swimming in lakes
 

I LOVE to swim in lakes. I've camped all the time since I was a kid, love to canoe, dive off cliffs.... but here's my problem:

I can only swim in lakes when there are other people with me.

I took the canoe out alone last month and jumped into the water after docking on an island, and got really freaked out and was consumed with the need to get back to the shore immediately.

If I'm with others, I can swim for hours in the same spot.

to me, that is strange.

any thoughts?

not strange at all, imo.

i grew up on lakeshore, had great fun swimming and all that, lake is like a big wet playground ;)

been a while since i've swam in a lake, but yeah, i do remember times of getting kinda spooked, and i don't think i'd wanna swim in one alone.

and no, it's not the lil fishies nibbling on my lil toesies that i worry about. ;)

I just got in from swimming in the lake (my hair is still wet)...

I don't get too freaked at the lake in my cottage. But I have been freaked swimming in the ocean and there have been a few times where I've been out after dark and had a sudden urge to get out of the water...

My read on it is the great uknown beneath... can't see it but you just know it's there...lurking.

If I can't see the bottom of it, chances are pretty good that you won't see me swimming in it. Has anybody ever seen the movie Pirranah?

No but I saw Pirranah 2, and it was just hilarious. Salt water pirranahs that pretty much fly. One even hid inside of a corpse for a day and jumped out and killed someone, and then flew out the window and back to the ocean! Lakes only freak me out because they are usually dirty as shit, depending on where you are (leeches are fucking gross too~).

Fear of the unknown.. big one in us humans...

yeah, not big on swimming alone or in the dark. the fear of the unknown---sends shivers, plus I've seen too many stupid scary movies.

Think of how the fishies feel... swimin' along minding their own business when **SPLASH** a big pair of mashy/kicky things come flailing throught he water.....
Put yourself in their position.... imagine it....
Maybe this point of view will help with the phobia...

ok just the thought of being all alone in th emiddle of a lake is a bit disturbin so i get ur point

Don't be a phool, swimming alone can be seriously dangerous!
Anywhere!

I swim in pools, lakes, and ocean's, but only with other people within hailing distance. In case I need "HELP".

You CAN drown you know.

Watch out for the killer oil-slick from Creepshow 2.
sk

Pirranah is a classic! but hasnt kept me from swimming in the local lake...its the fact that the lake is poluted that keeps me out, that and one of the rivers near cought on fire=\

I am fine swimming around the shores of Lake Michigan ( huge sandy beaches and decent water) . But when it comes to small lakes I cant swim alone either. Something with the nasty things on the bottom and something that I think haunted me in my childhood. Still not sure what or why but If I get pushed off a boat out in a lake I freak out.

fair enough... I get paranoid about things like that as well... I think its a fear of what is unseen, like there might be something in the water :eek: , maybe there is something in this, does anyone know?

maybe these 2 things added to it....

1) my grandma used to tell me that if you hand your feet off a dock, fish will come and bite your toes off. I was like 5 years old haha

2) when I was 7, a friend told me that the little whirlpools you make in the water with a paddle will suck you to the bottom of the lake if you touch them

yeesh

I love lakes, but yeah they can be scary. I've swam in a couple of volcanic (crater) lakes that were extremely deep, the depth just seems endless, you look down and all you see is an aqua colour, it was beautiful, but a bit unnerving at the same time. I've also swam in a lake that was so muddy that 30 cm under the water everything was pitch black, that was rather frightening.

I think the enormity of being somewhere you don't belong strikes you when you're there alone...humans were not designed to live in water, like when you're in someone elses back yard...

try swimming drunk.....It will take the edge off.... ( wear floaties )

For me the scary part is that you are floating above this giant hole. For some reason my mind doesn't seem to think that all that water is going to keep holding me up, or something. There is just too big a hole down there below me. The idea of all that space below me...I guess I wouldn't make a good astronaut.

I hate swimming in lakes.. it gives me the creeps... Pretty much because here in El Salvador, the major lakes are old volcano craters, and a lot of creepy things happen in them... people drown and their bodies never found... :( Plus the plants/weeds get tied up around your legs/arms... :(

Although there are a lot of people who love to swim in them....

... I love the beach though :) the ocean is so cool over here :)

It could also be the poisonous snakes. And the aligators. Then there's the giant, Volkswagen-sized catfish. And the sunken towns under the man-made lakes. Lakes in Switzerland have sunken Nazi plunder at the bottom. And of course, it's a well known fact that land-locked bodies of water are prefered by both in-bred, cannibalistic, rapist rednecks AND toxic-waste-mutated swamp monsters. sk

my friend jordan has the same problem. she even has a house on a lake and cant swim alone or when not near someone

I lived on a lake for 12 years and I would never swim alone usually. Especially at night.

I don't like lakes where I know there are alot of random rocks around, swimming and then soundly running into a pile of moss and stone always gives me the creeps.

I used to not like the feeling of fish swimming under me. When I was swimming in lake huron years back, I looked under the boat and saw a huge school of them. My friend, being the nice guy he is, shoved me in the water, and all the fish just scattered as fast as possible. Since then I haven't really cared about fish because i assume they don't want to be near me...unless they are man eaters...

Its probably anxiety, you get use to a certain environment and once it changes you enter new territory.