A recent experience for me
On another site I visit a lot a guy posted the following link: timmsuess.com/chernobyl-journal/chernobyl-journal-the-videos/

It's a video tour of Chernobyl, 20 years later. They go through the old buildings and film the stuff left behind, all set to moody soundtracks. Very nicely done, and a bit eerie.

Then I get to the one labeled "Lenin Square and Amusement Park". The second half of that clip uses "i Ghosts 1" in the soundtrack, a strange piece with piano and a synthesizer in the background. I watched that and was chilled straight to the bones, because the synthesizer sounded exactly like the old Civil Defense sirens they had when I was a kid in the 1960s.

I will never forget how those Civil Defense drills scared the fuck out of me. I was about six or seven when they stopped doing them, but I remember hearing that siren and having to go crouch against the wall, arms covering head, and I remember imagining the building being blown apart over us- they had shown us the film from the nuclear testing that showed the buildings being shredded, so I knew what would happen if a bomb hit.

The footage of the old abandoned buildings coupled with that piece of music was enough to give me vivid flashbacks to that childhood terror and put me in a bad way for two days.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Fri 8 Apr 2011, 13:59, 1 reply)

That brings back memories
As a child and teenager I lived on RAF stations, and by the time I was 10 we KNEW that that we'd be first when the balloon went up. The alert sirens, even for pre-arranged practice used to make me sweat and vomit with fear. If there was a TACEVAL, there'd be no warning, and the local primary school would have half their pupils catatonic with fear for a week.

I had The Dream as well: standing in a high place with a charming gentleman beside me. Along the horizon, the flashes are going off with the mushroom clouds climbing like filthy tombstones into the stratosphere. The gentleman is proud; we are worshipping him properly at last. He tells me he'd love to stay and watch some more, but the blast front will be arriving soon, and there's going be a such a lot of paperwork to get through.

The Dream stopped after Gorby took over in Russia; I sent him a letter of thanks, and his staff replied saying they'd had a few like it.
(all my scars face forward possesses 2.5% of a hyperalloy combat chassis, Sat 9 Apr 2011, 11:45, closed)