Something Feels Right, But Wrong When I'm in the Woods

I've spent years living and working outdoors, often alone for days at a time.

With a few exceptions, I've been perfectly comfortable. :thumbup:

The biggest exception, a place that had me on edge for a night, was a particular creek valley on the Ozark Highlands Trail. Houses were near enough I could hear dogs barking. Some kinds of animals were rustling in the leaves around the tent all night. And an abandoned 'camper' bus passed earlier in the day was a reminder that other people, perhaps less-than-desirable people, frequented the area.

And of course I always, especially that night, follow basic outdoor etiquette and sleep far enough off of trails or roads that people passing by cannot see me. It's not only a consideration for fellow trail users, but for my own privacy and security as well.

Bears and wild animals? Meh. Beyond basic bear country precautions, I don't give them a second thought.

Doesn't bother my kid much either. Coyotes howling in the distance, bears running across the trail, owls hooting all night...
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Personally, I feel most relaxed when I am in the woods.
When you stand in one place and can't fathom the last time someone stood in the exact same spot and all you can do is appreciate the natural beauty of the world....that's what I need.
I am way more relaxed in the woods than my living room
 
The longest time in the woods alone was nine days in the Rockies on a survival expedition (by choice of course - which meant great preparation).
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Your course had a 9-day solo? Very cool.
I did a 21-day course once, Utah canyons, but the solo portion was only 3 days. I could have made the whole trip solo, but then I wouldn't have learned anything from the instructors. :D
 
I don't know of anyone who who hasn't been a bit spooked at one time or another. I got really spooked once during an ice storm. All those branches falling and trees cracking really worked my imagination over. Also the occasional night critter poking around camp might be worth a flashlight beam on max. No shame for anyone honest enough to admit this.
 
The things that scare me the most about being in the woods is when its deer season. Even with blaze orange on, I feel that some asshole is going to shoot at me anytime I move.

Ive had quite a few lone multiday fishing trips, and have had large animals rummaging around my tent at night.. but im always worried about two legged predators the most. Where I live and frequent the woods, illegal marijuana grows are the norm and the chance of running into armed growers is much worse than a bear or cougar actually attacking (all the ones ive seen in the wild run once they realize Ive spotted them).

I have had the uncomfortable spine tingle feeling many times in the woods, its just a reminder that im not apart from the natural system and am back in the middle of it.
 
I.N.F.K said:
I thoroughly enjoy my time in the woods as well. It could be a natural instinct that is just more prevalent in some. After all mankind use to be very close to nature before we threw a huge wall in between it and us.
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We didn't build a wall. We built ourselves better caves and forgot what was outside those caves. I never ceases to amaze me how oblivious people are to our dependence on nature. Present company excluded of course.

Yes I feel uneasy at times. When the raccoon dogs howl and you are all alone in a dark autumn forest it is easy to get the jitters.
 
When I walk through the forest, everything else disappears. I don't worry about my job, my bills, my car, etc. I just worry about getting up the hill, or to my next campsite, or whether I'll find some mushrooms on the way. I don't get uneasy unless there's people there that I don't want to be. It's my form of meditation.
 
DETOX, that's what I consider it to be. I have in my youth walked the App. trail. 3 individual entire trips. 2 xs up and 1 x down, never back to back. I started once in Late November and that trip I saw less than 20 people on the entire trail. But by far the wosrt case of "sick to death scared, filpped out " came in 1997 , 2 days into a 17 day solo hunt in the Yukon. Unlike all you mountain men , I'd grown up in the NC foothills, and this was after the App. Trail Hikes, ( no gun allowed feloney if caught) .However those trips were actually rather poorly planned, leaving most to youth and not thinking. The Yukon was a Hard planned, highly trained event. I knew better than to fool around with winter there. In total, because of wanting to take certain animals and needing to store and process them, I'd studied on-line, in classrooms and had visited for a 6 day trip. It took 8 years to get the permits and draw my game tags within the same period. Then Jan. 1997 it all happened within 3 days, an outfitter had lost his rights and I was picked amoung others to hunt a certain Unit. almost 1 million acres. All the rush, all the jumping around, the hurried, good bys came crashing down at 7500 ft beside a shale bank, overlooking a 100 drop off. At neg 16 f I lost it. Holy hell, I do not remember any of it. Only seeing my grear, my clothes, scattered like a plane crash. What a Dumba#$. I really should have stopped then. No excuse for not doing the "right" thing. But I was selfish and had trained and planned and sure enough 17 days later, Almost 300 miles walked, I was out and alive. I never had any other experience, concerning fear, but what I did have was total lose of everything. No work, no home, no car, no noise, nothing from the outside world was in my head, zero. Everything sounded LOUD , LOUD beyond reason. I tagged out my Cougar on day 15 and I swear I could hear him breathing. NO , I would never do it again, not a chance, day 2 still makes me sweat, worries me everytime I take a trip into the works. Whatever came out of me from about 2pm till 7pm that day, I'm not sure is gone. I'm glad this thread came up, I was embarrassed and ashamed to tell others, but I fought something for nearly 5 hours, and my soul carries the scars.
 
I think its a conditioning thing. By that I mean that our sub-conscious filters massive amounts of info before telling us what it thinks is going on. When you are in the city, it knows that the fast moving things are big, and will hurt, and that slow things are just people to be avoided. Take that mindset, and all the narrow vertical things (trees) should be moving, but they are not (trees don't move, people do. parts of our brains can be really stupid) and the fast moving things (sparrows and squirrels) are little and avoid us, but the danger filter doesn't know that. Add to that a new set of patterns to interpret, and it can put you on edge. The brain tells the body to keep ready. Our brains also pull another nasty stunt. They cheat. Our brains need to have a path of narration, things have to happen in order, and for a reason. So if you suddenly notice something, then your brain adds in all the motion that got it to there. Even if there was none, this can then be interpreted as a hallucination, which ups the adrenalin level, and makes it more likely to happen again, or just an optical illusion. There are two cool proofs of this. First one is to look at an analog clock with a second hand. If you look at it at just the right time, the second hand will hang, and then jump ahead. Thats because your brain goes, "yep thats a clock, okay, anything else going on here, nopeHOLY CRAP IT MOVED.... okay.... yep it moved, I don't think he noticed.... um, yeah, moving on then" The other one is that for over a hundred years, people have been convinced that there is such a thing as a curve ball, even though the human arm cannot spin a baseball fast enough to get it to walk. But the spinning causes the brain to think its moving sideways a bit, and then when the ball moves from the batters peripheral (motion based) vision to the central (fine detail) the brain realizes that the ball is in the wrong spot. So instead of a vast correction, it takes a half second to draw the ball moving to where it needs to be.

So little details that your brain needs to explain get added to bigger and bigger patterns. And that can make you feel uneasy. The reverse is often true, go from familiar suburban or rural surroundings to a packed urban center, and all of a sudden none of the patterns make sense, and the body and brain go on high alert.

Each person is effected differently, so its hard to know what exactly is happening. There have been people who have had auditory hallucinations within minutes of entering a sound-proof room, and visual hallucinations are very common when the brain can't figure out the static of our vision. Our brains want patterns and want things to make sense, even if that includes just making crap up.

I will say, I've been in deep bush paintball games and been scared near to death by a squirrel farting or a mouse tripping. Its like the brain looses calibration and just cranks the amp to 11 to try to hear something, then a paintball going past sounds like a nascar. And the other day I had to set up a ballroom for a wedding. White drape around the room covered in white mesh. Lit from behind with white lights, white tables and chairs, and white flowers. So many shades of white that my eyes couldn't really figure out what was going on, and even the color in the carpet started to fade, and the room looked hazy. The pic I took on my cell phone is a rainbow, LED lights are blue, ceiling halogens are yellow, tables are gray. But it was enough to screw up my eyes.
 
I rate being out in the hills alone. or diving alone. the only thing that scares me out there is thinking if I fall off this bank and injure myself etc im in big trouble. but I figure that is a good thing to be feeling. don't want to get too complacent out there.
 
TheDandyLion said:
Man I have the same issue (is that a right word), my record is 8 days alone in the woods. It was eerie as hell, by the end of week I was hallucinating. Not even joking. I started hearing my one voice in the distance, like an echo but with words I never said... My dog was getting the creeps as well, started getting all jumpy and snappy. I slept .44 in hand and one eye open. I also dreamed that I was being hunted like game, that concept carried int my every day life, started setting traps in the trees like in predator (took them down a few days later). every time I let my mind relax a dark image flew through my peripheral vision. The weirdest thing was it was completely silent. No bird song. No animals. On the fifth day I had a minor existential crisis, started questioning my own consciousness (there is a glitch in the matrix!). This is one thing I will never do again.
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Are you being serious about the traps and stuff?

Some real intense stories here.
 
I've always found the first night going camping is always the hardest to get to sleep, just like how the first time sleeping in a new house is always a bit difficult. But the second night will always be much easier now that one has become accustomed to it's new setting. Once I get my CCW and a bit more gear for camping I'm going to start camping solo a few weekends.
 
plue said:
It's my form of meditation.
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I'm there, all the way. The outdoors puts me back together. I have been in the east with the vivid fiery fall maples, the northern coniferous and birch Boreal and down to the semi scruffy prairie (in comparison) river bottoms of Poplar and Manitoba maple. It has all been needed for my peace of mid through time. And the fall northern forest is so primaly beautiful that I have damn near gotten down on my knees out there. If there is anything out there like G.od or a higher power, this is were I connect with it the easiest........Yes I have been a bit concerned now and then, spring bear situations, taking a wiz at night and something near by hissing at me in the dark etc. Most of this is just attributed to my personal fears of the unknown.
 
One thing I find interesting is how the landscapes that we aren't used to factor into our psyche - several people (who all seem to be from back east, based on their profiles) have mentioned that big, open spaces make them uneasy. Having grown up in the west, I've always been just the opposite. Closed, confined woods have that "uneasy" effect on me, and big open country feels like I'm "home."

Lack of significant topography has a similar effect on me - I lived in southern Ontario for a while, and the flatness there freaked me out, and screwed with my normal, built-in sense of navigation. I've always lived in places where there are big mountain ranges, and I've always (subconsciously, until I lived in Ontario and realized it) used that big topography to orient myself, without even really thinking about it. I've always just known that mountain range "X" is east, that Nunya Peak is northwest, etc. In many places in the west where I've lived, a compass really isn't all that necessary if you know the land and pay attention as you travel in the backcountry. Being in dense woods and flat land back east, I had no idea how to navigate anywhere without depending on a compass. That made me uneasy.
 
I am going to concur with Smithhammer, i am from upstate new york, lots of hills, lots of trees
i went to texas for basic training and AIT (tech school) and spent 6 months outside of san antonio. I am USED to rolling hills and lots of forest and I guess i am comfortable with it, but i felt so exposed out there in texas. Nowhere to hide i suppose.

In talking with folks that were from out west, they felt the exact same way when they got east of the mississippi, closed in, trapped and freaked them out a little. Its pretty funny actually. We never realize how much the area we grow up in affects us in ways we dont even realize. We all know the city kids that just absolutely freak out when they get into the woods, especially if they dont like or WANT to be there. Everything is unknown, everything is scary lol.

Now that being said, in my 4 years of the military, i spent some time in saudi arabia, flat, sandy, no real trees to speak of. Its kinda a weird thing, but i have come to realize that I DO have a love for the desert. its beautiful, you just have to learn how to see it. And i have never, ever, in my life seen the stars so clearly as i did those nights in the middle east.
 
Also going to concur with smithhammer.

The flat emptiness makes me feel like I couldn't find my way and am over exposed.

Trees, big hills, streams. That's where I'm comfortable.
 
@smithhammer what we are used to plays a huge roll in how we perceive things. Not just the terrain but also the elements. I have entertained guests who would freak out because of the dark pine forests or not venture outside because of the mosquitoes, sandflies, and horse-flyies. To the locals it was just another Tuesday. Likewise when visiting faraway lands I get funny looks from the locals in their fur coats because I am perspiring profusely in my t-shirt, lubing up with SPF 90 sunscreen and gulping down buckets of water to stay hydrated. :) It's all about acclimatization.

When I get into big open country I rely on the sun and my watch for orientation.
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source: http://adventure.howstuffworks.com/survival/wilderness/true-north2.htm
 
The only time I've been truly uncomfortable in the woods while alone is when I've crossed paths with two legged critters. That's where the true danger is.
 
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