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11 Phenomenon Forum / My story
« on: July 30, 2015, 02:57:35 AM »
Hi everybody. I never normally like to make public posts about things this close to my heart, so bare with me if this isn't exactly the most well written post. I'm a computer scientist in my late 20s, was raised and still am a Christian, and I've been noticing elevens for at least a year.
Truthfully though, I'm really not sure exactly how long it's been. I've never brought it up to anyone, and I assumed it was just a massive bout of confirmation bias. 2011 was a very, very rough year for me, as my best friend since I was just a toddler passed away from cancer. Sure, occasionally we'd have our differences, but I did everything I could to stick by him and make him feel comfortable and loved until the very end. His death day was the most devastating day of my life, and I can still replay the moment I found out he had passed in my head clearer than whatever I did ten minutes ago.
So, over time, elevens started to stick out to me. I'd see eleven minute youtube videos, eleven dollar pricetags I'd stumble across; I even had a job where the only nearby restaurant was a McDonalds. My favorite combo meal? The Filet o' Fish. #11, of course. And just like everyone else, I was disproportionately seeing *:11 on clocks all the time. But it's definitely confirmation bias. It's got to be, right? You know, the cognitive bias where if you focus on something in particular, you start to see it everywhere? Well, one odd thing is that the other digits of my friend's death day don't stand out to me at all. He passed away on August 21st, but I never notice eights or twenty-ones everywhere. I don't look at the clock and see *:21, let alone 8:21 disproportionately.
So, this has continued on through a few weeks ago. I've still never mentioned this to a single soul, when one day my mom comes over for a visit.
Out of the blue, she asks me if I've happened to notice elevens everywhere lately.
I'm shocked and taken aback. Usually if she'd ask me something like this, I'd tell her anything I know about psychology or whatnot to try and give a plausible explanation to whatever she heard. I'll admit, I'm the kind of person that'll sit there and feverishly Google something and try to find out, or at least aggregate an possible answer, just so I can learn some new facts and better understand whatever we're talking about. I love learning facts and answers to any question I could ever have, but this is completely different. I had seen that number so much, it was truly starting to annoy me. I was even starting to worry that I might be going nuts and developing some sort of crazy elevenphobia, like you'd see out of a child's wacky fact book.
So, I told her everything. How I've been plagued by it for a long time, how often I see it on clocks, and how I never wanted to discuss it because of my solid skepticism of anything metaphysical. She told me about how she sees it all the time too, and I couldn't believe I wasn't alone. So I start Googling, I found you guys, and I'm blown away that there are so many of us.
As I've stated, I tend to be the last person to ever buy into anything supernatural blindly. Growing up a video game enthusiast and working towards becoming a computer scientist has had me spend a lot of time around atheists, since it just comes with the territory. Staying a Christian in such an environment has always been challenging, but I know deep down inside that I'm doing the right thing by not rejecting Christ, though that's a story for another time. I've had a lifelong addiction to learning just about anything there is to learn, and striving to find facts at all costs, but this eleven phenomenon is something I've never seen before in my life. Reading a bit here before I posted showed me how diverse and intelligent we all seem to be, and it feels like we're a chosen few in some sort of sci-fi movie.
I'm glad I've found you guys!
Truthfully though, I'm really not sure exactly how long it's been. I've never brought it up to anyone, and I assumed it was just a massive bout of confirmation bias. 2011 was a very, very rough year for me, as my best friend since I was just a toddler passed away from cancer. Sure, occasionally we'd have our differences, but I did everything I could to stick by him and make him feel comfortable and loved until the very end. His death day was the most devastating day of my life, and I can still replay the moment I found out he had passed in my head clearer than whatever I did ten minutes ago.
So, over time, elevens started to stick out to me. I'd see eleven minute youtube videos, eleven dollar pricetags I'd stumble across; I even had a job where the only nearby restaurant was a McDonalds. My favorite combo meal? The Filet o' Fish. #11, of course. And just like everyone else, I was disproportionately seeing *:11 on clocks all the time. But it's definitely confirmation bias. It's got to be, right? You know, the cognitive bias where if you focus on something in particular, you start to see it everywhere? Well, one odd thing is that the other digits of my friend's death day don't stand out to me at all. He passed away on August 21st, but I never notice eights or twenty-ones everywhere. I don't look at the clock and see *:21, let alone 8:21 disproportionately.
So, this has continued on through a few weeks ago. I've still never mentioned this to a single soul, when one day my mom comes over for a visit.
Out of the blue, she asks me if I've happened to notice elevens everywhere lately.
I'm shocked and taken aback. Usually if she'd ask me something like this, I'd tell her anything I know about psychology or whatnot to try and give a plausible explanation to whatever she heard. I'll admit, I'm the kind of person that'll sit there and feverishly Google something and try to find out, or at least aggregate an possible answer, just so I can learn some new facts and better understand whatever we're talking about. I love learning facts and answers to any question I could ever have, but this is completely different. I had seen that number so much, it was truly starting to annoy me. I was even starting to worry that I might be going nuts and developing some sort of crazy elevenphobia, like you'd see out of a child's wacky fact book. So, I told her everything. How I've been plagued by it for a long time, how often I see it on clocks, and how I never wanted to discuss it because of my solid skepticism of anything metaphysical. She told me about how she sees it all the time too, and I couldn't believe I wasn't alone. So I start Googling, I found you guys, and I'm blown away that there are so many of us.
As I've stated, I tend to be the last person to ever buy into anything supernatural blindly. Growing up a video game enthusiast and working towards becoming a computer scientist has had me spend a lot of time around atheists, since it just comes with the territory. Staying a Christian in such an environment has always been challenging, but I know deep down inside that I'm doing the right thing by not rejecting Christ, though that's a story for another time. I've had a lifelong addiction to learning just about anything there is to learn, and striving to find facts at all costs, but this eleven phenomenon is something I've never seen before in my life. Reading a bit here before I posted showed me how diverse and intelligent we all seem to be, and it feels like we're a chosen few in some sort of sci-fi movie.
I'm glad I've found you guys!