i hate closing the curtains
when it's dark outside, and i can see my reflection clearly in the glass. this is partly because i am very ugly, but also because of a fear of either seeing a movement reflected behind me or else someone outside my window. Somehow, thugh, I had no qualms about leaving the windows open.

i was shitscared of this for about fifteen years, despite living on the eleventh floor of a tower block for ten of them. i only got cured of it when i moved into my current house, where my ground-floor bedroom backs onto a pitch-black garden. I confronted my fear, baby. Aw yeah.
( mikeisbrill, Tue 27 Jan 2004, 14:38, Reply)

licking stamps
or envelopes.
Theres something about the "glue" that makes me think of semi-dry man milk
(stilje, Tue 27 Jan 2004, 14:37, Reply)

the thought of biting down on the cheap wooden flat stick
inside an icecream for some reason has always without fail made my teeth grind and my back shiver. I don't know why. I even hate the feel of touching them.
Which is shit when you're a kid...
( WhoElse I'm what Willis was talking about, Tue 27 Jan 2004, 14:36, Reply)

Swine invertebrates
Slugs. Yeughh! Horrible, green, slimy, cold, revolting little strings of pus, equipped with foul, rasping mouthparts. I know they're harmless. I know they're small but the very sight of them disconnects my brain.

I also have this weird fear of heights that only kicks in under certain conditions. Bridges and towers freak me out but if i'm standing on a big hill, no problem. Apart from one time at the summit of Buachaille Etive Mor when my brain changed the rules. Ooerr.
( calgacus Non sum qualis eram bonae sub regno Cynarae, Tue 27 Jan 2004, 14:33, Reply)

Woolly Jumpers
I see a wooly jumper, my teeth start to itch and I am compelled to put it between my teeth to see if it makes 'that noise'. It always does.
Same effect with cotton wool.....but not flannels!
(ell, Tue 27 Jan 2004, 14:33, Reply)

I forgot this...
My mate has to turn the lights on and off three times before he goes to bed, otherwise his parents will die.....And I hate scraping metal or nylon, the noise is horrible, and makes me shiver.
(Fenriz-Hates Goffiks, Tue 27 Jan 2004, 14:33, Reply)

I know someone who is terrified of butterflies.
I thought she was exaggerating until one day one got caught in a room at work. She totally freaked out - was hysterical with fear.

And Nicey is not keen on dafodils - he says it's the way their heads follow you round looking at you.

Wierdo's. I'm scared of nothing.
( Wifey, Tue 27 Jan 2004, 14:32, Reply)

I'm with Deiwos
Crabs used to scare the bejesus out of me. Whenever we went on holiday I wouldn't go near the sea for fear of being nipped by a crab. I used to make my mum fill up my bucket of water for my sand castle moat. And crabs were the source of my most horrific and enduring nightmares. Eventually they left my dreams and entered my conscious and decided to live under the bed. Other people had bogeymen under the bed, I had crabs. Except they would only come out at night, so I had to turn the light off and jump the last 4ft into my bed.

And the crow off of Orm and Cheep (80s kids show) used to send me running from the room. Which is amusing as now I love crows. They ROCK! They rock to a degree that can't be expressed with human words!

Is this question just a scheme so you can find out our deepest fears and use them in some fiendishly devious plot to control our minds into doing your bidding through some sort of fear-inducing mind-ray?
( fishsticks, Tue 27 Jan 2004, 14:31, Reply)

Mirror in the bathroom
As a child, I was afraid to look in the bathroom mirror in poor light. I'd get up in the middle of the night for a wee and was convinced that I'd see a monster, or me with a deformity, if I looked in the mirror. This irrational fear remains with me today.
( <>Dog www.stevelaker.blog, Tue 27 Jan 2004, 14:30, Reply)

Getting caught
That is all.
( godstar, Tue 27 Jan 2004, 14:28, Reply)

Sand under bare feet
especially on stone. Grating, teeth-shuddering horror. Makes the beach hell, which isn't much fun when you're growing up at the seaside. No rationale to it at all, but even writing about it I can feel my spine coiling, the hairs standing up on the back of my neck, and bile rising in my stomach. True, true wince-inducing terror.
( TV's Nosemonkey, Tue 27 Jan 2004, 14:25, Reply)

dr who
now, i wasn't scared by dr who itself (it being my favouritist thing ever)neither darleks nor cybermen made me hide behind the sofa

however

that bit in the credits at the end when it goes white and goes "pbshhh" really freaked me out, gives me a shudder now

wierd thing is...i'm not the only one.
( Citizen Cavy Admires your passion for conformity, Tue 27 Jan 2004, 14:22, Reply)

Fish
It's the eyes you know...
(Sleary, Tue 27 Jan 2004, 14:22, Reply)

Shell suits...
...i can't touch the material, it physically makes me sick, its just ergh. Even thinking about it sends a shudder down my back.
(andrewbowley, Tue 27 Jan 2004, 14:20, Reply)

Bed Crocodiles.
Dont ask me why, but in the turn up of my bed there lived a crocodile. If my toes hung over the side of the bed it would bite them off.
I remember pushing my toes over the side for as long as I could before I screamed and pulled them back in, sweating and nearlt crying...

Dont know why.....
(unclefester, Tue 27 Jan 2004, 14:20, Reply)

I'm scared of the wind
and have been since I was a little kid. I can't take an open car window on my face. When I was little, I would say I was sick on windy days so that I could sit in the nurse's office. Strangely I'm ok at the beach or during stormy weather, but a bright, clear, windy day liquifies my innards. Worst scenarios: outdoor weddings, fairs and carnivals, graduation ceremonies, picnics on windy days. Any setting that could be disrupted by the wind blowing some shit over or making things flap.
( Artamnesia, Tue 27 Jan 2004, 14:20, Reply)

Not really a fear
more of an obsessive compulsion. Whenever I leave my house or car I always have to check at least seven times to make sure all the doors are locked.

Mind you, I did park in Portsmouth city centre every day for a year.
(Ash Oops, Tue 27 Jan 2004, 14:16, Reply)

that scene in dumbo
when he's pissed and all the endlessly multiplying anthropormorphic elephants with dead black eyes dance about.

i feel all jumpy just thinking about it.

oh and the bit in the animated watership down where the warren gets gassed. yes definitely that bit. scared me shitless as a kiddy.

cartoons eh? tools of evil.
( monstrinho do biscoito teeeshurts = www.nogunarmy.com, Tue 27 Jan 2004, 14:16, Reply)

war of the worlds - the musical
i guess it started with that bloody ooolaah noise the martians make. scared the hell out of me as a kid. to this day pretty much any of the songs from the album give me the willies.

no grown man should be scared of a david essex record.
( new_matt, Tue 27 Jan 2004, 14:14, Reply)

Last tube carriage
For about a year I refused to get in the last (or first) carriages of a tube train, knowing that they were the most likely places to die in the event of a crash.
(Andy Crane Arse Magik, Tue 27 Jan 2004, 14:13, Reply)

Wasps
Hate them. Can't even look at a photo of one without getting freaked out. When I was a kid, I had one follow me though three rooms - not just appear in the next room, but fly slowly and keep the same distance from my face at exactly eye level.

They're cunts, I'm telling you.
( bowdie, Tue 27 Jan 2004, 14:12, Reply)

cows
terribly terribly afraid of cows.
on D of E trips we sometimes would have to walk through a field with cows. i had to have my entire group surrounding me to get through the field. my dad told me they are scared if you clap and shout, so when the group paused to read a map (bastards, i told them not to stop) i was just stood like a loony, clapping and shouting. (i was shouting "clap and shout"). i didnt die that day though.

it's not an irrational fear though because sometimes they do stampede and people die under the millions of cloven hooves. agh.

milk is a-ok though. and steak. i eat steak with pleasure because i have won.
(elegans, Tue 27 Jan 2004, 14:12, Reply)

Wrists.......
I used to work with a girl who hated it if I showed her my wrists, especialy if I touched them....I don't think it was personal.
(skidmorejenkins, Tue 27 Jan 2004, 14:09, Reply)

Grapes and railways.
When I was about four or so I had some plastic grapes as part of a toy cookery set. I loved these grapes. The idea of plastic grapes seemed so exotic (and they were halved with velcro in the middle so you could pretend to chop them!). One night I dreamt that I was playing with this cookery set over a bridge but it was really windy and the bridge was wobbling violently. The grapes fell off the bridge and onto the railway below. I was devestated. To this day I cannot carry grapes (plastic or otherwise) over railway bridges, although any other bridge is okay.
( Comma, Tue 27 Jan 2004, 14:07, Reply)

Jellyfish
Oh boy did they do my head in when I was young! Every time I swam in the sea there was always a Portugese Man O'war lurking nearby. Even in places like Cornwall.
If not a Man O'war then it was that huge one pictured in David Attenborough's Life On Earth book that we had at home.
Also that head in Jaws scared me witless.
It's a wonder I ever tried scuba diving in later life.
(trollbite, Tue 27 Jan 2004, 14:04, Reply)

nope,
I don't have any irrational fears. they really ARE following me.
(radja, Tue 27 Jan 2004, 14:04, Reply)

The Blankety Blank theme tune.
If I hear the theme tune to Blankety Blank (Les Dawson era) I have a deep unnatural fear that I cant place and cant shift for ages afterwards.

I have no idea why this is, I think that something bad may have happened to me as a child whilst the Blankety Blank theme tune was playing in the background and I have now blocked out the memory.

Actually, just thinking about it now is making me feel slightly unnerved.
(Marwood, Tue 27 Jan 2004, 14:03, Reply)

car door handles
for some reason i have developed a fear of car door handles... mainly because about 60% of the time when i touch one i get a big electric shock. i often pull my sleeve over my hand to shut a car door.

pathetic.
( hanrahan, Tue 27 Jan 2004, 14:03, Reply)

Pie Of Doom
when I was small I liked chicken and mushroom pies, which I would eat by taking the top off and scooping out the lovely filling. but one day I opened a pie and found three fat, dead bluebottle flies and was promptly sick. to this day I still distrust food I can't open. . .
(le renard, Tue 27 Jan 2004, 14:01, Reply)

Mine is crabs (not the pubic ones)
I have a highly irrational fear of crabs. It's ever since I had a bucket of them tipped on me by dad. They're just freak me out!
My only nightmares I've had in the past 3 years have been crab related.
(Deiwos - Woo I found my old name!, Tue 27 Jan 2004, 14:01, Reply)