Did you ever have a moment where you recalled something that everyone else seems to remember differently? If so, you are probably well aware of the Mandela Effect. The Mandela Effect is defined as the phenomenon of a large group of people misremembering a particular event or aspect of the past.

The Mandela Effect can be creepy when you find out that your favorite childhood book series was called The Berenstain Bears, or that Darth Vader never said, "Luke, I am your father."

However, a "glitch in the matrix," as its called, takes things a bit further. These are situations that make people wonder if we are all part of a giant simulation, such as what you may have seen in The Matrix.

With these situations, it's not that you've misremembered something. Rather, something happens that defies the laws of physics, bends time, or ultimately changes reality in a way that cannot be explained.

Glitch in the matrix stories have been popping up online, particularly on Reddit, so we decided to take a look at some of the most terrifying glitches we could find, and bring them to you. Welcome to the matrix.

The Case of the Missing Friend

Imagine that you and three of your friends are walking to your favorite diner, and then, in an absolute instant, you and your two friends have the feeling that you lost someone.

Everyone will feel it, and recognizes that there was someone else there. It's just that no one remembers who it was. That person suddenly just failed to exist. You can't remember who they were, where they were from, or what made them like you. They. Just. Never. Were.

Such was the case with user BittahZamurai, and it might just be one of the most terrifying glitch in the matrix stories out there—simply because of what it could imply. If what happened was true, anyone can stop existing, be they in the past, present, and future. An unknown force went haywire.

A surprising amount of spooky glitch in the matrix stories involve people who are in two places at once. The official term for this is bilocation, and it's been reported by people for centuries.

In this tale, told to us by Redditor BoringPsychopath, things take a turn for the ominous. When the user was a young boy, he and his mother were outside taking photos of used cars that they were trying to sell. Suddenly, the boy heard a strange rustling sound coming from nearby bushes.

His mother, alarmed, told him to run out of the parking lot. He didn't look back, but heard something pouncing on the top of cars—like a wild animal would. He also didn't see his mother run ahead of him.

When he finally got inside his home, his mother was placidly reading a newspaper and asked him why he looked so scared.

The Man Who Lived a Double Life

Imagine waking up one moment and living an entirely different life. That's what happened to the Redditor known as ohfail.

Ohfail, a married American who didn't speak a lick of Chinese, woke up and dreamt that he was a fisherman who lived a single life in China. In the dream, he spoke and understood Chinese. He woke up, got his tea, worked on two shipments of fish, smoked cigarettes, took a bath, and then went to sleep.

The dream was so realistic, he felt shocked to wake up next to his wife. That alone would make anyone feel a little creeped out, but there are some stories out there that get even worse.

The common theme behind glitches in the matrix are the overwhelming feeling that we're just living in a simulation. Sometimes it's just because objects move to areas that are physically impossible to explain. Other times, though, it's because you hear or see things happen before they do.

What nobrobrono's boyfriend experienced was something different altogether. Her boyfriend, his mother, and his sister were on a long road trip when they realized that they had to stop for gas.

After about 10 minutes of waiting, all three people realized something was very wrong. None of the people in the gas station were moving. They weren't even blinking. As the user called them, they were "mannequins."

The trio sped off, not wanting to see if it was a weird flash mob or a creepy surreal slice of life.

If you think that seeing lags in the matrix are explainable, then you might be more interested in glitch in the matrix stories that defy normal physics. A Redditor by the name of TheJoshWatson had the shock of his life while eating cereal.

While chowing down, he dropped his spoon. He watched the spoon fall, only to vanish into thin air right before his eyes! He searched for half an hour, to no avail. The spoon was gone, possibly in another dimension.

If you're like many people, there are days that literally feel like you woke up in a different universe. Things just feel wrong, or things don't quite add up the way they always did. For one Reddit user called BioStrike14, things got real shortly after 9/11 happened.

It was the Friday after the Twin Towers fell and he was not having a good day. He broke a glass getting something to drink, passed a car accident on his way to school, and then overheard something about yet another plane crash that happened.

He then went to sleep, only to be woken up by his roommate who asked if he was going to skip class. Confused, he asked what day it was, and it was Friday.

He went to the kitchen to drink some water, noticed that the glass he broke was no longer broken. He went to class when he was delayed by the same car accident he saw before. He waited to hear about the plane crash, but never did.

The day after that strange Friday occurred, authorities arrested the Shoe Bomber. It's uncertain whether or not this was what prevented the other plane crash, but it makes you think, doesn't it?

It seems like he got sent into a slightly better reality. Oddly enough, he's not the only one who seemed to have strange reality glitches surrounding 9/11. Many others who were supposed to be there or who were affected had premonitions of the event before it happened.

Koda

User avocados_are_great had the shock of their life when they decided to go kick their dog Koda off the bed.

The user's grandma had called to invite them for food, and they brought Koda. Then, when it came time to go home, the user couldn't find the dog. After hours of searching, they went home without Koda, but then, when they got home, Koda was sitting in the user's bedroom.

The user remembered that they brought Koda to their grandma's house. Even their grandmother looked around and swore that the dog had been in the house. The user even left the leash in their grandmother's home.

To try to figure out what happened, the user looked at security camera footage around their grandma's home. Though there was evidence of Koda entering, there was no evidence of Koda ever leaving the house!

So, how did Koda get back home?

A Handy Glitch

Image via PickComfort

One Reddit user recalls one of the more bizarre glitch in the matrix stories that happened to them. They were brushing their teeth with one hand, while placing the toothpaste down on the counter with their other hand, while also turning off the water faucet with... their third hand?

According to the user Kadnify, " I only noticed it a few moments after—I couldn’t piece it together, but they all happened at the same time."

A Permanent Ice Cream Stain

Most of us have spilled ice cream on our faces while licking up the tasty summer treat. One Reddit user was young, but remembers doing the very same. Unlike what most of us experience, however, when he tried to wipe the stain off his leg, it never came off.

He told his mother what happened, but she claimed it was a birthmark that was on him since the day he was born. He recalls, "I will swear under oath that never before that moment did I have a birthmark there."

Perhaps the most heartbreaking stories happen when it seems like you were ripped from a reality that was actually far better than the one you're in. User temptotosoon had a story that happened when he was attacked by a football player when he was in college.

He dreamt that he healed from the injury, then met a beautiful woman who he dated for years. Everything was wonderful, and they eventually married. They had a daughter and son together, and he was able to get a great job that let her stay at home with his new family.

Then, one day, while he was looking at his home, he noticed that one of the lamps "didn't look right." This set off a very deep feeling of uneasiness that turned into him being unable to eat or sleep. All he did was stare at that lamp.

As several days went by, he watched the lamp distort until it covered his entire field of vision in red. He woke up to screams in the back of a police car on his way to the hospital. His wife and children had never really existed. This led to to him mourning the loss of people who never were real in the reality that he is in. If that's not a rude awakening, we don't know what is.

Although this could be ascribed to a medical phenomenon known as a "coma dream," we've just gotta chalk it up as one of the saddest glitch in the matrix stories we've ever heard as we ask the world: Is the matrix real? Seriously. Because, if it is, you can pop out now, Keanu.