FREAKY FEARS Elleanor O’Connell Everyone has fears that haunt their dreams, or that follow them around wherever they go. Some fears are more common, like the fear of clowns; whilst others are not only rare- they’re incredibly unusual. For instance, my mother wakes up in the middle of the night screaming ‘spiders’ at the top of her lungs (I don’t know how my father hasn’t died of a heart attack yet). Arachnophobia is a very common fear, especially in Australia where our spiders are big enough to literally swallow your face. A less common fear would be the fear of ET. For years, I’d have a panic attack and start hyperventilating if I saw anything to do with ET (yes I know he’s a friendly alien, but that creepy, bug-eyed bastard can still fuck off). So, here’s a list of the strangest phobias we could get our hands on. *This article is in no way making light of debilitating phobias, it is only to inform and entertain.
If family dinners with your racist grandmother and narcissistic cousin make you want to bury your head in a very, very deep hole, you may suffer from Syngenesophobia – the fear of relatives. Either that, or you have a really crappy extended family.
A possible origin of the idea that people who fear entering a church are demons, Ecclesiophobia is the phobia of entering holy ground. I can’t help but wonder if Sam and Dean Winchester ever took this phobia into account during their demon hunts…
Continuing on the theme of things that go ‘bump’ in the night, the vampiric fear of looking at one’s reflection in a mirror is called Spectrophobia. It’s not to be confused with Eisoptrophobia, which is the fear of seeing your own reflection in any circumstance.
Kevin Bacon would be horrified by Chorophobia; the phobia that creates an irrational fear of dancing. And though you may love to get a little foot loose, the phobia is suffered by many across a multitude of cultures.
If you’re like yours truly and watching videos from Dr Pimple Poppers makes your gut clench in discomfort, you may have Trypophobia. The fear of clusters of holes is a surprisingly common fear because clusters of holes are frikkin disgusting.
Do you remember the sci-fi series called Kyle XY? To give you a recap, the guy didn’t have a belly button, and it’s probably because he suffered from Omphalophobia, the fear of belly buttons. It could be because he feared the neverending hole that seemingly reached into people’s stomachs, who knows?
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