The mysterious 'Lamp Story' resurfaces making people questions what's real or not

Some events in life make us question our reality. Among many such mind-bending incidents that made it to the internet, the "Lamp Story" has a separate fan base. It all started some 12 years ago when u/temptotasssoon shared his cryptic experience as a response to the question, "Have you ever felt a deep personal connection to a person you met in a dream only to wake up feeling terrible because you realize they never existed?" in a Reddit forum. u/TriumphantGeorge reshared the story, titled: "A Parallel Life/Awoken By A Lamp," delivering it to a wider audience 9 years ago. It was about how the narrator lived a whole new life while he was unconscious after being assaulted by a football player.

So, the narrator then met the love of his life and after dating her for a couple of years, they got married. His wife gave birth to a daughter "almost immediately" after their marriage and the three were one happy family with the husband having a great job. When the daughter was two years old, the couple had a son. "My son was the joy of my life, I would walk into his room every morning before I left for work and doted on him and my daughter," he wrote. But things took a turn when the narrator found an odd perspective of a lamp at his home. "It was still in 3D but just wrong. I was transfixed, I couldn't look away from it. I stayed up all night staring at it, the next morning I didn't go to work, something was just not right about that lamp," the story read.

The man became too obsessed with the lamp's odd look and sat there staring at it, not moving from the couch for three days even to eat. While his worried wife tried to get him back to his senses, the man's "cognizance was breaking up" and eventually, his wife and kids left him. That was when the man had an "epiphany." He wrote, "The lamp is not real. The house is not real. My wife, my kids - none of that is real. The last 10 years of my life are not real!" That is when the image of the lamp grew wider and deeper and finally, the man woke up from his unconscious state. With a lot of commotion around, the man realized that he was hurt from the assault and was being taken to the hospital. Even after recovering, the "parallel life" was still stuck in his mind and for years, he was grieving the loss of his non-existing family. He wished to see them in his dreams and sometimes even had an illusion of seeing his son.

Even after a decade of going viral, this story still haunts many. Recently, it has resurfaced on the internet, but this time, on TikTok. In a viral video from last November that gained nearly 18 million views, content creator Helen Christie—who goes by @helen_christie on TikTok—took a hilarious jive at the "Lamp Story." The text overlay read, "When you're 3 years into a happy marriage with two kids," and the camera pans to a lamp. The woman, who seemed cheerful, suddenly turns grim, looking at the lamp and realizing this isn't her reality. This video got many wondering if the lamp story was real and some even questioned their reality. "The lamp story is wild. It freaks me out so much," commented @kittenslovemittens. "These things are why it's so hard for me to believe there aren't other universes," wrote @delirious.deer.

Another similar video that went viral shows artist Heidi Wong—who goes by @itsheidiwong on TikTok—mimicking the shocked expressions one would have when seeing a lamp after reading the "Lamp story." Wong enacted how one would react after 10 years of being in a happy marriage, raising two kids and suddenly noticing, "something strange about the lamp" in their home. The internet is still unsure if the "Lamp Story" is real, but people are surely pondering over the possibility of having a "parallel life."

You can follow Helen Christie (@helen_christie) for more hilarious content and Heidi Wong (@itsheidiwong) for more mysterious stories on TikTok.