u/killjoy_143

I slept right after a call from my brother. I started dreaming about my phone, which was near my head while I was sleeping. I picked it up and entered some random numbers into the dial pad, and then the phone went black and completely froze. I tried restarting it, but it didn’t work. The screen showed a grey, black, and white pattern that somehow camouflaged my finger.

At this point, I realized it was a dream and tried to get up. I “woke up” and saw my pillow on my chest, sitting at an angle, and moved it before walking outside my room. I saw the time—it was 4 pm. I had gone to sleep around 11:30 am. I wasn’t supposed to sleep for that long, except I noticed that the second hand on the clock wasn’t moving at all.

I woke up again in the same setting, with the pillow on my chest. This time I ran to my mom, crying and screaming for help because I couldn’t wake up. I told her to slap me awake. She slapped me, but it didn’t hurt. I woke up again in the same setting.

Now really scared, I went out and sat in the veranda. My dad came and asked what was happening. I told him about the dream in every detail. His reaction felt so off that I realized it was a dream again. Then I woke up again in the same setting, now panicking because I knew I was stuck and couldn’t get up.

Finally, my dad came and woke me up in real life, and I actually woke up for real. It was 12:30 pm. When I woke up, my face was under a pillow and I was lying on my stomach. My phone was nowhere near me. I wrote this just after waking up.

This is my second dream where I got stuck in a loop, desperately trying to wake up but unable to until someone else woke me. The first one was about my earphones, in which they kept playing songs even after I removed them multiple times. I couldn’t hear anyone talking to me. That one happened about a year ago, and I had actually slept with earphones, which explained the dream.

My mom just told me that I was actually sleeping on my back with a pillow on my chest, and later I must have changed positions.

Tommorow it's my parent's anniversary and I want to take them out to some new place this time for dinner. Any suggestions?

So i have lenovo gaming ideapad 3 15ach6. Bought in 2022. In august 2025, suddenly it went dead, showed it a local repairperson. They told me motherboard has issues. Repair might work. I paid them 5000 ruppees. In 3 days it stops working again. I tried giving to different places a few more times after that. No one could seem to repair it. Official service center was only option left. I went there, they said they would try to repair it again. Mind you I was sick and tired already of listening to people day that they would repair my laptop for it to only work for few days. And they also said that repair charges might go around 10000 or more and motherboard replacement upto 40000. There was no way in hell inwas paying that much. So i simply brought it back. Extracted my data from my ssd and left it for a while.

Now in may 2026, my father's office computer repair person hears about this laptop and offers to repair it. He seemed really confident that he could do it. So i agreed. Now this was the most unofficial way of giving a laptop for repair but since he seemed trustful and confident, i agreed to it. (A huge mistake on my part, I shouldn't have given my SSD but he asked for it so I gave it away). A few days later he calls and tell us that the SSD was the problem and it was corrupted that's why it couldn't work. Honestly I didn't buy it at that time but whatever makes my laptop work. So he said that he bought a new ssd to make it work. A few weeks go by, i got busy in some other stuff and couldn't ask for an update in the meantime. Now he said that it is a motherboard problem and he tried to repair it and but couldn't do so and so he gave it to someone else to replace the motherboard. I never asked him to replace it. I never once asked him to give it someone else. Now i had no idea with whom my laptop is and my SSD too. I simply asked him to return my laptop without doing anything. He says that he has already given it to soneone else and he was at the time out of town so it would take some time. 2 weeks go by. Every few days I would ask, where's my laptop, he would say tomorrow, day after tomorrow, just in 15 mins. I got my laptop last saturday (6th june). Now I got it back and I opened the back case to check whether I got everything too. My ssd was missing. My ram was replaced. When i first gave my laptop for repair, I signed each and every component, battery, ssd, ram, fans, etc. The ram i got was of 2226 Mhz. My original was 3200 one. My SSD slots were empty. I called him immediately to ask the whereabouts of my ssd and what the hell happened with my ram. As you can see, he simply ripped the sticker from my ram and stick to this one. He said he would call his person and get my ssd and ram monday. Monday went by with no trace of him. Tuesday he returned the ssd. 512gb ssd. Looks the same. But it's not mine. My sign is not there. I called him up to ask where is MY SSD. He told me that it was corrupted and since it was still in warranty (3 years) he exchanged it from lenovo offficial service center. How the hell could he do that? He doesn't have receipts. He cannot simply strip the ssd and claim its warranty. I asked him about all this. He told me that has friends in lenovo service center and he exchanged the ssd through them so he now doesn'thave any receipts of exchange. Now my ssd when it was with me, it had data in it. Government IDs, saved passwords, hell lot of data was there on it. Now he claims that my ssd is with them and I can't get it back. Now I'm sacred that maybe my ssd was never corrupted and my data could be misused and I could be framed for that. What should I do? Should I file a complaint? Or should I let it go?

Tldr; I gave my fried laptop for repair through unofficial means and now my ssd is missing and the one i got back is not mine. It had data in it. Ram is changed too. Should i file a complaint?

So i have lenovo gaming ideapad 3 15ach6. Bought in 2022. In august 2025, suddenly it went dead, showed it a local repairperson. They told me motherboard has issues. Repair might work. I paid them 5000 ruppees. In 3 days it stops working again. I tried giving to different places a few more times after that. No one could seem to repair it. Official service center was only option left. I went there, they said they would try to repair it again. Mind you I was sick and tired already of listening to people day that they would repair my laptop for it to only work for few days. And they also said that repair charges might go around 10000 or more and motherboard replacement upto 40000. There was no way in hell inwas paying that much. So i simply brought it back. Extracted my data from my ssd and left it for a while.

Now in may 2026, my father's office computer repair person hears about this laptop and offers to repair it. He seemed really confident that he could do it. So i agreed. Now this was the most unofficial way of giving a laptop for repair but since he seemed trustful and confident, i agreed to it. (A huge mistake on my part, I shouldn't have given my SSD but he asked for it so I gave it away). A few days later he calls and tell us that the SSD was the problem and it was corrupted that's why it couldn't work. Honestly I didn't buy it at that time but whatever makes my laptop work. So he said that he bought a new ssd to make it work. A few weeks go by, i got busy in some other stuff and couldn't ask for an update in the meantime. Now he said that it is a motherboard problem and he tried to repair it and but couldn't do so and so he gave it to someone else to replace the motherboard. I never asked him to replace it. I never once asked him to give it someone else. Now i had no idea with whom my laptop is and my SSD too. I simply asked him to return my laptop without doing anything. He says that he has already given it to soneone else and he was at the time out of town so it would take some time. 2 weeks go by. Every few days I would ask, where's my laptop, he would say tomorrow, day after tomorrow, just in 15 mins. I got my laptop last saturday (6th june). Now I got it back and I opened the back case to check whether I got everything too. My ssd was missing. My ram was replaced. When i first gave my laptop for repair, I signed each and every component, battery, ssd, ram, fans, etc. The ram i got was of 2226 Mhz. My original was 3200 one. My SSD slots were empty. I called him immediately to ask the whereabouts of my ssd and what the hell happened with my ram. As you can see, he simply ripped the sticker from my ram and stick to this one. He said he would call his person and get my ssd and ram monday. Monday went by with no trace of him. Tuesday he returned the ssd. 512gb ssd. Looks the same. But it's not mine. My sign is not there. I called him up to ask where is MY SSD. He told me that it was corrupted and since it was still in warranty (3 years) he exchanged it from lenovo offficial service center. How the hell could he do that? He doesn't have receipts. He cannot simply strip the ssd and claim its warranty. I asked him about all this. He told me that has friends in lenovo service center and he exchanged the ssd through them so he now doesn'thave any receipts of exchange. Now my ssd when it was with me, it had data in it. Government IDs, saved passwords, hell lot of data was there on it. Now he claims that my ssd is with them and I can't get it back. Now I'm sacred that maybe my ssd was never corrupted and my data could be misused and I could be framed for that. What should I do? Should I file a complaint? Or should I let it go?

Tldr; I gave my fried laptop for repair through unofficial means and now my ssd is missing and the one i got back is not mine. It had data in it. Ram is changed too. Should i file a complaint?

I'm a B.tech grad(2025) applied for IIIT D phd program.
Preferred research area: Theoretical deep learning and genrative speech AI
second preference: applications of DL and Agentic AI to build solutions.

I have interview on 11th may.
how should i prepare? I have never given any interviews for phd before