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People Who Have Woken Up From A Coma Describe What It Was Really Like

When we see comas represented in TV and movies, it's almost always pretty identical to sleeping, and a person just wakes up one day. In reality, though, a coma can consist of floating around through various levels of consciousness.


Okay, those are all great words, but functionally what does that even mean? What is it like to exist that way? For that, we turn to Reddit.

Those who have been in a coma, what was it like?


The responses left us sitting with a heavy train of thought. A lot of the people responded that one of the things their minds did was create false memories that, to them, feel just like any other. For a while, they couldn't tell the two apart.

Some peoples memories were disjointed but others, like the woman who remembers a family vacation that never happened, create clear storylines that they are emotionally invested in.

If we fell into a coma, lived a cherished memory, and then woke up ... would I want to know the thing I imagined wasn't real? Does the woman really need to know the family vacation never happened? What about the people who imagined awful things? How do you ever believe that this experience you really felt just didn't happen? How do you accept and move on from that?

Like we said, heavy.

Waking Up

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I was in medically induced coma for about a week.

The coma itself is not much to talk about - there is just a gap in your memory, even from before it happened (I don't even remember the accident that brought me there in the first place).

Waking up from it is much different story though. Since I was fully dosed by painkillers and sedatives and whatnot I was basically high as kite and since the trauma I suffered was very serious my brain constructed very stressful, vivid nightmares I remember to this day.

Waking up was like the shallow sleep when you're semi-aware of your surroundings but you're also half dreaming. The former made me realize I'm in the hospital and that something bad happened (could not figure out what though), the latter combined with the said meds made the experience utterly terrifying.

But yes, at some moment I realized that I need to wake up, but I didn't know how. Also, there were several timelines concurrently going on in my head (as crazy as it may sound) and I could not determine which one is the correct one to wake into...

Turns out none of them was the correct one, although the fragments of reality were present in each of them, and I didn't have a conscious or any other control over choosing between them. It's not like I chose my reality, it's more like those delusional ones receded eventually.

- SpiderMechanic

Vacation Days

My wife was in a coma for about a month. At first I didn't bring the kids up because of how she looked but in the third week her color was closer to normal and there was less 'stuff' going on as she was pretty stable compared to the first two weeks.

Anywho....I had told the kids that while Mom wasn't responsive there was a chance could she hear us so they should be as brave as they can and sound as happy as they can. I described to them everything I thought that might spook them from the tubes and wires to things beeping randomly and Dr's & nurses coming and going.

They were awesome. Even in the initial shock at seeing her with a ventilator they were vocally loving, hugged and patted, held her hand etc. We sat in the room a while and just talked.

At one point I asked the kids what their favorite vacation was. Instead of our Disney and Universal Studios trips they both agreed it was the road trip we took from Vegas down to Arizona...driving all over and seeing all the incredible sights...we talked about rides & amusements in Vegas, then Hoover Dam, the Grand Canyon, the Painted Desert, cave dwellings, petrified forest, silly road stops, a cheap motel we stayed in Flagstaff...we laughed and cried (just a little). It was as nice as it could be. They kissed her goodbye saying "see you soon".

My wife heard it all...but in a hallucinatory way.

She now has, to this day (near 10 years later), a vivid memory of a second Arizona vacation she went on with us. She even asked me early on after she woke up if we had gone on a vacation recently. Her mind went through every detail we talked about and even added on to it as if it all actually happened and the memories of it are as real as any.

- CoogCheese

10 Days of Grief

10 days I don't remember anything about. Not sure if it is a blessing or a curse. Hit by a drunk driver. My wife and I lived, our daughter didn't.

To me that stuff on tv where the pt wakes up and everything goes back to normal is bullsh!t. When I woke up I was in a conversation with another pt. Air Force had sick bays, not individual rooms. I can only compare it to a computer, I had been hung in an update and then, flicker, new screen.

I had "woken up" several days earlier, but nothing stayed with me. My wife says I was paranoid that they were "putting acid in my I.V." because I was tripping. I was hostile and aggressive. I read the medical records, they kept me restrained for a couple of days after I hit an nurse. I started acting normal so they moved me from ICU to the sick bay.

The blessing is forgetting 10 days of some pretty intense pain. I was broken in a lot of places and bruised in all the rest. Never knew you could bruise some of them. That freaked me out.

The curse was I wasn't there when my wife needed me most. There is that tinge of guilt that she faced that grief alone for 10 days. I know, couldn't be helped. I know it's not my fault, but live through it and tell me how it feels.

- FirstVice

No Football Allowed

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Not me, but my dad has described his coma after his car accident. He was pulled up a little too far at a stop sign, and a guy who was speeding and on his phone swerved off the road.

So he was in a coma for about two months. On my end, it wasn't like the movies. He didn't just wake up miraculously. It was two months of steady improvements. One eye opened, then a few days later his other eye was half open, then he could wiggle a toe, then he could move his fingers, etc.

On his end, he said he could hear bits and pieces of what was happening around him, but it was like a dream that he couldn't wake up from. When me and my two younger siblings would come in and talk to him, his heart rate would go down. When a football game was on and his friends came to sit with him and watch it, the nurses made them turn it off once his team started losing because his heart rate blew up. He's a fan of the Miami Dolphins, so I guess his HR never fully returned to normal.

- PublixHouseCat

Worst Nap Ever

I had a motorcycle wreck a few years ago. Someone texting blew a stop sign and ended up t-boning them. Not sure if coma is the correct term, but I was definitely unconscious for two days, honestly just felt like the worst, least refreshing nap in the history of naps. Had the wreck on a Sunday, woke up sometime Tuesday afternoon/evening and asked if the bike was ok.

It wasn't.

- PM_urfavoritethings

Another Realm

Was hit by a car when I was 5 years old. Ended up with toxic shock syndrome and went into a coma for 4 months. I just remember some very weird 'dreams,' which i can still recall vividly 26 years later. Someone mentioned something about visiting another realm, and that's pretty close to the mark.

My favorite dream from the coma involved me floating over a huge grey colored ocean, and i saw something rise up from the water that i can only describe as a dragon with scoliosis. It moved its head like it was smelling the air and then turned and looked right at me.

In another one my favorite cousin had abandoned me and now lived in the ceiling above my hospital bed with my two best friends, Jason and Jason, who were also twins. They just moved a tile out of the way and would just stare at me from above.

The OG Power Rangers came to see me in one of these dreams too. Except Tommy. They just stood around my bed wearing their colors, and Jason picked up my little stuffed red power ranger pillow. Then he pointed towards the door and just outside on the cliff was Numb and Skull sitting at a bar and waving. I thought that was real until i was about 12.

- ManiacMando

Back To Sleep

I can only compare it to when you're little and wake up at a friends house and don't know where you are. I was in a coma for 2 months after a bad car accident. It wasn't medically induced, it was thanks to brain damage. When I woke up I was alone in the hospital room and had no clue what happened or why I was there. I had a neck brace on due to a broken neck so I figured something was wrong with my neck but was unsure how or what happened.

For some reason I thought I was 60 years old (I was in my 20s). I was paranoid and scared, but didn't know why I was there. I used context clues to figure out I was in the hospital. It was frightening. After about 5 minutes I decided to go back to sleep. 2 months of sleep wasn't quite long enough.

- ThisBlowsHard11

Three Parts

When I was in 5th grade I fell out of a tree and bonked my head pretty well. I woke up 3? days later in the hospital. For me, the experience is easily summarized in three parts:

  1. When I fell, I blacked out before I hit the ground... or at least that is where memory fades. And "fades" is really the best word. It was as if my consciousness was drained away and then blackness and nothingness. It was as if my body knew how badly it was going to hurt and so it shut down.
  2. I have very, very, very, vague memories while in the coma of hearing my Dad reading a book, or my Mom telling me that she knew I would pull through, or of a tube in my nose. But these were always super fuzzy moments and I never was conscious during them, it was more like a half second of being aware of one particular thing--the way the tube felt being taped against my arm and wishing I could reach out and move it--and then back into the nothingness. I think that I was somewhat aware of the fact that I was a little more aware each time that this happened but honestly I am not certain of even that much.
  3. Waking up was sudden. So, so sudden. I was in blackness. Had a moment of awareness, like "my neck hurts" and then the pain was magnitudes higher. No longer a distant perception but something that I was actively conscious of. Waking up was the most painful moment of my life and I just started crying and then couldn't even cry it hurt so bad. I think that had more to do with injuries sustained to my neck and head than the coma, but that is what it was like. After an hour my body was used to the pain and I was totally normal, albeit very weak, hungry, and thirsty.

I survived and am fine now without any lasting issues.

- RagnarLothrook

So Many Casualties

Survived (sort of) a major auto collision after a drunk Marine driving home from the Del Mar race track drifted onto our side of the highway.

Sadly, my older brother and fiance did not. I suffered a TBI and my family was advised I wouldn't live thru the weekend. All they could do was perform a burr hole procedure to drain blood from my brain and relieve pressure -- then wait. Dr.'s pumped me with barbiturates and fent to keep me under for 5 days. Woke up 16 days later.

Took about 8 hours to realize what was happening. Don't know about others, but my coma was not a deep sleep as some might imagine. It's like you're swimming underwater, but near the surface. I was in a nightmare within an adventure.

When I woke up, I didn't ask to see anyone or wonder what had happened to me. Apparently, the first word I said to anyone was "water." I have never experienced such thirst in my life.

Shortly after I regained my senses, a doctor casually notified me that both my brother and girl had perished; furthermore, the neurological damage was irreversible and I would now walk with a limp for the rest of my life. What made it worse was my girl didn't die right away. She stayed alive for 4 days hoping I would wake up so she could say goodbye. She passed away thinking I would soon die as well.

Unlike portrayed in TV & film, accident/coma survivors don't simply go home and resume their lives. For me, the accident and the coma's after-effects set in motion a cascade of personal loss which took 10 years to somewhat recover from.

I later revealed to friends & family that we were on that road because we were headed to pick up concert tickets I found on Craigslist. Her parents blamed me for her death.

Although my dad never directly accused me, he resented me and he distanced himself from me for the next few years until he passed. My older brother was his pride and joy. He stopped treating his hypertension and essentially gave up on life. I consider him a casualty of the accident as well.

I was crushed.

- ajnsd619

Polite And Compliant

Coma for three days from medication cocktail suicide attempt. I remember getting REALLY tired. Like my entire body suddenly dropped even lower into the gurney in the ambulance. Then my head started falling sideways and halfway down I lost consciousness. I woke up three days later with zero memories. I don't know if they had me drugged because of the reasons I went in, but I had no emotions at all for like three days after. Just nothing. I was incredibly polite and compliant.

- LeahAndClark

Everything Changed

I say it was like a blink.

I was in a coma for two months after a car accident, and suddenly I became aware that everything is different. But two months had passed and I didn't remember any of it. Of course, I was 40 pounds lighter and couldn't walk and couldn't talk and half my head was shaved, so clearly time has passed, but I didn't feel any of it.

It was like I blinked and everything changed.

- skymers

Ninjas

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I was in a coma for 2.5 weeks in my early 20s. I had meningococcemia (the kind of meningitis people get vaccinated for now) and my body just shut down. I was on a ventilator and IV nutrition as well.

I had these wild hallucinations/dreams while I was out of it like that there were ninjas in my room and people trying to come take me out of the room. There's a period of time I don't have any recollection of at all, though, where everyone had to tell me what happened after I woke up. I remember parts of being weaned off the ventilator and the only thing I can compare that to is being way under water and not being able to breathe but seeing the surface of the water and knowing if you can reach it you will get in a good breath of air.

It took them 3 or 4 days to wake me up enough to get off the ventilator. For the most part my family said they sat there and talked to me throughout the entire time. There was one period where they turned down the sedation and I thrashed around and restarted ripping my IV's out and tried to grab the ventilator tube but I was so weak a nurse was able to stop me. I would not recommend.

When I woke up, my body had used most of my muscle mass in fighting off the infection so I could hardly move (I couldn't even put chapstick on myself). My lips were all chewed up from me trying to get the ventilator tubing out of my mouth, all the tape they had to use on me peeled my skin off and I had ventilator assisted pneumonia. I also lost both of my legs below the knee and 2 fingertips.

In retrospect, the coma was probably the best part of it all. Its waking up from the coma that is the hardest part and all the things you have to deal with afterwards.

- 1234567-ate

Just over a year ago I was in a car accident, a pretty bad one, and ended up walking away with only a few scratches.

Fast forward 5 days and I was going in and out of conciousness in my apartment, feeling very sick and delirious. Got to the ER down the street via my dad picking me up late at night, don't remember the entire thing but all of a sudden I was on oxygen and people were checking on me constantly, and I realized I was slowly losing the ability to move, or at least it felt like it.

I remember fading in and out, and truly fading seems to be the best word, because as I remember it, it was like fuzzy memories of the following week.

I had a severe case of sepsis (not sure if that's how to phrase it exactly), and abscesses had formed around a few of my organs including my kidneys and liver. Also a horrible case of aspiration pneumonia to top it off so I couldn't breathe on my own either.

All I remember from the week was random moments of pure discomfort, and then immediately fading to black, I only seemed to wake-up/be aware when the pain would start/I had run out of whatever heavy-duty pain medication they gave me.

When I finally woke up, or was woken up, I was in agony and after a few hours I felt jolted into being extremely aware of everything around me and was confused for awhile. I remained in hospital a further 4 weeks, had to learn to walk again since the muscles in my legs forgot what to do (that has a name, I can't recall rn).

Still dealing with health issues over a year later. I often dream about that week of being kept under, like random moments of nurses fixing my oxygen, my parents sitting looking at me, and doctors murmuring to my parents, or my least favorite, just dreaming about knowing I'm not conscious but still feeling the pain, like I'm back there all over again.

- whowantstahnope

The Best

When my mum was late teens she had multi organ failure and went into a coma for three weeks. I just text to ask if she had any of these crazy dreams that others have written about but she replied 'I had the best dreams ever'.

When she woke up she was in hospital surrounded by nuns who's first words were,'Jesus wants you for a sunbeam'. When she looked through the glass she could see her dad (who had been in another country when she went into the coma) so she thought she had died!!!

Her heart actually stopped beating at some point and she said that all she felt was pure peace so she is not afraid of dying now. So I thought I'd share as this gave me quite a bit of comfort 😂

- moon_and_mountainmoon_and_mountain

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People Explain Which Companies They'll Never Trust Again

Reddit user SignificantClick8284 asked: 'What company will you never trust again?'

View of two high rise buildings.
Photo by Robert Stump on Unsplash

We all have various brands and businesses we tend to prefer over others.

Sometimes, we might not patronize these businesses because they have a superior product, but because they might seem more trustworthy than their competitors.

Indeed, some people have had such terrible experiences with companies, even some esteemed corporations, that they went running from them straight into the arms of one of their rivals.

Vowing that they would never, ever spend money on this company ever again.

Redditor SignificantClick8284 was eager to hear which companies people have zero trust in, leading them to ask:

"What company will you never trust again?"

Their Poor Communication Is Kind Of Ironic...

"Comcast."

"Their agents will lie to your face and act like you're in the wrong when called out."- bigdammit

customer service call center GIFGiphy

Not A Place To Spend Or Save Your Money...

"Ashley Furniture."

"Joke of a company."

"Bank of America - also scum."- KrankOverman

Better Question, What Question Will You EVER Trust Again...

"Unfurls paper scroll that stretches to the floor and rolls out the door."

"Ahem."- djb2589

"I see no reason to trust any company."- lycos94

When The Conformation Email Is Moot...

"Booking.com."

"I 'booked' through them just to find out that the hotel had no record of my reservation."

"Then I spent an hour in the lobby trying to get them on the phone, just to find out the price wouldn’t be honored and have them try to sell me another nearby hotel room."

"Nightmare."- DuncanAerilious

"Oh, oh The Well's Fargo Wagon Is A Comin'..."

"Wells Fargo."- clubberlang2005

"Yup."

"I was one of the WF customers who suddenly had 3 mystery WF accounts under my name."

"This was prior to the court case so I went in to my branch to ask WTF."

"The manager said the guy who set up those accounts was the same guy that setup my original 2 accounts - a checking and savings account."

"That a-hole tried to make it sound like he was doing me a favor by setting up all these accounts."

"Making it worse he says I need to login to my account in order for him to remove the other 3 accounts."

"He hands me that password box, I enter my password and he says 'that's an easy one to remember'."

"Is that your favorite band?'"

"After he said that I asked for the branch manager and told him what just happened and that I was closing all of my accounts'."- thescreamingstone

kate mckinnon snl GIF by Saturday Night LiveGiphy

"That's All Folks!"

"ACME."

"Every f8cking thing."

"From anvils to bat suits to zoot suits always FAIL."- alien_survivor

Not Equipped For The Digital Age

"HP."

"Thier printers (large and small format) are all complete trash that require constant upkeep."- Bluegrass_Barbarian

Pictures And Fine Print Can Be Misleading...

"Airbnb."- pkovach64

"My wife and I were drinking and got pretty drunk at an Airbnb and without letting us know the hosts sent a bunch of people to the property to refill the propane and other stuff."

"They came into the house while we were drunk and half-naked and were catcalling my wife in front of me."

"This was a pretty big and well-known group operating in Tennesee."

"From what we found out this is extremely common."- Huge-Plantain-8418

Giveaway GIF by AppSumoGiphy

Analog Has Its Benefits...

"EA."- bullet312

"I lost all my sims sh*t because I hadn't logged in for more than 6 months."

"EA told me to reset my password so that they could restore my account."

"They kept saying the link was in my email, but it never came."

"Kept calling to try to get the issue fixed over a few weeks, then I realized they were just d*cking me around."

"F*ck EA."- MotherOfDogs1872

And To Think They're Supposed To Help You...

"Any insurance company."

"Especially health and homeowners."- carolizzy81

FalsE Advertising

"Nabisco."

"They took double stuffed Oreos, reduced the amount of cream to the same as the regular Oreos, and are still selling them as double stuffed, and are charging double stuffed prices!"

"The betrayal is unforgivable."- It_Wasnt_Me79

oreo GIFGiphy

As If Taxes Aren't Annoying Enough...

"Jackson Hewitt!"

"Had our taxes done a while back, and the tax preparer asked if we wanted the $200 cash advance."

"We did not."

"She then proceeded to change our information and use hers to get the temporary card with the advance."

'She then used an ATM to withdraw cash."

"She was arrested, but getting a refund was like pulling teeth from a hen."

'They didn't believe that it happened even though we had the paperwork with the tax preparer's information on it."

"It was a frigging nightmare!"

"Oh, I almost forgot she added me to the return and said I was the sister instead of the mom, so we ended up owing $1500 on top of the bullsh*t from the tax preparer."

"I do our taxes now."- RoguePhoenix259

People like to know when they're spending money that it's going somewhere they can trust.

Especially if their money is going somewhere that is supposed to keep their money safe, to begin with...



A group of people running through the trees in the desert
Photo by Jed Villejo

Humans seem to get swept up in group mentality and ignorance far too often.

Just because 10 of your neighbors jump off of a bridge, should you?

Celebrity fads, diet fads, Black Friday sales...

The masses love to blindly join in on the crazy.

Or the fun. it's a coin toss.

Redditor AdmirableFlow wanted to hear about group mentality that wasn't too bright, so they asked:

"What's the most severe case of mass stupidity you've ever witnessed?"

There is no greater group of followers than people who run every time Apple puts out a new product.

Same phone, just a thousand dollars more.

The Dodge

happy tom cruise GIF by South Park Giphy

"Scientology."

Supersaiajinblue

"The rich ones at the top are just in for the tax dodge. A lot of the ones below them are in it thinking they can shmooze with the rich ones at the top and become one of them some days. So yeah dumb but with a layer of greed involved."

Doright36

Bad Socials

"Before social media, I just assumed people were mostly educated. Boy was I f**king wrong."

"Not only was I wrong, but now I myself feel stupid for believing that for so long."

Vitzdam-

"Up until my early 20s I felt like I was smarter than 90% of the people around me, being generous. It seemed like so many people were just complete morons, and I had this massive smug sense of superiority feeling that I was just more intelligent (and thus better) than most people."

"As I aged, I began to realize how far I'd shoved my head up my own a** and I understood that while I might have been naturally gifted in some ways, there were others in which I was the 'idiot' and other people were capable and intelligent. I felt like a real a** for feeling so much better than others, and I felt humbled."

"And then everything since about mid-2015 happened and I've really started to wonder if maybe I was just right for the wrong reasons before..."

TypicalAd4988

Without Fail

"Maybe not the most severe, but one that everyone here has personally seen at least once in their lives. When at an airport and the gate agent says 'We're about to commence boarding. Please remain in your seats until your group has been called.' And then half the people were waiting standing up and crowding the gate in a scene of utter chaos. Every time, without fail."

-Dixieflatline

Rushed

"The great toilet paper rush at the start of COVID. There was nothing about COVID that threatened the global toilet paper supply, and yet people just started panic-buying it and artificially creating a huge shortage."

"(We would eventually realize that there was a small uptick in toilet paper sold for private use, as many people were going to the bathroom at home more than at work, but no one realized that at the time and it had nothing to do with the panic - people just started buying more because people were buying more)."

Notmiefault

Seriously?!

Skin Care Girl GIF by Lillee JeanGiphy

"Thousands of people during the pandemic thinking the vaccination made their skin magnetic. What in the actual hell."

MonParapluie

Everybody thought they were about to become a member of the X-Men with the Covid vaccines.

Still waiting on that proof.

Celebrity

"People waiting in Dealey Plaza for JFK Jr. to show up."

ggrandmaleo

"That's the first thing that popped into my mind. and they stayed there for days, didn't they? someone was interviewing people in the crowd and lots of people seemed to think other celebrities were also coming back/out of hiding. Someone was looking forward to seeing Robin Williams."

chrisgee

"You could simply declare the entire MAGA and QAnon movements to be mass stupidity and you'd not be wrong. Propaganda is a helluva drug and under-education is real. Fear and prejudice go hand-in-hand with under-education."

NbleSavage

Schemes

"Anyone who keeps getting involved in Ponzi or MLM schemes."

"For decades the public has been warned on what to watch out for to avoid these schemes, you would assume that the vast majority of people would have learned by now that these schemes are fraudulent and just can't work out. Yet somehow here we are with thousands of these companies still up and running and thriving and even more people being taken advantage of by them."

TheSameButBetter

Open Up

"My local park's playground has a push gate."

"Every time I watch grown adults stare at it for like 20 seconds then go 'I think it's locked is there another one?'"

"To which I walk up and... Push the gate open."

"What annoys me about this is they want to catch an attitude like I'm an a-hole for it."

3ao7ssv8

Challenges

ice bucket challenge news GIFGiphy

"Those public challenges that CLEARLY risk health, i.e., 'the tide pod challenge.' Next time, just let things sort themselves out on their own. We can use fewer idiots in the world."

"The ice bucket challenge was at least kind of cute and DID give ALS a lot of media attention/awareness and raised a lot of money."

LadyVaresa

I liked doing my ice bucket challenge.

Do you have anything to add? Let us know in the comment below.

movie set
Chris Murray on Unsplash

Easter eggs, bloopers, trivia, behind the scenes anecdotes... cinephiles live collecting them and sharing their knowledge with others.

Some trivia is well known—like Eric Stoltz was replaced by Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future. Other tidbits are more obscure, like Arnold Schwarzenegger was first considered for the Michael Biehn role of Kyle Reese in The Terminator.

Some stories are conspiracy theories or urban legends—like the body in the forest on The Wizard of Oz set.

But what about just film facts? The obscure ones?

Keep reading...Show less
An illuminated mansion at night
Photo by Daniel Barnes on Unsplash

It's no secret that as a person starts to make more money, they may forget how difficult they had it when there was less money coming into their bank account.

Not only are rich people often incredibly out-of-touch with the realities of most people's lives, but what they choose to prioritize and bring into their home is often pretty bizarre, too.

Already side-eyeing, Redditor Jerswar asked:

"What's the weirdest thing you've witnessed in the home of a rich person?"

Love Can't Be Bought

"Rich grandparents had a brand new house built, had a $100,000 splash pad built for their only grandchild who has never visited them at their new house."

- wyoflyboy68

"This reminds me of when my sister built her house. She had a barrier-free ground-floor apartment built in it, so my grandmother could visit. She never did."

- P44

A Separate Hoarder's House

"I had a rich neighbor growing up who'd always invite us over for parties and always insisted on giving us gifts and leftovers. They did this with every guest."

"They were also hoarders but built a separate house to keep their crap in. It was filled with whatever they bought but never used and even never got out of the packaging it was delivered in."

"They told my mom to take a box of what she wanted, and for s**ts and giggles, she did. It was a knife collection and sharpener set."

- MUSTARDUNAVAILABLE

Unusual Art

"I was at John Waters’ house for his birthday and he has a room set up as a lifelike recreation of a meth lab (it wasn’t a real meth lab, it’s an art piece)."

"He told me that when Bill Clinton visited him the secret service agents were extremely concerned about the room."

- writeleahwrite

Weird Pet Relationships

"One client had a whole separate house on their property just for their dogs. They'd referred to it as the 'dog house,' and I was expecting like maybe a little building in the yard where they kept their toys or something, but this was a fully furnished home with king-sized beds and a huge playroom on the main floor."

"They had a full training and feeding staff to care for the dogs and everything. They lived in their own house and would come over to visit. Seemed like a weird dynamic to have with your pet..."

"One client didn't have a litterbox for the cats, their cats I guess didn't like using the boxes in the basement and they didn't want to put boxes upstairs so they put down pond liner and kitty litter across an entire room in the basement and had their housekeeper run a rake through it daily."

- daabilge

Special Needs Kitty Mystery Mansion

"As a kid back in the Mesozoic Era (I'm old), my best friend and I used to play in a converted racquetball court and lounge under the old West Coast mansion her family had lived in since its construction."

"The stairs to it were hidden behind a closet off of the abandoned servants' quarters. Halfway down the stairs was a wine cellar. A decoy as the actual wine cellar for the home was under the kitchen….. Another staircase behind a rack of dusty bottles led two stories down to our giant play area beneath this."

"At the beginning of WWII, before Pearl Harbor, my friend’s paranoid WWI vet grandfather had dug out the space over fear of Japanese (or German) invasion. Her dad made the giant room regulation designed for racquetball years later. Maybe originally squash. Not sure, but the lounge area was also glassed off above it so one could look down into the court like a gallery."

"It was really neat. Also upstairs in the living room was a wall straight out of an old mystery novel. If you pushed a spot just right, the wall opened to a hidden room. Super tiny and had a button to ring certain other rooms in the house as the home had these already to call for staff. My friend's mom said it was so if someone quickly had to hide, they could alert the household of danger."

"We used to pretend to be on Nancy Drew cases all the time... so fun."

"The family was wealthy, but despite the amazing home, they lived a completely pretentious free life. Normal cars, camping vacations, frugal living as sport."

"But they were philanthropists too, especially supporting organizations like the humane society. One thing about this family’s home was all the cats. I loved kitties but had a mother who preferred her animals well-seasoned. The family had the space so they always had, and were looking to adopt out but often didn’t, at least 20 rescue cats, many with special needs."

"I’m old, I didn’t know how to write that. Special needs kitty mystery mansion really is actually an appropriate description..."

- waltersmama

"Special needs kitty mystery mansion with hidden panic rooms and decoy wine cellars is like, the best possible fever dream."

- ConneisseurOfDanger

A Unique Viewing Experience

"In Naples, FL., I was at a house with a sensory deprivation room. Flat black walls with acoustic dampening baffles, in the middle was a coffin-like bathtub. It had speakers and a flat-screen display in the lid."

"I heard that the room cost over $100K to build."

- frank_sarno

A Christmas Village

"They had part of the house permanently decorated for Christmas and it included a fully decorated Christmas tree that was suspended upside down from the ceiling. Which was pretty awesome."

- lithecello

New Meaning to "Don't Take Your Work Home"

"My wife and I used to babysit for this wealthy couple when they went on ski trips etc."

"Except for the children's schoolbooks, there wasn't a book, magazine, or newspaper in the house."

"The man was a publisher."

- Texbadger349

The End of Laundry

"I knew someone who didn't like to do laundry so she just bought new clothes for each of her 4 kids every week. They were always high-quality or designer clothes. At the time, all her kids were 10 to 16 years old."

"What would happen if they liked an item a lot and couldn't find it again? Why not just teach the kids to do their own laundry? Why not hire a housekeeper who can do it?"

"There are so many options, other than spending thousands every month just to avoid laundry. Plus, they rarely donated it. Just bagged it up and threw it out. I never could wrap my head around it."

- coffee-jnky

Can We Be the Trivia Guy?

"I know someone who's worked for a very rich person, probably worth billions. He had more than 100 staff on site, including chefs for the staff...all while divorced and living alone. He had a 'trivia' staff member... someone hired to tell him interesting facts and stories daily. That was his only job."

"Someone else was hired to maintain his shoes. Polish, shine, the works."

"If I didn't hear it firsthand, I wouldn't have believed it."

- mambo-nr4

A Mud Room, Indeed!

​"I used to work as an exterminator, mostly pest control. This had me walking through houses from the poor to the rich."

"One day, I pulled up to a four-story mansion with more rooms than I could count."

"I spoke with the lady at the door and got started. As I sprayed, I noticed there wasn’t much furniture in the house. As I went, I made a game of counting the furniture I could find. Over 50 rooms and the whole building had 13 pieces of furniture."

"Pretty odd, but then I went into the very last room, a mud room right by the door I came into."

"I stopped as I walked in, completely shocked. A huge, full-sized (alive) adult pig stretched from one end of the room to the other, resting on the tile floor. I’m talking five or six feet stretched out across the room. Flies buzzed around its head as it stared at me."

"Suddenly, the lady (who I hadn’t seen since she let me in) said, 'Oh, don’t go in there. She doesn’t like men,' and then she walked me out, paid me, and went back inside."

- Moist-Exchange2890

His Very Own Hot Wheels Garage

"Buddy of mine has a car elevator."

"Instead of just building a bigger garage, he stores his cars stacked onto each other, like some kind of Hot Wheels accessory. It's very surreal."

- SmackEh

Make Yourself at Home

​"My friend's dad growing up was one of the top lawyers in our state. Their house was so d**n big, I got confused (lost as h**l) on all the staircases they had everywhere. They would split in a few places and lead to banisters that had different connections to different parts of the house."

"They had a room just for dishes. Her mom had a huge room for sewing and another for different crafts. They both had an office. Many guest rooms. A small kitchen in one part with a sink, coffee pot, and fridge. Their main bathroom for guests had heated floors and rainfall showers and everything. I LOVED HER SHOWER."

"Her room had a balcony and a table outside."

"They had a pool and hot tub. Horses and a barn and lots of cute barn cats."

"I was very poor and had a messed up situation in my childhood. I stayed there a lot and they would even take me for weeks in the summer because my mother was not there. They are really great people."

" They didn't give handouts or anything, I would literally scoop up horse shit and clean stalls and help with everything for those horses when I stayed. I wanted to help."

"They had a maid, but we still cleaned up after ourselves. Their kitchen was gigantic, and I always loved the fancy pasta water arm over the stove. I had so much fun cooking with her mom and us having the big dinners (Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas) with them."

"They were so magnificent and beyond anything I would have ever experienced without them. I got my first pair of cowboy boots from them for Christmas. Her dad bought me a plane ticket one time out of the blue because I wanted to visit my grandmother. Never forget them."

- xNinjaNoPants

So Much Wasted Food

"A very rich person I know does not eat leftover food. They will cook a feast and after, everything goes straight in the garbage no matter how much is left over."

- duckduckroosebolton

"My husband won’t eat leftovers because he thinks it will give him diarrhea. His family is preoccupied with food poisoning but doesn’t know any of the actual food safety rules."

"Oh well, more for me."

- jendet010

"My brother-in-law’s family does this but they are middle class. It’s such a waste!"

- outlawjoseymeow

An Art Enthusiast

"Not weird but a Van Gogh, just chillin' in the hallway. I took a selfie with the flash on, whoops."

- Raccoon_Expert_69

"When I did executive level IT support years back, I found a Monet dangling haphazardly on an office chair in the CEO's extra office (which was unused for storage, and had an extra desktop computer I would sometimes use for quick tasks when on that floor)."

"Another time, I was admiring a Joan Miro coffee table book in his main office, and when his assistant noticed, he showed me into a side room I didn’t realize was there, which had a mini gallery of original Miro drawings."

- spymusicspy

It's amazing what people will spend money on when they have the money to spare. It would be so interesting to see how much more a person would explore a hobby if they had the money to spend.