The Lamp Story, also known as the 'Flat Lamp' creepypasta, originated from a 2012 Reddit comment where a user detailed a decade-long hallucination following a head injury. In this alternate life, the narrator had a wife and children, only to become obsessed with a lamp in their living room that appeared strangely flat and two-dimensional. This realization caused their reality to dissolve, returning them to the moment of the accident. The story has since become a viral legend on the internet, symbolizing the fragile nature of perception and the fear of a simulated reality. In meme culture, it's often used to represent moments of sudden, jarring clarity or existential crises where something small exposes a larger lie.