Hi Everyone:

I had something really strange happen to me when I was 16 years old. I lived in the San Juan Puerto Rico area at the time. I had recently moved there from NYC about 6 months ago with my parents. I had never lived there before. It was a hot summer day, Sunday and I was really bored. I did not drive a car yet and my parents did not own a car. I wanted to go the beach really bad that day so I started to beg my mother to take me to the beach. She asked me how, I said, there are plenty of beaches in the metropolitan San Juan area and if we just take any bus, it should stop near a beach area. She finally agree to take me, my three sisters and even invited my aunt. She packed lot of food, drinks and snacks. We walked to my aunt's house to pick her up and then walked to a nearby bus stop.

We took the first bus that we saw. I asked the bus driver, does this bus drive near a beach community?? He said yes and he would let us know when to get off the bus. I did not think very much about it at the time but once I thought about it later, I realized that it was strange that the bus was almost deserted when we got on. In the San Juan area, many residents do not own cars and rely on the public bus system for transportation. Therefore, usually buses are very full and there is standing room only. However, I thought that since it was Sunday, that was why it was mostly empty.

We finally got to a neighborhood and the bus driver motioned to us that this was the beach area. This neighborhood looked like the typical neighborhood in Puerto Rico. He pointed towards a street and told us to keep walking that way and we would find the beach. We got off the bus and started walking.

As we walked past the first neighborhood that we got off the bus on, our surroundings started to change drastically. The next street we saw was the most amazing tranquil and beautiful neighborhood I have ever seen in my life. The homes were all immaculate, had flowers all around the outside of the homes, I could smell the aroma of flowers all through the street. I saw the most beautiful homes I had ever seen.

Later on I realized that I could not see anyone anywhere on these streets. It was as thought these streets were deserted. We walked through about 4 streets like this and finally saw a fence where the beach area started. The beach was the most peaceful and serene beach I had ever been too. We stayed at the beach from around 2:00 PM till about 8:00 PM. The beach was mostly deserted and it was mostly us at the beach. The water and sand were so unbeleivably clean and the air was breezy. The sand was a beautiful white color and almost looked like snow. I just wanted to stay there forever. I spent the most tranquil and peaceful day of my life at this beach that day and to this day, my memory of this trip stands out in my mind as the best day of my life.

Around 8:00 pm, my mom finally said we should start heading back. We walked toward the exit of the beach which was the same way we entered and were planning to walk the same street to get back to where the bus dropped us off, however I happened to look towards the other side of the fence and saw a bus stop. I told my mom and suggested that we go there and wait for a bus to come by so we can ask the bus driver whether he goes near the bus stop where we lived. We walked toward the bus stop, again I hardly saw anyone around us. Pretty soon, a bus came and stopped. We asked the bus driver if he went near where we lived , he said yes, so we boarded the bus and went home.

The following day we were visiting the same aunt that went with us and just happened to mention our beach adventure to her husband. My aunts husband was a driver for the public bus system in the San Juan area for the last 30 years. He had driven every bus route that existed in the city over the years. His son was also a bus driver for the last 10 years.

We explained to him how we got on a bus from the nearby bus stop in my neighborhood, got off at the bus stop that the bus driver suggested, told him about the four beautiful neighborhoods we saw and about the bus we took to come back home. He listened to us and said, What beach??? There is no beach in the whole San Juan area that looks like what you just described. He also said, what bus route??? There are no bus routes like the one you describe. As a matter of fact, public buses do not even run that late on a Sunday Night. He also said, there are no neighborhoods in the whole San Juan Metropolitan area that were like the ones I described.

My mom, sisters and I were so baffled and I thought he was playing a joke on us. I then called his son and explained the situation and I got the same response from him I was still baffled and thought they were both playing a joke on all of us.

However, once High School started again for me, I told this same story to many of my new teachers and as many friends as I could. All had the same reaction as my uncle and cousin. After that I lived in San Juan for two more years, I would tell my story to as many people as possible to see if anyone recognized the beach, the neighborhood or the bus routes, not one person knew what I was talking about.

I have since moved from the San Juan area a very long time ago. As an adult, I still think about this day and wonder whether I went to Heaven or another dimension for the day. I never even considered that possiblity in my younger years.

I invite feedback from everyone who is reading this story. Has anything like this ever happened to anyone on this forum.?? Or have you heard of a similar story?? Does anyone have any theories that might explain this strange event?? I look forward to hearing from everyone. Nelly from the Block

It isn't as though San Juan is a tiny little community. Bus drivers usually take the same routes and just because your Uncle was a bus driver and said it didn't exist certainly doesn't make it so. It it entirely possible that it is just a part of San Juan he never saw. And as far as the buses running that late on Sunday...apparently they do or you wouldn't have been on the bus.
It is also fair to mention that there are parts of my community...my neighborhood actually that I see from time to time that I never even noticed before. And I have lived in the same house for over 15 years.

Is it possible that the bus driver happened to see some pretty ladies standing at the bus stop and stopped to pick you up even though he was done with work for the day? And just brought you to a beach area because he just wanted to be a nice guy?

What do you think happened? A nice neighborhood/beach alternate dimension or something? (that isn't meant to sound sarcastic -- just an honest question)

Have you been back there since? You should go back again.

HI Dr. Yo:

I have been back to San Juan since then. But I have never been able to find that beach, or met someone who had heard of this beach or find out the mystery of the bus that wasn't supposed to be in operation at that time of the day.

Hmmm. And the bus driver looked perfectly normal, I mean nothing odd or strange about him?

Hi Joc:

The entire area of San Juan is about 67 miles long. My uncle had driven every bus route in the city over the thirty years that he was a bus driver. Now it is possible that he could have driven a bus right by this neighborhood and had not noticed that part of San Juan but if that is so, why didn't everyone else whom I asked know about this neighborhood.

I did not realize it at the time because I had just moved to that area, but most neighborhoods in San Juan are very old and historical like. Most streets do not have side walks , only dirt roads. The four streets I saw had wide sidewalks, the homes were all two story custom type homes that looked pretty new. The streets were so clean. A place like that near a beach area would stand out like a sore thumb in that city and I feel that most people would know about this place.

About the bus running that late, it is possible as Purplos has posted that he could have been off duty and decided to give us a ride. I guess, I may never know. Nelly from the block

Hi Dr. Yo:

He looked perfectly normal to me. However, I did not look at the driver too closely as I had no idea anything out of the ordinary was going on. Nelly from the Block

Hi Purplos:


That is a very possible explaination as to why I was able to ride the bus.

I really do think I went into an alternate dimension. This is something I have recently considered and have never thought of before. The more I think about it, the more I think this possibility may be real. Since that day. I have never been anywhere else where I have felt the same peace as I did that day. The whole place was like a Utopia to me. This was one of the few trips I had made to a San Juan beach since I was new to the area so I had not noticed that beaches in that city are usually not as clean as that beach was and that the sand was not snow white.

As a matter of fact, just this weekend two friends from Puerto Rico which I met on a forum came down to my area and I met them for dinner. I told them my story and they were clueless about the beach and neigborhood I was talking about. They said that none of the beaches in the San Juan area had snow white sand or even plain white sand. I guess, I may never be able to solve this mystery. Nelly from theBlock

A similar story was told on TV quite a few years ago. A show called "Strange But True" ...

I don't know exactly how the story went, but it was something along these lines:



A middle-aged couple go away for weekend in the countryside (I can't remember which country this was in). I don't think the short break was planned - they were just driving through different villages and eventually stopped in a place that they liked the look of.

The village they stopped in was, like you said, kinda "tranquil". It was an old village - pretty - with old houses made of stone and gardens decorated with flowers and nicely kept. There was nothing about this village that was unappealing.

They stopped overnight in a small hotel/B&B. The people who worked there were dressed in old-fashioned clothes (I don't know how old) and they treated this couple with great respect. The inside of the hotel was tastefully decorated - resembled an old-fashioned design - and nothing tacky. Again, the outside of the accommodation was the same as the rest of the village - beautifully presented with flowers, trees and ponds, etc.



The weekend was so memorable (in a good way) that they planned on visiting again over the next few weeks ...

Now, I can't remember which way round it was but, it was either that the village couldn't be found and nobody in a nearby village could recall such a place, OR, they returned to find an old, run-down place that in no way resembled the village they stayed in only a few weeks before.


I'm sorry I can't remember everything. Like I said, it was on TV quite a few years ago.

Hi Tornado:


Thanks for telling me about this story. I had not heard of it. I am happy to know that something similar happened to someone else. It is nice to know I am not alone as far as experiencing strange things.

Wow, once again another strange story!

Well I do not mean to demean or anything, I am just stating possibilities...

Is it possible it was a dream? A waking dream? A slight hallucination?

Because I am perplexed. *scratches behind ear*

Hi Kacen:

If it was a dream, it was a group dream since my mom, sisters and aunt were with me when it happened. So I do not think that is possible. Nelly from the block

maybe since there isn't beach near by he drove to another town? ever think of that? how long did you ride on it?

I remember when I was a child, I had a nastey habbit of "exploring". I remember exploring the upstairs and opened one closet to find a hold...I looked in and saw a large room with marble floors, three or more long tin tables with metal chairs...a tube light on the ceiling. A day later I climbed in to find it was nothing but the attic which contained the water heater and central air unit. I still find this quite remarkable.

Hi Falingalien:

I was on the bus for about 25 minutes. The city of San Juan is about 67 miles long and San Juan area buses do travel to nearby surburbs but those areas are inland and not close to any beaches. Nelly from the Block

You really think that you went to an alternate reality, simply because a few people didn't know what you were talking about? You think that is more likely then it just simply being a bus route that A) Does run later and went way out of the way into a quite neignborhood?

Here is what happened:

You were new to the area so none of you knew the busses very well. You got on a random route that was hardly ever used because it serviced an upscale neighborhood where people did have cars. When you left, you were lucky that the busses were still running, and you got on one that took you back to your own neighborhood.

As for your uncle, you must not have explained it clearly enough, or perhaps he has been doing the same route or sets of routes for all the time he drove.

Are there or are there not beaches in the San Juan area? Are there or are there not upscale neighborhoods near the sea as would make sense?

Face it, you went to a random place in a city you still weren't familiar with, and were therefore unable to explain clearly enough the location. It's happened to me lots of times.

HI Nadal:

That is a very interesting experience you had as a child. If your childhood was anything like mine, I bet your parents thought you had an overactive imagination.

How you trying to make the analogy that the beach I went to was there that day and then the landscape changed to regular terrain?? I think that is entirely possible. Like Tornado posted, a couple claim they stayed at a motel that was never supposed to exist. Nelly from the Block

Hi Occam :

I lived in the San Juan area for two years after this incident. I went to every beach in the entire city. They are usually located in upscale areas but the homes nearby are beachfront condos. The rest of the neighborhoods near the beaches are all commercial areas where they have many hotels, casinos and nice shopping areas.

You are probably right that I could not explain the location of the beach to my uncle but I could describe the beach and what he neighborhood looked like. San Juan is about 67 miles long so even though it has a large population, it is a small city. My uncle had driven every bus route in that city over the course of 30 years. He knew every route by memory. He did not know what I was talking about and all of the other people I asked did not know either.

I asked teachers, college professors, doctors, dentists and every person I could find over the course of two years after this incident and no one had heard of this beach. No one was familiar with a neighborhood which looked like what I described. I was baffled then and I still am. It was only recently that I began to consider the possibilty that I might have gone to another dimension. I guess I will never know. Nelly from the Block

I'll bet you actually have returned to that beach.

But you may have done it years later in your search.


The city being that big, there must have been a beach like it. But what happened is, since you were unfamiliar with the surroundings at the time, your brain remembers only the first impressions of a new area, but as you gradually become familiar with the area, your brain "builds" it differently.

This is especially true when you are away from the area for a long time, remember it one way, and then come back. So I'm saying you remember this beach, but when you found it again on your search, it was actually nothing like what you remember and therefore you dismissed it as a different place.


This happened to me several times when I first went to college. I remember places on my college campus that I never found again in 4 years, and that's because I visited the campus the spring before I started the next fall, and I went to many places there, but drove through the rest of it, so I didn't get a good feel for it.

When I returned to those places, they were "different" because my mind had created an impression of them while I was unfamiliar with them. As I gradually became more aware of the campus as I lived on it, I returned to those places with new context of the surroundings, and thus they were different than I remembered.


I would bet money that you have been back to this beach, but the unfamiliarity of it the first time, gave you a memory that was actually not accurate to what it's really like, when you returned ages later in your search for it.

nycrican, google "time slip" and you might find some stories you can relate to.

Though I do like the theory of the nice, off the clock bus driver taking two pretty ladies to a beach that's a bit off the beaten path.

Perhaps the most credible story of this type took place just at the turn of the 20th Century. A woman who was a university president in the United States (the ONLY woman university president in the U.S. at that time) had been invited to Paris for an international conference. She and her secretary decided to take a trip to the palace of Versailles. She later wrote of the experience and said that they were walking in the gardens outside of the palace when suddenly the scene around them changed. There were people dressed in 18th Century clothing, a woman selling flowers, a young girl greeted them from the other side of the fence surrounding a house.

They looked up at the palace and saw that it was different. At a window there was a balcony and they knew that no such balcony existed.

They took a couple of steps more and instantly the scene returned to contemporary time. They were very shaken and decided to write down each detail while it was fresh in their memories.

The woman sent the report to Albert Einstein who was reportedly doing research into the nature of time. What's more, the woman realized that she could not publicly tell of this experience without jeopardizing her career, so she conducted personal investigations and discovered that there had been a balcony at that window but an assassin had climbed up to it in an attempt to kill the king. The culprit was executed and the balcony removed. Very few historians of her time knew of this incident before her research.

I have checked Google and can't find a reference to this tale but I remember reading about it in some pamphlet in Europe, probably from the bookstores at or near the palace of Versailles.

Hi Iaapac:

I found the tale here: http://www.paranormality.com/versailles_time_slip.shtml
Thanks for the reference to this story. It was very interesting. Nelly from the block

HI Vertigoflow:

I am using Google to do the search as you suggested and so far I found some stories I can relate to. Thanks for your help. Nelly from the Block

P.S. Using your search term suggestion, I found the story that user Iaapac posted about.

Hey nycrican:

You should try hypnotherapy, see you can recall further details about what happened.

Yeah! If you feel comfortable with the idea, doing something like that could be very interesting. You never know what you may find out.

That is a horrible thing to say to somebody, especially if you weren't there...
"this is probably what happened..." is a more understanding way of saying what you think...

What can I tell you. I'm stating the facts as I see them, and to do so in an assertive way, I'm stating things directly, without getting bogged down in the subjectivity of opinion.


Here is "probably" what happened sounds like I'm only offering a suggestion.

Here is what happened sounds like I'm stating a fact. It makes for a more effective arguement to state things in an active voice.


I still say my above explanation is the best. I must stick by my name and go with the idea that a simple explanation is more likely than a crazy, complicated one.

Why would a complicated situation (teleportation into alternate versions of reality which would involve who knows what kind of Quantam Theory coming into play) happen more easily and readily than a simple situation (common memory confusion as I detail above)?

Fair enough... but saying it as a fact is still coming on a little strong, but your opinion is just as good as the rest of ours.
Also, even though what you said is more probable, it is not a fact, that is why i suggested rewording your...words. Sometimes the most complicated stuff, seems to offer the best explanation...(i'm not sure about this case, but still).

And Occam, i'm glad you didn't get all defensive, as we've seen other people do, when they are in question...











PEACE

Hi Dr. Yo and Tornado:


I have heard of hypotherapy but I do not think I feel comfortable with this idea. I just feel that one of these days someone is going to get stuck in the past and not be able to return to the present. Gee, I wonder if this has ever happened before?? Has anyone heard of anything like this??

Nelly from the Block

Nope, that's not going to happen. Hypnosis is something that one does to themselves. The hypnotherapist is only there to facilitate the process. It's just an altered state of consciousness and if you’ve ever lost track of time and your surroundings while reading a great book or zoned out while driving you’ve been hypnotized.