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Strange Things That Scared You (But Aren't Obviously 'Scary')

I am afraid of fire.

I get upset if I am in a house where there are burning candles.

This lady told me back candles to chase out the evil, and white candles to purify.

Also I am afraid of heights.
 
Fire is a scary, powerful thing.
Wise to be respectful and afraid of it.
Heights, too, even if you're an expert rock climber.
 
No!
It’s an accidental pareidolia, formed from a stack of folded white towels seen through the half open door of my airing cupboard. Heebejeebees!

Here is the original. I should send it into the FT.

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According to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, you should always know where your towel is. I would suggest especially THAT towel! He looks evil :eek:
 
I'm afraid of 'deep' water (and by 'deep' I mean anything more than about 1.5m!). I've never been a strong swimmer, and the just thought of being in a large body of water makes me very edgy. Paradoxically, I have a long-held desire to own a narrowboat when I'm old and grey, though most canals fall within my limits of bearability.
 
I feel much the same as you, Marshdweller, as a fellow non-swimmer. But if you can't swim, you are well advised to treat water of any depth with due caution, so your wariness isn't irrational. I like an occasional dip in an indoor heated swimming pool, and as long as I can put my feet down on the bottom of the pool, I'm ok. One time I got just out of my depth and the slight current of the water seemed to be pushing me further towards the deep end. I began to splutter and splash but my mouth was under the water and I couldn't push myself up. It really didn't help that my mates (swimmers) thought I was just larking about. Somehow I managed to push myself against the current and get to the side of the pool, choking and gasping. They realised then that I needed help. I think the lifeguard was on his tea break!

I am always dreaming about being caught up in flood water, or sometimes running to get away from encroaching water as it is surging along a street. Fortunately not a situation I have ever been caught up in in real life, though of course in the dreams it seems very real.

Funny you should mention your desire to own a narrow boat. In 2000, I went on a narrow boat holiday with a group of friends. I thought it would be relaxing, but it was pretty hard work a lot of the time. I quite enjoyed it, but it didn't help that every night of the holiday I woke up at least once having dreamt that I had misjudged stepping off the boat and had plunged into the murky water of the canal. By the end of the week, I had become completely resigned to the dreams, so it was a case of "oh no, not again!". My worries that it was a premonition have proved unfounded..... so far!
 
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It was the tree that walked about that scared me in the books. The one that had been cut into the shape of a man and then nobody dare topiarise it again so it was all grown out and whiskery....brrrrr...
Oh yes, didn't it appear at the window in The series, or bash against the building or something? I will have to look it up on YouTube - I saw it was all listed up on there the other year!
 
Oh yes, didn't it appear at the window in The series, or bash against the building or something? I will have to look it up on YouTube - I saw it was all listed up on there the other year!
I have the first three of the Children of Green Knowe on Audible. They are great to listen to when you need something engaging but not too complicated!
 
I feel much the same as you, Marshdweller, as a fellow non-swimmer. But if you can't swim, you are well advised to treat water of any depth with due caution, so your wariness isn't irrational. I like an occasional dip in an indoor heated swimming pool, and as long as I can put my feet down on the bottom of the pool, I'm ok. One time I got just out of my depth and the slight current of the water seemed to be pushing me further towards the deep end. I began to splutter and splash but my mouth was under the water and I couldn't push myself up. It really didn't help that my mates (swimmers) thought I was just larking about. Somehow I managed to push myself against the current and get to the side of the pool, choking and gasping. They realised then that I needed help. I think the lifeguard was on his tea break!

I am always dreaming about being caught up in flood water, or sometimes running to get away from encroaching water as it is surging along a street. Fortunately not a situation I have ever been caught up in in real life, though of course in the dreams it seems very real.

Funny you should mention your desire to own a narrow boat. In 2000, I went on a narrow boat holiday with a group of friends. I thought it would be relaxing, but it was pretty hard work a lot of the time. I quite enjoyed it, but it didn't help that every night of the holiday I woke up at least once having dreamt that I had misjudged stepping off the boat and had plunged into the murky water of the canal. By the end of the week, I had become completely resigned to the dreams, so it was a case of "oh no, not again!". My worries that it was a premonition have proved unfounded..... so far!

I have a very similar attitude regarding the swimming etc. I also would only swim in a pool where I can touch the floor over most of its area and can reach the sides easily and funnily enough have a similar experience to you - I was on holiday with some friends in Greece and the hotel had a pool where the bottom dropped away suddenly without warning (no depth markers along the side) and I went from armpit deep to over my head in the space of one step.
 
I would argue that a fear of deep water is perfectly rational and not a fear of things that aren't obviously scary. Any sensible human should carry at least a wariness of deep water.

Now, if you were afraid of baths...
 
I would argue that a fear of deep water is perfectly rational and not a fear of things that aren't obviously scary. Any sensible human should carry at least a wariness of deep water.

Now, if you were afraid of baths...
A friend of mine is afraid of bananas, even talking about them makes her feel nausiated :hahazebs:
 
A friend of mine is afraid of bananas, even talking about them makes her feel nausiated :hahazebs:

l used to work with a bobby who was afraid of bananas. Not allergic, not averse to the taste; actually afraid to the extent that, if someone produced a ‘nana from their docky box at refs time, he’d have to leave the room.

Much hilarity ensued.

maximus otter
 
l used to work with a bobby who was afraid of bananas. Not allergic, not averse to the taste; actually afraid to the extent that, if someone produced a ‘nana from their docky box at refs time, he’d have to leave the room.

Much hilarity ensued.

maximus otter
Yep my friend cant be in the same room as a banana, not allergic or anything, physically afeared of the yellow curvy fruit.
 
Scared of bananas? Call Dr Freud!

As a young kid, I was scared of the little green spidery thing that you pull off the top of a tomato (not sure what it's called) because it looked like.... err... a spider. It put me off eating tomatoes for years. Quite like them now. Still not keen on spiders. Not to eat, anyway. I quite admire them as a species.
 
Scared of bananas? Call Dr Freud!

As a young kid, I was scared of the little green spidery thing that you pull off the top of a tomato (not sure what it's called) because it looked like.... err... a spider. It put me off eating tomatoes for years. Quite like them now. Still not keen on spiders. Not to eat, anyway. I quite admire them as a species.
Yes the stalks are quite arachnid in appearance, i have a vague memory from childhood of some one being scared of them, but i cant remember who
 
Yes the stalks are quite arachnid in appearance, i have a vague memory from childhood of some one being scared of them, but i cant remember who


Haha! Stalks, yes that would be the word. Thanks, Souleater. Btw, maybe you knew me as a kid !!??
 
Yes the stalks are quite arachnid in appearance, i have a vague memory from childhood of some one being scared of them, but i cant remember who

Actually it's the calyx :)

My mum once frightened me be by enquiring all innocent like :-

'Is that a spider on your lap?'

Well this was in the days when I was scared of them and so looking down I screamed and jumped out of my skin! :spider:

It was of course an aforementioned 'tomato calyx'!

I cured myself of arachnophobia after doing a few parachute jumps to deal with my fear of heights. I'm still nervous of heights but no longer freaked out by spiders!

This is now my recommended cure but no one I've suggested it to has taken me up on it. I can only assume they like being scared of spiders <whistle>

Sollwos x
 
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Thanks for supplying the correct technical term, Sollywos. Calyx. I do remember now that we did refer to them as stalks in our house when I was a nipper. And your story amused me. If I had dropped one in my lap in those days it would have given me a heart attack. A real case of 'careless stalk costs lives'. I'll get me coat.... again.

I'm not convinced by your recommended cure for arachnophobia though! Thankfully, I'm not really phobic of spiders anymore, though they can often make me jump if they appear suddenly. There were quite a few biggies around in 2019, and one enormous house spider really gave me a horror movie moment when it came slowly crawling out, legs everywhere, from a fold in my nice clean white bath towel one evening. I guess it must have been snuggled up nice and cosy in the airing cupboard before I gave it a rude awakening. There is now a head-shaped dent in the bathroom ceiling. I re-homed it outside, after managing to usher it gently into a pint glass with a postcard.

On the subject of spiders, last night's edition of The One Show on BBC1 included an interesting item on the conservation efforts being made to save the Fen Raft Spider. Boy, are those guys big! Even though I'm not arachnophobic, I'm quite glad I don't live in the Fens! Amusingly, the wildlife expert they spoke to in the filmed item confessed that he is arachnophobic! He must have forgotten to mention that to the careers advice officer!
 
On the subject of spiders, last night's edition of The One Show on BBC1 included an interesting item on the conservation efforts being made to save the Fen Raft Spider.

Oh I didn't see that, (just off to look it up) oh yes he is a biggy ... well for the UK that is! :)

The Fens make me Forteanly fearful so like you I'm glad I don't live there. I don't mean the ghosts creeping around in the mist and such .... just in a 'this doesn't feel right' oz factor' sort of way.

Sollywos x
 
The Fens make me Forteanly fearful so like you I'm glad I don't live there.

As an ex-Fen girl, let me say "Oi!" Things can't creep up on you on the Fen, there are no hills and very few trees to hide behind! Dykes, on the other hand, should give you the fear - some of them are big enough to hide a car in. A school mate of mine went down one on a motorbike, smashed himself up quite badly, and was quite lucky to be found as you wouldn't have noticed from the road.
 
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