Re: Our Fears
 

I can seriously empathise.

Re: Our Fears
 

Ahhh...classic combo Thalassophobia (fear of the ocean), possibly coupled with Bathyphobia (fear of Deeps) and perhaps a hint of Scotophobia (fear of teh Dark.

All QUITE understandable. I'm contemplating two new Fear essays, whicj go hand in hand. Fear of the Vasty Deeps, and Fear of the Big Fish (not THAT Big Fish, Jon!) I'm off of work for teh next few days, and perhaps the Phobia, teh Muse of Terror, will smile Her inimical smile upon me, making me Her humble stylus. We shall see.

Let the Revels begin;
Let the Fires be started.
We dance now for the twisted
And those who are Mad-hearted.

-Aether

I know a fellow worker at my place of employment that literally freaks out when he sees a hot air balloon...even a photo..there are many enthusiasts for this persuit in my local area and all along the main road he has to take to return to his home in Portsmouth (a trip of some 40ish miles) the summer months,well the air above, is filled with said objects and he has to block them from his eyeview be it with the flipdown sunblind in the car or even his hand or a magazine,anything.

Its quite strange.

He says that they are just wrong?!

He has children, could this be a cause?

Re: Our Fears
 

I was a Pediophobic child (that is, I had a horror of dolls). You see, my mom and dad made one of those “what-were-they-thinking?” mistakes one night when I was four years old by letting me stay up past my bedtime to watch Rod Serling’s The Night Gallery—specifically, a nasty little bit called “The Doll.”

The Doll had a rather square, fat face (not unlike my own) with matted, blonde hair and smeared black circles under her serenely closed eyes. Trouble would really begin when the Doll’s lids popped open by themselves to reveal large, glassy blue, pitiless eyes. Immediately, her closed mouth would break into a fixed grin revealing… teeth. Activated by an utterly unknown power, the Doll would then sit up and glare, grinning.

The Doll “lived” only to exact revenge on a predetermined target. She was literally unstoppable once she had her prey in sight (she could be temporarily destroyed but would always return as good as new to complete her work). In the case of the TV short, the Doll’s target was a well-off, British colonel who had been responsible for the execution of an insurgent leader a few weeks before in Brit occupied India.

"Best remain awake, colonel,” the dead Indian’s brother warned him during an unwelcome visit to the colonel’s home, “The Doll has teeth . . . and there is no medicine on earth to save you."

Those sneering words haunted me throughout my childhood. I had reason to fear sleep because just about every dream I had each and every night for the next five years revolved around the Doll. She was more terrifying than any run of the mill horror of my former nightmares because of her static glee—baring teeth and hunting me with a kind of mechanical joy. The Doll never made a sound, and often I couldn’t actually see her. But even when she was invisible, I could feel that unstoppable, heated presence focused like a magnifying glass on my dream self.

I knew the Doll had only to bite me once with her fatal venom to finish the job, but the Doll seemed content to extend my torment indefinitely by sparing my life time and again. She was indescribably patient. In the Doll’s unwavering glass eyes and manic, fixed grin, I felt an unquenchable greed directed at me—as if she wanted nothing more than to absorb me into her Dollness not once, but continuously—forever.

Many nights I would awake screaming after a Doll dream, unsure whether I was really awake or not. And on the worst nights I wouldn’t be awake when I thought I was (then the frenzied race would resume as, impossibly, the Doll’s tiny, fat face appeared with teeth grinning cruelly at the foot of my bed). I can recall countless nights of begging celestial forces to protect me. My prayers were simple: don’t let me dream of Her tonight.

One night after years of my recurring nightmares, the Doll was chasing me as usual through a dream version of my attic when I realized (suddenly and for the first time in my experience) that I was dreaming—that this nightmare, so like all the other ones, was taking place in my own head.

And then something astonishing and unprecedented happened. First, I stopped running and turned on this thing that had terrorized me for the better part of my childhood. In the dream, I could now see myself as if watching a movie, and as the Doll’s wicked grin faded into a grimace of doubt and fear, I could see my own face transforming into the Doll’s bloodthirsty, fixed grin! Soon I was chasing the Doll, grabbing her by one of her tiny, filthy legs, and ripping her limb from limb.

I awoke suddenly from my lucid dream, crying as I never have before or since.

After years of forced servitude, I was at last free from the Doll and her simple, insane desire to chase and bite me. It’s little wonder I became shackled to obsessive thoughts of puppets and ventriloquist dummies shortly thereafter (and, to one degree or another, from then on).

Re: Our Fears
 

Hey, Dr. L. Interesting phobia. I remember watching "Child's Play" when I was 8 years old. It scared the hell out of me and yet I wasn't pediophobic (that would be quite a treat!).

Re: Our Fears
 

That freaked me out :shock: . I loved The Night Gallery, although I wish I could have seen those three unaired ones. They looked pretty good. I personally enjoyed the short "The Merciful" and the Lovecraftian comic pastiche "Prof. Peabody's Last Lecture".

Re: Our Fears
 

I have a fear of kids too, but only because they can, and want to, stab you and the cops won't even knock on their door.

I only have mundane phobias, but I do have this horrible fear of heaven. Just the thought of such a reality shift, going to heaven or hell, freaks me out. I seriously don't think I could deal with it.

Think about it. It could be your new fear.

Re: Our Fears
 

1. Children of the Damned, eh? Being an adolescent, I am... Indifferent. Believe me, my peers cause me want to break my moral code constantly. Older people are pleasant to talk to. Just keep 'em in the basement :twisted: .
2. Can't tell ya to sin, then :wink: ? I agree. If I have to keep living, make me a smart shark. Or in a curio shop.

Re: Our Fears
 

Since I was much younger I've had two preoccupying fears: immortality and/or life after death.

My fear of immortality has taken a greater role in my life during the last three years, especially after surviving terminal illness. Not to mention that since my recovery I've had numerous close-calls with speeding vehicles. Last year, for instance, I was nearly run over three times in one week - one of my friends is still convinced (though I don't belive this) that a van drove close enough to tear my arm off, but that it passed through my arm as if I was a ghost. (I understand how irrational my fear is and don't believe in immortality worth #### - but sometimes our heads do weird things...)

And I guess my fear of life after death stems from my Catholic upbringing, although if life or existence does indeed occur after death I have little doubt that it'll bare no similarity to the Christian afterlife. Lastly, if there is some sort of afterlife, the last people I'd want to be with are my family and friends.

Re: Our Fears
 

I'd have to say that my only real fear is mental illness - the fear that I might fall victim to it one day. Everything else seems trivial in comparison. I'm one of those people that doesn't jump when I hear gunshots or loud noises, and I've been in a couple of "near miss" car accidents that were inches away from being fatal, and those experiences didn't faze me at all.

I think that's one of the reasons I like TL's stuff so much. There's a recurrent thread in his fiction that amounts to understanding that all the usual horror cliches are nothing compared to madness. That idea certainly rings true for me.