I am not exactly afraid of heights, but I don’t like them. Like I went up to the top of the World Trade Center but one look out the window and that was enough for me. In fact the second floor of the mall is hard for me to look at.
But somewhat ironically I love to sit next to the window seat on a plane and look out. I don’t have any fear with that. But I will admit I get nervous when I look out of the plane and I’m over water and blue is all I see. Or if we’re flying above the clouds and when I look out and can only see clouds.
So is there anything so radically different that I would hate high places but love to look out of a plane window that would account for this?
I can’t say for anyone else but for me it depends on how secure I feel. Standing on the edge of a cliff where one strong gust of wind could send me over is a hell of a lot scarier than the same cliff with a sturdy guard rail in place.
I’m pretty positive I’m not going to fall out of the plane; that’s why it doesn’t bother me. Try going up in a skydiving plane and looking out the open door. That’ll probably unnerve you.
I am the same way. One of the reasons the airlines make the cabins homey is to give you a sense of security. They bring you snacks, a beverage, in the old days a meal, all this helps give you a feeling of well being. Also, you are in a vehicle. You are strapped in. There is a barrier between you and the sense of height.
You may not like the plane windows that they can outfit on the new 787. I saw some up-close on a display, and they look huge - too large for me to feel totally safe by.
In a plane I don’t get the sense or feel of danger. Indeed, when I did parasailing, I did not feel at all like I was “high up”. It kinda felt like going up in an elevator. I think it is all a perception thing. On a high building I feel more exposed.
Maybe it’s because in a plane you can’t really look straight down? You can see the ground but only from an angle.
Like most people can walk on the second and third floor of a mall and look down and see the first floor but nobody really wants to hang their head over the railing and look straight down
Fro me, the difference is that there is either something between me and ‘down’ or I am strapped in or onto so ‘down’ is very much less likely to be inadvertent.
That would be the first change in the size of plane windows in what, 50 years or so?? Maybe more (I can’t recall what the old DC-6 used to have for windows; I was too young to remember).
As many have observed already, I think this can all be explained with the old joke:
What’s the difference between a suicide from the twentieth floor and one from the second?
The twentieth floor suicide goes: AAAAAAAAH Plafff.
The second floor suicide goes: Plaff AAAAAAAH
A view from a great height is not really perceived as a height (just as the sun and the moon doesn’t really look far). A view from the second floor is a height your mind can digest and imagine falling from.
I think humans have some sort of “I’m standing upright at an edge” trigger that just doesn’t work with small windows or when you’re not standing. In my limited experience people terrified of heights have no problem being prone at the edge of a cliff and looking down. They just can’t stand up. Beings strapped to a seat and the window being tiny probably both contribute to a different perception.
Trust the acrophobe when I say that it doesn’t matter in the least whether seated or standing or laying down: looking over a cliff bothers the heck out of me.
Airplanes don’t bother me because I can’t FALL out the window. I cannot imagine for the life of me standing near an open door in an airplane; I know I’d be terrified. :eek: :eek: :eek:
I am the same way. For me in a plane you are so high up and the ground so unfamilair looking that it doesn’t give me the same response as looking down at rocks or cars.
I get nervous standing on a ladder. At the top of a cliff I feel very uncomfortable. Yet I fly, have done hundreds of hours of aerobatics in both open and enclosed cockpit aircraft, have done a parachute jump, and have absailed, all without a sniff of fear.
To me, the difference is between having some piece of safety equipment holding me in and just standing there exposed to the elements.
I experience a similar situation to the OP - heights give me the willies, but I like looking out of airplane windows. Similarly, I can’t swim and don’t like being in or on water out of my depth. When my BIL talks me into going on his sailboat, I’m nervous anytime I’m on deck, though as long as I’m inside and can’t see the water I’m fine. (It’s getting me on and off that’s the problem!) And yet, on a large ship like the ferries that run between Scandinavian cities, I never feel uneasy and will happily look out the window or over the railing for hours.
I think it has to do with a large vehicle giving me a sense of security. I feel detached from the danger by the sheer bulk of metal around me. Never mind whether that makes sense or not.
Has to be the sense that you won’t trip or fall and send yourself to the bottom. Three days ago I was on the roof of a high rise building that my firm was considering buying in StL. With the wind, it freaked me the hell out. The thought I had the whole time was that the wind would blow my hat off and I would instinctively reach out for it and lose my balance. (rather detailed for a morbid thought). So I had one hand on my hat the whole time.
The next morning I was on a plane staring at the ground from the window seat.
I can’t tell you that there is a clinical name for it, but I am sure you could get a government grant to figure one out.
I can stand on the edge of a railway platform virtually with my toes over it, look down at the track below and not be scared of the four foot drop. On the roof of a skyscraper, if I had to look over the edge without a safety rail, I’d be approaching it on all fours.
That is to say, I am scared of the drop in both cases if a train is approaching in the first, but I don’t have a sense that I’m going to lose my balance and topple over the platform. It’s a bit like walking a narrow suspended beam is hard, but walking an even narrower painted line on the ground is not so hard.
I never feel nervous in a plane at 38 000ft. I feel a little apprehensive sometimes at 500ft just after take-off (THAT seems high in a way I can relate to from tall buildings and cliff tops. Cruising altitude seems like a video game.)