Hightened fear of hights

[jordan]

I was on top of a mountain not too long ago and was looking down. Hights have always sort of scared me, but not to the point that I wont walk to the edge and look or something. It just makes me real nervous. Anyway, on top of this mountain was a station with a small radio tower. This brought up something I've often noticed:

 

1) Looking up at a tall building makes me dizy

2) Looking down from a tall building makes me dizy/nervous

3) Looking up at a relatively tall object while at the top of a tall building makes me really dizy and nervous.

 

I also noticed this while on the Eifle Tower. I was on the first platform (a few hundred ft or so)and looked up to the top and could hardly stand. Does this happen to anyone else? Does anyone know why this would happen? Does anyone know how to make it stop?

[Phi for All]

It could be an inner ear kind of thing, like vertigo. I remember hearing about some kind of flakes that can swirl around in the inner ear fluid and set your equilibrium out of balance. I think this happens more after a fall or a blow to the head, though.

 

I think the feeling of being off-balance is augmented by the mind as well. I don't have a fear of heights, but I'm uncomfortable working on a high ladder for very long when my hands are busy. I don't get dizzy but the tension eventually gets to me. I'm OK looking over the ledge of a building (with a guardrail) but I will NOT go to the edge of a cliff to look down. I'm 6' 4", 220#, and I grew up watching the coyote break the edge off of too many cliffs chasing the roadrunner.

 

Looking up doesn't bother me at all.

[jordan]

That's what I find so weird: I can look down without getting any more nervous than most people, but as soon as I look up at something taller I feel like I'm going to black out. It's like the opposite of what happens to everyone else.

[Phi for All]

For you it could be those flakes that swirl in the inner ear, since looking up requires more of an awkward head-tilt than looking down does. Here's a site for vertigo that may explain some of it.

 

My worst nightmares always involve standing atop a tall pillar of rock with only about a 6' x 6' square surface area. The feeling is that I will get dizzy and will be drawn to the edge where I will fall off. I know it's all in my head but I can't help it.

 

One of George R. R. Martin's Song of Ice & Fire books talks about these prisoner's cells that are high up in the mountains, about 10' square with a floor that slopes towards a hole opening onto a fall of about 200'. Prisoner's go crazy due to sleep deprivation for fear of rolling over and falling through the hole.

 

I can relate to that.

 

Here's another link.