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when my family still lived in California, my mom (she had me at 18, she was around 23 at the time) loved to mess with me. the spoon full of soy as a baby, just to see my face, chasing me across my grandpas house with a scary mask on when I was 4, she wasn't terrible, but she was just having fun, I mock her for it now, but it was all in good fun. Anyway, when I was around 5, she had been "training" me to be terrified of trees and bushes. Picking me up, holding me to the tree yelling "they are gonna getcha" And it was terrifying. silly looking back at it, but that's my story.

The Sixth Sense in theaters scared the crap out of me when I was 11. Now I just think it's a B+ movie.

However, Kanye West's leather jogging pants still scare me to this day.

Event Horizon - that movie still freaks me out.
And Gerald's Game, by Stephen King. The only book to have ever scared me. Mostly because of how Death was portrayed (the Space Cowboy?) and at the time I was reading it I was going on day three of no sleep and unpleasant hallucinations were starting to set in. That long shadow in the corner of my room would twitch and my heart would skip a beat. I didn't try to make it for day four.

chaddwick2005 wrote:
The IT clown did it for me. Saw IT when I was 4, had nightmares until I was a teenager.

Also the movie Maximum Overdrive, after seeing that at a young age, I still have a fear of all electronics becoming "alive" and trying to kill us.

"Honey? This machine just called me an donkey-cave" I just watched that movie again a few months ago, it still holds up.

Essentially as a 6 year old i had a phobia that dog-people (of all things) would come out of the toilet drain if the light in there was ever off. That and always sleeping with my eyes toward the door of the room. Silly me...

I still have an unreasoning terror of hypodermic needles. I dislike pins more than a reasonable person should. I have no problem with sharp knives, nails, screws, saws, power tools of any kind... injure myself pretty regularly and have no fear of blood per se, but the only shot I've had since I was old enough to say "No fething way, you get that hell-spawned pig-sticker away from me!" was when my kids were little [er] and couldn't get vaccinated themselves. There was an H1N1 [or something like that, very serious] flu going around, and my wife works at a hospital. So the only voluntary shot I've had in the last 15 years was to protect my very little kids from a serious disease.

I cried while I was in line waiting. I was in line for almost an hour. I considered telling the nurses, that were giving the shots, that my kids were older than they were. Very shameful. I might have tried if my wife wasn't there. I still wonder if I made the right decision.

I'm also on board with Event Horizon from when I was a kid. We rented it, thinking it was a Sci-Fi movie about whatever and my brother and I watched it by ourselves. He went to bed before the "freakshow" part started, and I couldn't stop watching. Nightmares, for sure.

Only two things scare me, and one of them is nuclear war....

 Easy E wrote:
Only two things scare me, and one of them is nuclear war....

Is the other one Carnies?!

A rusted, dented shopping trolley, which had been at the bottom of an algae-filled pond, being dragged out like some horrible metal skeleton.
It's a weird one, but it was involved in a dream I had when I was about 7, and I still don't like remembering that dream.


Also, I tend to find people with serious mental illness very unsettling, something to do with not being able to predict them or understand their thought processes - not sure if that counts as a dumb thing to be scared of or not?

dumb things that scare me...

My ex-wife.

 Dark Apostle 666 wrote:

Also, I tend to find people with serious mental illness very unsettling, something to do with not being able to predict them or understand their thought processes - not sure if that counts as a dumb thing to be scared of or not?

Nah, I think that's something smart to be scared of. There's a certain group that try to tie profiling to racism, but in actuality it's an innate human quality that helps us discern danger. Of course someone with a serious mental illness has a greater chance of being dangerous, whether they mean to be or not, therefore you should be more weary of them over someone who is acting within the normal realm.

 greatbigtree wrote:
I still have an unreasoning terror of hypodermic needles. I dislike pins more than a reasonable person should. I have no problem with sharp knives, nails, screws, saws, power tools of any kind... injure myself pretty regularly and have no fear of blood per se, but the only shot I've had since I was old enough to say "No fething way, you get that hell-spawned pig-sticker away from me!" was when my kids were little [er] and couldn't get vaccinated themselves. There was an H1N1 [or something like that, very serious] flu going around, and my wife works at a hospital. So the only voluntary shot I've had in the last 15 years was to protect my very little kids from a serious disease.

I cried while I was in line waiting. I was in line for almost an hour. I considered telling the nurses, that were giving the shots, that my kids were older than they were. Very shameful. I might have tried if my wife wasn't there. I still wonder if I made the right decision.

Nahh, it isnt shameful really. I think of really bad things of getting out of situations I dont like, especially If I know I cant avoid it. Its a coping mechanism, fantasy really is.

Pregnant women with sick children. They're like a rolling, gak-flinging, hormonal hell-storms that will, without fail, get me twitchy within seconds.

When i was a kid, i was afraid that the zimperumpazoo was under my bed at night and would bite me. Those mustaches kinda creeped me out.

 Torga_DW wrote:
When i was a kid, i was afraid that the zimperumpazoo was under my bed at night and would bite me. Those mustaches kinda creeped me out.

The what?!?

Getting an F on anything. At on point I had a dream about just that, getting an F on a paper

 KingCracker wrote:

 Torga_DW wrote:
When i was a kid, i was afraid that the zimperumpazoo was under my bed at night and would bite me. Those mustaches kinda creeped me out.

The what?!?

It was from a children's book, and the last line was: goodnight, sleep tight, and don't let the zimperumpazoos bite. Really put the fear of god into me at the time lol. Again, there was just something unnatural about those mustaches!

The scariest thing I've encountered are black bears that wander into your campsite, fethers even come into your tents to sniff at you while you're just lying there.

Brian2112 wrote:
I watched the original Amityville Horror on cable when I was 8 or 9. That scene where Margot Kidder is walking up the stairs, hears a noise and pulls up the window shade to see the glowing red eyes of the pig demon. That did it for me. I still keep the blinds closed at night.

Yup. Lucifer's silhouette in the glow of the portal of the basement is probably the single freakiest thing i've ever seen in a movie.

... well maybe 2nd most. The tentacle demon from Jacob's Ladder made me lose several dozen sanity points if i were a Cthulhu RPG character. LOL.

 Squidmanlolz wrote:
The scariest thing I've encountered are black bears that wander into your campsite, fethers even come into your tents to sniff at you while you're just lying there.

Yes but that's not a dumb thing to be scared of. It's a freaking bear!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Torga_DW wrote:

 KingCracker wrote:

 Torga_DW wrote:
When i was a kid, i was afraid that the zimperumpazoo was under my bed at night and would bite me. Those mustaches kinda creeped me out.

The what?!?

It was from a children's book, and the last line was: goodnight, sleep tight, and don't let the zimperumpazoos bite. Really put the fear of god into me at the time lol. Again, there was just something unnatural about those mustaches!

Spoiler:

And I get this, that's a bit on the wtf side

I was scared of vents and cracks under doors when i was 5. Watched "The Blob" and the idea of a killer monster that could go anywhere and fit anywhere scared the heck out of me and accounted for many a sleepless night.

Did I mention Deer?

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Did I mention Deer?

You press further down on the gas pedal and not the brakes

 conker249 wrote:
I was scared of vents and cracks under doors when i was 5. Watched "The Blob" and the idea of a killer monster that could go anywhere and fit anywhere scared the heck out of me and accounted for many a sleepless night.

I know that fear too. That crap freaked me out

 Jihadin wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Did I mention Deer?

You press further down on the gas pedal and not the brakes

No, I got attacked by a buck when I wondered to close to his doe and baby.

I'm absolutely terrified of looking at the moon when it's full. I have recurring nightmares about the full moon just being in the sky and visible through my window.
I run through the house in my dream, closing curtains and it would just be there. Not moving, growing, not that moon from the Zelda series. Just a plain ol' moon.

If I look at it, after a few seconds my neck hair stands on end and I genuinely panic.

Any other point on the lunar cycle, I'm fine with.

(I wish I was joking, it makes camping horrendous)

 Torga_DW wrote:

 KingCracker wrote:

 Torga_DW wrote:
When i was a kid, i was afraid that the zimperumpazoo was under my bed at night and would bite me. Those mustaches kinda creeped me out.

The what?!?

It was from a children's book, and the last line was: goodnight, sleep tight, and don't let the zimperumpazoos bite. Really put the fear of god into me at the time lol. Again, there was just something unnatural about those mustaches!

Spoiler:

Ahhh, I loved that book!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jihadin wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Did I mention Deer?

You press further down on the gas pedal and not the brakes

Yeah...buddy did that, the deer hit him and kicked his intestines out, fething him up horribly. The deer got up and walked away.

 Buttery Commissar wrote:


I'm absolutely terrified of looking at the moon when it's full. I have recurring nightmares about the full moon just being in the sky and visible through my window.
I run through the house in my dream, closing curtains and it would just be there. Not moving, growing, not that moon from the Zelda series. Just a plain ol' moon.

If I look at it, after a few seconds my neck hair stands on end and I genuinely panic.

Any other point on the lunar cycle, I'm fine with.

(I wish I was joking, it makes camping horrendous)

Wow that's kinda crazy...... yet the dream you're describing does make it seem creepy in a Hitchcock kind of way.

As a kid I used to think the Chinese were watching me. This is cold war era so I guess it was because of that? I was a weird kid.

I also had pretty bad claustrophobia from when my sister wouldnt let me out of a wooden chest when we were playing hide and seek with friends. She just sat on it while I had a panic attack.

I was over it for decades until me and the better half went to Egypt on holiday and we went inside one of the pyramids. When we got to the bottom of the first chamber I just froze. I could NOT go any further. My wife turned round and said I was flat against the wall white as a sheet.
There is this small, steep and loooooong entrance and people can only go up OR down,not both at the same time so I had to wait while a lot of overweight tourists shambled down this passageway which was barely being controlled by two locals at the top and bottom.
I thought my heart was going to explode. I could feel the million tons of rock above me bearing down.
Never again. I don't even particularly like large crowds of people anymore, it seems to have triggered it off badly.

When I was a kid I was afraid of going down open backed stairs. I thought my feet would somehow slip into the openings and I would fall and break my neck. I had no problem with going up them though for some reason.