Bizarre - and Temporary - Phobias

[Fortuna]

Now, I have believed for a long time that my mind is wierd. While I realize that GitP is the wrong place to go for "normal", I wanted to know if this is any wierder than usual.

Basically, about once a month something will catch my mind, and will then scare the hell out of me for a week or so. Last week, it was at the point where I was checking under my bed for zombies.

Has anyone else had that sort of experience?

[alchemyprime]

I cheked out windows for the Fungi from Yuggoth for three weeks once.

And I constantly walk in fear in the dark. Fear of dogs, zombies and vampires.

But not cool ones like Blade. Just sparkly ones. No biting me until I get ripped, dammit! And I don't wanna look like I'm covered in glitter. Glitter is the herpes of craft supplies.


... Add glitter to my list...

[Serpentine]

I still have the remains of a fairly big osteoperosis scare. For example, chocolate milk will never be excluded from my diet, because I don't drink plain milk and don't eat that much cheese or whatever. I just wish the really tasty low-fat chocolate milk was still available :smallfrown:

Also, for a day, I couldn't eat meat. Had a nightmare about my thighs being cut up for Christmas lunch (talked about this before...) and the next day I couldn't even stomach a chicken sandwich. I got better :smallwink: :smalltongue:

That the sort of thing you mean?

[Fortuna]

Precisely. Good to know that I am not alone in that (none of my friends ever experience anything remotely like this, nor any of my family that I have talked to).

[Bhu]

not temporary, but you should be amused by the list on this site

http://www.unusualphobias.com/Oddestpage.html

[Fortuna]

Dammit, I'm not going to be able to read much further on that list. Much more and I will end up with one of those for, as I said, about a week.

[Bhu]

I would think it would be difficult to spontaneously acquire "Fear of dying in a car crash with the radio stuck on a country station"

[Fortuna]

Yeah, but the gravity reversal or time flux things would be possibilities.

[ghost_warlock]

Not exactly the same thing, but I've had some similar experiences.

Whenever I have blood drawn I go into shock; I get light-headed, nausea, have difficulty hearing and suffer blurred vision, break out in a cold sweat, and shake uncontrollably. This doesn't happen when I'm given a shot (such as vaccination or such), just when I have blood drawn. It's happened a couple times when I was cut severely enough to require stitches but usually I don't have a problem seeing my own blood.

Now, this is relevant to the topic because a couple times I've gone into shock while watching a movie.

The first time it was during the scene in Hannibal where Lector cuts the guy's head open and removes part of his brain. It was years ago, when I saw the movie in a theater, that this happened and it hasn't happened again while watching the movie at home.

A couple weeks ago, however, I rented The Exorcist because I'd never seen it before and decided it'd be a good way to honor Halloween. During the scene where the little girl goes in for medical testing and they're doing blood work she spurts blood from her neck for a few seconds and I went into shock while watching.

[Lioness]

After reading The Stand I avoided anyone who so much a sniffled near me.

When there's a craze going around at school to 'zap' people with static electricity randomly, my fear flares up and I become incredibly paranoid. It's probably related to my fear of needles and other sharp sticky things. Lightning too. At the moment, it's not much of a problem, but as soon as someone starts holding a metal ruler and rubbing their feet on the carpet, I'm over the other side of the room before they can blink.

[ThreadKiller]

After watching the Doctor Who episode "Blink" (season 3, ep 10), I temporarily found statues to be extremely creepy.

http://bowjamesbow.ca/images/blink.jpg

[Helanna]

After watching the Doctor Who episode "Blink" (season 3, ep 10), I temporarily found statues to be extremely creepy.

http://bowjamesbow.ca/images/blink.jpg

Yeah, after watching the episode "Silence in the Library", I was mildly terrified of shadows for a few minutes. I had to get over it pretty quickly for three reasons. 1) I live in the basement, 2) There's only one narrow path to my room, and 3) The light on the path is broken.

I was also rather terrified of my curtains for a while after finding an enormous spider on them.

Oh, and if I suck a spider up with the vacuum, I won't touch the vacuum for a while, just in case the spider is going to crawl back out. Sure, I know it won't, but what if it did? :smalleek:

[Fostire]

Whenever I have blood drawn I go into shock; I get light-headed, nausea, have difficulty hearing and suffer blurred vision, break out in a cold sweat, and shake uncontrollably. This doesn't happen when I'm given a shot (such as vaccination or such), just when I have blood drawn. It's happened a couple times when I was cut severely enough to require stitches but usually I don't have a problem seeing my own blood.

That's completely normal, it's caused by the blood pressure suddenly going down or something like that. At least that's what I've been told (the same happens to me).

I once spent a week being terrified of large bodies of water (not the water itself, but what lives in the water). This was caused by a dream. I don't remember the dream, all I remember is waking up and saying "holly crap, water's scary".

Also, not temporary, but a friend of mine has a phobia of olives. This also happens to be the weirdest phobia I've ever heard about.

[Serpentine]

My mum's afraid of frogs. As in, when I caught one she ran and hid behind another church-goer. As in, when my cat brought one into the house, she shut herself in another room until I took it outside, because she didn't trust the cat, the frog, OR me.
Her university boyfriend ended up being a herpetologist specialising in frogs. Coincidence?

[Sneak]

I'm afraid of escalators going up—but only if I'm standing still on them. If I'm walking up, I'm fine.

:smallconfused:

Also, I'm always afraid that the little yellow gates to get into the metro will crush me if I don't go fast enough after putting in my fare card.

[Castaras]

I have a severe fear of injections, and a lesser fear of other medical things.

Before, I would have said this was a permanent phobia, but last week, I managed to survive having a jab without fainting (panic attack instead, but that's better than fainting, right?). So yes, it is temporary, and I'm gonna work at making it so that its gone. May take a few more years to do so, but I will beat it!

I also don't like walking on straight(not spiral) stairs / bridges that have holes in their rails or seethrough walls around them. And the rails have to be tall. I'm fine with heights though.

[Holy_Knight]

I still have the remains of a fairly big osteoperosis scare. For example, chocolate milk will never be excluded from my diet, because I don't drink plain milk and don't eat that much cheese or whatever. I just wish the really tasty low-fat chocolate milk was still available :smallfrown:

Also, for a day, I couldn't eat meat. Had a nightmare about my thighs being cut up for Christmas lunch (talked about this before...) and the next day I couldn't even stomach a chicken sandwich. I got better :smallwink: :smalltongue:

That the sort of thing you mean?

Why on earth would you want to exclude chocolate milk anyway? :smallconfused:

[Miss Nobody]

Somewhat related to the "Fear of Grim Reaper Coming into Your Room at Midnight to See if You're Sleeping. And if You're Not..." from the list, at the age of 5, I was certain that there was a minotaur like monster that came every night to check if children were sleeping and if he found you awake, he would kidnap you and lock you in a dark basement. I don't know how I got that idea.

[Starscream]

After watching the Doctor Who episode "Blink" (season 3, ep 10), I temporarily found statues to be extremely creepy.

http://bowjamesbow.ca/images/blink.jpg

Fun story. I know a woman who watched that episode with her husband. The next day she found a nice statue at a garden store of an angel covering its face with its hands. She bought it as a joke and installed it outside their bedroom window. He liked it fine.

What he didn't know was that she found another statue that looked like the same angel but without the face being covered. She bought that and hid in the the basement. A few weeks later she switched the statues and waited for him to notice.

I wasn't there to witness his reaction, but I'm told it was priceless.:smallbiggrin:

[Icewalker]

I spent a little while pretty terrified of the Flood hanging out where I couldn't see them. Went away pretty quick.

[ThreadKiller]

Fun story. I know a woman who watched that episode with her husband. The next day she found a nice statue at a garden store of an angel covering its face with its hands. She bought it as a joke and installed it outside their bedroom window. He liked it fine.

What he didn't know was that she found another statue that looked like the same angel but without the face being covered. She bought that and hid in the the basement. A few weeks later she switched the statues and waited for him to notice.

I wasn't there to witness his reaction, but I'm told it was priceless.:smallbiggrin:

That is an awesome prank! On a side note, it'd definitely be cool to dress up as a Weeping Angel for Halloween :smallcool:

[horngeek]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v492/MacGuffin3/DW20051x09Empty618.jpg

Are you my mummy?

[Lioness]

After watching the Doctor Who episode "Blink" (season 3, ep 10), I temporarily found statues to be extremely creepy.


Ohmigod...in the city, there is a white, stone rotunda. Perfectly natural, matches the decor. Standing next to it is an angel statue, exactly like the weeping angels, and looking so out of place that it doens't look like it's meant to be there...

So scary, and now I must take a photo of it. I wonder if it's lit up at night...

[Phae Nymna]

I have recurrent nightmares that are chock full of zombies. Like, seriously, they're night terrors or something.

[PersonMan]

I have a quasi-phobia-thing. I'm not really sure what it is, however. Something vaguely related to distance, whenever I think about it I get this feeling of dread.

[Fortuna]

@ All of those people talking about blink: Yeah, that triggered one of them for me. Still have a bit of trouble watching it without flinching.

[Lord Fullbladder, Master of Goblins]

When I was quite small, my father and I were watching the Discovery Channel. On whatever show was on at the time, they talked (briefly) about Sunfish. Seems some aquarium was releasing their into the wild, as it had grown too large for its tank. They then mentioned a world-record holding (in size) sunfish that had, at some point in the past, brushed against and sank a boat.

I was afraid of taking baths for six years afterwards. I was afraid some monstrous Sunfish was somehow going to come out of the tap. Showering was fine, buit I couldn't have a bath.

[Syka]

Whenever I watch the aforementioned Doctor Who episodes (Blink and the two about the Library), I become temporarily scared of statues and shadows. Ironically, those are my favorite episodes thus far, both of them (all three?) are tied for my favorite, because those villians are...incredible. They took something every day and made it terrifying.

My main, and permenant, phobia is of bugs. It's a pretty extreme phobia. As long as I'm outside and they are OVER THERE, I can handle it. I have issues reading/seeing pictures about bugs, them coming towards me, them touching me, and being in a confined area (even a house) with bugs. Of any sort. Including butterflies (I kid not).

I found one insect that is exempt from this. Little black flies that are in my house. House flies still bug me, gnats are hell to me, but these little black flying ones are fine for whatever reason.

To a lesser extent, aliens. Supernatural stuff? I can handle. I watched Paranormal Activity and it got me freaked a little bit but not bad. I can't watch Fourth Kind, though. I can barely get through Unsolved Mysteries or other alien-based shows. But, it's only when I'm watching the alien abduction shows. Obviously fake movies I'm fine with, intellectual discussions I'm fine with, it's only 'real' abduction things. *shrug*

[Thufir]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v492/MacGuffin3/DW20051x09Empty618.jpg

Are you my mummy?

An excellent example, but the image doesn't work.

I'm going to concur with all the Doctor Who ones. Stephen Moffat comes up with good scary stuff.

[Icewalker]

I definitely walked about a mile home, in the dark at night, alone, shortly after watching Blink. So...that was fun. :smallsigh:

[Serpentine]

Why on earth would you want to exclude chocolate milk anyway? :smallconfused:Weight. Milk is fatty, and chocolate milk has lots of sugar. I used to mostly drink a really delicious 99% fat-free chocolate, malt and honey milk, but NOOOOOOOOOOOOO. When the milk companies merged, they had to get rid of it! :smallsigh: :smallfurious:

I was about to tell my boyfriend about that Blink prank, but then I discovered that he hasn't seen it. This will be rectified today.

[The 7th Prelude]

When I was a kid, my mom had one of those vans with a sliding door, and my sister always got in first, which meant I was last. As soon as my torso was in, my mom would slam the door at 500 mph (approx.). I was always afraid that I wouldn't be fast enough, and that one or both of my legs/feet would get cut off, and start running away. :smalleek:
I still don't trust any doors that aren't push/pull, especially automatics. I give them the stink eye, before running through.
Nothing else weird, except I'm into rock climbing. I only started because I'm afraid of heights, and I gave myself the whole 'Conquer your fears' pep-talk. Whenever I'm higher than 5 feet off the ground, I have this morbid feeling that either I'll fall forever if I fall, or that time will pause for everyone else but not me, and I have to spend the last days of my life suspended in midair.

[horngeek]

An excellent example, but the image doesn't work.

I'm going to concur with all the Doctor Who ones. Stephen Moffat comes up with good scary stuff.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/04/Doctor_Who_The_Empty_Child.jpg

This work better? :smallamused: