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People have some pretty strange fears. I have two major "odd" fears and one recurring nightmare.
Fear 1: Hiccups. That's right, I'm afraid of getting hiccups and then once started, they never stop. Ever. Whenever I get hiccups I get all panicky and fraught. It's a riot, so I'm told. This one's a fairly easy fear to trace. When I was in highschool I used to go to church where one of the parishoners had had hiccups for over 30 years. He smothered them, but all through every service you could hear this muffled "ga-lump" type sound. So now I have this horror of eternal hiccups. How bad would that be?
Fear 2: Pins & Needles. Not the metal kind, the kind you feel when a part of you body goes to sleep when the circulation is cut off. I love sleeping on my stomach, but my arm always creeps up under my head and a few hours later I wake up with a dead hand, and I always panic that I've done permanent damage.
I sleep on my back now.
Nightmare (recurring): No Passport. I have this odd recurring nightmare, the only one these days, about not having a passport. Which is hilarious considering I can't afford to travel for quite some time and my work is as likely to send me overseas as they are to give me huge fluffy bunny hugs in appreciation for a job done well. The nightmare usually goes along these lines: I'm going on holidays/working holidays, have paid for tickets, been organising for months, and am ready to leave. (It's always a great dream up until this point). I then leave for the airport. It's always as the airport heaves into view that I realise that I don't have a passport and general panic and horror descends.
So. Those are my weird fears and nightmares. What about you?
Posts: 2245 | Registered: Nov 1998
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I'm afraid of trees - but only at night, in the dark. Not sure if I'm crazy or if this is normal.
Posts: 2267 | Registered: May 2005
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Think Terminator. Not the machine, the war. Nuclear holocaust. I've had soooo many nightmares. Everytime I watch a movie about that, you know I will wake up later that night in a cold sweat.
But of course, I love watching those movies:
-All Terminators -Testament (Most.Depressing.Movie.Ever) -The Day After -Fat Man and Little Boy
Just to name a few.
I think I am just so intrigued that it turns to obsessing about it. Not to mention I am big on internalizing things, so it seems natural that my fears manifest themselves in my dreams.
Any one else have this one? I laughed my ass off when I saw it in The Big Book of Phobias (a lovely little pop-up book.) Posts: 2064 | Registered: Dec 2003
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I'm so weird. Im not afraid of heights, the dark, spooky ghosts, bugs, all of those things. The only thing that scares me is someone breaking into my house. Someone getting through my barrier of safety and protection and coming to harm me and my family. Thats my only fear.
Posts: 262 | Registered: Jan 2005
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Home invasion... especially when my husband isn't home. I get freaked out by every little noise.
I also have a bit of hypocondria. Everytime I have a bit of pain, especially if it's in my chest, I think I'm gonna die. I've learned to tell myself it's nothing.
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Bees scare the schnitzel out of me. And I have a strange pseudo-phobia about water, though considering under which conditions I have the problems, it could simply be a control issue. But yeah, bees. Bees are not where it's at. Bees are a bummer. Any and all bees. In a double-OSC-novel-reference, when Tenskwa-Tawa sings the song about the death of bees, I'm hearing "In The Leafy Treetops" -- "because it's the happiest song I know."
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As far as Nightmares go, I've had two recurring ones.
1) For years I used to have dreams about loosing teeth. It would occur in different places each time, but it would always involve losing some or all of my front teeth. I had these dreams for years, until finally I actually did lose some of my teeth in an accident (short version of that story: baseball bat to the face). After that, I never dreamt about losing teeth again.
2) I used to dream about falling from some really high place, generally a large bridge. In these dreams I would always be terrified of bridges, but still end up on them anyways. No matter how large or sturdy they were, I couldn't help myself from falling off the edge. The thing is, I can't recall ever actually having any fear of bridges when I'm awake, but am absolutely terrified in the dreams. As yet I've never fallen off a bridge, but these dreams have stopped too.
There is one interesting subset of these dreams that I'd like to mention, since it's the only time I've ever dreampt of the same made up location twice. I had three of them total, and they all took place on some sort of large observation tower. They'd pretty much consist of me almost falling off the edge, and then pulling myself back onto the platform. In the third such dream, I finally fell and noticed that the tower was overlooking a really tall waterfall. Before I had a chance to hit the ground, my grandma woke me up. All I know is, these dreams must have made quite an impression on me, since I had the last of them some time before second grade, but still remember them pretty clearly.
Posts: 2437 | Registered: Apr 2005
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My only real fear is that I'll never get married and have a family, and that I'll die alone having left nothing behind of substance in the world.
But I'm only 21, I've got time to worry about that one.
Other than that, I have a recurring dream, not sure if it's a nightmare, with this woman in it. I don't always remember them all that well, as they are all different, but this same woman is in it. She asks me strange questions, almost like you'd think a therapist would, but there's also some sort of connection, like I know her intimately. But I only have this dream once every 5 months or so, and it's hard to connect one dream to the next.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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After school was out this summer, I had a recurring nightmare about having completely forgotten about one of my classes. I didn't go, I missed all the tests, and completely failed, although sometimes I remembered before the final, but hadn't done any of the reading and therefore failed the final.
I also have recurring dreams about getting married--often the groom is someone I don't know, or don't know well. In the dream, I'm freaking out because I don't really want to get married and I don't understand why the wedding is even occurring.
Posts: 3546 | Registered: Jul 2002
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The dark gap you have to step over to get into an elevator. Ever since I was a little kid, I would look down nervously and kind of hop into the elevator, watching the gap closely until the doors shut. I was always convinced one day I wouldnt be quick enough and a white hand would reach up and grab me, dragging me down into "something" horrible. Elevators in general freak me out, but I still hate walking over that gap. After I read Neverwhere, by Gaiman, the phrase "Mind the Gap" runs through my head when I get into an elevator. Kind of comforting, actually...
Posts: 499 | Registered: Mar 2004
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Tom, you'd think elevators would be one of ours after that little incident at Bob and Dana's wedding.
Posts: 2064 | Registered: Dec 2003
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Within the past six months I've had a series of nightmares that have absolutely terrified me.
In the first one, I'm alone in my apartment and someone knocks on the door. I go to open and this guy bursts in and basically throws me up against the wall, trapping me. In the next dream, I'm in my bed sleeping and I feel someone lie down behind me and then I feel his breathe on the back of my neck. In the third one, I'm asleep in bed on my stomach and I feel someone lie down on top of me...
I think what gets me the most about those dreams (aside from the subject matter) is that they're not really visual dreams - other than the first one, I don't see anything. It's all felt. The second one, in particular was so realistic that when I woke from it (lying in the same position that I'd been in during the dream) I refused to roll over to see if there was somewhere there or not. I didn't want to know.
On a much lighter note, I have an occasionally recurring nightmare that, although it scares me during the dream, makes me laugh when I wake up. I've only had it a couple times, but it started when I was a child.
In it, my mom and I are sitting on the bed in my room. My room has been flooded and the water is filled with piranhas. Except the piranhas look like bright colored aliens from the game "Space Invaders" (anyone want to guess what I'd been doing the day I first had this dream?). So Mom and I are huddled on my bed which, luckily for us, floats and after awhile I decide that we desperately need towels. And the towels, unsurprisingly enough, are in the bathroom. So I tell Mom that I'm going to go and get us towels. She tries to stop me but before she can do anything, I hop off the bed into the space invader-piranha infested water. Then I wake up and laugh.
Posts: 959 | Registered: Jan 2002
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I'm still wary of heights. Last year, I would've listed it as a fear, but I pretty much cured it last summer.
One of these days, I might post the video of the cure. I jumped, more than once, off a bridge into a river. It was...intense. Oh, and fun. Posts: 1813 | Registered: Apr 2001
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I have an overwhelming and inexplicable fear of Ferris Wheels. Not of being around them, just of going on them. I don't know why this is, but I have been this way since I was a kid. I hyperventilated the one time my father forced me onto a ferris wheel. It's really the strangest thing. I've gone cliff diving, parasailing, flown an airplane, explored random half-underwater caves in backwoods Kentucky, but I just can't bring myself to slowly rotate in a circle in a wood and metal box.
quote:Fear 2: Pins & Needles. Not the metal kind, the kind you feel when a part of you body goes to sleep when the circulation is cut off. I love sleeping on my stomach, but my arm always creeps up under my head and a few hours later I wake up with a dead hand, and I always panic that I've done permanent damage.
This actually has happened to me. Have nerve damage from it. My arms now get pins and needles whenever they are at a standstill for too long and the nerve that runs under my left arm toward my elbow is hyper tender. Just running a finger along the skin causes it to twang.
Posts: 4953 | Registered: Jan 2004
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Terrible phobia of driving. I have most of the skills necessary, but just can't do it. When I try it, I get from behind the wheel at the end, babbling, shaking, and sobbing, my hands sore from gripping the wheel.
I am terrified of clowns *shudder*
I have a moderate fear of all the things that might hurt, damage, kill my son, physically, and psychologically. I'm not usually overprotective, but it is a real struggle not to be.
Posts: 772 | Registered: Feb 2005
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Years of sleeping on my arms and whatnot. It's probably more to do with pinched nerves in my shoulders and what my doc says is the beginning of carple tunnel... the sleeping on my arms probably just sped up what was going to happen anyway.
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I used to have frequent recurring dreams involving tornadoes -- until I was really in one, and then that dream seemed to mostly stop.
About the only nightmares I have now involve some scene in which my kids are in trouble, life-threatening danger, and I can't get to them - can't reach them - can't warn them or save them.
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I had a nightmare that for some reason or another, my oldest son had fallen over the railing of an overpass and I caught him by the hand... then he slipped out of my hand and I watched him fall to his death.
I have an irrational fear that this will come true.
I also have an irrational fear of any amusement ride involving being suspended by a cable. Wildest roller coaster is fine, tamest "lift me up by a steel cable" ride and I'm pretty freaked out. Superman's Tower of Power at Six Flags over Texas terrifies me.
Posts: 3846 | Registered: Apr 2004
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I've had the one where its half way through the semester, and you remember a class you had been to once or twice then totally forgot about it. That one stays with ya for a few minutes after you wake up.
I saw tornado mentioned once or twice... if you can turn that into a lucid dream, its alot of fun. Basically you get to fly, with you in control! Its great!
Posts: 375 | Registered: Mar 2005
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I'm somewhat afraid of fire in general, but I'm with you on the house-fire thing, Teshi. Whenever I'm coming home from school and I see fire engines going, I'm absolutely shaken to the core because I'm SURE they're going to my house.
Nightmares...all my nightmares lately have been qualifying exam anxiety nightmares.
I do have recurring nightmares that revolve around being chased through a building that is a bizarre combination of all the educational institutions I've ever gone to plus a hotel (with a waterslide that goes around the outside of it).
Posts: 4077 | Registered: Jun 2003
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#1: Blimps, and hot air balloons up close. Actually, pretty much all things that are too big and plain up close, like the sides of ships or huge airplanes. But especially blimps and balloons. And I always feel ridiculous. Honestly, who's afraid of air?? (Though I still want to go flying in a balloon, figure that one out.)
#2: Centipedes. I met one last summer at 2:00am. It fell from my window into my BED. It's the only living creature I've willingly killed (well, who am I kidding, I got my roommate to kill it) in years and years. I don't even know why I hate them.
#3: In terms of physical pain, having my Achilles tendons cut like in that Kevin Bacon movie where he's in Alcatraz. Eaaaaaaaaaaaaghhhhh.
#4: The usual everyone's got them fears of losing family/friends, having them get hurt, not being able to help people, etcetera etcetera.
Posts: 624 | Registered: Mar 2005
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I have a fear of trains... specifically, getting run over by one.
And of cliffs. If there's a railing, I'm usually ok. I'm scared of falling over a cliff...like I'll slip if I get to close and go right over... or that someone will just jokingly kind of push me, but it's enough to make me trip and fall. I get VERY mad when people play around cliffs.
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I used to have a recurring nightmare in which I would get to the top of a tall ladder (or similarly-shaped object) and then realize it wasn't supported by anything. It would of course choose that moment to begin toppling over. Not just your normal falling dream, but a clinging-to-the-top-of-a-ladder-as-it-topples dream. I still get that one occasionally, but not often. The roller coaster feeling in the pit of the stomach is awfully strong.
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quote: #3: In terms of physical pain, having my Achilles tendons cut like in that Kevin Bacon movie where he's in Alcatraz. Eaaaaaaaaaaaaghhhhh.
This is not a fear of mine, but it definitely has a very high squick value for me. A while ago, there was a "trend" among car thieves in urban areas to hide under cars until people came out to them, cut their achilles tendons, and take their keys. That had me approaching my car VERY carefully for many, many years.
Posts: 4077 | Registered: Jun 2003
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My biggest fear is that something will happen to my kids. I can barely stand hearing about kids being hurt or neglected. Seeing them starving or scared breaks my heart. I can see my own kids' faces there too easily.
That, and whenever I walk into a hospital I have a vague fear that someone is going to grab me, strap me down on a table, and start operating on my knees or thumbs.
Posts: 5957 | Registered: Oct 2001
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Fire. But I'm getting better with it. I'll actually light candles now, myself, with a match if I have to.
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quote: I saw tornado mentioned once or twice... if you can turn that into a lucid dream, its alot of fun. Basically you get to fly, with you in control! Its great!
I don't mind the tornado dreams because they are exciting to be in. I have learned to control those.
Nuclear war is another thing.
Posts: 440 | Registered: Oct 2001
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Nightmare: I used to have this recurring nightmare. Its set at night in a foggy post apocalyptic Charleston SC. All the bridges have been destroyed and people have built a series of docks and piers out of old lumber and junk which span the harbor, but they are constantly being destroyed by storms so it has become some sort of multi-layer labyrinth/shanty town. There are lots of Mad Max types who live on the docks and don't want me or anyone around.
I am usually being chased and I have to get to the other side, but to get to the other side you have to go through the right progression of right, left, up, down.
After I had the dream enough times I found I could remember the way sometimes.
Sometimes I have very long drawn out dreams that go on for hours and have plots more interesting than most movies. I really should start writing them down.
fear: If I am completely honest, nothing scares me more on this earth, than talking to a woman I might be interested in. Which explains why I am single most of the time.
Posts: 555 | Registered: Jun 2005
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On the topic of dreams, us South Koreans have some superstitions pertaining to dreams and nightmares. The first one is for ricree and your nightmares involving the losing of teeth. I would also have nightmares where I would lose teeth, whether it be in a brutal fight dream or of one gritting my teeth so hard that they would be ripped out of my gums a la Kill Bill style.
When informing my mother of my previous dream,she would tell me that dreams where you lose your teeth are an omen of losing a relative or loved one.
On a lighter note, it's also a common belief that if one of your dreams possesses a pig, you will run into an enormous amount of wealth. (I have no clue how wealth and pigs are associated but...)
Some other superstitions (outside of dreams) of South Korea include crows as omens of impending death and writing one's name in red pen.
Posts: 48 | Registered: Feb 2003
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I once woke up from a dream screaming that my boyfriend was trying to eat my brain. Guess what type of movie I had watched that day... After a few minutes he calmed me down and told me he wasn't a zombie. Still, sometimes before bed, I wonder...
I have a fear about bugs, spiders, and whatnot crawling on me. I don't really mind if they're around, or even if they crawl on me when I'm outside, but if I'm in my house it creeps me out.
I know why I'm afraid: I have two very clear memories from childhood about spiders. The first one was on the playground when a spider crawled on me from the swingset and I could just *not* get it off me. Everyone was laughing too, instead of helping me. The second time I woke up in the middle of the night and saw a wannabe tarantula crawling across my bed - if I hadn't moved my leg a few seconds earlier, he would have had me. I didn't sleep for awhile that night.
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quote: Fear 2: Pins & Needles. Not the metal kind, the kind you feel when a part of you body goes to sleep when the circulation is cut off. I love sleeping on my stomach, but my arm always creeps up under my head and a few hours later I wake up with a dead hand, and I always panic that I've done permanent damage.
Once I managed to somehow roll around in my sleep so that my arms were crossed underneath my body. When I woke up BOTH arms were completely numb. As in beyond pins-and-needles, no feeling whatsoever. Getting out of bed with a heavy comforter and no use of your arms is harder than you may think, although a very interesting experience. Got feeling back in about 3-5 minutes.
I was about to add a few of my own fears, but then I remembered that I've already published a list of them. Enjoy.
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I'm scared of the grate that covers storm drains. I don't step on them. I will go out of my way to avoid stepping on them. Just imagine if you fell through! Posts: 4174 | Registered: Sep 2003
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I also have frequent nightmares about tornados. In fact, most of the nightmares I've had are about tornado's. Unless it's about me getting chased around by a madman, or not being able to find someone, or my neighbors dogs attacking my house...
Posts: 4174 | Registered: Sep 2003
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I'm afraid of peacocks (mostly the males). There's a reason; I was chased by a big male when I was 2 or so.
I also am really creeped out by fish eyes, and people making their eyes so big that the white shows all around, especially while smiling.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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I had a recurring dream when I was a kid; haven't had it for years now, but it really freaked me out at the time. I'd be sitting in a hairdresser's chair, with the cape around my neck and my arms trapped under it and everything, and then the hairdresser would take out a big, heavy pair of scissors and cut my earlobes off.
As far as phobias, I'd have to say my biggest one is a combination of claustrophobia and drowning. Basically, being trapped in an enclosed space that's full of or filling up with water. If anyone has read Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon and remembers the part where the guys are escaping from the mineshaft, and they come up in one of their decompression chambers one guy short of what they started with...*shudders* I had to put the book down and go do something else to distract myself after reading that.
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Nuclear holocaust. I've had soooo many nightmares. Everytime I watch a movie about that, you know I will wake up later that night in a cold sweat.![[Wink]](wink.gif)
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My arms now get pins and needles whenever they are at a standstill for too long and the nerve that runs under my left arm toward my elbow is hyper tender. Just running a finger along the skin causes it to twang.
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The second time I woke up in the middle of the night and saw a wannabe tarantula crawling across my bed - if I hadn't moved my leg a few seconds earlier, he would have had me. I didn't sleep for awhile that night.
