Odd things?

Jake.Ashworth said:

Are there any off the wall things that scare you? My wife cannot sleep without a monitor on in my childrens rooms, both rooms, so two monitors. They are 8 and 4, but she will not close her eyes if she cant hear them.

I am absolutely terrified of the dark. I have my reasons discussed in a separate thread, but I will not sleep unless there are enough lights on in the house for me to get around without me having to strain my eyes.

What crazy off the wall things are you scared of, and why?

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My girls are nine and my husband and I still cannot sleep without a monitor. Luckily they still prefer to share a room, but...yeah. One day we'll get rid of it, but right now it only goes on at night when they must go to bed to make sure they are not playing around and actually going to sleep. One of my girls had night terrors and the other one had asthma and would get really sick sometimes at night, so it became a habit to make sure they are okay in the middle of the night.

One of my BIG fears are tsunamis. It is my most recurring nightmare. Not sure why. I spent a lot of time as a child/teen at the beach. I remember one particularly huge wave that hit me one time and my face got smashed into the sand at the bottom when it tumbled me and I remember having a hard time coming up for air. But it didn't stop me from playing in the waves. But the idea of a tsunami scares that crap out of me. Most times, in my dreams, I'm with my girls on the beach and see one coming and I'm trying to run with them as fast as I can to a nearby building with the hope of getting to a higher, safer level.

My other huge fear is cockroaches. I freaking HATE them. They are the most vile, most disgusting creatures ever. And they are so...permanent in this world. And here in Florida (and even in the school where I teach) we have those big suckers--the palmetto bugs. OMG. They are freaking horrible. One time a student snuck up behind me and tickled my back to get my attention. Holy Hell, I flew off my chair screaming and landed on the floor thinking it was a roach. I made her swear she would NEVER do that to me again.

ETA: Oh, and I also have a fear of getting into a car accident with my kids (I get scared at major intersection where I'm doing 50 or 60, that someone will drive through the light--like someone running from a cop--and hit us). I say this little prayer of protection that I made up when the panic hits me and it calms me down.

One last fear...getting lost. Especially when driving at night. Before GPS, I used to pull over on the side of the road and scream and have a total melt down when I didn't know where I was. And this was before cell phones, so I couldn't even call someone for directions. It wasn't pretty. IMO, GPS was one of the best inventions EVER.

Jake.Ashworth said:

See I feel myself getting excited when I think of the possibility of a social collapse. I think I would welcome the loss of technology and "normal" civilization. Honestly that doesn't scare me at all. Advancing beyond ourselves is a little scary. They want, in the future, to be able to download our conscience onto computers. That's terrifying.

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The breakdown of law order and the supply chain worries me deeply. Though I don't see it happening.

I don't think societies tend to break down though, especially ones as complex as ours. They're a function of the people within them and disruption/disaster increases community cohesion. I hope.

When I was a kid I always wanted the blinds for my bedroom-window down when it got dark because seeing my reflection in the window scared me. As I got older I always felt like that, along with me hearing voices as a kid (I mean, I knew they weren't real and they just said everyday stuff but I could hear them as clearly as an actual voice) would fit nicely into a horror story.

As a child I watched the last few minutes of an X-Files movie and became convinced that aliens were going to invade. Specifically I thought that there was a space alien hiding in my parents' large jacuzzi bathtub.

I am also irrationally afraid of red light. Like red exit signs in an otherwise dark room or hallway? Horrifying. I hate staying in hotels that have built in bathroom nightlights that skew red.

Dolls/mannequins/animatronics/etc. coming to life terrify me.

And as the result of OCD, I have a fear of losing control of my body and hurting people I care about, in spite of being an incredibly non-violent person.

I saw a witch when I was a kid. It was such a traumatic thing, the image (from a dream or movie or whatever) seared itself into my brain so that even at 35, I still remember it as real. Vague as for physical details, but it was in the darkened backyard, staring in at me in the kitchen. Bah!

Also, ten years after thinking we were done with kids, I have a newborn again. So lots of things currently scare me.

You know, not much scared me through life but I recently started having a healthy respect for heights. Ah hell... I fricking hate them! I can climb a ladder for a few feet, walk atop a building, or even crawl up into rafters without a problem but if I have to work up a tall ladder and it starts to wobble with each step my heart starts pounding, things begin to spin and I can't clutch the rungs tight enough. It really sucked figuring this out when I took a job as a satellite dish installer. Messed my head up real good.

People scare me more than anything else. You can throw all sorts of vampires, werewolves, zombies, Frankensteined monsters, limbs and guts at me and I'd still be laughing.

But put me in the same room as a repulsive, irrational, selfish sociopath? Body, I'd be sweating like a waterfall. I know, because I've had plenty of run ins.

The thing is, monsters tend to be based on such people, or inspired partly by them. They're stand-ins for the assholes in our society. Stephen King said as much in Danse Macabre.

I don't think I'll ever outgrow the fear of the thing under the bed waiting for the chance to grab an exposed, dangling foot.

This one isn't politically correct anymore, but I also remember being afraid of "bums" as a kid. Obviously kids don't understand stuff like mental illness, alcoholism, addiction, etc, but they do know when a person isn't "right", and bums were people who definitely weren't right. They might as well have been zombies in my mind.

Living things that should be moving, but aren't, always weirds me out. Especially bugs. Not normal ones like spiders or ants, no. I mean like the tiny bugs in pebble shells that cling to rocks in the rivers, that seem like they're waiting to latch onto your legs but just /watch/. Or once, found some rainbow beetles all clustered on a small tree. Didn't move, and when I poked one, it just fell to the ground like it was dead. Dunno why, but those really unnerve me.

The floor falling out from under me. I will and have literally walked two miles out of my way to avoid crossing a particular bridge on foot, because I don't trust the wood planks to not just fall apart and plunge me into the water.

Also, water. Just, everything about it. You could not pay me to go out onto the sea. NOPE. I don't know what's in there! Nobody does!

ML-Larson said:

The floor falling out from under me. I will and have literally walked two miles out of my way to avoid crossing a particular bridge on foot, because I don't trust the wood planks to not just fall apart and plunge me into the water.

Also, water. Just, everything about it. You could not pay me to go out onto the sea. NOPE. I don't know what's in there! Nobody does!

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Interesting. Is there a reason for this? Past life experience? Childhood trauma?

TedTheewen said:

Interesting. Is there a reason for this? Past life experience? Childhood trauma?

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Yeah, and it was terrifying! And it wasn't even me. My brother rode his bike over a storm grate, and it swallowed him right up. The grate wasn't seated properly or something, and brother, bike, and grate all fell into the abyss.

He got out, because being PNW, the abyss was overflowing with water. But the bike was a lost cause. Never saw it again.

That would freak me out, but I'd just avoid storm grates.

Newly high school senior here who's terrified of growing up. When you grow up, people change and drift apart and parents grow old and die and you never get your youth back and everything is just a memory that you can never go back to. Completely irrational because I'm also excited about growing up and college and experiencing life.

I've never been to one, but the idea of an abandoned quarry filled with water creeps me out. Ditto with man-made lakes that drowned little towns. I just can't stand the thought of all those buildings under the water. *shivers* I guess I think something's still down there, living in the town as if nothing happened.

In agreement with a previous post, I also can't sleep with my hands exposed, especially near the edge of the mattress.

I'm not especially a fan of spelunking. I was fascinated with it as a child, but ever since the Jessica McClure incident, I've been terrified of getting stuck someplace where someone couldn't easily free me from the outside.

I'm also not a fan of these kinds of puppets. One of my earliest memories is of walking through the living room while the TV was on and seeing a show with these sorts of puppets. A woman was alone in the room with them, watching them, and then one of the puppets went down behind the stage, came back up with a handgun, and shot her. For a while, I just thought that was a thing: all puppets had guns back behind the stage and they could shoot you at any moment.

heza said:

I've never been to one, but the idea of an abandoned quarry filled with water creeps me out. Ditto with man-made lakes that drowned little towns. I just can't stand the thought of all those buildings under the water. *shivers* I guess I think something's still down there, living in the town as if nothing happened.

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The Ginny greenteeth thing
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenny_Greenteeth

Scary creature that lives in the water, waiting to drown anyone that comes too close.

In agreement with a previous post, I also can't sleep with my hands exposed, especially near the edge of the mattress.

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Lest something brushes past in the dark...

I'm not especially a fan of spelunking. I was fascinated with it as a child, but ever since the Jessica McClure incident, I've been terrified of getting stuck someplace where someone couldn't easily free me from the outside.

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Dark enclosed tight silent spaces far from help. No ta.

i am ridiculously afraid of bees and wasps.
i legit feel like it's small versions of pure evil flying around.

Sadly, some of the fears expressed here made me laugh. Not because I think anyone having these fears would be funny, but I don't understand fear. When I read the explanations, it brought to mind hilarious images to me. I am sorry, as I know there is real fear out there. Like Ted I feel that some fears are leftovers from something horrible that happened to you as a child.

I hope I didn't offend anyone, that was not my intent. Fears are real living things for a lot of people, I would never disparage anyone for that. I could walk the plank, for the disgrace, if you all wish ( or even a majority vote).

As a child, I was terrified of walking the plank.

j/k

When it comes to odd things, I'm not sure if I have any really strange phobias. The closets I have to something like that is a reoccuring dream that I'm back in college and, with exams a day or two away, I realize there was that ONE OTHER COURSE for which I neglected to attend class.

Other than that, the usual suspects get me: heights, bugs, disease, angry ex-girlfriends. (Not necesarily in that order).

Underdawg47 said:

Being in deep water with no land to be seen. Being in a cave where you have to crawl through tight spaces. Camping deep in the woods and hearing loud noises that makes you think a bear is near.

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Unless a predator is actively coming at you where you can see it, they hunt silently. If they are clomping around grunting, huffing, howling and not trying to be quiet, then they don't yet know that you are there.

Necrophagist said:

i am ridiculously afraid of bees and wasps.
i legit feel like it's small versions of pure evil flying around.

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I fear wasps and hornets but not bees unless a hive is nearby. Bees don't want to sting you. They only do it out of defense. However wasps and hornets aren't evil. They're just poisonous and I'm very allergic. I have to travel with benedryl and epinephrine. I have noticed that city wasps and hornets are far more aggressive than on our farm. Here, the sheep do the mowing so there aren't the drone of motors. We don't use any sprays. The wasps are much more calm, to the point that at least half of the time when one gets into the house I can catch it with a cup and paper plate and let it go outside. But if they fly at me repeatedly or act in any way other than calm, I have to carry my whacker (an old badminton racket)

grandma2isaac said:

Sadly, some of the fears expressed here made me laugh. Not because I think anyone having these fears would be funny, but I don't understand fear. When I read the explanations, it brought to mind hilarious images to me. I am sorry, as I know there is real fear out there. Like Ted I feel that some fears are leftovers from something horrible that happened to you as a child.

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Actually epigenetic studies suggest that perhaps one can sometimes actually inherit specific phobias, not just the propensity to develop them but specific phobias.

That creepy Burger King dude. And people are worried about Ronald McDonald with the creepy clown thing going around? Nuff said.