22 January 2024 , 11:43
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Do you ever have the feeling when you're stressed that you're not alone even though nobody else is anywhere near you? If that sounds a little creepy then there is no need to panic that something bad is happening to you.
Instead, it could just be an unusual phenomena you're experiencing when in times of mental distress. Known as 'third man syndrome', it has been described as the sensation of feeling a comforting presence by your side - whether seeing, hearing or feeling - during times of crisis.
The term comes from TS Eliot's 1922 poem 'The Waste Land' and back in 1919 legendary explorer Ernest Shackleton wrote about this moment in his book 'South': "…during that long and racking march of thirty-six hours over unnamed mountains and glaciers, it seemed to me often that we were four, not three.”
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A number of Buzzfeed readers recently shared their experiences of the syndrome with some creepy tales to make you wonder just happens in the unseen world. One anonymous person recalled the time in hospital when they had major surgery at just nine years old.
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They wrote: "When I rang the bell for the night nurses to help me to the toilet, a smiling man dressed all in white would come straight away and help me. He was so happy and peaceful, with the biggest smile and aura to him." However, when the patient described the man to the day nurse, she explained that there were no male nurses on at night and no male porters would have answered the bell anyway.
One astonishing story included another anonymous reader who miraculously survived the Twin Towers attacks in 2001. They wrote: "I am disabled... I was buried under the rubble for 15 hours but I was never alone. I kept hearing from a voice that said it was Michael. When I was weakest, he would just keep talking to me."
Following their rescue, the survivor found out that there was nobody near them called Michael. They added: "I still wonder the voice that saved me from becoming another death on that terrible day."
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One woman described how her husband fell asleep and crashed his car into a telephone pole during his 20s. A child then knocked on the window saying they had called the police and not to step out of the car due to all the dangerous live wires about the place. The wife said: "The police said no one called them and there was no way anyone could have gotten close to the car on account off the wires. And if my husband had tried to get out of the car they probably would have killed him."
Another reader remembered when she was aged five in 1986 and nearly choked to death on a hotdog while out on a walking trail. She was stood away from her family at that particular moment when a small old lady on a bench appeared: "She was the straight up stereotypical image of a sweet little old lady sitting on a bench, smiling at me.
"I quickly motioned to her that I was choking and needed help. In her soft sweet smiling old lady voice, she said, 'Oh I know, I know. You need to just relax, everything is going to be fine. The moment I began to relax was the moment I felt the hotdog moving back up my throat and back into my mouth, then onto the ground at my feet. When I looked up again, there was no bench and there was no old lady."
A woman was left permanently disabled after a high-speed car crash in the rain with her family in 2010. But she believes she would have lost her legs - or worse - were it not for an apparent guiding voice while the car was careering uncontrollably towards some trees. She wrote: "I remember hearing this voice that sounded urgent saying, 'you have to pick up your legs! You have to pick up your legs now!' I immediately pulled them into my front seat."
She went on: "We believe we hit the trees at 80mph, at least. If I hadn't picked up my legs when I did, then they would have been completely crushed. Everyone that has seen pictures of the car says how lucky we are to be alive. They really have no idea how right they are."