It usually starts with a small question.
People online mentioning a mall they keep visiting in their dreams. And not just any mall, the same mall. Another person swears they remember a brand name that never existed. Then someone else posts a video of a shadow moving in a dark corner of their room.
And suddenly you’re left wondering if the internet isn’t just sharing stories… but glimpses into another world.
Imagine waking up inside a massive shopping mall.
The lights hum overhead. Escalators stretch upward into new levels. Entire wings of the building disappear into dim hallways that seem to go on forever.
Some stores are open, but many of them are eerily quiet and abandoned.
And somehow you already know your way around.
Online communities call this place Mall World, and thousands of people claim they’ve dreamed about it many times.
What makes the phenomenon so strange is how similar many descriptions are.
People report:
• endless escalators
• dim yellow lighting
• giant food courts
• massive underground parking garages
• strange stores that feel familiar but they’re just…slightly wrong.
Many dreamers say the mall connects to other places—airports, apartment complexes, schools, and water parks.
Almost like a network of locations stitched together.
Here’s a fun post from @tiltonicatiktok explaining what she and others have experienced in their dreams!:
But some internet theorists believe something stranger could be happening.
What if Mall World isn’t just a dream…What if it’s a place our minds wander when consciousness slips somewhere else? And more importantly, is Mall World dangerous?
Have you ever read a comment section that felt strangely artificial?
The same phrases repeated.
Accounts that respond instantly.
Arguments that seem scripted.
That unsettling feeling is the foundation of Dead Internet Theory.
According to the theory, a huge portion of the internet is no longer run by people. Instead, bots and automated systems supposedly generate much of what we see online—posts, comments, trends, even entire conversations.
Which with rapidly growing machine learning, does that really surprise anyone? I mean, watch as they switch languages to talk to each other once they realize they are AI:
There’s a conspiracy going around online that the internet “died” sometime in the late 2010s; when algorithms and automated content began dominating online spaces.
The theory points to things like:
• massive bot networks
• algorithmically generated trends
• eerily repetitive comment sections
• AI-generated content flooding social media
While experts say the theory exaggerates real issues with automation, others maintain that bots outnumber people online. Not only that, but they are built to manipulate us, suggesting that the majority of social media interaction is with AI.
The more sinister theories also include steering us politically with AI-Slop and persuading the masses into buying products and controlling trends. As a matter of fact, that’s pretty spot on if you ask me. They already listen in and watch what we look at and how long we look at it. It even tracks eye movements. So─
You can see why the idea caught on. But to be fair, as of now bots are pretty easy to spot especially when you get wildly offensive comments that we know are either: 1. trolls or 2. bots. But really, at this point haven’t they become one in the same?
Most people that are millennial age and younger know when they are being trolled or it’s a bot program making rage bait. The scariest part about the dead internet theory (imo) is this: How long have we been studied by these bots?
And for what purpose? Could it all just be distractions, or is it a way for them to learn more about us in their quest for our inevitable take-over? Want to really creep yourself out? Read a little story called: If Anyone Builds It, Everybody Dies. Pleasant dreams. <3
For decades, people have reported encounters with the same entity.
A tall silhouette standing in the room.
Completely black.
Wearing what appears to be a wide-brimmed hat.
Online communities call him The Hat Man.
Most sightings occur during sleep paralysis, when someone wakes up but can’t move their body.
That alone can cause vivid hallucinations.
But what makes the legend unsettling is how consistent the descriptions are.
People who report seeing the Hat Man often describe the same details:
• a tall shadow figure
• a wide-brimmed hat
• a long coat or cloak
• standing silently in the room
Witnesses often say they felt an overwhelming sense of dread—like someone or something was observing them.
There is a somewhat plausible explanation for this. Sleep researchers say the brain often creates shadow figures during sleep paralysis. It’s a pretty common occurrence, actually.
When our brains encounter the unknown, it fights to replace that with something it knows. This phenomena is known as pareidolia, and it isn’t just exclusive to shadowy figures. It can also make us think we see faces peeking out behind the curtains, or words out of random sounds.
But many people who have experienced The Hat Man insists on one thing:
It didn’t feel like a dream.
It felt like something was actually there. And like it was feeding off of their fear.
Now imagine remembering something clearly your entire life… only to discover it never existed.
That’s the essence of the Mandela Effect.
Large groups of people share the exact same incorrect(?) memory.
Some famous examples include:
• “Berenstein Bears” instead of Berenstain Bears
• The Monopoly Man supposedly wearing a monocle
• the Star Wars line remembered as “Luke, I am your father”
Check out this fun video Loey Lane made about Raisin Bran:
I’m right there with you girl, I remember him with sunglasses too.
Even the phenomenon’s name comes from a strange memory many people share: believing Nelson Mandela died in prison in the 1980s.
He didn’t. He actually died in 2013.
This is why it is known as The Mandela Effect. It’s a psychological phenomenon where large groups of people share the same false memory, resulting from constructive memory flaws. Basically, a large group of us just make shit up when we can’t remember things exactly.
But some online communities are convinced that there is a far stranger explanation.
What if these mismatched memories are evidence that reality has shifted? Which leads us into this section:
CERN, Timeline Glitches, and the “Reality Tear” Theory
This is where things get really strange. The Mandela Effect might directly tie into this theory!
Some conspiracy communities believe that experiments at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider may have unintentionally altered reality itself.
The LHC is the world’s most powerful particle accelerator, built to study the fundamental structure of the universe.
But online theorists claim experiments could have caused things like:
• dimensional disturbances
• or subtle timeline shifts
Most physicists dismiss these ideas outright.
Still, the theory gained traction when people began linking strange events online to supposed “glitches in reality.”
There are literally TONS of these videos talking about the Mandela Effect. And some people blame CERN for using the LHC (large hadron collider) to accidentally create these time-shifts, or bleeding into alternate realities.
Ok, so who remembers this from two years ago?
Videos showed a massive police presence around a shopping center, while rumors online claimed witnesses saw tall shadow-like figures moving strangely near the scene. Some clips appeared to show dark shapes crossing the street or moving side by side.
Authorities stated the incident involved teenagers fighting and setting off fireworks at people. But this statement bothers me for many reasons.
- Where are the videos of these kids setting off fireworks and fighting?
- Why is there not a shred of evidence to support this explanation within the outdoor mall where there are multiple cameras positioned?
- And why is it so hard to request chest camera footage from the event?
While, sure, it might not be multi-dimensional beings that people saw. Sending damn near the entire Miami PD for kids with sticks and fireworks is a big, steaming pile of bullshit. Over 60 police cars present? Yeah, you can’t convince me that it was teenagers shooting fireworks. I mean, come on, where were the fireworks? I’m not a conspiracy enthusiast, but this smells of coverup. Question is, what were they covering up?
Here’s a video provided by @MrMBB333 talking about something…rather odd. There was a video from the CBS Miami news channel reporting the exact same thing, almost a year beforehand.
But don’t just take his word for it, here’s the actual video from the news station a year prior to the incident:
Exact same verbiage, same type of incident, nearly the same exact day a year earlier. There has been some misinformation about grounded flights, which didn’t happen, but there was (coincidentally) a power outage that night. What creeps me out is the sheer lack of news coverage of this even occurring. This should have been a widely covered news story in Miami and yet we get, what, 24 seconds and a few daytime news story chuckles.
Also, where are the 911 calls of people reporting these teenagers? If you google this event, you just get spooky videos but hardly any coverage of the actual events. Or any videos on social media of the even taking place. Come on, nothing? No tiktok, instagram, FB, X, nothing? That’s the part that’s hard to believe.
And I mean, hey, even if it was just a massive response to something as small as that; why not admit that on the news? Why make it weird or make fun of other people with a literal facepalm emoji? Yeah, I don’t buy it. But─ let’s get to the creepy part, shall we?
Many witnesses claimed the figures looked like shadow beings that phased in and out of existence.
Others suggested the event was connected to experimental physics, dimensional anomalies, or something we simply don’t understand yet. Whether the videos show anything unusual is still debated because like everything else captured that’s remotely paranormal, the footage is potato quality.
Try as I might, I’m having a hell of a time finding footage that existed and that I knew I watched from people saying what they saw that day. And then, almost immediately coming back and saying, “no, that was a joke; my bad.” There was also an artist that drew what he saw in a online short. He claimed it was a portal with beings coming out of it, and people with devices nearby while people fled for their lives from these creatures. While I have no doubt in my mind that influencers jumped on this and tried to make money or get views off of it; something isn’t right.
Why is it so hard to find any info over this, why were so many videos taken down, I mean scrubbed from the internet; gone. Why have some people claimed their phones were taken away or their footage was deleted remotely? Which, by the way, is a real thing. Someone can login remotely to your device and delete your stored data. I just learned that last year. Crazy, right? We already know people are watching us through our devices, I mean duh, but can fuck with your images, texts, emails, videos? Wild.
Maybe These Stories Exist for a Reason
Urban legends have always followed us.
For centuries they traveled through whispers, campfires, and late-night conversations. Someone’s cousin saw something strange. Someone’s friend knew someone it happened to.
Now they spread through forums and social media.
But the core of the story hasn’t changed.
It’s a dream that you can’t explain.
A shadow that shouldn’t be there.
A memory that seems so vivid, like you swore you’ve been there before. A real place that exists for you and others.
Maybe Mall World is just a dream. But how is it that so many people describe the same thing and can even draw images of it?
Maybe shadow figures are tricks of the brain, simply a case of pareidolia.
Or maybe these stories stick with us because they touch something deeper — the quiet suspicion that the world is much scarier than we imagined.
Places you might stumble into by accident.
Or maybe… places that find you.
If you enjoy strange urban legends, liminal spaces, and stories that explore the unsettling spaces between reality and imagination, you might enjoy my novella Welcome Station — a liminal horror story inspired by modern internet legends and the idea of places that shouldn’t exist.
