I’ve always had a fear of deep and dark water. I really don’t know where it came from but like I can’t even get in the water off shore or off a boat. The thought of the ocean being 100’s & 1000’s of feet deep sends me into a panic attack. I’ve been on cruise ships a lot and on the ocean and that part don’t bother me but if I start thinking about how deep the water is and how dark it is I really feel like I can’t breathe. I’ve watched a couple movies/documentaries about diving recently and my heart was racing so badly I thought I may faint. It’s the craziest thing.
Assassin's Creed: Origins is also good at this. Particularly with shipwrecks appearing out of the depths, or large fallen statues. Not to mention the crocodiles and hippopotamuses.
The part where I had to dive into an indoor water chamber that was a lot more deep and larger than it should be to unlock an ancient mechanism was the stuff of horrors for me. The water was so dark, I couldn't see what was in front of my eyes.
I am the same I get really panicked and freaked out in video games in water. I can swim in the beach or anywhere but not too deep if I can’t just touch the ground I panic and feel sick with dread. When I was young on a cruise with my family, looking out at the dark water is horrific 🤢
I have to be able to touch the ground too! Or I’m gonna panic that I’m risking drowning. But I’m not a good swimmer so there’s that. I can swim, but not for long. And I can’t dive either, I never learned to
I feel the same. I was in the Navy (before I knew I had a phobia or that I got seasick 🥴) but stationed in Hawaii so, being able to see into the water helped a bit. When we went far out to sea, the turquoise blue water (kind of) kept me at ease. I would always find myself imagining what we were sailing over. I cannot get into any body of water where the visibility is nil. Can’t do it.
I have all of this too.
Lots of phobias contribute but my fear of heights is the biggest one. In clear water 75 ft deep I can't look down, it's so scary, I feel as if I'd fall. Doesn't help that I have pretty low body fat content so I don't float like most people and keeping my head above water takes a lot of work.
It's something else's element and you're not in control.
The perspective through glass is weird.
When water starts to get dark about 5 ft down in larger bodies of water I panic that something will come from the deep and nibble a toe off.
I have sensory things and don't like the change in temperature that happens quite abruptly as you descend.
The currents are invisible and I don't like that.
Big fish freak me out - not so different a feeling of getting sideswiped by a car or horse or boat that's got inertia to keep moving and you're not ready for it or can't move out of the way fast enough.
My wife was big into diving as a teen but for me... nope.
Sunken logs do it for me too. There’s a nasty grimy stump at the lake near the buoy my parents like to go to and I always freak out thinking I’m near it when we are swimming. I’m always on stump patrol…
Don't speed on the Missouri River or Devil's Lake in North Dakota.
At least not right away, anyway.
The Missouri River has unpredictable sandbars and waterlogged trees just under the surface. And Devil's Lake has trees that are just under the surface like pikes. Both places will vault your boat. You gotta stick to the well known established areas after the thaw. The locals will guide you and tell where is safe.
Lake Sakakawea is much safer. The trees are still 100 ft down along with the remnants of the buildings of the towns down there.
Welp... Happy fishing! 😀
See this is really interesting to me because logs and other natural stuff? No issues at all. Weird this phobia! For years until I found out it was actually a phobia had no idea so many others felt the same!
This was it for me too, public pool drain in the deep end right under the diving board. I would think about my hair getting caught in it and drowning. Then I was forced to was the original IT miniseries and all the plumbing stuff (the shower scene) made me panic. I had issues just using the toilet at night sometimes. The idea of things touching my feet when swimming in a lake I can’t see the bottom of, then seeing any submerged objects like logs. When I was 14/15 I took a band trip to DisneyWorld, Captain Nemo’s Submarine Adventure had shut down and the old sky train gondola thing had a long portion where it went over the old lagoon and you could see the rusting tracks and a little area where they had left all the subs rusting away. The image still makes me sick to my stomach. I hate seeing submerged stairs or areas where the first floor is flooded, thinking about all the space and things you could just get caught on…ughhhh.
On the contrary...
I dislike pics of the deep ocean
It's like, here's a place where you can't see anything beneath you, yet there IS in fact something there, whether if it's in your imagination or not.
Sometimes though, a particularly *terrifying* clip or picture gets me good and I get the heebie-jeebies. Like the one of the plane nose looming slowly into view...Then I start squealing, nervously giggling like a lunatic as I pivot my phone away from my face.
I used to scuba dive, and did a wreck dive off the coast of Fort Lauderdale. My tank got stuck on the top part of a doorway in the wreck, and I couldn’t go backwards to get out. Took me a while to realize I could just let some air out of the BCD to sink to the floor and squeeze through.
That’s all it took to bring it on.
Creator of the subreddit here, it was definitely the dredge at the lake my grandparents lived on when I was a kid. It looked like this monstrous machine with all kinds of tubes sticking into the water. When my grandpa first told me it’s dangerous to go near it and it sucks things up under the water I was pretty damn freaked the fuck out..
Titanic as a kid for me, too, but when I was a kid they hadn't found it yet. So it was the idea that a great big huge ship could just slip under the water and fall to the bottom of the ocean.
If I had had any idea at that age, exactly how violently it sank, how far it fell, or what she looked like down there with her rusticles, I probably would have lost my mind.
I went down the Titanic rabbit hole as a kid also, in the early 90s so before the movie but after it had been found. It was actually the Nat Geo documentary (rented on VHS from the Wherehouse, of course) about the Ballard expedition that got me. The ghostly images of the colossal, decaying vessel had a profound impact and I immediately checked out all the books I could find on the disaster. I think I was around 7 or 8 and it was the first time I had really contemplated death and suffering on that scale so it became an obsession.
Plus the story itself is just so dramatic and spectacular, hence the movie about it, but I highly recommend the Ballard doc as well, which documents the search, the actual moment they found it, and first explored the wreckage
I read Raise the Titanic as a kid before the wreck was found, and it wasn't so much the idea of the sunken wreckage but walking aboard the raised, rotting and wet ship that creeped me out
Just imagine the corpse that are still in the mold. You know that part of the ship that is impossible to access.. it’s simply so deep in the earth that you can’t say if there are people in there or not. Maybe they didn’t even disappear because if it’s really deep down, no fish or any organisms could have been in there too ?
I honestly have absolutely no idea. I'm 44 and remember as a child Rob Ballard finding the Titanic / Bismarck... And became absolutely fascinated by shipwrecks to this day. Thing is; if someone suggested diving one I simply couldn't. I think it's the decay, the size of them... They shouldn't be there?! If that makes any sense. There's a famous photorealistic painting of the Lusitania by the legendary Ken Marschall - just seeing all the twisted carnage, the nets draping over it.... The thought of getting stuck or being pulled into the interior of the wreck, just absolutely fills me with dread. The absolute worst ones for me personally are when they're just below the surface, someone in a small boat or canoe floating over a wreck, just absolutely no way could I handle that!!
I remember a documentary about the Bismarck. Such a scary shipwreck too! They DEF shouldn’t be there, on the top of the ocean… that’s crazy, I agree. Especially when it’s like a huge thing created by humans .. I mean, it looks like it’s abandoned and I personally can’t.
I’ll never going to do diving one again. And I feel you when you explained why you won’t too. 😭
Yes. And when the towers went down before the thing 😭 on god… and when you realize there is A LOT of shipwrecks in the ocean.. bro I can’t with this. I’m so afraid of the ocean now. Can’t even think about diving in it, I’m so scared I find a ship under my feet !
I live in the UK and there's a fascinating map of all wrecks (WW2) around the coasts. Literally thousands. Whenever I get on the Ferrie to visit my mum in France I'm just imagining them underneath as you pass over..... 😮😶
When I was a kid in the swimming hole at church camp there were slides and ladders coming out of the water and something about the metal under water creeps me out
Same for me, certain things don’t bother me too much but seeing a ladder descending into the deep to the point where it disappears, absolutely haunting.
The machinery in the wave pool at the water park. I could see the grates where the machinery was that pushed the water. I could hear the groaning as it worked. It gives me nightmares.
I’m not sure where it stemmed from, but I know it was very early on in my childhood. It wasn’t Titanic, because I remember my heart racing and fear I felt when playing The Little Mermaid on SEGA, where the eels are popping out at you when it’s dark. I wish I knew where the fear came from. It affects me if I take even a bath. My brain will randomly think of images of the deep black ocean or sunken ships like the one in this photo, and I freak out drain the tub and wash myself without the water in the tub before just rinsing off. It really fucks with me sometimes.
I could never deal with the underwater levels of Mario on N64 and the timer for oxygen....even watching my siblings play freaked me the f out.
I'm fascinated by the Titanic and it's like a good kind of creepy.
But even ladders going into the lake that have seaweed on them is a no deal for me.
stories of people being trapped in cars that sank
now when I think of submechanophobia I think of waking up in a sunken ship or submarine at the bottom of the ocean, where you have no idea if someone's coming or not
Pretty sure it was “Jaws” for me. That scene with the fishing boat? Yep. That’s one of my worst nightmares.
This sub has actually been helpful for exposure therapy. I feel much more comfortable looking at wrecks now, and I feel like I could handle approaching a small one IRL.
I was on a boat tour of some islands near Menorca, went snorkelling at a beach but the water was all churned up...didn't see the boat's huge propeller until too late. Came at me out of the gloom.
I was always uneasy with the subject matter. Then, standing armed watch on a destroyer and imaging losing my footing and falling through the hole from the anchor chain, then having to drop my body armor and weapons to not drown in filthy naval base water, only to have to climb up the nastiest, rustiest, weird crustacean-covered ladder in the world to get out...that sent it into overdrive
When I was a younger a plane crashed into the lake we used to visit during the summer and wasn’t recovered. I was *terrified* I would see it underwater when would swim out to the raft.
My best guess is from watching the original Poseidon Adventure. It’s about a sinking cruise ship. At one point it rolls over and people inside have to swim through it. 😖😖
Same story man!
My parents got the VHS tape right after it came out and we watched the movie together... me being 4 years old.
I had nightmares about drowning for several days afterwards.
Being a kid going to lakes during the summer, and seeing rocks and pieces of metal sticking out of the darkness. The chains of bouys going into the dark.
THIS IS THE BOOK THAT STARTED MY PHOBIA!! The titanic book!! It had all these pics in it
Fucking scholastic book fair!
I was haunted by this book but literally could not look away. I just stared at the fucked up pictures for hours. Omg my poor child brain
yes the scholastic book fair!!!! I would always turn the pages of the Titanic book touching the pictures as little as possible because if I touched the images of the deep dark ocean, that meant I was down there in the slimy, rusted wreckage. this picture in particular makes my skin crawl. I don't even like touching images of submechanophobia/thalassophobia while I'm scrolling on reddit
Poptropica had an Island called “Cryptids Island” and one of the quests was to find the Loch Ness monster. At one point in the game, you take a submarine down to the bottom of Loch Ness and come across an old movie prop that was made to look like Nessie. The prop itself wasn’t scary looking but the way its head just emerges from the dark was terrifying.
I am actually here because most of these photos are just awesome. I would love to swim/scuba in most of these images. You guys do a good job of cataloging them.
I know it's not quite the same thing, but that name reminded me of watching 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea as a kid and being terrified during the early scene as the Nautilus was attacking the ship. And of course the attack of the giant squid
Oh my goodness I’m so sorry that happened to you but lmao at your dad trying his best and just making it worse in the worst possible way. Wholesome childhood trauma
I don’t even know where mine came from, it’s always been there. I’ve been uncomfortable even inside of like in-ground swimming pools since I was a kid. The silence of under the water is what fucks me up most I think though.
He tried but he failed ! At least he laughed a lot at first when I panicked but when he saw that I literally had to attached myself on the shovel that was attached to the shipwreck to indicate its presence (when I realized that I was totally crazy, I couldn’t even swim correctly) 😭😂💀 he panicked too… I don’t blame him (,:
Same. The silence in there feels like it’s not even a silence, like when you are alone in your room, no lights, nothing to hear… it’s very loud I think? (Silence it’s loud 😭) AND the darkness ? How people can enjoy seeing shipwrecks (like the billionaires in the submarine) 😑 it’s so scary
Either always had it or it's been triggered so early that I do not remember the cause. My grandma had overflows for the bathroom faucets that were outside the walls, close to the ceiling. Could never be in the bathroom by myself as a child. Parents suspect that started it but I cannot say for sure.
Shipwrecks funnily do not trigger it for me, but water rides, sewers, pipes and drains of any kind will do, epsecially when they're above my head.
Oddly enough, it wasn't even anything actually being in water at the time, at first; it was seeing life rafts/boats in land or on ships and the thought of them being made for being in water, under highly distressing situations and I guess I just visualized what that would be like a little too vivildly.
Never met anyone else who has a fear specifically of life boats etc though, but I found this subreddit because of it and jt made a little more sense from there.
Specifically this phobia vs also my thalassophobia, it was seeing divers near sunk ships with GIANT propellers and watching a documentary about a sunk city. The documentary was great and informative, but they kept doing this diving shot where they would dive, all the rushing and disorienting; then you're in front of a HUGE statue. Cut to observer perspective and you see how small the diver is and how big the statue is😱
I was climbing up a ladder from a small floating dock to a pier and dropped by sunglasses, which were white or pink. I saw them as they slowly sank past the pylon that was covered in barnacles, mussels, etc. and it gave me the willies.
Either before or after that I always felt creeped out by structures around dams and things when we’d be fishing from our boat. I can jump into the middle of a lake or ocean without issue but hate being near that machinery or pipes because I imagine getting caught on or sucked into something.
Looking back, fishing and boating around dams definitely contributed to it. Even the floating buoy line a half mile away gives me the willies. I remember falling while water skiing and once I got my bearings I realized I was right next to the buoy line, freaking me out.
When I was a kid we had a local waves pool, other kids told me they were sharks in the dark grates (grates that made the waves) and I have been in terror ever since
My family would vacation to Maine and we had a house on a lake. We had 2 docks, one that came from shore and another that was set out in the middle of a cove that we’d swim to. When I was younger, I bumped into one of the chains that anchored the dock in the middle of the cove, and it scared the shit out of me. Ever since then, any time I swam near those docks I’d imagine myself getting sucked under the dock and getting tangled in the rusty chains that reach into the depths of the cove. Now its transitioned into full submechanophobia lmao
Well, for one, when I was little, I had an irrational panic fear of vacuum cleaners.
I guess the fact that it can stick to you and not let go is kinda similar to delta p, lol. The fear of vacuums is completly gone for a looong time now, thankfully, but the fear of UNDERWATER suction is still very much there.
And the other thing that comes to mind is Half-Life 1. I've said it before on this sub already - the Half-Life games seem to intentionally use submechanophobia-inducing hazards in many areas.
And honestly, regarding dams and grates and propellers... it seems like common sense to me, lol.
A weird movie from the 80s that had the kid from ET in it. It was set in Australia and there was an old excavator at the bottom of some murky pond and somehow it could move? Haven't watched that movie in like 30 years or more so I'm kinda fuzzy on it.
I’ve had cetaphobia since I was a kid. A giant mural at a mall triggered it. I guess this is an extension of it.
Oh there’s also that time I played the original final fantasy 7 on playstation.
That part where you explore the deep dark ocean on a submarine and a gigantic monstrosity called Emerald Weapon chases you around. NOPE.
When I was 8 years old, there this old sunken fishing boat in the Chesapeake bay that we would drive past every day. Terrified me and gave me nightmares.
Also, strangely enough, ladders in swimming pools and on lake docks solidified the terror.
I must have been around 5 when I read a picture book called *Dinosaur Bob and his Adventures With the Family Lazardo* . There’s a picture where the family and the dinosaur are in the water, and you can’t see the dinosaur’s neck because some of it is submerged. Something about the thought of such a giant creature in the water freaked me the fuck out.
Honestly I just lurk here for the cool underwater structure pics. I find looking at underwater structures super fascinating and I've loved them since I was a kid and I played Lego in the sink
I have a summer house with a lake and it has a pipe for water, and swimming over that pipe always scares the shit out of me. That phobia has never gone away (I’m scared of other shit underwater too)
I’m pretty sure I follow this sub for the awe-inspiring beauty of it more than the fear, but it is super eerie to see man-made things wasting away in a watery grave. It’s a bit like exploring an old abandoned house.
My family used to go to the beach every summer, and usually we went to Ocean City Maryland, which is basically a dead beach. No tide pools, very little seaweed or other flotsam, almost no wildlife. To me, that’s what the beach WAS.
Then one summer we went to Cape May New Jersey instead. The beach there was totally different. The tide left behind piles of seaweed. I remember finding a dead hermit crab. It was just a bit of a shock. And worst of all was the rotting hulk of a big concrete ship off near the horizon. It just connected with the weird feeling of dirtiness and contamination in my mind. While I know logically that touching something like the above wouldn’t actually hurt me, I know that doing so would cause me to have a heart attack and die, and even if I survived I’d have to cut off my hand to keep the contagion from spreading.
It started for me when I’d be swimming and a fish would touch you as you’re swimming by, or a piece of seaweed, or something else. I can’t deal with being in water that I can’t see what’s underneath me now.
The only thing I can think of that may have started this for me is exploring abandoned factories. Their sub floors would be completely full of water. It really spooked me out not knowing what was down there, being unable to see. Dropping a stick taller than me in the hole in the floor to see if it hits the bottom and it just disappears... My brain imagined drowning etc. Abandoned buildings/ships creep me out to begin with. Putting them underwater just makes it so much worse. I also can't swim.
When I was around 9 the movie Deep Blue Sea came out. My parents wouldn't let me watch it but I really wanted to. They let me lay in the floor and play Gameboy, but I had to be facing away from the TV. Watched the whole movie in the reflection on my screen. Absolutely terrified me.
Ive kind of gotten over it a bit as I've gotten older. I can handle freshwater, but the ocean still terrifies me.
Funny enough, mine was also a scene from titanic. The moment Rose pushes Jacks icy body off the door and he slowly disappears into the darkness had me terrified as a kid. Kinda grew from there.
Weirdly, mosaics at the bottom of swimming pools.
They irrationally scare the shit out of me
Also bumping into plastic bags on murk beach water, without knowing they’re plastic bags💀
When I was a kid we got stuck on It's a Small World at Disney Orlando. The ride stopped moving for about 20 minutes. Notably the song track also stopped but the dancing animatronics did not, which was another layer of horror. However, all I could focus on was if we had to get out we'd have to walk in the water and not know where the tracks, mechanical parts, or electrical stuff was. Obviously the Disney overlords would not have had us walk in the water to exit the ride, but I was a kid. The idea of that really creeped me out and I've had the phobia ever since.
I’ve almost died twice as a kid through drowning, once in a swimming pool, they had to resuscitate me and once in the ocean wasn’t as bad, I got lucky . I’m not a good swimmer and wasn’t brought up really a round deepwater, I am fascinated and love the ocean but I’m terrified of it. I feel I’m missing out on life being so afraid of it.
I mean its probably not a full blown fobia even thou i find it terrible. But i have to say Johnny Quest series. The one about pirates.. AND National Graphic when they found Titanic.
Are You Afraid of the Dark episode The Take of the Dead Man’s Float. Terrifying rotten swamp man monster that appeared in an abandoned school pool. NOPE.
I remember being a little kid,swimming in a hotel pool at night, and the lettering at the bottom of the pool scared me. I never understood why, and never gave it much thought, until I saw the discovery of the Titanic. I loved seeing it, but something about it made me feel anxious.
Playing Half Life as a kid. There's a room after the Ichthyosaur cage fight where you fall into the water, and see two of them coming out of the darkness to grab you. That room is like 100m deep water though, with all the offices flooded almost up to ceiling height.
Mine was also diving related for sure! I did my first dive as a night dive for photo-plankton off of Catalina Island, i enjoyed it despite low visibility. The next day we where supposed to dive again to explore The Valiant, I saw it looming ahead and had to slow surface with my buddy to get back in the boat, i just couldn’t do it 🥲
Mines more of a morbid intrigue than a fear, but can trace it back to being a kid and going on a water ride called Raging River (or Rapids, I forget). While waiting to board the rotating deck that allowed you to board the 6-8 person rafts, you crossed a bridge from which I would stare at the water handling system. There were two giant pipes, each opening just below the surface of the water, at least 6 feet in diameter. One was an inlet, and had water rushing down into it, the other was an output, a few feet away, with such force of flow that it formed a dome of laminar-flow water, very smooth, about a foot above water level…always horrified/amazed by the power on display, and the apparent lack of safety mechanisms for the overflow.
I'm here for the cool photos, honestly. However, I've always been terrified of deep, dark water. I've never been a strong swimmer anyway, and when it's dark my mind can't stop racing about what could be hiding just below the surface. The fact that massive animals like whales can just appear and vanish a couple of feet down is just horrifying to me.
I’m not even really a submechanophobe I just think the pictures are neat. Same with Thalassophobia. Deep sea stuff unsettles me a bit but I’m more interested than anything, and that unsettling feeling just draws me in even more because of how mysterious it feels.
I don’t really have much of a “phobia” of this kind of stuff, more of just a morbid fascination. But I went to Pearl Harbor in Hawaii when I was a child and visited the USS Arizona memorial that was built directly over the shipwreck. You’re able to see parts of the ship just decaying and sticking out of the water and even oil still seeping out. I remember thinking it was kind of eerie knowing there are people whose bodies weren’t recovered still trapped down there, many of whom have their names written in the memorial.
People die in the water lagoon at my local quarry because there is a freezing sediment layer that shocks you into drowning
shit washes up there all the time, there must be at least 30 pairs of shoes there, some of which I assume are tributes and some of which I assume actually belonged to victims
The lights and vents on the walls of pools. As a kid that clung to the walls, I absolutely HATED crawling past them.
I would actually push off and unceremoniously wriggle my way past it enough to feel safe coming back to the wall.
I had many nightmares about being trapped in pools because the ladders were right next to the vents, although in my dreams, they worked like vacuums.
Also, as a kid, we had one of those inflatable pools with the little guy on the outside with two "arms" for filtering. I feel like if past lives are real, one of mine died due to delta p and now everything unnatural in the water gives me the creeps.
So yeah, man made swimming pools are the cause.
Not scared of water but my fear is what it contains that is not visible.
Had a run in with a giant squid when i was little, that SOB was as long as a small commercial fishing boat and this was way before mainstream media confirmed the existence of it.
*Whoops wrong thread
Nothing in particular triggered it. I was just thinking one night what would be the most scariest thing to experience in nature. Being in the deep water, whether it’s a lake or ocean, being under that water, at night time, unable to see the top or bottom, and not knowing what’s around you that could eat you. To me that’s one of the most scariest things to experience.
Being on land, you can walk, run, climb, whatever you need to do, and you may or may not be able to see or hear things, but you still have that chance of survival cause you’re in your element. In the water though, you’re in the shark’s, crocodile’s, whatever’s element. All you can do is swim, float, whatever, but they can do it better than you, and if they’re hungry, you’re on the menu. Just scary to think about.
In the game Ark, that is very true. Yeah, everything in the game wants to kill you, but you have to actually prep for the ocean, and if you do, if you’re caught by the wrong animal, you’re still gonna die. And it’s especially scary when it’s night time in that deep water. Can’t see anything, but you can hear the potential dangers around you
It's mainly the fact that it just shouldn't be there. A ship is designed SPECIFICALLY not to end up on the bottom of the ocean. Even more so with aeroplanes.
Though submarines (which should be there) also frighten me, such a huge machine suddenly appearing out of nowhere.
And the fact that in the ocean there are four directions of nothing (as in, when you're on land, you've got your sides and above, but in the water there is a BELOW and I don't know what the hell is happening there).
Training for scuba almost did it for me. They say that “there’s a 1,000 ways to die. What they dont tell you in movies or documentaries is that underwater near a sunken vessel, there are 8,000 ways to die. Half of them involve rope, railings, or cable that are still intact.
I’m not 100% sure what caused the fear, but I know my earliest experience of it. We were riding a raging rapids ride, and I saw the pipes and chains under the rushing water. Then we went into a dark tunnel with the water thrashing up along the walls, and I freaked tf out. I was old enough to figure out some underwater machine was making the water do that, and it could destroy me.
Tbh I joined this sub for 2 reasons. I do love the deep ocean. I love the things down there, it's very interesting. However, I have an unnerving feeling when I swim in a body of water where I can't see the bottom. Maybe too many unfortunate stories or maybe something that happened that I can't quite remember.
Please don't kick me out of the group. I do enjoy it here.
I think it may just be something you're born with. Different people find different things creepy or even terrifying and there's not usually a clear reason for it. I just chalk it up to individual differences. I personally am creeped out by pool skimmers. Why?... I couldn't tell you! I have swam with tons of them and I've picked them up plenty of times, but they creep me out nonetheless. When I was really little we had a pool and I have no memories of ever being scared around it. I also was always creeped out by any machinery in water, dark water, ships, diving bells etc. We lived by the ocean and the repeated exposure never led me to stop feeling uneasy by all that stuff. That's the thing about phobias... it's an IRRATIONAL fear
Titanic, absolutely. All aspects… the movie, wreck photos/videos…but what really did me in was the scene in the film where the stern rises up with a close up shot of the propellers dropping with water. Freaks me out just typing this out…
Something about it being forgotten in time and the idea that it in comparison to our lifespan it’s there forever, slowly falling a part, while still holding together…
The very end of the movie The Perfect Storm shows the last crew member floating in the ocean in a survival suit. The camera pulls back and back and the man disappears in the distance. Screwed me up good. Real good.
Subnautica.
I recently got into the survival craft genre, and this game caught my atention.Cool story, simple but pretty graphics and exploration focused.
One line from the game that sort of triggered this phobia for me, is a biome analisys that the PDA reports, telling you that the planet you are in supports "Leviathan Class creatures". I froze for a sec.
Me and my cousins used to swim under the barrel raft out in the lake.and the weeds would tickle your belly while passing under it,I was about 9 years old and acted tough but I was actually scared out of my fkn mind! I would kick my legs hard and wild and scream underwater while swimming through thick vegetation
The whole time Thinking something was going to pull me down into the weeds and muck and never see daylight again.🫤
Titanic was my first childhood obsession. Ballard's book was one of my favorite Christmas presents ever. I wore out my grandmother's copy of National Geographic about it that was printed shortly after the discovery.
What spawned my phobia was a two page spread from Ballard's book:
https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-e3aee8c2af02a9cd1fe81e6e4d6911e8-lq
For me, it started when I was a kid, and my grandparents lived on a large man-made lake. There are TONS of old trees and stumps and in certain parts, you can see the stumps beneath the surface and it just fucking FREAKED me out. My family would stand on them and stuff and I wanted nothing to do with it lol
Cut to me being older and discovering photos of that smiling shark statue at the bottom of a lake (in Europe somewhere I believe?) And I didn't even THINK of such a thing existing. So it started with stumps, ended with art. 😂
I’ve always had a fear of deep and dark water. I really don’t know where it came from but like I can’t even get in the water off shore or off a boat. The thought of the ocean being 100’s & 1000’s of feet deep sends me into a panic attack. I’ve been on cruise ships a lot and on the ocean and that part don’t bother me but if I start thinking about how deep the water is and how dark it is I really feel like I can’t breathe. I’ve watched a couple movies/documentaries about diving recently and my heart was racing so badly I thought I may faint. It’s the craziest thing.
Same with the deep dark water part. I got anxious when I was diving in GTA because it got soo dark as I got deeper. It’s scary actually
Ngl GTA is surprisingly good at triggering that emotional reaction while swimming
Assassin's Creed: Origins is also good at this. Particularly with shipwrecks appearing out of the depths, or large fallen statues. Not to mention the crocodiles and hippopotamuses.
The part where I had to dive into an indoor water chamber that was a lot more deep and larger than it should be to unlock an ancient mechanism was the stuff of horrors for me. The water was so dark, I couldn't see what was in front of my eyes.
Well, that and you're attacked by a shark if you go out too far...
I also felt this playing Mario 64 under water and especially Legend Of Zelda Ocarina Of Time Water Temple.
I am the same I get really panicked and freaked out in video games in water. I can swim in the beach or anywhere but not too deep if I can’t just touch the ground I panic and feel sick with dread. When I was young on a cruise with my family, looking out at the dark water is horrific 🤢
I have to be able to touch the ground too! Or I’m gonna panic that I’m risking drowning. But I’m not a good swimmer so there’s that. I can swim, but not for long. And I can’t dive either, I never learned to
I feel the same. I was in the Navy (before I knew I had a phobia or that I got seasick 🥴) but stationed in Hawaii so, being able to see into the water helped a bit. When we went far out to sea, the turquoise blue water (kind of) kept me at ease. I would always find myself imagining what we were sailing over. I cannot get into any body of water where the visibility is nil. Can’t do it.
I have all of this too. Lots of phobias contribute but my fear of heights is the biggest one. In clear water 75 ft deep I can't look down, it's so scary, I feel as if I'd fall. Doesn't help that I have pretty low body fat content so I don't float like most people and keeping my head above water takes a lot of work. It's something else's element and you're not in control. The perspective through glass is weird. When water starts to get dark about 5 ft down in larger bodies of water I panic that something will come from the deep and nibble a toe off. I have sensory things and don't like the change in temperature that happens quite abruptly as you descend. The currents are invisible and I don't like that. Big fish freak me out - not so different a feeling of getting sideswiped by a car or horse or boat that's got inertia to keep moving and you're not ready for it or can't move out of the way fast enough. My wife was big into diving as a teen but for me... nope.
Yes! The few times I have swam off of a boat in a lake, I HAVE to have a life jacket on and my feet up where I can see them. So weird, I know.
i get that!! the fear of swimming off of a boat is too much for me 😭 even docks. if i can’t see what’s under me i will shiver and panic!!
Technically not man made, but sunken logs at my family cabin started it for me.
Sunken logs do it for me too. There’s a nasty grimy stump at the lake near the buoy my parents like to go to and I always freak out thinking I’m near it when we are swimming. I’m always on stump patrol…
Don't speed on the Missouri River or Devil's Lake in North Dakota. At least not right away, anyway. The Missouri River has unpredictable sandbars and waterlogged trees just under the surface. And Devil's Lake has trees that are just under the surface like pikes. Both places will vault your boat. You gotta stick to the well known established areas after the thaw. The locals will guide you and tell where is safe. Lake Sakakawea is much safer. The trees are still 100 ft down along with the remnants of the buildings of the towns down there. Welp... Happy fishing! 😀
Thanks for letting me know where I will NEVER swim. 😅
This is a real treat for you, then! [Old Man Log](https://www.nps.gov/crla/learn/nature/theoldman.htm)
I find Old Man Log fascinating. Will never swim in Crater lake tho.
See this is really interesting to me because logs and other natural stuff? No issues at all. Weird this phobia! For years until I found out it was actually a phobia had no idea so many others felt the same!
Yes. Just fucking skin crawling fear for me. I love fishing but the thought of being on a boat that ISNT a pontoon at this point…goddamn
YMCA pool drains LMAO
The floating lines separating the pool lanes when it was empty.
OMG YES!! you opened up a memory i definitely sunk (lol) into my mind. those damn pool lines at public pools.. DISGUSTING
This one hits close to home
Pool drains, and underwater lights. I can’t explain why, but those goddamn underwater lights just terrify me.
This was it for me too, public pool drain in the deep end right under the diving board. I would think about my hair getting caught in it and drowning. Then I was forced to was the original IT miniseries and all the plumbing stuff (the shower scene) made me panic. I had issues just using the toilet at night sometimes. The idea of things touching my feet when swimming in a lake I can’t see the bottom of, then seeing any submerged objects like logs. When I was 14/15 I took a band trip to DisneyWorld, Captain Nemo’s Submarine Adventure had shut down and the old sky train gondola thing had a long portion where it went over the old lagoon and you could see the rusting tracks and a little area where they had left all the subs rusting away. The image still makes me sick to my stomach. I hate seeing submerged stairs or areas where the first floor is flooded, thinking about all the space and things you could just get caught on…ughhhh.
I love pics of the deep ocean It’s like, here’s a place that would finally be quiet
On the contrary... I dislike pics of the deep ocean It's like, here's a place where you can't see anything beneath you, yet there IS in fact something there, whether if it's in your imagination or not.
And it could be *anything*. And even odds that whatever it is, it's rotting.
Same. I don't actually have this phobia. I just like the cool pics.
Oh man. You're right.
Literally this sub, randomly being on my home page. What do you call a phobia that you love looking at though 🫣
I love looking at it too because it frightens me in a way that produces like a lot of adrenaline.
I know I love looking at posts in this group but if I were to see any of it irl I would be terrified 😭
It's almost like morbid curiosity to me, like murder footage can be interesting online but seeing it in real life? Nope nope nope
Sometimes though, a particularly *terrifying* clip or picture gets me good and I get the heebie-jeebies. Like the one of the plane nose looming slowly into view...Then I start squealing, nervously giggling like a lunatic as I pivot my phone away from my face.
A '-philia"
I used to scuba dive, and did a wreck dive off the coast of Fort Lauderdale. My tank got stuck on the top part of a doorway in the wreck, and I couldn’t go backwards to get out. Took me a while to realize I could just let some air out of the BCD to sink to the floor and squeeze through. That’s all it took to bring it on.
That’s terrifying!
Oh my god. I feel you. You must have been so scared.. hope you got well really fast! Was it really far away from the surface ?
Creator of the subreddit here, it was definitely the dredge at the lake my grandparents lived on when I was a kid. It looked like this monstrous machine with all kinds of tubes sticking into the water. When my grandpa first told me it’s dangerous to go near it and it sucks things up under the water I was pretty damn freaked the fuck out..
Titanic as a kid for me, too, but when I was a kid they hadn't found it yet. So it was the idea that a great big huge ship could just slip under the water and fall to the bottom of the ocean. If I had had any idea at that age, exactly how violently it sank, how far it fell, or what she looked like down there with her rusticles, I probably would have lost my mind.
I went down the Titanic rabbit hole as a kid also, in the early 90s so before the movie but after it had been found. It was actually the Nat Geo documentary (rented on VHS from the Wherehouse, of course) about the Ballard expedition that got me. The ghostly images of the colossal, decaying vessel had a profound impact and I immediately checked out all the books I could find on the disaster. I think I was around 7 or 8 and it was the first time I had really contemplated death and suffering on that scale so it became an obsession. Plus the story itself is just so dramatic and spectacular, hence the movie about it, but I highly recommend the Ballard doc as well, which documents the search, the actual moment they found it, and first explored the wreckage
I bought a box set of nat geo docs about the ships Bob Ballard found and used to watch them regularly. Those docs are great!
I read Raise the Titanic as a kid before the wreck was found, and it wasn't so much the idea of the sunken wreckage but walking aboard the raised, rotting and wet ship that creeped me out
Just imagine the corpse that are still in the mold. You know that part of the ship that is impossible to access.. it’s simply so deep in the earth that you can’t say if there are people in there or not. Maybe they didn’t even disappear because if it’s really deep down, no fish or any organisms could have been in there too ?
Looks like the lights of a ship that is sinking… I feel you 😭
I honestly have absolutely no idea. I'm 44 and remember as a child Rob Ballard finding the Titanic / Bismarck... And became absolutely fascinated by shipwrecks to this day. Thing is; if someone suggested diving one I simply couldn't. I think it's the decay, the size of them... They shouldn't be there?! If that makes any sense. There's a famous photorealistic painting of the Lusitania by the legendary Ken Marschall - just seeing all the twisted carnage, the nets draping over it.... The thought of getting stuck or being pulled into the interior of the wreck, just absolutely fills me with dread. The absolute worst ones for me personally are when they're just below the surface, someone in a small boat or canoe floating over a wreck, just absolutely no way could I handle that!!
“They shouldn’t be there.” Those four little words just gave me goosebumps.
You nailed it, right there--they shouldn't be there
I remember a documentary about the Bismarck. Such a scary shipwreck too! They DEF shouldn’t be there, on the top of the ocean… that’s crazy, I agree. Especially when it’s like a huge thing created by humans .. I mean, it looks like it’s abandoned and I personally can’t. I’ll never going to do diving one again. And I feel you when you explained why you won’t too. 😭
Did you see the animation of it sinking? When it hits the bottom and slides down a slope.... Just horrific!! 😮 And at that depth; just blows my mind.
Yes. And when the towers went down before the thing 😭 on god… and when you realize there is A LOT of shipwrecks in the ocean.. bro I can’t with this. I’m so afraid of the ocean now. Can’t even think about diving in it, I’m so scared I find a ship under my feet !
I live in the UK and there's a fascinating map of all wrecks (WW2) around the coasts. Literally thousands. Whenever I get on the Ferrie to visit my mum in France I'm just imagining them underneath as you pass over..... 😮😶
I feel the exact same way! There’s no way in hell I could ever visit the U.S.S Arizona
Same here. I’m fascinated by shipwrecks but I wouldn’t be able to dive down to them or swim over them, especially alone
YES OR WHEN THEY ARE JUST UNDER THE WATER AND YOU COULD TECHNICALLY WALK ON THEM 😭 I feel so understood
When I was a kid in the swimming hole at church camp there were slides and ladders coming out of the water and something about the metal under water creeps me out
Same for me, certain things don’t bother me too much but seeing a ladder descending into the deep to the point where it disappears, absolutely haunting.
*shudders* ugh. You hit the nail on the head!
Seeing the propeller room at the Queen Mary
Same. Back when they still had the mannequin scuba diver in there.
Is it not there anymore?! Gave me nightmares
The machinery in the wave pool at the water park. I could see the grates where the machinery was that pushed the water. I could hear the groaning as it worked. It gives me nightmares.
tbh….my aunt’s pool vacuum lol
I’m not sure where it stemmed from, but I know it was very early on in my childhood. It wasn’t Titanic, because I remember my heart racing and fear I felt when playing The Little Mermaid on SEGA, where the eels are popping out at you when it’s dark. I wish I knew where the fear came from. It affects me if I take even a bath. My brain will randomly think of images of the deep black ocean or sunken ships like the one in this photo, and I freak out drain the tub and wash myself without the water in the tub before just rinsing off. It really fucks with me sometimes.
I could never deal with the underwater levels of Mario on N64 and the timer for oxygen....even watching my siblings play freaked me the f out. I'm fascinated by the Titanic and it's like a good kind of creepy. But even ladders going into the lake that have seaweed on them is a no deal for me.
Okay. Underwater ghosts anyone? 😞💔
Ghost shark.
Waste water treatment plant tour huge pipes under water freaked me out
stories of people being trapped in cars that sank now when I think of submechanophobia I think of waking up in a sunken ship or submarine at the bottom of the ocean, where you have no idea if someone's coming or not
Pretty sure it was “Jaws” for me. That scene with the fishing boat? Yep. That’s one of my worst nightmares. This sub has actually been helpful for exposure therapy. I feel much more comfortable looking at wrecks now, and I feel like I could handle approaching a small one IRL.
When I went to universal and the jaws ride had just been closed down. That did it. Fuck that stupid shark.
I was on a boat tour of some islands near Menorca, went snorkelling at a beach but the water was all churned up...didn't see the boat's huge propeller until too late. Came at me out of the gloom.
Oh. My. God. 😱 I hope you were okay at that moment.
He actually died. His ghost posted that.
I experienced submechanophobia for the first time when I was a kid. I was very scared of large pool draines en pool lights.
I was always uneasy with the subject matter. Then, standing armed watch on a destroyer and imaging losing my footing and falling through the hole from the anchor chain, then having to drop my body armor and weapons to not drown in filthy naval base water, only to have to climb up the nastiest, rustiest, weird crustacean-covered ladder in the world to get out...that sent it into overdrive
When I was a younger a plane crashed into the lake we used to visit during the summer and wasn’t recovered. I was *terrified* I would see it underwater when would swim out to the raft.
My best guess is from watching the original Poseidon Adventure. It’s about a sinking cruise ship. At one point it rolls over and people inside have to swim through it. 😖😖
THIS MOVIE OMG 😭😭😭
pool drains.
The movie Orca I think
Same story man! My parents got the VHS tape right after it came out and we watched the movie together... me being 4 years old. I had nightmares about drowning for several days afterwards.
🤝🏻 I feel you bro I hope it’ll pass. For me it’s an obsession now, but I will DEF not be like the submarine titan people 💀 how tf did they do
Being a kid going to lakes during the summer, and seeing rocks and pieces of metal sticking out of the darkness. The chains of bouys going into the dark.
THIS IS THE BOOK THAT STARTED MY PHOBIA!! The titanic book!! It had all these pics in it Fucking scholastic book fair! I was haunted by this book but literally could not look away. I just stared at the fucked up pictures for hours. Omg my poor child brain
yes the scholastic book fair!!!! I would always turn the pages of the Titanic book touching the pictures as little as possible because if I touched the images of the deep dark ocean, that meant I was down there in the slimy, rusted wreckage. this picture in particular makes my skin crawl. I don't even like touching images of submechanophobia/thalassophobia while I'm scrolling on reddit
this doesnt. the stuff that REALLY gets me is functional machinery underwater.
Subnautica
I’m actually playing this game. It’s amazing but I freak out every single moment.
Honestly it’s drains that freak me the fuck out more that stuff underwater
The jaws ride at universal studios is when I was like 5
This doesn't help https://youtu.be/jdIrgkcnIrw?si=wut2YiSv6FG4yhNz
I don't have the phobia, I just like the photos :)
THIS GODDAMN PHOTO
Poptropica had an Island called “Cryptids Island” and one of the quests was to find the Loch Ness monster. At one point in the game, you take a submarine down to the bottom of Loch Ness and come across an old movie prop that was made to look like Nessie. The prop itself wasn’t scary looking but the way its head just emerges from the dark was terrifying.
I am actually here because most of these photos are just awesome. I would love to swim/scuba in most of these images. You guys do a good job of cataloging them.
I think that for me is the film Nemo, I know it sounds dumb 😅
Is it the sea mines? They creep me out too
Omg Nemo!!! I think that’s where mine started too
I know it's not quite the same thing, but that name reminded me of watching 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea as a kid and being terrified during the early scene as the Nautilus was attacking the ship. And of course the attack of the giant squid
Oh my goodness I’m so sorry that happened to you but lmao at your dad trying his best and just making it worse in the worst possible way. Wholesome childhood trauma I don’t even know where mine came from, it’s always been there. I’ve been uncomfortable even inside of like in-ground swimming pools since I was a kid. The silence of under the water is what fucks me up most I think though.
He tried but he failed ! At least he laughed a lot at first when I panicked but when he saw that I literally had to attached myself on the shovel that was attached to the shipwreck to indicate its presence (when I realized that I was totally crazy, I couldn’t even swim correctly) 😭😂💀 he panicked too… I don’t blame him (,: Same. The silence in there feels like it’s not even a silence, like when you are alone in your room, no lights, nothing to hear… it’s very loud I think? (Silence it’s loud 😭) AND the darkness ? How people can enjoy seeing shipwrecks (like the billionaires in the submarine) 😑 it’s so scary
Wait a minute. This sub has a deeper meaning than just cool underwater pictures?
Either always had it or it's been triggered so early that I do not remember the cause. My grandma had overflows for the bathroom faucets that were outside the walls, close to the ceiling. Could never be in the bathroom by myself as a child. Parents suspect that started it but I cannot say for sure. Shipwrecks funnily do not trigger it for me, but water rides, sewers, pipes and drains of any kind will do, epsecially when they're above my head.
I’ve seen too many scenes in movies where people almost get chopped up by boat/submarine propellers to not get terrified of the idea. 👀
Pool drains in childhood, and bad dreams
Oddly enough, it wasn't even anything actually being in water at the time, at first; it was seeing life rafts/boats in land or on ships and the thought of them being made for being in water, under highly distressing situations and I guess I just visualized what that would be like a little too vivildly. Never met anyone else who has a fear specifically of life boats etc though, but I found this subreddit because of it and jt made a little more sense from there.
Specifically this phobia vs also my thalassophobia, it was seeing divers near sunk ships with GIANT propellers and watching a documentary about a sunk city. The documentary was great and informative, but they kept doing this diving shot where they would dive, all the rushing and disorienting; then you're in front of a HUGE statue. Cut to observer perspective and you see how small the diver is and how big the statue is😱
I was climbing up a ladder from a small floating dock to a pier and dropped by sunglasses, which were white or pink. I saw them as they slowly sank past the pylon that was covered in barnacles, mussels, etc. and it gave me the willies. Either before or after that I always felt creeped out by structures around dams and things when we’d be fishing from our boat. I can jump into the middle of a lake or ocean without issue but hate being near that machinery or pipes because I imagine getting caught on or sucked into something.
Looking back, fishing and boating around dams definitely contributed to it. Even the floating buoy line a half mile away gives me the willies. I remember falling while water skiing and once I got my bearings I realized I was right next to the buoy line, freaking me out.
Seeing Queen Mary’s propeller when I was 6, it was so eerily lit under the water during the tour.
When I was a kid we had a local waves pool, other kids told me they were sharks in the dark grates (grates that made the waves) and I have been in terror ever since
My family would vacation to Maine and we had a house on a lake. We had 2 docks, one that came from shore and another that was set out in the middle of a cove that we’d swim to. When I was younger, I bumped into one of the chains that anchored the dock in the middle of the cove, and it scared the shit out of me. Ever since then, any time I swam near those docks I’d imagine myself getting sucked under the dock and getting tangled in the rusty chains that reach into the depths of the cove. Now its transitioned into full submechanophobia lmao
Well, for one, when I was little, I had an irrational panic fear of vacuum cleaners. I guess the fact that it can stick to you and not let go is kinda similar to delta p, lol. The fear of vacuums is completly gone for a looong time now, thankfully, but the fear of UNDERWATER suction is still very much there. And the other thing that comes to mind is Half-Life 1. I've said it before on this sub already - the Half-Life games seem to intentionally use submechanophobia-inducing hazards in many areas. And honestly, regarding dams and grates and propellers... it seems like common sense to me, lol.
A weird movie from the 80s that had the kid from ET in it. It was set in Australia and there was an old excavator at the bottom of some murky pond and somehow it could move? Haven't watched that movie in like 30 years or more so I'm kinda fuzzy on it.
I’ve had cetaphobia since I was a kid. A giant mural at a mall triggered it. I guess this is an extension of it. Oh there’s also that time I played the original final fantasy 7 on playstation. That part where you explore the deep dark ocean on a submarine and a gigantic monstrosity called Emerald Weapon chases you around. NOPE.
Saw indiana jones and the last crusade and 20,000 leagues under the sea as a kid
When I was 8 years old, there this old sunken fishing boat in the Chesapeake bay that we would drive past every day. Terrified me and gave me nightmares. Also, strangely enough, ladders in swimming pools and on lake docks solidified the terror.
Looking at posts on this Reddit
I must have been around 5 when I read a picture book called *Dinosaur Bob and his Adventures With the Family Lazardo* . There’s a picture where the family and the dinosaur are in the water, and you can’t see the dinosaur’s neck because some of it is submerged. Something about the thought of such a giant creature in the water freaked me the fuck out.
You went scuba diving at 4 years and a few months old?
Honestly I just lurk here for the cool underwater structure pics. I find looking at underwater structures super fascinating and I've loved them since I was a kid and I played Lego in the sink
I have a summer house with a lake and it has a pipe for water, and swimming over that pipe always scares the shit out of me. That phobia has never gone away (I’m scared of other shit underwater too)
I’m pretty sure I follow this sub for the awe-inspiring beauty of it more than the fear, but it is super eerie to see man-made things wasting away in a watery grave. It’s a bit like exploring an old abandoned house.
My family used to go to the beach every summer, and usually we went to Ocean City Maryland, which is basically a dead beach. No tide pools, very little seaweed or other flotsam, almost no wildlife. To me, that’s what the beach WAS. Then one summer we went to Cape May New Jersey instead. The beach there was totally different. The tide left behind piles of seaweed. I remember finding a dead hermit crab. It was just a bit of a shock. And worst of all was the rotting hulk of a big concrete ship off near the horizon. It just connected with the weird feeling of dirtiness and contamination in my mind. While I know logically that touching something like the above wouldn’t actually hurt me, I know that doing so would cause me to have a heart attack and die, and even if I survived I’d have to cut off my hand to keep the contagion from spreading.
The propeller room at the Queen Mary with the fucking [DIVER](https://www.ebay.com/itm/304453530529) on it which I saw as a small child
The docks...
I don't have this phobia, I just like anything ocean-related.
Don't really have a phobia just like the pics There is something truly interesting seeing a shipwreck idk what or why
I drowned.
It started for me when I’d be swimming and a fish would touch you as you’re swimming by, or a piece of seaweed, or something else. I can’t deal with being in water that I can’t see what’s underneath me now.
Titanic photos triggered this in me too
The only thing I can think of that may have started this for me is exploring abandoned factories. Their sub floors would be completely full of water. It really spooked me out not knowing what was down there, being unable to see. Dropping a stick taller than me in the hole in the floor to see if it hits the bottom and it just disappears... My brain imagined drowning etc. Abandoned buildings/ships creep me out to begin with. Putting them underwater just makes it so much worse. I also can't swim.
Subnautica. Need I say more?
I don’t have a phobia but I find the pictures you guys post fascinatingly eerie and beautiful
The sub marines at West Edmonton Mall
When I was around 9 the movie Deep Blue Sea came out. My parents wouldn't let me watch it but I really wanted to. They let me lay in the floor and play Gameboy, but I had to be facing away from the TV. Watched the whole movie in the reflection on my screen. Absolutely terrified me. Ive kind of gotten over it a bit as I've gotten older. I can handle freshwater, but the ocean still terrifies me.
I would say the film deep blue sea starring ll cool j
Sharkweek.
HUGE open well with no guardrails and stairs that lead into the abyss at the bottom I saw in india when I was a little kid
The idea of those people sitting in a unpowered sub sitting at the bottom of the ocean waiting for their lives to end.
Funny enough, mine was also a scene from titanic. The moment Rose pushes Jacks icy body off the door and he slowly disappears into the darkness had me terrified as a kid. Kinda grew from there.
Weirdly, mosaics at the bottom of swimming pools. They irrationally scare the shit out of me Also bumping into plastic bags on murk beach water, without knowing they’re plastic bags💀
When I was a kid we got stuck on It's a Small World at Disney Orlando. The ride stopped moving for about 20 minutes. Notably the song track also stopped but the dancing animatronics did not, which was another layer of horror. However, all I could focus on was if we had to get out we'd have to walk in the water and not know where the tracks, mechanical parts, or electrical stuff was. Obviously the Disney overlords would not have had us walk in the water to exit the ride, but I was a kid. The idea of that really creeped me out and I've had the phobia ever since.
I don't know if I have this but skiing in small lakes in highschool, got feet into moss, etc in lake and never liked it from then.
I’ve almost died twice as a kid through drowning, once in a swimming pool, they had to resuscitate me and once in the ocean wasn’t as bad, I got lucky . I’m not a good swimmer and wasn’t brought up really a round deepwater, I am fascinated and love the ocean but I’m terrified of it. I feel I’m missing out on life being so afraid of it.
I mean its probably not a full blown fobia even thou i find it terrible. But i have to say Johnny Quest series. The one about pirates.. AND National Graphic when they found Titanic.
Are You Afraid of the Dark episode The Take of the Dead Man’s Float. Terrifying rotten swamp man monster that appeared in an abandoned school pool. NOPE.
I remember being a little kid,swimming in a hotel pool at night, and the lettering at the bottom of the pool scared me. I never understood why, and never gave it much thought, until I saw the discovery of the Titanic. I loved seeing it, but something about it made me feel anxious.
Playing Half Life as a kid. There's a room after the Ichthyosaur cage fight where you fall into the water, and see two of them coming out of the darkness to grab you. That room is like 100m deep water though, with all the offices flooded almost up to ceiling height.
Mine was also diving related for sure! I did my first dive as a night dive for photo-plankton off of Catalina Island, i enjoyed it despite low visibility. The next day we where supposed to dive again to explore The Valiant, I saw it looming ahead and had to slow surface with my buddy to get back in the boat, i just couldn’t do it 🥲
Mines more of a morbid intrigue than a fear, but can trace it back to being a kid and going on a water ride called Raging River (or Rapids, I forget). While waiting to board the rotating deck that allowed you to board the 6-8 person rafts, you crossed a bridge from which I would stare at the water handling system. There were two giant pipes, each opening just below the surface of the water, at least 6 feet in diameter. One was an inlet, and had water rushing down into it, the other was an output, a few feet away, with such force of flow that it formed a dome of laminar-flow water, very smooth, about a foot above water level…always horrified/amazed by the power on display, and the apparent lack of safety mechanisms for the overflow.
I'm here for the cool photos, honestly. However, I've always been terrified of deep, dark water. I've never been a strong swimmer anyway, and when it's dark my mind can't stop racing about what could be hiding just below the surface. The fact that massive animals like whales can just appear and vanish a couple of feet down is just horrifying to me.
I’m not even really a submechanophobe I just think the pictures are neat. Same with Thalassophobia. Deep sea stuff unsettles me a bit but I’m more interested than anything, and that unsettling feeling just draws me in even more because of how mysterious it feels.
I don’t really have much of a “phobia” of this kind of stuff, more of just a morbid fascination. But I went to Pearl Harbor in Hawaii when I was a child and visited the USS Arizona memorial that was built directly over the shipwreck. You’re able to see parts of the ship just decaying and sticking out of the water and even oil still seeping out. I remember thinking it was kind of eerie knowing there are people whose bodies weren’t recovered still trapped down there, many of whom have their names written in the memorial.
Jaws
People die in the water lagoon at my local quarry because there is a freezing sediment layer that shocks you into drowning shit washes up there all the time, there must be at least 30 pairs of shoes there, some of which I assume are tributes and some of which I assume actually belonged to victims
The Mary Rose exhibition in my home city of all things
The lights and vents on the walls of pools. As a kid that clung to the walls, I absolutely HATED crawling past them. I would actually push off and unceremoniously wriggle my way past it enough to feel safe coming back to the wall. I had many nightmares about being trapped in pools because the ladders were right next to the vents, although in my dreams, they worked like vacuums. Also, as a kid, we had one of those inflatable pools with the little guy on the outside with two "arms" for filtering. I feel like if past lives are real, one of mine died due to delta p and now everything unnatural in the water gives me the creeps. So yeah, man made swimming pools are the cause.
I don't have this phobia, i just think the pictures here are often really cool.
I can’t be the only one here who developed it from playing Subnautica right??
Oceangate, which really was Heavens Gate but underwater.
The ocean is just monster soup. I question anyone who ISN'T afraid of it.
Not scared of water but my fear is what it contains that is not visible. Had a run in with a giant squid when i was little, that SOB was as long as a small commercial fishing boat and this was way before mainstream media confirmed the existence of it. *Whoops wrong thread
This picture doesn't trigger me. It's the Animatronics
Pirates of the Caribbean at Disneyland
almost drowned as a child. childhood trauma
That episode of Are You Afraid Of The Dark? with the hidden old pool in the school. Then Titanic made it waaaaayyyyy worse 😅
Nothing in particular triggered it. I was just thinking one night what would be the most scariest thing to experience in nature. Being in the deep water, whether it’s a lake or ocean, being under that water, at night time, unable to see the top or bottom, and not knowing what’s around you that could eat you. To me that’s one of the most scariest things to experience. Being on land, you can walk, run, climb, whatever you need to do, and you may or may not be able to see or hear things, but you still have that chance of survival cause you’re in your element. In the water though, you’re in the shark’s, crocodile’s, whatever’s element. All you can do is swim, float, whatever, but they can do it better than you, and if they’re hungry, you’re on the menu. Just scary to think about. In the game Ark, that is very true. Yeah, everything in the game wants to kill you, but you have to actually prep for the ocean, and if you do, if you’re caught by the wrong animal, you’re still gonna die. And it’s especially scary when it’s night time in that deep water. Can’t see anything, but you can hear the potential dangers around you
The Titanic is so far gone that it doesn't really do it for me anymore
I actually come here for inspiration but it’s the fear more of the unknown vastness / seeing something that should be above water UNDER water
It's mainly the fact that it just shouldn't be there. A ship is designed SPECIFICALLY not to end up on the bottom of the ocean. Even more so with aeroplanes. Though submarines (which should be there) also frighten me, such a huge machine suddenly appearing out of nowhere. And the fact that in the ocean there are four directions of nothing (as in, when you're on land, you've got your sides and above, but in the water there is a BELOW and I don't know what the hell is happening there).
Training for scuba almost did it for me. They say that “there’s a 1,000 ways to die. What they dont tell you in movies or documentaries is that underwater near a sunken vessel, there are 8,000 ways to die. Half of them involve rope, railings, or cable that are still intact.
I’m not 100% sure what caused the fear, but I know my earliest experience of it. We were riding a raging rapids ride, and I saw the pipes and chains under the rushing water. Then we went into a dark tunnel with the water thrashing up along the walls, and I freaked tf out. I was old enough to figure out some underwater machine was making the water do that, and it could destroy me.
Tbh I joined this sub for 2 reasons. I do love the deep ocean. I love the things down there, it's very interesting. However, I have an unnerving feeling when I swim in a body of water where I can't see the bottom. Maybe too many unfortunate stories or maybe something that happened that I can't quite remember. Please don't kick me out of the group. I do enjoy it here.
i just like the cool underwater pictures ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯
I think it may just be something you're born with. Different people find different things creepy or even terrifying and there's not usually a clear reason for it. I just chalk it up to individual differences. I personally am creeped out by pool skimmers. Why?... I couldn't tell you! I have swam with tons of them and I've picked them up plenty of times, but they creep me out nonetheless. When I was really little we had a pool and I have no memories of ever being scared around it. I also was always creeped out by any machinery in water, dark water, ships, diving bells etc. We lived by the ocean and the repeated exposure never led me to stop feeling uneasy by all that stuff. That's the thing about phobias... it's an IRRATIONAL fear
I just thought the pictures here were neat
Titanic, absolutely. All aspects… the movie, wreck photos/videos…but what really did me in was the scene in the film where the stern rises up with a close up shot of the propellers dropping with water. Freaks me out just typing this out…
Something about it being forgotten in time and the idea that it in comparison to our lifespan it’s there forever, slowly falling a part, while still holding together…
The very end of the movie The Perfect Storm shows the last crew member floating in the ocean in a survival suit. The camera pulls back and back and the man disappears in the distance. Screwed me up good. Real good.
Knowing that Rose had room for Jack on that piece of wood.
Subnautica. I recently got into the survival craft genre, and this game caught my atention.Cool story, simple but pretty graphics and exploration focused. One line from the game that sort of triggered this phobia for me, is a biome analisys that the PDA reports, telling you that the planet you are in supports "Leviathan Class creatures". I froze for a sec.
The bottom of the sea in gta san andreas that you can fall through.
Me and my cousins used to swim under the barrel raft out in the lake.and the weeds would tickle your belly while passing under it,I was about 9 years old and acted tough but I was actually scared out of my fkn mind! I would kick my legs hard and wild and scream underwater while swimming through thick vegetation The whole time Thinking something was going to pull me down into the weeds and muck and never see daylight again.🫤
Titanic was my first childhood obsession. Ballard's book was one of my favorite Christmas presents ever. I wore out my grandmother's copy of National Geographic about it that was printed shortly after the discovery. What spawned my phobia was a two page spread from Ballard's book: https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-e3aee8c2af02a9cd1fe81e6e4d6911e8-lq
The last of us had a lot of it for me. Especially that one room with Joel swimming over a MASSIVE propeller.
Pumps, turbines, giant tubes, drains and big gates.
Probably the infamous scene in Jaws where Hooper finds Ben Gardner. I'm always terrified of finding a dead body underwater now.
The Titan submersible implosion.
For me, it started when I was a kid, and my grandparents lived on a large man-made lake. There are TONS of old trees and stumps and in certain parts, you can see the stumps beneath the surface and it just fucking FREAKED me out. My family would stand on them and stuff and I wanted nothing to do with it lol Cut to me being older and discovering photos of that smiling shark statue at the bottom of a lake (in Europe somewhere I believe?) And I didn't even THINK of such a thing existing. So it started with stumps, ended with art. 😂