A fear of nothing !!

[OldFellah]

As a fisherman who has fished at night and alone since quite a young age I have always felt comfortable and quite at home by the waterside in the hours of darkness. One of my great pleasures used to be sea trout fishing and for many years I fished all over the UK for these wonderful fish, sometimes with friends but often alone. One summer about 25 years ago I convinced my wife that the family would enjoy a couple of weeks holiday in a West Country cottage and as it happens the selected cottage just happened to come complete with a stretch of a lovely Cornish sea trout river. Lucky me !
On arrival I took a stroll down through the woods to the valley bottom and became very excited by the wonderful stretch of river that I found waiting for me. Several good pools, nice and open for fly fishing, were on the beat with a good deep flow running through them and many yards of gravel runs above and below. Heaven indeed and I could not wait to wet a line.
At twilight I made my way down through the woods and reached the chosen pool just as the last rays of sunlight were swallowed up by the wooded far bank of the river. As those sea trout anglers amongst you will know it is always a time of eager anticipation when you sit waiting for darkness to fully envelope the landscape and especially when you can hear the occasional splash of a running sea trout. So it was for me as I sat quietly on a rock, so very excited about the fishing to come. As I tidied up my fishing bag and clipped up my waders I suddenly had the most oppressive feeling of dread pass over me. I looked up and other than a thin band of mist drifting up the bank there was nothing to be seen that could be the source of such a feeling. The hackles on my neck actually stood up and I started to shake in total terror. I spent several minutes trying to get a grip on myself but eventually the fear became so great that I could do no more than grab my tackle and rush back through the woods to the cottage. My wife was astonished to see me back before midnight and even more shocked by my ashen face. I stood in the hallway shaking and unable to speak with any degree of control for about ten minutes.
A very strange experience that took me to levels of terror that I would never have believed I could feel. I never saw anything spooky, never heard anything spooky and to this day cannot understand exactly why I should had become so terrified for no apparent reason.
I did fish the river with some success in the days that followed but I never ventured to that particular pool again.

[Trevor]

How strange. I've never experienced anything of that sort, and hopefully never will!

[Snape]

What a horrible experience.
I tend to think that these are deep, ingrained, primordial responses to things were are not always conscience of but our 'reptilian' brain picks up on them and sends out the signals to induce the flight response. Also a form of positive feedback occurs whereby the unexpected sense of dread which it started with, being something you do not understand, scares you a bit, which increases the feeling of dread, which scares you more and the more scared you get, the more scared you continue to get until you panic.

[Gary Bills]

We call it "panic", after the ancient Greek god of he wild, the goat-footed Pan.

[GazTheAngler]

I tend to agree with the fine scientific mind of our friend Snape.

All part of our so called sixth sense which goes back to our far past, no less scary for that.

The same thing triggers sometimes with films and books, you can be an avid reader of horror and other fiction and films of the same genre but sometimes you will read/see something that triiggers off an unreasonable feeling of fear. I never finished reading IT by Stephen King because it made me feel so creeped out. The TV series however was a bit of a joke and ne'er raised a hackle.

Gaz

[The Sweetcorn Kid]

Tell it to Casper!!!!

[Gary Bills]

As I say, the Greeks knew about such sudden fears in the wild, and blamed it on a god: so it's an experience very deep and ancient in human history.
Sometimes we do seem to sense - something. My mother in law died in January and, a few weeks later, on a working day at the computer, I'd popped downstairs into our kitchen to make me a sandwich. I was toasting the bread and staring out through the double doors, into our so-called garden, when I gasped. I gasped because I knew someone was right behind me - a person, no doubt about it. I heard nothing, saw nothing - I was facing the other way, in fact - but I was shaking.
I spun round, just in time to see a flash of blue and grey retreating into the living room - then, nothing.
My thoughts were pleasant and not morbid before the experience - but I certainly experienced that sudden change of mood - the fear of the unknown. Was it my mother in law? Who knows? If so, she wouldn't have hurt me.

[GazTheAngler]

Another from me.

I worked in Germany in 1993 and wasn't having a great time. I've decided to cut my tour short and felt a bit better knowing I only had a few months to go. I late december I woke with a start one night because I'd dream't my Grandmother was sitting on the end of my bed. She lived with us at home and was elderly. No motre than a day or so later(slight memory dim as it was 20 years ago, but i think it was the next day) I got all from home saying she had died. Most odd!!

I'm sure i dream't her being in my room, but?

Gaz