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Curious Phobias & Irrational Fears

Lots of small holes together make me feel sick.

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Could be a problem when eating crumpets. I wonder if it's linked to a primal aversion to insect/parasite infestation.
 
davidplankton said:
I wonder if it's linked to a primal aversion to insect/parasite infestation.
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It's probably more fundamental than that. An entrapment fear fascination.

Infinite detail causing occular overload.

Semi-disorder at a challenging level of perceptual complexity, with the fore-brain ceaslessly seeking satisfaction through summarised simplity.

The inverse function of prehensible Order: an overdose of chaos, which the OCD-biased biological brain just cannot compute.
 
Not exactly a phobia, but a definite physical response to high rise blocks of flats. A strong tingling sensation in my lower back, sweating and racing heart. Not being inside them, just looking at them. Not a problem with say, tall office blocks or other tall buildings, just residential tall buildings.
 
Naughty_Felid said:
Lots of small holes together make me feel sick.

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I learn that this condition is called trypophobia: "fear of holes, particularly irregular patterns of holes". I gather from the Net in general, that this is a phobia which affects a good many people: have the good fortune not to suffer from it myself, but reckon that I "get" where people who do, are coming from.

There was a thread on another board which had many trypophobes chiming in and commiserating with each other, re the phobia. This then led on to someone bringing in, the Suriname toad or midwife toad (eggs clustered together on the female's back, babies ultimately hatching out thereon). Gave rise to a big chorus of "what an utterly disgusting creature".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Suriname_toad

 
amyasleigh said:
I learn that this condition is called trypophobia: "fear of holes, particularly irregular patterns of holes". I gather from the Net in general, that this is a phobia which affects a good many people: have the good fortune not to suffer from it myself, but reckon that I "get" where people who do, are coming from.

There was a thread on another board which had many trypophobes chiming in and commiserating with each other, re the phobia. This then led on to someone bringing in, the Suriname toad or midwife toad (eggs clustered together on the female's back, babies ultimately hatching out thereon). Gave rise to a big chorus of "what an utterly disgusting creature".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Suriname_toad
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I'll just delete the you tube clip, as it's freaking me out. Thanks, I never really explored why and should have guessed there would be a name for it! cheers!
 

Nice to know I'm not the only one with Muppet issues. It's not the Muppet Show Muppets for me - that was harmless and fine (mostly), but Sesame Street was chock full of horrors. It sounds crazy, but it's one of those things I can't even speak about out loud. *shudder*

I've noticed that a lot of people of my age group and older were terrified by certain kids shows of the day, but later generations don't have the same problems. I suppose the TV people learned how not to accidentally scare the crap out of their young viewers.
 
Then would it apply to any
Ulalume said:
Nice to know I'm not the only one with Muppet issues. It's not the Muppet Show Muppets for me - that was harmless and fine (mostly), but Sesame Street was chock full of horrors. It sounds crazy, but it's one of those things I can't even speak about out loud. *shudder*

I've noticed that a lot of people of my age group and older were terrified by certain kids shows of the day, but later generations don't have the same problems. I suppose the TV people learned how not to accidentally scare the crap out of their young viewers.
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Some of the larger muppets looked quite dangerous and the one with the vulture head (or condor/Bald eagle) was nightmarish.
 
Is it time yet to mention the Muppet Dream?
 
escargot1 said:
Is it time yet to mention the Muppet Dream?
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With caution, then, since clearly this is a sensitive matter for the many automatonophobes across the world http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...s-mother-37-struggling-buy-toys-daughter.html

Ulalume said:
I suppose the TV people learned how not to accidentally scare the crap out of their young viewers.
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Perhaps the desensitisation of contemporary youngsters is a factor (some being born into extreme household videogame and DVD environments that, back in my era, would almost have justified an armed police response). I've seen mid-afternoon tv adverts that years ago would've been classed PG or stronger.
 
Escargot, would that be my muppet dream (nightmare) or someone else's? (I honestly don't know if I've posted that before and searching one's own posts here is a bit difficult....)
 
The one where a little kid watches TV alone in the night and sees the Muppets with sharp fangs and claws threatening him.
 
davidplankton said:
Some of the larger muppets looked quite dangerous and the one with the vulture head (or condor/Bald eagle) was nightmarish.
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Who was the exact reason I said the Muppet Show was "mostly" harmless for me. :p Strictly speaking from my own perspective, of course.

Ermintrude said:
Perhaps the desensitisation of contemporary youngsters is a factor (some being born into extreme household videogame and DVD environments that, back in my era, would almost have justified an armed police response). I've seen mid-afternoon tv adverts that years ago would've been classed PG or stronger.
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While this is likely true, I do think there was something especially surreal about children's TV in the 70's. Educational television was the worst offender. I guess all the hippies had finished grad school and gone into education by then (though whether they'd given up the drugs is debatable.) ;)

On websites where people discuss such things, I've noticed a distinct gap between the 70's kids who were frightened by educational television and 80's kids, for whom the Unsolved Mysteries theme song seems to be the worst offender. That was an adult program though, and very few people seem to recall being frightened by the children's TV offerings of the time. Those born in the 90's recall being scared of Courage the Cowardly Dog (no surprise there, it was meant to be scary) but not, say, Teletubbies or Franklin the Turtle.

I was searching around for some choice clips from my own youth, but started to get very nervous. I'll offer this fairly innocuous clip from The Electric Company, because their Spiderman used to make me uneasy, though not quite enough to hide under a blanket. (Note the very young Morgan Freeman as the umpire.)

There was was one Electric Company skit where a couple wakes up in the night to find a ghost standing over their bed. I suppose the point was to teach kids about silent letters, but it probably took a few years off my life! It's not on youtube. Thank heavens.

Oh, BTW, I remember the tale of the Muppet dream, and yep, I can relate.
 
I think there is a thread somewhere about childhood fears or scary tv shows, but I'll put this here for now as we seem to be going in that direction.
Belladonna the Witch, from 'The Herbs'. Fast forward to about 1.50 to see her. I hated this.


 
To digress slightly from the Muppet Dream (but maybe do a bit of a google search for Candle Cove - it's creepy pasta, but a really good bit of it), I have an aversion to bowls of crisps and empty crisp packets.

I cannot eat from a bowl of crisps. I am simply terrified I'm going to end up picking up a prawn cocktail or Worcestershire sauce flavoured crisp, and promptly have to flee the room, screaming and vomiting like some weird combination of a teenage girl in a John Carpenter slasher flick and Mr Creosote. I know it is likely irrational, as I would expect that most people, when preparing a bowl of crisps for some sort of event would err on the side of caution and just go with Ready Salted, but I am never sure. I did pluck up the courage once, at my wife's granddad's 90th birthday, after being assured by the mother-in-law that they were only plain crisps. They weren't - the one I picked was salt and vinegar, and I became remarkably close to death.

As for empty crisp packets they just make me shudder. They always look greasy and slimy to me, and I can barely stand to even touch them. It's not too bad if it's a packet I have eaten (and I'll only eat plain, bacon, or roast chicken flavours vOv), but other people's empty packets are one of my very worst nightmares
 
Wotan Mjolnir said:
(and I'll only eat plain, bacon, or roast chicken flavours vOv), but other people's empty packets are one of my very worst nightmares
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Funny that, because when I was really young I got a roast chicken flavour crisp stuck down my throat. I wasn't choking, it was going sown the right way, but it took ages to go and was quite painful.
I got it into my head that it was something to do with the flavour and although I didn't develop a phobia, I was always very careful when eating them after that.
I think it had something to do with being warned about the risks of choking on chicken bones. Or was that dogs that do that?
 
davidplankton said:
and although I didn't develop a phobia, I was always very careful when eating them after that.
I think it had something to do with being warned about the risks of choking on chicken bones
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I have a similar incipient chickophobia, but about being spiked by chicken bones. Unusually, I think the inarguable infection vector for this was via a printed FT itself.

My flawed recollection of this is that someone, sometime/where was accidentally self-skewered by a semi-cooked (or perhaps raw) chicken bone, and as a result was infected with rampant botulism/avian palsy or something cross-species and worse-than-fatal.

I don't mean they developed feathers and a cock's comb, I mean they became absolutely riddled with some normally-innocuous disease, and had to be quarantined forever....
 
Courtesy of Obiwan! o_O

Okay. Here's the scoop. (Yes, we newspaper types really do say that!)

Long ago when I was about four or five, I stayed over at my grandparents' house for the night. My Mom stayed over with me, because Dad was out of town on business.

Granny and Granddad quite enjoyed their television programs, and had a set in each of the two bedrooms in the house, as well as in the living room. I was still stupid enough to believe TV's flickering, mind-sucking images were pretty neat, so I was in he aven.

Night came on softly, as it only can when you feel safety and warmth around you. With one of Granny's home-cooked meals in my stomach, I had begun to feel the need for slumber. So, we all piled in the monstrous king-sized bed in Granny and Granddad's mas ter bedroom, and soon we were all snoring blissfully.

I woke up in the night and sat upright, looking around. Something had disturbed my slumber. Granddad was still snoring rhythmically, and Granny looked like she hadn't budged an inch, so I sat back and prepared to visit the realm of dream once more.

Then the television turned itself on.

Now, I'm only 22 years old, but this was in the days when remote controls were the providence of the wealthy and debased. Granny and Grandad did not fit into any of those two categories.

To see a television turn itself on was an interesting thing. I sat up again to see what would come on.

At that time, the TV in my grandparents' bedroom was a black and white. I watched the white dot that had formed in the middle expand to full screen, but only the static of a dead channel appeared.

Then, images began to appear.

I couldn't really describe them. They were sort of shadowy things at first, but they seemed to be -- for lack of a better term -- "scoping me out." Slowly, an actual image began to appear.

Muppets! The Muppets were on! I was exalted, elated. I wanted to wake my grandparents up, but I then started to feel a bit uncomfortable about what was happening on the television.

Muppets did not usually have fangs as I recall. At least, not ones that looked so ... real and out of place in an otherwise standard Muppet-style mouth.

I realize this is sounding goofy. You were warned. :)

Well, uncertain about what to do, I decided to keep a close watch on the television.

The "Muppets" looked at me. It was common of course on Sesame Street and the Muppet Show for them to acknowledge the audience, so I wasn't alarmed so much by that.

I describe these things as Muppets because that's primarily what they looked like. Other than the rows and rows of unusual teeth, one looked vaguely Groveresque and the other sort of reminded me of Harry the Monster (don't know if he's even ON Sesame Str eet anymore).

The Groveresque Muppet leaned over and pointed at me, while whispering something to his companion. They looked at me in unison, whispering all the while in a strange, unusually guttural tongue. It sounded completely random, although it did somehow seem t o follow the meter and pattern of a language.

I noticed when the Groveresque Muppet pointed, he had very long, distinct talons on his furry hands. This, too, was quite disturbing.

The Muppets began to dance, sing and cavort about in that strange language of theirs. It was sort of amusing, I recall. I began to feel a bit more at ease.

The Muppets motioned for me to come forward.

I shook my head.

The Muppets tried again.

I shook my head. I was beginning to feel frightened. If there ever was a way Muppets could look pissed, these guys were doing it. With all those rows of fangs, it wasn't pretty.

I should mention that all of this singing, dancing, cavorting horror that was going on seemed to in no way disturb my grandparents. This disturbed me as well, because these guys were LOUD.

I got out of bed and crept into the living room, being careful to avoid approaching the screen. The Muppet-things wore visages of absolute anger now, motioning violently for me to approach the screen. My attempts rouse my grandmother and grandfather were in vain; they would not stir.

I ran into the living room, crying. I collapsed in my Granddad's chair, buried my face into the fabric, and began to weep, certain doom had come for me.

I looked over at the television in the corner of the living room. It had already begun to turn itself on, the shadow-forms that had dissolved into the Henson-styled horrors already beginning to flicker across its surface.

I screamed, rooted to the spot. But as the scream left my lungs and two grinning, fanged faces burst into being on the television screen, faintly and then with increasing tempo I heard footsteps.

The things in the television looked worried, swirled into their shadow-forms and were gone.

The television winked out just as my Mother ran into the room.

After consoling me, we went to check on Granny and Granddad. They were both awake, and had heard me scream.

We all sat up for a while talking, and eventually the warmth and love returned to fill the chill in my soul.

I went to bed and nothing more happened that night. Or any other night I stayed with my grandparents.

A waking dream? Probably so. But one that still fills me with terror.

I was awake of course, Mom will still assert, when I was in the chair. So, I did move somehow from the bed to the chair.

Still, it gives one pause. What better way to snare a young boy than to show him something he loves, then pull him in unawares?

Whatever those two things were, I'm sure the Muppet-forms were not their natural shape. I'm sure the fangs and talons were part of it, though.

If they're still out there, I hope they haven't had much time to practice those forms. If they could get them just right ...

I still wonder what would have happened -- dream or not -- if I had put my then-small hands up to the screen there in my grandparents' bedroom.

Perhaps nothing.

And then again, perhaps it's better not to know.

Next time, I'll post some real ghost stories. But the TV thread made remember this.

In case you're wondering, I don't watch much television anymore. It all seems so ... diabolical. ;)

Until next time,
Brian
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Funnily enough the recent sleep paralysis documentary The Nightmare begins with a sufferer's earliest memory of the condition when he was about to go to bed and had been left alone in the room by his mother with the TV on. He wasn't listening to it until the newsreader began to attract his attention. Attention thus attracted, he told the boy "they" would be back to get him someday, then went back to reading the news.
 
escargot1 said:
The one where a little kid watches TV alone in the night and sees the Muppets with sharp fangs and claws threatening him.
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I seem to recall that there was an episode of some science fiction/fantasy series that depicted just such a happening.
 
i've always had a phobia of bulldozers...... yeah really!
basically it all started when i was a kid and i watched a film about a bulldozer which was coming alive and going around killing people. what made all this worse for me was that at the time there were some building works going on behind our house, and one night id been playing out with my mate, then to get home i had to pass an old wooden style with a path-which remained from the fields before they were dug up- and there it stood... looking at me... a bloody great big yellow bulldozer with its little beady eyes(headlights) watching me waiting to come and get me...eek
i must admit that even now (im 46) i still give them a wide berth if theres one nearby- you know- just in case!
 
amyasleigh said:
I learn that this condition is called trypophobia...

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Firstly well done on the links. You've left me behind.

Secondly, I share this phobia in organic things. And the Suriname toad, midwife toad, and the like are particularly distressing to my sensibilities.
 
Was the film Killdozer!? I saw that on TV years ago, liked it. Later read an account in the FT of the sacking of a building site security worker who'd abandoned his post after, he claimed, being chased around the place all night by driverless vehicles, including diggers and bulldozers.

Who had plastic wiganer's address.
 
Personally a pumpkin cut in half looks alien like and frankly quite gross, but i really don't know why.
 
My niece left her lovingly-carved pumpkin out out overnight and found it overrun with slugs in the morning. She let them keep it!
 
escargot1, i think you could be right in the film being killdozer? its the only film i can think of-of that nature! im not gonna give you my address though - i dont want you coming round in some big caterpillar...
in a similar vein to pumpkins, a cut open yellow melon with all those seeds make me heave... i will eat melon after the seeds have been removed though... ok yeah i'm a bit weird lol
 
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