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Getting lost in thought can lead to some bizarre revelations, or, on the contrary, just confuse you even more. Those kinds of thoughts especially like to come at night when you are trying to get to sleep or in the shower when your mind is more relaxed. If you really think about simple things long enough, you will start to realize how weird they actually are.
And if you've never pondered how everyday things are so normal but at the same time so bizarre, you will after reading this list of people’s answers to a question asked on Reddit “What’s something you find weird that is 100% normal?” Be prepared to be bamboozled.
More info: Reddit
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#1
Having pets. I have two dogs that I love to death but when I really think about it, I realize they’re just two random animals that I saw one day and said “yeah I like that one” and put them in my home against their will and I give them food regularly and smother them with more affection than I give to other people. And those two random animals seem to think that’s totally dope and show signs of liking me back.
ShriSha Kamboj 2 years ago
the dogs be snickering about how u have fallen for their trap....it's the dogs that decided they liked u :)
#2
Reading. Like, there are these random squiggles and we can instantly interpret them into complex thoughts, concepts, feelings, emotions - from people we’ve never met or sometimes even heard of before. It’s weird.
#3
The fact that all those other people you see out in public all have their own lives that they go home to completely separate from yours.
Edit: I have been informed many times that the word for this is Sonder.
#4
Paparazzi: they do everything just like a stalker, yet they’re not incarcerated for it and paid to do the things they do.
ShriSha Kamboj 2 years ago
i personally find paparazzi extremely invasive....let people live their lives........don't STALK them for bs content
#6
Following celebrities blindly and caring about their opinions
#7
Having kids. Youre just gonna make a person? Youre just gonna snatch an innocent soul out of the void and force sentience upon it? What the hell.
#8
As someone from an Asian cultural background, how American kids can get financially cut off from their families at 18. Like, they’re still a family and on good terms, but my friends have said stuff like “my mom owes me 300$”, or that they’re taking out student loans though their parents are financially able to support them through college. But, their parent’s money isn’t their money anymore so they have to take on debt. It’s so strange to me, as the expectation in (most) Asian households are that parents support you financially when you’re young and then you support them financially when they’re old, and there’s no clear demarcation of my money your money.
catrin Watts 2 years ago
I like this idea my kids are still young but I'd always give them help financially if they needed it and I have it I would give it to them it's not even a thought to do otherwise and my family have always looked after the older members it's just how I think it should be
#9
Languages, or just talking in general. The fact that we’ve given meaning to a bunch of random sounds made by our vocal chords is bizarre when you think about it. Like, how did this even start? How were we able to decide what should be called what? For example, how did we decide that a rock is called a rock or that the sky is called the sky?
Rose Romano 2 years ago
If you're really interested, read up on etymology. It's fascinating. (And things aren't as random as they seem.)
#10
The fact that a majority of people think in images. Like, think of an apple and see, in the mind, a picture of an apple. So weird to me, I’ve never “seen” anything up there.
Emerald Ocean 2 years ago
This!!! I’m the same way! It’s actually a fairly uncommon but not rare condition called aphantasia!
Melissa Boatman Linebaugh 2 years ago
Yes I learned I had this when a friend posted on FB about it. I assumed nobody actually “saw” things and that it was just a figure of speech. Sometimes it makes me sad I can’t recall my grandmother’s face, but my recollections of her “self” is incredibly vivid that I am ok with it.
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Laura Watts 2 years ago
Also that some people don't have a voice in their head ( I don't mean voices) but like when you reading or typing and you talk along with it in your head some people don't have it ???
Raven DeathShade 2 years ago
My sister says I'm weird cause I have an inner monologue...am I? I tend to think of worst-case scenarios or I narrate what I'm doing. Or, other times, Markiplier, MatPat, or the guy from CinemaSins pops in and gives commentary.
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Derek R. 2 years ago
I always wondered when someone is bilingual, are your thoughts in your native or most spoken language?
Melanie Hornak 2 years ago
My thoughts are in both languages, depending on which I'm currently speaking.
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buttonpusher 2 years ago
Apparently you can't invent a human face either, the same way you can't invent a colour.
Kimi Tomminello 2 years ago
I think this needs a little expansion. Artists can pull from features and create faces they have never seen, how else would composite sketches done by police work to find suspects?
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Rosie McLeod 2 years ago
I just cannot understand aphantasia at all - how can you describe something if you can't see it? Is reading boring? Are your memories just words? Are you guys less anxious? I vividly imagine awful things happening sometimes during periods of anxiety, so I "see" loved ones getting horrifically injured etc must be pretty nice not to have vivid catastrophic intrusive thoughts...
Emerald Ocean 2 years ago
We just don’t have the pictures. Doesn’t mean we don’t worry or have anxiety. It just means we describe vividly stuff in our head rather than see it vividly. Our memories even though we don’t see them, we just vividly have like a written dialogue of details and stuff.
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Arthur Waite 2 years ago
Interesting to consider things that have no physical image, 'God' for example, or 'electrons'.
Mickie Shea 2 years ago
Being visual I can see things I think of and literally image that I can see inside walls. Design and home building for years probable helps.
Rose Romano 2 years ago
I've always thought in pictures. Even when people talk to me, I have to read what they say in my head or I just don't get it.
Jacalyn Margittay 2 years ago
I agree! It's so weird. When I close my eyes it's just like turning off a tv. Just blank. And I can't read in my dreams. I see signs or print but I can't read it. And unimportant people in my dreams have no faces. Weird
Emerald Ocean 2 years ago
Yeah I’m the same with the closing your eyes and everything is blank part. But I’ve found if I close my eyes when there is like a bright light, I do see shapes and what not. At least I think I do. I’m not sure if because of the light, my brain tricks me into thinking I’m seeing shapes in my mind.
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Dough Puddle 2 years ago (edited)
Taking that image in your head and applying it to paper is the hard part!
AnnaB 2 years ago
Aphantasia. I'm 68 and recently realized that not everyone just sees blackness when they close their eyes to imagine something. I can intellectually 'think' of what an apple looks like, but no image appears at all. I feel somewhat cheated.
Emerald Ocean 2 years ago
I’m the same!!!! I can describe it in my mind but no image appears
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Beck 2 years ago (edited)
I read about this on BP last year. Blows my mind. The way I see things in my head is you know how you can see things out of your peripheral like optical illusions, but staring straight at them makes it go away? Kinda like that. If in my mind I try to picture an apple, I can't exactly until I kinda "look away" a bit. Kinda chasing a clear image.
Analyn Lahr 2 years ago
So, you don't see an apple without actually looking at an apple or a picture of an apple? Do I understand that right? You can't just visualize an apple in your mind's eye?
Emerald Ocean 2 years ago
Yeah. Even if I stare at an apple and then try to visualize in my brain, I don’t see it when I close my eyes. The only pictures aphantasic people like myself see is in dreams or with our eyes open. Think of when you close your eyes and everything is dark. It’s like that. We can still see like normal people, we just aren’t able to conjure an image into that blank space
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Lilly's Mom 2 years ago
My friend is like this. She can't even picture her father if you ask her to.
Amanda Dawson 2 years ago
I'm curious, how was this caused by learning German?
Load More Replies... Wintermute 2 years ago
It's called "mental synthesis" and there are a lot of fascinating studies on it if you care to google.
Mike Loux 2 years ago
Guy who used to work for me does not visualize anything at all mentally. Totally foreign to me, but he just rolls with it.
Aliquid 2 years ago
I don't visualize and I was well into being and adult when I realized other people CAN visualize. So rolling with it was easy! I just though people talking about visualizing were being metaphorical... until one day I said "wait, you mean you LITERALLY can see things in your head, you aren't just thinking about it conceptually?"
Load More Replies... Dan 2 years ago
Even weirder to me is smells. I lost my sense of smell a few years ago after tonsillitis, but I can remember smells. Think of what a lemon smells like now…
FailBunny17 2 years ago
Ooooo, here's a good example of aphantasia, it's like your sense of a what a lemon smells like, so do you see that smell? (I am guessing most wouldn't) but you just know what the taste is like. That's how an image would be for me, I don't "see" it my brain just knows, it provides the information like a Wikipedia entry 🤣.
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Nubis Knight 2 years ago
My thoughts are just to fast for random images. But I can envision everything and even from every angle I want too.
Sylvie 2 years ago
I picture everything, sometimes it is very tiring. Especially when you want to explain something like your feelings or something that annoys you, it takes the longest time to put the images to words and bring it in a chronological order so the other person understands. My boyfriend for example does not think in pictures, so he gets really inpatient when i'm trying to explain something. Because of this post I was finally able to do some research and explain it to him.
Ivy la Sangrienta 2 years ago
I have whole movies in my head sometimes. And when I read the words kind of echo in my head in my own voice.
Where’s The Shovel? 2 years ago
If a book isn't well written it can drive me demented as my imagination has followed the story into the house say, but you haven't shut the front door or how are you doing that because technically you haven't put down what you were carrying. My mind is a cluttered place....
Rannveig Ess 2 years ago
https://aphantasia.com/vviq/ I am told, after my resulys, that I am "phantastic" "You're probably phantasic If you could visualize moderately realistic or even reasonably vivid scenarios in the VVIQ, this could mean you experience visual phantasia, or a vivid visual imagination. " This probably sounds like it'd be cool, but it gets exhausting.
Jessica Cifelli 2 years ago
I'm not in that majority. I don't see in pictures. My mind is more like I'm reading text in a book. I think this is why I am more of a strategic planner and less creative.
Beatrice Multhaupt 2 years ago
Counting my great-grandmother, who was living with us, our family spoke six languages but no body ever bothered to finish a sentence in the language in which it was begun. To survive in such an environment, my brain turned on the picture mode full blast.
#11
As a Deaf guy, looking at people kissing musical instruments is quite bizarre
#12
HarmonXifa said:
Clapping, animals must think we're mental. Apart from seals, seals know
sifs_rowan_tree added:
you're literally h i t t i n g yourself r e p e a t e d l y to show appreciation for others-
#13
Birds having a built in GPS system. They can fly south for the winter, then fly back to the exact same tree up north.
#14
The internet. How it works, and also just the whole concept of it. Complete strangers on literally the other side of the planet can interact with me almost instantaneously.
Jef Bateman 2 years ago
I can remember when international long distance was prohibitively expensive. Now I can set up an internet call for free and talk for hours. It made me realize I don't like talking to people on the phone that much.
#15
As a dog owner and cat owner I sometimes look at them and think, "there is literally an animal living in my house whose ancestors ran free and hunted other animals and it is just laying upside down all cute on its bed beside me and also can't eat unless I give it food". So I guess that.
Luther von Wolfen 2 years ago
Some dogs and cats would be able to survive without humans. Cats would have it easier - they're only kind of domesticated to begin with.
#16
the entire concept of laughter. why does our face contort and our diaphragm spasm when certain things happen? and how do our brains decide what things are funny and what things aren’t?
#17
Dreaming. Whole worlds, people following some kinda plot. Coming to same places in different dreams, sometimes years away. Then we wake up and puff! Off it goes
#18
getting a sense of deja vu. i know many people experience it but mine is so vivid sometiemes i know what the next thing that is going to happen or the next thing someone is going to say. it doesn’t happen often, and it’s always the most insignificant moment (never a life changing or major event by any means).
it’s a completely understood emotion/feeling than many people feel and understand it as “simple case of deja vu” but they treat it so minor. it’s weird and no one acknowledges how weird it is
ShriSha Kamboj 2 years ago
they say that a human brain predicts what someone is going to say even before we actually say it
#19
Teeth.
I don't know why. Your teeth are the only part of your skeleton that you can see. You bleach 'em, you lose em, you put metal racks on them so you remold your bones to the shape that society finds visually appealling. There's a fictional woman that breaks into your house to pay you for these bones. It sounds like a straight up sociopath. We get film on them that calcifies & solidifies & makes other bone-like material. Like teeth are weird, dude.
#20
Dancing. Like people flail around in weird and awkward ways to sounds.
#21
There’s a limitless, boundless void not that far above our heads we have no control or understanding of, and people don’t seem that concerned about it…
Ppl will be like see that star? It’s hundreds of millions of light years away. Maybe it’s already dead. Cool, huh? And then they just go on about their day.
I think the Romans and Mayans had it right. Gotta be more careful around the stars, you never know what could happen.
#22
Crying, why does my body create liquid from my eyes if something is sad
#23
As a left hander, watching right handers write.
Yeah, I get it. I am the odd one out. But still.... Come on, fellow left handers, back me up on this.
Joel Hopkins 2 years ago
We're just jealous they can write in pencil and not have a leaded left hand.
#24
Allergies. Like how the f**k does your body become deathly allergic to something that isn't capable of killing another person. Please someone explain that s**t.
#25
Our stomach naturally produces hydrochloric acid. It's corrosive and can burn through your skin and tissues. Bbuuuuutttr our stomach lining is covered in mucus to prevent us from eating inside out.
Have you seen hydrochloric in a science experiment? That chemical reaction is insane! Makes sense as we eat meat, bones and catrilage sometimes. If not our poop is gonna be bony...
#26
The fact that almost everybody finds somebody's butt attractive.
#27
Some mold is edible. No matter how stinky it is.
Rijkærd 2 years ago
This..I once threw out some cheese from the fridge that smelt really bad..like super awful bad made me gag....Flatmate comes in and heads straight to the fridge for her cheese and went wild when I told her I threw it out cause it was smelly I thought it was bad. She goes nope. Its from her hometown in France and she just had that little piece I threw out and would go back home in a year...I felt bad and she understood my ignorance on cheese types but still f**k that s**t was smelly as f**k.
#28
Earrings. Drilling holes in your body to hang decorations from.
#30
You can be overwhelmed or underwhelmed....but never just whelmed
What do you think ?
SilentBob731 2 years ago
They call 'em fingers but I never see 'em fing... ...oh, there they go. ;-)
ZAPanda 2 years ago
Finger / Fang. Sinker / Sank. Ringer / Rang. Fingers fang things. Fang is the old word for "catch". Catch is from french.
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Ellie 2 years ago
How some people do jobs they are clearly not qualified to do, or are really bad at and, everybody in the team knows it. My boss is lovely, but she’s honestly the thickest person I’ve ever met and terrible at her job. Yet we all just pretend she’s great!
Arthur Waite 2 years ago
It's called the 'Peter Principle', from a psychiatrist who noted: 'People get promoted because of their skills and knowledge until they get one step above their skills, then stay there, promoted to incompetence.' And then we get to work for them.
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Peggy Hinshaw 2 years ago
it's weird that sometimes you can feel someone looking at you. You look up from your book or whatever, and this person is staring at you. What?
Shane S 2 years ago
Weddings. Dear lord, weddings. Basically forcing your friends and family to watch an official declare that two individuals will operate as one unit until one or both die. And one family literally giving their daughter to another family.
IlovemydogShilo 2 years ago
Fire: To have something in your home that you consider cosy yet if it got out of control it could destroy your house and kill everyone in it. Music: How random sounds sound beautiful to some but ugly to others. How the sounds are made and how we perceive them.
Linny H 2 years ago
Who decided that humans should drink a cow's lactations? Why cows? Why goats? Why not other mammals? I haven't had a glass of milk in decades. Turns my stomach a bit.
KimB 2 years ago
I watched a documentary on how unhealthy it is for human consumption...they even called it cow puss!!!...I've been cooking with and drinking almond and soy milk since then lol nasty!
Load More Replies... Hannah Edwards 2 years ago
Breathing and swallowing, they’re weird and if I start thinking about them the actions feel awkward.
Nico van Os 2 years ago
That we find naked humans attractive, but naked animals we find almost universally repulsive.
Lovin' Life 2 years ago
I loved this! I learned a few things, laughed a lot at the comments, and had never really thought about some of these. More to come in future post, I hope.
Good girl wanna be. 2 years ago (edited)
I read all of the submissions and came up with a few of my own. I've always thought water, H2O was weird. Water, ice, steam, vapor, dew. It expands and contracts. Weird. Another thing that I think is weird is the concept of free advice. If you follow it you'll pay a price. One more thing, how our minds work. That one is the weirdest and best one of all. If you think that you can do it or you think that you can't do it. You are correct. My momma taught me that! Oh rats, I've thought of one more. Laughing at yourself. I find myself doing this often and it just cracks me up. I'm done folks. Exit stage left.
FailBunny17 2 years ago
Telephone's: from back when they were wired to now telephones seem wierd to me. We are talking to an object and that object is delivering your voice and all the background sounds it picks up to someone that could be on the other side of the world.
Don't Look 2 years ago
So, attempt at humor? I’m guessing because what else could this have been…
SilentBob731 2 years ago
They call 'em fingers but I never see 'em fing... ...oh, there they go. ;-)
ZAPanda 2 years ago
Finger / Fang. Sinker / Sank. Ringer / Rang. Fingers fang things. Fang is the old word for "catch". Catch is from french.
Load More Replies... Ellie 2 years ago
How some people do jobs they are clearly not qualified to do, or are really bad at and, everybody in the team knows it. My boss is lovely, but she’s honestly the thickest person I’ve ever met and terrible at her job. Yet we all just pretend she’s great!
Arthur Waite 2 years ago
It's called the 'Peter Principle', from a psychiatrist who noted: 'People get promoted because of their skills and knowledge until they get one step above their skills, then stay there, promoted to incompetence.' And then we get to work for them.
Load More Replies... Peggy Hinshaw 2 years ago
it's weird that sometimes you can feel someone looking at you. You look up from your book or whatever, and this person is staring at you. What?
Shane S 2 years ago
Weddings. Dear lord, weddings. Basically forcing your friends and family to watch an official declare that two individuals will operate as one unit until one or both die. And one family literally giving their daughter to another family.
IlovemydogShilo 2 years ago
Fire: To have something in your home that you consider cosy yet if it got out of control it could destroy your house and kill everyone in it. Music: How random sounds sound beautiful to some but ugly to others. How the sounds are made and how we perceive them.
Linny H 2 years ago
Who decided that humans should drink a cow's lactations? Why cows? Why goats? Why not other mammals? I haven't had a glass of milk in decades. Turns my stomach a bit.
KimB 2 years ago
I watched a documentary on how unhealthy it is for human consumption...they even called it cow puss!!!...I've been cooking with and drinking almond and soy milk since then lol nasty!
Load More Replies... Hannah Edwards 2 years ago
Breathing and swallowing, they’re weird and if I start thinking about them the actions feel awkward.
Nico van Os 2 years ago
That we find naked humans attractive, but naked animals we find almost universally repulsive.
Lovin' Life 2 years ago
I loved this! I learned a few things, laughed a lot at the comments, and had never really thought about some of these. More to come in future post, I hope.
Good girl wanna be. 2 years ago (edited)
I read all of the submissions and came up with a few of my own. I've always thought water, H2O was weird. Water, ice, steam, vapor, dew. It expands and contracts. Weird. Another thing that I think is weird is the concept of free advice. If you follow it you'll pay a price. One more thing, how our minds work. That one is the weirdest and best one of all. If you think that you can do it or you think that you can't do it. You are correct. My momma taught me that! Oh rats, I've thought of one more. Laughing at yourself. I find myself doing this often and it just cracks me up. I'm done folks. Exit stage left.
FailBunny17 2 years ago
Telephone's: from back when they were wired to now telephones seem wierd to me. We are talking to an object and that object is delivering your voice and all the background sounds it picks up to someone that could be on the other side of the world.
Don't Look 2 years ago
So, attempt at humor? I’m guessing because what else could this have been…
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