Fear of the dark
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So, on a serious note, how miserable would one of these foxholes be to spend any time in? I've dug a few ditches and plenty of shell scrapes, and they've always been dank, wet, cold, inhospitable places. What kind of discomfort level would this guy be suffering in these holes?
As JD says was a very eventful day. There are so many diffrent places to explore and its a much bigger area than we first thought even though we can easily navigate around now. The place deffinately has a uneasy feel to it too somewhere were you cant quite settle for some reason, atleast thats the feeling I get anyway.
Speaking of uneasy feelings, you just reminded me.
A couple of years back, when i had just upgraded my hammock suspension to crabs & climbing tape - i wanted to try it out, so took a wander to a local small wood. It's just off the main road and has a public path running along the top stretch.
As soon as i set foot in the wood i felt uneasy, but shrugged it off & carried on. Set the hammock up and made a brew & watched the steam loco whiz by. When i was packing up and scattering the ashes from the fire i stood on something metallic just under the surface. I brushed the leaf litter away to find an old rusted spade :yikes: why would someone bury a spade in a wood?
Needless to say i legged it and have never been back since.
A couple of years back, when i had just upgraded my hammock suspension to crabs & climbing tape - i wanted to try it out, so took a wander to a local small wood. It's just off the main road and has a public path running along the top stretch.
As soon as i set foot in the wood i felt uneasy, but shrugged it off & carried on. Set the hammock up and made a brew & watched the steam loco whiz by. When i was packing up and scattering the ashes from the fire i stood on something metallic just under the surface. I brushed the leaf litter away to find an old rusted spade :yikes: why would someone bury a spade in a wood?
Needless to say i legged it and have never been back since.
Caught Dog Soldiers on Film 4 last night, AGAIN.
Still makes my mind race when i try to sleep
No solo's for me anytime soon.
Still makes my mind race when i try to sleep
No solo's for me anytime soon.
I absolutaly HATE evergeen woods! When they grow tall they block out all the light and make the whole place really dark. And when they're young they make the place feel claustraphobic!
Plants can do wierd things to the human mind.
I spose that an underground hide would be quick and easy to make using one of those British Army IPK kits?
Plants can do wierd things to the human mind.
I spose that an underground hide would be quick and easy to make using one of those British Army IPK kits?
I would think so; just cover the tarp with a bit of earth and no one would know it was there. Its on my list of things to do before the summer
the only time I had a sh1t in the pants moment was when I was walking along a track when I heard a human cough. I looked around and could see no one around apart from a few sheep in the field i stod there for a moment looking around and heard it again behind the wall with the sheep i thought someone was hiding behind the stone wall so a ran along a bit and looked over a lower part to see nothing but sheep. Then suddenly the sheep coughed it sounds exactly like a human cough. scare over and went off laughing to myself about sheep with a cold.
LOL ! yep !! nearly jumped in a lake night fishing once when a cow coughed in the field behind me !
U
UnderTheStars
Guest
No bad experiences yet but my first couple of solo nights out were a little scary. I just practice mind over matter and got on with it.
Try not to think about scary things and you'll be ok. If noises freak you out, listen to an ipod
Try not to think about scary things and you'll be ok. If noises freak you out, listen to an ipod
If noises freak you out, listen to an ipod
Or put your finger in your ears and go lalalalalalalalalalal , till the nasty noise goes away:yikes:
Craig..............
That way, you wont hear the psycopathic axe murderer sneaking up behind youIf noises freak you out, listen to an ipod
The thing that scared me most is sitting near a fire. Not being able to see far into the darkness because of the light from the fire, and also myself standing out.
Hey guys, at last I have something to contribute to this thread...
My first experience camping out in Hong Kong turned into a bit of a creepy one... Hope you enjoy:
[video=youtube;JQ7_KJ_H4KY]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQ7_KJ_H4KY[/video]
My first experience camping out in Hong Kong turned into a bit of a creepy one... Hope you enjoy:
[video=youtube;JQ7_KJ_H4KY]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQ7_KJ_H4KY[/video]
Interesting thread. Especially that last bit.
A couple of random thoughts.
- Chances are indeed you are the scariest thing out there. Most animals will avoid you indeed. However that doesn't mean you can't encounter them. I've met a huge wild boar the other day in broad daylight. There were plenty of signs something big was living in that particular area. I disturbed it and it ran away. I could only visualize it when it was 50 yards away. It was a massive 200 pound male boar. Same region, different spot, different time, we bumped into a wild piglet just 3 steps away. My buddy and I went simultaneously (and joked about it afterwards) for our knife, expecting the mother to be charging at us - I don't know about other areas in the world but in central Europe boar attacks do happen as they protect their piglets. Nothing happened that day though!
- Knowing there is wildlife, and knowing they are active at night, is something to consider. So by all means do pitch your tarp against a rockface or something. It helps. Even mentally. Probably something coded in our brain, we like to have our back covered. Could very well be related to the fact that our eyesight is frontal, as opposed to prey which has full field of vision.
- Also darkness does remove context in the sense that you don't see what's going on around you. I spent a night outside the other day for fun and had to do a last refill at the nearby source around midnight when it was pitch dark. You have no clue what is 5 feet away from you, and you know you're not the only creature looking for a drink that night. You feel quite vulnerable there all by yourself. If you would have a clear field of vision there would be nothing to be scared of, because you can anticipate; the simple fact that you don't know whether something is nearby is uncomfortable indeed.
So much for wildlife. What else helps?
- Cold. Most of the time when out bivouacking it is that cold, and we travel too light, that danger other than hypothermia, doesn't even cross our minds. Too focused on not freezing to even consider nocturnal sounds.
- Which brings me to another point: focus. If you go out on an OP then you have again many other things to worry about. Your objective for example. Darkness helps there. From a pseudo scientific viewpoint I suppose that's because you are the predator now as opposed to the prey? Active versus passive?
The truth is your worst enemy will indeed be human. We sometimes make the mistake of thinking everything is equally civilized. I don't do bad things around town then why would someone else? I'm aware of two seriously threatening situations that happened in two areas each time in very close proximity (a mile) of a city.
1) Large assault weapon stash (AK's mainly) of a mafia in a rather small forest / park very popular and crowded with joggers and families.
2) Military observation unit in a fox hole complete with communication equipment of a non friendly government. In a bit of wasteland bush alongside railtracks.
The worst that could happen is indeed bumping into dodgy business. And unfortunately bad business does happen. It's rare, the above incidents are a few years apart, but these things happen, and most of it does go unnoticed.
So be careful when doing that research there guys. Again it's not because you are civilized folks with certain ethics that the rest of the world is.
A couple of random thoughts.
- Chances are indeed you are the scariest thing out there. Most animals will avoid you indeed. However that doesn't mean you can't encounter them. I've met a huge wild boar the other day in broad daylight. There were plenty of signs something big was living in that particular area. I disturbed it and it ran away. I could only visualize it when it was 50 yards away. It was a massive 200 pound male boar. Same region, different spot, different time, we bumped into a wild piglet just 3 steps away. My buddy and I went simultaneously (and joked about it afterwards) for our knife, expecting the mother to be charging at us - I don't know about other areas in the world but in central Europe boar attacks do happen as they protect their piglets. Nothing happened that day though!
- Knowing there is wildlife, and knowing they are active at night, is something to consider. So by all means do pitch your tarp against a rockface or something. It helps. Even mentally. Probably something coded in our brain, we like to have our back covered. Could very well be related to the fact that our eyesight is frontal, as opposed to prey which has full field of vision.
- Also darkness does remove context in the sense that you don't see what's going on around you. I spent a night outside the other day for fun and had to do a last refill at the nearby source around midnight when it was pitch dark. You have no clue what is 5 feet away from you, and you know you're not the only creature looking for a drink that night. You feel quite vulnerable there all by yourself. If you would have a clear field of vision there would be nothing to be scared of, because you can anticipate; the simple fact that you don't know whether something is nearby is uncomfortable indeed.
So much for wildlife. What else helps?
- Cold. Most of the time when out bivouacking it is that cold, and we travel too light, that danger other than hypothermia, doesn't even cross our minds. Too focused on not freezing to even consider nocturnal sounds.
- Which brings me to another point: focus. If you go out on an OP then you have again many other things to worry about. Your objective for example. Darkness helps there. From a pseudo scientific viewpoint I suppose that's because you are the predator now as opposed to the prey? Active versus passive?
The truth is your worst enemy will indeed be human. We sometimes make the mistake of thinking everything is equally civilized. I don't do bad things around town then why would someone else? I'm aware of two seriously threatening situations that happened in two areas each time in very close proximity (a mile) of a city.
1) Large assault weapon stash (AK's mainly) of a mafia in a rather small forest / park very popular and crowded with joggers and families.
2) Military observation unit in a fox hole complete with communication equipment of a non friendly government. In a bit of wasteland bush alongside railtracks.
The worst that could happen is indeed bumping into dodgy business. And unfortunately bad business does happen. It's rare, the above incidents are a few years apart, but these things happen, and most of it does go unnoticed.
So be careful when doing that research there guys. Again it's not because you are civilized folks with certain ethics that the rest of the world is.
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