I had a lot of fears in childhood, and after childhood, until probably the age of 14 or 15. It may be too much to say that all of them were related to the lack of stereovision, yet I am starting to see some interesting patterns.
One of the fears that I had was the fear of falling on the tracks in the subway. I would look at them, and think of this possibility, that I may right now come to the edge of the platform and end up on the tracks. Then I would look at the tracks and try to figure out if there was enough room in between them for me. I don't think I was every able to answer that. As an alternative strategy, I was thinking about walking forward until the end of the station. So I figured out which way, but then there was this question, where on the station can I fall and still have enough time to go to the end (or the beginning, whatever you call it) of the station, if the train is already close. I also took note when there were segments between two stations that included some room on the side, not on the tracks. I thought that I could hide there if I ended up on the tracks between two stations, and somehow there was a train coming.
I actually had a dream about this fear - a nightmare, technically speaking. I was at a subway station and was going to its end where there was an escalator outside or to another station, does not matter. However, the floor was slippery and I was slowly moving to the side, toward the tracks. If I was to the left from the middle line going along the length of the station, I would be sliding towards the track on the left. If I was on the right from the middle line, I would be sliding towards the right. However, every time I moved to the center line, I overcrossed it a little bit, and started to slide towards the other track, alternating between left and right...
I was very scared entering apartment buildings with dark stairs and old-fashioned elevators. After a story that gained .publicity in the Russian media when a man entered an elevator with a boy, and if I am correct, killed the boy, took some of his organs out, did something really scary. I remember being told this story:
- And so the maniac entered the elevator, and the boy also entered the elevator.
- But why did the boy enter? / my question - I meant, why did the boy enter an elevator with a maniac /
It turned out that there were maniacs who could not be perceived directly, but you had to make sure not to enter any elevator together with one of them. Now, I never imagined that I could be forced into an elevator. Instead, I was afraid that I may end up being near an open elevator and near a maniac, because then we may end up together in the elevator. So I tried to not go near the entrance to the elevator on any floor. Gradually, certain kinds of stairs became intrinsically scary.
Once I was going to a teacher with whom I studied English privately - I was 8 or 9 years old. I opened the front door to the building - and there was some man facing me and walking downstairs directly toward me. I got very scared, ran back to the subway, and called home using some of the money I had to pay for the class. I did not think that this man was a maniac, nor did I visualize any particular scenario. I just had fear of the inside of this apartment building (of the stairs and other spaces, but not including individual apartments), and this man was only a material manifestation.
After I heard about the Tokyo subway gas attack, I became afraid of being in the subway, and specifically in the trains, and sometimes I would think I could smell gas and get quite scared. If the train stopped in the middle of the tunnel, that was sometimes also scary. Then I also started thinking how we would be getting out of the train, how to open the emergency exit, which way we would be walking, and how to not get under "another" train going in the same tunnel.
Gradually I extended it to being afraid of similar things at home. Sometimes I would prepare to leave the apartment, but then I would start to doubt if the stove was on or off. The stove had handles, and if they were off, then they were all turned to the right all the way into the horizontal position. When the stove was on, the handles would be more vertical. There was no automatic spark, so it was perfectly possible to open the handle, but the gas would be coming out.
The problem was, I did not believe when I saw that all handles were at the off position. I would position my face directly in front of the handles, and I would trace with my eyes a horizontal line passing through all the handles and looking perpendicular to the front surface of the stove, in order to make sure that all the handles were off. If I was not able to move my gaze along a horizontal line, but deviated a little bit, then I would retrace until I convinced myself that the stove was indeed off.
Not all of the dreams that had to do with space were nightmares. In one dream some man took me a few meters underground. We walked down a wooden ladder, and there was a small bar down there. I was explained I was going to work there, for that bar. As I was not very happy with this idea, another man ordered to "show me the Moon" to make my life a little bit better.
Somebody opened another door in the same bar, I looked into it, and right in front of me thee was a full Moon. The Moon was maybe like an observation wheel, or maybe smaller. I remember that the color was yellow or lime, but I am not sure if the color was solid. Around the Moon there was a deep blue sky. The Moon was in front of me, perhaps 5 meters. Then I looked down, through the space between me (standing in the bar, looking through an open door that allows you to "see the Moon"), and there was the city. The city was down there, under where I was and under the Moon. I am not sure, which "the city" it was, but the Moon was located relative to the city the way that it should be. The city looked a little bit like it was from a fairly tale book. It was somehow implied that the city was on the same level as the original place from where I went downstairs to the bar.
I started losing my balance and had to hold one of the sides of the door to make sure I do not fall out. The man who opened the door so I could "see the Moon" said "Do not fall on the Moon". The Moon was right here, big and yellow, right in front of me, taking much of my visual space, and I was afraid to "fall on it". The city was down there, and I was not afraid to fall on or into the city.
As another dream related to spatial orientation, I recall a dream where I was a passenger in a trolleybus with a drunk driver. The trolley-bus was crossing a bridge (there are many bridges in St.Petersburg, Russia), and the driver did not notice that the trolley-bus was moving to the side of the bridge, and eventually entirely left its limit. Then it "fell" into the river in the sense that the horizontal suface of the water moved up relative to the trolley-bus. I think, the level of the wheels became below the level of the surface of the water, yet no water was coming in. There were no splashed from the wall, and the trolleybus did not lean before falling, it just fell by moving straight down, verticallly, as a single block.
One of the fears that I had was the fear of falling on the tracks in the subway. I would look at them, and think of this possibility, that I may right now come to the edge of the platform and end up on the tracks. Then I would look at the tracks and try to figure out if there was enough room in between them for me. I don't think I was every able to answer that. As an alternative strategy, I was thinking about walking forward until the end of the station. So I figured out which way, but then there was this question, where on the station can I fall and still have enough time to go to the end (or the beginning, whatever you call it) of the station, if the train is already close. I also took note when there were segments between two stations that included some room on the side, not on the tracks. I thought that I could hide there if I ended up on the tracks between two stations, and somehow there was a train coming.
I actually had a dream about this fear - a nightmare, technically speaking. I was at a subway station and was going to its end where there was an escalator outside or to another station, does not matter. However, the floor was slippery and I was slowly moving to the side, toward the tracks. If I was to the left from the middle line going along the length of the station, I would be sliding towards the track on the left. If I was on the right from the middle line, I would be sliding towards the right. However, every time I moved to the center line, I overcrossed it a little bit, and started to slide towards the other track, alternating between left and right...
I was very scared entering apartment buildings with dark stairs and old-fashioned elevators. After a story that gained .publicity in the Russian media when a man entered an elevator with a boy, and if I am correct, killed the boy, took some of his organs out, did something really scary. I remember being told this story:
- And so the maniac entered the elevator, and the boy also entered the elevator.
- But why did the boy enter? / my question - I meant, why did the boy enter an elevator with a maniac /
It turned out that there were maniacs who could not be perceived directly, but you had to make sure not to enter any elevator together with one of them. Now, I never imagined that I could be forced into an elevator. Instead, I was afraid that I may end up being near an open elevator and near a maniac, because then we may end up together in the elevator. So I tried to not go near the entrance to the elevator on any floor. Gradually, certain kinds of stairs became intrinsically scary.
Once I was going to a teacher with whom I studied English privately - I was 8 or 9 years old. I opened the front door to the building - and there was some man facing me and walking downstairs directly toward me. I got very scared, ran back to the subway, and called home using some of the money I had to pay for the class. I did not think that this man was a maniac, nor did I visualize any particular scenario. I just had fear of the inside of this apartment building (of the stairs and other spaces, but not including individual apartments), and this man was only a material manifestation.
After I heard about the Tokyo subway gas attack, I became afraid of being in the subway, and specifically in the trains, and sometimes I would think I could smell gas and get quite scared. If the train stopped in the middle of the tunnel, that was sometimes also scary. Then I also started thinking how we would be getting out of the train, how to open the emergency exit, which way we would be walking, and how to not get under "another" train going in the same tunnel.
Gradually I extended it to being afraid of similar things at home. Sometimes I would prepare to leave the apartment, but then I would start to doubt if the stove was on or off. The stove had handles, and if they were off, then they were all turned to the right all the way into the horizontal position. When the stove was on, the handles would be more vertical. There was no automatic spark, so it was perfectly possible to open the handle, but the gas would be coming out.
The problem was, I did not believe when I saw that all handles were at the off position. I would position my face directly in front of the handles, and I would trace with my eyes a horizontal line passing through all the handles and looking perpendicular to the front surface of the stove, in order to make sure that all the handles were off. If I was not able to move my gaze along a horizontal line, but deviated a little bit, then I would retrace until I convinced myself that the stove was indeed off.
Not all of the dreams that had to do with space were nightmares. In one dream some man took me a few meters underground. We walked down a wooden ladder, and there was a small bar down there. I was explained I was going to work there, for that bar. As I was not very happy with this idea, another man ordered to "show me the Moon" to make my life a little bit better.
Somebody opened another door in the same bar, I looked into it, and right in front of me thee was a full Moon. The Moon was maybe like an observation wheel, or maybe smaller. I remember that the color was yellow or lime, but I am not sure if the color was solid. Around the Moon there was a deep blue sky. The Moon was in front of me, perhaps 5 meters. Then I looked down, through the space between me (standing in the bar, looking through an open door that allows you to "see the Moon"), and there was the city. The city was down there, under where I was and under the Moon. I am not sure, which "the city" it was, but the Moon was located relative to the city the way that it should be. The city looked a little bit like it was from a fairly tale book. It was somehow implied that the city was on the same level as the original place from where I went downstairs to the bar.
I started losing my balance and had to hold one of the sides of the door to make sure I do not fall out. The man who opened the door so I could "see the Moon" said "Do not fall on the Moon". The Moon was right here, big and yellow, right in front of me, taking much of my visual space, and I was afraid to "fall on it". The city was down there, and I was not afraid to fall on or into the city.
As another dream related to spatial orientation, I recall a dream where I was a passenger in a trolleybus with a drunk driver. The trolley-bus was crossing a bridge (there are many bridges in St.Petersburg, Russia), and the driver did not notice that the trolley-bus was moving to the side of the bridge, and eventually entirely left its limit. Then it "fell" into the river in the sense that the horizontal suface of the water moved up relative to the trolley-bus. I think, the level of the wheels became below the level of the surface of the water, yet no water was coming in. There were no splashed from the wall, and the trolleybus did not lean before falling, it just fell by moving straight down, verticallly, as a single block.
Hi Sergey,
ReplyDeleteI have a list of fears as well and most of them involve space and/or movement through space. I am clastrophobic and only discovered this when going for an MRI and exploding with panic when I was put into the tube. I am also deathly afraid of roller coasters or any other amusement park ride. I was once taken off a childs ride (I was 30!) becasue I was "scaring the children!!!" I only went on the ride to prove to my husband that I was deathly afraid (strange logic!). My other phobias; heights, needles, snakes... Despite all of these phobias, I am a pretty extroverted person!