Heh, for planes, I get a weird combo of claustrohopobia and avoiding window seats, but for the most part can steel myself for what’s turned out to be about ten flights I’ve taken.
Than the standard social agoraphobia, which you mentioned in your post.
I’m confused by your confusion, honestly.
Has anyone ever been to Mt. Sunflower? At 4039 ft. above sea level, it is the tallest mountain in Kansas.
I wonder whether this is related to the feeling I got, the first time I saw an ocean. It was on the south shore of Long Island, and the feeling began when I was a couple of blocks from the shore. As I approached the water, I got a slight panic attack, like I was approaching the edge of… nothingness.
This feeling eventually went away, since I wound up actually living right on the shore for a couple of years.
I do hate the idea of flat land for hundreds of miles around, but I love it with the ocean.
Then let me recommend the Meseta portion of the St. James Way.
I drove through there when I was about 20 years old on a road trip between Brisbane and Adelaide. Amazing place. I loved it. I’ve always wanted to revisit.
This is what I came here to say. It’s quite a fun game to try to get yourself thinking as if you are lying on a ceiling, with nothing but space below you. If you can get yourself into the mindset for a moment, it’s quite perspective-altering.
Would no doubt completely freak the OP out.
In my teens, I developed an anxiety about the plains when we left Denver to head to Abilene and points east. It was mid afternoon in July, the speed limit was 55 and we got about 20 miles before the tediousness of it became just too much and turned back for the mountains.
Since then, I have been all over the flatlands and have come to appreciate their indifference in the way that I have come to be aware of life in what I used to see as desolate deserts. And it helps that we sometimes randomly stop in the middle of nowhere, get out, and just be there for a bit.
One thing I have noticed, though, having grown up in an area where you can always see snow capped peaks in some direction is that, out in the plains, the clear midday sky takes on a pall. Here where we have topography, the sky, looking straight up, is a nice firm blue, but out there in the plains, there is a weary dimth to it that can make an afternoon take on an unpleasant weight.
I get a vertigo feeling when I’m in large downtown areas. Being surrounded by large skyscrapers so close together.
I also don’t like being in large, crowded sports arenas.
It’s not a crippling feeling, I just don’t like it.
The first time I took my then serious squeeze to meet my parents I deliberately went via Steam Plains. (ain’t I a stinker!) After we left Wagga Wagga and headed further west the country progressively flattened to near featureless, the trees disappeared, pasture was replaced by saltbush, signs of civilization, indeed sentient life vanished. The city based, beach dwelling, party girl’s demeanor went from concern to crestfallen to mortified.
Her reaction: “Fuck, this is the end of the earth”
I replied: “No, cause if it was you could see it from here … and we have another 100 miles west to go yet.”
Not sure I was ever forgiven.
Can I say I understand it, without having the symptoms? I remember this feeling on a windy day as my family was travelling across Nebraska. It was of just how immense the plains were and how flat. We had stopped, probably for a stretch break and I didn’t want to get back in the car. I was mesmerized by the endlessness of everything. It did not give me the heebies; however, I can see how it can do so. Overwhelming.
In a temp job, I was working for a new V.P of a company moving to the Twin Cities from ex-urban Dallas. He was having a really hard time finding a home because it was way too hilly here. He said he wanted a good view so the realtor was bringing him to look at homes on lakes. No, he said, he wants a view. It totally stumped the realtor. I looked at her and said, he wants prairie, no trees, no hills. To him, that’s a view. She couldn’t believe it. Up here, most locals want water or woods but those things made him feel closed in.
I can sympathize. However, I grew up in a city that had a strict limit on building height, somewhere in the 20~25 story range. There are a couple of 40 story buildings in that city, which were allowed to borrow air from the adjacent block (which the developer also owned). This actually works out pretty well, as it forces sky gaps into the downtown area.
Still, canyons of 20 story buildings, 10 even, are not that much less oppressive, and I have looked at the city recently: everything absolutely has to be built right up to the sidewalk easement, with little or no open space along the building fronts. Luckily, downtown is a minimal requirement for getting by in the city.
That’s purely a function of altitude. The color of the sky is influenced by how much air the sunlight has to go through to reach your eye.
No, it is not. I have observed it in areas that are less than 200’ feet higher than where I live, and when I got out of the car last summer in Leadville, over 10,000’, the sky had none of the weary dimness.
I will concede that there may be a psychological component to it, but when the most prominent feature is the sky, with nothing to throw light across it, one notices how shopworn it gets to looking. If one is in the habit of noticing things.
My sister complained about this when she moved to Virginia (she grew up in California). No matter where you went, either there were buildings or dense trees. When I visited, at first I thought all the green vegetation was nice, but after a while I understood what she meant. The short line of sight was a bit oppressive.
Funny how I couldn’t be more the absolutely diametric opposite if I’d tried.
I feel uneasy when I’m on a wide-open prairie.
Back in the early 90s, my husband had a job offer in Colorado. My mental picture of Colorado then was a green, forested, mountainous state. Well, it is, but only the central/western part. His job would have been well out onto the prairie to the east.
We flew there and drove around for a bit, looking at neighborhoods, but the feeling of unease grew and grew. Finally, I said, “I hate it out here, and I couldn’t live here.” He agreed - he said that if he stood out on the plain and looked hard enough, he could see the back of his own head.
We flew back to Ventura, California, and he turned down the job.
I love wide open spaces. One of the greatest feelings I ever had was being on a 32 foot boat about 20 miles off the Washington coast. Nothing but water in all directions. I spent 2 summers working on charter boats out of Westport, Washington. We never went far enough off shore to not see land, but being out there was amazing. That was the reason I joined the Navy.
I had this feeling once on land while driving across Kansas. Stopped to get gas at a truck stop in the middle of nowhere. I walked out on the bridge over the freeway and took in the 360 degree view. The only thing higher that me at that spot was the Pilot sign at the truck stop. Other places that were like this was at the Sky Tower in Auckland, New Zealand, the top of the gondola at the Crystal Mountain ski resort and from the roof of the Grand Hotel in Jerome, Arizona.
I grew up in a hilly area and didn’t realize how much I love being surrounded by(or at least in view of) mountains until I moved to this utterly flat place. It took me a bit to figure out why I felt “off”. Now I’ve been here so long I’m used to it but I can really feel the contrast when I’m out west. Returning here from Sedona or Lake Tahoe is really . . . disorienting for a few moments.
@panache mentioned seeing the ocean for the first time. I grew up near the beach and never gave it a thought so it’s kind of weird that the Great Lakes freak me the hell out. Looking at the view of them on Google Earth makes me kind of nauseated and I remember when the tv show Mike and Molly first started, the opening credits ended with a view from the lake with the waves rolling in toward the city and I had to look away,
Heh - no problemo for this swaggering soul - that one. 
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* Yes, still somewhat bemused with the inexplicable buck teeth on nerd emoji.