Paul thought he would be on the submarine forever (Image: Instagram)
A 22-year-old Royal Navy seaman has exposed how grim life on submarines really is, detailing “coffin dreams”, six hour sleeps and months without sunlight.
The Liverpool Vanguard Deterrent submariner told his YouTube followers he thought he would “never get out,” saying the “strangest part about spending six months under water isn’t being down there – it’s coming back and nothing feels normal, not even things you’ve done your whole life.”
Paul McNally spent six months underwater before he came back for a mere few weeks’ break.
He said this was almost harder than the months he spent at the bottom of the ocean.
“The first thing that hit me was the silence under months of constant voices and machinery,” he said on his YouTube Channel.
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Shift patterns and poor sleep make for a strange sense of time (Image: Instagram)
He added: “Real silence feels empty, like something is missing – to the point where I had to play washing machine noises just to fall asleep.”
But Paul found no respite in sleep either. He said: “Even sleeping felt weird. For the first time in months there wasn’t a ceiling just inches above my face. And the strangest part – the coffin dreams just stopped.”
Coffin dreams are common for submariners working in incredibly cramped conditions. People will dream of being inside a coffin. Paul’s nightmare was that he was stuck in a tight crawl space.
Paul said: “Your brain starts putting you in a coffin every night. It felt completely real. Then it hits you you’re in a coffin – just not six feet under – just hundreds of feet underwater.”
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Even time felt warped for Paul.
He explained: “Time doesn’t feel the same down there. It can feel like Groundhog Day. Sometimes it can honestly feel like purgatory.”
Then came the most challenging part – readjusting to normal life. Paul said: “You go from six hours on six hours off for six months straight to suddenly having no routine at all… even something as simple as a shower felt strange, unlimited water, no time limit – I wasn’t used to it.”
“For the first few days I didn’t know what to do with myself i just felt weird.”
Paul was originally supposed to get three weeks off but they got an extra 7 days. He said: “Six months underwater – no sunlight – messed up sleep – it takes more out of you than you think.
“You go from having every hour controlled to having nothing to do, and that messes with your head. My body clock was completely broken – I woke up at the exact times i used to without an alarm – like my body thought I was still down there.
“Most days I just sleep, order food, and do nothing, even though I was finally free, and that didn’t make sense.
“I didn’t want to see anyone, I didn’t want to go out. Being in public felt overwhelming. Too many voices too much going – it just didn’t feel real and I just wanted to be alone.
“You spend six months trying to get out and when you finally do you don’t know how to live here anymore because part of you is still down there.
“And the hardest part, no one actually understands what you’ve just done, to them you’ve just been away. People think submariners come back to normal life – bit you don’t. You have to relearn how to live again.”
