Ask Lemmy

I've told this before but.

Once while camping alone with my dog, we had a long event less day of hiking, fell asleep soundly for a while until around 4am.

My dog laid on top of me, and lowly growled waking me up. I calmed her down thinking she just had a bad dream or something, but then something rustled near our tent.

I peaked out of the side window of the tent and, in the faint full moon light I saw a black blob, not the size of a bear but more like a hog. I have never been near one but I have heard horror stories about hogs

Only thing I could do was lay down and keep my dog calm so she wouldn't bark, I've heard if you startle a hog it's more likely to charge than run away. We must have laid there for half an hour or so when I finally felt sure enough the hog had moved along.

I spent about 3 minutes quietly unzipping the door one tooth at a time, once it was fully open I picked up my dog and booked it to the truck, tossed her into the passenger side, ran to the driver's side and slammed myself in.

Turned on the truck and headlights and there they were. About 4-5 hogs at the edge of the brush staring back at me, the sudden light made them all book out out of there. We slept in the truck until sun up, struck the camp site and went home.

Being on the receiving end of mortar fire.

When I confronted my now ex-wife about my suspicions of her cheating. The fears were justified.

I was once on the 17th floor of a building on fire (5 alarms and multiple deaths), and the fire happened to start directly across the hall from me. I thought I was going to die, but that fear was nothing compared to the thought of the person I love doing that to me.

Took too many mushrooms one night and I have tripped a couple hundred times. But these were particularly strong bois and I started to believe I was having a heart attack, it was only a panic attack, but I seriously thought I was dying from a heart attack. I was begging my wife who had taken two times as many as I had to call 911. She did her best to stay calm and remind me that I was just tripping on mushrooms and I told her I knew that I was tripping on mushrooms but something was wrong with my heart because I was freaking out and I could tell my heart was beating too fast. At one point she even stuck a Fitbit on my wrist and told me to look at my heart rate, and when I looked at it of course I couldn't read it because everything was just pixelated and swirling fractals. But somehow she was able to read it and said your heart rate is only 118 which I was able to confirm the next day from the data on my phone. I was crying and holding my chest and I kept throwing myself in a cold shower trying to calm myself down but time was all fucked up and moments were happening out of order and all I could think about was how my daughter was going to wake up in the morning without her father. I kept running through the house completely naked and freezing wet. Trying desperately to grasp onto something to send me back to reality. But everywhere I went it didn't matter because I knew I was dying from a heart attack and my wife who I couldn't believe at the time refuse to call 911 and save me. In retrospect, I'm so glad she did not lol. I haven't taken mushroom since. I'm too scared. They are not to be fucked with if you're not in the right state of mind. I really appreciate that trip though, it really made me appreciate life a whole lot more when I woke up the next day. I've never been more scared my entire life and I'm pretty sure I know exactly what it's going to be like when I actually do die. It was somewhat peaceful but it was taking too long in the moment and especially because time was not flowing correctly and everything was happening out of order It made me really panic. It just seemed like it was taking way too long. I suppose when I actually die time won't do that because presumably I won't be tripping when it happens lol.

When I was working the graveyard shift at a service station and a junkie put a knife to my throat and suggested that the money in the register should really be in his pocket.

Holding my limp child in my arms. She was fine, but it was the worst 30 seconds of my life.

When I was in my early twenties, I lived with my brothers in my oldest brother's house. It was a new construction home in a fairly ritzy suburb of a large city in the US.

During this time, I was attending college and working part time at Gamestop. One of my brothers was working at Chipotle at the time, so there were some afternoons that we'd both have off and we'd be chillin at the house together. One afternoon while my oldest brother and his wife were at work, my brother and I were in the living room playing Diablo 3. All of the sudden I hear this weird old song playing from the loft and I instantly whipped my head around towards the loft, trying to figure out what tf it was. It wasn't a song or a tune I've ever heard in my life before. The thing is, my brother whipped his heads towards the loft the exact second I did because he heard it too. We looked at each other for a second, and decided to investigate. Everything in the upstairs area was ours, too - we moved in right when my oldest brother and his wife bought the house, and they left that whole area for us. We both knew we didn't own anything that could've played the little song we heard. Haven't heard it since.

Not too long afterwards, while i was still living with my brothers in the same house, another incident occurred. I was upstairs in my room, and it was probably around midnight. I had turned off my Xbox and TV, and was just laying in bed on my phone in the dark, when my pup started lightly growling. My dog is pretty smart, friendly, and really perceptive. He doesn't growl at anything unless he perceives a threat. He is always chill and silent throughout the night. But that night, he went from chillin' in bed with me with his head on my chest, to instantly sitting upright, intently staring and growling at a spot on the wall to my right. I didn't think much of it right away, and just tried to calm him down, but he just got more rigid and starting growling a little louder, still stating at the one spot. I sat upright, turned on my lamp, and looked around the wall to see if I saw a bug or a small critter, but there was nothing. He suddenly starts darting his eyes around that same wall as if he was following something that was moving quickly. All of the sudden, he whips his head and darts his eyes to a spot maybe 5 ft above my head. I look immediately above me, and see nothing at all. I felt an insane feeling of dread, grabbed my dog and ran to my brothers room across the hall, and asked if I could spend the night with him. I was way too fucking scared to go back to my room that night. Nothing like that ever happened again.

Not sure what either of those, and things like that don't normally happen to me. Which is probably why it's so scary to me. I don't think I believe in ghosts or demons or anything like that, but idk what to think of these instances. Could've been nothing, or could've been something I can't see/perceive. The thought of the latter scares me.

I was out for a drive with 4 other friends packed into a tiny car, decades ago when we were all early twenties. I was driving, and we were just cruising the streets, turning this way and that, high spirits and chatting and laughing away. We came down off a hill joining one suburb to another, and turned off into a side street. It was a dead end street, in a pretty dark and deserted industrial area. We knew the street well, as it was short, but you wouldn't go down it if you didn't need to, as it only led to factories and such. It was late, perhaps a little after midnight. As we got about 50 metres or so in (maybe halfway), we all instantly stopped talking simultaneously, and every one of us, including myself, froze in what I can only describe as pure terror. I hit the brakes, and stopped in the middle of the road for a second, before slamming the car in reverse and stamping on the accelerator full tit in reverse, without even turning around, I couldn't even turn my head. To this day it's hard to describe why, in the normal light of day. My current wife (then just a friend) was in the car too, and she hates it if I even bring it up. All I can say is we sensed such a darkness, a dense evil beyond comprehension, right outside the car. A sense of an abysmal vanta-black presence in front and to the left of the car. Nothing visible to the naked eye, but with perfect post-event unified description by all 5 people in the car. None of us spoke for a good 20 minutes afterwards, and the night of fun was over. It was horrifying, and I will never go into that street again. A vague sense of some atrocious tortuous event that occurred there in the past maybe, don't know? And we were all very stable regular young people, no alcohol or drugs etc involved. I know spooky stuff probably wasn't on the menu, but that's sure it for me

Two times, but both are similar incidents:

The first was when my oldest was nearly 1. He was running a fever and we called the doctor to see what to do. The doctor suggested a lukewarm bath to bring his temperature down. This seemed to help and my wife went to get a towel. As she came back, my son looked up at her, but it was like he was looking through her. Then, his eyes rolled back in his head and he went limp.

I grabbed my son and shouted his name. There was no response and he was turning blue. My wife called 911 and her parents as I put him on the bed. The only thing that came to mind was "stop him from swallowing his tongue." (This isn't a thing I later found out, but I was panicking.) The emergency crews came as he started breathing again.

At the hospital, they said it was a febrile seizure and it can happen with infants/young kids. It's harmless most times, but very scary.

The second incident was with my younger son. He started running a fever and the doctor recommended a lukewarm bath. I think you can see where this is going and so did I at the time. I told my wife to get the towel beforehand. She also called her parents and they came over before we put him in the bath.

Sure enough, our younger son was fine until he stopped responding. Only he didn't turn blue. He turned grey. And he didn't start breathing again on his own. We called 911 and my mother-in-law did rescue breaths on him.

I was running from the front door, looking for the ambulance, to the bedroom - watching my mother-in-law trying to help my lifeless son breathe. My father-in-law told me that I didn't need to run back and forth. He said he'd look for the ambulance. I told him that I couldn't just watch my son lifeless like that. I needed to DO something. Even if it was completely useless, I needed to be doing something.

My younger son finally started breathing on his own and was fine. He went on to have many more febrile seizures until he (FINALLY) grew out of them. (He also had a tendency to fall and hit his head thanks to a hip issue. I swear that half of my grey hairs are thanks to him!)

I got the tiniest glimpse of what losing a child might feel like and it was scarier than I could handle. Even writing this out is raising my anxiety. I never want to feel that way ever again.

Getting beat up by a group of Nazis. When they started kicking my head I thought I was going to die.

24 February 2022.

Ran out of gas in the wee hours, was walking to a house with lights on to call for help, got noticed and chased by a pack of stray dogs, ran back to my car, fumbled and dropped keys, barely got in and shut the door before the car rocked with the force of several snarling bodies hitting it.

Either hearing cougars screaming near my tent, or — in the same place — getting lost in the woods and hearing tree-shaking sounds that were probably bears.

Faced a loose Pitbull when walking the streets on my own. It wasn't until then that I realised a dog is completely capable of killing me and there would be nothing I could do to stop it.

Fortunately, it turned out to be quite friendly, and the owners came looking for it a few minutes later.

I've not gone through anything too wild, but here's a few...

1. When my parents were getting a divorce, my mom moved us out into an apartment. My dad came by, enraged. There was a bit of an argument and he pulled her outside the front door and pressed her up against it. Since the door opened outward and he was pushing her into the door with his full body weight, I wasn't able to open the door. I started screaming at him because I was afraid he was going to kill her and I couldn't get to her. I was trapped inside not sure if I was about to watch my mom die. Thankfully he didn't and he eventually let her go, but I had no idea in that moment what he was capable of. She has been divorced from him for I think almost 10 years now which is good!

2. Some other time there was a lot of turbulence on a plane ride and I'm a bit of a wuss lol.

Not so much scared but really freaked out to a point were we just said "fuck it, let's get out of here and never talk about it again".

It was a really warm and nice summer day some years back. I was out with my brother strolling through the countryside with my brother. In just a t-shirt, shorts and barefoot. We took some LSD and really just enjoyed having a very scenic and relaxing walk.

So we were just strolling along, walking between some fields and the edge of a small forest, when it started to smell quite badly. That's not that unsual near fields, so we walked on. There was a small clearing in the forest and there was a hunting stand. We continued to walk across the clearing and the smell got worse. Then one of us discovered something on the ground. It was a patch of bloody fur.

Now we're both expirenced with LSD and hadn't taken that much, but we still confirmed with each other that we're both looking a bit of bloody fur and made sure we saw and smelled all the same things. We did. After some more walking we discovered more and more bloody bits of fur, flesh and even some bones. They were sprinkeld all over the place. It looked like some animal literally exploded. Though there was no main body, just the bits and pieces everywhere.

At this point we again confirmed with each other that what we saw and that we're both in control and not tripping.

We then decided that this all was a bit too much and we should head home and not worrie about it right now. On the way home we confirmed with each other again that this actually just happened. But I've rarley thought or talked about it since then.

I've been in an enclosure with a 15 foot King Cobra. Not that

Having a green tree viper on my head. Not that

Face down with a rabid monkey in Malaysia. Not that

Having a large scorpion crawl up my arm. Not that

Ending up riding on top of a shoplifters car hanging on for dear life while they tore round the carpark trying to shake me off. Not that

End over end rollover at over 100 kmh in my first car. Not that

Nearly drowning in a fast flowing river when I got dragged under. Close, but no cigar

Leaving my alcoholic ex. This was the scariest moment of my life

I witnessed a college kid, while shadowing an engineer, nearly lean on the exposed bus of a 1200A electrical panelboard while it was getting IR scanned. He and the engineer had a little aside about safety after that.

Probably when a meth head tried to break into my ground floor apartment.. doesn’t really hold a candle to some of the terrifying shit in this thread

Mine were a bit less acute than most cases here. It doesn't rank up to the kind of emotional trauma other people ITT have been through (though I'm not a complete stranger to that, either) but mine was when I realized my health is going to prevent me from ever doing what I want to and getting my shot at a reasonably happy life.

The slow dread of realizing decades of miserable, exhausting, bitter, mostly hopeless, unappreciated effort is void, and has been a complete waste - realizing that things "working out" is not really on the table anymore, and neither's anything else, much: all you can do is keep existing. That is easily #1.

Or realizing friends and family didn't have my back the way I thought and might actually join my list of a zillion problems. That was pretty scary.

Distant third, near misses in traffic - but frankly, I've had a stronger reaction from losing my fucking house keys. Almost got hit by a tram. Meh. Would've lost my appointment, I'm sure. Some shitheel trash in a BMW (because of course it was) tried scaring me by pretending to hit me while out for a walk, I'm like "😐 ... yeah? Make my day - in fact, throw it in reverse and get a proper run-up, you little bitch".

Nothing as scary as some of the people have mentioned.
The moment of terror I remember most vividly is when I helped my mom reverse park the car in our garage. I was about.. 13 I think. The car didn't have any parking sensors, so it was my job get out and stand behind the car to make sure it wouldn't hit the work desk at the end of the garage (it was a narrow garage, I couldn't stand to the side of it without getting my toes run over). I'd shout stop when the car was in far enough and that would be it, nothing special.
I don't know what happened that day, maybe she was distracted or something, but the car didn't stop. It just kept going further back, pushing me against that desk and squeezing my organs. At first I shouted louder, thinking she didn't hear me, but the car kept coming and by then it was too late to get out of the way. I ended up frantically hitting the rear window, shouting as loud as I could. In my mind the car was broken and would crush me against the edge of that desk. I thought I was going to die right there, getting killed by some freak accident. With just almost no room to spare the car finally stopped and drove forward.
Afterwards my mother said something along the line of "I thought you were joking". I was furious, but when I think back to it now, I suppose she was just as shocked and just didn't know what to say at the time.

I have long covid and during the initial stages I had some really bad tachycardia (unknown to me yet) that caused breathing issues. It hadn't been too bad until one day I was lying in bed unable to sleep, and suddenly I feel like every breath is getting me less and less air, even though I'm breathing normally.

I woke up my mom at ~4:30 AM (home because of long covid) and said I feel like I can't breathe. She asks if it's bad enough to go to the ER, and I say it might be. I decided to wait 15 minutes, my heartrate was going crazy and I must just be panicked, and that's why my heart rate is high and why it's hard to breathe.

Over those 15 minutes my heart rate climbs higher and I'm getting dizzy and hyperventilating and still breathless, and say I need to go now, I think I'm at the edge of where I could actually die.

We drive to a hospital and my heart rate slows down a little bit, and I figure I'm not gonna die in the next hour so I end up waiting, struggling to breathe, until 6AM when my primary care opens his office. They do some tests and say everything looks normal, but later a heart monitor would show my heartrate sometimes get to ~120, even while I'm lying in bed trying to sleep. I eventually learned that is what causes the breathlessness.

I've had that happen a couple times since, less frequently it seems, but when it does happen I'm always afraid that this is the time my heart finally gives out. Fortunately it's very rare and I've been able to do some cardio to hopefully help it be even more rare.

Once I had a night terror that was literally just something in my brain setting the "sourceless terror" dial to 11 and snapping off the knob.

I was a teenager. We were in a somewhat rural area just outside of the DFW, TX area. There was an abandoned housing development that became an urban legend called "Crazymans". The area had nothing but paved streets and a large tower in the center that kind of looked like a fake lighthouse or clocktower. Supposedly the developer lost all his money and murdered his wife at the tower or something like that. Kids would climb to the top and carve their names in the wood, drink and smoke, etc. The ladder was on the outside and it was somewhere around 3-4 stories high I would guess. It was the middle of the night and I was the first one in the group to go up. As I reached the top rung on the ladder a huge owl flew out and scared the shit out of me. I nearly fell but managed to climb up and sat down to wait for my heart to start beating again.

EDIT: https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2003-05-11-0305110459-story.html

When I woke up from flying through missiles and explosions. And the next day, when I went to get more groceries, I saw an air battle. Right over the damn supermarket.

Inside a tall building in Tokyo on 3/11. Feeling that building sway back and forth was the definition of NOT FUCKING FUN

Watching a tech nearly blow up half the building using unapproved equipment in an area full of volatile liquids and fumes.

I was screamed by an owl right in my face as I was walking home. I was in a massive park, it was getting dark, and my only way home was thru a bridge crossing a river. This owl was just sitting on the handrail. Tried to sneak up behind it; it didn't work out due to me stepping on a twig.