply peaked and at that instant the light bulb in the lamp right next to me went out. It was a low power LED bulb about 1.5 years old. I put a new LED bulb in there and about 2 weeks later the EXACT same thing happened again: I was sitting in the same place next to the same lamp, another negative emotional buildup, a very definite emotional peak, and at that instant the new bulb went out. I changed out the bulb and it has been functioning properly ever since. Those experiences prove to me beyond a doubt that poltergeist type activity is real. The fact that the bulbs going out (TWICE!) were so tightly correlated temporally with a very high sharp emotional peak (I mean the EXACT INSTANT) is impossible for me to think this was totally random and unrelated.

Keep the stories coming!

I am very much enjoying your stories Doug! Not too much detail.  

I completely believe this is a poltergeist type of event. I had a couple of poltergeist light bulb episodes I guess about a year or so ago. Details are too personal to share, but just like in this case there was a buildup of negative emotional energy and then a very specific point in time where that negative energy sharply peaked and at that instant the light bulb in the lamp right next to me went out. It was a low power LED bulb about 1.5 years old. I put a new LED bulb in there and about 2 weeks later the EXACT same thing happened again: I was sitting in the same place next to the same lamp, another negative emotional buildup, a very definite emotional peak, and at that instant the new bulb went out. I changed out the bulb and it has been functioning properly ever since. Those experiences prove to me beyond a doubt that poltergeist type activity is real. The fact that the bulbs going out (TWICE!) were so tightly correlated temporally with a very high sharp emotional peak (I mean the EXACT INSTANT) is impossible for me to think this was totally random and unrelated.

Keep the stories coming!

Many thanks for sharing these accounts, Hurm! It's reports of psi in the wild like these that add flesh to the bare-bones lab work. They help make psi real for those unfortunates among us who must accept psi without solid personal evidence of its reality.

I believe poltergeist cases often (always?) are accompanied with a powerful emotional aspect. As sentient beings, we have the power to change reality with our minds, but in most cases, we need tremendous motivation to do so, along with a truly visceral emotional component.