jezzedout
Scholar
- Joined
- Nov 1, 2006
- Messages
- 52
Long time lurker, infrequent poster. I have a bit of a dilemma and I’m hoping some of you rational thinkers may be able to help me. I have developed an irrational fear and I don’t as yet seem to be able to overcome it.
I’ll preface this by saying that I have always experienced very vivid dreams, recurring dreams, used to sleepwalk, and up to this day often talk in my sleep. I view this nocturnal activity as my brain or my subconscious processing information, images, and emotions that I don’t have time for in my waking hours.
One of the recurring dreams (I should say nightmares) I’ve had since I was a child involves very tall buildings – skyscrapers. In some of the earlier dreams, I would see the skyscraper, and was supposed to go into the building and take the elevator, but as I would enter the elevator I would be overcome with panic and would run out screaming that the building was going to fall. This is where I usually woke up. I had this same dream repeatedly several times a year until my mid 20s, always exiting the elevator, never actually going into the building for fear that the building was going to fall.
Around the time I was 25 (coincidentally, it was about a week after my father died), the dream changed. I still went running from the building in a panic, but this time, the building actually did come crashing down. For the next few years, the dream repeated in that version.
A few years after that, I dreamed that I did actually go into the elevator and to one of the high floors. As I look out the window, the building began to tip to the side. The dream is always the same. The building begins to tip, I hear myself say, “this is it”, and as the building falls I usually wake up.
Last year, I began having two other versions of the dream. In one, I’m outside the building as it begins to fall, and wake up just as it is about to crash down on top of me. In the other version, I’m in a different tall building looking out the window, and from that vantage point I watch as the other building goes toppling over.
Since childhood, I’ve probably had some version of this dream a few hundred times.
Despite these dreams, I was never afraid of heights and in my younger years I was actually fascinated with tall buildings and have visited some of the tallest buildings in the US. I’ve been to the top of Sears Tower, the Seattle Space Needle, the Southeast Financial Center in Miami, the St. Louis Arch, and the 85th floor of a building in NY next to the Crystler Building.
It wasn’t until I visited New York again in the late 90s that things got bad. I was planning to go to the top of the Empire State Building. I bought my ticket and was standing in line to go up the elevator, but the longer I stood there, the more anxious I became. By the time I got to the elevator, I was nearly having an anxiety attack. I left the line and asked for a refund. Completely out of character for me, yet it just felt like the right decision and I never regretted it.
Over the next couple of years, I found myself developing what I would describe as a late-blooming fear of heights. You could put me on a mountain cliff with a thousand foot drop and I’d have no problems. But put me on a catwalk three stories up in an apartment building and I’m in a panic. Very quickly, things that I had done many times before without problems were suddenly scary. The first time I went to San Francisco, I couldn’t wait to drive over the Golden Gate Bridge. I must have driven back and forth over the bridge a dozen times that weekend and enjoyed it immensely. Four years later, you couldn’t pay me money to drive on that bridge. So, my fear of heights is definitely centered on manmade structures… buildings, bridges, catwalks, and high freeway overpasses. By 2001, it had gotten so bad I couldn’t even ride an escalator on the third floor of the Beverly Center (if you’re not from LA, Beverly Center is a huge shopping complex).
I think to some degree my initial fears were fueled by having experienced first-hand the Northridge earthquake in 1994. I was living in Santa Monica, about 12 miles from the epicenter. Truly one of the most frightening things I’ve ever experienced. Several people died when freeway overpasses collapsed. Since then I'll actually go out of my way to avoid driving over some of the really high freeway overpasses. While not height related, I also become anxious when I have to drive through a tunnel or if I catch a red light that causes me to have to stop under a freeway overpass. Here again, it’s sort of the manmade structure theme.
So I had this fear that I knew was irrational and was dealing with it the best I could. I didn’t go out of my way to go into a tall building, but I also didn’t avoid it if it might have been necessary for a business meeting or something.
Then came 9/11. As I’m sure most of you will agree, it’s hard to forget the image of World Trade Center towers as they collapsed. Before that day, I could say with complete certainty that my fears of tall buildings were completely irrational, as it would be impossible for any building to fall like in my nightmares. While the WTC buildings came straight down, my dream buildings usually fall to the side, so not identical by any means… and I’m certainly, absolutely, in no way saying that I some how had a premonition of the 9/11 events… that isn’t what this is about. What this is about is that when I saw the WTC towers fall, I realized that tall buildings can fall if they are subjected to the right forces. Irrational? It’s hard for me now to say that it is completely irrational, regardless of how unlikely.
One day in 2003, I met a friend at the Bonaventure Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. There's a revolving restaurant at the top, and you take a glass elevator that runs up the outside of the building to get there. I had seen the glass elevators, but when my friend suggested we go to the restaurant I didn't realize that the elevator I entered was in fact one of the glass ones that I had seen from outside. For the first time ever I had a full blown anxiety attack in that elevator, much to the amusement of the other people in the elevator with us. Making matters worse, the elevator made several stops on its way to the top -- I felt like I would never get out of that elevator. Luckily, the hotel staff was nice enough to allow me to use a service elevator for the return trip down.
So, for the past few years, I’ve simply avoided tall buildings, bridges, high freeway overpasses, glass elevators, floating escalators, etc. I’ve been sort of a closet phobic. Only a few of my closest friends even know that I think this way.
The problem is this...
I’ve been off work for the past year dealing with a long-term medical situation. I went back on the job market about three weeks ago, and the market is good, but many of the highest paying positions are in downtown Los Angeles, in highrise buildings like the US Bank building. I realize that most of the newer buildings in Los Angeles have been built to earthquake specifications, but does that mean that they will actually withstand a magnitude 7 earthquake, or something stronger?
I told the recruiter I'm working with that I really don't want to work on the high floors. I just can't see myself doing it day to day. We sort of agreed on a limit of nothing above the 30th floor. So far I've missed out on several opportunities. One company was on the 48th floor, and another on the 54th floor. Several times my recruiter has simply said "too high for you" without giving me specifics. When I told my friends about this limitation, they seriously thought I had a screw loose. I think it's even harder for them to understand because I’m usually the voice of reason, and the whole situation is completely out of character for me. So, whether it’s rational or irrational, this fear is actually now affecting my life.
Freud believed that dreams of tall buildings are phallic symbols. I don’t find that particularly helpful. Bottom line, I’d simply like to resolve this fear and not have it limit me. Do any of you also experience irrational fears? If so, have you been able to overcome them? You guys are all so brilliant -- masters of rational thought (well, most of you anyway (-: ) -- I’m hoping perhaps someone here may have something helpful to say about this. I’ll be really curious to see your responses. Thanks in advance for any advice.
(Didn't really know where to post this, so putting it in the main Skepticism and Paranormal area as it seems to be the most active area of the forum.)
I’ll preface this by saying that I have always experienced very vivid dreams, recurring dreams, used to sleepwalk, and up to this day often talk in my sleep. I view this nocturnal activity as my brain or my subconscious processing information, images, and emotions that I don’t have time for in my waking hours.
One of the recurring dreams (I should say nightmares) I’ve had since I was a child involves very tall buildings – skyscrapers. In some of the earlier dreams, I would see the skyscraper, and was supposed to go into the building and take the elevator, but as I would enter the elevator I would be overcome with panic and would run out screaming that the building was going to fall. This is where I usually woke up. I had this same dream repeatedly several times a year until my mid 20s, always exiting the elevator, never actually going into the building for fear that the building was going to fall.
Around the time I was 25 (coincidentally, it was about a week after my father died), the dream changed. I still went running from the building in a panic, but this time, the building actually did come crashing down. For the next few years, the dream repeated in that version.
A few years after that, I dreamed that I did actually go into the elevator and to one of the high floors. As I look out the window, the building began to tip to the side. The dream is always the same. The building begins to tip, I hear myself say, “this is it”, and as the building falls I usually wake up.
Last year, I began having two other versions of the dream. In one, I’m outside the building as it begins to fall, and wake up just as it is about to crash down on top of me. In the other version, I’m in a different tall building looking out the window, and from that vantage point I watch as the other building goes toppling over.
Since childhood, I’ve probably had some version of this dream a few hundred times.
Despite these dreams, I was never afraid of heights and in my younger years I was actually fascinated with tall buildings and have visited some of the tallest buildings in the US. I’ve been to the top of Sears Tower, the Seattle Space Needle, the Southeast Financial Center in Miami, the St. Louis Arch, and the 85th floor of a building in NY next to the Crystler Building.
It wasn’t until I visited New York again in the late 90s that things got bad. I was planning to go to the top of the Empire State Building. I bought my ticket and was standing in line to go up the elevator, but the longer I stood there, the more anxious I became. By the time I got to the elevator, I was nearly having an anxiety attack. I left the line and asked for a refund. Completely out of character for me, yet it just felt like the right decision and I never regretted it.
Over the next couple of years, I found myself developing what I would describe as a late-blooming fear of heights. You could put me on a mountain cliff with a thousand foot drop and I’d have no problems. But put me on a catwalk three stories up in an apartment building and I’m in a panic. Very quickly, things that I had done many times before without problems were suddenly scary. The first time I went to San Francisco, I couldn’t wait to drive over the Golden Gate Bridge. I must have driven back and forth over the bridge a dozen times that weekend and enjoyed it immensely. Four years later, you couldn’t pay me money to drive on that bridge. So, my fear of heights is definitely centered on manmade structures… buildings, bridges, catwalks, and high freeway overpasses. By 2001, it had gotten so bad I couldn’t even ride an escalator on the third floor of the Beverly Center (if you’re not from LA, Beverly Center is a huge shopping complex).
I think to some degree my initial fears were fueled by having experienced first-hand the Northridge earthquake in 1994. I was living in Santa Monica, about 12 miles from the epicenter. Truly one of the most frightening things I’ve ever experienced. Several people died when freeway overpasses collapsed. Since then I'll actually go out of my way to avoid driving over some of the really high freeway overpasses. While not height related, I also become anxious when I have to drive through a tunnel or if I catch a red light that causes me to have to stop under a freeway overpass. Here again, it’s sort of the manmade structure theme.
So I had this fear that I knew was irrational and was dealing with it the best I could. I didn’t go out of my way to go into a tall building, but I also didn’t avoid it if it might have been necessary for a business meeting or something.
Then came 9/11. As I’m sure most of you will agree, it’s hard to forget the image of World Trade Center towers as they collapsed. Before that day, I could say with complete certainty that my fears of tall buildings were completely irrational, as it would be impossible for any building to fall like in my nightmares. While the WTC buildings came straight down, my dream buildings usually fall to the side, so not identical by any means… and I’m certainly, absolutely, in no way saying that I some how had a premonition of the 9/11 events… that isn’t what this is about. What this is about is that when I saw the WTC towers fall, I realized that tall buildings can fall if they are subjected to the right forces. Irrational? It’s hard for me now to say that it is completely irrational, regardless of how unlikely.
One day in 2003, I met a friend at the Bonaventure Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. There's a revolving restaurant at the top, and you take a glass elevator that runs up the outside of the building to get there. I had seen the glass elevators, but when my friend suggested we go to the restaurant I didn't realize that the elevator I entered was in fact one of the glass ones that I had seen from outside. For the first time ever I had a full blown anxiety attack in that elevator, much to the amusement of the other people in the elevator with us. Making matters worse, the elevator made several stops on its way to the top -- I felt like I would never get out of that elevator. Luckily, the hotel staff was nice enough to allow me to use a service elevator for the return trip down.
So, for the past few years, I’ve simply avoided tall buildings, bridges, high freeway overpasses, glass elevators, floating escalators, etc. I’ve been sort of a closet phobic. Only a few of my closest friends even know that I think this way.
The problem is this...
I’ve been off work for the past year dealing with a long-term medical situation. I went back on the job market about three weeks ago, and the market is good, but many of the highest paying positions are in downtown Los Angeles, in highrise buildings like the US Bank building. I realize that most of the newer buildings in Los Angeles have been built to earthquake specifications, but does that mean that they will actually withstand a magnitude 7 earthquake, or something stronger?
I told the recruiter I'm working with that I really don't want to work on the high floors. I just can't see myself doing it day to day. We sort of agreed on a limit of nothing above the 30th floor. So far I've missed out on several opportunities. One company was on the 48th floor, and another on the 54th floor. Several times my recruiter has simply said "too high for you" without giving me specifics. When I told my friends about this limitation, they seriously thought I had a screw loose. I think it's even harder for them to understand because I’m usually the voice of reason, and the whole situation is completely out of character for me. So, whether it’s rational or irrational, this fear is actually now affecting my life.
Freud believed that dreams of tall buildings are phallic symbols. I don’t find that particularly helpful. Bottom line, I’d simply like to resolve this fear and not have it limit me. Do any of you also experience irrational fears? If so, have you been able to overcome them? You guys are all so brilliant -- masters of rational thought (well, most of you anyway (-: ) -- I’m hoping perhaps someone here may have something helpful to say about this. I’ll be really curious to see your responses. Thanks in advance for any advice.
(Didn't really know where to post this, so putting it in the main Skepticism and Paranormal area as it seems to be the most active area of the forum.)
). 
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