Weird story

[Cynric]

It's obvious.

A telepathic ichneumon wasp laid some eggs in your ear. As the critters hatched, they implanted false memories about a fictious lesson in order to embarrass you in front of your peers (telepathic ichneumon wasps feed on shame). They also renamed themselves "flies" in order to put you off the trail.
It seems like they got to Buchsbaum too.

There's always a simple explanation.

 

[Rolfe]

Rolfe.

 

[Yurei]

hi,

i'm just a lurker (been reading the forums for years), but i really enjoyed this thread and needed to add something.

first off, are you still on this and did you resolve this little mistery yet? about day 2: why shouldn't it be possible to find out whether it was a dream or not? it is not too unlikely that someone from class or the teacher would still remember the situation if it really happened. i certainly remember lots of random stuff from my highschool days.
so if you are still in contact with any of your old classmates, have you asked them to confirm the events of day2?

 

[Zep]

Having missed this the first time around, Rolfe, can I make a possible suggested solution?

1. Being a dedicated swot, you may have just hung around at the end of the first class to ask questions. So Mr Brodie probably only mentioned the fly thingy to you alone, in an informal context.

2. Next day, Mr Brodie simply failed to remember what he told you the day before, as it was so informal. The class were also one step behind. But you, the swot, did, and you heard it from him.

All bases covered?

 

[MRC_Hans]

Since this has resurfaced, I i'll offer another suggestion, not quite unlike that of Zep.

Being very interested in biology, young Rolfe probably picked up this information somewhere. I know I had quite a few bits of information when I was at school that my teachers hadn't yet taught. In fact, I had some bits that my teachers didn't even know. My field was more physics that biology, of course.

So what I think happened is this:

Teacher announces the subject, but does not cover it. Rolfe, whe already knows about subject, imagines/dreams teacher teaching it. Being a distraught, introvert kid, Rolfe next day fails to realize that teacher actually did not cover the subject.

The distraught introvert thing is my guess, of course, but through what has expired here and there, probably a qualified guess. Having been one myself, I kinda know the signs when I see them .

Hans

 

[Rolfe]

No idea. The only person I'm still in touch with has no memory of the event, but there are lots of events she's forgotten about, must be softening of the brain.

I'm very clear that I remember the teacher covering the subject. Not reading it in a book, seeing it on the television we didn't have at the time, or hearing it from anyone else. The only non-woo explanation that fits the facts as I remember them is that the second day was a dream. It's just very odd that there was no dream-like quality to it, that it was entirely unlike any dream I remember having, and that this explanation didn't even occur to me until someone else suggested it many years later.

Rolfe.

 

[Hellbound]

Well, since this was resurrected, let me toss out my idea.

When I was in school (especially high school), I was always bored at the rate the teachers covered material. Most often in class, during the lecture, I would read the textbook (only half listening to the lecture). OFten I covered areas the teacher passed over, or read ahead of the current lesson. I remember several times being confused about what had been covered in lecture and what was just material read from the textbook, I think becuase I was trying to pay attention to both at once.

I would suggest that Rolfe probably had a similar habit during school (not to speak for you, but you seem to be the type to do it (like I was)). This might be a possible explanation...you read some of the info during the lecture and misremembered it as being part of the lecture.

Of course, this hinges on the info being in the materials you used in class. From reading your earlier posts, it seems that was not the case. You suggested a magazine you got as a possible source, might you have taken extra reading material to class with you?

The main reason I suggest it is due to the similarity of the experience with mine; I had similar feelings that were caused by reading during the lecture. At the least I've given you another area to consider, I hope

 

[Rolfe]

This might be a possible explanation...you read some of the info during the lecture and misremembered it as being part of the lecture.

Of course, this hinges on the info being in the materials you used in class. From reading your earlier posts, it seems that was not the case. You suggested a magazine you got as a possible source, might you have taken extra reading material to class with you?

Nope. I had no written information about it at all. I do not believe I ever read about it in a magazine. For years my only knowledge of the parasite was from the "memory" of the teacher telling us about it, until a few years ago it occurred to me to look it up and see whether in fact there was even such an organism! I found enough basic information in a university-level book I hadn't had in my posession until after I left school to demonstrate that I pretty much had the basics of the thing more or less right.

Rolfe.

 

[Soapy Sam]

I still find it interesting that there are several coincidences in my and Rolfe's experience. I too was aware of the Ichneumonidae at an early age. Comparison with other events suggests I was first aware of them aged about 10-11. As Rolfe is a couple of years my senior, we may have learned of them around the same time.

Between 10 and 11 is when I started haunting the same Public Library where Rolfe was prowling at the same time, reading the same SF novels I was. It's possible we both learned of them there. (Though I don't think so for another reason).

We both thought of the Ichneumons as flies. It's probable we learned about them as flies and I think Mr.Brodie would have properly identified them as wasps, as Bug_Girl immediately did.

We both recall some surprise at having spelled the word correctly- which tends to suggest that we both heard it, rather than read it- which of course supports Rolfe's version, but could mean she heard it elsewhere and conflated that hearing with a class lecture along the lines Huntsman and others have suggested.The venerable BBC radio programme "Gardeners' Question Time" seems like a likely source to me. It's an odd coincidence that two kids should know the name.-(I did not take biology in school at all)- which was merely the first in a chain of coincidences. I'm sure were either Rolfe or I of a non-sceptical mindset, we would have been amazed and stunned by the coincidences we discovered rather than amused and entertained. Then again, we would not have been here in the first place.

 

[Rolfe]

That's hardly scratching the surface of the coincidences. I forgot what my Mum told me about phoning an order somewhere recently and she and the person on the other end finished up talking about your mother. Or maybe I didn't get that quite right, I'll have to ask her about that.

I was sitting at the same table as Bill Sharp at a funeral last week, by the way.

Rolfe.