I’ve been playing Until Dawn recently. At the start it does a pretty cool little sequence. It runs you through a number of weird photograph — cockroaches, spiders, clowns, scarecrows — in an attempt to figure out what you’re afraid of. Turns out I’m weirdly afraid of scarecrows. What are you afraid of?
I’m more afraid of drowning than heights. I’m more afraid of spiders compared to cockroaches. I find scarecrows scarier than zombies. That was my results.
Weird. I never thought of myself as being scared of spiders.
But my real fear? I am properly claustrophobic. I can’t handle small spaces at all. Can’t handle being put in cupboards or hiding underneath beds. My father in-law has a motorbike. He asked if I wanted to try it. I put on a full-faced helmet and I couldn’t even handle that.
What about you? What are you afraid of?
Comments
87 responses to “Off Topic: What Are You Afraid Of?”
Flying squadrons of horrible monstrosities that suicide bomb all in their path and lurk all across of nature
Also known as bees.
And then there’s their worse, jerk cousin the wasp, who doesn’t even have the courtesy to die after it’s stung you the first time.
Poor cute bees keeping us all alive. Don’t deserve that hate.
Yep, without those hard working bees pollinating all the plants, we probably won’t have anything to eat!
Being the centre of attention.
Moths….
Do you like butterflies?
I like butterflies :). They seem so much more gentle and elegant. But moths are crazy. And can lay eggs in you while you sleep, if crazy rumors are to be believed…
That’s so interesting! I know my brother used to get freaked out by the dust moths leave behind when they touch you, or brush up against things.
It’s because moths have this gross dustiness to them. They look like something you’d find in the bin and they seem way too dumb not to fly straight into your mouth or eyes. They just sort of slam into things at full speed.
I’m not afraid of them but I’d be happier if they were all dead.
My daughter is terrified of butterflies and moths. Mortally fears them.
When other kids were having their faces painted as scary tigers and monsters at a party, she got them to paint a butterfly on her face and went around assuming she was the scariest thing ever.
HAHAHAHAH that is FANTASTIC. Ohhh god, your daughter is incredible, I love it.
My brother once had a moth fly into his ear and it wouldn’t come out. He had to go to the hospital to get it pulled out by a doctor.
Oh jeez. Fear just got worse…..
Heheh yeah he was freaking out… he could feel it fluttering around in there until the doc flooded his ear with something which killed the moth so he could pull it out.
Lol..oh god. Be more specific, why don’t ya? haha
Hehehe pity it was about 20 years ago before everybody had mobile phones to document everything that happened in their lives. He brought the dead moth home on a little clear plastic pill bottle… If it had happened today then I could have taken a photo and uploaded it for you.
Arrrgghhh, come on, dude! let the nightmare end already! 😀
I’m afraid of everyone!
Your voice has stolen my soul, soul, soul
Soul soul soul soul soul…
Got this in my head immediately, even before I clicked your link 😀
You and me, we’re gonna be BEST friends. 😛
…
If only I wasn’t afraid of everyone.
Even if you were BEST friends, you’d probably get mistaken for stangers…
I am scared of cane toads – get those useless freaks away from me.
Snakes.
I can handle spiders, cockroaches etc no problem. But I can’t do snakes, and I blame it on nearly stepping on a big black snake as a kid at a friends house with the thing looking at me when I fell over next to it, then running all the way home without looking back. Scarred for life.
I don’t like bees, but then I have a severe over-reaction to their stings, whereby my sting mark blows up to the size of a golf ball and its just way too painful to think about. But that’s a rational fear I think.
Social interaction with people I am unfamiliar with.. its a work in progress though.
Hey Ambrew!
Looks like you’re going to have to face your fear now, buddy! 😉
Oh hi Lion!
“Insert 5 minutes of awkward silence here”
Catchya Lion!
Cya Ambrew!
Nice chatting!
You should check out the Talk Amongst Yourself (TAY) article sometime, it’ll help with your shy-ness! 😀
Scarecrows, things that crawl inside your ear, and bicycle handlebars at night (due to some half remembered horror movie from my childhood about an indestructible wooden toy horse)
I am afraid of reptiles.
I’m not proud of it, but I freaked out when I met Wrex in Mass Effect. I’m an Ashley Williams style space racist, it seems. 😛
Spacist.
Even adorably baby crocs? With the little sound they make. And omg they are so soft I understand why people turn them into bags and shoe.
Even those tiny sweet skinks that live in the garden? They’re so adorable!
Even adorable geckos. XD One of my earliest memories is screaming to my mum that I saw a monster. Was a frilled neck lizard. 😛
I do like turtles, though.
Frillies can be scary though – we have water dragons that live around our pool and they’re pretty intimidating!
Cockroaches and rejection!
The rejection one is the worst. It’s like, I like this girl alot and I’m fairly sure she feels the same. Never say anything out of fear. Oh she moved on.
Just imagine that she’s actually a bunch of cockroaches in a dress.
Why don’t I try walking to the sun while I’m at it then. (If I had to ask a cockroach woman out to save the universe Im sorry everything is ending)
OH! I just realised I misread your last comment – she DOES feel the same. Hahaha oh no, I’m sorry. Imagine her STOMPING cockroaches for you.
Haha. That’s fine. Is too late now. Was like 2 years ago.
These days it’s all, oh cool a meat! Oh god what if I ask to come and they say no!!
That’s really not likely to happen. If a boring old lady like me can attend meats, anyone can 🙂
I’ve known girls like that.
Such is the sting of life. A similar event occurred to me during high school.
The only exception being that she didn’t feel the same way. I’m actually fairly certain she truly hated me. Which I can totally understand. Still sad though.
Needles, clowns, and dying.
Not death, just, the act of dying.
I don’t want to see it coming XP
i really dont like snakes. but im very afraid of spiders; i even have gone sleep walking because il dream about them swarming all over me, and usually il be screaming and crashing into parts of the house until someone calms me down. :/ so yeah spiders freak me the F out.
usually they look like the purple replicators from stargate… weird
The Future.
Also horses, electric shocks and popping balloons.
https://youtu.be/ewRc0nImTww
Horses are my number one actually.
Anything that can cripple superman is on my avoid list.
17 responses so far and nobody has said heights?
So what, my fear is illogical then?!… Wait
I don’t have a problem with heights per se, but if I spend too much time thinking about being on a high ledge – I get that weird, rubbery sole feeling in my feet, haha. Woof.
Like you’re going to float into the air, right? Damn that’s the worst lol.
I hate heights. Specifically, stairs and platforms that have gaps or openings. I hate the feeling that I might slip through or drop something. I am ok in a sealed box, so cable cars are ok.
Heights. I don’t like them. Especially the part where the height is too high.
I have a crippling fear of commitment. Not in the ‘I don’t want to stop having sex but I don’t want this relationship to move forward either’ sense, but in the ‘I can barely function when I have to make even the most basic of decisions’ sense. I’ve got better over the past few years but it still gets pretty bad some times.
Oh god yes, how did I not think of that. I’m the same, I can barely do anything unless I have someone there to confer with and basically have them tell me “yes it’s alright”.
I’m afraid of being useless, the looming realisation that I am completely replaceable to everyone I’ve met and I will nope the hell away from flooded areas
Stay outta sydney and Kiama today then.
Snakes and ladders. I mean heights, snakes and heights.
I have an irrational fear of sleep (somniphobia).
If I know I’m about to become unconscious I freak out and do everything I can to stop that from happening. I think it comes from an early operation I had when I was 3, and instead of developing the more common fear of anaesthesia I became afraid of all forms of unconsciousness.
This is going to sound really dumb… but I’m afraid that things just keep getting worse, and all the great minds seem to be gone, and that no body really seems to care about fixing things… they’re just interested in hand wringing and complaining.
That, and that my crippling self doubt/loathing/lack of self-esteem mean that I’m going to be alone for the rest of my days.
Sharks.
Looking in the mirror and seeing someone who isn’t me.
Losing teeth.
That has pretty much been everyone’s fear, well, forever.
In a similar vein.
– Socrates as a character in an acient Greek play.
Happily, not justified though 🙂
http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_on_the_myth_of_violence?language=en
http://science.time.com/2012/03/09/ted-talks-peter-diamandis-on-why-things-are-getting-better-all-the-time/
There is a lack of real leadership in Politics at the moment, but hopefully that will also change soon.
The latter, I get (boy howdy, do I), the former; like poita says, things are getting a lot better all the time in a lot of places. Less than 100 years ago, the world was a much, much poorer place and people were dying all over the shop. These days, advances in medicine, power, chemistry, psychology and economics are happening incredibly rapidly and things will, in all likelihood, be getting much better in the near-ish future.
And yes, things are still bad in other places, but tens of thousands of very clever people (and they most certainly are clever) are working to improve things ASAP. And it could only take a few theories to totally revolutionize a lot of the research. Remember, just because we get one story from journalists and politicians in our sphere it doesn’t mean that’s what everyone feels everywhere.
Basically, 🙂
My biggest fear would have to be not dying. I want a life lived under the impression it is ephemeral to not turn out to be a lie. I also have social anxieties so people I don’t know well and large crowds have me staying away. Looking at the header picture though, spiders with laser mandibles might be a new addition to the list.
I don’t like heights. And I also don’t like earthquakes. And hypodermic needles.
Also why does the picture have to be spider eyes looking at me, i mean god damn thats horrible
Spiders and heights
The only thing that really freaks me out…. open water. Like, being on/in water and not being able to see land. I have only experienced it once and the thought of not knowing which way to swim if I was cast into the water makes me weak at the knees just remembering it.
No problem with heights, spiders, snakes, power tools, etc, but my wife wants to go on a cruise and that makes me wanna spew.
Memorise the cruise path and the nearest land mass at every point along it, then if the unfortunate happens use the position of the sun in the sky to determine compass directions and head towards the nearest bit of land. Problem solved!
Cuttlefish
I’m claustrophobic too. I ride a motorbike, and I’m fine with a full-faced helment while I’m moving, but I have to flip the visor up when I stop at traffic lights otherwise I feel like I can’t breathe.
I didn’t ride in a lift for years because I hated the horrible things.
Well, I’m scared of a lot of things (anxiety will do that to ya), but I suppose my big phobia would be dead silence.
I can’t stand it, if I can’t even hear a pin drop I start to bug out.
Needles and Dying.
Social expectations. Never really grasped the whole “conversation” thing growing up, so nowadays by the time I get past my anxiety at being asked a direct question and start formulating my response, everyone else’s moved on with the topic. Also why I spend 10-20 minutes writing simple comments on online fora – I can’t bear to be misunderstood or have my words misinterpreted, as it means a second round of the above, so I nitpick and rewrite parts of my comments way too much.
Used to be scared of spiders and heights, but I since learned that most spiders won’t really bother you if you leave them be, and it’s not the height you need to worry about – it’s the landing, so as long as there’s a decent railing/window/wall to stop you from falling, it’s all good. Also, I can’t help but see Kamaji in that spider photo… :3
General anesthetic. No idea why as I’ve never had surgery before, but the thought of it absolutely freaks the crap out of me. My wisdom teeth have all come through and are fine, but my dentist keeps recommending to pull them under general “just in case” 🙁
Anaesthetic is fine. You get warm and sleepy and then you wake up. The only bit that’s unnerving is having the memory gap of when you were out. But the actual procedure is not that bad. I’ve also been totally awake for major surgery (they use a spinal block when you’re having a baby – so totally awake) and trust me, being knocked out for surgery isn’t that bad.
Partners cheating. Think of the children!
Spiders (to the point i almost refused to click on this article) Hate them hate them hate them and will actually refuse to go into rooms for over 1 week if i have seen spiders in them.
Heights looking down i can be ok but looking up from a high place freaks the hell out of me for some reason i like my feet on the ground.
Failure as a father who doesn’t want their children to be a success.
Dark mainly due to being night blind but just not a fan of looking out of windows at night (to this day i try to sleep with a light on and i am 28).
Water i can take showers and baths but my head goes underwater at all i panic and worry which is why i am always the lone family member on the beach/pools watching everyone else have fun in the water.
Spiders and insects are the worst.
Confined spaces, too.
I think that spider with the glowing laser mandibles should probably be something to fear.
As for me, growing up in the country I’ve lost an awful lot of pets to snake bite. If they’re a (relatively) harmless pet python or whatever they’re fine, but a wandering brown or tiger snake is pretty damn scary.
I am afraid of seafood.
Yep, that’s right. Nothing in this world is more terrifying to me than the thought of having to eat even one bite of seafood, or cross contamination from seafood coming in contact with my own ‘normal’ food.
Spiders? No problem. Scarecrows, clowns and zombies? Piece of cake. Heights or small enclosed spaces? I rather enjoy those…
But anything that comes from the ocean or body of water that is being prepared or served as a meal will make me run a mile.
As a follow up to my contest entry, yup, I fear cockroaches. Cockroach infestation in my used PS4 is a nightmare. The fact that if you crush and kill the adults, their eggs can still hatch anyway, is SO MESSED UP. Mostly, I just fear failing at my career though.
I’m scared of disappointing my friends and family
Insects and the dark *brrrrrrr* Fortunately all I need to get rid of both my fears is a flamethrower!
Only two things scare me, and one is nuclear war.
Can’t stand the thought of being buried alive or messy deaths, like ones involving woodchippers.