RyoHazuki
Ephemeral Spectre
- Joined
- Sep 24, 2013
- Messages
- 392
This isn't quite the same thing, but might fit the subject anyway.
When I was around 10 or so, at a guess, I had an incredibly weird experience. In hindsight, I'd been reading a few too many ACC short stories, in particular his ramblings about parallel universes with infinite possible variations.... anyway, I was laying on my back, staring into the blue sky, when I felt a truly nauseating sense of vertigo. For no apparent reason, the idea came into my head that if gravity was somehow reversed in the tiny area around me, there was nothing whatsoever between me and infinity. (Did I mention I was a slightly 'odd' child?
)
Now, what shocked me the most was that I never even considered such other fantasies as alien abduction/attack by giant subterranean worms/creatures of the night outside of my (admittedly vivid) imagination, and was never paralysed by fear of any other sci-fi scenarios coming to pass. My geeky knowledge of physics was also more than enough to prove that random gravity reversal on a planetary surface was infantile nonsense.
Yet, I could NOT shake the feeling of profound discomfort, bordering on fear, that resulted from gazing straight into a clear blue sky. I found myself clutching tufts of grass in sweating palms, until I was almost compelled to go and sit under a tree. (cos, you know, I could grab a branch on the way up, or something....
)
But that's not the weirdest/dumbest thing about the whole episode. Even now, over 2 decades later, I can't lie gazing up into a clear sky without my pulse rate soaring, my palms sweating, and a sickening knot forming in my stomach. It now happens on clear nights, too. If I'm chilling outdoors with other people, I have to either sit up or lie on my front, because I still can't control my reaction to it.
EDIT: I should add, I've never ever experienced a dream involving any kind of reverse falling (regular falling, yes, loads) or anything else that would've 'rewired' my subconscious in this way.
When I was around 10 or so, at a guess, I had an incredibly weird experience. In hindsight, I'd been reading a few too many ACC short stories, in particular his ramblings about parallel universes with infinite possible variations.... anyway, I was laying on my back, staring into the blue sky, when I felt a truly nauseating sense of vertigo. For no apparent reason, the idea came into my head that if gravity was somehow reversed in the tiny area around me, there was nothing whatsoever between me and infinity. (Did I mention I was a slightly 'odd' child?
)Now, what shocked me the most was that I never even considered such other fantasies as alien abduction/attack by giant subterranean worms/creatures of the night outside of my (admittedly vivid) imagination, and was never paralysed by fear of any other sci-fi scenarios coming to pass. My geeky knowledge of physics was also more than enough to prove that random gravity reversal on a planetary surface was infantile nonsense.
Yet, I could NOT shake the feeling of profound discomfort, bordering on fear, that resulted from gazing straight into a clear blue sky. I found myself clutching tufts of grass in sweating palms, until I was almost compelled to go and sit under a tree. (cos, you know, I could grab a branch on the way up, or something....
)But that's not the weirdest/dumbest thing about the whole episode. Even now, over 2 decades later, I can't lie gazing up into a clear sky without my pulse rate soaring, my palms sweating, and a sickening knot forming in my stomach. It now happens on clear nights, too. If I'm chilling outdoors with other people, I have to either sit up or lie on my front, because I still can't control my reaction to it.
EDIT: I should add, I've never ever experienced a dream involving any kind of reverse falling (regular falling, yes, loads) or anything else that would've 'rewired' my subconscious in this way.
).
