What’s a disturbing fact you wish you could unlearn? – 17 bizarre bits of trivia you’ll never be able to forget

Perhaps too much emphasis is placed on the value of education. Maybe we should all learn how to forget information too.

That may be how you feel after reading the replies to a question set by MaterialRub675 over on r/AskReddit. And that’s because they decided to unearth grisly facts by putting this callout to fellow users.

‘What’s a disturbing fact you wish you could unlearn?’

If you’re feeling brave enough, here are the top replies …and they’re not for the weak of stomach.

1.

‘We got a dog that had heartworms, they got treated and are doing perfectly fine now. The thing is it prompted me to look into them. They’re spread by mosquitoes and can live in most large mammals. Huh… So what stops humans from getting them? Nothing. The answer is nothing. They just aren’t harmful to humans because they can’t breed properly in us. You and I might have a few right now…

And that goes for most parasitic worms btw.’
-summonsays

2.

‘Scurvy makes scars re open’
-order66me

3.

‘When I had open heart surgery nearly 20 years ago at age 28, the doctors places “pacer” wires in my heart just in case they needed to stimulate my heart electrically after the surgery (my words, not theirs). So I wake up and find two yellow copper electrical wires sticking out of torso. Later that day, the nurse came to remove them. This is done by simply tugging until they come free from small hooks or barbs on the end in the heart wall. The nurse warned me in advance that I’d feel my heart physically pull down in my body. She was not kidding. It was unpleasant to say the least. But now, years later, I literally can’t forget what it feels like to have someone tug on my heart strings.’
-daveescaped

4.

‘There’s a condition called Cotard’s Delusion, where a person genuinely believes they’re dead, like fully dead, but their body just hasn’t noticed yet.

Some even stop eating or ask to be buried.

The mind is terrifying when it breaks’
-LinaBreezeOh

5.

‘Dominant female meerkats will kill the pups of subordinate female meerkats, then force the subordinate females to feed her babies as “tribute” or “rent” to be allowed to remain in the group.

That shit is hardcore af.’
-pyroskunkz

6.

‘Children under the age of 5 try to hide from fires and not run from them.’
-Internal-Educator256

7.

‘The whistle of an artillery or mortar shell falling towards you is actually the deviation from it’s trajectory and where you’re currently standing.

The closer you are to where it’ll land, the less you hear. If it’s a direct hit you won’t hear anything at all.’
-Gr0zzz

8.

‘Once I read that as a research project, someone put a fake turtle in the road to observe driver behavior, and something like 6% of people deliberately went out of their way to hit the turtle.’
-Academic_Dream_5569

9.

‘The mouth and anus share similar nerve endings, which is why eating something spicy can cause a burning sensation both when it goes in and when it comes out.’
-nisezz