thardey
Master Black Belt
There was a thread on another section of this site that went of track, and had to be reigned in by the Moderators, but it brought up an interesting point, that may be worth a thread on its own.
Is anybody willing to share what has happened to you physically, or psychologically when in situations of extreme danger? Please include whether it was a surprise, or planned, and how you reacted after the danger had passed. It doesn't need to be too detailed or specific, just enough to give an idea to others on what can happen.
Did you have tunnel vision, did everything go "slow-motion", did you sort of "blank out", and not remember what you did? Did you have "Sir Robin's" syndrome ("I've just soiled myself!" - be honest!). What happened to you?
I'll start:
I was out on a back road on my motorcycle, going faster than was wise, and accelerating. At a certain speed, it was as though my sense of self-preservation sort of shorted out. I wasn't scared anymore, I wasn't thrilled, I was a machine. At the same time, everything went into hyper-focus, and sort of slowed down. I remember simultaneously watching my dials, calculating how much faster I could go before I hit redline, counting each of the little yellow lines and they zipped under my feet, and generally absorbing everything happening around me in crystal clarity. (The opposite of tunnel vision.) I remember thinking "at this speed, if anything unusual happens to me, I will probably die", and then I thought "Oh." And that was it.
When I slowed down, back to a sane speed, it was as though all of the emotion that had been suspended for the last 30 seconds or so hit me all at once, and I got very scared, even though I was now in the "safety zone". I had to pull over and stop, I was shaking so bad. I talked to a WWII fighter pilot about it not long after that, and he said they got that in dogfighting, and they called it "the Zone".
When I've been in emergency traffic situations, I drop into that zone again, even if it's a surprise, and kick out of it just as quickly, then get scared afterwards. (BTW I've never ridden that fast since - it's not really wisdom, it just wasn't than much fun.)
What about you guys? How do you react?
Is anybody willing to share what has happened to you physically, or psychologically when in situations of extreme danger? Please include whether it was a surprise, or planned, and how you reacted after the danger had passed. It doesn't need to be too detailed or specific, just enough to give an idea to others on what can happen.
Did you have tunnel vision, did everything go "slow-motion", did you sort of "blank out", and not remember what you did? Did you have "Sir Robin's" syndrome ("I've just soiled myself!" - be honest!). What happened to you?
I'll start:
I was out on a back road on my motorcycle, going faster than was wise, and accelerating. At a certain speed, it was as though my sense of self-preservation sort of shorted out. I wasn't scared anymore, I wasn't thrilled, I was a machine. At the same time, everything went into hyper-focus, and sort of slowed down. I remember simultaneously watching my dials, calculating how much faster I could go before I hit redline, counting each of the little yellow lines and they zipped under my feet, and generally absorbing everything happening around me in crystal clarity. (The opposite of tunnel vision.) I remember thinking "at this speed, if anything unusual happens to me, I will probably die", and then I thought "Oh." And that was it.
When I slowed down, back to a sane speed, it was as though all of the emotion that had been suspended for the last 30 seconds or so hit me all at once, and I got very scared, even though I was now in the "safety zone". I had to pull over and stop, I was shaking so bad. I talked to a WWII fighter pilot about it not long after that, and he said they got that in dogfighting, and they called it "the Zone".
When I've been in emergency traffic situations, I drop into that zone again, even if it's a surprise, and kick out of it just as quickly, then get scared afterwards. (BTW I've never ridden that fast since - it's not really wisdom, it just wasn't than much fun.)
What about you guys? How do you react?