Meditating Student Reports Faint White Smoke Rising From Palms

THE INTERNET — A Reddit user posting to r/HighStrangeness has described a brief and unsettling experiment with meditation, undertaken between the ages of 19 and 21 while in college, that ended in what the author calls a strange sight.

According to the post, the practice lasted only about a month. The author writes that it repeatedly left them frightened and unusually sensitive to sound and surroundings, easily startled by noises. At times, the poster says, there was a feeling of something present in the room, watching or merely sharing the space, though the author was entirely alone.

Then came the smoke. The author reports seeing faint white wisps rising from the skin, chiefly from the palms. Some were barely visible, others more distinct. The poster likens it to the trail from a freshly blown-out matchstick, though thinner and quicker to vanish, and says it took real concentration to see. The author sat watching it drift from the skin and fade.

The episode recurred several times, the post says, until the author gave up meditating altogether, finding it too frightening. The poster states the smoke never appeared again afterward.

The post offers no explanation, and none is advanced here. Readers may wish to note that the account is a single, unverified recollection of events from years past, and that the author does not claim to have photographed or measured anything.