What would terrify you?

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Things that terrify me IRL (in no particular order):

- Snakes

- Heights

- Ladders (seriously. I fell off a ladder once and hit the ground right on the bridge of my nose. I was lucky, since if I had hit my head, I would have probably died)

- Any kind of creepy crawly insect (roaches, crickets, US Rep. Peter King)

- Boston's Green Line immediately before or after a Red Sox game



Fictional things that terrify me:

- Zombies

- Cenobites

- The second season of War of the Worlds (and not in a good way either )

 

[MetalPants]

Rats and mice- I am totally phobic about them. If I can't kill them I run from them. The cartoon image of a housewife on a stool screaming in terror at a small mouse, I am the male version of that.

 

[JiNX-01]

Being told I had cancer. (Fortunately it was caught early and so far has not recurred.)

 

[Lookingglassman]

This:



I found this kind of alien, talk of this alien, that book Contact which used to poison bookstore windows, stories of alien abduction.. to be quite viscerally terrifying.

I was talking about this once on a mailing list and the resident New Age guru solemnly told me this was because I had been abducted, these were the memories breaking through. I wasn't impressed, lol. And no I don't believe in the Greys (ick, even the name is horrible).

Put a wig on it and it will look like a chick I dated in high school.

 

[Miss Chicken]

This:

Yeah, those little grey fellas also terrify me -it's a good thing they only operate in North America - Our aliens are tall, blond, blue-eyed things -in fact they look a lot like Swedes

Here's one I had in my shower some time back:

Never seen anything like that here, but isn't that one of the good spiders; the ones that catch and eat other spiders?

The good, old huntsman. They sometimes eat other spiders but most of the time they eat insects such as flies. I used to get huntsmen all the time at my old house.

I don't get huntsmen in my new house. Most of my spiders now a daddy-long-legs Spiders (cellar spiders), not to be confused with harvestmen which are also referred to as daddy-long legs. These spiders do feed on other spiders and, as they prey on the red-back spiders, are usually welcomed in Australian homes. I reckon they are the reason I don't have huntsmen as they certainly would feed on the baby huntsmen.

If I find a spider while I am in the shower I am more concerned about it drowning than anything else so I remove it from the shower.

 

[Captain_Nick]

but what would terrify you almost to the point of paralysis if you encountered it?

Hopefully, nothing. I don't know if I'm that lucky though

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I'm also afraid of dreaming.

I rarely have flat out nightmares, but I am always afraid of what I might dream about. It could literally be anything...

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Here's one I had in my shower some time back:

Never seen anything like that here, but isn't that one of the good spiders; the ones that catch and eat other spiders?

The good, old huntsman. They sometimes eat other spiders but most of the time they eat insects such as flies. I used to get huntsmen all the time at my old house.

I don't get huntsmen in my new house. Most of my spiders now a daddy-long-legs Spiders (cellar spiders), not to be confused with harvestmen which are also referred to as daddy-long legs. These spiders do feed on other spiders and, as they prey on the red-back spiders, are usually welcomed in Australian homes. I reckon they are the reason I don't have huntsmen as they certainly would feed on the baby huntsmen.

If I find a spider while I am in the shower I am more concerned about it drowning than anything else so I remove it from the shower.

We get huntsmen in all the time, about two a week in the winter of if there is heavy rain.

I had a friend once who had a tree cut down in her yard and a day later she had over 50 huntsmen in her house. She was a complete arachnaphobe and had to move out while someone came in and dealt with them.

In general I smash the big ones with a book. Babies and teenagers (which are reddish colored) I ignore so it's up to them to move outside before they get this big. I have had a big one on my bed once and that was very unpleasant but they usually live up high on walls. I am not afraid of them at all though the really big ones repulse me a bit.

 

[trekkiedane]

^I suppose it's about what you're used to seeing indoors...

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Yep, though that health bars joke is great!!

Really, they are fine. I am much more alarmed when I see a smaller spider that is completely unfamiliar to me because I don't know if it is poisonous. Huntsmen have a bite that makes you swell up and can be painful but they are not dangerous and it has no lasting effect (provided it doesn't get infected).

I saw a spider once that was completely round, about 1 1/2 inches across and grey, the grey of a dulled coin, all over. It freaked me out because I'd never seen anything like it.

 

[TheOtherGuy]

Flying about 10 years back I was going to Africa I remember flying from Amsterdam to London first and after take off the plane turned and I looked down on Amsterdam and heard someone say "ohh thats beautiful" I thought I was going to pass out right there.
So I was not exactly looking forward to the 10 hour flight from London that was still to come.

 

[Mr Awe]

There's only one thing I'd be that afraid of: a real physical threat. Whether it's a tsunami or a violent confrontation. Nothing like an irrational fear of snakes, reptiles, or heights. And, not intangible things like alien abduction. But, even for the real dangers, I'm not sure that I would be paralyzed, hopefully not. Hopefully, the adrenalin would spur action.

But, in terms of being paralyzed. One of the scariest dreams I had when I was a child was when I was in a dark building and I saw a shadowy figure moving down the hallway. In the dream, I was literally so petrified that not only couldn't I move, I couldn't even speak to warn others about the figure! The feeling of being frozen is something that I remember to this day.

Ironically, later in life I've tried ghost hunting and have often been in situations similar to that dream (dark buildings, long hallways) but never any shadowy figures. In fact, I'd love to experience a shadowy, non-corporeal figure like that to document something paranormal. I've walked around in the dark, alone in buildings that are supposedly very haunted and many people considered to be creepy (such as old asylums and prisons). Alas, I've never experienced anything paranormal.

Mr Awe

 

[marillion]

Drowning.. I hate being on water if 1. I don't know know what is under me and/or 2. I can't see the bottom.. Pools and the beach are fine, but don't even think about getting me on a cruise ship. I can handle boats in shallowish water, but that's about it..

As for the rest..

"Frankenstein never scared me.. but marsupials do... 'Cause they're fast..." (Kevin Pollack as Christopher Walken)

 

[Theodore Jay Miller]

Being on a tiny platform on top of a flagpole.

 

[Sam McCord]

Spiders. And please don't follow this up by posting pictures of spiders... I seriously have bigtime arachnophobia... I am too afraid of the things to even get close enough to kill them. But yeah, that's pretty much the only thing that truly terrifies me.

It used to be the gray aliens, until I conquered that fear.

 

[Sam McCord]

This:



I found this kind of alien, talk of this alien, that book Contact which used to poison bookstore windows, stories of alien abduction.. to be quite viscerally terrifying.

I was talking about this once on a mailing list and the resident New Age guru solemnly told me this was because I had been abducted, these were the memories breaking through. I wasn't impressed, lol. And no I don't believe in the Greys (ick, even the name is horrible).

You probably meant the cover of Communion, not Contact. I know that book cover well. Those were the aliens I was talking about.

And yeah, that reaction probably isn't because of repressed memories. There's some speculation that that reaction to images of Grays is actually related to a traumatic experience as a baby. An infant's eyes don't work quite as well, and it has been speculated that human faces look like that to infant. If I take my glasses off, with my 20/400 vision, peoples faces do kind of look that way; the eyes are large and black, and the rest more indistinct.

So, it could have been that you were frightened at the doctor's office or by people standing over your crib or something.

Despite the fear I feel, I'm actually fascinated by the abduction phenomenon and have studied it off and on most of my life.

Just noticed the spider pics upthread... great. :/

Anyway, yeah, when i was a kid, I was DEATHLY afraid of the Communion alien... I remember when I went into the bookstore with my dad, every time I saw the cover of either Communion or Transformation, I'd just start crying... and when Hard Copy did a special on the movie Communion, two things scared the living hell out of me... one was the scene from Communion where the alien peeks from behind a door, and the other was an alien creeping up from behind a recliner as someone sat in it...

Because of those two images, for my entire childhood after, I had to have the hall light on when I slept, and every night plead with my dad to check on me at night... it took me a LONG time to get over that fear.

 

[Warp Coil]

Well, the only I have ever actually had nightmares about is the Borg, so they go to the top of my list. I would say fire and water are next up - fear of burning to death or drowning.

 

[Mr Silver]

Being stuck in a building with people, while an infection/virus rapidly spreads (I'm Emetophobic)

 

[Witterquick]

I really don't know. I know I have a fear of being trapped, choking, etc, but in the spirit and context of your topic, I suppose the television turning on by itself at night would terrify me. I live alone and I'm usually not that concerned about things like that unless it happens.

 

[MetalPants]

Nothing like an irrational fear of snakes, reptiles, or heights.

Do you consider a fear of rats irrational?

1. Rats can enter a home by crawling through sewer pipes and emerging from a toilet.
2. They have eaten babies.
3. Their teeth never stop growing. If they weren't constantly chewing on something and wearing their teeth down, their teeth would grow through their skull.
4. A rat can chew through metal.
5. As a rat travels, it will urinate, marking a trail for other rats to follow.

I have personally encountered rats with bodies about a foot long, and of course their tail being about another foot long. Fear is having a half dozen of these two foot monsters explode out of something towards your face. The only good rat is a dead rat.