Panic: A Genuine Example In The Old Sense Of The Word?

[snavej]

In the summer of 1994, when I was unemployed for a while, I took a walk down to St. Mary's Church in Llanfair P.G., Anglesey, North Wales, U.K. The church is centuries old and the adjoining cemetery is full - there is hardly any room left for further burials. The church is right next to a stony beach and thus only a few yards from the sea. A small stream flows through the centre of the cemetery and empties into the sea. On the beach, there is a statue of Lord Nelson or someone similar. The sea itself has very strong currents and treacherous rocks in that area - easily enough to sink ships. Many have indeed been sunk there over the years. The land around the church is protected as a conservation area, so it is at least half woodland.

I was lingering in the yard just outside the church gates, admiring the scenery and wondering what to do next. I was feeling relaxed and there were no problems facing me. The afternoon was drawing to a close and evening was fast approaching. The clouds were starting to thicken up, as if rain might come in the next few hours. Just then, I felt a tremendous dread come upon me for no apparent reason. I have never felt a fear quite like that, either before or since. I knew that I had to leave the area immediately. I walked as fast as I could up the slope and along the main road back to my parents' house. As I went, I wondered why I felt this way and why exactly I was fleeing.

I had previously heard about spirit gatherings, which tend to scare off the living. Another possibility was that I had an intuition that something was wrong at home. When I got home, I asked my mother if there were any problems to deal with. She said that everything was fine and that she had not had any worries about me that day. I can only conclude, therefore, that something near that church had compelled me to leave the site. I have been down to the church since: sometimes I find it to be OK, other times it feels a little melancholy.

 

[Aarauer]

If you are in an 'in between' state (e.g. if you were unemployed, life generally rather quiet, but not too worried about it) you are much more sensitive to the atmosphere of surroundings. Other people, in the pause where you were looking at the view and wondering where to go next, would probably start thinking, "Oh no, only another 2 days of holiday", or, "I wonder if X has been round and watered the plants", and then they wouldn't notice it. (Maybe it's even a reflex action to block out uncomfortable atmospheres.) Other times, when you went back, were you busier and more stressed?

The way you describe it, it sounds like a really strange and atmospheric place - there do seem to be quite a few of them in North Wales.

 

[felixgarnet]

I know what you mean - i experienced something similar as a child on some waste ground. I posted about it here, I think it's a a thread called "Fear of Open Fields" or similar. The "panic" is totally irrational, and you never forget its impact.

NOTE: This is the thread to which felixgarnet refers:

The Horror Of Open Fields (Panic Induced In Open Spaces)
https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/the-horror-of-open-fields.22625/

 

[fnordish]

i had a very similar experience. while i was in college, there was a nice little woodsy spot me and a few friends knew about. we went there often just to get away from people, or just be in an atmosphere that wasnt middle of a college campus in the middle of a city. it was nice, and just big enough, and low enough, that we couldnt see any trace of society from inside. anyhow, we went there one evening just like any other day before, but this time was weird. we made it maybe fifteen feet into the woods and just stopped. my friend and i just looked at each other and, without a word, both bolted out of there and to our dorm. there was nothing physically different or weird that prompted this, just a sudden, intense fear. i had the distinct impression of something massive rushing up the hill at us, but it definitely wasnt anything physical. weve had numerous other weird experiences in those woods afterwords, but nothing ever like that. scared the hell out of me.

 

[Anonymous]

I have these feelings a lot i can go in certain places and get a feeling of absolute panic or dread i have never been able to explain them until recently.My ex-girlfriend told me her family where (on the female side) very psychic and very aware of spirits.So i explained to her my fear and she said "Next time it happens tell me" so a couple of days later we where crossing a bridge in the car (it happens in allsorts of places but not normally out doors) i stopped the car at her request and she got out.Meanwhile i was still sat in the car "freaking out" and when she came back she told me the bridge was full of spirits blocking the not very wide road (single lane) we turned the car round and went on our way.After a little investigation i found out there had been several fatal car crashes on this bridge and a few "jumpers" now i know most bridges have an history like this but later on the first time she came to meet my mum she said there where two people standing at the top of my mums stairs.One was a old man and a young boy.Turns out when i sold my mum's house the last person to own the house (on the deeds) was an old man who died on the top of the stairs (i don't know how none of the neighbours remembered how just that he had and where) a small boy had died there back in the late victorian age according to local papers he was pushed down the stairs by his brother accidently and the weird thing is my mum died in the exact same spot my ex had seen the old man.(I marked it on the wall with a pen just to see if i could see the ghost a refrence to where it was!!!) when the ambulance crew came they moved the body into my mums bedroom and put her on the bed and later on when i was sorting out my mums estate i noticed the pen mark was in the exactly same place my mums body was found.Anyone got any ideas about this?

 

[Yithian]

she told me the bridge was full of spirits blocking the not very wide road (single lane) we turned the car round and went on our way.After a little investigation i found out there had been several fatal car crashes on this bridge and a few "jumpers"

I would prefer to specultate that your panic, her judgement of spirits, and perhaps the thoughts of unfortunate jumpers and drivers, are all differing modes of perceiving the same (unknown) phenomenon. This could be anything, perhaps something deep in the unconscious. A remnant of former fight or flight insincts seems - to me - more credible than a wholesale invocation of spirits with little evidence.

 

[Anonymous]

A lot of research with people who have regular forms of panic attacks (for example, phobias) indicate that it is the fear of having the panicky feelings rather than the fear feeling itself that causes the major symptoms. I agree with Yith, it is more likely that something perceptual has been 'processed' in a manner that produces a fight or flight response. This feeling is then re-interpreted by (in about 96% of the population) by areas of the left hemisphere of the brain into 'a solution'. This avoids such things as cognitive dissonance and, depending on the person and their interpretation, makes 'sense' of the world for them.

 

[decipheringscars]

I have those panicky feelings as described in the OP quite often, but then again, I'm bipolar.

I tend to agree with the previous 2 posts. Maybe the combination of approaching evening and a potential storm coming in triggered some response? Especially if there could have been a(n unconcious or subconscious even) memory tucked away somewhere that picked up on any of the sensory experience.

The atmospheric changes around nightfall and approaching rain, especially seaside and away from your normal environment, strike me as particularly charged with potential to trigger all sorts of unexpected feelings and responses.

 

[Anonymous]

she told me the bridge was full of spirits blocking the not very wide road (single lane) we turned the car round and went on our way.After a little investigation i found out there had been several fatal car crashes on this bridge and a few "jumpers"

I would prefer to specultate that your panic, her judgement of spirits, and perhaps the thoughts of unfortunate jumpers and drivers, are all differing modes of perceiving the same (unknown) phenomenon. This could be anything, perhaps something deep in the unconscious. A remnant of former fight or flight insincts seems - to me - more credible than a wholesale invocation of spirits with little evidence.

You have a good point there theyithian i really wouldn't speculate on what it is but going on the whole "past lives" idea you could be right maybe it's just something rom childhood?Maybe when i was a baby something happened in the places i go to?It seems just to be a local thing and hasn't hapened anywhere else maybe it is a a memory i have forgotten or maybe just a recolection of something i was told or saw in that place.

 

[snavej]

Panicky Pete

Wales can be very atmospheric in places. There are so many ghost stories also - I have read hundreds. I seem to remember another feeling of foreboding further along the coast, next to an old abandoned church in the woods. Old churches have been the centre of thousands of people's lives, so it is natural that they would congregate there after death.

Tiredness and relaxation cause people to let down their guard, so that they perceive more of an atmosphere to a place. It seems to be the case for me - being preoccupied naturally drives out other concerns.

 

[colpepper1]

Only once have I ever felt overwhelming yet still inexplicable panic. I was with some friends travelling in what was then Yugoslavia and when we arrived in Dubrovnik, an ancient town on the coast, we decided to do our own thing for the afternoon and meet up the next day.
The harbour area was full of women, many of them elderly meeting the boats and offering travellers rooms. One such individual had a cheap room and I followed her up the steps and passages of the old town.

It was late afternoon and I was tired from travelling so I got out a book and lay on a bed in a small room separated from her quarters by a curtain. The book was a P.G. Wodehouse comedy and I defy anyone to find less macabre literature. Nevertheless after about half an hour an overwhelming sense of dread filled me. I tried to banish it, not least because it was too late to start looking for accommodation.
I tried to dismiss it and read the book but the atmosphere of the place had become so vile and malevolent that I ran from the place and slept the night on the beach.
When I caught up with my friends early the next morning I was still too terrified to return for my belongings alone. We went in together and the expression of the old woman suggested, if I'm not being fanciful, that it wasn't the first time such a thing had happened.
In hindsight it sounds ridiculous but no amount of reward could have tempted me sleep in that house a moment longer.

 

[Gunnlod]

Has anyone else ever had a familiar place suddenly "turn" on them?

Back in the mid-70s when I was in junior high I lived in a house across the road from a big cornfield in Illinois. At the edge of the field about 1/2 a mile from my house was a small woods with a pond and a derelict barn--kid heaven. I used to play there all the time with my nextdoor neighbors who were roughly my age. At the far end of the woods, separated by a tractor path was a circular grove of trees. My friends and I didn't usually go into the center of the grove in the summer as it was very swampy and infested with mosquitos, but we often clambered around in there in the winter. One summer we were having a long drought and as the swampy part of the grove had dried up my friend, her little brother, and I decided to explore. We hadn't dot very far into the grove when we began to feel very uncomfortable. The air was strangely still and heavy and suddenly I was overcome witha feeling of dread and something inside me said get out now. I looked at y friends and could see they were feeling the same as I was. Without saying a word we legged it out of the grove and didn't stop until we were back in their front yard.

With the resilience of kids, we still used to play in the woods after that but I don't think we ever went back into the grove.

I had never felt anything like it before, or, thankfully, since. Writing this I can still remember the stark unreasoning panic I felt and feel the weird stillness of the air that day.

I have no idea what was behind it--sacred groves a pretty thin on theground inLake County--but it was definately the most frighteningthing that ever happened to me. Doesn't sound like much as I read it back, but the feeling was so strong and overwhelming

 

[AnthonyClifton]

When walking in the woods, especially at twilight, I've often encountered a sense that the woods themselves - trees, plants, soil, animals, everything - have a collective awareness that I'm there. I've sometimes felt like I was walking through a crowd and, as I passed various entities in the collective, they were whispering each to the next about my passing. "Who is he? What does he want? Does he mean ill or well? What is he doing here? They don't usually come here during the between time."

I like to think that this 'awareness' or, if you will, collective 'intelligence is a sort of Emergent Property of the local ecosystem itself, a kind of consciousness arising (as they tend to do) from the many mechinations of a complex system. It's not necessarily good or bad. It just is.

Back to the point, I've found that, whenever I feel the beginnings of dread, all I have to do is talk to the woods mentally and tell them I mean them no harm, that I'm just passing through and that I'll leave everything as it was when I came. Usually, within moments, the dread passes and I begin to feel protected where, just moments before, I felt threatened.

(Lest anyone think I'm mad, let me assure you that I've recently been confirmed by a duly licensed professional as being quite sane.)

 

[snavej]

Panic - a further thought

My 'panic' experience in 1994 (see first post) felt similar, in a way, to one of the dreams I had of my recently deceased mother (see 'Mother's subtle messages from the other side' thread).

I dreamt that I was meeting her again - she was coming down from Wales in the car to visit me in London. It was something I dearly wanted but, when she embraced me, I was unable to stay in the dream and woke up immediately, feeling very sad.

Perhaps it was a kind of repelling effect, like two magnetic poles with the same charge. This could be a mechanism to prevent spirits and the living from interfering with each other's destinies.

 

[again6]

T.C. Lethbridge detailed an occasion involving spontaneous feelings of dread and foreboding experienced by himself and his wife while they were walking near clifftops overlooking the sea. Lethbridge reached the conclusion that water (visible or perhaps subterranean) plays a significant role in many such instances.

When I was a kid, a gang of us roamed around the undeveloped land at the bottom of the street. We knew it all like the backs of our hands. We were uncomplicated, active, adventurous and used to go at everything full tilt until dark. There was everything: bush, sand-hills, tracks, water-holes. We had a fantastic time, making 'forts'; forming rival factions and fighting behind barricades, lots of fantasy play.

There was one spot we avoided however, even though it was one of the best with its grassy overhang and clean white sand. It would have made a perfect spot for so many games. Yet we detoured around it, automatically. We never discussed why we didn't play there. We didn't need to; we just knew, in the way kids do, that there was something wrong with that particular spot.

Once or twice, my sister and I went against our instincts and tried to make a cubby-house there; tried to play there; tried to ignore the awful 'feeling' of the place. We couldn't stick it out and soon dashed away. Each time our gang was racing through the bush and I saw that gorgeous little green and white oasis, I used to wish it 'felt good', because it looked so nice and perfect and I would have liked to play there.

But it just felt horrible, threatening, dark -- even though it looked so nice on the surface. So we automatically detoured around it, like a shoal of fish, without a word to each other.

As an adult, I've found myself occasionally in spots that instantly felt horrid. There simply are places like that and it makes sense to stay out of them.

We should go with our instincts. That's why we have them. When we tune our instincts out, we're losing, not gaining. I made that mistake. I listened to people's 'logical' 'sensible' explanations for things which are often quite beyond dismissal. I wanted to be like other people; cool, rational, controlled, 'mature', 'normal and ordinary' etc. I didn't realise I was becoming more dead than alive, like all those emotionless robots I saw in the streets, on buses and trains etc. their faces like blank masks in their attempts to appear aloof and therefore 'kewl' and 'superior' -- when in fact, I realise now, they felt inferior, inadequate, lost and frightened.

I DID kill my natural instincts, to a degree. Stupid thing to do.

We're all different. All places are different. We feel differently about different places at different times. There is no such thing as 'one size fits all' when it comes to instincts, sensed-atmospheres, sense of danger or foreboding or warning or panic or anything else.

We developed instincts for our own protection and those instincts will and do protect us, if we let them.

None of us is 'ordinary'. 'Kewl' is for fools. It's ridiculous trying to appear more dead than alive in the hope of appearing 'sophisticated'. We'll all be dead soon enough and we don't need to practice for that while we're alive.

If something feels 'bad' to YOU -- follow those instincts and get out of there. None of us needs to prove anything to anyone else. There's no need to explain or apologise.

If something TASTES bad or rotten, would we be silly enough to continue eating it ? Then why hang around a place when your instincts are telling you to leave?

We don't need to explain or rationalise our instincts to appease others.

So, follow your feelings, whatever they are. They're YOURS and they're right for you at that particular time. That's all there is to it.

Our entire 'sophisticated, technologically advanced civilization' could come to a grinding halt inside five minutes. No water, no electricity, no communications systems. Bang. People panicking in the streets and ripping each other apart for the sake of a bottle of water in a mob-plundered supermarket. Useless empty vehicles stretching for miles, all law and order gone.

Then, it would be right back to the law of the jungle, with the timid hiding behind locked doors and those doors being smashed down by roaming gangs armed with lumps of wood.

The difference between life and death then would be our instincts, the way it was when we were back living in caves.

So listen to your instincts and that will encourage them to grow stronger and will teach you to trust them more and more.

Some people inherited poor eyesight or poor co-ordination or weak instincts.

Others inherited strong instincts. They're a gift. We should value and hone and protect them and let others do as they want with theirs.

 

[TheInspector]

Two or three years ago, I was at one my highschool's pep assemblies. I was talking to a friend. All of the sudden, halfway through one the band's preformances, a wave of pure terror washed over me. Then, as quickly as it had come, it left. I don't even think the song was over when the terro left. Or if it was, it had just ended.

I don't know what song was playing, so I can't figure anything out from that. All I can think of is that, if drums were bieng played, it might have been a instinctial memory of war drums.

“What song the Syrens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women, although puzzling questions are not beyond all conjecture.”

-Sir Thomas Browne

 

[shemaverick]

again6 - great post, I agree with what you say.
AnthonyClifton - I've wondered about the collective energy or consciousness of places too.
I also found intreesting the discussion about whether the panic is caused by something perceptual being processed in a way that causes the fight or flight response.

I've been searching the forum for topics on the "Buzz" or "Hum"... but I think what I have to say is relevent in here.

A couple of yeras ago I experienced a "buzz" in my local woods, and the extreme terror that accompanied it. The woods are a couple of fields from my house. I've been in there plenty of times and I've only experienced anything like this that one time.
The woods cover an area where a stream flows for a few hundred yards through a deep valley and then joins a river where there is some flat ground banked by steep rises and large rocky outcrops.

I had gone for a mooch about and had been in there for a couple of hours. I'd walked along the stream to the river and then along the bank of the river. I wasn't in a hurry... I stopped and lay in the sun, had a smoke, paddled in the water. When I thought I should start heading back home I ambled back through the trees by the river. As I passed through an area where there are some crumbling man-made stone structures (which someone told me used to be a cock fighting pit, but I don't know how reliable this is) I became aware of the sound of insects buzzing. I thought I must have passed a cloud of mozzies, or maybe flies buzzing around a dead thing, or flowers that were attracting bees. As I carried on strolling the sound gradually grew in my awareness, at first as if I was still approaching the source of the noise... but it grew so loud that it totally filled my head. I could hear it and feel it through my whole body. When I put my hands over my ears the sound was still in my head. It was intense and oppressive and I was filled with terror the like of which I've never known (and I've suffered from panic attacks in the past - it was NOT THE SAME).
I just knew I had to get out of there as quickly as possible. I legged it, gasping for breath as I went up the steep valley bank and along the stream away from the place. The noise continued and I kept up my pace as I went along the path by the stream towards the gate at the end, still feeing terrified and with escape my sole focus.
Maybe 30 yards from the gate at the edge of the woods suddenly - and I MEAN suddenly - the noise stopped. So did I. It was so weird. I stood there for a while feeling strange. I was spooked but I just couldn't resist turning back the way I had come to see if the buzz was still there or if it had just been in my head. As soon as I took a couple of steps back into the woods the noise was there with the same intensity and terror as before. I took a couple of steps away and it faded again. I did this a few times, pinpointing the exact spot where the noise stopped and started.

I felt like I needed to DO something with this experience, to tell someone or share it somehow. I wanted someone else to stand where I was and see if they had the same experience, because it seemed so important and unheard of. But there was nobody within shouting distance... So I stood there for a while feeling freaked out and like I'd experienced something of massive importance, and eventually came home, reluctant but relieved at the same time.

I have been in since but it's just been the old, un-buzzing, non-scary woods.

My theory is that it's all to do with sound waves. I've read articles and letters in FT with interest about sounds and the effects of certain frequencies. There was a feature about "hums and buzzes" but I forget which issue it was in or I would look it up. People have mentioned certain frequencies causing feelings of terror or dread, caused by anything from underground acoustics to air conditioning, and have linked it to all sorts of "unexplained" phenomena - hauntings for example, feelings of coldness, spookiness or unease.

Could it be that the same unseen, unidentifiable "threat" is interpreted differently by different people? In my case there was an audible noise but there are frequencies that can't be heard that still ause "inexplicable" experiences.
I don't know why I should have only experienced it only once... the contours of the land along with the sound and vibration of the river could conceivably cause waves of a certain frequency. I expect atmospheric conditions and maybe the water level of the river could affect it, and there must be countless other factors I am unaware of...

Whatever caused it, the sound and the terror were simultaneous, both starting and stopping at the the same time.

I suppose there are alternatives to my theory... maybe it WAS outraged spirits or the collective consciousness of the woods. I don't know which is scarier. Maybe sound waves is just a nice, safe explanation that I feel more comfortable with.

 

[sbell11]

I have experienced this inexplicable and sudden terror only once, thank goodness.

I was living with friends in Coventry for 10 months (which is scary enough! lol).
After a perfectly ordinary evening watching rubbish tv, I said "goodnight" and trotted off to bed.

My room was on the ground floor and was my haven in what was a pretty awful house.

I got to the bedroom door, pushed it open and stopped dead.

I felt a rush of such intense terror it nailed me to the spot. The thought of setting a single toe in that room made my palms sweat and my heart thunder. I can only describe it as a sense of something deeply malevolent waiting in the room.

I literally backed away, and spent the night on my friends floor.

The following morning it was fine.

I have absolutely no idea what caused that feeling. It had never happened before nor since, and to be honest, I'm usually about as sensitive as a breeze block... :lol:

 

[uair01]

I tried to capture the landscape and the experience in this composite picture:

i39.photobucket.com/albums/e182/uair01/panic_landscape.jpg
Link is dead. No archived version found.

Last week I drove my bicycle through our city park. I was on my way home from the station and it was dark and windy. In the park is a small area that is planted with pine trees. Here the cycle path forks. One fork goes into the pine wood and the other continues on through the lawn and along the central pond.

As I passed the pine wood I heard a loud “Whoosh” sound coming from the fork on my left. At that moment two thoughts popped into my mind. One thought was: “It’s a strong gust of wind blowing through the tops of the pine trees.” The other thought was not verbal - but I had the strong mental picture of some huge heavy machinery coming my way through the woods. And a picture of cinema-like gangster on motorbikes.

I was captured by a classic irrational panic and made extra speed for a few seconds. I was relieved when I had passed the fork in the road safely and hadn’t encountered anyone. The feeling lasted just a few seconds or even less.

Being a good Fortean I realized that this was a “classic panic” case. And I stopped - I had progressed just 20 or 30 meters during the whole experience - and turned around and drove back to the fork in the path. No panic now. No whooshing sounds anymore. I waited for a few minutes but the feeling was not reproducible.

Thinking about “panic” I wonder: Did the god Pan cause this feeling on purpose - to scare visitors to the woods - or was it just a side effect of his presence? Any thoughts on that?

 

[tilly50]

Where I was brought up, (& where I still live come to that) there are open spaces, heathland and headlands overlooking an estuary. The heaths are criss-crossed with footpaths and are now designated "country parks".
If you walk into the heaths you can experience a sound effect like a cross between rustling dried leaves, insect humming and fluttering. This has caused some of my friends to run to the nearest way off the heath. They have said that they felt a fear that was overwhelming and they have never understood why I did not panic even though I could hear what they did.
Even my husband has felt overwhelming panic on the heaths. The panic only seems to effect newcomers to the area. My cousins and myself, as well as other locals whose families, like ours, have been here since the Vikings, appear to be immune from the total panic. If you stand your ground and stay still and quiet you can almost feel the change in the atmosphere and the sound becomes one almost of laughter.
Could this be a manifestation of "the spirit of the place"? I know that I feel a close spiritual bond to the countryside here, as though I was a part of it.
The only total panic I have felt has been at Newstead Abbey and then I could only run, as I felt, for my life, leaving my boyfriend rather bewildered.

 

[Anonymous]

When I was a teenager we stayed at a holiday cabin owned by an aunt. As well as mum and dad was my mum's friend and her son and daughter.

I can't recall the location offhand, but I think there was a nearby fair called Tiptonia. The cabins themselves were in a sloping field divided by a large river and flanked by trees.

One evening there was some sort of disco or event up at the main building which was about a mile up the road which led to the field. Everyone wanted to go to this except the girl and I, and so we stayed in the cabin.

About half an hour later we were in the lounge talking and the wierdest thing happened. It was like there was a sudden change in the atmosphere, and our animated conversatin suddenly ended.

I said something - I don't remember what it was - in an attempt to break through the suddenly charged athmosphere, and she rplied in a similarly strained tone.

Then, without thought or warning, I flung open the font door and said: "Quick." The pair of us fled the cabin and ran to the others, leaving the front door open.

Utterly bizzare.

 

[Anonymous]

Small villages and wallaby spooks

Hi Dave7

I can't recall the location offhand, but I think there was a nearby fair called Tiptonia. The cabins themselves were in a sloping field divided by a large river and flanked by trees.

Could this have been Tucktonia? There used to be a minature 'British Isles' village, a fairground and amusement complex. If so, it used to be at Tuckton, near Christchurch in Dorset.

Your experience in the cabin reminds me of an experience a colleague of mine related to me.

When he was a boy (he's now in his forties) he was staying at a caravan park on his holidays.

One evening, his parents went to the site club, and he decided to stay in the caravan. Later in the evening he says he had a very uneasy feeling and lifted the curtain to look outside. He says that he saw what he describes as the architypeal church gargoyle/devil: wings, horns, forked tail, which appeared to be hopping along between the caravans not to far away.

(My immediate thought was WALLABY - glad I got that in, it's been a while - except of course, they don't have wings)

Anyway, my colleague says the creature then looked at him - although it was dark he could tell it turned it's head - and then bounded at terrifying speed at his caravan, charging against it repeatedly.

After battering against the caravan for a time it went away, but my friend was too scared to look out of the window and stayed curled up on the floor until his parents came back from the club.

If I can get him to remember any more details I will post them, if any one is interested?

 

[jeff544]

My Mother recounted this to us years after it had happened:
About 30 years ago my Uncle (Mother's Brother) & family moved house to another about 10 miles away. He hired a very large van and we all helped out - I was about 15 at the time.
It was getting to evening time - early spring so it was dark, and we all retuned to the old house to get the last load. We left my Mother on her own at the new house to tidy away and make a pot of tea for when we got back.
When we did get back there was no tea made and Mum was in the bathroom. I remember her looking not quite right, but really we were all having a banter about the tea not being made etc.
A long time after, when my Uncle had moved again Mum told us what had happened that evening:
After we left, she made herself a quick cuppa and set about the tiding up.
In the living room she was putting some boxes in the corner when she suddenly felt blind panic as if she was in immediate danger - her first thought was that someone had got in to the house although she did not hear any noises. Not being able to spend another moment in that room she went in to the kitchen. the feeing followed and she was really panicking - there were no mobile phones then and the line to the house was not connected. She would swear that she saw a movement in the reflection on the shiny metal oven door but maybe this was just her state of mind at the time. Any way, she grabbed the heaviest thing to hand - sellotape dispenser (!) and locked herself in the bathroom for over a hour till we got back. Slowly the panic subsided but she stayed put.
I think she told Dad about this but not my Uncle and certainly not my Sister or I.
My Mother is the most level headed person and finds a rational explanation for anything, but this really shook her up.

 

[sixty10]

A lot of research with people who have regular forms of panic attacks (for example, phobias) indicate that it is the fear of having the panicky feelings rather than the fear feeling itself that causes the major symptoms.

This is true. I had this experience (http://www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3133) while recovering from a very bad case of agoraphobia - so bad that I was mostly housebound and couldn't go out to work for a couple of years. However, I was quite comfortable with open space - with me it was 'unsafe' public places where I might be ill and find it hard to get home from -- shopping malls, doctor's surgeries, etc. I was having panic attacks quite a lot at the time.

What was odd was how different this was from any panic attack I'd ever had (or had since). For me, panic attacks feel like that dizzy, almost seasick moment when you're drunk and you realise you're about to be sick --- this feeling stretched over indefinite lengths of time, with accompanied worrisome thoughts spiralling out of control into hysteria.

This, however, was more like that slow motion "doom" feeling you get when you can see a mug accidentally tumbling off the table to crash on the floor, knowing you can't do anything about it. But much, much. much more serious. And at the same time as though something very big is coming towards you.

Thought I'd clarify from my POV anyway

 

[Cyclops]

Fascinating thread. And I couldn't agree more with again6 about trusting our instincts - I believe very firmly that they're from part of our brain that we've almost forgotten how to use, but that was absolutely essential to our survival when we were more primitive creatures.

Several years ago now, I spent a weekend with my brother in Kent, and we went to visit Pluckley, said to be the most haunted village in the county. We walked down an unsurfaced road, past some terraced houses, and everything was fine; the road ended and became a perfectly nice footpath across a meadow divided by a line of poplar trees. We set off along this path, and with each step our sense of forboding and increasing panic got worse - at least, mine did, and from the way my brother was slowing down, I guess he felt the same. Eventually, and for no good reason I could see, we came to a halt, and just looked at each other..."Shall we go back?"
"Yeah, come on."
And without any further discussion, we both turned and walked quickly back into the village; I remember feeling happier with each footstep.

Very strange.

 

[Anonymous]

Re: Small villages and wallaby spooks

Hi Dave7

I can't recall the location offhand, but I think there was a nearby fair called Tiptonia. The cabins themselves were in a sloping field divided by a large river and flanked by trees.

Could this have been Tucktonia? There used to be a minature 'British Isles' village, a fairground and amusement complex. If so, it used to be at Tuckton, near Christchurch in Dorset.

That's the one - thanks! There was one hellova haunted house at the fairground which my mate and I went into. However, this occured after the incident in the cabin, and I was too scared to climb the stairs just inside the entrance. I didn't live that down for a long time.

 

[sixty10]

... I became aware of the sound of insects buzzing ... but it grew so loud that it totally filled my head ... I just knew I had to get out of there as quickly as possible

...If you walk into the heaths you can experience a sound effect like a cross between rustling dried leaves, insect humming and fluttering. This has caused some of my friends to run to the nearest way off the heath ...

Reading these made me remember something that happened when I was 16. I was at my then-boyfriend's house. We lived in a beautiful part of Berkshire right in an area of woodland, and we often went for long walks in the countryside surrounding his house.

I, however, have a fear of bees and wasps, so I tend to stay away from heavily wooded areas in high summer, otherwise I just become a bit twitchy. So I have just attributed what happened to a phobic insect freakout on my part.

But...

It was a hot, dry summer Sunday afternoon and we decided to take a walk into the woods. I was a bit reluctant because of said phobia, which may have influenced things. But we left his house, ambled up the drive and climbed the hill to the "entrance" of the woods (a fence and a stile).

A few hundred yards from the stile I stopped dead. I could hear a deafening buzzing coming from the woods: as loud as several lawnmowers, or when you're walking past some roadworks. I don't even know how many bees it would take to make the noise, and it just seemed so incongruously loud. I was immediately awash in a cold sweat. I turned to my boyfriend with a sort of wry "I told you so" expression on my face ("...and you said there wouldn't be any bees!"), but he just looked at me, nonplussed. I shouted "Can't you hear that?". I could barely hear myself shouting, but he just stared at me.

The closer we got to the stile, the louder the noise became, and it seemed to be coming from all the trees and hedgerows, and the darker bits further along in the woods. I stopped and flat out refused to go any further. My boyfriend tried to coax me towards the stile, but nothing would make me go near it. I was sweating freely now, my heart was pounding, I couldn't hear what he was saying, and the buzzing was really freaking me out. It was only when I started sobbing that my boyfriend relented and we went home.

Where I discovered he had heard absolutely nothing amiss at all - nary a bee - and was mystified by my behaviour.

Psychological phobic freakout or a warning from Pan? I find this a bit confusing as a loud insectile buzzing is always going to scare the bejesus out of anyone with a bee phobia, but what continues to surprise me is that I was the only one who heard any of this! Although phobic, I'm rarely hysterical or fanciful. Or maybe it's just one of those things...

 

[James_H]

I don't know what song was playing, so I can't figure anything out from that. All I can think of is that, if drums were bieng played, it might have been a instinctial memory of war drums.

So that's why going to remote, illegal raves scares the sh*t out of me.

 

[Impybat]

TheInspector wrote:

I don't know what song was playing, so I can't figure anything out from that. All I can think of is that, if drums were bieng played, it might have been a instinctial memory of war drums.

A few years ago, I was working for one of those paint-your-own-pottery studios. It was in a somewhat out of the way location in an office park comprised of old brick mill buildings, one standing in front of the other. We were the second building in a one story row of businesses and a third building that dwarfed ours stood facing us. I was always afraid when I was there by myself that if I looked out the front window I would see somebody looking down at me (e.g. something non-corporeal)! One very quiet Saturday I was working by myself. There were no customers. None of the other businesses were open during the weekends save for a gym in another building down the drive. This further lent to the creepy, ghost-town quality of the park.

I was futzing around doing cleaning type stuff and had the radio on, when suddenly I heard faint drumbeats and screaming. I stood there terrified for a moment, when I realized it was a football game coming from the high school a few streets away. Because of where we were situated in between the other taller buildings, the acoustics had an echoed, distorted sound. For several minutes after, my heart was still pounding. I don't know if it was because it creeped me out being there alone anyways, or because I psyched myself out or what, but it genuinely scared the bejeezus out of me.

 

[uair01]

Last Saturday I made sound recordings of the storm in our local park. After a long search in I found a secluded site where I could hear the storm well, but where I was out of the wind.

Sound recordings are here:
http://www.freesound.org/packsViewSingle.php?id=7188

The storm transformed the well known city park into creepy new territory. What enhanced the creepiness was that my ideal recording site was next to the gay cruising spot in the woods.

Alone in the dark with my expensive gadgets I was looking over my shoulder all the time. And when I saw lights moving in the dark woods I got a nice Panic attack - the creepiness just was too much to bear. I'm sure they were just street-lights of the road behind the wood, flashing on and off because the trees were swaying in the wind more than usual. And I knew it at that moment also, but still I was chased out of the wood by the weird atmosphere.

It is rare and stimulating to be afraid of the dark in the city. So I tried to make a photograph of my experience.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/uair01/5440760741/

When you look in the posts above you'll see that this is not the first time the wind spooked me at this location. I want more