Scaring the shit out of yourself

A perfect soundtrack to freak yourself out to:

Echoing a recent thread in the Aphex Twin forum, I'm big into blasting SAW II on my iPod while going on late night walks. There's a cycle track near mine that runs through a forest and it's a great setting for that album. Sometimes I'm lucky enough to catch it on a misty evening which improves the atmosphere tenfold.

I remember reading a YouTube comment where somebody described that album as sounding like a creepy abandoned factory, which is pretty spot on (or 'Spots on' lolol) so naturally I want to have a listening sesh in that kind of location. There's a perfect place that isn't too far from me, but every time my friends and I ever went there, we'd always get chased out by security/guard dogs so that goal might be a bit difficult. Here's some pics...

There's no consistency to where and when it happens though. I went out for a walk in the middle of December and totally misjudged how fast it would get dark, so I ended up walking down unfamiliar roads in such darkness that I couldn't actually see where I was going without following the line of the ditch with my hand. Out of nowhere someone walking what was probably a dog (I couldn't see it) said hello to me in the dark while was walking by the silhouetted tower of an abandoned mill. None of this scared me in the slightest.

A few weeks later I went for a walk in a nearby forest in the middle of the day. Had a terrible panic attack and premonition that I'd get murdered if I went in.

You must be careful in the forest broken glass and rusty nails. If you're to bring back something for us I have bullets for sale.

Cool thread.

It all boils down to your imagination, if you have one, and it runs riot, then you can scare yourself. There's been times when I've been in a situations where I've told myself to keep my mind blank, 'cause once the wheels go into motion, it's game over lol.

Agree with twelvetrees, I've had a two occassions when during the middle of the day, and it's been pure blue skies and warm, when I've had a huge feeling of cold dread come over me. One was a time I was cycling along quiet rural country roads near Henley, and for some reason something felt just really wrong, because it was such a nice day it felt even more sinister and weird. It was the way how almost a switch was flicked. The other time was only about 3 weeks ago, I had been out cycling all day and was heading home through some farmers fields near my house. It's a route I travel hundreds of times and as hundreds of times before I stopped for a pee, ('cause it's about 30mins from the last pub lol). Holy fuck all of a sudden I had this most intense feeling of being watched by something evil, and something that wanted to cause me great harm. I just told myself to fucking move it quickly, while looking over my shoulder. I was telling myself at the time, it's ridiculous to act like this. But even so a very strong instinct was telling me to move as quick as possible out of harms way. Very peculiar.

I'm on the cusp of my daughter becoming a "tween". I'm scared as all fuck my waking life.

those bright sunny day mood spirals are the fuckin best.......but if u want a dose of weighty fear try pronounced facial/bodily scarring, mirrors and ptsd.

Its like black magic is real EVERY SINGLE DAY

I can empathize now with how pre-scientific societies incorporate(d) such states into ritual magic & shaministic practices, cos it feels like possession. Alongside some interesting benzos, i read stacks of material on Austin Osman Spare (WWI trench survivor), William Burroughs & his Magical Universe & Icelandic pagan practices designed to incorporate the forces of nature & human psychology (<--- latter was prob the most interesting of all because it doesnt subscribe to actual gods, rather the processes that underpin belief in otherness beyond self & the natural world)

apologies for getting all heavy, but this has been the ultimate fear-based endurance test

a lot of what you describe below originates from fright/flight responses developed over 1000's of years to keep us from being ambushed by big scary beasts with nightmarish teefs. What i find interesting is when these "feelings" become related to specific places, houses, natural locations too (hear/see Coil's Sick Mirrors for a musical detour along such planes of existence)

  On 4/27/2015 at 4:37 PM, beerwolf said:

Cool thread.

 

It all boils down to your imagination, if you have one, and it runs riot, then you can scare yourself. There's been times when I've been in a situations where I've told myself to keep my mind blank, 'cause once the wheels go into motion, it's game over lol.

 

Agree with twelvetrees, I've had a two occassions when during the middle of the day, and it's been pure blue skies and warm, when I've had a huge feeling of cold dread come over me. One was a time I was cycling along quiet rural country roads near Henley, and for some reason something felt just really wrong, because it was such a nice day it felt even more sinister and weird. It was the way how almost a switch was flicked. The other time was only about 3 weeks ago, I had been out cycling all day and was heading home through some farmers fields near my house. It's a route I travel hundreds of times and as hundreds of times before I stopped for a pee, ('cause it's about 30mins from the last pub lol). Holy fuck all of a sudden I had this most intense feeling of being watched by something evil, and something that wanted to cause me great harm. I just told myself to fucking move it quickly, while looking over my shoulder. I was telling myself at the time, it's ridiculous to act like this. But even so a very strong instinct was telling me to move as quick as possible out of harms way. Very peculiar.

I used to get that shit occasionally when I lived out in the countryside about 15-20 years ago. Hear a weird noise late at night and you have to then check the entire house for homicidal maniacs, make sure everything is locked, check outside, etc. Drugs don't help either, was on mushrooms with a mate one time at the same place and we went out the back for a smoke, whereupon we had a collective hallucination that sounded like really angry monsters moving back and forth, growling, behind the yonder tree-line.

Well if you had never heard a fox at night, it would freak you out. Their screams are very trippy.

  On 4/27/2015 at 9:28 PM, beerwolf said:

Well if you had never heard a fox at night, it would freak you out. Their screams are very trippy.

nah, this was real low frequency gates-of-hell shit.

  On 4/27/2015 at 2:51 AM, mcbpete said:

As a teenager I once freaked myself out when cycling though a forest : I had this crazy notion (that I knew was crazy but continued the thought pattern of 'what if' so much that it became a possibility in my brain) that if I looked behind me that I'd have a vision of myself looking behind me seeing myself looking behind me... to infinity - a perpetual me looking back at me as far as the horizon.

 

The thought was so creepy that for the hours bike ride I refused to look over my shoulder.

were u on salvia?

  On 4/27/2015 at 9:30 PM, caze said:

 

  On 4/27/2015 at 9:28 PM, beerwolf said:

Well if you had never heard a fox at night, it would freak you out. Their screams are very trippy.

 

nah, this was real low frequency gates-of-hell shit.

 

Yeah that would see me slowly sliding under the bed covers lol.

I do get a bit spooked out by old delapidated farm buildings in the middle of nowhere, very unsettling and creepy.

Never really had any really creepy/surreal episodes in my life that stick out as being traumatic. I remember when I used to live in a village when I was a lot younger (around 8 or 9 years old) - completely surrounded by fields - I would sometimes look out the window at night when I couldn't get any sleep because in the distance there were some different coloured lights that would twinkle at a huge port near where I lived, and they were mesmerising to look at. Occassionally I would see what looked to be a humanoid figure in the dark looking back at me, but was either my brain playing tricks or just a tree. But even that kind of thing would freak me out and wouldn't get much sleep afterwards.

I also remember walking around a village in my late teens with a friend at the age of around 17. We couldn't get any sleep and we used to do this quite a bit to find a field to do some star gazing. We made our way towards a woodland area. We were standing on a hill top, so we were almost looking down at the woodland beneath us, but not too high. Bearing in mind this was a small village, so almost complete darkness with little to no streetlights. Happened early hours of the morning - we saw a long, powerful beam of light through the trees making its way closer to us, but no noise. No footsteps, no dog barking; just completely silent. It was sort of moving in random directions constantly and erratically but still getting closer to where we were standing. Closest it got was probably around 100 metres before we ran away. We waited 5 minutes, and walked back to the same spot near the woods, and the light was gone, still silent. Most likely situation here is that it was someone having an early morning walk (as you do) with one of those really powerful, heavy torches, and heard us so walked quietly whilst flinging around a torch in their hand to scare us. Fucking weird. But the light wasn't even straight or being directed in a pattern that was consistent with someone walking in a straight line.

  On 4/27/2015 at 9:28 PM, beerwolf said:

Well if you had never heard a fox at night, it would freak you out. Their screams are very trippy.

Somebody mentioned imagination and yeah, that's where it comes from for me. The most innocent things will unsettle me. Has anyone ever played a Professor Layton game? The atmosphere and storytelling in those leaves so much up to the imagination. Most of them have twisted concepts too. The idea of an entire village being in on some dark secret yet giving off an air of pleasant contentment is a terrifying concept, when you know something is very wrong and everyone knows what but you. This is one of the reasons I find Hot Fuzz so disturbing.

or maybe the original Wicker Man,,,,,

Have you seen A Field in England? That gets at the surreal side of rural uncomfortableness brilliantly

I haven't seen the Wicker Man but I have seen an episode of Midsomer Murders partially based on it. Great show that.