I saw this when I was still a kid, 12 or something like that.

I was in Australia, on a beach. Which is when I decided to go swimming. There were a few other people with me, though they stayed out of the water. The idea of this swimming trip was that although I knew there were sharks waiting for me I had to try out the new safety net I had built. It was a huge steelnet that one could make fall into place by turning a switch at the bottom of the sea. The bottom was sand and the water was sufficiently clear. I could see quite long arond myself and I knew the whole time that I would have enough time to turn the switch and stop the sharks at the other side of the steelnet.

So I dived in. I only dived in that dream, I never was on the surface otherwise than to be on the beach for very short periods of time. I swam around for a while and finally saw a shark coming towards me. It was a huge shark, that kind of thing you have on Jaws except that this was the real thing. The moment I saw it panicked and I swam to the switch and turned it. The steelnet dropped, like it was meant to do. The shark stayed on the other side although it tried to push through it. It was very angry at me, I could feel it by the way it tried to penetrate the net. It was violent and huge and terribly angry at me. Which was when I got out of the water very quickly.

However, being the annoying kid I was, I felt the urge to try it again. I was feeling quite superior to the shark and the moment I got ashore I also stopped being afraid of it. And in I dived again. And I let the shark get a little bit closer to me than before every time they approached before pulling the switch.

The people one the beach, one of whom was my sister -I could recognice no one else although it was clear that I knew them-, were getting worried about me. They thought it to be too risky to try to beat sharks like that. I laughed and dived in again.

Now there were a few sharks instead of one. Occasionally some of the sharks seemed to get bored with me and disappear and a new one would come along to replace it. I had fun. I seemed to be invincible. The others on the beach got more and more worried because at some point I stopped getting out of the water and just waited for the sharks to go a bit further away before hauling the net up again. I seemed to have no trouble swimming or breathing underwater.

At this point I got seriously bored and got out of the water again. I chatted with the friends for a long while and then decided to take the last dive in before we'd continue our journey.

There were no sharks around and I was annoyed because of that. I had wanted my last rush of adrenalin but there were no sharks. So I put a bait for them. I can't remember what it was but it was supposed to be of interest for the sharks and my sister had something to do with it (and no, the bait wasn't my sister). Only one shark came around though. And it was huge. The earlier ones had been small fish compared to this one. And it was fast.

When I saw it coming I knew there was no way of escaping in time even if it was quite far away and there was only a relatively short trip to the switch. I tried though. I could hear my friends yelling at the beach and I tried to swim as fast as possible but I couldn't move anywhere. It was like I was staying put the whole time I struggled to get forward. And the shark was like a torpedo.

I got to the switch, amazingly enough, and had my last stupid attempt of playing brave. Which was that I didn't pull the switch. I waited till it was the absolutely latest to pull the switch considering the speed of the shark.

And the switch didn't work. I kept pulling it but it wouldn't move.And then the shark was there.

Unfortunately I didn't wake up before the shark got to me. It cruched my legs and my torso and I could feel my flesh breaking apart and my bones breaking and falling apart and I could see a pool of my blood rising slowly in the water right before I woke up.

Needless to say, that dream is the main reason why I hate swimming. It was too lively. I can still remember what it's jaws felt like when they touched my legs and how it literally ripped me apart before I woke up.
*shudder*

Index.