Fear can be based on real dangers or past experiences, but what happens when it isn't?
What happens when fear goes beyond "healthy level of caution" to "abject terror"?
Sometimes labeled as phobias, those irrational fears can still be crippling.
Redditor An_Anxious_Mess_Idk asked:
"What is one fear you have that would be considered stupid by most people?"
Never See It Coming
"I’m scared that when I’m driving anywhere late at night and the roads are clear I’ll be struck by one of those land speed record vehicles."
"I’d be afraid it would come out of nowhere and I wouldn’t see it coming."
- gameofthrones_addict
"I always had this fear (a vehicle coming out of nowhere) when crossing streets as a kid. Suburban streets, mind you..."
- unknown-permutation
"Yeah pretty much, just middle of nowhere you don’t always see everything…"
"I know it wouldn’t happen. So I know it’s an irrational fear."
- gameofthrones_addict
Detached
"Becoming detached on a space walk and drifting off into the void."
"I am not an astronaut, for clarity."
- LoneKharnivore
GiphyWooly Bully
"Cotton balls."
- DatDude999
"I can't touch cotton wool or anything of that texture. It gives me the chills and the jitters."
"My wife thinks I'm an idiot."
- cloudstrifeuk
"Me too. Everyone always tries messing with me by showing me them or chasing me because I actually run as soon as I see them!"
- AdministrativeCap998
"It's called Sidonglobophobia. The sounds and the static they make when you touch them makes me shake."
- DatDude999
Hiisssss
"Toilet snakes. Thanks, Stephen King."
- Beesareourcousins
"Wife found a 5 foot long black snake in her mom’s washer. She thought it was some sort of gasket that fell in the tub at first….reached for it and it moved."
"Our house is 500 feet away, heard her scream from the front porch."
"Mother-in-law’s house was built 1890 or so. Not very well sealed up anymore."
- tatpig
"Omg. I found a 3-4 foot snake in my hamper once."
"I heard what I THOUGHT was like, a soda bottle slowly letting out fizz, and when I went to investigate, it was A F'KING SNAKE hissing."
"Carried the whole thing, dirty clothes and all, out to the driveway and kicked it over so the snake would slither away."
"I had bombed for spiders the day before. I had opened all the windows and doors for several hours to air the house out. I’m guessing he snuck in then."
"I was ready to burn the place to the ground after that. 😳"
- SamSepiol-ER28_0652
GiphyTake A Seat
"I can't sleep with my desk chair facing my bed."
"I have to get up, turn on a light, face it away from me, and then I can go back to bed."
"I get irrationally afraid that I'm going to turn over or blink and look at it and someone is going to be sitting in it watching me sleep."
"No idea where that fear came from."
- lockehearte
Deep Blue
"Swimming in a lake, or in the ocean without being able to see the bottom."
"I was bit/cut by something once and since then it's a fear I just can't control.
"I will still go and do it though because I hate it when people tell me what to do. Even when that's myself."
- Personality4Hire
"Thank god water shoes were invented or I’d never go in the ocean or lake again."
"I stepped on a horseshoe crab and it freaked me out so bad I can’t go into those bodies of water unless I have shoes on."
- JRich61
"We had a little sand shark swimming by us one trip to the ocean."
"Haven’t been able to get past ankle deep since. It’s been probably closer to 14 years ago now."
- Negative_Shake1478
GiphyReflection
"Fear of mirrors."
"Creepy things they are."
- The_dead_are_rising
"I'm specifically scared of mirrors in the dark, or any reflective surface."
"I'm convinced that if I look at it, I'm gonna see something horrible standing behind me."
- Kotori425
"Same but I’m not scared of seeing something behind me."
"I’m scared of seeing something in it that could possibly reach or step out."
"Mirrors in the dark feel like a door to another dimension to me and I have no idea why."
- christopharo
"My worst nightmare is getting up at night to go to the bathroom, going past my mirror and I'll see myself in the mirror but the me in the mirror does something different than me..."
"It's that bad that I'll walk past my mirror with my eyes closed at night."
- JenJMLC
Unblinking Eyes
"DEAD FISH."
"UGLY MOTHERF'KERS."
"UNBLINKING EYES ALWAYS STARING"
- Flat_Bodybuilder_175
"Hate to break it to you, but fish don’t blink when they’re alive either."
- Itsafinelife
"You're... not wrong. By the law of my own phobia, I now have a fear of living fish too."
- Flat_Bodybuilder_175
"The sharks got your back bro, they wink."
- salinase
discovery eye roll GIF by Shark WeekGiphyMothra Is A Monster
"Moths."
"I get teased all the times about it and my reasons and people try to trick me in to liking them or admitting it's fake.
"Apparently being scared of spiders is ok (I like spiders) but terrified of moths is weird because I like butterflies and 'they are the same thing'."
- kyaria17
That Moth Fear Is Justified
"May 2020, my husband and I took off on a road trip. Everything was mostly shut down but that’s fine, what we like to see and do are outdoor, nature things. We stopped at a state park in Oklahoma that had only partially opened that very day."
"We walked around for a bit, let the dog run around as we were the only ones there. Then I had to pee. Now I’m a chick and 'I’ve got to find somewhere to pee' is pretty much always happening or going to within half an hour."
"The usual state park bathroom places were one hole situations but in little concrete buildings….nice enough, I’ve used way worse."
"When we first opened the door a LOT of moths flew out. I’m not scared of moths but it was a LOT. So we let them fly away and I went in. I’m sitting there beside one of those large toilet roll things….the one foot diameter ones with the black cover and you pull the paper from under."
"Even as I gave the toilet paper a yank, a tiny part of my brain knew what would happen. A truly biblical number of moths burst out from the bottom of the paper roll when I pulled."
"I ran/hobbled with shorts pulled down and toilet paper in hand just screaming out of the bathroom. My husband all but dropped he was laughing so hard. My poor dog was sure I was being attacked and ran into the bathroom barking and growling."
"It was all hilarious in hindsight. But trying to explain to anyone how moths could make me run screaming is difficult to say the least."
- rebel1031
GiphyFor me?
June bugs.
June bugs crawl out of the ground in the summer because they're mini demons emerging from Hell. I cannot be convinced otherwise.
So what's your irrational fear?
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- List of Phobias: How Many Are There? ›
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Reddit user GCanuck asked:
"Which historically famous person do you think would be most surprised to learn they are famous?"
If your mind immediately went to that Vincent Van Gogh scene from Dr. Who then 1. you're a nerd (me too!) and 2. you're not alone.
Here's what Reddit had to say.
The Little Painter Fellow
Van Gogh Reaction GIF by GIF IT UPGiphy"Vincent van Gogh."
"His paintings made billions of dollars for rich people, but couldn't trade a painting for a meal during his lifetime. Had to be supported by his brother."
- strangedigital
"It’s amazing how many pieces he created in such a short time considering how unsuccessful he was in selling them while alive. He kept banging them out despite his 'failure'.”
- Fthewigg
"He was encouraged to paint as part of his therapy/rehabilitation. He was a pretty disturbed guy, and not in a romantic way."
- redkat85
"Have you ever seen the Doctor Who episode about him?"
- LucyVialli
"This is what actually prompted this question for me."
- GCanuck
A Diary
"Anne Frank"
- 222sick
"Most of the world has read your diary."
"Wait...All of my diary?"
- SuperstitiousPigeon5
"Her Father censored some of it because she talks about her body and other things, I can't really blame him for that. Modern prints are uncensored."
- zerbey
"She’d have been thrilled, but I don’t think surprised is the right word. She dreamed of being a published author. She knew that she was creating something valuable and important with her diary, and she wanted it to be published."
- shhhhquiet
"I wonder what she'd think of her diary being turned into a stage play including a Broadway run and thousands of young girls doing their best to recreate all the different facets both good and bad of how she acted during her time in the Annex."
- Lil_Jazzy
Herman The Whale
bart simpson episode 3 GIFGiphy"Herman Melville."
"He had a few early successes with seafaring books, but Moby-Dick was a total flop that got bad reviews, and he spent the final decades of his life working in the customs department."
"He would be shocked to hear he wrote the Great American Novel."
- centaurquestions
"My boyfriend is from New Bedford, MA. Apparently the local high schools there had big murals depicting scenes from Moby Dick." "
*That* would have amazed Melville."
- DoctorWatchamacallit
"Dude, that's the best part. You never know what's coming next. It's like:"
"45 pages of unintentionally hilarious interactions between Ishmael and Queequeg."
"30 pages of incredible, brooding drama written in stage play format for some reason."
"100 page essay about some minor technical details about whaling and how some village built their chieftain's hall out of a whale's ribcage."
"Another 20 pages of Ahab chewing the scenery and embodying mankind's self-destructive obsessions"
"Then Queequeg speaking his last words but then deciding he doesn't want to die yet and miraculously springing back to life."
"Like the ocean itself, you have to accept that Moby Dick moves at its own pace lol"
- jesushitlerchrist
We, In Fact, Did Not Forget
"Hegelochus, an actor who mispronounced a word in a play in the year 408 BC and was mocked so thoroughly for it, his mistake has made it into the collective ledger of things historians know about and generally agree upon having happened… and we're still aware of it over 2,400 years later."
"Imagine making a meme today with a word misspelled, and others found that misspelling so egregiously mockable that you are still known for it in the year 4422."
- film_composer
" 'Oh come on get over it. No one will remember about that by tomorrow' -Hehelochus’ mom probably"
- Kehl21
"He must have went to sleep running the moment in his head over and over again, but he probably tried to comfort himself by thinking, 'well, at least it's not like some space-age hyper-futuristic society is going to be discussing this thousands of years from now on their magic boxes powered by lightning in some language that doesn't even exist yet'."
- film_composer
"This is the worst nightmare of everyone that has been told to stop worrying because no one will pay as much attention to what you're doing as you."
"Counter point: Hegelochus."
- LectureAfter8638
Kafkaesque
"Kafka. Rarely published in his lifetime, and when he did it was in obscure magazines which nobody read."
"Explicitly asked that his works be destroyed after his death. It's only because his executor disregarded his wishes and published his unfinished works (which comprise the majority of his oeuvre) that he is famous today."
- IllustriousSquirrel9
"Kafka is a good example of how much can anxiety ruin a person's life"
- Sergey32321
"Kafka wrote his stories to be shared with a group of friends like story-telling at a campfire"
- Responsible_Put_2960
Gospel Legend
"Blind Willie Johnson."
"He passed away blind, poor and sick, lying in the ruins of his house after it was burnt down."
"And his song 'Dark was the Night, Cold was the Ground' left our solar system not too long ago aboard the Voyager to be listened to by life among the stars."
- dntExit
"I really like to think one day-thousands and thousands of years in the future, an alien race will find that golden disk and hear his voice."
"I think the fact he had such a poor life but could one day live eternally amongst the stars is so beautiful."
- gonzomullz
"Found out about him through a VSauce video."
"I listened to a couple songs and really liked them, he had a great voice and had a great talent for playing guitar despite being blind. Such a humbling and inspiring story he had"
- HRPr03
"I remember learning about this in a Vsauce video and crying profusely afterwards, but not only from sadness, also from hope, and some other emotions I can’t possibly describe."
"The fact that he died at the lowest of lows, blind, sick, poor, and alone, yet he very well could be the man that teaches the stars about the very essence of humanity… there’s just something so intrinsically beautiful about that."
"Humanity, flawed as it is, is as intrinsically kind and beautiful as it is evil. The world forgets that sometimes."
- cmoneybouncehouse
Other Madonna
mona lisa oh no you didnt GIFGiphy"Lisa Gherardini, the Mona Lisa model."
"She was just some unremarkable random wife. Fast forward a few hundred years and she ended up as one of the most recognizable faces in history."
- finsareluminous
"HER NAMES NOT EVEN MONA LISA?!"
- Jaded-Associate6891
" 'Monna' was a shortening of the Italian word 'madonna', which was the equivalent of the English 'Madam'."
- Koifish_Coyote
Honor Well Pass Death
"Glyndwr Michael"
"This is the dead body they used in Operation Mincemeat."
"The man basically consumed rat poison to commit suicide."
"His corpse was then used for a British secret operation to carry fake documents for the Nazis to find in order to make them think they were invading Greece and not Sicily."
"This man died in a alleyway and went on the become a dedicated Major in the British military buried with full military rites - under his fake name, but still him in physical form."
- TheBabyLeg123
"He was originally buried under his covert identity (in Spain where his body washed ashore after being deposited in the sea nearby by a Royal Navy submarine), Major William Martin of the Royal Marines."
"In 2009 or thereabouts his real name (Glyndwr Michael) was added to his gravestone."
- BravoBanter
"I thought he died of tuberculosis so it’d be more convincing he was a British serviceman who drowned? Or maybe that was the guy used to make the Nazis think the Allies were invading Calais instead of Normandy."
- UnconstrictedEmu
"It was rat poison but it's not clear if it was a suicide."
"The poison was in the form of a paste that would be smeared on pieces of bread; rodents eat the bread, rodents die. Or in this case; poor Welshman eats the bread, poor Welshman dies."
"It's not clear whether he knew the paste was poison, or whether he was just hungry and thought he genuinely found some bread lying around."
"Where the confusion comes in is that the guy in charge of Mincemeat claimed the body was that of a young man who died of pneumonia, and that the parents had given permission for his body to be used as it was."
- ConstableBlimeyChips
A Real Hero
"Henrietta Lacks"
- LucyVialli
"A literal hero of humanity who in some ways is still alive."
"Her family deserved so much better though."
- AzureBluet
"Can I get a short version? I don't think I've heard of her before"
- Fyrrys
"Her contribution to science is and continues to be gigantic"
- Available-Age2884
Laws Of Inheritance
"Gregor Mendel, the monk and scientist who experimented with pea plant traits to describe what we today literally call Mendelian inheritance."
"The significance of Mendel's findings, which he published in 1866, went almost completely unrecognized during his life and after his death. His work was only rediscovered in the early 1900s when modern ideas about inheritance and selection started taking hold."
- ThadisJones
"I can differ there. When he first stated his theory, he was sure it was correct (as it was) but was rejected. I can imagine him not being surprised at the fact that his work was re recognised as right later down the line"
- Brother_Not_Shook
"It's entirely possible you're correct and Mendel suspected that someday he'd be proved right. At the same time, however, he spent decades after his discovery trying and failing to elicit interest from the academic public or individual biologists, and retired from science to become a monastery administrator, which looks a lot like 'giving up'."
- ThadisJones
Okay, so we learned some interesting history today. How about you?
Don't you love a good myth?
Us too.
Let's put some of NSFW ones to the test.
RedditorWizzlyG33wanted to hear about what lies need to be exposed when it comes to sex, death and all things over the top in life. They asked:
"If MythBusters had a NSFW episode, what would you want to see on it?"
Oh Jamie
Season 1 Love GIF by OutlanderGiphy"A five second segment where Jamie points at a diagram and says, in complete deadpan, 'This is where the clitoris is.'"
TheFeelsGoodMan
"If they did such an episode, I could see this being in it for sure."
Chubby_Bub
BUSTED!
"I want them to purchase every pill they see on the internet that would make their penis bigger and see what happens."
tkepongo
"I think we can call that one BUSTED already. In what version of any world can you imagine there is a simple pill to make your junk more impressive and every dude you know doesn't already have a case of 10000 pills stashed under the bed?"
_Alternate_Throwaway
Don't Sit
"Can you actually get an STD from a toilet seat?"
BloodyChapel
"This is an interesting thing actually. It was a myth deliberately perpetuated to make people less ashamed of asking for STD tests."
leonielion
"Fun fact: There are multiple STDs that can be dormant (like inactive) for years. Like several years."
"You’d never know you had gotten it. Then something triggers it, maybe an infection or something, and then you start showing symptoms/Can now test positive. So technically a partner from years before could have given it to you and you either think your SO is cheating or haven’t been with anybody in a long time. Either way it’s scary when you think about it."
DesperateMango1731
After Death
"Does a person really stay conscious for a few moments after beheading?"
SammyGotStache
"There was a French physician who tested this in the early 1900s. After a criminal was beheaded he picked up the head and shouted the criminal's name. The guy opened his eyes and made eye contact with the physician over a period of 30 seconds whenever his name was called. Edit: I provided the source in other comments but here it is on the original comment."
UnadulteratedWalking
Theories
looking down homer simpson GIFGiphy"Size correlates to what? Feet? Nose? So many theories."
throwxxawayxx10977
"I have size 12 feet and a massive nose and huge hands and the little guy is small."
FireTrickle
Oh the lies and the rumors and the shade.
More is More
Seth Meyers Dancing GIF by Late Night with Seth MeyersGiphy"They did prove that women with larger breasts will get more tips. Which isn’t really not safe for work, because Kari literally was working at a coffee shop."
Unsettleingpresence
"If breast enlargements will help your job would you be able to write them off on your taxes?"
Mr3k
Deep Down
"How deep underwater are you still able to orgasm?"
Successful_Present39
"Pretty sure there's no lower limit. When you're underwater, your body is under pressure, but for the most part doesn't actually get compressed. Only your air spaces (lungs, sinuses, inner ears) are really subject to compression from ambient water pressure. There can be painful exceptions like air pockets inside a tooth filling, which I do not recommend experiencing."
"Most of your body is water or various solids, which push back on the ambient water pressure. You prostate shouldn't be blocked by water pressure any more than your bladder is. Source: am old scuba diver, I've done all kinds of things a hundred feet underwater. At that depth the ambient pressure is 4 bar, which in olden-tymes units is nearly 60 pounds per square inch. Also: fish do it underwater, doesn't seem to stop them."
UlrichZauber
Tasting Men
"Does pineapple make your semen taste better?"
TMNT4lyfe
Keep Thinking
"Post orgasm clarity: How much better can you solve puzzles or remember something?"
texanaftdy
"Well, recently I did a lot of reaction time tests on humanbenchmark.com and while normally I get average of around 140-145, after a good O I consistently got around 130-135, very often getting single clicks close to 120 which almost never happens in other cases. And it's weird because I feel more tired but apparently my reaction time improves for some reason."
berni2905
Safety First
Safety Helmet GIF by Just SecondsGiphy"A take on the top ten OSHA violations list to see if they are as dangerous as they say."
Mariuxpunk007
"Safety regulations are written in blood."
GegenscheinZ
Well that is a ton of great suggestions. Let's work on it.
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Make the most with what makes you happy
"I've learned to enjoy my own company and focus on my hobbies."
"Funny enough, this gives me stuff to talk about when I am around people."
Voices in the background
"Listening to people talk on YouTube so I feel less alone in my house."
Millions of friends, just one click away.
"Chat with random people on Reddit."
internet computer GIFGiphyStill figuring it out
"I don't I'm f*cking miserable."- Savathunh
"I don't :("- __MashedPotatoes__·
Get my body movin'
"Working out."
"It makes me feel better about myself and I have something to do alone."- DerpBread69
Gym Working Out GIF by Chance The RapperGiphyWho says I need to?
"I love solitude."- Befuddled_GenXer
solitude GIFHit the snooze button
"Sleep 12+ hours a day."- RockandRoll682
Instant tension and relief
"Lots of arguing online about sh*t I don't care about at all, just to have some form of social interaction, and get off at least 3 times a day."-
There are very few worse feelings than that of being alone.
But it's also quite remarkable how much doing something that makes you happy, be it ever so simple, can elevate your feelings.
I feel like the list will be longer than we expect. We are still behind in certain ways.
lazy...
Bubble Gum Cartoon GIFGiphy"People sticking gum on random surfaces instead of at least throwing it towards the trash can a few feet away."
iesharael
How is this allowed?
"'Convenience' fees to pay bills online."
Rude_Yam_9962
"Yeah or any 'additional fee' that’s required to buy the product or service. Advertise $100 but then at check out they add in service fee $25, convenience fee $10."
"Always at the last second too, usually right before you enter your credit card info. Wtf? How is this allowed? Just advertise $135 if that’s the price the customer is paying. Should not be allowed to bait a low price and switch with a higher one once the customer is already invested."
Can you hear me now?
"Not being able to get cell service is spots in my own home."
Haunting_Spot_8002
"A friend worked in Africa building homes for the people. He said there were bush men with spears and loin cloths with a cell phone clipped on the side. Middle of nowhere yet reception everywhere."
RedLeader7
"Most of Africa skipped land lines altogether and went straight to mobile. In the west, cell phones and mobile internet are a luxury, in less developed regions it's often the only way to communicate."
pixelbart
System Collapse
"Companies that create problems and sell solutions instead of solving existing problems."
draconic_oxalis
"This was the inevitable outcome of an economic system in which only those doing labor are allowed to have food and shelter, yet technology is constantly reducing the amount of labor that is actually necessary."
"We only get money for food if we are seen to be working on problems. Now we're having a shortage of actual problems so we must make artificial ones to keep surviving. If only we had UBI, all of these pointless industries would disappear overnight as no one wants to keep working these jobs they know are pointless."
snapwillow
Hang Up
Call Me Hello GIF by IDKGiphy"Spam calls."
mstrss9
"I literally had spammers somehow dupe the phone number of my local council, it's scary just how close they can get."
Hazbro29
I HATE these SPAM calls. All hours of the day and night. I hate you!
Speed Up
Internet Mouse GIF by kotutohumGiphy"Slow internet."
Necessary_Rule_8485
"We figured it out. Just that the companies are greedy and keep the money for themselves instead of upgrading infrastructure."
Unlucky_Clover
Paper Trail
"Junk mail."
furryShambler
"I know! Whatever happened with the Paperwork Reduction Act?"
Julie-Andrews
"in the U.S. you can reduce your junk mail a lot by going to.DMAChoice.org and OptOutPrescreen.com and filling out the forms for your address. I have reduced my junk mail by about 90% : FTC source"
FSMFan_2pt0
car-centric
"Having to spend 3 hours in traffic everyday."
CampaignAlternative3
"Because North American cities have over restrictive zoning laws that segregate cities based on type of usage and they build to a very low density and with car-centric development that makes it so everyone has to use a car to get anywhere."
houndog129
"It's not so easy to just 'find a job closer to home' for example I'll search on Indeed and the closest job in my line of work is like 2hrs away."
PhatShadow
It's Round
"Flat Earthers."
da_sylent
"So everything but earth Is round right? (according to flat Earthers) So as some members say it's like a frisbee in space. What if, bear with me... the reason the world will end is because a giant dog will catch us and kill everyone on earth by shaking the frisbee too much and cause floods and crap. Because if so, that's how I wanna die, letting a pupper have some fun with a fisbee."
viber223
Gross
understand john boehner GIFGiphy"Child beauty pageants."
Heliouse66
"If I see a mother make her child do one of those, I WILL judge her."
EarwaxWizard
Can we work on eradicating these things? It's all well past expired.
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