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

Yup, and something was swaying in the woods...
 
At one time I used to fish a pond that induced something like panic, to the extent that I stopped doing so. There were physical features that contributed to the atmosphere, it was in a natural, amphitheatre like bowl and there was only one access route through a steep wooded valley lined with ruined houses but none that individually or in combination made the place as weird as it was.

I've walked round it since and although there's nothing you can put your finger on it's just very odd. On a few occasions I've taken other people and without saying anything about my feelings they've always said, 'I think we should go back now' when I've suggested exploring further. The kind of place you have to stop yourself breaking into a run once you've decided to leave.
 
Where is that pond? It would be interesting to know!
 
I have had these feelings a few times, and in various degrees. Sometimes others have shared the feeling, sometimes not. (See the explosions thread).

I have had this accompanied by what I can only describe as a feeling of buzzing, but I have also had it more often when it seems to be hot and abnormally still - I can recall a time walking down the old railway line north of Sudbury when it took all me strength not to run off into the distance - my two friends who were walking with me felt nothing strange. For what it is worth we were very near to Borley, although I didn't know that at the time.

There's also a corner of Caernarfon Castle that I really don't like to go near because of a simple feeling of 'badness'.

I'm attracted to the theory that these experiences are actually a natural response to something atmospheric or vibrational around us that would have been threatening in the remote past. and that because we are far removed from those feral? instincts we interpret the instinctual warning in ways conditioned by what we've heard about, be it ghosts, aliens, whatever.
 
This August we visited some sites of the Great War. We tried to cram as much as possible into each day so sometimes we would be visiting the sites at nightfall. I tried to capture the atmosphere of these tragic places so I was walking around with camera and sound recorder. That way I was able to catch the moment we really got the willies. This has not been staged.

http://uair01.blogspot.nl/2012/08/great-war-battlefield-at-nightfall.html

I hope the tragic dead are not offended.
 
There's something in the Fear of open fields thing....

Maybe its an ancient stone age trait we have acquired - not to tread into an open area for fear of being ambushed by big sabre toothed cats? Stick to the trees and bushes to be safe and you'll avoid a rabble of angry neanderthals who'll end up using your rib cage as a bicycle helmet. They were quite advanced weren't they?

Me and my wife went on a countryside bike ride once in the Cotswolds and ended up a little lost and found a field which just didn't seem right. It was slightly overgrown and had hedges on 3 sides. It just seemed like something had happened in that field a long time ago and we weren't welcome somehow.

I also a jog on a popular inner city pathway in Bham and I know of a scrubland field which ALWAYS gives me a shiver up the spine, it feels like something had happened there, or some building of great importance once stood there.
 
There's a thing they call "bush panic" that is usually associated with wooded locations, but it can also occur in open country. I don't think anyone really knows what causes it. It's like sometimes when you are walking through the woods, and you get the sudden sense that you are being "shadowed" or paced by something, or some things. Something that is always just slightly out of your field of vision, maybe you think you see a blurred shape for an instant on the periphery, and maybe you almost think you can hear something. You start to get a sense of impending menace, and it can also happen with a group of people, which makes it difficult to explain as some sort of hallucination or whatever.



William Hope Hodgson said:
It might have been an hour later that it came to me suddenly that I was aware of an extraordinary sense of dreeness, as it were, come into the air of the place. Not the nervous feeling of mystery that had been with us all the time; but a new feeling, as if there were something going to happen any moment.
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"The House Among the Laurels" -- 1910
 
Cochise: "I have had this accompanied by what I can only describe as a feeling of buzzing . . . "

It's a while since the Hummadruz was mentioned on the Message Board. Coincidentally I found this resource a week or two back.

I should say rediscovered, because I had probably followed links to it in the past. It impressed me more this time:

http://www.northernearth.co.uk/permhum.htm

Threads on here have some personal encounters:
Here, likened to insects in summer
Some mentions in the big Hum thread
Lizard23's link to Northern Earth articles back in 2004
Cases in NZ, Sudbury & Louth.

It's an interesting phenomenon becasue it is frequently experienced by people who have never read about its history! :)
 
dreeness said:
There's a thing they call "bush panic" that is usually associated with wooded locations, but it can also occur in open country. I don't think anyone really knows what causes it. It's like sometimes when you are walking through the woods, and you get the sudden sense that you are being "shadowed" or paced by something, or some things. Something that is always just slightly out of your field of vision, maybe you think you see a blurred shape for an instant on the periphery, and maybe you almost think you can hear something. You start to get a sense of impending menace, and it can also happen with a group of people, which makes it difficult to explain as some sort of hallucination or whatever.



William Hope Hodgson said:
It might have been an hour later that it came to me suddenly that I was aware of an extraordinary sense of dreeness, as it were, come into the air of the place. Not the nervous feeling of mystery that had been with us all the time; but a new feeling, as if there were something going to happen any moment.
Click to expand...
"The House Among the Laurels" -- 1910
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"Bush panic", sounds familiar. I was walking my small dog down a narrow tree lined lane, here in Suffolk, last week. He stopped to sniff around an Oak tree's roots and suddenly I was convinced the tree was 'aware' of me. I looked up the trunk, with some dread, I'm not sure what I thought I would see! I dragged the dog away and rushed off up the lane, looking back at the tree as I went. I blame those damn talking trees in the Wizard of Oz, terrified a generation!
 
Re: There's something in the Fear of open fields thing....

cardinaluk said:
I also a jog on a popular inner city pathway in Bham and I know of a scrubland field which ALWAYS gives me a shiver up the spine, it feels like something had happened there, or some building of great importance once stood there.
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Can you let me know where that is? I'd love to pay a visit!
 
From "Adventures in Rainbow Country" (1969)
Nancy Williams: Bush panic?

Dennis McGubgub: It's a strange phenomenon, Nancy. Seasoned trappers, men who have lived all their lives in the bush have gotten it. They can be lost, come out of the bush, cross a highway and then plunge right back into the bush on the other side.

Nancy Williams: But what causes it?

Dennis McGubgub: Nobody knows...
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It's a while since the Hummadruz was mentioned on the Message Board. Coincidentally I found this resource a week or two back.
Click to expand...

Interesting. But they also seem to include stories of 'the hum', the background 'diesel engine on slow idle' noise which is not necessarily associated with any sort of panic.

In my case as far as the buzzing element of the panic experience is concerned I am referring to a small number of experiences a very long time ago (mid 70's) and I can't now recall whether at the time I thought the sound was external or internal. I certainly feel now that the sound was in my head, and accompanied by a feeling of vibration as well, like a kettle when it is about to boil. I put it down to my subconscious using everything in its power to get me to respond to whatever it was in the environment that it had decided was threatening. I notice that many of those descriptions seem to involve hot still days as well.

The incident I now remember best was that time walking the old railway line - a moderatly well used path in those days - the only thing to add to my description was that it was in a cutting, so not so different to a woodland hollow or some of the other places described.
 
There's a local woodland where I often take my dogs for a walk, there's a little canyon with a waterfall dropping into it, its one of my favourite places to stop and just sit, it nearly always feels like a welcoming place, somewhere I feel at ease BUT every now and then one a year? I get there and there's, not a feeling of panic, but a feeling of not being wanted, almost as if the animus loci was saying "we know you, and mostly you're welcome, but not now, we have things happening, it's not convenient, move on please"


I always heed this "voice" sometimes with a little regret but as I'm usually welcome there I'm not going to blot my copybook as it were.
 
My own experience came in Cilgerran Castle, west Wales, when I was in my mid teens. I was on one of the walkways high up in the towers, which are fairly precipitous. I remember feeling a little uncomfortable crossing one of the walkways and trying to brush it off as fear of heights, but the feeling gradually creeping across me was one of complete dread and I remember running down the steps and right out of the castle. When my parents left the castle they were surprised to see I was already outside (they usually had to persuade me to leave a historic monument!) and I struggled to explain what had happened to me. It was only years after when I read about the origin of the term panic that it began to make sense.

The interesting thing about my experience was that there was a clear trigger for me to feel uncomfortable (the drop below the walkway) but the scale of my reaction was 500% more extreme than it has ever been for any other vertiginous episodes. I'm not even afraid of heights any more, but thinking back to my time at Cilgerran I still feel a bit uncomfortable. Definitely going to go back one day 8)
 
I had EXACTLY the same experience at St Peter's in Rome.

No problem with heights previously - but when I got to the inside-base-of-the-dome, I completely fell apart.

Unfortunately, it's one way traffic so I had to go all the way to the top of the dome and then back down again! A seventeen-stone skinhead shaking and almost crying in amongst all the nuns and little old dears :oops:

Unfortunately - my fear of heights never left me! I'm still a bit shaky on tall buildings, and you would never get me up, say, the Eiffel Tower. Not gonna happen.

I'm going back to Rome in October, I'll attempt the same mission and see what happens!
 
I tend to think of heights as a rational fear. I can think of two buildings which made me very uneasy. One was in Berlin - a bell-tower, IIRC, though I can't recall exactly what it was. Looking online has not helped. Perhaps it was at the Cathedral. What I recall was looking down the stairwell to the hard marble floor far below . . .

Even worse was the Columbus monument at Barcelona. It does not look much and breaks no records - just 200 feet high. But the claustrophobia is built-in from the start: you go up in a tiny lift and have to circuit the observation platform. This tilts outwards! You shuffle along as the braver souls gaze out over the city, eagerly pointing out the other landmarks they recognized. I hardly dared to look and could hardly wait to get back in the lift!

The idea that this thing would suddenly fail because I was on it is quite irrational, I suppose. I have the same feeling about 'planes. :(

edit: 200 feet high added.

edit 2: A horror story from May this year

Evidently, there is no alternative to the lift!

edit 3: Some rephrasing
 
I also experienced an unnerving episode in a woods once, although it was caused by my own imagination more than anything else. I was unfamiliar with the woods but had always wanted to visit. I took an afternoon off work and on a whim I decided to go there as it wasn't too far away. It was mid afternoon, bright, and there was a good, thick layer of snow on the ground. The woods is linear, in a valley and once inside you can only really get out the way you went in, or else walk a good few miles to the other exit.

At first I felt fine, happy to be out and exploring this new place and it looked so pretty in the snow! It was quite quiet but there were a few couples and dog walkers passing occasionally so I wasn't concerned. That changed when I'd got quite a way in and I suddenly began to feel threatened. At this point I think it had suddenly dawned on me how 'alone' I actually was and how those dog walkers weren't quite so frequent after all! My senses became heightened and its hard to explain but somehow the quietness became more intense and a feeling of foreboding was all around me - in the trees, the little ruins nearby, in the air! A million scenarios flashed through my mind and then I actually pictured myself lying dead face down in an icy stream! I turned around sharp and retraced my steps as fast as I could. When I got out all I could think of was how stupid I was to go in there, my heart still hammering.

I think a few things added to my general panic at this time. For one, the news was headlining a story about a woman who had been murdered and dumped in a snowy field. I also hadn't told anybody I was going to the woods. I think I even told my boss I was going straight home and I wasn't exactly dressed for a snowy walk in my smart work wear! It was a genuine last minute whim but I couldn't help thinking that if something had happened to me, the world would have been wondering why the heck I was there! Anyway it creeped me out and I've never been brave enough to venture to secluded spots alone since!
 
I regularly visit my mum. I get the train from Lancaster to Preston and then cycle about 5 miles to her house. Part of the journey is down a completely unlit old tramline with no houses, only fields on either side. I hate cycling it in the dark as I have a real fear that someone is going to have tied fishing wire across the path, tied to trees. I really fear that its going to take my head off!

I know it sounds strange but I guess the mind can do strange things when, like the previous poster, you are in pitch black and alone, or in a deserted kind of place.
 
We have a thread about decapitations and there are indeed several mentions of cyclists who suffered this fate. :shock:

I can remember it happening to a motorcyclist who was riding home along Llandudno promenade from his job as a hotel chef some time in the mid-70s.
It stuck in my mind because I'd been there a week or so before.

Decapitation isn't the only danger. A man from my home town was killed about 10 years ago when a tripwire-type rope tipped him off his mountain bike. He'd been on a day out with his kids in a forest park. Very sad indeed. I can't remember if anyone was prosecuted over it.

Also, in 1986 a Dutch schoolgirl called Maartje Tamboezer was knocked off her bike in London by a length of fishing line stretched across a path by two men who then raped and murdered her.

That's just three examples that I can think of... naah, it's safe. ;)
 
Thanks Escargot, I think!

The Job's comforter thing reminded me of when I went into hospital about five months ago. A bloke I work with, (who isn't the most socially adaptable person I've ever met) said, without thinking "my auntie had that done, she's brain damaged now".
 
The stories in this thread are really interesting. I've always wondered if the land might have a sort of consciousness of its own, and sometimes it would rather not have us around!

The tales of panic accompanied by a humming or buzzing sound remind me of a strange incident in childhood. It doesn't sound like much to describe it, but it's etched into my memory.

The Summer we were 11, my cousin and I took a trip with our grandparents, out to the piece of land referred to in this thread: http://www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=51289
It's a large piece of land with three (usually dry) creeks running through it, North to South. There is a small road or track running East to West, to the back of the property. Cousin and I jumped out of grandfather's truck and went skipping off down this track, keeping a watchful eye out for copperheads that blended in with the rocks. Cousin had visited this place much more often than I had, so she pointed out the way we should go.

The first creek was nearby and since it was dry we crossed it with no problem. When we came out into open land again, Cousin had the idea that we should make for the second creek, where the "big rocks" were. I'd never been out that far so didn't know what she meant, but was happy enough to go. I can't estimate how long we walked to get there, but it seemed like hours (there was a lot of goofing around on the way).

When we finally reached the second creek, I saw what she meant by big rocks. Even though most of the rocks in the area are reddish or brown colored, this creek had huge blocks of bright white limestone at the bottom. Some looked (at least to my young eyes) like they had been chiseled by hand. Some were bigger than we were. Cousin jumped down on them with a squeal and began hopping from block to block like it was the biggest hopscotch grid ever (an irresistible impulse, considering how they looked). I was just about to do the same when the panic overtook me. It felt like something had rushed forward and caught me, It was a physical feeling, like being tangled in a spider web, but there was nothing there. There was an intense feeling that I can only describe as something "unknowable" being near.

I tried to fight off this panicked feeling. I didn't want to be left out of my cousin's game or be a spoilsport. No sooner had I jumped down onto the rocks, though, there was a loud, high-pitched humming/ringing sound in my ears. It was like the tinnitus one gets after a loud concert and for a second I assumed it was in my own head. But some distance away, my cousin covered her ears and said "it's the humming again, we've got to get out of here!" Then she took off out of the creek like a shot. I took off after her, and we ran full speed all the way back to where our grandfather was working. I was so glad to be away from there!

Later, I asked what she meant about the humming, what was the hum, when had she heard it before? She would only say it happened sometimes, but wouldn't say another word about it. The memory of that incident has always haunted me a bit. Perhaps because it was the first time I ever experienced the feeling of panic, or maybe because I felt something there I couldn't comprehend.

I would love to go out to investigate that area again one of these days, and I would if it weren't for fear of wild boars. They've really multiplied in the years since and as much as I love to track down a mystery, I'd rather not be gored to death in the process. :p
 
Wow!! I love these stories ... so many scary details. Even ”where the big rocks are” creeps me out.
 
'where the big rocks are' _particularly_ creeps me out!

bunnymousekitt, could you interrogate your cousin more severely?
 
Cochise said:
'where the big rocks are' _particularly_ creeps me out!

bunnymousekitt, could you interrogate your cousin more severely?
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I can try. I've been meaning to call her anyway, this could be a good excuse. Will post any results. Glad I was able to creep a few people out, too. Always a pleasure.:D
 
felixgarnet said:
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.
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Panic may not be as irrational as it seems. Certain types of environment are probably more likely to contain predators, such as snakes for example. Our ancestors may well have evolved an instinctive fear of such places, which could explain why a place could cause a feeling of dread; it could just be a subconscious recognition of potential danger. In the example of an open field, it would not be surprising to feel an urge to escape, since standing in the open would make you visible to predators.
 
Panic may not be as irrational as it seems. Certain types of environment are probably more likely to contain predators, such as snakes for example. Our ancestors may well have evolved an instinctive fear of such places, which could explain why a place could cause a feeling of dread; it could just be a subconscious recognition of potential danger. In the example of an open field, it would not be surprising to feel an urge to escape, since standing in the open would make you visible to predators.
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That really would seem to be the case. A couple of threads down, on the Glitch in the Matrix Thread on Reddit, Cochise quoted from the Survivalist Forum, Creepy Stories from the Outdoors. http://www.survivalistboards.com/showthread.php?t=57236

If you feel very creeped out when out in the deep backcountry (especially the northern Rockies) I would advise going with your instinct, and quickly. You are not the top of the food chain, and this is not your neighborhood.
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I'm in the UK, so I am not likely to feel that sense in relation to an animal predator, rather a human one, but I think people such as those who post on the Survivalist, who are out in wild and remote areas hunting or camping, would agree that sometimes panic should be heeded, not ignored.
 
I've lived in both the UK and the US. I've had the feeling in both countries.

True, there are no large animal predators in the UK, at least not native ones, but there are human predators for sure, and I'm one of those who allow for things other than flesh and blood to be out there.

The US is very different to the UK, in that you can be living in what is really a suburban area and yet the wild lands (and the wild life) can come right up to your backyard. The second place we lived over there was on a knoll in woods that continued more-or-less all the way to Canada. Several times we saw deer in our yard. Had copperhead snakes living at the edge of the lawn, and the most stunning coloured birds bright blues and reds.

As an example - I may have posted this before, possibly even in this topic - my son and I were stood out at the end of the old track below our house in the US watching the sunset before going in to eat. Got the 'feeling' and noticed the sudden quiet - absence of bird sounds etc. Looked around slowly and saw a pair of yellow eyes about head hight just inside the woods. Pointed them out quietly to my son - hey, do you see that? He did. Was in a shadow so we couldn't see exactly what, could have been a bear. Being British we had no firearms. We just turned quietly and walked steadily back up the trail, whatever it was moved its head as we turned but didn't come out into the open - it was still fairly bright on the trail.

My boy still thinks it might have been a melonhead because we lived close to where they had been reported (Monroe, CT, we were just over in the next town) but I think 'nope, bear'.

Whatever, hanging around to ask it questions does not now and did not then seem like a good idea.
 
True, there are no large animal predators in the UK, at least not native ones, but there are human predators for sure, and I'm one of those who allow for things other than flesh and blood to be out there.
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A friend of mine saw a black cat (The large kind) while walking her dogs along the Ridgeway in Oxfordshire a few years ago. There was no mistake, (it was far too close, she said) and her dogs bolted, leaving her legging it after them. She reported it.

My uncle, who does a 5 mile walk up to White Horse Hill in Oxfordshire, and back to his house every morning (unless it's snowing) saw a pair of green eyes staring at him from the verge of a copse of trees. It was dark (winter) and he walks without a torch on, although he does take one. When he shone it, that was what he saw, and he reckoned the space between the eyes, the fact it was low to the ground, as if crouched or lying on its belly, and the noise it had made, which alerted him, made it likely it was a big cat. He's lived there all his life, so is very familiar with the local wildlife.

When I asked what he did, he said, 'Turned the torch off and kept walking. I didn't think it would hurt me.'

While I am not quite as sanguine, I wouldn't think they'd attack people either, so I agree that human predators are the greatest danger in the UK.

I read some reports on that Survivalist forum that mentioned wendigo's. I found those stories really unnerving! O_O

My boy still thinks it might have been a melonhead because we lived close to where they had been reported (Monroe, CT, we were just over in the next town) but I think 'nope, bear'.
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Melonhead? I had to go and google it, but that or a bear, I would have been out of there, too.

After reading some of those forums, I went onto Google Maps and 'drove' through some of the places mentioned in Canada, America and Australia. Although it cannot compare with actually seeing it, I was amazed by the wilderness areas. Kudos to the people who do go out into them, as they're definitely not to be taken lightly, predators or no.
 
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