Our Fears
 

What are your greatest fears? Not the mundane, everyday things one might fear , such as an auto accident or a mugging.

The fears I am referencing are those phobias that most have, and while there may indeed be some reason or root cause (Phobogenesis, we'll call it) they may not make rational sense to others.

Don't worry if you don't know the "-phobia" term for it. Not all fears have names, I wouldn't think. Just share them, and worry not if it is one that many share. No contest for uniqueness here.

Also, it would be interesting to hear the reason for or advent of your fear, if you care to share this information.

That said, I shall exit stage left (sinistrally, so to speak) and allow someone else center stage. Oh, I'll share mine, to be sure. For now, though, who is that waiting offstage?

Upon the Pinions of Fear,
-aether

Re: Our Fears
 

A mild fear of an elevator collapsing while I'm in it, a totally irrational fear of aircraft destroying my house, a slight fear of total darkness (mostly what's lurking in the black), mild cases of acraphobia (due to this weird, tugging compulsion to jump) and haemophobia (only if I'm bleeding or someone nearby is), and an aversion to the concept of having no control over my actions.

I'm a mixture between an aghoraphobic and a xenophobic...which is kind of odd considering I work in a supermarket. It's not that I'm afraid of lots of people/places (I'm really good with people), I would just prefer to be by myself in my house or somewhere solitary.

I also have a fear of heights *cough*

Re: Our Fears
 

A few of my childhood fears:
I remember thinking that there were Killer Shrews under my bed. Even in the morning, I would have to take a running start and try to jump all the way into the hallway where it was 'safe'. Looking back, it seems foolish. Foolish to think that they couldn't cross the threshold into the hallway. I have a good idea where this fear originated from.
I remember fearing God. My prayers before going to bed at night turned into a laundry list of names of people I didn't want to die. If I left out a name of someone I knew, and they fell prey to some misfortune, I thought it would be my fault. Eventually, I took the chance and just said "please protect everyone I know." But, by the age of ten, I was a skeptic, and by my mid teens I was a devout atheist, so that didn't last too long.
I remember a fear of improper development stemming from a particularly harrowing episode of The Love Boat. This one passenger looked like a normal man, but he had a girlish squeaky voice. So, I sweated that one out until I was fifteen.
As an adult, I have a fear of tornadoes. I very rarely remember my dreams or nightmares, but when I do, odds are it is a tornado nightmare. It symbolizes 'loss of control in one's life". I looked it up in the Reader's Digest Dream Book. I have always had a sneaking suspicion that I would die from an "Act of God" - legally speaking, that is.

Silent One
I had that fear of the 'elevator collapsing' briefly, but I beat it. Just before the elevator crashes into the ground, jump off the floor. You'll be fine.

oh yeah, I'm always afraid I don't put the garage door down, or that I left the front door unlocked/opened. This is a thing of my paranoia. I've gone so far as to turn around, four blocks away from home, and come back to see if I put the garage door down or whatever.

Re: Our Fears
 

Thank you all for your enthusiastic participation. Gosh, reading through those posts was a bit unnerving...

I have actually been in an elevator that took a four floor plummet--thankfully, the emergency devices functioned, saving
me and a few others from what would have been a no doubt horrific death.
Sadly, I have to ride an elevator at least twice daily Monday through Friday, and I work on the 25the floor of my building...I still have a bit of trepidation
each ride.

Tornadoes...wow. In 1998, the area I lived in was utterly destroyed by an FA-5 tornado. My family and I managed to reach the safety of an interior closet, and escaped more or less unscathed (physically, if not mentally). Even so, it is easy for me to see how ancient cultures deified such monstrous forces of nature as storm gods or Titans. One had a sense of being overwhelmed by a being of mindless, uncaring rage. Horrible memories...

As for my own fears...

I've managed to convert most of them into interests (spiders, snakes, etc.). I don't have too many really pronounced phobias at this time. I can't abide the feel of dust. I, too, used to work in a supermarket, and whenever someone would come through with a bag of cat litter, I would quail in dread. Seriously. The feel of chalk, talc, or even dusty soil is anathema to me. Weird, eh?

As a child, I had an aggravated terror of skeletons. This derived from a Spookhouse fairground ride. I was in the little car with my aunt, and as we were clanking along, one of the automaton skeletons sprang forth with a flash of garish light and some loud sound effect. All to be expected. However, this particular skeleton came forward just a bit too far: it's grasping hand snagged my tanktop. I, in my 5 year old wisdom, assumed that it had come to life. After that, I couldn't bear to see a skeleton on tv. In Search Of, Psycho, House on Haunted Hill...they were all enough to guarantee nightmares.

Hmm...that's about it. I can't stand teh idea of having a fingernail ripped off, nor can I tolerate the idea of an eyeball being punctured, and I actually switched majors in college from Marine Biology to archaeology simply because I figured it'd cut out any chance of me every having to deal with a giant squid or any number of venemous sea-critters (such as ze poizonous feesh, which can keel you faster than ze bullet :shock: ). Yep. That about covers it for me!

"He Bravely Ran Away..."
-Aether

Re: Our Fears
 

Aetherwing, considering your frightful experience at such a young age, I'm not surprised that you were afraid of skeletons. My brother was afraid of haunted houses for the longest time because we took him to one when he was too young. I was never afraid of skeletons, but I had an uncle that was. Actually, I think it was an overly morbid fear of death in general. Every time he would come over to visit, my mom made us kids hide our Barnabas Collins Dark Shadows Game, because it would 'upset' him. It had a coffin and skeletons in it. That was a real drag.

Re: Our Fears
 

this would probably happen to me. some of my fears I've turned into interests (clowns, puppets, etc...) but not all of them

Re: Our Fears
 

I enjoy being alone, enjoying my own company thus reading and walking and such activities suit me fine. Yet, I fear being alone forever -- or dying alone such as in a dark cave or in the woods.

Re: Our Fears
 

This may sound strange but i'm desperately afraid of my bad dreams coming true. I'm going to talk about them more in the "Ligottian Dreams" section, soon.

Huge masses of people make me feel very uneasy. I almost cannot breathe when I'm walking through a crowded street. I cannot stop thinking that I constitute a minority, a deviant whose norms and values are so different that if I they (that majority of theirs) knew my attitude to life, they would certainly want to kill me. This also comes from the fact that I hate majorities in general and I despise the way everybody accepts the system and tries to be the way everybody is - unoriginal. Pretty weird, uh?

I also share the Aetherwing's phobia of an eyeball being punctured. It seems impossible for me to walk through a densely overgrown forest with all the branches, like small knives, just waiting for my eyes.

Until I was 14, I was freaking out at the idea of ghosts. This was mainly because a few years before that, during a school trip, some friends of mine and me, called up spirits. During the seance (which looked like a funny joke) one of the paintings in the room fell off the wall and broke an ashtray on a nearby table. This may sound like something out of Spielberg's "Poltergeist", but we had never been able to explain how it happened. Even now, when I don't believe in ghost, I am 100% sure that this really took place and was not some creation of our childish imagination.

Re: Our Fears
 

My eyes ache slightly when I look straight on at sharpened pencils. I'm perfectly honest. Plus, after watching the opening sequence of "Manhunter" I've become slightly wary of being killed in my sleep. Oh, Yog-Sothoth, how paranoid am I :lol: ?

I'm afraid of somebody breaking into my house er something. I always have these dreams where it happens and I go to scream, but nothing comes out and I get this weird feeling in my throat.

Re: Our Fears
 

I also fear when I'm walking through a graveyard, even at a funeral, that I'll fall through the ground through a rotten casket.

Re: Our Fears
 

While I do not share haemophobia with Silent, I DO find the numerous animals which feast upon the blood of humans repugnant. During my archaeology field work in college, we were doing a dig in the Mobile River Delta. Very swampy. I put a foot wrong, and ended up with a half dozen leeches on my calf. Can you say "ugh"? At least their saliva is anaesthetic...

Now, if I were to ever get a lamprey eel stuck to my person, I'd probably pass out faster than any given HPL Narrator you could name.

Ugh...
Aether

Re: Our Fears
 

Amen to that. Now, show of virtual hands: Who is interested in vampiric animalia but does not want to be their host, and if such were to happen they would be very ill?

Re: Our Fears
 

I am interested in both sanguivorous fauna and carnivorous plants.

One impulse from a vernal wood May teach you more of man, Of moral evil and of good, Than all the sages can.
-William Wordsworth

But if you're in the mood to stay indoors, I recommend the book "The Red Hourglass, The Inner Life of Nature's Predators" by Gordon Grice. I would describe it as Edwin Way Teale meets Edgar Allen Poe, or Memoirs of Gothic Naturalist. The book is about interactions with, and meditations on, predators. Mainly, the creeping and crawling variety, but also pigs and dogs. You just know that anyone that decorates their tarantula's terrarium with dollhouse furniture is going to have an interesting perspective on things. At times, the book borders on the poetic and philosophic. I have been eagerly awaiting a new Gordon Grice book for years.

As for les fleurs du mal: the venus fly trap, the pitcher plant, the butterworts and the from-out-space-looking sundew, to name a few. They are all different, but they are all the same, if you know what I mean. If I had a window box with all the different species represented, I would only see a hideous garden grown from a single seed. I never actually owned any of these botanical monstrosities because of that whole "feeding them" thing. Who knows how prodigious their appetites would grow? Feed me! I know how the story goes: one day you buy a pot of venus fly trap plants on ebay, the next thing you know, you are skulking around back alleys with a burlap sack and a hacksaw looking for 'food'.

Re: Our Fears
 

Bendk,

As a child I did own a little terrarium witha Venus' Fly-trap in it, and kept it for many years.

As a note of extreme historical coolness for my ancestry, one of the first Europeans to study the various insectivorous flora we know today was one Arthur Dobbs. He was the royal Governer of the North Carolina Crown Colony, and is an ancestor of mine on my maternal grandfather's side.

I always thought this factoid very groovy as a child, and actually still do, come to think of it! What a cool thing to be "first to record"!

Re: Our Fears
 

I've had recurring tornado dreams all my life. I'm glad (sort of) to know what they represent. A "loss of control in one's life" definitely maintains the theme.

Even though I used to be a very social creature, my main phobia nowadays is that of crowds. I used to love to get stoned out of my gourd and walk arounfd shopping malls - by myself, to boot! - but now, just going to the grocery store becomes a sort of race.

Inexplicably, I've noticed fears cropping up that never heretofore existed. Even little things, like a fear of spiders or a fear of heights: never had them as a child or a teen, yet here they are to greet me when I'm in my early thirties. How awesome.

And whoever mentioned it, I too have a strange fear of airplanes crashing atop me. Maybe it's a post-September 11 thing (for me anyway). I can't remember imagining that sort of scenario beforehand. However, I do remember being afraid that highway overpasses were going to collapse as the family car sputtered beneath them.

I'm also quickly developing a fear of the "Religious Right" in this country, but that's a sermon for another day, heh heh.

Re: Our Fears
 

I have an extreme fear of the Deep of the ocean. Whenever I see a vast mass of water stretching ahead of me, let it be live in the beach or even in print, I'm overwhelmed by a primitive form of fear that I cannot quite describe; perhaps it has to do with my notion of "drowning" as the worse form of possible Death.

I once had a dream where I was drowning in the middle of some unknown alien ocean; I remember the sky was orange-red in color and very dark and long clowds hanged in the sky, the water was dark blueish-green and I remember feeling ancient forms, or shadows of forms, swimming just a few metters bellow my battling legs. When I woke up I was actually fighting for some fresh air, "in the flesh", and for some time I couldn't pull out of my mind the idea that some other "me", in another form of reality, had just died, drowned in an alien sea.

We architects have dreams like that always!

Tu be sincere, I have no idea where this fear comes from... I suppose the image of the Deep fills me with dread. To imagine what lays bellow the waters, living (or unliving) in those profundities and the promise of death that this deepness brings forth with it... it touches a very primitive, pre-human, strain in my nerve system, I guess. Just think for a moment that most of our land mass was, in a time, under the watery mass of some pre-historic ocean.

...gives you a perspective of the horror of it.

Re: Our Fears
 

Me too, forgot to mention that in my last message. Whenever I take my girlfriend to a shopping mall, or anywhere with large crowds of people, I feel strange and uneasy. I feel like I'm being observed by all fronts by many pairs of curious and morbid eyes, like all my moves are being secretly recorded and filed in some obscure shelf, just to be used against me by someone.

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.

Re: Our Fears
 

Re: pediophobia and Child's Play...

Does anyone remember that My Buddy doll that was around in the eighties? The one that looked like Chucky?

I first saw Child's Play with my younger brother when we were very young, around Christmas time. Come Christmas, he got a My Buddy doll, but was so terrified by it that my parents decided to store the thing in a closet. Well, one morning I woke up very early, grabbed the doll out from the closet and placed it on my brother's bed, right next to his face.

He woke up sometime later, screaming at the top of his lungs, believing the doll had come to life. Unfortunately my bratty laughter gave me away and I got a good yelling by my parents.

P.

Re: Our Fears
 

Oh, how could I have forgotten about this phobia of mine!

My problem is that I can’t make phone calls and speak with people I’ve never met. I find such a procedure simply impossible. There is something horrible in speaking with someone who is nothing but a voice in a receiver – something artificial and uncanny. If someone calls on my cell and I see “private number” or a new number… I don’t pick up. For me it would be like having a conversation with someone from outer space! Paradoxically, when speaking with unknown people tête à tête I tend to be very talkative.

Today, I have been reminded of this phobia in the worst way possible. A coworker from top national newspaper (where I receive my free training) approached my desk saying: ‘Having in mind your linguistic abilities I have a perfect task for you. You’re gonna make three calls to airports in the US, France & Spain & try to learn everything you can about the new security measures, cancelled flights etc etc. Simple, right?’

I thought I’m going to freak out! Hell, if it is supposed to be simple for me to make three international calls and speak in three foreign languages with three mysterious ladies or gentlemen, then why can I hardly speak with my new neighbor through the intercom?

I guess I will never forget the sea of eyes that turned in my direction when I said: “I’m sorry, but… hmm… you see… I really caaaan’t do THIS!” and the long moment of silence when everyone kept staring at me in the we’re-gonna-make-you-do-it way. What a corporate horror!

Well, for the next week, in order to cure this sore point of mine, I’ve been appointed to receive a few phone calls in the newspaper’s international department. This may turn out to be the worst experience of my life, but I know I have to pull myself together and get rid of that bloody phobia.

I can’t stop imagining it.

YELLOWISH HAZE: (…) How can I help you?

THE VOICE: Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn???

Don't worry about it, Yhaze. Just imagine they are only human beings at the other end of the phone and not really the monsters they truly are. Or vice versa, dependent on your mood at the time.

I can sympathise, however.

Good luck with it.

Re: Our Fears
 

Slawek, perhaps the stars are right... for a career change. Seriously, your fear is not uncommon. A portion of my work involves processing credit card transactions for fundraising. When something goes awry with a transaction, I have to contact the donor. More often than not, I reach an answering machine or voice mail system. More often than not, my messages are ignored. They probably fear that I'm a scammer, even though I clearly identify myself and the charitable cause which they pledged a gift to. In this instance, I would much prefer a cold contact with a real person, even though I cringe at the thought of the call itself...

Re: Our Fears
 

Des, GSC, thank you for encouragement.

Remember Buffalo Bill From Silence of the Lambs saying: 'It puts the lotion in the basket and gets the hose again?'

I can imagine myself sitting at my desk and hearing the same indifferent tone telling me: 'It picks up the phone and dials the number'.

Keep your fingers crossed. I'm off to work.

Re: Our Fears
 

I am totally afraid of stuffed animals. It makes no difference whether said effigy (is that really proper in a nonhuman context?) is the product of Cynothoglys (the mortician or taxidermist god) or the toy store. The result is the same: utter repulsion and morbid fear. In an antique shop in Belgium, I saw an ancient and worn stuffed artificial kitty with one eye and a stitched red mouth. I will never stop dreaming about this monstrosity...

Re: Our Fears
 

My Achille's heel is anything that is too far away, but just in my field of perception. This could be either a miniature house, someone very far away shouting at me so I can only barely hear their voice, or very quiet music. 'Fear' barely describes the feeling this produces in me - an anxiety attack is brewing just writing this.

The reason for this is because when I was about 10 years old I suffered from an extremely delirious fever in which Speedy Gonzales was screaming at me from very far away.

Messed up, I know. But I've been having panic attacks since I was 4, so my mental health isn't exactly balanced anyways...

Re: Our Fears
 

I think I've got a slight fear of just about everything.

I'm agoraphobic, in the "open space" sense (among others,) and it manifests in some weird ways: when I'm flying in an airplane, I sometimes imagine the body of the plane disappearing into thin air in mid-flight, leaving me to plummet miles to the earth. That scares me more than the idea of a regular ol' plane crash, though that's certainly far down on my list of desired ways to go. Similarly, outer space freaks me out, and the idea of suffocating slowly while floating around in a spacesuit terrifies me. And if I have to float past a huge planet in the process, forget it!

Re: Our Fears
 

ventriloquist, normally I would suggest that you avoid reading the 1964 story "The Man with the Speckled Eyes" by R. A. Lafferty. However, I'm taking my first ever college course (Psychology 101) at a local community college. Reverse psychology may be in order! Face your fears! This story involves falling away from Earth... No, no, you shouldn't read it, after all. Never mind.

Was that the dinner bell?

Salivating,
Rover

Re: Our Fears
 

Hey, your reverse psychology just might work; that story sounds interesting. In my personal "floating through space" scenarios, though, I imagine I'd eventually stop panicking and start enjoying the sights. (After all, it's a unique and oddly romantic way to go.) It's just difficult to predict how long it would take me to stop soiling my spacesuit.

I'd probably start panicking again if I realized I wasn't going to die, but rather drift along helplessly for however many aeons it took before I crashed into something else. Maybe I'd lose my mind and create an imaginary universe in which to take refuge. Kinda like another man in the heavens I know.