Hello Nosleep!
I honestly just need someone to listen and not think I’m crazy. I also have other reasons for wanting this written in a form that I’m not able to later change, for reasons that will become apparent.
Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Alex, and I’ve been an active member of the 3D printing community for years. I’ve dabbled in various printing projects, from practical prototypes to detailed minifigs. I like to pretend I’ll use them for tabletop gaming, but if I’m honest, I rarely leave the house and don’t really have anyone to play with. Which is fine, I’m happy to be a homebody and have my little hobbies by myself at home. But recently, my 3D printing hobby has taken an… unexpected turn.
It all began a couple of months ago when I embarked on a new project—a 3D printed statue for my sister’s bathroom. Being a fan of Egyptian mythology, she wanted to incorporate an Egyptian theme, and asked if I could print a small egyptian statue for her. It had been a while since I used my printer, so it sounded like a fun project. However, I was having trouble finding a good free print on any of the usual sites, and I didn’t want to have to pay for a file. So I turned to a 3D printing search engine, Yeggi. That’s when I saw the Sebu statue for the first time. The site was in some kind of foreign language I didn’t speak, but the 3D model had an air of mystique yet simplicity that immediately drew me in, and I knew I had to print it. It was definitely egyptian looking, would be a simple print with few supports, and it was free. Perfect.
It had been a while since I used my printer, so I went through the usual process of re-leveling the bed, cleaning out the old filament (apparently the last time I printed I was trying out some flexible filament… no wonder I stopped printing!) and swapping in some bronze metallic filament. Usually I just print in white PLA, then prime and paint, but I wanted to try a nicer-looking plastic since this was a gift, after all. Plus I’m guessing it would eventually get wet, or work its way into my niece’s sandbox, so better a solid color than paint that would get rubbed off. Plus the statue was a really simple one, so a single color would be fine.
I sliced the file, saved it to my SD card, and started up the printer. The layers of filament slowly built up, taking shape as the Sebu statue emerged. It honestly looked amazing, I couldn’t wait to see it on display in my sister’s Egyptian-themed bathroom, she was going to be blown away. Looking back, that was probably the last time I felt really, really good about anything to do with the statue. By comparison, everything now seems… cloudy? Probably best I give examples.
First, getting the statue off the print bed was a hassle, which rarely happens with my glass bed. I ended up trying to use a razor blade to separate it without ruining either the print or the bed (it took over 24 hours to print!) and ended up slicing my hand pretty good, which was fairly shallow but did get blood everywhere. Luckily I must have loosened the print at least, because when I went to rinse the blood off of it in the sink, it immediately popped off the bed without any damage.
I still needed to clean up the brim, but felt uneasy about using a razor blade right away (my usual method for trimming my 3D prints). I still had several days before my weekly lunch with my sister, so there was no rush. That’s when my memory started getting kinda uneven. I couldn’t remember where I set the statue down after I put a band-aid on my hand. But not just that one time, it seemed like every time I put it down for a minute, I’d lose track of it. Then finding I’d put it in weird places. You know how you find your keys in the fridge and can’t remember putting them there, but have a vague sense that you must have? Imagine that, but every time you put your keys down you get distracted by the most random thing, then can’t find them. And it just keeps happening
Of course, that happened every time I saw my sister, so I could never give it to her. Finally, I decided to just print my sister another one. But for some reason, the print kept failing. I went back to basics, printing some test prints like Benchy and Moon City. Those came out relatively fine, but no matter how I tried, I could not get the Sebu file to print again. I’d end up with thermistor errors, spaghetti prints, and even once it somehow printed a completely different file (I must have selected the wrong one I guess). I must have been back in the 3D printing mood because it seemed like I had the printer going nonstop for weeks. In some ways I felt like I did when I first got my printer, churning out all kinds of useless things for the fun of it. Looking back though, I don’t remember it being much fun, more just stressful, like I needed to get a certain number of prints done. I went through almost all of my leftover filaments, not just from the new roll but most of my old stuff too. I even managed a flexible filament Benchy!
During this time the Sebu statue continued to be a source of confusion for me. I’d find I had left it on the kitchen counter or perched on a shelf in the living room. Its presence became more and more unnerving. I would find it in my bedroom, sitting on my nightstand as if watching me sleep (obviously I had just forgot that I set it down there before bed), or in the bathroom, staring at me while I brushed my teeth (where I clearly just put it down so I could wash my hands). Its uncanny ability to appear seemingly out of thin air really started creeping me out though. I finally started just carrying it around with me. It couldn’t pop up unexpectedly if it was in my hands, right? I didn’t take it in bed with me or anything of course, that would be weird, Lord Sebu wouldn’t like that. Bedtime was my one escape from the damned thing.
I did start to notice strange incidents happening when I was holding the statue. It started subtly—a flicker of lights, objects slightly shifting position in my periphery. I’d find other 3D prints had moved from the big box I stored them in. However, I chalked it up to my niece playing with them and leaving them laying around.
I first started accepting that something unexplainable was happening when I began finding prints I had no memory of printing. Weird little articulated dolls and strange creatures. It didn’t make any sense, so I started a log of everything I printed. And yes, I checked the batteries in my carbon monoxide detector.
The most distressing incident involved a family heirloom—a precious dreamcatcher that had been passed down through generations. It hung above my bed, one of the only things I had to remember my Grandfather. Just a few days ago, I noticed it was missing from the wall. I found it under the bed, partially destroyed, as if some unseen force had torn through its delicate webbing and knocked it to the ground. Apparently I had also dropped a few prints down there, as they were lying on the dreamcatcher. Lord Sebu was also under the bed, watching. The dreamcatcher was given to me by my grandfather just a few weeks before he passed, when I was very young. I’d been having typical childish nightmares, and my parents were at their wits end as my sister was a newborn at the time and they were already getting very little sleep. It had been hanging on the wall of his living room for probably decades, but he brought it over to give to me. My parents say that ever since the night he brought it over, I never woke them up with nightmares again. It’s been on the wall of my bedroom ever since, even when I was in college. Its destruction left me with an overwhelming sense of loss and vulnerability.
Shortly after that was the bathroom incident. Some pills in my medicine cabinet had switched containers. It may sound insignificant, but it could have had potentially dangerous consequences if I hadn’t noticed the mix-up. I’m not even religious, let alone superstitious. But that’s when I couldn’t ignore or rationalize it anymore, and really started taking things seriously. But try telling your GP that you’re worried you’re being… haunted? Luckily my sister is a NP, so I brought it up during our weekly lunch. She insisted it must be a result of stress and not getting enough sleep. That made sense, things didn’t really seem THAT bad until the dreamcatcher broke, and I’ve not slept well since then either. That kind of interruption to routine could easily have an impact on my mental health.
Sleeping pills were a lot easier to swallow (ha!) than beliefs in any kind of supernatural activity. So drugs to the rescue! She also promised to see what she could do about fixing the dreamcatcher for me, she’s pretty crafty (as her extremely well-decorated house will attest). The next day she came over and did a dang good job of mending it, and having it back on my wall plus some melatonin seemed to do the trick, I got a good night’s sleep again!
Things did seem a lot better when I was well-rested. But I was still feeling a little unsettled, and decided to start keeping a journal, especially since I kept misplacing my list of prints. Around that time I also noticed that some of my benchies were printing oddly. Instead of the little ‘3DBenchy’ text on the back, there was just a strange capital D with some lines coming off of it. I tried again, and got the same thing. This time the bottom also had the D, except it was turned on its side with a line coming from it, like a little umbrella with two handles? My best guess is some hacker figured out a virus to print their tag on everything coming out of a 3D printer?
I asked around on 3DPrinting but nobody had ever heard of such a thing. Adding to the growing list of peculiarities, I found myself unable to locate the original source file for the Sebu statue on my computer. It had vanished without a trace.
But the strangeness didn’t stop at physical anomalies. I also noticed discrepancies in my handwritten journal, which I’ve been using to document my 3D printing projects, ideas, and experiences. Pages went missing, and others appeared to have been altered or written without my recollection. It was as if someone—or something—was tampering with my thoughts and memories.
The once-solid anchor of my journal is now a source of confusion and doubt. I needed a written record that I had no ability to change or destroy. That’s when I remembered reddit. Even if someone or something changes my reddit posts, there are multiple archive services I could use to go back and determine what the original contents were. So I started posting.
Unfortunately, when I tried to share my experiences on 3DPrinting, my posts were swiftly removed for being off-topic. I understand the mods’ position, but I needed answers and this all had started with 3Dprinting, right? Luckily, one user did manage to reply to one of my posts before it was deleted, and recommended a different subreddit—one that embraces the strange and unexplained: Nosleep. I’d never heard of it, and my first reaction was ‘that sounds like the opposite of what I want’. But it does appear you guys are more accepting of these kinds of posts. Perhaps some of you had encountered similar phenomena? Maybe you have theories or experiences that could shed light on my predicament. At the very least, I can post my experiences here and they won’t be changed. I can’t seem to log in to my old account either, but I think a fresh start with a fresh account is a good idea anyway.
So here I am, reaching out to you, those familiar. I need your help to understand what’s happening. Have any of you experienced similar occurrences after printing certain objects? Is there a logical explanation I’m missing? I just want things to go back to normal.
EDIT: Here’s a picture of the Benchy showing the symbol.
[Part 2] (https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/13wq90s/i_may_be_in_a_3d_printed_nightmare_layer_by_layer/)
