Basejumper.com - archive

Alright, so we all jump and are always on the lookout for new objcects most of the time... Last night I was working on a catwalk about 140 feet up there in this steel mill and I scared myself. As my partner and I were even just walking up the stairs, I kept having freaky thoughts like I was going to just huck myself off at some point involuntarily. Now I work the high stuff in the crew when there is high stuff to be done and I've felt this urge before but not so intense as last night. I had to walk the steel several times and the feeling to just run right off the beam into free air just continued to fill my head. I actually got spooked and had to make an effort to calm my mind and focus on the work. I've seen guys freeze on high scaffolds, roofs or crane baskets but I don't know if this is what they were experiencing. I don't know if wearing a rig would help with the feelings or if I'm slipping into some sick mindset here. The rig at work ain't gonna fly. I just got a jump in last week and I'm needed another soon but not like this.
Anybody else have some feaky psycho thoughts like this or am I a heading for a life of heavy medications in the "day" room?
Before you ask, there's no LZ.

I had the same thing happen to me years ago. I used to build high rise buildings in LA.
One day whild eating lunch, I suddenly got the urge to just bail right off the edge. Freaked the shit right out me. It wasn't until years later that I bacame a BASE jumper. I guess it was just my future calling to me.
Kevin

No big deal. I used to get that feeling walking across perrine bridge without a rig on. Id have to walk along saying "Dont go over the rail, dont go over the rail, dont go over the rail..." to myself. It just means your "jump chemistry" is built up and ready to go. Go make a jump off your local object and it wont be so strong off everyday stuff when you havent got a rig on.

I don't think that feeling is limited to BASE jumpers, nor is it something limited to heights. I often wonder what it would be like to jump in front of a truck, swerve to the other side of the road, smack myself with a broken beer bottle, stab myself with a knife, etcetera, etcetera.

Call me psychotic, but I think everybody has these kind of thoughts at some level betweeen consciousness and animal instinct. Some are just more honest about it than others. Not comitting to these thought-scenarios is what makes you a healthy human being.

This happens to me all the time.

Like Dennis, whenever I'm at an exit without a rig, I get this feeling. I often find myself thinking "...no rig...must not jump...no rig..."

I've been in the middle of a bridge with a half dozen jumpers (it wasn't a legal site, so of course we weren't jumping) without rigs, and we actually talked about this and realized that we almost all had the same feeling.

I think it's akin to what a skydiver would feel on jump run, if they weren't wearing a rig when the door opened.

I've had those feelings ever since I had memories.

Then I found out basejumping exists and it all made sense, I had found my way to go with those urges and live to repeat.

If I am any indication, then you're probably headed for a load of basejumps.

You do want to start keeping what you say in check, or you might wind up in that padded room on heavy medication....

cya
sam

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one with this problem. Ever since I was little I always had the urge to just jump from whatever height I was at. Even now I hate to get close to the egde for fear that I may jump. It's almost uncontrollable until the rig is on. Then, with the rig on, it's all good.

Same here. I guess I have had this urge to jump off things ever since I was a kid. My dad actually told me a story not so long ago that was rather interesting.
When I was 3 years old, we used to live in an appartement with a stair case. He told me that one day as he was coming home from work and climbing the stairs, i just came running like a maniac as i saw him and just launched into the stair case... luckily for me, my dad was quick enough to drop what he was carrying and catch me mid air! Otherwise I would have face planted into the turn of the stair case and probably would have eaten the window that was there. He said he was really shocked that a kid would actually do something like especially since it was totally spontaneous. I owe one to my dad for a soft landing...
But eversince he told me that story, I really believe that this urge is something we are born with. Call it genetic, chemistry gone wrong in your mom's stomach or whatever, but i firmly believe that it's something you are born with or not.
Base jumping is probably just the adult sport and the natural continuation of that little kid's urge to just launch himself into thin air...
So I don't think you are coucou! I feel the same way. Just don't do it when dad is not ready to catch you or when you don't have your rig on...

You just put into words a lot of thoughts I've had for a very long time...

I'd tend to agree. I've been jumping off cliffs into water since I was quite young, highest so far 110ft. Been bruised up a few times, nothing serious, but the feeling I would get is very similar to the feeling I get at any exit point. The thoughts I have are also very similar. I never really had thoughts about dieing from a jump until I started BASE jumping though.

I have had similar thoughts about other events in my life...something along the lines of "in a split second I'll be committed and there's no turning back" I never thought about skydiving when I was young and I didn't give BASE jumping any consideration until the first Moab Boogie. So it's not that I was born to be a BASE jumper, but BASE jumping definitely presents me with the chance to commit to something and deal with the results of that decision...

Being so afraid I'm shaking definitely brings a smile to my face!

Glad to see this is common. Before I started jumping I was on a big E a few years back and felt overwhelmed with the urge to huck it, thought mabe I was losing it. I also remember thinking base jumpers must love this spot. I didn't realize at the time that I would become a jumper, but a couple of years later I made a skydive and it all made sense. Not long after that I got to jump that same E and everything really made sense, but I still can't stand close to an exit point without a rig.

I also believe the most of this have this experience. However, I believe Twoply has a heigtened sense with this situation b/c he is mentally unstable.

I thought I was the only one...

Same here. Has happened to me several times - regardless of who I am with at the time.