# Have You Ever Felt "The Pull"? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 5, 2011, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-felt-the-pull/566530 "2011-01-05T20:16:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2011, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-felt-the-pull/566530/61 "2011-01-07T14:43:00Z")
I tell people I’m afraid of heights without railings, but not afraid of heights in general. Actually I’m afraid that I’ll get the urge to jump off. Not because of any suicidal longing, but I think maybe because deep down I think I can fly - I remember reading a comic book (Sandman, maybe?) that had a bit about that and I was all excited because I’d never heard anybody express that before. ---
**Author:** ![Goblin\_Queen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/4da419/32.png) [@Goblin\_Queen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Goblin_Queen)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2011, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-felt-the-pull/566530/62 "2011-01-07T17:47:16Z")
I don’t feel the pull so much for myself in high places, but I do feel a sort of pull to throw whatever’s in my hands over the edge (usually an expensive camera, or my purse). I think this maybe could be because I know what would happen if I jumped off the edge–I would die–but I don’t really know what would happen if I threw my stuff over the edge. How long would it take me to get a new camera? How do I get a new license or credit card? What would people say? Driving, I don’t feel it. However, I have these kinds of thoughts all the time in much less physically dangerous situations. I too feel the impulse to drop my phone or whatever is in my hand down a storm drain or whatever. Also, something I haven’t seen mentioned yet (or maybe I missed it) is the impulse to do utterly inappropriate things. Like, “What if I groped/kissed/punched this person?”, with the person being someone that I don’t actually want to do any of those things to. For some reason middle school and high school were the worst for this. Lamest for last: If I am wearing my hair in a ponytail or braids and I happen to cut something, I have visions of taking the scissors or knife and cutting off my hair. I like my hair, I swear… ---
**Author:** ![kapri](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4491bb/32.png) [@kapri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kapri)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2011, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-felt-the-pull/566530/63 "2011-01-08T01:28:24Z")
\*Lamest for last: If I am wearing my hair in a ponytail or braids and I happen to cut something, I have visions of taking the scissors or knife and cutting off my hair. I like my hair, I swear… \* Oh, I have this, too! I think I have great hair, but somehow the urge to cutting it all off, especially when it’s in a ponytail, is strong. ---
**Author:** ![Acid\_Lamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Acid\_Lamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acid_Lamp)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2011, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-felt-the-pull/566530/64 "2011-01-08T01:50:26Z")
Oh yeah. Usually when driving over bridges. (florida native) I occasionally get the Kick someone off the edge ones, and Since I usually sit in the exit row when I fly, I occasionally get the urge to open the door mid flight. ---
**Author:** ![Count\_Blucher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2011, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-felt-the-pull/566530/65 "2011-01-08T02:40:42Z")
…can it be for posting? "Should I? I think its funny. OK. Sure. _click_. No, wait, thats misspelled. And its not funny. Damn, its going to be read as offensive. Who am I kidding, It Is Offensive! O Hell, I’m agonna get Banned!!! Sh-t!!! Un-click! Unclick! Unclick, you Mouse B-stard!!! GAAAAHHHHH!!! … Ok, where’s that anxiety attack thread…" ---
**Author:** ![xoferew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/e9a140/32.png) [@xoferew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xoferew)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2011, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-felt-the-pull/566530/66 "2011-01-09T14:52:26Z")
When I was little I had a fear of killing my parents. They were supposed to be all-powerful and protect me from making really bad choices, but when they were sound asleep if I snuck into their room with a kitchen knife, they wouldn’t stop me. Also as a kid when I was snooping in someone’s home and found a handgun… “Of course I’m too smart to pick up this gun and put it to my head and pull the trigger but if I did, no grownup is here to stop me! Scary!” Often when I am aware I’m dreaming I take the opportunity to do unacceptable things – break everything in a store, take my clothes off in public, hit people over the head with appliances. I guess I do this in order to find out what it feels like to give in to the “Pull.” And I think, “I sure hope I’m right about this being a dream.” ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2011, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-felt-the-pull/566530/67 "2011-01-09T14:57:26Z")
> [@xoferew](#): > > Often when I am aware I’m dreaming I take the opportunity to do unacceptable things – break everything in a store, take my clothes off in public, hit people over the head with appliances. I guess I do this in order to find out what it feels like to give in to the “Pull.” And I think, “I sure hope I’m right about this being a dream.” From what little I’ve gleaned from the news so far, wasn’t the guy who shot Rep. Gabrielle Giffords going on in his blogs about how he was living in a waking dream or something? Seems to me to be kind of chilling in the context of this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Jaledin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Jaledin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jaledin)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2011, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-felt-the-pull/566530/68 "2011-01-09T15:12:24Z")
I’ve done and said a lot of stupid stuff to people IRL,but never had the urge to harm me or another. But, even absent any real reason, such occasions have resulted in bizarre injuries which were not self-inflicted directly – I chalk it up to having a big mouth and an imposing physique, and probably too much testosterone. The feeling of a kind of vertiginous impulse is rather familiar to me as someone who struggles with anxiety, though – it always waits for another person to present himself or herself as a perceived and somehow anonymous threat. Such feelings are never present absent a kind of stimulus, but the reality of the stimulus is debatable. ---
**Author:** ![Shawn\_K\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Shawn\_K\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shawn_K_1)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2011, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-felt-the-pull/566530/69 "2011-01-09T17:15:37Z")
I feel it all the time driving, that it’d be easy to go over the edge, on that same thought I have an urge a lot of the time to do something terrible instead to other people but I’ve managed to restrain myself so far. However it’s a not a terrible feeling that I could do it, rather a “I could do this to someone, better not.” ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2011, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-felt-the-pull/566530/70 "2011-01-09T17:50:37Z")
> [@Absolute](#): > > Well, I’ve felt what you’re talking about, but I would not call it an “almost overwhelming urge”. More like a “terrifying realization that it would be so easy to do something horrible.” > > But I have definitely felt it, in all kinds of situations. I’ve felt it while driving. Also when hiking, when I could leap to my death in a single movement. > > I’ve even felt this while talking to people… > [@Fang](#): > > The French have a word for this sensation. It’s called “l’appel du vide”, or “the call of the void”. > > I get it too. > [@Patch](#): > > Ayup. Whenever I’m near a ledge, I just have this mental image of me going to the edge and jumping. I really don’t like heights for that reason. Yup. I get that feeling too. “The call of the void”–what a perfect name for it. What if I turn my motorcycle across the centre line? What if I insult my boss here in the performance review? It seems to have something to do with internal emotional disconnection. Mind you, the one time I almost _did_ fall over a ledge to certain death, it went away for quite a while. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-felt-the-pull/566530.md?page=3)