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

Sorry for replying to myself, but it didn't begin with "Ma..." It was Levisham. Apparently the church has Anglo-Saxon work in that my mother wanted to see. These days, I'd be equally keen on that sort of thing, but my mother certainly has no intention of returning to a place that she found so creepy. If I'm in that neck of the woods again, I might give it a go, just to see if it's as bad today.
Ooh we go up that way a lot but I never heard of it. Next time am that way will go to the church and report back here! Former Anglo Saxon scholar so that is one for me, anyway.

I was in a church near here today because husband was passing and wanted to take another look at the really interesting effigies. It's a tiny church and the one in the parish where y mum was born so again, quite a few relatives in that grave yard. It doesn't seem de-consecrated but is so small it looks like no-one goes there any more and we had to go get the key from a local house.

After seeing what I went to see I did indeed start to feel a bit claustrophobic (nothing like in my own local church) so stepped outside. To realise a few foot above my head an entire swarm of honey bees on the move. Terrifying! I went back inside, torn between not wanting to be in the church and not wanting to be stung to death. Then after a few minutes - they were still there but less of them and flying higher - I legged it to the car. Now that was full on flight or fright!
 
After seeing what I went to see I did indeed start to feel a bit claustrophobic (nothing like in my own local church) so stepped outside. To realise a few foot above my head an entire swarm of honey bees on the move. Terrifying! I went back inside, torn between not wanting to be in the church and not wanting to be stung to death. Then after a few minutes - they were still there but less of them and flying higher - I legged it to the car. Now that was full on flight or fright!
Maybe they were trapped in the church?
 
Maybe they were trapped in the church?
No, they were outside it but flying towards it...

Happened to us a couple of years ago at home - apparently there was a tiny hole in the mortar we hadn't noticed and we live near a lot of woodland. Apparently, when the hives get too big they split and a bee scouts ahead to find the new home. Then half the swarm follow him. The hole in the mortar led into our bathroom. I heard them flying between our house and next door and the sound was so loud I thought it was a tractor... Realised it was bees. Next thing I know, there are bees assiduously flying up and down our hallway, inside . They'd come out the bathroom by going under the floorboards by the hole in the wall, and popped up in our hall... and made a flightpath through the house, coming up from under the floorboards (painted with no carpets). Bloody terrifying. We had to get the destroyer man out - I felt really bad as they were honey bees.
 
Sorry for replying to myself, but it didn't begin with "Ma..." It was Levisham. Apparently the church has Anglo-Saxon work in that my mother wanted to see. These days, I'd be equally keen on that sort of thing, but my mother certainly has no intention of returning to a place that she found so creepy. If I'm in that neck of the woods again, I might give it a go, just to see if it's as bad today.

Are you positive it was Levisham? Although that does fit in with the train thing - the Pickering/Goathland steam railway runs past Levisham. Reading your post I was reminded of the stories about Lastingham Church..
http://mjwayland.com/lastingham-church-crypt-wells-tunnels-and-ghosts/
rumoured haunted and not a million miles away from Levisham. No railway station though, but if you were right rather than your mum, it's within walking distance of Pickering, on a day's hike.

My neck of the woods!
 
Levisham church is a fairly innocuous building with no real churchyard as such but further away is Lockton church (know as the Old Church), but that's fairly ruinous (no roof), but does fit the bill more precisely!
 
My mother is pretty sure it was Levisham, but certain that it was not Lastingham - we walked there from Hutton-le-Hole on another occasion.
Leavening? One of my dad's relatives lived there and we visited as kids - I seem to remember a tiny, seemingly abandoned graveyard..? But I just looked it up online and it seems the church there was comparatively recent (upto most parish churches!) I do have this memory of my brother and I going for a walk and finding this creepy (to us) churchyard though. That seemed to be in the middle of nowhere but maybe I misremember.

Parents went to Leavening every year, I'm told, to pick daffodills.
 
Levisham church is a fairly innocuous building with no real churchyard as such but further away is Lockton church (know as the Old Church), but that's fairly ruinous (no roof), but does fit the bill more precisely!
St Mary's Levisham, which is between Levisham and Lockton, not to be confused with either St Giles's, Lockton, or St John the Baptist, Levisham, fits the bill perfectly.

St Giles's is mediaeval, but St John the Baptist was built as recently as 1884; each is more or less in the middle of its village. St Mary's has an Anglo-Saxon arch, and is, as you say, decrepit. Whether it would have had a roof in the 1970s is another question, and frankly, we didn't get to see. Mystery solved.
 
tolate to tell shemaverick, but the buzzing sound sometimes describes as a jarfull of bees, a hollow sounding buzz-echo, is a common experience in UFO and Marian encounters
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.
o late to tell
 
Nothing happened exactly but I had a funny experience earlier. I went hiking with a friend. After walking along a paved road on the mountainside for some time, we took the path we planned up the side of the hill. It was a steep stone staircase with Chinese style graves on either side, some in a state of disrepair. Everything was quiet except for two crows cawing, unseen. Maybe it was the gloomy weather but the atmosphere felt really spooky and 'other' - we headed straight back for the main road and took another route.
 
Nothing happened exactly but I had a funny experience earlier. I went hiking with a friend. After walking along a paved road on the mountainside for some time, we took the path we planned up the side of the hill. It was a steep stone staircase with Chinese style graves on either side, some in a state of disrepair. Everything was quiet except for two crows cawing, unseen. Maybe it was the gloomy weather but the atmosphere felt really spooky and 'other' - we headed straight back for the main road and took another route.
Sounds like the intro to a Poe short story. Think I might have felt a touch unsettled too.
 
...we headed straight back for the main road and took another route.

@James_H 's story reminds me of not one, but two incidents I had buried in the depths of memory from long, long ago!

The first harks back to 1988, October or November (I recall as I had been into the town centre that afternoon to pick up a specific 'book' (I was, and remain, a colossal nerd :nerd:)).

It was 5-5:30pm, and I was making my way home from Hull (someone has to come from there!) town centre, said book clutched in my clamy hands, walking the 40 mins or so rather than catch the bus, as was my wont. I turned on to the dual carriageway, almost home, crammed with slow moving traffic as it always was at that hour of a weekday. This stretch of road passes between two cemeteries (Western and General).

As I stepped from the pavement to the then cobbled vehicle entrance to the Western Cemetery I was overcome by a feeling of sheer panic. I ran the rest of the way home - only 500 yards or so from that point, at the time, but still a rare endeavour for me, even in my youth!

I have no idea why. One moment plodding along, thinking about what was for tea tonight and happy nerd thoughts related to my purchase, and then suddenly 'RUN! RUN FOR YOUR LIFE BOY!'. The cemetery was a non-issue, passed it many times before, day and night, before and since - sure, I wouldn't go in there alone at night (if only because of the local scrotes and undesirables that would lurk in its murkiest corners!), and the street itself was busy with traffic - people eveywhere.

The second came almost a year later, went away on my first independent holiday with a few friends, down to the Isle of Wight (we were not the most adventurous nor raucous souls, so it suited us just fine. Also, I love that place in all its twee glory!). On this particular day (I think the second Thursday of the fortnight) I decided I had had rather enough company for now, and decided to go wandering some familiar footpaths alone for the day.

We where staying in Shanklin, and I spent the day walking 'round the coast to Ventnor, then on to Steephill Cove. I took my time, noodling about and whatnot, then turned around and made my way back, on foot.

So most of the day was spent walking through country lanes or public footpaths through fairly remote woodland, with plenty of cafes and tourist spots of a very British nature along the way). A very pleasant day.

Until I was almost all the way back. I got to the head of Luccombe Chine (now closed since 2017, the steps and cliffs having eroded and crumbled away). I'd ignored it on my way out, wanting to press on to the 'Devils Chimney' and the Chapel/Church at Bonchurch, but now, on my way back, figured I would nip down to the beach, take a breather before heading back to the holiday flat, see who was around/what they fancied doing for the evening, a day of mostly solitude having restored me to sociability.

As I set off down the path, the wind got up, and the leaves went from the pleasant faint rustle they'd been doing all day to a much more insistent rustling (it was about 4-5pm (August or July, I don't quite recall, so still broad daylight)). I found this slightly unsettling, but carried on. I got to the top of the first set of wooden steps leading down to the beach and I froze.

I have no idea why.

Suddenly I had a very clear sense that I should not proceed, and in fact should leave, right now, quickly. But for some reason, I also had a very serious sense that 'I. MUST. NOT. RUN'.

Again, I couldn't say why, so heart pounding I hustled out of there, back to the main path and on towards Shanklin, as fast as I dare. The sensation did not pass until I got all the way to Luccombe road and off the footpath.

I have no idea what happened on either occasion. Or why I had 'forgotten' about them for so long.

So much for my claim in my introductory post of never having had a strange experience!

Yikes, that got a little long (and I should probably get back to work!), if you made it this far, thanks for reading!

Edits: for typo's. Probably missed a few yet...
 
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Suddenly I had a very clear sense that I should not proceed, and in fact should leave, right now, quickly. But for some reason, I also had a very serious sense that 'I. MUST. NOT. RUN'.

That, to me, us the creepiest part. It's like those stories of people being stalked by mountain lions, but presumably there aren't too many if those kicking around the Isle of Wight! Great story, amazing telling!
 
That, to me, us the creepiest part. It's like those stories of people being stalked by mountain lions, but presumably there aren't too many if those kicking around the Isle of Wight! Great story, amazing telling!

Heh, thanks - it sure was a creepy feeling, now that its back in mind. And yes, hopefully not too many 'ABC's' around the Isle of Wight! I'm off to Google search that now...

Having thought about that second experience (on the IoW) over the past few hours, and not now snatching illicit breaks at work, I conclude it was actually a couple of years latter than previously noted, in 1991, on my second such independant excursion to the IoW. Otherwise, as recounted above.

IIRC, the path leading to the steps down to the beach was just 'above' the row of houses at the 'cross roads' just above the Tea Room/B&B (centred in the link I posted) I remember looking to my right at the houses on my way to the steps, not so much on the way back, my thoughts where too occupied with the internal litany 'Don't run. Don't run. Don't...' past the houses, up the lane and then back into the woods for another five or six hundred yards to Luccombe Road.

Zoinks - this BBC article makes mention, about halfway down, of a leopard being shot on the IoW in 1993!
 
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Yeah, it gave me a bit of a chill to read that, too. Not much else on that or other IoW ABC's though. I'll keep searching :sherlock:

Not that I'm suggesting an unseen ABC was the reason for my experience.

More likely down to a change in local air pressure (as evidence by the changing wind) sub-consciously spooking me. Or something.

Still, I find I'm constantly turning this episode over in my mind (the first, urban one, not so much) since I've been reminded of it. Trying to remember all the details of that day, the locality and everything else.

And wishing for more detail on Google maps in that area, to jog my memory.
 
Really interested to read peoples accounts here - Can I post mine?

Happened round about the year 2000 - 03. Before moving to my 'new' shop (its old and I have a few stories to tell sometimes) my old premises were tucked down a side street, the building was built in the late 1700's so plenty history. Shop on the ground floor, staff room and big unused rooms on the first floor and toilet and hellishly creepy wee rooms and cupboards on the 2nd. Anyway, i was in the staff room and it was a Friday evening about half four (when I would do the cashing up for the week) I was sitting at my desk. The only thing that was on the desk was an old monitor which was connected to a security camera , mainly so i could be upstairs and see and hear when people came into the shop (The camera was trained on the main door) The radio was on downstairs, (Atlantic 252!!) which I could hear clearly through the monitor and the usual chart stuff was playing. I was busy totaling up the takings for the week, and another song came on the radio, sadly I now forget which one but it was perfectly familiar and current for the time. As I was doing what i was doing, I felt the most awful feeling VERY SLOWLY creep up on me. Sheer unadulterated terror. A combination of the song and definitely something else. Probably after a minute or so I had the sense to grab the takings for the week and run downstairs.

Downstairs, the same song was still playing, but all was well - my 'panic' had gone within five seconds.

Next day , obviously I was nervous about going in the staff room, but it was fine.

Never experienced anything like that again (phew!)

edit not that it matters but it happened no later than jan 2002 as thats when Atlantic 252 stopped! :)
 
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Before moving to my 'new' shop (its old and I have a few stories to tell sometimes)
Yes, please, tell us!
If you haven't seen it already, you may be interested in the Who Works In A Haunted Location? thread. It's fabulous!

From your account, I'm wondering if there is something metabolic in such panic, as it gradually crept up on you (so to speak), and was gone after you'd run down the stairs. Maybe heart rate plays a role?
 
One thing that strikes me quite forcefully reading these accounts is the recurring suggestion of a change in altitude: whether halfway up a quarry; halfway along a bridge (liminal places at the best of times); halfway down a cliff-side or cemetery path; or on the first-floor of a shop (see quotations below for evidence). There's a particularly striking similarity between @BeardSprite 's account and the OP's account of a visit to the church at Llanfair-PG. It seems to be the return to "normal" level (be it climbing back up from an attempted descent, or indeed descending back down from an attempted climb) that removes the sense of panic. Thinking about it, I had a similar, although less intense, experience myself in the "dell" near Mount Royd, Bradford.

Is there anything to this observation, or am I simply seeing faces in the patterns of the foliage? A couple of other posters and none other than Lethbridge himself seem to have wondered the same thing.

Appendix

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
it was nice, and just big enough, and low enough, that we couldnt see any trace of society from inside
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"
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.
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.
open spaces, heathland and headlands overlooking an estuary. The heaths are criss-crossed with footpaths and are now designated "country parks".
[snip]. They have said that they felt a fear that was overwhelming
The cabins themselves were in a sloping field divided by a large river and flanked by trees.
But we left his house, ambled up the drive and climbed the hill to the "entrance" of the woods (a fence and a stile).
It was on a raised bit of hillside with a 'road' leading up in and multiple wide 'ledges' that were being allowed to go wild. It was still mostly bare rock but there were small ponds and hardy plants growing in places. Above was the tree line planted to shield the quarry from view.

I was completely alone in that place; I'd arrive in the morning, get driven up there by the quarry manager and be left to my own devices until late afternoon.
Nowadays you can drive a car halfway up the hillside but then the main access was more of a footpath, a rough track up the Southern slope. I started up this path and after a few hundred yards I started to feel uneasy. There was nobody about, no noise of any sort and I remember the hillside seemed to be slumbering in the heat of the day.
Thinking about it - At the time the panic came on we were at the top of a long downward slope - Could this factor have created a pressure difference in the car thus bringing about her panic?
Sure enough, after a bit of a walk, there it was, the churchyard looking rather over-grown, but the path still just about passable. We got about half way down that path [Krepostnoi edit: this could be a synonym for 'along the path'], and, as though choreographed, turned and ran, really fast, out of that churchyard, because we both had a sudden, complete panic attack.
we took the path we planned up the side of the hill. It was a steep stone staircase with Chinese style graves on either side
I got to the head of Luccombe Chine (now closed since 2017, the steps and cliffs having eroded and crumbled away). I'd ignored it on my way out, wanting to press on to the 'Devils Chimney' and the Chapel/Church at Bonchurch, but now, on my way back, figured I would nip down to the beach
 
One thing that strikes me quite forcefully reading these accounts is the recurring suggestion of a change in altitude...
(snip)
Is there anything to this observation, or am I simply seeing faces in the patterns of the foliage? A couple of other posters and none other than Lethbridge himself seem to have wondered the same thing.

Seems like a very sound and solid observation to me, @Krepostnoi !

Although I hadn't descended any steps, the path sloped down to them quite a ways, so I was down in the Chine (just an olde worlde word for a ravine or gully in eroded into a cliffside by running water - hmmm, I wonder if unseen/underground water* and/or ultrasound might also be a thing in these situations?), so I was still a ways above the stream and sea level.

I've found some more images/maps that corroborate my recollections of the path/location, and I'll maybe post them later, when I'm home from work.

The thing that really niggles at me, is the conviction I had that 'I. MUST. NOT. RUN'...

Edit:
*I'd sworn I'd read this in Krepostnoi's post, but couldn't find it to refer back to - sure enough, there it is, in the Lethbridge quote!
 
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Yeah, it gave me a bit of a chill to read that, too. Not much else on that or other IoW ABC's though. I'll keep searching :sherlock:

Not that I'm suggesting an unseen ABC was the reason for my experience.

More likely down to a change in local air pressure (as evidence by the changing wind) sub-consciously spooking me. Or something.

Still, I find I'm constantly turning this episode over in my mind (the first, urban one, not so much) since I've been reminded of it. Trying to remember all the details of that day, the locality and everything else.

And wishing for more detail on Google maps in that area, to jog my memory.
The air pressure idea is apparently a real thing. I remember reading research several years ago about the effects on the brain of changes in air pressure. Apparently in some cases it can cause what amounts to a panic attack. Not a definitive explanation for these incidents, we don't wish to rule out Fortean explanations out of hand! As Krepostnoi has pointed out in detail though there are some common features in these cases. Even severely undulating roads make my ears "pop" so the air pressure must change somewhat even on really what amounts to fairly insignificant changes in geography. There must be some research online somewhere- I'll have a look.
 
The air pressure idea is apparently a real thing. I remember reading research several years ago about the effects on the brain of changes in air pressure.

I vaguelly recall something similar - which is why I mentioned the possibility. Don't get me wrong, the 'Or something.' I posted after that was supposed to impart open mindedness on my part - probably a poor choice on my part in a text only medium! :points:

... we don't wish to rule out Fortean explanations out of hand!

Indeed not! Whilst I lean towards 'Philosophical Scepticism' myself (question everything, especially ones assumptions!), there's also a part of me that 'wants to believe' - quite what it wants to believe is another matter :conf2:

And in that spirit, I have remembered several other things about that day, and found out some things about Luccombe Chine I didn't know before, these snipets may or may not have any bearing on my 'episode' at Luccombe Chine:

I'm now fully confident it was the summer of 91 - I remember a conversation with a shop keeper in Ventnor that day, about my sunglasses of all things! I had a distinctive wrap-around pair, more like a visor that went from ear to ear - never had a pair as good at cutting out glare from the periphery as those! Anyway, I got these sun glasses on my way to see Predator 2 one afternoon, which had a May 1991 release according to IMDB.

I had a camera with me that day - a little dark blue Kodak Disc camera (remember those?!) which could take 15 pics to a disc. By the time I got to Luccombe on the return leg the film was used up, and I had no more on me, but I'd taken a number of pictures that day - two of them at the nearby 'Devils Chimney' landslip. I remember, after the holiday, being disappointed that one of those two didn't come out at all*, and the other was badly fogged up.

There is a slim - super slim - chance that the photo's from that day are in a box in the spare room - burried behind/under a pile of my dear Goth's music kit. I'll try and reach it over the weekend - prepare for disappointment!

There was apparently a settlement at the foot of the chine, destroyed in 1910 by a landslip - according to wikipedia, and this image seems to support that...

I've found a couple of video's on yoochoob that show someone making their way down (2013) and up (2015) the path in question. I've not linked them, as I'm pondering starting a thread, see below.

I've also dredged up memories of the evening that followed! I got back to find my friends preparing to go out for dinner - curry, not my bag (these days I'm partial to a Tandoori Tikka Masala, but thats about it - my aversion to goop textured savoury foodstuffs is probably a Fortean Phenomenon all its own!). So I rested a bit, showered (I'd walked 15km on a warm summers day...), grabbed some fish and chips and went for an aimless wander around the town.

This found me, by 9-9:30PM - so just getting dark - sitting on the sea-front, looking out towards an odd looking thunder-storm (it may just be I've never seen a thunder-storm from so far away before - or since, now I think on it) on the horizon (so out Selsey way somewhere), watching a gaggle of helicopters (pressumably military - there where anywhere between three and six of them) racing along the horizon, too and from the mainland to around, and beyond the Nab Rocks light. Or at least so it seemed from my viewing location.

Almost certainly a confluence of mundane weather phenomenon and an equally mundane training exercise, but one never knows. I must've watched for 40mins to an hour. So far I have yet to find any information about either. The Google-Fu is weak.

Quite a day - I'm even more baffled as to why it hadn't stuck in the memory now!

A thread to call my own? All this digging about has me wanting to create some sort of record/account with links and images and such - though I imagine my interest in such is greater than everyone elses! If I were to create a fresh post/topic for this experience a) would there be much interest and b)which section of the board might be best - given I'm likely to expend too much effort on figuring the evening helicopters/weather out?

Anyhoo, I'm rambling again, time to leave it there for now! Thanks for reading.

*This now reminds me of a similar photo that failed to come out (perhaps less surprisingly!) inside a burial cairn in the Western Isles.
 
"Barometric sensitivity" is the label most often used for somatic, mood and / or psychological effects induced by air pressure specifically or weather conditions generally.

It seems to be widely accepted that barometric sensitivity can play a role in pain management owing to variability in perceived pain levels. In addition, there's an obvious relationship with sinus and respiratory conditions (e.g., sinus headaches). Some migraine sufferers have exhibited consistent correlations between weather conditions and migraine attacks, so barometric sensitivity is taken more seriously in the context of migraine treatment.

Even subliminal levels of pain or neural stress might well trigger emotional / mood shifts and a heightened sense or state of anxiety.

As far as I know research into meteorological factors affecting mood / anxiety has been relatively scattered, rarely any more rigorous than collecting data via surveys or polling, and generally more suggestive than definitive in its results. In other words, it seems there are indications of connections but little or no solid understanding or data about them.
 
I may have mentioned this elsewhere on this forum but I lived for 18 months at 925 meters (in Fukushima prefecture)

Sometimes, when driving back up the mountain after a shopping trip, bags of crisps would expand. Same with ear-popping. Some days it happened, some days it didn't.

I got drunk very quickly, that's got something to do with altitude doesn't it?

I got wrecked on two, home poured, Bailys on my first night in Zermatt! o_O
 
One thing that strikes me quite forcefully reading these accounts is the recurring suggestion of a change in altitude: whether halfway up a quarry; halfway along a bridge (liminal places at the best of times); halfway down a cliff-side or cemetery path; or on the first-floor of a shop (see quotations below for evidence). There's a particularly striking similarity between @BeardSprite 's account and the OP's account of a visit to the church at Llanfair-PG. It seems to be the return to "normal" level (be it climbing back up from an attempted descent, or indeed descending back down from an attempted climb) that removes the sense of panic. Thinking about it, I had a similar, although less intense, experience myself in the "dell" near Mount Royd, Bradford.

Is there anything to this observation, or am I simply seeing faces in the patterns of the foliage? A couple of other posters and none other than Lethbridge himself seem to have wondered the same thing.
I think there's something in this.
 
I did some (almost literal!) digging in the spare room over the weekend - alas, though I did find a bunch of old photo's (including digging at Cladh Hallan - the year before they found the mummies!), they did not go any further back than 1999/2000, so no pictures from my strange day :(
 
My parents recently moved to an old property in Northern Ireland and discovered some stuffed birds and paperwork in the attic. If anything should be haunted it's there, but thus far nothing (until I check it out )
 
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