Does observing trigger agoraphobia?

[overlord (Charles)]

Sometimes I used to get scared looking out into the big open sky at night.

Once one is consicous of all the empty space between one and the galaxies, well it almost seems like one is about to 'fall into it'.

I have another agrophobic experience from distorted mirrors.

I am terrified of what may be seen.... IN BETWEEN FOCUSING ON AN ACCURATE IMAGE. That is, a quantum mechanical apparition.

I often have someone focus a star for me and THEN I can observe.

An out of focus star swooning into vision can sometimes terrify me as I see this big lumbering disc coming at me.

I don't always feel like this. More when I Was younger.

Anyone else feel like this?

[ZeroID (Brent)]

No, although I do get a sense of the awesome spaces around us. I used to conceive the sky as a flat pictured dome above but now I see the depth and the '3D' effect even just looking up naked eyed.
It can be quite intimidating in that sense sometimes but that just gets replaced with an amazing sense of wonderment at the majesty of it all.

[cometcatcher (Kevin)]

I'm thinking this explains your ghost then.

[pgc hunter]

Definition of Agoraphobia: an anxiety disorder characterized by anxiety in situations where it is perceived to be difficult or embarrassing to escape.

Do I get Agoraphobia when observing? No I do not.

[silv (Annette)]

sorry to hear your astronomical joy is impaired by this.

My brother had a phase in his late 30s, early 40s when he could not look into the cloudless daytime sky for fear his soul might get sucked out of him into that vast blue emptiness above.
For him, it seemed to have to do with a general feeling of insecurity in his life. For years now, he has been okay, though.

Intriguing, what the brain can perceive / imagine.

All the best to you!

[xstream (John)]

Some posts have been deleted.
As a reminder bullying and intimidation will not be tolerated.

[overlord (Charles)]

Cheers guys.

Well I always used to get spooked out by ghosts and stuff. Watching 'Unsolved Mysteries' and reading books about Aliens made me quite scared of them as a child and I always had to switch on the lights in the house.

The ghost thing... I was 12, reading a book in bed and I see an apparition which looked like some medieval monk with a degraded face and a torn ripped up grey cloth silently walk by in the hallway. I was like: 'Did I just see that?' Then I was like: 'Oh......My....... God........' and I Was in shock for a while. that was the realest apparition i've ever seen, I guess consistent with ideas of pubescent people, in particular girls I suppose, having a link with the spirit world.

Hey, I remember that I used to get a feeling that the moon was watching me.

In particular the full moon!

Did you guys have this?

I have read about this elsewhere on the internet. I feel this is connected to the fear of the open spaces.

Maybe the light or general ambiance exerts some effect on the brain waves.

David Icke has his own theory that the moon is some telepathic entity stealing or controlling our thoughts. One will only consider this if one agrees with Gaia ideas.

[brian nordstrom (As avatar)]

On that , you just reminded me of this house we rented years ago in the country , it was small and had 2 rooms . One of the rooms was decked out as a guest room and it was COLD ! even mid summer .
Every time we had people staying , without a word of a lie they would be on the couch in the living room the next morning . Not much was ever said , embarresment ?
I would not go into this room when I was home alone , spooky it was .
True story .
We never found out why as we moved fairly quickly from that place .
Brian.

[GeoffW1 (Geoff)]

Originally Posted by xstream

Some posts have been deleted.
As a reminder bullying and intimidation will not be tolerated.

OMG, how dismal for IIS that this became necessary. Well done John.

Chuck,

First a disclaimer, I'm no psychologist, but I've done a bit of reading for family reasons. My general impressions are :

- if you can go outside and look up into the night sky nowadays, you probably don't have agoraphobia badly anymore, so take heart. The idea is to stop it getting a grip on you again

- you have mentioned the feeling of falling into black space when looking down the EP? I have felt this, not greatly, but a tweak

- it seems that such feelings can be treated by carefully managed exposure to that which causes anxiety, so you might like to try such a program. It is called "cognitive behavioural therapy", and this means it aims at changing your way of thinking about what you see

- for instance, you would look at a defocussed image, and instead of thinking "horrible object swooping at you", you would eventually think "reach for focus knob"

- then of course there are drugs, but I'd hazard a guess that would be overkill for you

- I also saw that this sort of therapy can be done on the Net, long-distance, so it needn't impose a straitjacket on you as you would be in control of the program

Now after this I'm out of my depth, but if I can suggest a direction or two, that's the aim.

Cheers