Our gut feeling is really there as a means of survival. Sense of danger is one of our few evolutionary holdovers from when we were just surviving as animals in the wild, and it serves us well to this day.
If we heed its advice it will generally keep us safe. That's the whole point of a gut feeling, and sometimes, the accuracy with which gut feelings come to us is insane.
When u/No-Hovercraft-1788 asked:
When was your "gut feeling" actually right?
Plenty of people had stories to share.
Just A Psychic Stroke Of Good Luck
"It was 1995, I was 18, still living with my parents, and I was walking home from a friends house at about 2:00 am in the middle of the summer. He only lived 5 or 6 blocks away, and we often hung out watching movies after I got off work."
"Usually I would drive to his house because we'd been out with other friends, but this night I had parked at home and we walked to his place."
"There's not usually a lot of traffic between our houses, but this night I was about halfway home when a pickup truck drives by with 2 guys in the cab and 2 in the bed."
"I immediately felt like I was in danger. I saw the truck turn the corner, and I dove over some hedges in the closest yard I could find. I hid under them."
"I saw the truck come back around the corner and slowly drive down the street. When it got to where I was hiding, I heard one of the guys say, 'Where did he go?'"
"And another respond that he didn't know. They kept driving, and I didn't see them again. I stayed hidden for a good 15 minutes before getting up and running the rest of the way home."
"I'm certain they would have jumped me if they found me."-rhyza99
Final Destination 2 Eat Your Heart Out
"Driving in Pittsburgh. I stop at a red light. Hill goes up on my left, downhill on my right. Poor visibility to the left. The light turns green, but my brain tells me 'Hey bud wait a sec.'"
"I think this is a little weird, but I don't go yet. A millisecond later, a massive navy blue F-350 comes barreling downhill through the intersection from my left, blowing past the red light at about 45, then trundles down the hill."
"If I'd have gone, I would have been destroyed by 3 tons of Ford truck, for sure. Instead I trusted the spider-sense."-Cutter9792
It's best to listen to our gut feeling because it very well may keep us alive.
Why We Don't Envy Women
"I stopped at Home Depot to pick up an item so I knew it was going to be a quick trip. I'm in the store and notice I'm pretty much the only girl in there besides employees."
"I couldn't find what I was looking for and had to ask multiple employees before I found it."
"I check out and as I'm heading out to my car I notice a shady dude standing against a tree on one side of my car. On the other side of my car is another shady guy sticking his arm outside of his car window."
"When I walked out they both turned and stared at me. My heart dropped, I started to feel queasy, and my mind instantly knew to turn around and go inside."
"I stood there shaking at the front of the store until I could get the courage to ask an employee to walk me to my car."
"As soon as they saw me walking out with an employee, the guy standing by the tree walked around my car and into the drivers side of the car parked next to me. To this day I swear I was a short walk away from being kidnapped."-gracious-bodacious
The Worst Kind Of Gut Feeling
"Used to work in the ER. Had a man come in with ripping chest pain that started not but 30 minutes prior after he moved something heavy at his office."
"I knew he was going to die just by looking at him. Massive overwhelming dread just seemed to engulf me."
"I did his EKG and I hoped something would be wrong with it so we could get him a bed. His EKG was perfect. Not 5 minutes later he went into cardiac arrest on our waiting room floor."
"After running the code for 45 minutes, he didn't make it. He had a massive aortic dissection. There wasn't much hope."
"This was almost 3 years ago and I've seen more sh*t since then, but the memory is still burned in my mind, and it hurts knowing I was the last person to speak to him."-hannahatl
Made All The Difference
"Back when I was about 10 or 11 I asked my mother if we could take my grandmother out to lunch. She was kind of against it, but I kept insisting that I really wanted to see my grandmother and that she would want to go to lunch that day."
"While we were out at the mall after getting lunch with my grandmother, she started slurring her speech and became extremely confused. She was having a stroke."
"Luckily, my mom noticed what was going on and got her to the hospital within 20 or 30 minutes. Doctors said they were able to stop the stroke and she came out of it basically the same as she was before."
"Couple days after the fact, my mom told me I had basically saved my grandmother's life by making sure we went out to lunch with her that day."-DargoSun92
Creepfest Alert
"I had been living and working in Korea, and one day I was coming up out of a subway station and saw a man talking to another foreign woman."
"She had that polite, frozen smile on her face - the why-is-this-guy-talking-to-me smile. I walked up to her, linked my arm with hers, and said 'Hey, Sarah! There you are! Are you ready to go?' And just started walking."
"The guy followed us, but I sped up, and made an abrupt turn into a coffee shop. We hid, and I saw him walk past, still looking for her."
"We ended up getting coffee and chatting for a bit, and I found out that he had followed her off the train, and had been getting increasingly aggressive for the last ten minutes. I don't know what might have happened, but I'm really glad I interfered!!"-Alma_knack
Reddit Users Share Their Best 'It's A Small World After All' Experience
Saving The Day Again, Medical Heroes
"Helped a victim of human trafficking get to a shelter."
"Context: I was a medical student at the time (now a resident) and the city my school was in is a hub for human trafficking. I noticed a patient in the ER who had a pretty bad injury to her face was with a sketchy looking guy who was not related to her."
"She wasn't my patient, but I brought my gut feeling up to her doctor who then made up some excuse to talk to the patient alone and got her to help. I never talked to her myself, but I couldn't shake the vibe I got from looking at her and the man she was with."-PMME_ur_lovely_boobs
A Beautiful Coincidence
"When I was a kid, I was doing my first ever deep clean of my bedroom getting rid of old clothes and toys and such. While cleaning out my closet, I found an old picture cut out from the local newspaper of Lyndon Johnson visiting my parent's home town."
"The picture was taken outside with some locals in the background. I was going to throw the picture away, but suddenly got the strongest feeling not to do it, so I set it aside."
"Later I showed it to my mom and asked her about it. She freaked out and showed my grandma, who also freaked out."
"Turns out one of the locals in the background of the picture was my grandpa. He died when my mom was 12. That picture was one of only a handful we had of him."
"I had never seen a picture of him before this. I was so glad I didn't throw that clipping away."-Affectionate-Rush893
Bear In Mind
"Was with my mom in the woods in eastern Quebec. I heard something break a rather large branch just over the hill maybe 50m away."
"I told her we have to leave right away because I think it's a bear. She tells me how no bears been in area for 20 years."
"She listens to me anyways and we go back down the mountain and home. Next day a bear was hit by a car just on other side of mountain."-throwmeinthecanal
A Crash Course
"There was one day I panicked really hard about going to university. Not sure for what reason, nothing special happened. But it was correct, the bus did crash into another car, right before the station."
"Unfortunately I had been forced to go anyway by Mother. Hit my head in the bus' windshield, went to my Statistics Course with blood everywhere in my hair (and some poorly cleaned glass shards) because no one told me, until the Statistics teacher herself called the University's medical team on me (was sitting first rank because I don't see well from far away)."-Isotheis
Beware Of Men
"Two times with older guys when I was a teenager. Friend and I were with my family camping. There was this really cute older guy camping by himself."
"He invited us over to his campfire and we talked for a bit. Then he invited my friend and I into his camper. We were probably about 12 or 13 at the time. She wanted to go in but I started shaking uncontrollably and refused."
"I wouldn't leave until she came with me. I have no confirmation that he had bad intentions but looking back I can't imagine they were good."
"Then when I was 15 this cute older waiter asked me for my number. First time it ever happened to me so I was super geeked."
"He called and we talked a few times but he only wanted to see me again if he could come to my house with no one else home."
"I ended up going back up to the restaurant to see him again and I had another one of those uncontrollable shaking moments. Got so bad I just left."
"Turned out he was in my state working as a waiter because he fled his state due to legal troubles. Not to mention he clearly only wanted one thing and I was 15."-craponapoopstick
Working Conditions Matter
"Last time I was hired for a job. Had it during the final interview with my soon-to-be boss. My gut told me to gtfo even though everything about that job seemed great."
"To be fair, in the first few days is was, but then the reality of how poorly organized everything is came crashing down on me and my enthusiasm for working in a toxic environment that was being fueled by boss's incompetence was gone. Ended up quitting after two months."-papajohnny13
"Just A Friend"
"A few years back I was dating a girl who went camping with 'a friend' for a couple weeks, I didn't mind cause I trusted her. But I started to get a gut feeling she was cheating on me while she was gone."
"Shortly before she was supposed to come back into town she called and dumped me over the phone. (Bonus points since I had literally just had brain surgery that she didn't bother to come back into town for.) Edit: Should say dumped me for him."-scipio0421
The Worst Gut Feeling TO Be Right
"I was 11 and was in my primary school's after school care (it's a program kids would do after school when their parents couldn't pick them up straight after school finished)."
"We had been playing and I had suddenly gotten a sick feeling in my stomach that I had never experienced before in that way. Asked the workers to call my mum to pick me up earlier than usual."
"As she arrived at the door i remember looking at her as she received a phone call. It was a phone call to say my father had died."-kcalexx
So now you know-your gut always has good ideas. If you follow it, you will figure out what you need to do.
You may very well change the course of your live or someone else's life, as well.
People Explain Which Things They've Done 'Just To Be Safe' That Totally Saved Their Butt
We gotta do what we gotta do.
That is a serious life mantra.
Staying alive is not an easy task.
Sometimes we save ourselves without every realizing we're doing it.
The small, inconsequential actions we complete every hour, have the power to keep us all going.
WHo knew?
LIfe is so frgaile.
Thankfully our subconscious is looking out.
Redditor Dawn_Cyborgzzz wanted everyone to share about times we made that one certain, simple decision, that turned out to be the best decision, so they asked:
"What 'you know what, just to be safe' thing you did end up saving your a** later"
I believe just turning the right corner can save a life.
We're defying death on the daily.
Life Saver
Cat Save GIFGiphy"Learned CPR and first aid. Had to give CPR to a family friend when she collapsed from a heart attack and thankfully she was brought back after being down for 15 minutes. She only had minor memory problems and mostly just couldn't remember that day. She is still here and kicking years later."
CompanionCarli3
$3.50 in quarters
"Was delivering pizza in a sketchy block of town late at night. Huge apartment complex with multiple buildings. Walking up to the front door I noticed a couple of guys wearing dark clothing about 100ft behind me walking in my direction. Delivery was on the second floor and by the time I reached her door I heard the main door of the apartment complex open and close."
"She used a CC for the order and tipped in cash so when I was putting the receipt into my bag (where I kept my cash) I actually pulled the rest of the cashout and stuffed it into my inner jacket pocket just to be safe leaving just the change I had that night in the bag. Started to head down the stairs back out to my car and two guys jumped out from behind the stairs, one had a gun pointed at me and told me to give them the money."
"I quickly handed them my bag filled with quarters and they took off towards the back entrance of the apartment complex. I never ran so fast in my life back to my car. I wanted to make sure I was as far away as possible before they realized they robbed me of $3.50 in quarters."
tjohnboy
End of the Night
"I was at a sleepover as a kid, I was a little worried because my mom had been oddly tired earlier that day. I went home early because I was worried. By the end of the night, I (14 at the time) had to call an ambulance for my mom, as she was having problems with her heart and I was the only one there with her. She was incapable of forming coherent sentences and would probably not have gotten the help she needed if I wasn't there. So, good thing I was."
boredwithhorns
Side by Side
"Was on a side-by-side vehicle mudding on some property a friend and I were visiting."
Mid-ride, I turn to my friend and say 'Hey, you should probably buckle your seat belt. Just in case.'"
"Not 1 min later did he lose control and slide front first into a tree going about as fast as this thing could go given the conditions."
"Both of us were okay but the side-by-side was completely ruined."
"He looked at me right after and his eyes were as big as dinner plates."
ajohndoe17
Locked and Ready
Top Gear Electric Cars GIF by BBC AmericaGiphy"I dropped my high school girlfriend off, then for some reason I locked the passenger door."
"Not 10 minutes later I was stopped at a red light and some scummy-looking dude tried to open up the door. I have no idea why I locked that door after she got out, I really didn't have a habit of that. No idea what would have happened if that guy got in my truck."
Fat_Ryan_Gosling
Lock the doors. Every door. Always.
Minutes Later
Surf Fail GIF by Red BullGiphy"$5 breakage insurance on a rental surfboard. Broke that f**ker clean in half in my first 10 minutes."
Jaboogaman
Going Blind
"My dad lost his glasses once. He was going to just use his old prescription but last minute decided to just go to the optometrist anyway in case something changed. Turns out he had a tear in his retina and was booked for surgery within 24 hours. It was bad enough they said he probably would have gone blind really soon had they not caught it when they did."
notallamawoman
Get it all checked...
"My stomach had some issues and my doctor sent me for a colonoscopy just to get things checked out. They found 1 polyp, no big deal, not related to the current problem, and told me to come back in 5 years just in case. I put in a Google reminder and forgot about it."
"5 years later, I went for a colonoscopy and they found a lot more and said I would have ended up with cancer in 5-20 years for sure had I not gone. Instead, they removed all polyps and now I’m regularly going to colonoscopies due to having a syndrome they identified."
"I’m far away from the age where you normally get a colonoscopy so I would definitely have got cancer. When you are eligible or if it is recommended, get a colonoscopy."
matttk
5 Minutes Later
"Not my a**, but I was getting ready for school whilst Mum was vomiting in the bathroom. She said it was just a stomach bug and to just go to school but mentioned her arm hurt. Something didn’t sit right so I called the ambulance from downstairs."
"They arrived and took her into the ambulance - she then proceeded to have 3 cardiac arrests and needed defibrillating each time. A double bypass later and she was up and about within a month."
"Paramedics told me she would have died 5 mins after I left if I hadn’t called."
TheKr1tster
Weird Feelings
John Stamos Lol GIF by LifetimeGiphy"Had some weird achy symptoms and went to the doctor even though I figured I was probably overreacting. Turns out I had cancer."
Ok-Ad-2605
"I got really sick with what I thought was a virus or infection or something. turns out it might have been something like that, but whatever it was, it was made significantly worse by the fact that I had leukemia."
AHomicidalTelevision
When it comes to safety, refrain from taking chances.
The simple things save lives.
We all have to come from somewhere, but some of us are more willing to go back to visit our hometowns than others.
In all honesty, it's easier to put the past behind us than to reminisce.
Redditor drax3012 asked:
"What is your town infamous for?"
Segregated Schools
"Being one of the last cities in Texas to desegregate schools (1995). We also have a big bike race."
- Pie_Investor
101 Dalmatians Reference
"Mine has the largest working fire hydrant in Texas, but it is also a gift from the '101st Dalmation' movie being released."
- Inevitable_Cook2294
Rampant Racism
"The town I grew up in was infamous as the town the farthest north with an active KKK chapter. Secondary claims to fame: About 70% Polish immigrants and the fact that the leader of the American Nazi party was the Republican nominee for the house a few years ago."
"Those last two are kind of paradoxical if you think about the irony of Polish immigrants mainly supporting the Nazi party."
- pesky-pretzel
Trending Debt
"Being the first major metropolitan city to go into bankruptcy and receivership."
"Oh, and for a mayor who stole money from the taxpayers, cheated on his wife with strippers, and may have also killed a stripper."
"Oh, and we are also infamous for eight-mile, AKA the street that now has a bunch of weed dispensaries on it."
- BumpyDenny93
Terrible Traffic
"Infamous? It's generally thought of as racist with really bad traffic and hot weather."
"But in reality, it's not that racist, and the weather is OK, but yeah, the traffic is actually even worse than people think."
- Slimetusk
Those Fall Parties
"Oktoberfest... the Canadian version."
- HampsterGriffin
How Tragic
"A big ship that sank on her first go out."
- punkerster101
Myths Born Overnight
"Drunk hillbillies having a gunfight with aliens."
"No, seriously."
"I don't really have an inside scoop. It was 13 years before I was born, and 30 years before I lived here."
"Locally, it seems to be a humorously shameful anecdote. There is a 'festival' every year, but it serves as a showcase for small businesses/gospel singers/politicians/etc from the area."
"Personally, I'm a big fan of all things supernatural and cryptid. And I probably believe more than the average person... but this story."
"Probably horned owls and moonshine."
- darthjenkins
Random Shoes
"Well, not just the place I'm from, but random feet in sneakers washing up on shore. Has been happening for decades now."
"Thought to be a result of people who died in the ocean, their bodies eventually coming apart, and the buoyant sneakers keeping their feet afloat to wash up, but there are of course some much creepier theories."
- Youpunyhumans
Somewhere in the Midwest
"More cows than people."
- sleepyJoesBidet
An Introvert's Nightmare
"The happiest place on earth that packs you in like sardines."
- boopcorgi
An Extrovert's Nightmare
"It's so boring, even introverts are moving away."
- Omasrealaccount
About That...
"We kinda started the Civil War…"
- JDubya_Rx
A Haunting Education
"Our schools(allegedly) were modeled off of prisons in the 1960s, and a lot of ghost stories. So many that a book was made just listing all of them."
- Global_Box_7935
Dark Days
"Largest mass execution in US history."
- universeforinfinity3
Not every town has the darkest history, but it must be rough to have grown up in a town with an infamous past.
At least those who are aware of the history will be less likely to repeat it.
As much as we might think we learned on Career Day in elementary school, there's really no way of knowing all there is to know about a profession until we've worked in it ourselves.
For some professions, like sailing and zookeeping, what happens could feel completely out of this world.
Redditor Myriagon10000 asked:
"Sailors/people working at sea, what's the most creepy or most amazing sight you witnessed?"
Northern Lights
"The northern lights in the middle of nowhere Alaska. We were anchored in a remote cove, so the CO agreed to turn off all the exterior lights. Just a crazy, crazy thing to see."
- Curbside_Hero
"Seeing them is absolutely spectacular."
"Hearing them though was unsettling for me. People have called them 'spirits' for a reason."
- MostSeaworthiness
The Lure of the Deep Blue
"Oftentimes in the Navy, I'd stand on the fantail and watch the ocean."
"Once we had 100s, probably around 400 dolphins riding the carrier's wake. They followed us for three days."
"In the middle of the Pacific, it's so dark, and there's so little light pollution, you can see reds, browns, and faint blues of gas clouds in the starscape."
"Another time, I was watching the water at night. They say it draws you in, and it really does. You look at this pitch-black void, with only the wake or turbulence of the water catching light, and intrusive thoughts of jumping in just naturally occur. It's mesmerizing, especially if you're alone."
"At night during one of these events, I saw blue glowing water (what I now know was bioluminescent algae), and inside this rather massive patch of blue glowing water was squid, that appeared to be maybe 15-20 feet long. You could catch their outline in the light from the water."
"I stared at what were multiple squids passing by for minutes, what seemed like an eternity, and then the light started going away in the spot I was staring. There was still a LOT of glowing water, we weren't headed out of it. But this patch gets darker and darker and darker until pitch black. A solid 15 seconds of intense curiosity. Suddenly a lot of turbulence and a whale surfaces. It had snatched up all the squid."
"The whale cocked to one side and looked at the ship, and our eyes met, I want to think. It studied the ship for a moment until just sinking back down until the glow of the water masked it completely."
- Stehlik-Alit
Flying Fish
"For me, it was the flying fish. I was just sitting there one day near Barbados, watching the water, and all of a sudden, I looked over and there were these 'birds' jumping out of the ocean. Took me a few minutes to actually understand that they were fish jumping out and not birds jumping in. Those things had some range on their glides."
"Later the next day when we went to Barbados, I found out the flying fish was on their currency and a popular dish. Tasted kinda fishy."
- Ivort-DC
Fairy Dust
"I'm not a seafarer, but I was camping on an island in British Columbia beside a cliff that was about a fifteen-foot drop into the ocean. Late at night, I decided to jump in. The water exploded into light!"
"The bioluminescence was triggered by motion, so the movement of my arms and legs as I swam made green trails in the blackness. I called to the other people and we had the trippiest swim ever. It was like being covered in fairy dust."
- TrollsDocumentary
Whale Contact
"I had a humpback look at me from about 15 feet off the side of a small boat off the coast of Massachusetts one time. It was just him and I, and he was absolutely looking at me."
- VXMerlinXV
Surprise Visitor
"Fresh out of college I got a job in Cambridge, Massachusetts as an architect designing whatever. Ended up doing oil rigs and one beautiful morning there were Sharks going under the main platform like always but there were two dead sharks, next morning three new dead, then four the next day."
"Then a steady four or five a day for a week or two... they would float up under the see-through deck that looked much like a metal colander. The crew would have to punch them down so the current could catch them with a large pole."
"What made it really weird was they looked like they had heart attacks or died in their sleep, no marks or bites or anything. The guys on the rig had all kinds of theories. Then one morning while in a room that was completely submerged and had a beautiful view as we sat in a meeting... everyone got to see the reason the sharks were dying like viewing it on a movie screen."
"This Octopus had made itself a home between the base and the deck. A shark was swimming by in a cruising fashion and we see these tentacles grab it right in front of the glass and snap it like a glowstick."
"The Marine Biologist smiled and said, 'Octopus is literally doing that to entertain themselves... like because he can.'"
"The Marine Biologist lowered a dive camera and this Octopus was HUGE."
"The crew would joke about it thereafter, people would smoke on the deck at night and people would say don't let the Octopus in. Seeing those tentacles was just insane for their length and to think about how a shark is mostly muscle and the Octopus would just snap em was kinda scary."
- Cannotakema
Sea Spears
"Giant spears plunging in and out of the sea."
"In the Gulf of Alaska, I have seen some s**t. But one of the most terror-inspiring things I’ve seen are what can happen with some of the loose logs from the logging trade."
"Sometimes when a big log gets loose from a raft, it becomes partially waterlogged and floats small end up. So you have this four-foot diameter telephone pole in the sea, sticking up 40 feet into the air. No biggie. Shows up on the radar, and is easy to spot."
"Now, give that pole 20 years of floating around or so. It rots in such a way that it becomes sharpened to a perfect point by wind and waves, and looks quite menacing."
"Now, put it in a gale with 25-foot waves (50 feet trough to peak)… And it becomes a towering spike of death that shoots up from the sea every 15 to 20 minutes, out of nowhere, 60 feet into the air, only to plunge down into the dark depths waiting to skewer some unsuspecting boat in a few minutes when it thrusts out of the ocean again."
"It is a genuinely terrifying sight, rare, but not so rare that I haven’t seen two in one season. It’s like the spiked d**k of Neptune looking for an opportunity to f**k your s**t up in a particularly terrifying way."
- bidet_enthusiast
Rock the Boat
"I’ve spent a good amount of time at sea on a research vessel, and it’s definitely not for everyone, it takes a special breed of person."
"The ocean is beautiful and enchanting, but also isolating and desolate. And your ship can almost feel like a mobile prison, since you’re basically stuck there with what little space you have, and most ships aren’t built for comfort and leisure like a cruise liner."
"But when the wind kicks up and the waves get tall, motion sickness (or at least some disorientation) is a constant companion that you just have to ride out. No escape except to let the weather pass."
"I’ve been through some larger storms that are very unnerving when your ship is being pounded by swell and tossed like a roller coaster… you just gotta trust that it won’t capsize."
- TrumpetofDeath
The Color of Moonrise
"I was on watch and a lookout reported a ship on fire on the horizon. Looked through my binos and saw what they were looking at. Looked like a plume of flame really far away, just over the line of the horizon."
"I went and consulted the Astro books and discovered that it was actually moonrise. The tip of the crescent was coming up over the astronomical horizon, and was bright red-orange. Still very cool."
"I’ve also seen the Flying Dutchman illusion, dolphins swimming through bioluminescent waters that looked like glowing torpedoes, meteor hits near the ship, lightning hitting the mast, waterspouts in the Caribbean, and the green flash at sunset. Many more things as well, being at sea is just plain trippy!"
- RiotousRagnarok
A Little Crowded
"You know the feeling of being in a full stadium? 10,000's of people all within sight of each other... all together?"
"Multiply that by 100 and maybe that would be like the sea of sea mammals I was in the middle of, presumably on a bunch of food below... squid or something. There were half a dozen species of dolphin and half a dozen species of whales all together going completely crazy busting the surface white, hundreds of thousands, I'm guessing."
"Going into the fo'c'sle of the small 42 ft lobster boat was like entering a different reality. Through the hull, you could 'hear.' They were all 'talking' to one another and I could say you could 'hear' them but it was something else entirely..."
"The bones in my skull and the rest of my body were vibrating at every frequency heard and sub and supersonic alike in alien rhythms and repeating patterns... a once-in-a-lifetime sensation...lasted about half an hour. Highly recommended."
- fishified1
The Rare Moondog
"I once saw a rainbow by moonlight. Sadly this was before digital cameras, so I had no chance of getting a picture."
- Mogster2K
The Good and the Bad
"I used to work on an Atlantic Salmon farm a few miles out to sea. Best job I ever had."
"Creepy:"
"We were round at the second site (other side of the island to the main site, and this one was being left fallow for a couple of years so just required some maintenance every now and then / was used for storage). My brother and I were there late afternoon to check some ropes or moorings or something, I can’t remember, when all of a sudden there was this really strong electrical / copper smell and the place went silent."
"It was flat calm, relatively clear skies so it wasn’t a thunderstorm coming in. For some reason, this smell really freaked us both out, and we both felt like we were being watched by something there was a kind of strange feeling/atmosphere to the place where it just seemed off."
"After a couple of minutes it went away and the 'atmosphere' returned to normal. We were pretty glad to get back to the main site but never experienced anything like that again. Really weird."
"Awesome:"
"This one is hard to describe, but sometimes we would have to pull super long 18-20 hour shifts at harvest time. This involved starting sometimes at 2 AM and working until late in the evening, and there wasn’t actually loads of work the whole time, to do we just needed to be present for a lot of it and lift a cage net once an hour or so. So we mostly just stood around drinking coffee and talking boll**ks."
"Anyway, I digress. We were starting out one of these mornings in the speedboat heading out to the site, on a really crisp winter night. Not a breath of wind, super cloudless sky, and a hint of aurora above us. Speeding along into the night with my buddies in this beautiful scenery, nice fancy survival suits on to keep warm, I remember looking up and seeing a huge sky full of stars, and a shooting star burning across the sky out towards the horizon."
"As I say I can’t really bring it to words, but I’ve never really felt more alive or happy in my work than that night."
- 89ElRay
The Milky Way
"I was a Quartermaster and when I was in the Pacific, I saw a completely clear night one time. I saw the Milky Way split the sky and I could see its reflection in the water. The sight was so beautiful it brought me to tears."
- mourningreaper00
Mountain Views
"The most amazing thing I've seen is watching the mountains in the sunrise while pulling into port in Norway. That was the moment I realized I was actually living. I don't think I'll see anything as majestic until I go back to Norway. Just beautiful!"
- PierceDiLuna
Once-in-a-Lifetime
"Being out at sea was definitely one of the best experiences of being in the Navy. I got to see the northern lights, a meteor shower, and a blood moon. My favorite pass time was identifying the constellations. Eventually, when I got to learn a significant amount, I was able to tell what direction we were going. I’m seriously grateful I got to experience that."
- ChiliConCarne44
These accounts sound nothing short of amazing. While it may not be enough to convince us all to be sailors, we surely could all do with a few more stories about their journeys.
Trailers are misleading on purpose, and if they did their job, you shelled out your hard-earned cash at the box office to go see the movie.
Once you're seated in the auditorium, the succession of previews is over, and the lights dim, the anticipation runs high.
How disappointing then, that a certain element in the film that you dedicated time away from home to go see turns out to be underwhelming.
What is it that indicates you're in for a non-refundable time of entertainment?
Moviegoers online shared their thoughts when Redditor Snoo_19146 asked:
"What’s the first sign that a movie is going to be bad?"
Pandering to the audience with lame humor is such a turn-off.
This Speaks Volumes
"Characters think they are funny because they speak loudly."
– drod3333
Soph-moronic Humor
"Also references to farts or weed. (Not jokes: references.)"
'Hey guys who wants to smoke some weeeeed?'
"Pause for laughter"
– Beingabummer
Premature Review
"It's advertised as one of the best movies of the year."
"And it's late January."
– M-Test24
The Poster Says It All
"There’s someone shrugging whimsically on the poster. 🤷"
– findlestick
Trailers alone can be a red flag.
Cliff's Notes Version
"When the trailer already tells you the entire movie."
– JAR_Melethril
"I've scratched titles off my watch list because I feel I've already seen the important parts of the film through the trailer, why bother?"
– butter00pecan
Recycling One-Liners
"If there are multiple trailers for a comedy movie, but they use the same joke in all of them."
– jelecel865
"And then you sit in the movie or on netflix and you're like. Oh, the joke from the trailer, I think that's where the movie starts to get funny, but it just transitions into the serious end arc and then is over."
– candybomberz
Familiar Jokes From Deadpool
"Something that always bugged me was the first Deadpool movie and it’s trailers. Don’t get me wrong, I love the movie, but here you have a character wearing a mask, played by an actor known for comedy in a movie that probably had a ton of jokes and multiple takes left on the cutting room floor."
"They could have EASILY dubbed different jokes into the trailer and used the final ones in the movie for an extra surprise. But nope, trailer jokes -> movie jokes. Kind of a bummer."
– LegendaryOutlaw
Some movies are destined for failure.
If It Ain't Broke
"It’s a remake of something that didn’t suck."
– Diesel07012012
"I hate that there’s so many remakes of decent/good movies. Feels like it’s just a safe money-grab. It would be cool if movies that didn’t do so hot, get reworked into good movie remakes, but I guess that’s too much of a risk for studios to bother with."
– AnEpicHibiscus
A Very Telling Intro
"An exposition in which one character explains everything that's going on to another character that should already know what is going on."
– rohawe8491
Familiar Setup
'Stacy sweetie, you know I haven’t been the same since your brother disappeared 4 years ago at the creek, & then we moved here to get away from the bad memories but it didn’t change anything & now you’re moving to college & I’ve been finding it hard to accept, & I’m struggling to hold down my job at the diner & that new guy I’m seeing is acting really shady & disappears for days, & completely unrelated to all that there’s mysterious murders happening since he arrived in town. You know all this Stacy..'
"whilst unpacking the shopping in the first scene."
– bluerain80
We Need A Reset
"Doctor: what we have here is a case of transcranial temporal reinforcement. If the patient is not restored to his original nacency the Einstein Bozeman condensate will reseed throughout the multiverse and congeal with unfortold consequences!"
"Other doctor: in English please!"
"Doctor: we need to send him back in time so his brain can restart the universe."
– ActorMonkey
Multiple Cooks
"Not always the case but when there are more than 3 writers a movie tends to lack vision. It can also occur due to rewrites. Not A Bomb Podcast reviews movies that bombed financially or critically and this is a subject often discussed if anyone is interested."
– earball1996
Maybe it's all about the journey.
Trailers do have to entice you with the best parts of a film promising audiences they'll be in for a good time.
However, movies just have to deliver on that promise by not revealing all the best bits in the trailer.
One movie I thought was going to be a succession of cheap one-liners with nothing but action was Disney's animated film Big Hero 6. The trailer was never appealing to me.
But after reading many positive reviews, I decided to give it a chance and I'm so glad I did.
It ended up being a very intelligent, emotionally mature film dealing with grief and an internal struggle about doing the right thing. While those are common tropes, it was all the more impactful watching animated characters dealing with serious themes and issues.
The bottom line is don't be quick to dismiss every movie based on its trailer.
You might be pleasantly surprised.