Brought on by some of the dog threads, this intrigues me. I don't mean logical fears, such as being scared of dogs or of needles because of an unpleasant experience or even because the parent/s of the child or adult concerned have passed fears on, but totally irrational fears.
I've heard it said that fear is a learned experience but surely that can't be the case for, say, the person who is scared of dogs but has never had a bad experience with them and whose carers have never encouraged the fear.
Scared of common house spiders, for instance. WHY?! They can't harm you, but you could easily kill them.
Or is it all down to an irrational childhood dislike, as kids are wont to have, which has been indulged, for example when Johnny declares a fear of dogs or spiders and Mum and Dad make a big effort to "protect" him from the thing he has, in his moment of wild imagination, decided he doesn't like, just as all of a sudden he may not like peas or wearing his blue shoes?
My two fears are needles and water, the former I feel is rational because they bloody hurt and the latter a fear which is kind of logical and which developed after years of going on the Thames until the Marchioness tragedy. The Captain of that boat, who lost his life that night, was a good friend of my own best friend and had been at the helm on several of the many occasions when I was a riverboat party-goer, so it hit home.
I don't think I have any wildly irrational fears and don't understand why people do. Can anyone enlighten me and AIBU to think that there is not always a reason for serious fear of things?