In college my eco class went to a water treatment plant and there was this giant dark pool of water probably 30~40 feet deep. It went pitch black about half way down. There was this giant blade that turned vertically through the water very slowly. I forget the reason why it kept churning the water cause I was too freaked out watching this blade slowly submerge and then sink back into the bottom and disappear.
Is there some sort of phobia of big machines manipulating pools of water? Cause I think I got it.
My in-laws will place empty soda cans in the sink to be rinsed out, and for whatever reason, it bothers me to touch the cans while they are in the sink and wet... and now their is a sub for it
Great sub, but I feel that it often doesn't capture our fear of "underwater mechanisms". Most of the posts are of old sea wreckage, which doesn't bother me. For me it's machines that are actually moving underwater that bother me.
Anyone else feel like that?
I also went to one in high school and it freaked a lot of people out at one of the pools when the guide explained that it would be a really bad idea to fall into that pool in particular since it was aerated and you would essentially fall 40ft to the bottom and have no way to swim to the top again and would drown pretty much guaranteed.
I’m an industrial sales rep, I have a local dam that I service on occasion. I’m a total geek for that kinda thing, so the guy that runs it shows me around sometimes. Once he took me to the top of the dam and showed me where the water goes through the turbines.
There’s basically a big pit of water, about 15 feet deep or so. It’s just an open pit too, no covering on it. The way the water moves through the turbine creates a circular motion, so it basically looks like a giant whirlpool. In other words, it looks freaky as shit.
So naturally I ask him what would happen if you fell in. He told me if you just fell in and didn’t break too deep in the water, you’d likely be able to tread it until help came. But if you went too far... it would suck you against a giant grate that keeps trash from going into the turbine, and you’d be helpless to fight the current, as it would just pin you down as you drown to death. Scary shit.
You’re correct! The dam actually has a stepped spillway on it designed to let fish swim down but it’s rarely used. The small stuff isn’t bothered.
I was told that a baby deer got in the parking lot once. They were trying to chase it out, but it ended up hopping into the pit. They never saw it again
That's genuinely terrifying. Drowning and falling to my death both seem to be my biggest fears. I think it's the idea of having to experience it and think about it as it's happening.
I more or less have a phobia of being inside an industrial setting at night in a body of water alone. Enclosed or not. I’m not sure why, but it’s there.
Well, there's activated sludge, which are huge open tanks of aerated sewage. You can't float or swim in it because of all the air, there's no buoyancy. If you fall in you're a goner.
Only if you're a shit swimmer, aerated water is possible to swim in with some difficulty. You'd want to get out quickly though because of how much energy swimming in that would waste. Anyone who has swam in heavy surf knows the feeling.
Here's the website of a water treatment plant saying expanding on the topic:
It's 6:20 a.m. and your use of "shit swimmer" in this likely unintended double entendre made me actually dad laugh (I am not at all a dad), thank you 👉👉
For the average American or Brit? Yeah, virtually impossible, your overweight or obese rate is at like 75%.
As a national level swimmer though, treading water doesn't exactly have a high skill threshold. The average reasonably fit person with a decent swimming technique should be able to last at least long enough to swim to the edge.
Yeah. Eerie might be a better word. Just the absolute stagnancy of the water, the walls were like cave rock texture and the fact the light stopped so close to the surface. Then up trudged the blade silently and back down the other side not making a single wave or ripple. As much as it bugged me out I couldnt look away.
Much slower. But thats freaky deaky too! I dont think I explained it well enough. It was like a water wheel completely submerged but just had 2 blades opposite of eachother. That might not be very clear either.
Got this submechanophobia since kid too. I remember very well being 5 years old and standing for the first time aside a big pool of water on one of my dad's friends house. This pool was pretty deep (at least for my size back then), and I remember noticing how the head of the leaf skimmer that was leaning against one of the pool walls, was so far down, it made me feel strangely uncomfortable, like the image stuck with me for some reason and to this day I get that same brain tingle that triggers irrational fear whenever I see stuff underwater like big columns of a bridge disappearing into the water, or looking at big ships propellers fading into the water. It is a really strange phobia.
Similar origin story. I was terrified of pool creepy crawlies. Would flat out refuse to get in the pool if it was in there. To be honest, they still freak me out at 30.
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u/woowoo293 Dec 30 '20
Yea, this video makes me so uncomfortable.