Things That Might Happen to You Any Second That’ll Scare the Bejesus Out of You

Another thing I started for cracked.com, along with 8 Reasons Your Childhood Was a Clusterf*ck of Dishonesty and Dude, I Wanna Hug Your Mommy Issues. I totally forgot about it until today when I was writing about what it might feel like to catch on fire.

You could suddenly burst into flames.

Spontaneous Human Combustion is a phenomenon where you could suddenly catch on fire. Like, right now. For no apparent or identifiable reason. And you stay on fire until you’re cooked. Theories include a buildup of methane in the intestines, static electricity or the work of entirely new subatomic particles called pyrotons. Or even excessive drinking. And there’s not much you can do about it, including avoiding smoking or wearing ubër-flammable clothing made of polyester or acrylic, in which case you’re pretty much asking for it.

Your eyeballs could suddenly pop out.

Yup. Thanks to a rather shocking design flaw, those suckers could suddenly fall out of their sockets, all on their own. It’s called “globe luxation,” which sounds as if the world just took a pleasant exhale, but has nothing to do with your eyeballs precariously hanging by their ocular nerves. Watch out next time you rub your eyes, put in contact lenses or wonder, “are my eye sockets too shallow?” Even a particularly strong sneeze can do it. The good news? You can put your eyeball back in yourself pretty easily.

You could be trippin’.

It’s called an acid flashback, or hallucinogen-induced persistent perception disorder (HPPD). Have fun seeing trails watching clocks melt days or even years since the last time you tripped. And if you thought it was only something that only happened in movies like “Jacob’s Ladder,” you’d be wrong.

You could start speaking in a foreign accent.

“Hey Tyler, what’s up?”

“Jus’ sawr tha litest Stah Wors mouvie. Lawved eet.”

“Um, why are you talking like your from Australia?

Tyler is from California, born and raised. But he can’t help it. He went to bed with a headache on Sunday, and woke up Monday sounding like his words had been flattened out by an iron. Like Ja’ime, Private School Girl. Was it a brain tumor? A stroke? In some cases, no one knows. He’s lucky. Some people start speaking an entirely new language.

You could have the abrupt realization that your arm actually belongs to me.

People with Somatoparaphrenia insist that some part of their body doesn’t belong to them. Not only do they have no idea where their own body part is, they have no explanation as to how someone else’s arm or whatever got sewn onto their body. And they’re pissed. They’ll go to a surgeon and bully a doctor into cutting off the intruding limb.

A meteorite could hit you.

In 2013 a meteorite hit Russia. 1,491 people were injured and there’s basically nothing stopping another one from hitting your city. Or a bunch of them falling everywhere like an apocalyptic force is making it rain in fireballs.

That’s as far as I got. Then I started writing my yoga book. I was kind of creeped out anyway just from the eyeball thing.

 

Written by Anne Clendening
Anne Clendening was born and raised in L.A. She's a yoga teacher, a writer and occasionally slings cocktails in a Hollywood bar. She could eat chocolate cake for every meal of the day. She has a huge fear of heights and flying. And fire. She wishes she could speak French, play her guitar better and make cannoli. She's probably listening to The Dark Side Of The Moon right now, kickin’ it with her boxer dog and her hot Australian husband ★