Awoken by a Lamp

"Have you ever felt a deep personal connection to a person you met in a dream only to wake up feeling terrible because you realize they never existed?" More than a decade ago, someone posted this question to Reddit. It was a popular post with many responses. But one response would go beyond the realm of popularity into something else. Internet canon, perhaps? The Redditor gave a detailed account of their life. It was a good life, they said. But one day, it came to a crashing halt — because of a lamp. The post would go on to inspire hundreds of memes and boggle the minds of countless people. Endless Thread's Ben Brock Johnson brings co-host Amory Sivertson the story of the strange lamp. ***** Credits: This episode was produced by Ben Brock Johnson and Dean Russell. Mix and sound design by Emily Jankowski. Our co-hosts are Ben Brock Johnson and Amory Sivertson.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Support for this podcast comes from Is Business Broken?, a podcast from the Marotra Institute at BU Questrom School of Business. A recent episode explores the intersection between fashion and sustainability. Stick around until the end of this podcast to preview the episode.

• 0:19Speaker 01

  They're running a Cover 2 defense. But you're running to get game day deals on Uber Eats. Keep everyone at tonight's watch party fed with deals from your go-to restaurants, or stock up with deals on your favorite snacks and groceries. Whatever the occasion, get game day deals on Uber Eats all season long. It's not football without food. Uber Eats. Order now. Terms apply. Product availability varies by region. See app for details.

• 0:49Speaker 02

  This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Football has a play for just about everything. You can go deep, keep it on the ground, or draw up something nobody sees coming. And whether you want to run a flea flicker or the tush push, you need a plan to fit your unique situation. That's why State Farm takes the time to get to know you, so they can help personalize coverage for your life and budget. Now that's a solid game plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

• 1:24Ben Brock Johnson?

  Hey ET homies, it's Benny B. Johnson. I'm gonna be straight up with you. This is a tough week to know what to say. And knowing what to say is a big part of our jobs on this podcast. Every political contest decided by the majority has winners and losers. There are a huge number of Americans who are celebrating this week. There are a huge number of Americans that are feeling despair. One thing that feels undeniable is that right now, our two-party system seems so divided that people on both sides believe that the other side doesn't want to give them the right to exist. Emery and I have thoughts right now. The team as well. A lot of them.

• 2:11Ben Brock Johnson?

  And we are working on an episode about how this holiday season is going to go, because another clear and present truth is that these fault lines run through families. We're going to hear more about that next week, and we're still taking your stories about internet debate that may be very IRL when families gather for the holidays. This week, though, we want to take a big old break from what is happening and present you with something that, in a way, still might feel relevant or useful. For a lot of people following this national presidential election, it probably feels like a rude awakening from a happy dream about realizing the world was not the world you thought it was.

• 2:52Ben Brock Johnson?

  So here's a story about what that might feel like that has nothing to do with politics. Hope you like it. Take care of yourself and the people you love. No matter who you are, no matter where you are, we are so, so grateful that you spend this time with Endless Thread. We love you, guys. Here's the show.

• 3:26Speaker 04

  WBUR Podcasts, Boston.

• 3:40Ben Brock Johnson?

  Amory.

• 3:41Amory Sivertson?

  Ben.

• 3:43Ben Brock Johnson?

  How philosophical do you get about our existence?

• 3:49Amory Sivertson?

  Hmm, not that philosophical.

• 3:52Ben Brock Johnson?

  I guess another question is, do you, are you familiar with, like, we're all living in a simulation theory?

• 4:02Amory Sivertson?

  No.

• 4:04Ben Brock Johnson?

  So this is a story that for a long time, for years, I would say, has been very popular on Reddit.

• 4:15Amory Sivertson?

  Okay.

• 4:16Ben Brock Johnson?

  It has a few different titles. One is called Awoken by a Lamp.

• 4:21Amory Sivertson?

  I was awoken by a lamp the other night.

• 4:24Ben Brock Johnson?

  Were you?

• 4:25Amory Sivertson?

  A light just turned on.

• 4:27Ben Brock Johnson?

  Shut up. In your house?

• 4:29Amory Sivertson?

  We've been having a little trouble with Mike's bedside.

• 4:34Ben Brock Johnson?

  With Mike's poltergeist?

• 4:36Amory Sivertson?

  Sometimes it'll turn on, sometimes it won't. Sometimes like you turn it on, but you forget that you've turned it on. Probably not like a paranormal intervention, but anyway, I'm derailing us. Continue.

• 4:49Ben Brock Johnson?

  No, it's fine. I'm down for your awoken by a lamp story.

• 4:54Ben Brock Johnson?

  So this is a very different story. It's one of those things where like, it's hard to tell if this is a creative writing exercise or a real story. And since this story first appeared, it has turned into sort of this like repeating meme. But it's one of those things where it's like, it's so referential to this like one story that was posted on Reddit. That most people, when they come across the meme, unless they know the Reddit story, they don't know what the heck the meme is talking about, right? It's one of those deeply referential memes. So I'm going to ask you to click on the first link that I sent you.

• 5:41Amory Sivertson?

  Okay, this is from a subreddit called Explain the Joke.

• 5:46Amory Sivertson?

  The subject line is, I'm confused, what lamp? And they have posted a picture of, is this a character from Monsters, Inc.? Or does it just look like a character from Monsters?

• 5:56Ben Brock Johnson?

  I think it's the character.

• 5:57Amory Sivertson?

  I know, I know. It's both characters fused together. Is that right?

• 6:02Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah, I think that's right.

• 6:03Amory Sivertson?

  That it's like Billy Crystal's character and John Goodman's character? I should know their names. Mike and Sully. Wow. What recess of my brain did I just pull that out?

• 6:13Ben Brock Johnson?

  That was, that was actually incredibly impressive.

• 6:16Amory Sivertson?

  Right? So it's like a Mike and Sully mashup. The face looks kind of just like straight mouth, blank stare. And the caption is, when you're happily married for six years, but that lamp starts looking flat.

• 6:33Amory Sivertson?

  And so then the caption of the title of the post is, I'm confused, what lamp?

• 6:38Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yes.

• 6:39Amory Sivertson?

  And this has 13,000 upvotes, I'm seeing.

• 6:42Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yes, yes.

• 6:43Amory Sivertson?

  Which is a lot.

• 6:44Ben Brock Johnson?

  So now, look at the other thing I sent you.

• 6:47Amory Sivertson?

  Okay. So this looks like someone in some sort of battle helmet.

• 6:53Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah.

• 6:54Amory Sivertson?

  Another kind of blank stare. And the caption is, me having a perfect life and having the perfect family and seeing that the lamp looks a little fuzzy.

• 7:07Ben Brock Johnson?

  So these are both recent memes and they're referring to this story that was posted to Reddit three years ago. Are you ready to hear the story?

• 7:17Amory Sivertson?

  I can't wait to hear the story.

• 7:19Ben Brock Johnson?

  Okay.

• 7:21Ben Brock Johnson?

  A parallel life slash awoken by lamp starts with the statement, throw away account because this is really personal.

• 7:30Ben Brock Johnson?

  My last semester at a certain college, I was assaulted by a football player for walking where he was trying to drive. Note, he was 325 pounds, I was 120 pounds. While unconscious on the ground, I lived a different life.

• 7:46Amory Sivertson?

  Wow.

• 7:50Ben Brock Johnson?

  It goes on to tell this story about this person meeting a woman, falling in love with this woman, getting a job. The person who's writing this has a daughter and a son.

• 8:05Amory Sivertson?

  This is in their parallel life or in their actual life?

• 8:09Ben Brock Johnson?

  This is where it gets weird.

• 8:10Amory Sivertson?

  Okay, okay.

• 8:12Ben Brock Johnson?

  One day while sitting on the couch, I noticed that the perspective of the lamp was odd, like inverted. It was still in 3D, but just wrong. It was a square lamp base, red with gold trim on four legs in a white square shade. I was transfixed. I couldn't look away from it. I stayed up all night staring at it. The next morning, I didn't go to work. Something was just not right about the lamp.

• 8:39Ben Brock Johnson?

  This person stops eating. They stare at the lamp for three days. And then they have this epiphany. And they realize the lamp is not real. The house is not real. My wife, my kids, none of that is real. The last 10 years of my life are not real.

• 9:01Amory Sivertson?

  Oh, my God.

• 9:02Ben Brock Johnson?

  The lamp starts to grow wider and deeper. It still has inverted dimensions. It took up my entire perspective and all I could see was red. I heard voices, screams, all kinds of weird noises. And I became aware of pain. I was laying on my back on the sidewalk, surrounded by people that I didn't know. Lots of them were freaking out. I was very confused. This person gets scooped up, taken to the hospital by a cop, goes through year, three years of depression because this person is grieving the loss of their wife and children and dealing with the knowledge that they never existed. They say, I was scared that I was going insane as I would cry at myself to sleep, hoping I would see my wife in my dreams.

• 9:46Ben Brock Johnson?

  I never have, but sometimes I see my son, usually just a glimpse out of my peripheral vision. He's perpetually five years old and I can never hear what he says.

• 9:58Amory Sivertson?

  Wow.

• 10:00Ben Brock Johnson?

  Uh, this like blows up on Reddit. This person doesn't add it after it blows up. It's the person says, never thought anyone would read this. I've never seen the movie Inception or the Star Trek episode so many have mentioned. I will not do an AMA.

• 10:17Amory Sivertson?

  Hmm.

• 10:19Ben Brock Johnson?

  Uh, this person says, I've had many personal messages describing similar experiences. A few have asked if they can write a book, screenplay, or stage play, rage comic, et cetera. Please consider this tale open source and have fun with it.

• 10:36Amory Sivertson?

  What subreddit was this posted to?

• 10:40Ben Brock Johnson?

  So this was originally posted to a subreddit called A Glitch in the Matrix. And I think that that subreddit is sort of like dedicated to, you know, concepts and ideas of like a thing that like wakes you up from the existence that you're living.

• 10:59Amory Sivertson?

  I mean, on the one hand, it seems totally preposterous that someone would think, what did you say? It was like 10 years?

• 11:07Ben Brock Johnson?

  10 years.

• 11:08Amory Sivertson?

  This alternate reality was a 10-year period that this person, unconscious, on the side of the road, thinks has passed. And that just seems totally absurd. And on the other hand, our memories are so, our minds, our brains are just so very mysterious that like, who am I to say that could never happen? But I'm also like, all right, prove it, you know? Like, let's do that AMA, because I want to know about the birth of your first child. And let's talk about how much you actually remember, which doesn't mean it

• 11:48Amory Sivertson?

  didn't happen to the person. It just means this person maybe has a whole 10 years of material that they're not expounding upon. Oh, you just want to know more.

• 12:03Ben Brock Johnson?

  And you will know more in a minute.

• 12:24Speaker 00

  Support for this podcast comes from Is Business Broken?, a podcast from the Marotra Institute at BU Questram School of Business. Is sustainability in fashion a selling point for consumers?

• 12:36Speaker 06

  I think the sustainability gets advertised as being a big driver of fashion, when in fact, I think it's way down on the list of purchase criteria for consumers.

• 12:47Speaker 00

  Follow Is Business Broken? wherever you get your podcasts. And stick around until the end of this podcast for a preview of a recent episode on whether consumers can be both fashionable and sustainable.

• 13:03Speaker 01

  They're running a cover two defense. But you're running to get game day deals on Uber Eats. Keep everyone at tonight's watch party fed with deals from your go to restaurants. Or stock up with deals on your favorite snacks and groceries. Whatever the occasion, get game day deals on Uber Eats all season long. It's not football without food. Uber Eats. Order now. Terms apply. Product availability varies by region. See app for details.

• 13:34Speaker 02

  This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Football has a play for just about everything. You can go deep, keep it on the ground, or draw up something nobody sees coming. And whether you want to run a flea flicker or the tush push, you need a plan to fit your unique situation. That's why State Farm takes the time to get to know you so they can help personalize coverage for your life and budget. Now that's a solid game plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

• 14:05Ben Brock Johnson?

  Okay, we're back to the infamous lamp post on Reddit, which has launched a thousand esoteric memes and a thousand kind of stoner conversations, I think, about whether someone can expand time and live a whole other life in a few minutes of unconsciousness. I feel like these kinds of thought experiments, if we can call them that, are really interesting because they remind us that like, as real as things may feel sometimes, it might be worth imagining the possibility that there is a reality behind the reality. Without going full QAnon, of course. I mean.

• 14:43Amory Sivertson?

  Yes, yes. Well, you know, I think about that all the time and just how frickin' slippery the slope really is where, where we draw the lines of what is believable and reasonable to believe and what is not, is often feels just so arbitrary and.

• 15:04Amory Sivertson?

  Whatever is convenient to ridicule in that moment.

• 15:07Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah, that's a great point.

• 15:09Amory Sivertson?

  Although, although I am, I do not practice a religion and didn't grow up with one. I can appreciate how, um, I don't know, just, just fuzzy all the lines are around belief. And I wouldn't point to something and say, that's totally ridiculous. When someone else is saying like, no, no, I really did live 10 full years in another dimension.

• 15:32Ben Brock Johnson?

  You do put a lot of faith in the banana dog. And there's no proof that that's

• 15:36Amory Sivertson?

  Totally.

• 15:37Ben Brock Johnson?

  Like, anything outside of your own mind. So I feel like.

• 15:43Amory Sivertson?

  Dear listener, Ben is referring to the culinary masterpiece that is putting a small banana into a hot dog bun and covering it in whatever you want. And yes, I do believe that the banana dog is the thing that we should all be agreeing upon.

• 16:01Ben Brock Johnson?

  Worthy of our worship.

• 16:04Amory Sivertson?

  And I will do an AMA.

• 16:07Ben Brock Johnson?

  About banana dogs. Yes.

• 16:10Amory Sivertson?

  It'll be real short, but I'll do it.

• 16:13Ben Brock Johnson?

  I do really like this point that like, you know, the, the things we decide to put our faith in feels very arbitrary sometimes.

• 16:22Amory Sivertson?

  Have you had one of these experiences yourself?

• 16:25Ben Brock Johnson?

  No, but I have had dreams that have, you know, I mean, I think we all, hopefully we all have had dreams that have felt so real and so expansive, you know, like, like to the, to the point where like, you're living a completely different life and existence.

• 16:44Amory Sivertson?

  Yeah, I don't know if I've had dreams where I'm a completely different person. I'm usually, have I told you this before, that I'm a smoker in my dreams?

• 16:52Ben Brock Johnson?

  No.

• 16:54Amory Sivertson?

  Yeah, in most of my dreams, I'm, I have a cigarette in my

• 16:58Ben Brock Johnson?

  Really?

• 16:58Amory Sivertson?

  I think about that a lot when people, like if I'm in a social situation where someone offers me a cigarette, I'm like, no, I'm good. I'll have one later.

• 17:10Ben Brock Johnson?

  Oh, that's just the best. I love that.

• 17:15Ben Brock Johnson?

  I love that.

• 17:15Amory Sivertson?

  Yeah.

• 17:16Ben Brock Johnson?

  That's a classic Amory situation right there. Have good, I'll have one later.

• 17:21Amory Sivertson?

  I do think that I, um, I and my husband, Mike, are the kinds of, we are really, um, maybe it's just because we kind of still can't believe that, like, wow, we're adults and we got married and we live in a house and we have a rabbit.

• 17:41Ben Brock Johnson?

  And it's like our house and we own it. And it's like, yeah, I have those moments.

• 17:44Amory Sivertson?

  Right. I don't know what that tendency is, other than just genuine, kind of like awe and appreciating the life that we have built together and what it has taken to build that life together. And that's not to say that, that that will help avoid any of this. And I'm, I feel like this is planting a little seed in my brain that now later today, I'm going to look at something and be like, is that real?

• 18:10Ben Brock Johnson?

  You're going to look at the lamp. Don't look at the lamp, Amory.

• 18:13Amory Sivertson?

  Even worse, I'll look at a banana dog, the thing that I am most sure about in this world and suddenly go, is that looking a little too, too round, too square?

• 18:25Amory Sivertson?

  But I do, I do really love these kinds of explorations into the, um, I don't know, it's, it's just an acknowledgement of, we, we move through so much of life and like so much of life just passes us by and it would be exhausting to realize every moment as we live it. Did you, do you know the, you're, you were a theater kid at one point in time?

• 18:48Ben Brock Johnson?

  Sure.

• 18:49Amory Sivertson?

  My fellow theater kid. Do you know the play Our Town?

• 18:53Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yes, I know of it, yes.

• 18:55Amory Sivertson?

  Okay, but you, you're not familiar with the, with the lines of it, with some of the like famous lines from it?

• 19:02Ben Brock Johnson?

  I was more of a damn Yankees, kind of that was my zone.

• 19:08Amory Sivertson?

  So there's, there's a line in Thornton Wilder's Our Town. That it's, you know, it's primarily about this, this teenage couple Emily and George. And she has this one line that, that this story made me think of where she says to the, there is like a narrator figure here. She says to the narrator, well, I'm going to get this slightly wrong and actual Our Town super fans will be mad at me. But she says like, do people ever realize life while they live it every moment?

• 19:40Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah.

• 19:41Amory Sivertson?

  But maybe there's some of that in this, that like, you're just moving through life. It's the same damn lamp that you've had for 20 years or however many years. And one day you just look at it and you go, huh, that's different. You just really notice it. And that's what this makes me think of. Like, do people ever really realize life while they're living it every moment?

• 20:07Amory Sivertson?

  And so maybe that's a.

• 20:09Ben Brock Johnson?

  How very Buddhist of you, Emery. Maybe you are, maybe you're actually a secret Buddhist and you don't even know it yet. Maybe you're gonna wake up a Buddhist.

• 20:17Amory Sivertson?

  I could wake up a lot worse.

• 20:20Ben Brock Johnson?

  She woke up a smoking Buddhist.

• 20:22Amory Sivertson?

  I could wake up a lot worse. So.

• 20:26Ben Brock Johnson?

  I like that.

• 20:26Amory Sivertson?

  Yeah.

• 20:27Ben Brock Johnson?

  Well, thanks for having this thought experiment with me and yeah, that's a good spot to end on. Please enjoy every moment of your life.

• 20:38Amory Sivertson?

  Yeah. Notice your lamps.

• 20:39Ben Brock Johnson?

  The lamp starts looking fuzzy.

• 20:42Amory Sivertson?

  Well, you're about to wake up on some concrete.

• 21:16Speaker 00

  Support for this podcast comes from Is Business Broken?, a podcast from the Marotra Institute at BU Questram School of Business. Follow Is Business Broken wherever you get your podcasts and listen on for a preview of a recent episode featuring fashion and culture journalist and author Dana Thomas on the origin of fast fashion.

• 21:35Speaker 07

  In the 1990s, during the early days of globalization, a small brand out of Spain called Zara was deciding to spread its wings beyond Spain and move throughout Europe and roll out its stores of not expensive, kind of fashionable clothes, middle-market, accessible fashion. And what they did for their business model was they would go to fashion shows and see what was the hip thing and then reinterpret it in less expensive fabrics, just like Gap was doing. But at the time, Zara was embracing this business model called QR, Quick Response, which was in fact invented by the US apparel industry. Basically, you'd

• 22:20Speaker 07

  put in a few items of a collection in the store, and if it did really well, then you put more into production and you put them in the store. And if they didn't do so well, then you stopped it and you moved on to the next thing. It was like, almost like doing a focus group drop of clothes in the store and seeing what works, what doesn't, and what does. You play. So they started moving into this area of Quick Response and turning out more collections more quickly and getting them onto their store floor faster. And they saw that by doing this, by upping the number of times they did drops in the store to every two weeks as opposed to four times a year, that their numbers of visits from consumers went up dramatically.

• 23:05Speaker 00

  Find the full episode by searching for Is Business Broken? wherever you get your podcasts and learn more about the Marotra Institute for Business Markets and Society at ibms.bu.edu.

• 23:22Speaker 01

  But you're running to get game day deals on Uber Eats. Keep everyone at tonight's watch party fed with deals from your go-to restaurants. Or stock up with deals on your favorite snacks and groceries. Whatever the occasion, get game day deals on Uber Eats all season long. It's not football without food. Uber Eats. Order now. Terms apply. Product availability varies by region. See app for details.