Excellent, I'll remember that next time I camp there. Must get a bigger knife.
Fear of the dark
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Excellent, I'll remember that next time I camp there. Must get a bigger knife.
I'm probably an oddball in that I am 50/50 over preference to the dark to the daytime.
I love the dark, I just hate that in thickly wooded areas it slows my rate of travel down so much. The wildlife I see at night is awesome though. With the ghillie suit on, I've been closer than you would ever believe, when the wind is right, to badgers and deer. I can't tell you how priviledged I feel to have experienced that. I love badgers, and I love watching their antics. I've even sponsored a few back to health that have been rescued from the road system, alive but badly hurt. I really am that sad about them. I can also neither confirm nor deny that the tossors who try and dig out badger sets at early o'clock get pretty spooked and foxtrot oscar at a rate of knots when 9mm ball bearings from a high power catapult start belting into them from seemingly nowhere
The flip side of the coin though, and at the risk of being ridiculed, I'll admit to having had uncomfortable experiences. Certain places that just haven't felt 'right' at all. I trust the frog part of my brain, the earliest part to develop from the stem thousands of years ago, and so now if I get 'that' feeling, I move on. It's thankfully rare it happens though, and it's been a few years since the last time. I've had physical evidence in the company of others at one point as well, on one occasion.
I guess it comes down to whether you believe or not in things we haven't quite scientifically pinned down yet. I've had some other 'ghostly' and 'paranornal' type experiences as well, so now, I just go with my instinct about places. It just works for me.
I love the dark, I just hate that in thickly wooded areas it slows my rate of travel down so much. The wildlife I see at night is awesome though. With the ghillie suit on, I've been closer than you would ever believe, when the wind is right, to badgers and deer. I can't tell you how priviledged I feel to have experienced that. I love badgers, and I love watching their antics. I've even sponsored a few back to health that have been rescued from the road system, alive but badly hurt. I really am that sad about them. I can also neither confirm nor deny that the tossors who try and dig out badger sets at early o'clock get pretty spooked and foxtrot oscar at a rate of knots when 9mm ball bearings from a high power catapult start belting into them from seemingly nowhere
The flip side of the coin though, and at the risk of being ridiculed, I'll admit to having had uncomfortable experiences. Certain places that just haven't felt 'right' at all. I trust the frog part of my brain, the earliest part to develop from the stem thousands of years ago, and so now if I get 'that' feeling, I move on. It's thankfully rare it happens though, and it's been a few years since the last time. I've had physical evidence in the company of others at one point as well, on one occasion.
I guess it comes down to whether you believe or not in things we haven't quite scientifically pinned down yet. I've had some other 'ghostly' and 'paranornal' type experiences as well, so now, I just go with my instinct about places. It just works for me.
. I can also neither confirm nor deny that the tossors who try and dig out badger sets at early o'clock get pretty spooked and foxtrot oscar at a rate of knots when 9mm ball bearings from a high power catapult start belting into them from seemingly nowhere
.
Nice one
Jason
Hey billy, care to share about your paranormal experiences? I'm open minded about ghosts but sadly I've never seen one. I've got that 'feeling' you describe though, in fact I think there are many people who have replied to this topic saying they feel the same thing. Strange really, it kind of annoys me as I can never explain it.
Another thing that I don't think science can explain is; why is that you can always tell when someone is watching you? A few months ago I was down by the rider just larking about trying to catch some fish, and I squatted down the river edge looking at some Crayfish when I got this intense feeling that I was being watched and I had a huge impulse to turn around, and lo and behold a gentleman is stood watching me about 5 metres away on the top of the riverbank, I never heard him or saw his reflection in the water.
I'm pretty shy about posting some of the paranormal instances mate, because a lot of them are very personal and would reveal, by nature and circumstance, quite a lot about who I am and what I do. To put that into context, one of the military ones could easily nail who I am if you know the approximate year it happened, due to me being part of, at the time, a very small outfit indeed. Sub 30 man team. I'm not sure I want some of that in public domain to be honest. I'd like a right to some privacy. There is another site member who lives local to me though, who is also military and who can back up who I say I am and what I say I've done, so please dont think I'm some sort of 'walt' or fantasist.
To quantify that I'm not actively looking for any of this stuff, I've tried to debunk it more than once:
1) I've walked, alone, through a supposedly haunted priory at 4am with nothing more than a 2aa maglite. All three levels, and down into the basement. Nothing. Not a damn thing happened. Not even a feeling of being watched.
2) Slept overnight in a graveyard on the night of Oct 31st. In a part of it where people have seen strange lights before and which pet dogs being walked just dont want to go near. I wouldn't say I had a great kip, but I've had worse. Nothing at all paranormal happened.
3) Asked to be locked in a room in a castle where some very, very bad things had happened while on a tour one halloween, the sort of tour where you have a pretty well known clairvoyant lead 30 of you around, you get a 5 course dinner afterwards etc. I was back on leave and the wife and I were looking for something to do, so hey, lets go to this. This room has had people run screaming from it in tears after 2 minutes, and the entryway to it in the tower was only (and obviously) unblocked for our tour. She wouldn't let me at first, but I talked her into it. Supposedly the devil or some demon has appeared to people. Aye, whatever, bring it then. Spent five minutes in a pitch black room listening to scratching that I'm sure was just rodents and moaning that I'm sure was just wind. Nothing touched me, nothing bothered me. I could have had a decent kip TBH.
Where I HAVE had experiences, it's when it's came looking for me, not when I've been looking for it. I grew up in a house with a history of pretty grisly occupant suicide and I had some bloody terrifying experiences there. As did various friends and girlfriends whilst growing up. My parents are still there, and despite my dad being a firm 'non believer' and whom used to deny anything my mother, sister or I would relate back to him, he would always deny it and refuse to have us talk about it in his presence.
That changed when ill health forced him to move into my old bedroom a few years ago. He has since described to me an experience that 100% mirrors one of mine, and it's one which I've never told another living soul, right down to the part of the room it happened in.
I also had dreams, the oddest dreams, which then, weeks/months/years later, come true, and in that instance it fits perfectly into what I have previously saw in the dream. These have reduced since I moved out of that house, but I still get them very occasionaly. I used to wake up instantly the dream was finished, think 'blimey wha the hell was that about' and then fall back asleep. Once, I forced myself to stay awake long enough to write down what the dream was, because good Lord it was an odd one. I filed that piece of A4 away and pretty much forgot about it.
Fast forward 3 and some years and I'm hundreds of miles from home when it came true, right down to the words spoken, and when I returned from basic training I found that piece of paper again after ripping my cupboard apart. It was all there, even had the guys name that i spoke and was in training with written in phonetic style on it, which was very different to how it is actually pronounced. That was 20 years ago, and I've long since given up on trying to make sense of it. Slate it if you will, or call me a liar. No matter.
My sister also had something very similar from a clairvoyant whom doesnt even talk to you, just sits in front of you and writes on a piece of paper. 80% of what he wrote was about me, and no way could he have cold read it. This was 1996 and parts of it are still coming true. He described my uniform, a car I would buy, right down to an airline interview I was offered last year. This gets interesting because it's only in the last year I've started speaking to my sister again, we spent 20 years living very different lives, hundreds of miles apart, and never liking each other anyways. Not even a card at Christmas type scenario. It's only parental ill health thats got us talking again and trying to build bridges. I nearly shat myself when she showed me that old, battered and worn piece of A4, make no mistake.
I've also felt protection at times when I should have died, frankly. Someone, and I think I know who, is looking after me. Once was from a stab wound to the neck where I nearly bled out in -12°C, and the other is when I got caught in a mountain wave in a helicopter I was flying which may have been a teeny bit overloaded. I knew both times that I would make it, and it felt like someone else was prompting my decisons from somewhere deep inside me. Maybe the second one was down to good training, I don't know, but there it is anyways. What I will say is that the actions I took are against instinct and only later when I did the mountain flying course I learned them. So how I knew them 6 months or so before, you tell me.
Anyways, I've been a boring enough git, so I'll let someone else post on the subject and stow my ramblings. Cheers for listening, and feel free to rip me to bits on it!
To quantify that I'm not actively looking for any of this stuff, I've tried to debunk it more than once:
1) I've walked, alone, through a supposedly haunted priory at 4am with nothing more than a 2aa maglite. All three levels, and down into the basement. Nothing. Not a damn thing happened. Not even a feeling of being watched.
2) Slept overnight in a graveyard on the night of Oct 31st. In a part of it where people have seen strange lights before and which pet dogs being walked just dont want to go near. I wouldn't say I had a great kip, but I've had worse. Nothing at all paranormal happened.
3) Asked to be locked in a room in a castle where some very, very bad things had happened while on a tour one halloween, the sort of tour where you have a pretty well known clairvoyant lead 30 of you around, you get a 5 course dinner afterwards etc. I was back on leave and the wife and I were looking for something to do, so hey, lets go to this. This room has had people run screaming from it in tears after 2 minutes, and the entryway to it in the tower was only (and obviously) unblocked for our tour. She wouldn't let me at first, but I talked her into it. Supposedly the devil or some demon has appeared to people. Aye, whatever, bring it then. Spent five minutes in a pitch black room listening to scratching that I'm sure was just rodents and moaning that I'm sure was just wind. Nothing touched me, nothing bothered me. I could have had a decent kip TBH.
Where I HAVE had experiences, it's when it's came looking for me, not when I've been looking for it. I grew up in a house with a history of pretty grisly occupant suicide and I had some bloody terrifying experiences there. As did various friends and girlfriends whilst growing up. My parents are still there, and despite my dad being a firm 'non believer' and whom used to deny anything my mother, sister or I would relate back to him, he would always deny it and refuse to have us talk about it in his presence.
That changed when ill health forced him to move into my old bedroom a few years ago. He has since described to me an experience that 100% mirrors one of mine, and it's one which I've never told another living soul, right down to the part of the room it happened in.
I also had dreams, the oddest dreams, which then, weeks/months/years later, come true, and in that instance it fits perfectly into what I have previously saw in the dream. These have reduced since I moved out of that house, but I still get them very occasionaly. I used to wake up instantly the dream was finished, think 'blimey wha the hell was that about' and then fall back asleep. Once, I forced myself to stay awake long enough to write down what the dream was, because good Lord it was an odd one. I filed that piece of A4 away and pretty much forgot about it.
Fast forward 3 and some years and I'm hundreds of miles from home when it came true, right down to the words spoken, and when I returned from basic training I found that piece of paper again after ripping my cupboard apart. It was all there, even had the guys name that i spoke and was in training with written in phonetic style on it, which was very different to how it is actually pronounced. That was 20 years ago, and I've long since given up on trying to make sense of it. Slate it if you will, or call me a liar. No matter.
My sister also had something very similar from a clairvoyant whom doesnt even talk to you, just sits in front of you and writes on a piece of paper. 80% of what he wrote was about me, and no way could he have cold read it. This was 1996 and parts of it are still coming true. He described my uniform, a car I would buy, right down to an airline interview I was offered last year. This gets interesting because it's only in the last year I've started speaking to my sister again, we spent 20 years living very different lives, hundreds of miles apart, and never liking each other anyways. Not even a card at Christmas type scenario. It's only parental ill health thats got us talking again and trying to build bridges. I nearly shat myself when she showed me that old, battered and worn piece of A4, make no mistake.
I've also felt protection at times when I should have died, frankly. Someone, and I think I know who, is looking after me. Once was from a stab wound to the neck where I nearly bled out in -12°C, and the other is when I got caught in a mountain wave in a helicopter I was flying which may have been a teeny bit overloaded. I knew both times that I would make it, and it felt like someone else was prompting my decisons from somewhere deep inside me. Maybe the second one was down to good training, I don't know, but there it is anyways. What I will say is that the actions I took are against instinct and only later when I did the mountain flying course I learned them. So how I knew them 6 months or so before, you tell me.
Anyways, I've been a boring enough git, so I'll let someone else post on the subject and stow my ramblings. Cheers for listening, and feel free to rip me to bits on it!
Only ever experienced the paranormal once and that was when I was 4, my dad found me in the garden talking, he asked me who i was talking to and I said Morris (our next door neighbour) but he died 3 months before that in a motorbike accident.
They do say that kids and animals are more sensitive to the paranormal, any cat owner has probably had the spooky experience of looking at your cat only for it to fix its gaze on something behind you and stare for ages, usually takes me a few minutes to pluck up the courage to look!
Keep the paranormal stories coming, only had the one experience (which I dont remember, but my dad says it happened) but definately believe in the spooky stuff.
They do say that kids and animals are more sensitive to the paranormal, any cat owner has probably had the spooky experience of looking at your cat only for it to fix its gaze on something behind you and stare for ages, usually takes me a few minutes to pluck up the courage to look!
Keep the paranormal stories coming, only had the one experience (which I dont remember, but my dad says it happened) but definately believe in the spooky stuff.
About 20 years ago, me and a couple of mates went out for a jolly in South Wales. We'd just got set up in the edge of some demse woodland when we heard something creeping around in the undergrowth, and stealthily getting closer. I've sneaked up on enough people (and been sneaked up on) enough times in the military to recognise the noises people make in the dark, so we bugged out PDQ, having scared off the interloper.
On getting back to one of the mates next morning, we heard on the news that a psycho had skipped from a local prison, so reported our encounter to the police. soon afterwards, the woods were alive with Dyfed-Powys's finest( I didn't know there were that many cops in Wales) and the escaper was caught not too far away a couple of days later.
This is the only time in about forty years of being out in the wilds that anything like this has happened to me, so the chances of this kind of thing happening must be pretty remote.
Then again, I do get as far from populated areas as possible, the real nuisances are too lazy to get as far away as I do.
Alan
On getting back to one of the mates next morning, we heard on the news that a psycho had skipped from a local prison, so reported our encounter to the police. soon afterwards, the woods were alive with Dyfed-Powys's finest( I didn't know there were that many cops in Wales) and the escaper was caught not too far away a couple of days later.
This is the only time in about forty years of being out in the wilds that anything like this has happened to me, so the chances of this kind of thing happening must be pretty remote.
Then again, I do get as far from populated areas as possible, the real nuisances are too lazy to get as far away as I do.
Alan
Havent read every reply so I'm not sure what other folk have said. I would suggest building up your confidence in a slow and steady manner. Spend time out in the dark without camping as such. Get well wrapped up, powerfull torch on you but not on at all. Knife and axe for for dutch courage. With out sounding knobbish, be tactical. Once its got dark quietly and methodically change your location, think about your place. Try to be some where that you can see a skyline for a portion of your feild of view and the ground rises behind you so you arn't making a silhouette no light at all nice and quiet then just hunker down and enjoy you surroundings. Logically no one will know that you are there and a human eye is a human eye so if some one could see you then you could see them. Be sure in your knowledge that no one knows that you are there. You will see and hear stuff at some point that you might not comprehend but it wont be sinister or supernaturall. Once you have had enough or if you get spooked you have no camp to strike so you can bugg out at will. Eventually you will realise as lots of other posters have stated, you are the scaryest thing out there. Unless you camp where I camp that is
Stayed in this bothy once. It was supposed to be haunted by the ghost of some girl murdered there. It was a helluva creepy place in the pitch black. There was always this sense of "something" there that made your hairs stand up. I took this picture as we were leaving. The others didnt even want to look back at the place. I swear i could see something in the window. Even the picture creeps me out...
Hey Martyn,
I must admit to getting a shudder down my spine when looking at your photo before even reading the text. I know this bothy well, or used to, as it's supposed to have been demolished last year by the Forestry Commission.
The spookiest things at Sheil of Castlemaddie weren't of the paranormal but of the no-brainer types who drove in to the bothy with generators, chainsaws, etc, and left their garbage behind them, which usually included vast numbers of bottles, cans and hypodermic syringes and needles. It's not the only old remote farm to be used in this way and there are others in the Galloway area which have also been closed.
What I find most upsetting is not that the few have deprived the majority of the use of a bothy in a beautiful location, but that these are very old buildings which should have been listed and the fact that generations were born, grew up, got married, worked, grew old and died there. A locked gate could have prevented the vandalism and demolition of The Sheil, but it appears to me that the Forestry Commission had a vested interest in allowing access to these scum, as a "Development Plan" for the immediate area was miraculously announced only a few months after Sheil of Castlemaddie's destruction.
It's the disrespect and connivance of all concerned, including the authorities, that draws my bile!
To get back on topic, there's also a bothy in Galloway known as White Laggan. There aren't many places I'll admit to being afraid to go alone, but I've heard too many stories about White Laggan from some tough, dour men, many of which merely describe a feeling of unease but there were 2 lads who told me they were reduced to laying their bed rolls on top of a hatch to an attic sleeping room in order to prevent access by an unseen someone they were certain was in the bothy.
Another friend of mine described his dog suddenly going nuts in the early hours one summer night and cowering terrified in a corner with its hackles up. The temperature of the room plummeted and he spent the rest of the night stoking the fire and wrapped in his sleeping bag with his shuddering dog. He told me he's never going back.
Dunno about ghosts, but one thing I'm certain of is that if you go alone into lonely regions which have a long history of human occupation, you're going to have odd experiences!
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I don't know about that guy's dog but mine seems to have an on-going fear of his own tail...
My dad used to take his dog on jobs with him. He reckoned while measuring up an old sub basement in Bath the dog point blank refused to even look into one dark room. This was a spaniel in a building full of rats mind, he'd been in everywhere sniffing them out until then.
My dad used to take his dog on jobs with him. He reckoned while measuring up an old sub basement in Bath the dog point blank refused to even look into one dark room. This was a spaniel in a building full of rats mind, he'd been in everywhere sniffing them out until then.
I survey powerlines which takes me through all types of countryside.
This morning I was in a particularly 'moody' patch of woodland and started to get that uneasy feeling. Looked down to see this porcelain dolls head. Almost expected the eyes to suddenly open as I took the pic.
This morning I was in a particularly 'moody' patch of woodland and started to get that uneasy feeling. Looked down to see this porcelain dolls head. Almost expected the eyes to suddenly open as I took the pic.
I survey powerlines which takes me through all types of countryside.
This morning I was in a particularly 'moody' patch of woodland and started to get that uneasy feeling. Looked down to see this porcelain dolls head. Almost expected the eyes to suddenly open as I took the pic.
Lol, I bet your heart missed a beat when you saw that!
It's not so much what happens immediately, it's what happens mentally over the next few minutes that can freak you. And I find that's up to the individual. It's easy to get a panic on, especially after dark, but in my situation it's daylight and I just stop and calm down. Not to say there aren't some genuinely bad vibey places about though, just as there are genuinely comforting ones.
With the dolls head, I think I had probably caught it subconsciously and that triggered a fearful feeling of something being aware of my presence (the hills have eyes type thing). Dunno, I could mark a map with at least 4 places in my work area that have an eerie feel, and I often find locals or landowners who agree.
Last time this sort of thing happened I was moving into some increasingly dense, marshy woodland and had to cross a slow stream using an alder branch as a bridge. I'd already got the 'moody' feel and something attracted my attention in the water. It was a dead sheep, very bloated with its' eyes wide open. Not nice.
I remember one time I was bedding down for the night in my bivi bag on the side/grass verge/ by a field dry stone wall of a country track.
I was just going to sleep and a couple of cyclists were riding by, one spotted me and said 'oh look there's a bag.... it's got a body in it.... THERE'S A BODY IN A BAG!!!!'
at this point his mate calmed him down by saying 'it's alright it's just somebody bivving down for the night'
'What's bivving?' was the reply.
I suppose I was lucky they didn't come over and poke me with a stick.
I was just going to sleep and a couple of cyclists were riding by, one spotted me and said 'oh look there's a bag.... it's got a body in it.... THERE'S A BODY IN A BAG!!!!'
at this point his mate calmed him down by saying 'it's alright it's just somebody bivving down for the night'
'What's bivving?' was the reply.
I suppose I was lucky they didn't come over and poke me with a stick.
A couple of years ago. I was bivving in a wood not far from my home. I had got to the wood late in the afternoon. I had not used this wood before as it had a sinister feel about it. Dark and brooding. I told myself I was being silly. There was nothing to worry about. as I got deeper in to the wood the dark and broody feeling did not get better. In fact it got a lot worse. The Sun was going down fast and it was to late to go back now.I came into a small clearing perfrect to bed down in except the hears on the back of my head told me otherwise. A cold chill hit me down my spine like lightning and made me jump quit badly. I moved off about 20 m away from the clearing and the feeling went away. It was getting quit dark now in the wood. The sky was still light but getting darker blue. I did not light a fire as I got the feeling what ever it was would not like it. I put my Y shaped walking stike in the ground rested my rucksack aganst it as a pillow and got in to my bivvi. I lay very still stearing at the sky. there was a gentle breeze blowing making the trees tops sway like ripe corn in a field. Then I looked over to the clearing at first it did not make sence. So I looked all around me at the tree tops. All the trees around me where swaying in the same direction except in the clearing. The trees all around the clearing where all bending in differant directions as if there was a gale blowing. At first I said to myself it must be a wind vortex but as my eyes got use to the dark all the other trees only the very tops where swaying in a light wind. In the clearing the trees around the edge all the branches where going wild even the branches at the bottom. Thats when I realised I could hear the leafs on the trees in the wood all around me blowing gently but I could not hear them in the clearing 20 m away the leafs and branches where thrashing wildly and the tops of the trees thay where bumping in to one another. Not a sound from them. At this point I bottled out complty put my head in the bivvi and pulled the drawstring tight. I must have nodded off as the next thing I know it was morning the Sun was shining and the Birds where singing and I am never I repeat never going in to that wood again.
I dont think the popular media has done much for our being scared of tthe dark.
I'm not saying the cave men werent scared of the dark becausethere was something out there that gave him the heebejeebies, dont forget he used fire to keep the dark away, and we still get a mental or moral lift when we are sat next too a fire.
What I mean is that all these spooky films from the last 100 years of cinema are hightening our sense of foreboding. If it was in a book, and you didnt like the sound of it you could leave it on the shelf, not so with a film.
As for our "sixth sense" telling us the woods are bad, in part this is our imagination caused by above, but there are things out there that make us feel uneasy. Fear is a survival instinct, listen too it, and dont go inside the stone circle at night, or the lords and ladies will get ya'.
I'm not saying the cave men werent scared of the dark becausethere was something out there that gave him the heebejeebies, dont forget he used fire to keep the dark away, and we still get a mental or moral lift when we are sat next too a fire.
What I mean is that all these spooky films from the last 100 years of cinema are hightening our sense of foreboding. If it was in a book, and you didnt like the sound of it you could leave it on the shelf, not so with a film.
As for our "sixth sense" telling us the woods are bad, in part this is our imagination caused by above, but there are things out there that make us feel uneasy. Fear is a survival instinct, listen too it, and dont go inside the stone circle at night, or the lords and ladies will get ya'.
Something similar has happened to me about a year to the day after someone died I was in a car accident. I was in the car, upside down heading towards a concrete fence post, nothing between me and it except the windscreen, watching the bloody thing come towards me, then the car rolled again, missing the post and coming to rest right way up in a river, on the only part of sloping bank for at least 100 yeards in each direction. What made the car roll again, missing the post? What made the car miss the 20ft drops into the water? Wat brought it right way up, with my door already ajar? You cant tell me ALL that is luck.billyblade said:
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Just wondered, did you start follwing it from the link I posted on the Bushcraft USA forum? I like to think I'm doing my bit for Anglo-American relations.
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