Dams scare the hell out of me

I have the same fear. I don't think it's normal, but I'm not going to go to therapy for it. My theory is this: it's a man-made structure designed to harness the power of water. It terrifies me to think of the power behind that dam. Plus, I don't like the thought of all that big machinery down there in the belly of that big old dam, doing whatever it does. I have always been somewhat leery of them, but a trip to Fontana Dam in NC pretty much did me in. Can't even look at a pic of a dam without breaking out in a sweat.

I have the same fear. My fear would be to be floating down the river and come up on a dam. Just looking up at it would scare the hell out of me.

I have the same fear, I have been deathly afraid of dams since I was around 6. I won't go near lakes with dams in it, so I see where your coming from!

I signed up for this website just to post a comment on this 3 year old thread: I am terrified of dams, mostly hydraulic plants/the aspect of large buildings processing/draining water. Same thing with pools, I'm fine with them on the shallow end, but the deep end, hovering over the drain, terrifies me. I love swimming, too.

When I was in college my ecology professor took us to a water processing plant and I had to pop a xanex to do it without losing my mind. I frequently have nightmares about dams. I have to plan road trips around dams or make sure someone else is driving.

Glad I'm not alone. This is hard to explain to other people.

Thank you all who commented on this topic... it means so much to know that I am not alone with my fear of dams. The way some of you described exactly what I feel surprised me. I am used to people laughing at me when I try to explain what it is that I feel when I actually see a dam.

Marlafb123 said: "If I glimpsed at it out the corner of my eye, an overwhelming fear came over me like I've never felt. So, I didn't look at it fully." I can totally relate to that statement!!

Dams have always creeped me the hell out, and I have never understood why!! When I know I will be approaching one, my heart races and I can barely breath. It doesn't matter if I am approaching from the bottom, with it looming over me; or the top where I can see the water all of a sudden drop off... both terrify me. I always thought it might have something to do with my fear of heights, but it really does not. It does not feel the same at all. Where I have always understood my fear of heights, I have never understood my fear of dams.

I want to thank everyone who shared their fears on this subject. It has helped me more than any of you will ever know.

I have a fear of dams and the way the water falls off of the dam is especially scary. The harder the water flows, the scarier. I remember as a child being scared of a dam that we passed by each morning on the way to take my mom to work. It would be dark and foggy and loud and it scared me. As an adult, I went to a popular and large dam in the area where I live with my mother and I was afraid to even look at it. If I glimpsed at it out the corner of my eye, an overwhelming fear came over me like I've never felt. So, I didn't look at it fully. Pictures don't bother me. Just real life. But, I decided one day to go to the dam with my children and watch their reaction. They liked it. As most people seem to. So, we spent the day there and it wasn't as big or scary as I remembered. When I saw they weren't scared and my youngest son was scared of everything, I knew it wasn't that bad. So I guess I'm over my fear. I now can see the beauty in the man-made waterfall (and try not to think of the danger), as I call them.

Thank God, I have finally found my people!! I have the same fears and had horrific nightmares as a child.

I grew up near the aqueduct and I knowmit was drilled into our head if you went in you died. I also remember seeing a movie as a child where a man fell into an overflow and got churned into bits. So I wonder if that's how it starts.

The fear of underwater currents and getting sucked down the plughole is pretty rational!

Comforting to know that someone else has the same strange fear as me. i had reoccurring dreams of falling in water near a dam and fighting the current, which threatened to pull me through some sort of nefarious underwater machinery.

Cool post, i was looking at pictures of damns, and thought...i've heard of people having fears of Ships, their was a chick on one of the real world series on MTV, that had a fear of Big Boats/Cruise Ships, and their Horns would strike fear into her, So i thought it would be interesting to see if there was a fear of Dams, like a scientific name, i guess not, but since i was a child dams freak me out, i've taken a trip up north to Page Arizona and saw the damn there, i walked over the top of it which was scary seeing the dark murky water and the giant wall on the other side, and later taking the boat trip to the wall of the damn, seeing the dark water, and the trash floating in it, was scary, i felt if i fell in the water i would get sucked down to the bottom and grinded up, i think this goes into a fear i had of Drains, and swimming pool drains as a child, i remember seeing a commercial with a kid in the bathtub, and their was this big ol drain and he got sucked into it, i forget what the commercial was about but it struck fear into me....I agree with what was mostly talked about with other people, Dams being man made structures is not natural to our minds, i've also thought was if far in a past life we had a bad experience having to do with a Giant man made wall or dieing in some way around a huge structure in water, and some how this creates a fear in this reality hmm....maby thats too deep for sum, but its cool to hear about other people who share this experience, i think strangely it takes an open mind to have such a fear as this

same thing with me!!!!!!!!!!!1 i thought i was the only one!

Interesting. I had a similar fear of dams when I was a kid.
I remember being on the edge of the dam, watching a boat pass by. I was propably like 4-5 years old. I was terrified. There was no safety bar or nothing of the sort.
Dark murky water, loads of water gushing in, no safety bar, mechanical machinery, and not knowing how to swim combined made it so scary...

I have the same fear and cannot comprehend it. I was driving along a road and saw a dam for teh first time. I was nearly paralyzed with fear. I've had no previous experiences or preconceived notions of the power of the water behind it. Just afraid.

This also happened to me while driving toward and under a large bridge. I'm thinking it may be a "man made structure" thing, but it definitely came out of nowhere.

I fear anything that involves large volumes of falling water. Man-made structures seem to increase the fear. Dams freak me out like you, but the #1 for me is the cooling towers you find around power plants. At the base, they have large quantities of water falling to cool it before they discharge it. I think this is because we have a plant near our house, and it is possible that my dad may have taken me to see it when I was very young and gotten scared of it (he worked there). I don't actually remember if this happened, though. I have done what you did before, looking up pictures just for the thrill of being scared by them. I tried to look up a name for this; the closest I came was Potamophobia (fear of rivers or running water). I didn't find any mention of a fear of falling water, though.

so you are afraid of a beavers home....odd....im pretty sure a beaver is afraid of our homes too

i had a fear about nuclear plants once (and cows but thats another story)i was afraid that they would blow up on me but i got over it by studying nuclear bombs and now i dont care

I'm afraid of big boats. Standing beside them or seeing them in harbors from the highway really freaks me out. I think I'd be okay if I was actually on one, but I've never been on a cruise or anything so I don't know. I don't know what it is about them that scares me, they are just so massive and slow moving and I hate the way it sounds when they blow their horn. Creepy.

Looks like any type of confinement scares you. You said dams as well as locks scare you. They both represent restriction.

Maybe you are a person who loves your freedom so much that these signs of being held back make you queasy.

I wouldn't say its weird since tons people are scared of random things the way you describe you might have a phobia and tons of people do so it's normal.

As we learned with Katrina, and various other flash flooding, water falling is extremely destructive. You would be wise to purchase or live in a place that isn't downstream from a massive levy... but on the other hand the chance of say the hoover dam falling on any given Sunday is pretty miniscule. That and the fact that it starts out slowly, and usually is triggered by something and Dam failure can be prevented totally with proper maintenance and management. It's not a bad line of work... maybe you would be good at it.