Missing Time Experience

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Written by:John CarlsonParanormal Experiencer

John Carlson (A.K.A. The Paranormalist) is a bipedal hominoid who can sometimes be found stalking the sidewalks of New Jersey USA or lurking at his favorite neighborhood watering hole. His wife and sons have put up with his interest in and occasional confrontations with the paranormal. John encourages readers of this website to share any personal experiences, if they wish to do so. You are not alone.

Missing time and temporal anomalies are far more common than many might guess. This true account of the missing time event that I experienced as a teenager has gotten, by far, the greatest number or responses than anything I've written.

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I’d like to relate a personal experience that I had when I was an adolescent in the hope that others might be willing to come forward and share any similar experiences that they may have had.

I’ve titled this article “A Missing Time Experience?” – with a question mark, you’ll notice – because it does not necessarily fit the “typical” missing time scenario of which we hear. It did not happen late at night on a darkened rural road; there was no UFO sighting involved (that I recall). It occurred in the afternoon, on a sunny day, on a relatively busy street in a bustling suburban town in northeastern New Jersey. In fact, I’m not entirely sure that there even was a period of missing time. Yet, it was strange in the extreme and something that I contemplate regularly to this day, more than thirty years later.

The time of year was late winter or early spring – around March or April, I believe, of 1978. I was in junior high school, seventh grade, and thirteen years of age. It was a weekday at about 3:00 PM and school had just let out. I left the junior high school, which is located next to a hospital in my home town of Ridgewood, NJ. Ridgewood is located about 20 miles from New York City, in Bergen County, a very populated area of the state. I walked, as I did most days, home from the junior high (now a middle school). My parent’s home was located about 1.5 miles from the school along a very direct route. Most of the walk was on the street on which the school was located, followed by a left and a quick right toward the very end of the walk. So, I’d normally just walk out the front door of the school, take a left, and proceed straight for about 1.4 miles, the last 0.10 of a mile being that left and the right, at which point I was at our house.

Missing Time
Missing Time Experiences

That was the route that I would normally take, however, I had a run-in with a group of boys that bullied me on a regular basis, so rather than taking a left out the front door of the school and proceeding due south for that 1.4 miles, I’d go left and then take another left at the very first traffic after leaving the school. I’d then walk to the next street over and take a right onto that street, again walking due south. It wasn’t much of a departure from my normal route, as the street ran parallel to the one I’d usually take to get home. I’d been doing that for at least a couple of months in an effort to avoid walking past the homes of the boys who were bullying me. Therefore, I’m confident of the the fact that there was no way I would have become lost or confused of my whereabouts.

However, one day as I began walking home, I noticed that everything seemed strangely quiet, almost muted. The normal noise and bustle associated with the after-school rush of children walking home from school was oddly absent and the quiet was rather eerie. There were still cars and some pedestrians present as I walked down this busy suburban street, but there was an odd, unreal feeling to everything, along with this disturbing muted silence.

The street that I was walking down was called North Pleasant Avenue, and the intersection that I was approaching was at the corner of North Pleasant and Ridgewood Avenue. After crossing Ridgewood Ave, North Pleasant turned to South Pleasant Avenue and I would pass the elementary school that I’d attended the years prior to entering the junior high in September of ’77. At crossing that intersection and approaching the elementary school, I was approximately 0.8 mile from my home. I mention these facts only to continue to emphasize that this was a route and neighborhood in which I was used to traveling.

As I continued south, from N. Pleasant toward S. Pleasant and toward the intersection of Pleasant and Ridgewood Avenues, I saw the traffic light, the same familiar stores at the corner, and the small parking lot in front of the stores. However, these landmarks appeared to be getting further away as I walked closer to them, and still this odd silence persisted. As I continued to walk toward the intersection, these landmarks continued to appear to recede further into the distance as I approached them. I began feeling very disoriented and anxious – and then, nothing; a complete loss of memory. I simply do not remember anything past the point of approaching this intersection and seeing it recede further into the distance as I walked ever nearer to it.

“Get John. He needs you.”

My next memory was of “awakening” – for a lack of a better description – on another street in a different part of town, a fair distance from where I had started from at the junior high school. I remember feeling very shaken and confused and somewhat frightened. What had happened? And how did I end up in this different area, nowhere near where I’d begun walking, and nowhere near where I’d “blacked out”? This is where things get a bit stranger still: within a couple of minutes of “coming to” my mother pulled up in her car, parking along the curb of the street where I was walking. I opened the door and she looked at me with great concern and said “John, are you alright?” Now, normally my mother did not come looking for me if I was a bit late arriving home from school. Remember, this was the late ’70s and parents were decidedly more relaxed about the comings and goings of their children. My mother never picked me up from school unless the weather was very severe or we had some kind of appointment after school, and as long as I was home by dinner my parents didn’t worry or wonder about my whereabouts. If I didn’t come straight home it was assumed that I was at a friend’s house or had some kind of after school activity.

The fact that my mother knew exactly where to find me was surprising, and I asked her how she knew where I was. She replied that she was home, doing chores around the house when a voice in her head said “Get John, he needs you”. She of course asked me what had happened and I told her about the receding intersection, the strange silence, the memory loss, and of waking up to find myself walking in this other part of town. I had no idea what had happened and to this day I still do not, other than a vague memory or feeling of having been told or shown something significant. Who told or showed me what, and where it happened, I cannot recall, although I feel at some point that I will recall the entire incident. I simply feel that this event was significant for a reason that I can’t explain, but it’s meaning will eventually be made clear to me.

Being that this was over thirty years ago, I cannot accurately recall the time that I “awoke” or what time my mother found me. However, I don’t think it was a great amount of time, certainly not more than hour, and probably less than that. Thirty minutes, perhaps? So the time was maybe 3:30 or 3:45 in the afternoon, I’d estimate. It may have been later than that, but not by much, if I recall correctly. I’ve always felt that the strangeness of this incident is compounded by the fact that my mother was somehow involved and “contacted”. If I had simply blacked out or became disoriented and wandered off, I could accept that as being a possibility – although I had no history of seizures or blackouts. But the fact that my mother was told to “Get John, he needs you” makes me believe that there was some outside design and involvement in this, the nature of which I do not know.

This, I should mention, was not the only strange and unexplained incidents that I had as a child (or as an adult). Perhaps I’ll discuss some of the others in future blog posts. Meanwhile, I’d be very interested in hearing from other people who may have experienced similar phenomena.

890 thoughts on “Missing Time Experience”

  1. Thanks John, Your response is inspiring. I don’t think I really want to know…It may be very traumatizing. I continually have the feeling that I will find out soon enough as I’ve always had a feeling that something is right around the corner, good or bad. My father had some psychic abilities, as he could sense great danger (and death) to those that were close to him, mostly in dreams. I also have these triggers as well, but mine happens during the day. My Teeth in my lower jaw begin to feel as though they are floating and wiggling, then the visions (or thoughts) appear. This has been proven accurate every time I feel this. I’ll call the ones I have envisioned and either something happened or it was possibly avoided by my call. My friends and Family know that if I call and tell them my teeth are floating, they listen and their guard is up…It used to be stronger when I was younger, now that I’m over 50 it doesn’t seem to be as accurate.

    Reply
    • Phi — Glad to give my input, as vague as it may be. There’s just no hard data on this but I know that it’s real and it’s happening to a lot of people — probably a lot more than we realize because of reluctance to talk about such a bizarre subject. It seems that there is definitely seems to be a correlation between these experiences and a person’s psychic or spiritual sensitivity. People who report missing time almost always have had other similar instance or other unexplained occurrences in their lives, and usually on multiple occasions.

      Yep, I’ve got the same thing on my mom’s side as you do on your father’s. I wrote an article about it: https://www.theparanomalist.com/735/my-mom-the-witch/. I’m 50 and I’m finding that I’m becoming more in touch with my intuitive/psychic side as I get older. I think that maybe I’m just learning to listen to it more than when I was younger. I had more unusual (or paranormal) experiences when I was younger, however. I had my first one in many years less than a year ago, with other witnesses present. I’ll write about that soon after launch the new version of this site.

      Reply
  2. John. I was playing on my iPad at 9:04 and it’s now 10:34. I had sent 7 people a snapchat of me making funny faces. I tried to reload the app, by swiping down on my screen. One person has opened it and it says they opened it an hour ago but I feel like I just sent it. I have. Feeling that while I was looking at the emojis next to my best friends list I’ve lost this whole amount of time. I read what you had to say and honestly it’s a little bit different but the first thing I did was google “time loss” because I am so worried.

    Also in grade 8, two years ago, I was in my English class with my two best friends and we were talking about colloquial language and we made a smart remark to the teacher which triggered her to snap and at that moment although I knew she was yelling at me time honestly slowed down. Everything including her voice and movement slowed down. Now I didn’t mention this to my friends because I had just been diagnosed with depression and anxiety and this was my first year at high school and these were my first best friends (bullied in primary) do I didn’t want to weird them out thinking this might be because I am crazy. Later I’m the week we didn’t talk much and I didn’t get why until when I heard them talking after soccer training for school. They were both discussing how they felt time had slowed down and I walked in and was about to share what I was feeling. When they asked me if I felt it I avoided answering because I thought it was a malicious trick but it seems that we all experienced something that day and also none of us have ever taken any kinda drug or anything

    Reply
    • Melanie — That’s very interesting that your friends seemed to have experienced the same slowing down of time as you had. It’s always more difficult to dismiss these things when others who are present report the same experience.

      There appears to be a lot of variety among these “time anomalies” (or whatever you want to call them). Sometimes it’s a period of missing time, where the person is vaguely aware that something unusual has happened; other times it’s like an immediate jump forward (or sometimes backward) with no sensation of anything odd or different having happened. Very often the person is at home, or in school, or at the office when these these time slips and there’s no change of location, and sometimes (like it was in my case) the person finds themselves in a different location. They’re often missing time episodes, but I’ve received many reports of time gain. This often happens when people are driving or walking and they find they’ve arrived at some distant location in an impossibly short amount of time.

      I wish I had an answer as to what happened to you, but I can tell you that it seems to be much more common than I’d have ever suspected when I first began looking into these time-related phenomena. So you’re definitely not alone in your experiences. Have you had any other strange experiences besides the ones that your wrote of here? More often than not it seems that people who report these incidents have had other strangeness in their lives.

      Good luck and feel free to keep in touch. — John

      Reply
  3. Hello John!

    A few days ago I watched an episode of Ancient Aliens on History Channel. Although I do believe the show is overdramatized and a bit cheesy, they did bring up the subject of lost time in UFO encounters. Although I try to keep an open mind, (and I do truly believe there are other beings out there), I find some ideas of aliens (like “mind-controlling) to be made-up, and I think that if aliens did “find” us, the beings would be friendly, or neutral.
    Anyway, back to the main idea that caused me to mention my bout with lost time. This happened some time back, when I was about 9 years of age. At the time, I enjoyed staying overnight with my grandparents, who had a house in a rural Iowa county. At night, we would sleep in cots next to their bed, in their room. Their bedroom had large windows next to my cot, with no screen or blinds. There was nothing to obscure my view or make me imagine anything. This specific night, I could not fall asleep. It must have been about 11:30 PM, and everyone else in the room was asleep to my knowledge. My eyelids were not “heavy”, and I didn’t feel tired.
    I have been fascinated by the stars ever since I can remember I was staring out the window at the stars for quite sometime. I could see where the dense clusters were and where the more scattered stars were. I attempted to name the constellations I knew. Suddenly, I blinked. Nothing happened within that split-second that I knew of… I felt exactly the same when my eyes opened, it just felt like a regular blink, just like you are probably blinking right now, if you are reading my comment. When I opened my eyes, I was in the exact same body position; I hadn’t moved at all. But when I looked at the stars, they had rotated. I know how slowly stars move, and how after long periods of time they rotate circularly, not straight. The stars were exactly the same that I was looking at a second ago, except that they moved; rotated. Since that night I haven’t thought much of it, but after reading this article, I knew I had to make a comment. I know that I may have lost an hour or two when I blinked. I think back on it now and it sounds so strange to have experienced something like that…

    Thank You for your article John!
    ~Cal

    Reply
  4. Hello John,
    It’s been a while since I checked up on you. I see the stream of information is flowing along nicely. It’s very important to be an ear for those who otherwise have no avenue in which to vent. You know, I wonder when people starting being mean to each other when an unusual experience came up in conversation. It seems like at some point in time people weren’t like that to one another. Any thoughts on that? I,m not sure if I told you, but this missing time situation led me to discover things that show an intelligent connection between two planets along with all sorts of information I never thought possible. Very cool stuff. Amazing things have come from missing time experiences. Anyone who has had a missing time experience out there needs to explore it. Do not ignore it.

    Reply
    • Hi Erik,
      Hope you’ve been well – sorry for the slow reply. Yes, I agree that something of value may be at the center of these missing time experiences. At least I’m hoping so. I’d hate to think that they’re all inherently negative experiences.

      People being mean to each other? Historically, we seem to be a very competitive species, but I don’t think that means we are cruel to one another because of our nature. I think it’s a choice, and it certainly appears to me that we’re entering into an age where we’re less and less civil to one another. At the risk of being a pessimist, I think things are going to get worse before the get better. I do think(or hope) that we’ll become more enlightened and kind to one another at some point, but probably only after we reach some sort of tipping point.

      Reply
  5. I am so happy that I came across this blog! I have had strange experiences my whole life, paranormal, ghosts, missing time, knowing things, seeing things etc, but the one I’m about to tell you is still freaking me out. This past Saturday was a beautiful day, sunny and warm so I thought I’d take my son (age 4) and my little dog Lola for a nice drive to the near by Indian reserve to get smokes. Its a nice drive about 20 minutes south of town surrounded by tree’s, farmers fields, and the odd home. The drive there was typical… My son talking non stop, Lola laying on the front seat, and music coming from the radio. We finally get to the smoke shop in Hiawatha, I pay for my smokes, and the lady gives me a lollipop for my son and a cookie for Lola. So as I’m driving around the back of the smoke shop I hand my son his sucker and set down the smokes and dog cookie in the front passenger seat. I then pull back out on the road and start heading for home. This road is only maybe a mile of straight road then you come to a “T” with a stop sign. Anywho I’m driving along when I notice the dead silence, my son isn’t making a peep, I don’t hear the radio, and I’m totally lost! I felt like I had been driving this road for hours, where did the houses, farms, and usual land marks go? I started to wonder if I was having a stroke… I had no idea where I was, I started to panic a bit so I kept driving and driving then finally I reached the stop sign. What would cause that? I had driven this a million times and it only takes 5 mins to get back to the stop sign… Why was I feeling so lost and for at least a couple hours? Why was my son so quiet…it felt like I was totally alone..

    Reply
    • Sue — You definitely lost time? Did you take note of when you left the smoke shop and when you arrived at the stop sign?

      Once again, as I’ve said so many times, it’s no surprise to me that you’ve had other paranormal experiences. There seems to be a certain type of people who are perhaps more psychically sensitive that experience these things. Sounds like you’re one of them.

      Reply
  6. I have had a few of these experiences in my life… The first one I can recall is when I was 20 years old: I was living in a rural area in North Carolina. I was about 2 months pregnant with my second child. The day was normal: Daylight, bright, sunny, with snow covered ground. I had put my 3 year old daughter down for her afternoon nap (around noon) I ran myself a hot bath just to relax and soak… The next memory I have is sitting in the bath, knees drawn to chest, rocking myself, and shivering from the coldness of the water. I had lost around two hours or so. I was freezing and confused. I checked the time, because I could not rationally figure out what had happened. I have never regained any memory for that time lost. The second time I was 22 years old: I was driving down the interstate heading to a job interview (I was very happy & excited about), it was around noon and a bright and sunny day. The location I was in a major metropolitan city in Florida. I drove the area and interstate daily… Normal day, listening to radio, and heading to interview…. Then, about three hours later, I found myself sitting in my car with it still running, music playing, and parked in a closed down Mall parking lot…. No one and nothing around. I felt anxious, confused, bewildered, and scared… I gathered my bearings and went ahead to the job interview (which I did not get because I was late and they hired someone interviewed after my scheduled time). To this day, I have NO IDEA what happened…. No memories, no nothing. I am now 41 years old and I have been a nurse since 2005. I am a holistic nurse by nature: constantly seeking enlightenment and I am very spiritual in my beliefs… I have had certain abilities since around the age of 4, that I can recall… I.E. I would know things before they happened (deaths of loved ones, who was calling on the phone before it rang… etc.) I am very scientifically minded and always seek a physical explanation before fathoming a metaphysical one… I do know around the time these occurrences were happening, I had intentionally started ‘blocking’ my gifts… Wither either of those things had anything to do with the other… I do not know. After those experiences and inner changes, I opened myself back up to just being me and accepting myself for all that I am. Deja Vu is very common for me, but those two times… I have no explanation for.

    Reply
  7. SO glad I found this. Back in the mid nineties I had 2 encounters. One in broad daylight where I saw an strange silver flying object and for the entire time it was in view ( 50 feet slowly gliding in between buildings) I could not hear a thing. Not as if things were quiet, but more like the sound was completed muted. I recall an odd pressure in my hears as if the sound had been internally muted. I would have written it off as a fluke, but my friend saw the same thing!
    In another instance years or so later, I recall an odd feeling waking me at 3 or 4 am every night for 3 days. I looked out the window to find a low fixed light in the sky that hovered in the same spot. It was lower than the tree line and in the day nothing was in that spot. I would even check once the sun went down and nothing…Then I would be awakened out of my sleep to find it in the sky. After the 3rd experience, I became frightened even trying to encourage my roommates to get up and look, to which they refused. On the third night, I went out to the couch to watch TV (as I couldn’t return to sleep because something was out there) and the next thing I remember is the sun was completely up. I was dumbfounded since it was pitch black when I sat down on the couch and I was in the exact same position with no memory of sleep. My ears had that strange muted feeling and once again, I could not hear. Then slowly my hearing returned. The time elapsed was an astonishing 3 hours minimum. I never saw the light again, but I am forever changed and watch the sky always. They are out there. My theory to address the hearing loss is that advanced beings may communicate in advanced ways like telepathy. If this were the case….Primitive ways of communication would temporarily be disabled in their presence. I have tried to explain the phenomena for many years. At least I’m not alone.

    Reply
  8. Yesterday was my birthday and my mom and sister came to visit. We just hung out and watched TV. After they left I sat down on my couch to watch more TV and was trying to decide what to watch . That’s the last thing I remember. I woke up this morning because I was freezing. I was confused to find myself in my bed, and noticed I was still wearing my jeans and shirt that I was wearing yesterday. Instead of being covered by a blanket I had a robe and sweater lying on top of me. Neither would have been anywhere near my bed. I am so confused. I don’t drink so I can’t explain this blackout. I asked my 10 year old if she got up and covered me and she said no. This follows two episodes where we each thought we saw the other walk past us while exiting a bed room just to turn the corner in the other direction and the other person was there. I don’t know if it’s related but I’m keeping the light on tonight because I have that eerie feeling of being watched.

    Reply
  9. Hi John,
    Yes, things are well, thank you. I agree that a negative direction will most likely be what is necessary to reach true enlightenment on a global level and one of the most important pieces and most difficult to achieve is honesty and openness amongst one another. I will be forever in the service of promoting that. Take care John I’ll write again soon. I have some very exciting
    news to share in mid June as a result of discovering what happened during my 6 hour experience.
    Erik Warner

    Reply
  10. Hi John
    Myself and a friend had a weird experence about 4/5 yrs ago and to this day i keep trying to find out how we lost over 5 hours of time..
    This is what happened, 11pm and i was watching my 2 turtles playing in the tank, i called my friend to come over to the tank and watch how the male was tickling the females face. We both had our elbows resting on the worktop with our backs bent watching. what seemed like 2 /3 mins later i stood up straight and turned to the clock and looked at my friend and asked her the time. About 11.15 she said …it was 5,30am. No aching backs or feet…nothing. Will never get this out of my head. Where did we go?
    Regards Jo

    Reply
    • Jo — I really wish I could tell you where that time went to or what happened in the period of time that you seem to have lost. I’m not sure, though I have some ideas, which I’ve expressed in many of the replies that I’ve made to people who have contacted me by email or through this comments section. I’d guess that some other unexplained things have happened to you besides this missing time incident. That’s one constant that keeps showing up: people who have these experiences are prone to being visited by other strange events. I think it has something to do with certain individuals being more psychically / spiritually sensitive. How about your friend? Has she had additional missing time or other strange phenomena in her life? — John

      Reply
  11. Hi John

    During my life I have experienced several cases of missing time that I’ve noticed. I’ve had a particularly mundane one tonight (apologies for the dull story!), but as ever it’s puzzled and perplexed me. It’s probably nothing. But for the first time I thought to google it and saw your post.

    I was working at home. It reached early evening. All of a sudden from nowhere I felt an overwhelming tiredness (very strange for me). The one thing in my mind was that I had to lie down and I managed to get to my bedroom, collapsing on top of the bed (it was around 7pm). Next thing I knew the phone was ringing. I realized I must have fallen asleep but saw from the display it was my mom (a parallel to your own post!). I answered, we chatted for half an hour. I looked at my watch and saw it was about 8.45 (had I really slept so long?), so came back downstairs to carry on working.

    I worked for quarter of an hour and then glanced at the living room clock. And then at all the clocks. It turned out it was actually 10pm. My watch was *exactly* an hour slow. Had the battery started to fail you might ask? No, it doesn’t have one! It’s one of those Citizen EcoDrive things that has never ever lost time since I’ve had it. And since I noticed the discrepancy, it’s maintained perfect time.

    It’s as if someone deliberately tried to reset my watch, but made a mistake and got it an hour wrong… Sorry for the dull tale, but I can’t work it out!

    Reply
    • Keith — Not dull at all, and that much more interesting because you say you’ve had other instances of missing time. So this would suggest a pattern. I might tend to rationalize it away as something mundane, but given the fact that this has happened to you before and that your watch was behind an hour makes me think that there’s something more to the story than can be easily explained. Did your mother seem concerned when she called? Was she checking up on you to see if you were okay, or did it seem like a normal call to say hello?

      Reply
  12. Wow – I never, ever expected to see so many tales of lost time!! I lost approximately 15 minutes March 2015. I had been shopping and, as I turned left from the parking lot into the street, I glanced at my watch and saw it was 8:33. Everything seemed normal. There was no unusual silence etc. But – when I went to take what I thought was my usual left… it wasn’t there. I continued driving for about a minute and came to a corner. I had no idea where I was as I stopped for a red light. There was a CVS on my left. Suddenly I realized that’s the CVS I pass on my way home as I take my first turn – but I now I was facing the intersection from a totally different direction. I glanced at the time & was approximately 15 minutes after I had driven out of the store parking lot. To me, it seemed as if no time had passed at all. I have absolutely no memory of driving for 15 minutes. I’m not even sure how I ended up where I did. I’ve never told anyone because they’d just give me some lame reasons about what happened. By the way, I’m 64 – and something like this has never happened to me before – and I hope never happens to me again!

    Reply
  13. Hi John
    Answering to your comment….
    My friend or myself have never before had time missing, we are both going through a spiritual development at the moment. Back then i think we had just started questoning who we were and noticeing more in the world, I have astral travelled once, and i feel energies and alot more . but as i said all them years ago it was different. One theory i have thought about is that we went somewhere to do some work on another plane? Its the fact it was hours not minuites we lost and 2 people standing in one place is so hard to get your head around. Ive joked about it and said the turtles hypnotised us and we were abducted by aliens but deep down i know it wasnt aliens. Its as if whoever whatever or wherever we went we were ment to know something happened because of the time span?

    Regards Jo.

    Reply
    • Hi Joanne — Did this spiritual development follow your missing time experience or was it afterward? Do you follow any sort of New Age practices? Just wondering if you and your friend might have inadvertently opened yourself up to this experience.

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  14. Hi John,
    Thank you for having this site where people are free to write about experiences of being unaccounted for or losing time. I have had many experiences with the supernatural my whole life. I also have a gift (?) of knowing things and predicting occurrences. I want to write about one in which I have been puzzled for 35 years.

    I was 19 and was living with a roommate in a small town in Kansas. It was 1979. I went to bed with a book around 10 and fell asleep reading with the light on. it was a hot summer night. I had my windows of this little house we lived in open as far as possible with a fan going. My boyfriend at the time was playing poker with friends and said he would come over afterwards. I left a note for him on the door. Door unlocked…remember..small town!

    I woke several hours later, around 3 a.m. to my roommate coming into my room with a ball bat hysterical saying there were people outside of the house. I told her to turn off the lamp in my room and looked out the window to see a couple of men scaling the side of the house so I would not see them and getting to the end of the house, they ran down the alley. Needless to say we were a bit freaked out and I was especially because I was laying on top of my bed in a long t-shirt. Basically, clueless about anything like this happening.

    But then this is the strangest part…

    I talked to my boyfriend the next day and asked him why he did not come over after playing cards. He said he did and I was not there! I was very disturbed and asked him to stop joking. He was not one to play weird tricks or lie…ever. So I questioned him some more and he said he came over, read the note on my front door (word for word) and came into my house and went to my room. He said my light was on and he could tell I had been in my bed, but I was not there. He then looked around the house a bit… it was very small..and went outside and sat on the stoop. He smoked a couple of cigarettes thinking I went out for some or something and thought he would wait for me to come back. When I didn’t, he left. He said it was around 1 a.m.

    I would not have believed him fully if he would not have told me what the note said word for word. And it was common for him to come over after playing cards with the guys. I have been so perplexed by this for so many years. We are still friends and on occasion I have asked him about this. He wishes he could tell me something different, but his story has remained the same. I wish I knew where I was! But as I said earlier, I have had lots of paranormal things involving me in my life. I don’t tell too many people this story either. What do you think? I have read a few of the stories and plan to read more now, but haven’t come across one quite like this. Please get back to me and any other comments are welcome! Thank you, Lisa

    Reply
  15. Also to add…I have no idea if those people outside of the house had anything to do with this. That is probably the scariest part for me.

    Reply
    • Hi Lisa — When you say these people were “scaling” the outside of your house, what do you mean exactly? Did they have ladders, or was there something that they could hold on to? Did you get a look at their appearance or faces?

      I’d be interested in hearing about your other supernatural experiences. I’m just trying to see if these different phenomena tie together somehow.

      Thanks. — John

      Reply
  16. I’m not sure what has been happening but the other night I woke up and took of my jacket it was 7:30,. I fell back asleep with out it on I woke up and repeated what I just did swearing I had done it already I checked the time still 7:30. I went back to sleep for I don’t know and hour I woke up with my jacket on at 7:30 a third time. I wanted to test a theory so the fourth time I took my jacket off and laid there awake just with my eyes close I counted to 200 I opened my eyes and my jacket was on and it was still 7:30

    Reply
  17. I had the same experience too! I woke up and it was 7:10, then I blinked and then all of a sudden it was 7:40! I have no idea if I fell back asleep!

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  18. abt. 10 years ago – Thanksgiving – me and my husband were driving my brother to his home in Laguna Beach. An hours drive from our home and 1 hour back – we expected to be home by 1am. We dropped him off and went into his house – we gave him turkey and pie to take home with him. We left again, we had a canyon road and a toll road to negotiate before hitting the 405. Everything seemed normal – I remember listening to music – I remember driving by LAX and nothing was unusual except when we pulled into our driveway and the sun was coming up. We still talk about it occasionally and laugh.

    Years later I had a dream – in my dream I woke up suddenly and a “Grey” was sitting next to where I was sleeping (I don’t think it was my bed – I wasn’t cold or uncomfortable and nothing of note). The “Grey” seemed to have lost interest or was dozing, in any case all of this was just a matter of seconds as I opened my eyes and was looking at him and before I could be startled he reached towards my wrist and I fell back to sleep. I woke up the next day puzzling about the dream. And that is all I have to say about that – except that I am a little pissed that I wasn’t healed from diabetes if I was “visited” by a being that may have had advanced technology to do so – I haven’t had another dream of that fellow since…

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  19. When I was a child, approximately 6-7years old in the mid 90’s my family and I would often take weekend trips to a summer home in Pensilvania. It was a quiet 2br home in a very rural area. I would often hangout in the upstairs bedroom that was shared by my brother and I, however it was only my mother and I on this trip. I recall it being evening time sitting on the floor with my back against the bottom bunk behind me with the TV on. From what I remember my mother was downstairs cooking dinner. I vividly remember looking out the window As the sun was going down through the trees that I blinked naturally(as you would without even thinking about it), and when my eyes opened from the blink, a fraction of a second later the light was hitting the home at a completely different angle. I was a bit confused but realized that it was late morning of the next day. I did not feel as if I had just woke up. I felt as if I had already been awake and I had just blinked. I was confused at the time and I am still puzzled today knowing that I had passed approx 12 hours of time in literally a blink of an eye sitting in the same exact position. i am usually a skeptic of such stories when hearing from others, but this event had impacted me enough to never forget it with clarity. As stated by many above, there is a great feeling of awe after such an experience. This story has not been shared with anyone since that day. I am still unsure what to think of it.

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  20. Hi John,
    My missing time happened at night about 15 years ago.
    I live in the U.K in a ground floor apartment which is at the end of a junction so I can see all the way down the adjoining road.
    One night (I can’t remember the exact date but it was around late summertime) I had been watching TV and decided it was about time to go to bed, my boyfriend at the time had already turned in a couple of hours earlier. It was about 11:30pm and I had turned everything off, like the TV, lights, etc and gone into the bedroom. I must say at this point that I never shut the main curtains so there was always plenty of light coming in from the street lights. I sat down on the side of the bed and looked out the window down the adjoining road to start the nightly routine of getting ready to go to sleep when all of a sudden the street lights down the adjoining road went out in pairs, which I thought was a tad strange, then in the blink of an eye they all came back on again all together. Well by the side of my bed I have a digital clock which when unplugged or if there is a power failure flashes 12:00 when plugged back in or if power is restored. I instinctively looked at it and sure enough it said 12:00 confirming that there had been a power cut, at this point my boyfriend woke up and said “what are you doing sitting up” I explained that we had just had a power cut so he also looked at the clock and said ” that was hours ago, why are you still sitting there” so I looked at the clock again (bearing in mind this conversation had only took about 2 minutes) and it read 4:19am. I had lost over 4 hours in what seemed like 2 minutes. I was so scared I stayed awake the rest of the night.
    The thing that made me tell my story on here is that like you John I also had an overwhelming feeling that I had been shown or told something significant but I can’t remember what and that feeling stayed with me even to this day.
    I’ve had many other strange things happen but this one upset me the most.

    Reply
  21. Throughout my life I have experienced several unexplained incidents of missing time and time slips, unconnected as far as I’m aware to UFOS. Ive sen two UFOs and two different times, one at school and one last year, but no associated missing time or abduction experiences which seems to be the norm with missing time???? I remember one incident last year when in Ireland waking at 4am getting some water and returning to bed. Suddenly sat bolt upright in bed ready and alert to begin my day. I assumed the alarm on my phone had failed and I picked it up to check. It said 4.10am yet I know id been in bed at least two hours. This is not the first tines slip. I doubt it will be the last. I’m psychic but not sure that has any bearing on any of these experiences. I’m a Phd and definitely not nuts. I’m an ordained minister.

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  22. Hello John!

    My experience happened 8 years ago when I was 17 years old, I live in Mexico City which has more than 30 million people. It was Saturday, 2pm, in a busy street on the south side of town.

    To give you some background I was in my apartment alone for the weekend since my mother was out of town on a business trip when I got a call from a friend who lived 20 minutes away from me, he called to ask me if I wanted to go get some coffee at a place where we always went to chat for hours and we agreed I would drive to his house right away I even told him, ok it’s 2 pm, I will be there in 20 minutes.
    I remember I was standing while talking to him so I hung up the phone and right away grabbed my jacket which was in front of me in a couch, grabbed my car keys from a coffee table next to the couch, and went out the door immediately and hoped in my car.

    I drove for 2 minutes until I reached the first red light, I was the first car in front of the light in a two lane street and I remember I drifted into my thoughts and I was just staring into the front panel of the car at nothing in particular just thinking, (something that puzzles me is how I remember all the details but not what I was thinking in that moment!) I never felt dizzy but when I looked up, the light was still red which I thought it had been a little too long, but I remember I was feeling very weird like something had happened, so I looked at my watch, it was 5 PM! I looked at the time in my car’s radio, 5 PM! so I continued to drive for the next 15 minutes just thinking about how could I have gotten so confused or how both clocks could have been wrong, so I got to my friend’s house and honked the horn, he went out of his house with his hands raised like saying: What the fuck! He approached my car and told me what the fuck took you so long!? I got pale… I told him about how for me, I was absolutely sure that only 20 minutes had passed, and all I could think of for the next weeks, months was that day, but I could not remember what I was thinking in the car, or what had happened.

    I always have this feeling like there is something that I need to remember that happened that day and it’s been 8 years and nothing! I even thought that writing this would help, but I’m in the same spot. Now I do have to say that it did help me some how, because since that day something changed in me, and I have become a super easy going guy, I have a kid and wife and my life is what I never thought it would be, I really had low self-esteem and many issues, but I mean it wasn’t an overnight change or anything I just feel like that was one of the triggers.

    So just to summarize and to list why I find the whole thing inexplicable:
    – I was absolutely sober and awake, in the middle of the day, in a busy street and I was the first car in front of the light, if I had just fallen asleep or lost my senses for 3 hours someone would have called an ambulance or police or knocked on my window
    – My friend confirmed to me that it had been 3 hours since our phone call, so it wasn’t just that I got confused with the clock!
    – In my head, it will never be more than 20 minutes. That’s it. Even as I was drifting away in my thoughts I was there! You know what I mean? I didn’t drifted away completely, I remember I was somewhat there!

    Thank you for serving as a relief for my confusion, I found your story very similar in the sense that what defines your experience the most, was the feeling you had of everything, because at the end our stories end abruptly without closure, and without an answer.
    Please feel free to ask me anything, at thomastixidor@gmail.com.

    Thanks again and have a great day! and a life full of love since at the end, that’s the only thing that really matters when it comes to understanding this crazy world we live in, if you love with all your heart, your life short or long will be an accomplishment and a story worth telling.

    Reply
  23. I have one from my father. This happened in 2003

    My parents lived in Stockton, California. My parents asked my grandparents from my dad’s side to take us since there was fungus in the bedrooms. My dad was 32 at the time and he played with Black Magic back. He had seen a couple of menacing figures when he was helping a family friend and neighbor, Robin. One was the man who had commited suicide in her house and the other was her abusive ex-husband who had died in prison. So my dad was in the shower and my mom was sleeping in the living room because of the mushrooms in the corner of their room. My dad heard my mom scream. “Baby! Baby!! Seth!!” My dad bolted out of the bathroom into the living room. My mom confronted him by saying, “Where you watching me sleep?” My dad motioned to his hair and said no. She explained by telling him that she felt someone just standing over her head, staring at her. My parents left after my dad rinsed out the soap in his hair.

    Two weeks later on Thursday, my dad headed back to the house. By then, Robin and her boyfriend I think were staying in the RV they owned since they were kicked out of the house. My dad took his trunk over to pack up and move out of the house. The landlord was a dick and refusing to repair the fungus in the bedrooms, plus with all the weird shit that has been happening. My dad sat in a rocker chair that had been there before my parents moved in I think.

    Two days pasted and Robin knocked on the door. My dad answered it. “Are you okay Seth?” She asked. “Yeah why?” With confusion Robin said, “You’ve been in here for two whole days. I was starting to worry.” My dad was even more confused. “Two days? It’s still Thursday right?” Wyatt the boyfriend shook his head no. “It’s Sunday now.” My dad grew worried. How did he lose two days? They both left after checking up on him. He packed everything that he and my mon wanted and drove off. Giving the middle finger to the house, my parents never went back. Not for anything in the house or to even tell the landlord. My dad is now 44 years old. He still wonders what had happened to him.

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  24. In the 80’s my family and I were driving home in the country, about 3 miles from home, it was dark and we were coming to an area where there is a lot of deer crossing and there was a car coming toward us, we blinked and the car wasnt there, I remember saying where did the car go……. My brother is yelling he can’t see, my ears are ringing, my mom yelling what happend and my dad is scared… Our car was stopped abruptly on the side of the road, my dad had bruises across his thighs from them slamming into the steering wheel, my moms side of her and leg were bruised from slamming into the console. My dad was scared and Cussung, he started the car and raced home the whole time looking out the window. We get home he says run to the house, don’t stop run and he is running behind us looking into the sky. We all remember it as I was about 12 my brother 15, my mom will talk about it but my dad doesn’t really like to. Time was lost but not sure how much, what happened? I have no clue, sometimes I wish I knew what happened after we seen that car coming toward us and vanished and our car coming to a abrupt stop but yet have no memories of it. Just all of a sudden having issues.. there was no damage done to car, big old 76 caprice classic.

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  25. This hapoened, April/May 2015. One night, while asleep, I was being lifted out bed. Next thing I was aware of was catching myself sideways and back into bed. The living room clock had stopped. There was a min of 10 minutes missing time. Could be more. Strangest thing that ever happened.

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  26. One thing that sticks out about your story, and it really gives me a creepy uneasy feeling, is that you feel that you were shown something important but can’t remember what it was. I feel like I’ve felt that before, I can’t explain it. Oh, I’m really creeped out right now.

    One time, when was a little kid, I have a vague memory of my father running into my room in a horrifying panic. I was in bed and he was saying something like “get up we gotta get out!” He’s a large man and a kung fu master. He was a body guard for some famous musicians and was in a biker gang. So, you can imagine that it would be out of the ordinary to see him so scared. It’s a very vague memory but I feel like there was something outside looking in the window. Not a criminal or anything like that. Something not human.
    Fast forward 30 years and I experience something a regular basis. I start to feel so drowsy that I cannot fight sleep. When I awake, it’s a couple hours later and I find that everyone was asleep too. Wife, son, and pets. It doesn’t matter what time of day or what day. I always get the feeling that the two incidents are tied together somehow but can’t put my finger on it.
    I saw something important.
    I had described the first incident to my cousin years ago. Then, several years later, out of the blue, after being angry with him and we hadn’t spoken in a couple years, he came to a party at my house. When we finally got alone together, I was hoping to make amends as we were best friends for years but instead, the first and only thing he said to me was “grandma says you made that whole story up”. (He was referring to the story about my dad) that was also the last thing he ever said to me (he died shortly after)
    Why would he say that out of nowhere?
    What I saw that was important. I vaguely, very vaguely, remember digging a ditch. It was dark out and there were flood or work lights shining on where I was digging. There was one other person with me digging but I don’t know who it was. The ditch was behind a trailer of some kind. The back of the trailer opened and there was a creature standing there. It looked like it could’ve been an alien or something. It spoke. It said something profound but I can’t recall what it was.

    My wife once mentioned that she saw men with clipboards disappear into the wall in our bedroom. Sounds crazy? Some time later, her insane uncle mentioned men with clipboards walking through his wall.
    Anyway, I know you were looking for stories specifically about missing time and I’m just kinda thinking out loud. It’s just that your story really struck a chord.

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  27. Incidentally, at the expense of sounding like one of the “tin foil hat” crowd, I am a studious researcher of paranormal subjects. Did you know, that recently, all of the clocks in Sicily jumped forward 20 minutes? Even analog wall clocks. I think time is actually speeding up. I believe this for several reasons but it would take volumes to fully describe my theory.
    Suffice it to say, what humans l perceive as reality and the true nature of reality are so obfuscated that true realty would be completely incomprehensible to the normal human mind.
    All by design mind you. But, every once in a while, some little thing slips through a crack. There’s little hiccups in our matrix. Little slips in our paradigm.

    Reply
  28. About 5 years ago I went back to the state Victoria (Australia) after moving away from there 6 years earlier.(It was my first time back home after moving away) One night, I was visiting a friend who still lived in a country town I grew up in. I had left their house and was on my way back to my sisters house which was a hours drive away. It was around 11.30pm but I was not tired at all as I was really enjoying driving the windy roads and of the mountain. I was about 1.5 ks out of the next country town and next I found myself parked on the side of the road with my engine off and I was 1 K up the road from where I can last remember driving. I sat there for about 5 minutes wondering what the hell had happened.

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  29. About four years ago, my husband passed at home. My sister and i were at his side when he passed. The night before he passed we had several family members to the house to just be with us for a while. My husband was no longer coherent so we all just sat around him in the living room for a while. At 10:30 pm on the dot everyone decided to leave. My one sister was staying with me as she lived out of town. My sister and I walked everyone to the door at 10:30 – I distinctly remember looking and the clock and so did my sister – hugged everyone and they left. My sister and I walked back to the sofa in the living room, sat down and I looked at the clock again and it said 3:30. Both of us could not believe it and checked our cell phones and every clock in the house – it was 3:30 am. We both still talk about it – we have no idea what happened from the time we walked our family out the door at 10:30 pm, walked back to the sofa and it being 3:30am. this will haunt me for the rest of my life.

    Reply
    • Callie – Interesting to me how many similar stories to yours that I receive involve another person that has the identical experience. That makes it much more difficult to explain away as a simple mistake or some sort of mental lapse. Have you and/or your sister ever experienced any other missing time or time-related anomalies? Any other kinds of unexplained events, encounters, etc.?

      Reply
  30. My incident occurred during the night and into the morning of July 25, 2015. I live in Arkansas but my family was visiting my hometown of Smithville, Tennessee. We were staying with a childhood friend of mine. My friend and her family believe that she was abducted as a child and that’s something I remember from years ago — wasnt something we had discussed recently. I am 53 and she is 52 now. Her husband had left in the evening and after a dinner out, my husband went to bed around 10:30 – 10:40. My friend and I were watching some YouTube videos and went into the kitchen for snacks around 11:20. The videos we watched, in length in minutes, were 3:32 minutes, 33 minutes and 27 minutes. (I verified later in You Tube history to see exact times each video started.) As we were close to the end of the third video, I looked toward the window and asked her where the light was coming from. She pulled back the curtain and it was morning. We were both shocked to see that it was 5:10 AM. The last video had started at 12:07. We lost around 5 hours of time. We discussed it and neither one of us remembers anything out of the ordinary — no headache, no feeling that a lot of time had passed, nothing. It might be important to say that we were watching “Impractical Jokers” and laughing our heads off — not watching something that one of us could have been drifting in and out of sleep. The missing time seemed to be totally seamless. Since that night my body feels bruised but no marks that I can find. I have experienced missing time in the past but always when I was alone, and never lasting more than an hour and a half, or so.

    Reply
    • Jennifer — Five hours is a significant amount of time to have unaccounted for. Can you clarify your friend’s abduction experience as a childhood for me? What do you mean when you said that she and her family “believe she was abducted” as a child? They weren’t sure if she was abducted? Abducted for what purpose and by whom? By people, or are you talking about the alien abduction phenomenon?

      If both you and your friend have had a history of missing time incidents then it’s not all that surprising that this happened to the both of you simultaneously. Did your husband and/or your friend’s husband notice you missing during those five hours? And there was nothing in your browser history after that final video, correct?

      Sorry for all the questions. I’m just trying to understand the specifics of the situation.

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  31. What I meant about her abduction as a child was this: her mother told me this story probably 20 years ago (it occurred in the 1960’s). Yes, alien abduction. She said that relatives were visiting and the men were playing cards. They noticed bright lights through a window and went outside with a shotgun as they thought it might be people “spotlighting” for deer on their farm (roughly 600 acres). During the time that they were walking toward the light, my friend’s mother couldn’t find her — like she was standing next to her one moment and gone the next. The mother said that she went out onto the porch and saw two short beings walking my friend across the road. At the same time one of the men shot towards something that was moving in the field, and when they did that, the two beings let go of my friend (distance between the men and my friend was approx 1/10 of a mile). My friend was probably 4 or 5 at the time and doesn’t remember the incident.
    Last week when I visited we discussed this story again after the missing time event we had. In addition to this event and my friend feeling like she has been abducted many times, she had a piece of white plastic (a little larger than a grain of rice removed by a doctor in Smithville. I think that it was about 20 years ago. There are things about that implant which you might wish to discuss with her. If you would like her name and phone number, she would be happy to speak with you about these things. As far as I am concerned, the first missing time event for me was when I was 6 years old and we were living outside of Heidelberg, Germany. I thought I was just reading a book for an hour or so, and was surprised to look up and notice it was getting dark outside. I would say it was an hour and a half missing time. Recently (last two or three years), twice when I went out late at night to let my dog potty, I would look at the time, went outside my door to the porch, let the dog potty (usually takes a minute or so), and when we came in, more than a hour had passed, each time. I have always looked at a clock, anytime I do anything, since I was a child. To the recent incident, no one noticed we were missing. My husband was asleep in the next room and got up around 7:00. Nothing in the browser history after the third video. I have racked my brain and can’t come up with any memories for the recent missing time.

    Reply
    • Thanks for clearing up those questions, Jennifer. Yes, if you wouldn’t mind passing along your friend’s name and email I would like to get in touch with her if you don’t think she’d mind. My email is john@theparanomalist.com.

      It’s very interesting to me that you two friends both have had these missing time incidents in your past. Coincidence? Could be. I think many more people than we realize had these experiences, and if a significant percentage of the population have had them, then it certainly could be coincidental that two people with this sort of thing in their background became friends. The other possibility is that there was some kind of connection between the two of you, but I really couldn’t hazard a guess as to what that might. Maybe people who have had these experiences are drawn to each other.

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  32. I had a very strange experience today. I arrived at 11.10 to meet friends from an organisation at a cafe. When I got there there was no one there. I remarked on FB that I had gone and no one was there. One of my friends write back and said they were there till 12..45??? What is the explanation.

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    • Marian – I wish I had an explanation but I only have some ideas about what might be at the root of these missing time episodes that so many people seem to suffer. And, of course, there may be (and probably is) more than one cause for them. Has this happened to you before, or anything else strange or unexplained?

      This actually does not fit into the typical “missing time” experience because it sounds as if you recall being there. Not to be insulting, but have you consider the most obvious explanations, like perhaps you were at the wrong cafe or they were in some other section and you didn’t see one another? We always need to rule out the simplest explanations before looking to the stranger ones. Did you experience any sort of strange sensations or notice anything different before, during, and after this period of time when you went to meet your friends? I’m interested in hearing as much detail regarding this incident that you’d care to share with me – although I don’t know if I can give you an answer. But the more information the collect from folks like you who have had these types of occurrences, the closer I can move toward finding an answer.

      Thanks — John

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  33. John, yes, I considered that maybe I was at the wrong place and have checked it out. Def. in the right place. Although I will check out seating again just in case there is another section at the back.
    There was one thing which was unusual. When I left my friends place after dropping her off, or somewhere around that time, the clock in my car said 11 .15. When I arrived at the Cafe I was surprised to notice the clock now said 11.07 and the drive from friends place to cafe is at least 10 minutes. So as I see it there could be a time warp of some sort, but not enough time as my large group of friends were there until 12.45.
    As for other strange things. Many years ago I was sitting in the lounge room, and a big chunk of time disappeared, cannot recall how long, but I do not have any strange memories or sensations attached to this. This is all I can think of at this stage. Very odd. I am pretty sure there was no other seating area there but will check it out Monday just in case. Thanks John

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  34. John, I wanted to write to you about something I am experiencing now a week and a half out from my missing time experience. I began to notice yesterday, and I’m not sure quite how to explain it but everything seems to be delayed slightly. For example, if I flip a light switch on, it has a slight delay. Same thing with typing and when people speak to me (kind of like when you are watching a video and the audio is delayed so people’s mouths move before the sound comes out, very slightly). I have never experienced this before and I am just updating.

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  35. Hi John
    Sorry for the my reply being so late. after lots and lots of memory re call i can remember back to july 2009 when myself and daughter were in the back garden and saw 3 lights in the sky in a triangle. The lights were still above my house, after about 5 mins of watching it just vanished? then after my friend and i became interested in witchcraft which we still practise to this day ( herbal/ nature ) then the missing time occured a few months after. we both always had good intuition and very psychic so this is why we both joined a development circle . Now i am in a mediumship circle. I did also do Reiki 1 & 2, Crystal Healing and last year Spiritual Healing. I am typing this and thinking was we taken to be upgraded in someway?
    Regards Jo

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    • Joanne — My fear, and I don’t say this in a judgmental way and hope I don’t offend, is that these practices might open yourself to more experiences and of a worse kind. I’ve been doing a lot of research and study since a very bizarre incident that I had last June, and I’ve come to believe that these type of phenomena might be demonic. I didn’t arrive at that opinion lightly and I’ve always resisted looking at the paranormal from a religious perspective, but it’s become difficult for me to deny. Please be careful with regard to your witchcraft, Reiki, and other practices. My concern is that you might invite something into your life that you don’t want. If this sort of activity becomes more frequent and intense please let me know if you would.

      Good luck — John

      Reply
  36. Hi,

    I know this is an old thread, but I had a sort of similar experience about 11 years ago. But me and my older brother literally lost about 3 hours roughly. We were round a friends house In a place called Marshland St James in the UK. We had an argument with this girl who was seeing our friend at the time. So we decided to drive back to Kings Lynn in my brothers Ford Escort, nothing special. However? the performance of the car as we were driving seemed to be frighteningly fast considering it only had a 90 bhp engine. We left when it was relatively dark still and as the sun was coming up at around 0330 hrs. The journey was only supposed to take 20 minutes? or should have had done? But when we got back, it was nearly 0715 hrs. We have no recollection of any other memories between that time other than my brother driving and both commenting on how fast the car seemed. We both to this day have no idea how this happened! I don’t remember feeling dazed or ill in any fashion. The time just simply disappeared or was elongated somehow! There were no other cars on the roads that we went along that we can remember. Very strange experience.

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  37. Hi! I have had a seizure disorder since about 2001 two years after my husband died. I was 31 at the time. Over these years I have had many loss of time experiences not related to grand mal seizures. None of this happened as a child or young adult. I still have these, one of which happened 12 days ago. I was admitted for a CT scan and EEG. No news is good news, right? However, I would like to know the cause. It happened recently at my second job. I lost about 15 mins and was confused to other people. I have no memory of it or 2 phone calls that took place later that day. I did lose that job because they’re afraid to have me working before other workers show up. I’m not fired but not working either. If it was only once or twice that would be okay. The fact that it has been many without cause is frustrating.

    Reply
    • Theresa — If I understand correctly, other people saw you during this period of memory loss and you appeared confused to them? And you made phone calls during this period of missing or unremembered time? Is that correct? If so, this doesn’t sound like most of the missing time incidents that people have described to me. This sounds as if it might be a medical condition of some kind. You might want to seek further testing and get another doctor’s opinion opinion.

      Good luck,

      John

      Reply
  38. Yes, I appeared confused at work after it. I saw my PCP today and he suggested a battery of tests for memory. A nurse I work with came to my office today to see how I’ve been since that day. She has a history of epilepsy too and had those tests. She was diagnosed with functional retrograde amnesia. I’ll talk to my neurologist at my followup visit coming up.

    Something else in addition to this though. My kids and my best friend have seen my husband in this house since he passed away. I never have. I’ve dreamed of him but haven’t seen him. My best friend came to check on my animals when I was out of town. This was about 7 years ago. She was sitting in the dark in the kitchen while the dog was outside and saw him as a white figure in a blue light go from one room through another. Scared her pretty good. The girls say they have seen him as a shadow or a white light. They weren’t afraid of that phenomena though. My son doesn’t have a clear memory of him. He was 4 when his dad passed. I’ve always wanted to and wished he would appear to me. Thank you for your advice. Take care.

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  39. Hi John. Regarding our previous communication, it appears I was in the right location, but wrong building.
    To reconstruct, after dropping a lady home, I drove to meeting point to meet my friends. I saw the name of the business from the hwy and pulled into the car park. Getting out of the car I was surprised to noticed the time was 11.07, as enroute to dropping my friend home I had noticed the car clock read 11.15. Therefore I had gained time? i entered the first building thinking it was where I was supposed to be. When I saw there was no one there, I walked into the Deli next door. Obviously they were not there either. At no point did I notice the business next door, where I was supposed to be. Looking back at this situation, it seems the whole building was invisible to me.
    Other strange things which have happened previously are things in my house seem to have mysteriously disappeared, and sometimes re appeared. Also, as I previously mentioned I did have one incident where a few hours seemed to have disappeared, although I have no strange memories associated with this.
    There was also another incident where I saw a strange human like figure standing in my kitchen. It was only momentary, but he was black. I saw no features only the shape of a large man like figure with a small head and rounded shoulders. I have also experienced psychic phenomena over the years, and been involved with a spiritual community at various times. Maybe this is an instance of opening myself up to unknown energies.
    I would be very interested n any thoughts, opinions or questions you may have.
    Regards
    Marian

    Reply
  40. I had a strange incident happen to me. At the time I was 13 years old, now I am 32, but it still creeps me out when I think about it, because it’s unexplainable.
    It was around lunch time(between 12pm-1pm) during the summer, I just came in from playing with one of my friends. My mom was in the kitchen doing dishes, I remember coming in and sitting at the table. I litterially laid my head on the table and picked it back up and it was 3am on the dot. I did not fall asleep or passout, I put my head down on the table and picked it back up, and lost about 14-15 hrs. To me a second had passed, but there I was sitting at kitchen table at 3 am. The weirdest thing is if I did passout(even though I didnt) why didn’t my mom try to wake me or put me in bed? It’s as if no one recognized I was there. To this day I don’t understand what happen but I think about it all the time, and this is the only time anything like this happen to me.

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  41. My experience happened in December 2010, my final year of high school. I was sitting in French class, at a window seat where I had a good view of the woods (I live in the North of England, and the snow in the woods outside was particularly deep). We were having a practice test, one where the teacher would play a cassette tape which read out the questions, and we had to write the answers in our books. She played the tape and, as usual, began walking up and down the room (she always patrolled like this during tests). I remember looking out of the window, daydreaming from boredom I suppose, the view outside was spectacular and far more interesting. The next thing I knew, it was as if the tape jumped suddenly. I looked at it, confused, and when I looked at the clock, a full 45 minutes had passed. Everyone had written pages and pages worth, and my desk was still empty. All I could think was “what the…how…?”, when the girl sitting next to me, Laura, looked at me, shocked, and whispered “man, where the hell is your book?”. The teacher was still walking around, luckily at the other side of the room, so I quickly got my book out of my bag, and opened it to a page already full of writing, and pretended I was scribbled things down. Really I was just completely confused, and wondering what just happened. Had I been alone, I would have simply thought I had zoned out, but why, when the teacher was keeping an eye on us the whole time, did she not notice me sat just staring? And why did Laura, who I shared a desk with, not notice that I didn’t have my book out the whole time, until the moment I snapped out of it? It is as though, rather than just being sat there, I had “gone” somewhere for those 45 minutes, and no one was aware. Oddly, after this experience, I felt very distant for around a week. The friends I told about it joked that I had fallen out of existence or something. This event continues to haunt me to this day, as I cannot explain it. I have only had one other experience that is absolutely inexplicable and could be considered supernatural, but it was not related to missing time events, so this experience sticks with me.

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  42. The Day after Thanksgiving in 2011. My wife and I walked into Wal-Mart realizing that she forgot her hairbrush and needing one. We left the kids in the car at 3:45 am in which wr had plenty of time to catch our 6 am flight. We walked into walmart. Walked to the hairbrush isle grabbed one and walked out. Low and behold our children are panicking because we where gone for a full hour and they had went in to check on us to no avail. We missed our flight. And we both let out a relieved breath, because we both had feeling that the flight was going to crash. Later on in the next airport we landed in via another flight we had a handicapped girl look at us and tell us we where going to die. Weird day

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  43. When I was in high school. I was on the phone with my friend and we agreed that I would come over. I hung up the phone, walked out the door and straight to her house which was about a 5 minute walk. When I got there she questioned me about what took me so long. I was puzzled and told her I came straight over. That’s when she told me we got off the phone two hours ago. I thought she was playing a joke on me and didn’t believe her so she showed me every clock in the house and on the TV. I do remember feeling a little off during the walk, like there was something weird in the air but other than that it was a normal, slightly cloudy day. I have no idea what happened. It’s nice finding this site and reading other similar stories because whenever I tell somebody about this incident they look at me in disbelief like I’m lying. I most certainly am not…. this actually happened.

    Reply
    • Jacee — It’s much more common than most people know, although I can’t say that I’m any closer to finding an answer to the cause of it. One recurring theme that has emerged is the fact that people who report having these missing time experiences often have had more than one; or if not other missing time experiences, then other strange or unexplained events. It seems to be part of an ongoing pattern throughout their lives. Has anything like that, or other strange phenomena happened to you before or since this experience?

      Reply
  44. I am very glad to have found this site. I had no idea that loss of time scenarios were so common and didn’t know where to even report one.

    I had finally managed to close the sale on a house I was buying and had arranged for someone to load and haul my storage trailer with his truck. My storage items were located two hours north of my house, but I would be staying in a motel about 30 miles south of there. I told him I would call him when I arrived at my motel as this loading would take us into the next day. I expected the drive to take about one and a half hours. This was July 14, 2015, just a bit over two months ago. I looked at the clock before I left the house, it was around 10:45 AM, I knew this would give me plenty of time as I was hoping to check in early and get some rest before having to head out . The temperature outside was hot and humid with partly cloudy skies. I was driving north on U.S. 431, a four lane highway. I was near the end of the causeway of Lake Guntersville in Alabama. All of a sudden my car started sputtering and shaking and I said to myself ” oh no this car is going to stop”, then I thought, “no it is me or my brain that is stalling”. Just as suddenly as this episode started, it ended. As I pulled over into the nearest parking lot. I had a weird feeling about it but thought maybe my blood pressure was getting too low . I got out of the car and went into the store and bought some drinking water, and walked back to the car. I seemed to be fine. I continued on toward my motel about 20 miles away. When I arrived at the motel I called my helper and told him that I was there., he asked, “What time is it”, i answered, ” the room clock here says 2:30, but I know that is not right, my watch says 12:39″. I hung up with him after telling him what time I would meet up with him. I then checked my cell phone, the time on it was 2:30, and I knew that the time on it would have updated itself automatically. I then checked my clock. This is the clock I keep at home and carry with me when I travel. The clock showed 12:39. I was completely stunned. I would not have thought too much about the earlier incident in the car if not for this two hour difference in time. Even if only the watch or the clock had been off, I would have probably just thought that one had stopped for some reason, but both the watch and clock showing the same time. And both of them were battery powered analogs with second hands and the second hand moving normally. So what happened and where was I for exactly two hours and nine minutes? I do not know.

    Everyday since this event I have been running this episode thru my mind looking for explanations. My best guess is that there are time-space vortexes with very small invisible projections that move into earth’s atmosphere and touch the ground, and constantly move, and I just happened to drive into one. I think it is widely accepted that these vortexes exist in space, and time is different inside these. It makes me wonder if some missing persons have walked or driven into one of these and not made it out.

    Thanks for this site and the opportunity to share this strange episode with others.

    Reply
  45. This was about four months ago. My friend and I were in my car. We were on our way to see a band in a very busy part of Pittsburgh. I used to live in this part of town. So I know all the roads very well. Anyway we were coming down a hill. About to approach a bridge. When everything got very calm, and still. And then the next thing we know. We were on a street called Butler. We never crossed the bridge. Or made the three turns that it took to reach Butler street. I realised it immediately. And even questioned him. Did he remember going across the bridge or any of the turns. Just like me, he didnt. He remembered approaching the bridge. And then suddenly being on Butler. I believe maybe we were skipped forward in time. To help us avoid something that might have hurt us. Like a car accident. Or something of that kind. But I know something for sure did occur that evening. I believe it was something for the positive though.

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    • Rachel — I don’t think that all missing time / time slips / time anomalies are necessarily bad, and I think some are probably positive in nature. Through some recent experiences I’ve reconnected with my faith and I give a lot more credence to the idea of spiritual intervention and the intercession of angels and of the almighty Himself. When my mother said she heard that voice tell her to come find me, that I was in trouble, I think that might have been my guardian angel. This is an idea that I would have thought trite and too “cutesy” and probably wouldn’t have given any sort of serious consideration to in the past. My thinking has changed on all that, and I believe that if you feel it was a positive experience and that you might have been spared an accident or some kind of tragedy, then it probably was intercession a spiritual protector. I’m glad you shared this. Thank you.

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  46. This past weekend, me and a friend took an eight hour trip that took 12 hours to complete. We both had our cell phone GPS apps on. We can only account for an hour worth of stops–just rest room/gas and snacks (no sit down anything meal or rest). There are three (3) hours that are unaccounted for. I remember coming out of one of the rest stops and looking at the phone and it jumped two hours. We had been on the road for 9-10 hours already (I drove 75% of the time). I really don’t remember anything weird, but I was rather somewhat lightheaded from only getting four hours sleep the night before.

    I thought that maybe we crossed a timezone (although I was pretty sure beforehand that we weren’t) and that maybe the daylight savings time through things off two hours. My friend called someone and had them check it. When she said, no we are still in the same timezone AND there is no difference in daylights savings time either, I didn’t believe it. I called someone else and had them check it. No–no change.

    We took the exact same route back two days later and it was only nine hours — with similar stops along the way, only one time we actually sat down to eat, so it should have been longer.

    We were attending a spiritual seminar the next day. My intuition certainly seemed heightened. I have no idea if this has anything to do with it. I am somewhat freaked out by the whole thing. I told a couple of people. I have someone who experienced it with me. People think we either drove really slow on the way up, took a different route or just don’t believe us, but I drove between 70 & 80 mph for 8-9 hrs on a highway that has 65 mph speed limit, so no (everyone who knows me knows I do not drive slow–quite the contrary). Also, 90% of the trip is one major toll route; we fueled up a few times on this route–we did not go off route.

    My friend thinks it has to do with me and not her. It wasn’t a bad experience–I don’t remember anything out of the ordinary at all–except losing the time. I joked about having to go into a time loop for some reason (for the better) or that we just had to take a wormhole into an alternate (much better) universe.

    It’s weird, but I will just have to believe it was all for the best.

    Thank you for this page. 😀

    Reply
    • Hi Daureen,

      I would be interested in hearing more about this spiritual seminar you were planning to attend, if you don’t mind sharing some details. What was it about? Have you been involved in any new age practices, occultism, seances, mediumship, ouija boards, use of crystals, divination, astral travel – that sort of thing? Has anything like this, or any other unexplained phenomena at all, happened to you prior to this incident?

      Thanks for sharing your story. — John

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  47. OK I don’t know why I thought about this today, but I’ve been haunted by the lost time that happened to me. The time was 1994 and I was living in Hawaii, I was married and had two small children, it was dinnertime and we’re just finishing up. My wife asked me if I wouldn’t mind to go to the store and pick up a bag of ice as we were out. It was still light out and I said sure should only take a couple minutes as a store was only three blocks away. I knew she needed it right away and I’m not the kind of person that dawdles around. Jumped in my car and preceded to go to the store, nothing seemed out of the ordinary just a quick trip to the store. went straight in to grab the bag of ice, the only thing that seemed a little of the ordinary was a funny feeling I had which I Cannot explain . The time it took me to go in and out of the store cannot of exceeded 3 minutes, as I’ve mentioned I was in a rush to get back home with it. Jumped back in my car and was back home in a couple of minutes, came into the house and my wife said immediately where have you been. I told her I went straight to the store and got back as quickly as I could. As I’ve looked around in the house I saw my two kids sitting in front of the television, they had been given a bath and both of them have their pajamas on. Giving a 1 ½,an 2 ½ year old a bath and getting dressed on average takes between 45 minutes to an hour easily. I cannot believe what I was witnessing this could not have taken place in the short time that I went to the store, that it was just impossible. The ice was not melted . It didn’t seem that it had gotten dark, I wasn’t really looking at the time as I had no reason to. All I knew is what had taken place took a heck of a lot longer than the short time that it took me to go to the store and back. If I had blacked out surely the ice with the melted, I’m a very punctual person I can tell the time without looking at any time peace, I can even wake up in the middle of the night and guess what time it is and always be within five or 10 minutes of the clock time. This incident keeps haunting me year after year these type of things just don’t happen there has to be some type the explanation. I didn’t feel like there was anything downloaded in me, or that it could have kept me from some horrible accident of some sort. I really didn’t feel much different except for that haunting feeling of not knowing what happened. If there was some type of a time vortex that I went through what was the reason. But after reading all of the posts on the site they all seem to be a kind of similar to what happened to me. Most of them seem to lose between one and 2 hours, and not have any recurring dreams or thoughts or visions of what possibly could have taken place. At least I know I’m not alone.

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  48. It was back in the 1980s that I had an experience of missing time. I have always wondered what had happed to me back then. I left to go fishing one morning about 6:30 am. well I got to my fishing spot and started to fish I had two specks in my ice chest . I had clanked down at my watch and it was now 7:33am. a few seconds latter I clanked down at my watch again . wow I could not believe what time it was. I was in shock to see that 9 hours had passed on by. I got the hell out of there and went home. My ex wife and children ask me what was wrong with me. I told them what had happen and they said I looked like I seen a ghost.. I never really told anyone about this for many years . but then it bothered me so much over the years that I sure would like to know what did happen to me that day back in the 80s. can you help me find out?

    Reply
    • Hey John – So sorry for the long delay in replying. I really don’t have any clear answers about the nature of these strange time phenomena, but I am actively researching it and if I have any new information or ideas to share I’ll let you know. I know how much it can trouble a person who has gone through something like this. Has anything similar, or any other type of unexplained or strange events happened to you before?

      — John C.

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  49. Hello John….To start with I have “lost” time for all of my life. As a teenager I often wondered if it was all in my head, that I just wanted to escape. The experience that prompted this comment was a decade or so ago but it was so momentous that I think about it often. My grandmother lives above Cincinnati and at the time I lived below Gainesville, Fl. It’s just shy of 900 miles and a straight shot down I-75. If you stop for gas, dinner and a couple times to stretch your legs its 14 hours. I love to drive and I enjoy the time to my own thoughts. I left my grandmothers about 5:00 am for a straight through drive. In Kentucky I started seeing custom street rods in the north bound lanes. I was in the automotive business and the quality of cars was exceptional. I even considered stopping to see where the car show was but decided to stick to my schedule. About 45 minutes above Chattanooga I stopped to get gas and went through the drive through for coffee and a snack. Then I got right back on the interstate. A while later I realized one of the custom cars I had seen earlier in the day had just passed me. It really confused me that the car was passing me heading south. How could it be there? I knew I recognized the car but I was really confused. I went to get off the interstate and realized the exit was on the wrong side. I was going north not south. Now I have driven all over the country and have never had a problem with getting turned around. I have traveled internationally by my self. I don’t get “turned around.” I went to the gas station and asked where I was because nothing seemed right. I was just below Cincinnati. I was still confused but I got back on the interstate and headed on towards home trying to puzzle out what had happened. It felt like when you’re not quite awake but you can hear people talking. When I got home it was a little after 3:00 pm and I never stopped for gas again. I drove from above Cincinnati to 45 minutes above Chattanooga , back to Cincinnati and then back to Gainesville, Fl in ten hours and two tanks of gas. I didn’t lose time I gained time. I have thought about this for years and I have no clue. No I am not a drinker and was not on any sort of prescriptions. Since then I have had several more episodes of lost time and one more of gaining time. I’m quite sure there is not a car on the road that gets that sort of gas mileage. There were no charges on my card and I had the cash I left with. I know when I got home I was just completely exhausted. A spiritualist I spoke with said she thought it could be astral projection but the car doesn’t fit into that theory. If you have any ideas or input please feel free to contact me.

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    • Hi Cheryl — I’m not surprised to hear that you’ve had other time shifts/missing time experiences. These incidents are usually part of an ongoing pattern and not singular events. I’m beginning to think of some new possibilities regarding these sort of phenomena, but I don’t have any clear answers for you. I’ll let you know if I have some new insights into it all.

      Yours was not the first time gain report that I’ve received. These type of time anomalies seem to be less common than missing time occurrences, but they do happen. Here’s a link to an earlier report in the comment section that might be of interest: https://www.theparanomalist.com/categories/unexplained/missing-time-experience/comment-page-1/#comment-1209. I’ll be in touch. — John

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      • John,
        As a child I just presumed everyone saw entities other than just people & I was really shocked that other people didn’t see what I considered just part of life. However, I find it even stranger as an adult that people just don’t see lots of things. A new store that they pass on the way to work, a huge rainbow in the sky. People just don’t see what’s around them on a daily basis. I have often wondered if that behavior is some sort of screening process, a step in a souls development or just a defense mechanism. Please keep reminding people to be very careful with psychic experimenting….ignorance is the first & often only invitation the darkness needs. Please don’t think me daft. I seldom speak of these things. Take care and please keep me posted.
        Cheryl

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        • Yes, I’ve heard other people say that, as a child, they naturally assumed that everyone saw these things. I agree that some people are more prone to seeing and experiencing these unknown phenomena than the general public seems to be, just as some people (like my mother) have psychic or precognitive abilities. It’s probably an innate faculty.

          I also agree with your statement about being cautious with regard to psychic experimentation. It’s important not to leave oneself open to negative spiritual entities. There has been a huge increase in demonic activity — obsession, oppression, possession, infestation — and that has much to do with the current fascination with the occult and the paranormal. People are delving into things that they don’t understand and are often inadvertently leaving themselves vulnerable to these beings.

          I’m in the process of rebooting my site and I’m going to be writing further about all this. I had an experience last June that was very significant and has changed my thinking about a lot of what is thought of as the “paranormal”. I’ll let you know what I discover as I continue to look for answers. Thanks again for writing. — John

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