medlar

I think I know this feeling..though I've never come face to face with anything more than a raccoon..

Where I'm from originally and just recently, there arent' alot of trees. I lived right in the city. Since living in Vancouver, I've never seen so many trees, mountains and ocean in my life and so close to the city. So maybe this might have been a factor here.

A couple of months ago, I took the dog for a walk to a stretch of dense forest not far from the house. The forest runs along the shoreline left to grow to buffer the railway that runs along below. It's actually part of the trans-Canada trail that extends from the West Coast to the East Coast..pretty amazing walk. It's a well used and maintained pathway, I've often taken a run with my uncle or gone biking along it with friends and there's generally other walkers and bike riders. But not too many so you feel like your actually miles from the city.

On this particular day when I took the dog (Wallace, a fearless Jack Russel) along this path and was making fair progress. I took a side path that led down to the railroad while Wallace took off bounding rabbit like as he does, through the bushes. I always reckoned the forests were full of life, animals, bambi, squirrels bears bird etc..but this day, there was an absence of that not even a birdcall. It was uncanny and eerie and with the canopie of trees and thick brambles and ferns it was actually starting to get clausterphobic.. Worse was the silence, even the traffic beyond was muffled. And I was starting to get that hair standing on end feeling described here, as well a bout of cold sweat and my heart was starting to really pound..like I was in a fight or flight mode, or on the onset of a full out panic attack, or worse about to wet my pants. You'd think the dog would have been set off, but he was off obliviously in the deeper part of the forest..his crashing about didn't help the affect.

I was starting to worry about stumblliing into some deranged squatters site, and then started thinking on the Indian lore of the area...something like "it that walks through the forest" but in a Stephen King take. It all got a bit too much for me and shameful as it was I took the flight option. I got seriously freaked out and I'm crashing through the bushes and sprinting along the main path, with the dog at my heels no doubt he's thinking wtfwtf?? I was having a gas here. Of course I see more people walking along the path thinking I'm off my head or I'm being chased by a bear. I think I might have discovered some kind of phobia as opposed to what other posters here were experiencing. That or I'm just a complete pussy. I'd rather think instinct kicked in and there was actually some kind of threatening presence there.