Kiddie fears
When I was 6 and woke up in the middle or the night, Id see a sock or something on the floor and I would be convinced it was a bat, snake etc, but then Id hop over it and turn the light on... problem solved! Then Id waste electricity by going to sleep to feel safe.

Im not stupid anymore.
(Tom64, Tue 27 Jan 2004, 18:22, Reply)

Basements, maggots, and the like
ever since I was a child I've been petrified of the basement in my parents house. Every time I go down there I have to turn on all the lights, and when I'm done with whatever I'm doing down there I run back up the stairs, afraid that something/ someone is chasing me. I also have a terrible fear of maggots/ larvae. I can't look at them, they are vile and horrible creatures. Once I saw one in the soil when I was in the country and I ran away screaming and shaking. This has been a subject of many a joke at my expense.
(spiggums, Tue 27 Jan 2004, 18:22, Reply)

Ears and Clowns
Ever since having to sleep under a loft hatch as a child I have had a phobia about clowns in the attic with long thin things that they will push into my ears when I go to sleep. Even now as a 26 year old 'adult' I still cannot sleep in a room with holes in the ceiling.... shudder
(Loving Vixen, Tue 27 Jan 2004, 18:06, Reply)

Geese.
I'm fucking petrfied of large white geese. I'm not sure why, swans (although not without an air of menace) don't really bother me. I think it's because I'm also scared of snakes, and maybe geese look like a kind of body with a feathery snake sticking out for the neck and head. And they hiss!!! Yeah, that's it, I'm convinced, geese are a weird breed of snake. Fuck em.
(Tommy B!, Tue 27 Jan 2004, 18:03, Reply)

Spiders.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRGH!

and another AAAAAAAAAARRRRGH!

They are evil I tell you! EVIL!
I hate all insects and arachnids. Potential bites.

Also I can't stand heights when people are near me or when I'm on a rickety platform. I agree with the other guy. Some idiot might push you off.

Vomiting send me up on the ceiling. I don't know why, but I hate it also when I get drunk and suffer the effects. I suppose it's because when I was a wee lad and I had a bad case of stomach flu.
And I can't stand the sound of a person clipping their nails, puts shivers down my spine.

also I'm afraid of the undead. With complete seriousness. I do not like being in a cemetery after dark.
(Roland Deschain, Tue 27 Jan 2004, 17:59, Reply)

Knees
My flatmate doesn't like knees. He thinks they're wrong. He worries that the femur will slip off the lower leg bones.

Now that you've read it, think about your knees. What are they doing? Are their little cartilaginous surfaces floating over each other. Rubbing away. Rubbing away. One false move and out pops your femur. Knees. Kneeeeees.
(geetoo, Tue 27 Jan 2004, 17:58, Reply)

Touching my mums tarot card box
You know the story.
( Blobcat Less Jaffacakes this year, Tue 27 Jan 2004, 17:50, Reply)

i can give myself really really bad hangovers
by being afraid of how bad it's going to be. kind of feeds off itself in a vicious circle.

hasn't been too bad for a while, but i do have to mentally force myself to be calm and not let the black void of sickness open up inside.

does this stop me drinking? nope.
( monstrinho do biscoito teeeshurts = www.nogunarmy.com, Tue 27 Jan 2004, 17:50, Reply)

chomp squelch gulp
Don't ask why but i have to leave the room if somebody is chewing/crunching/gulping/insert-noisy-eating-sound-here. I'm not sure what i'm so worried about but it makes me feel sick and furious at the same time :S
(colinini, Tue 27 Jan 2004, 17:49, Reply)

also
i'm terrified of alarms- even the little fire alarms panel things scare me.
And the word 'detonate'. After they found an unexploded bomb and they had to send everyone inside at school and keep away from the windows. It was when I was leaving the library, and I got told to go inside, quickly, and I heard someone say the bomb might have detonated. Ever since that moment, I have hated that word for no reason.
And...when my sister was two, she got this 'Clarence the Clown' thing for Christmas. That is the scariest thing I've ever come across. Its face split into layers nd when you pu it back on, it talked. I've blanked out what it said. But, anywy, I couldn't be alone in a room with that thing. Even at night, when my sister was in the room, it was scarier. I was convinced it would start talking to me randomly- or come and eat me. This was made worse when, once, a toy phone we had started ringing.
Even now, I'm 15 and we've given it to my cousin, I'm still scared of it.
(HanaBizzle, Tue 27 Jan 2004, 17:31, Reply)

Kites
I hate kites, I can't watch them. ALSO hang gliders, hot air balloons...basically anything that floats around in the sky like that.

Once I was on an Outward Bound holiday and we were hill walking. When we reached the top it was windy as fuck, so the group leader brings out this massive orange "tent" that worked by us all getting inside it and sitting round the inside edge. When she went to pack it up, she asked me and my friend to help her. The wind caught it and tried to rip it out of our grasp, and I was absolutely terrified that we'd lose it and it would go flapping away across the hillside. That would have cracked me, I'd have ended up in a foetal ball on the grass.

I can totally understand that guy's fear of flags.
(Sus_K, Tue 27 Jan 2004, 17:28, Reply)

a friend of mine
used to be absolutely terrified of yellow smiley faces. God knows why. She's also scared of the Black Eyed Peas. They stalk her in her dreams.
(HanaBizzle, Tue 27 Jan 2004, 17:26, Reply)

Clocks aaaagggghhhh
I cannot hear a clock strike 12

God knows what will happen if I don't shut my ears before the last bong
(mister nice guy, Tue 27 Jan 2004, 17:22, Reply)

People cleaning their teeth
it drives me nuts, my teeth tingle, my gums hurt, and i have to leave the room. Cleaning my own teeth doesn't bother me at all, but other people....urgh!
(mr_winky, Tue 27 Jan 2004, 17:20, Reply)

white noise
when i was about 6 i watched Poltergeist. big mistake. it scared me witless in a way that i have never been scared since.

anyway, remember that bit where something comes out of the tv when it's tuned to white noise? for years after that i was scared of a tv showing white noise.

at one point to avoid the split second of white noise that you got when you turned our (old) tv off, i would turn the brightness down to zero, turn it off, and then reset the brightness.

i'm over it now ;-)
(ru, Tue 27 Jan 2004, 17:18, Reply)

I have a fear of Religious imagery.
Specifically Christian stuff. Old houses with pictures of jesus on the cross and other such delightful images make me shiver all up my back. I have trouble, as you might imagine, spending any lengths of time in churches.
( Sir Sand GOBLIN ^popular page dis, Tue 27 Jan 2004, 17:18, Reply)

Irrational Fears
Eh.. I have problems requiring the use of a PHD type I'm sure.

For a long time after I saw Aliens, the movie, I was afraid that the alien queen was going to drop in my backyard. You know, she gets sucked out of the airlock into space... Well I was afraid she'd somehow crossed space and time to land in my backyard. This followed me until I was about 22.

Currently I fear lions or tigers in my hallway hiding in the shadows. I also can't hang my feet over the bed for fear that some creature will grab them and drag me under the bed. I'm deathly afraid of any small creature, insects, spiders, moths, buttflys, ladybugs, and any piece of lint that looks like any insect. Honestly I could write a novel on the stuf that mortaly frightens me, I'm 25... isn't this sad. :(
(yoink, Tue 27 Jan 2004, 17:18, Reply)

peaches
my friend cant be near a peach or nething even peach scented since gettin drunk on a whole bottle of peach schnapps, pukin everywhere and tryin to dial 911
so my drink of choice when shes around is obvious so so cruel
(sugarplum, Tue 27 Jan 2004, 17:12, Reply)

I'm with Dan on the toilets. But with aracnaphobia thrown in too.
With me it's toilet ceilings specifically. Once, as a fresh faced young thing, I was in the box sized bog in my parent's house, when a spider came down from the ceiling right in front of my face. Given that I was mid-urinate at the time, there could be no escape. All I could do was say "arrrrgh" and continue to pee. Now, years later, every time I go into a toilet I check the ceiling.... Freak.
(Vernie, Tue 27 Jan 2004, 17:09, Reply)

I'm with Mike:
seeing your reflection doing something different from you, or seeing someone at the window in place, or that there could be someone behind an open door at night, in the dark:

Scary as Fuck.
( Herr Tezcat, Tue 27 Jan 2004, 17:06, Reply)

Bodily fluids
My ex used to pin me down and lick my face (you can see why he's my EX), so I now have a fear of bogies, ear wax, etc, but worst of all is other people's licky. Ooh, I feel sick just writing it. Bleugh
(skinny, Tue 27 Jan 2004, 17:04, Reply)

Heinz Baked Beans

I have some more understandable fears (Spiders & Scorpions - potential venom - neanderthal instincts at back of brain) but the fear I cannot get over is that of Heinz Baked Beans.

I don't like the look, taste, smell of em. Make me feel like vomiting and the sight of the orange little twunts sends a shivering tingle of fear down my spine.

I have to move away from them when I'm sat in a Greasy Spoon.

Could it be an childhood association? What threat can a baked bean possibly pose?

I'll tell you: Baked Beans make people vote on reality TV shows, buy Pop Idol CDs, write the scripts for My Family, and give Mick Fucknall ginger pulling powers.

Possibly. That or I'm allergic to them.

The pills.

Take the pills.

Pills now.
(microsaulxp, Tue 27 Jan 2004, 17:03, Reply)

you're all freaks!
that said, the video to Rapture by Blondie used to scare me as a little un...just a motley crew of people in it as I recall.
Oh yeah and I get really paranoid and twitchy if someone is behind me and they know my ribs are really sensitive..jab!, ah you bastad!
(pomegranate, Tue 27 Jan 2004, 17:02, Reply)

black plastic bin bags.
especially when they're stuffed really tight. for some reason it reminds me of dead bodies. eugh.
( Laughing Boy, Tue 27 Jan 2004, 17:01, Reply)

not really fear
but I get panic when people poke their belly buttons infront of me. And my friends who know it always do it and try to poke mine as well, that's why i pirced mine.
Navelfluff is also the most disgusting thing in the world.
( Laini, Tue 27 Jan 2004, 16:57, Reply)

Aruuugh,
I'm scared of lots of stuff! Not many interesting stuffs, but lots of it.
First of all I'm deathly terrified of using the telephone. I can't answer it(unless it's my best/only friend)or call anyone at all. I'm terrified of balloons, too. I can't stand to hold one, blow one up or be around anyone who's blowing one up. I'm scared of the power going out. Not the power actually being out, but the actual moment that it goes out. Oh, and I'm horrified at the though of burning myself. I can't light matches or lighters, I can't even take food out of the oven or drain pasta. I have to get someone to do it for me.
I'm also extremely afraid of people in costumes. Not the general "omfg creepy!" sort of afraid, they make me want to cry. I went to Disney World last summer and it was lovely - except when Rafiki ATTACKED ME. He started hugging me, etc, and the only thing that kept me from screaming was common courtesy.
( trintrin has jam for blood, Tue 27 Jan 2004, 16:49, Reply)

My friend Sarah...
is scared of plants that grow in un-natural places (e.g. between paving slabs).
( Micro Prawnvica, Tue 27 Jan 2004, 16:49, Reply)

ventriloquists dummies

*shudder*
(Obi Wan Jonobi, Tue 27 Jan 2004, 16:47, Reply)

I've suffered from emetophobia for years
which has been well documented. Although my fear is pretty much under control now in the past I couldn't even leave the house for fear I'd see vomit in the street, or someone doing it, or that I'd do it.
At my very worst I stopped eating and sleeping and dropped about 50lbs (almost 3 stone).
And, just to plug a book I co-auhtored called "Conquering Panic & Anxiety Disorders" by Jenna Glatzer and Paul Foxman, mine's chapter 3 and Rob has a copy of it for the raffle for the Valentine bash! Oh, and it's available on amazon (both .com and .co.uk)

Couple of weeks ago I was in the ER (casualty dept) with a severely abcessed tooth and a little asian lady walks in puking into the smallest see through plastic bag in the world. I shot out of there like a bat out of hell, but got seen to before everyone else as my heartrate had gone up to 152! Ha!
( Batshitmentalist is sane for once, Tue 27 Jan 2004, 16:45, Reply)