To ask what scares you /freaks you out that you would not consider common? Mine is a children’s book!

[elm26]

My 3 year old is obsessed with “We’re Going On A Bear Hunt” after having it read to her at preschool, she knows all of the words and we bought it as one of her gifts for her birthday.

We read a book every night at bed, whenever she reaches for this it gives me such bad goosebumps!

I don’t know if it’s the way it’s written, the pictures, I genuinely feel panic when they’re trying to get away from the bear and he’s in the background of the pictures and then at their front door and they’ve forgotten to lock it. I absolutely detest it 🥴 it gives me the right creeps!

This is baring in mind that all I read myself is psychological thrillers and I’ve watched so much true crime I could probably commit the perfect murder 😂 why do I have such a panicky/spooked response to a children’s book fgs!

I read The Owl Sevice when I was a child though maybe 8/9. Scared the shit out of me.

This is probably very outing but I'm terrified of those long plastic wibbly strands that some fidget type toys are made of. I can't even find a picture to show you sorry, because they make me panic.

This creepy little fecker (Raggety)
Ohhh Rooooopert
Ruined Rupert the Bear for me . Ruined .

I’ve never really liked Bear Hunt. It feels like a metaphor for something but I’m not sure what. It’s creepy, and just feels wrong somehow. The animated version suggested the bear was a reincarnation of their grandfather which was a bit weird.

Not me, but threads like this always bring up clusters of holes and empty swimming pools. I think the former even has a name.

Again not me, but I had a friend who couldn’t even looK at spiral staircases.

Mine is niche, but if I’m up on the gods at the theatre and there’s a light fitting/chandelier straight ahead that hangs over a three ‘floors’ of emptiness, to look directly at the light gives me huge colly-wobbles.

I had loads of irrational phobias when I was a kid. I developed a terror of a book my mum had bought for no reason at all, it was something about the way it was drawn, and had to hide it in my underwear drawer. My mum must have thought I was nuts.

I have grown out of most of these but every now and then I will get a weird terror of something very anodyne.

I find fairgrounds and amusement parks quite triggering. I find the artwork some of them have scary as fuck.

I also have the cluster or holes fear, trypophobia. I’ve been physically sick on beaches before after seeing barnacles on rocks, I can feel my gag getting ready just thinking/typing it!

Urgh that’s horrible.

Wasp nests
Not fussed about the wasps but the nests make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

Mine is Watership Down. Absolutely terrifies me.

I love fairground art, but cannot go on anything remotely spinny these days

Oooh interesting! Will have to google…

Pylons. Hate them. I love modern and industrial structures and architecture but pylons are creepy. They have arms and legs.

Wildebeest. Weird AF. So top heavy they look like they should topple over. And are they deer or cows? Horrible things.

Also freaked out by chimpanzees and hippos 🤮

I can’t quite visualise what these are, will google.

Arghh yes, terrifying 🫣

Bagpuss. When I was very little, it really scared me. He’s actually very cute to me now, but I still remember being terrified but having to pretend I was enjoying it, because even then I was embarrassed that I was scared.

Yeah no can’t deal with it.

Maybe this is related but I also found a lot of the iconography of the rave scene really scary (smileys and all that). I was really into that scene for a bit but the visuals scared the bejesus out of me.

Some chemically induced childhood memory no doubt. Knew I could never deal with hardcore psychedelics because I got too scared.

Baked beans. Honestly makes me feel panicky. I know it's weird

Me to. Don’t like to think about it or hear the music.

Allotments. I always assume they are where the bodies are buried.

It literally raises heckles on me! It’s the repeated sentences and that Bear being behind them then when they realise they haven’t locked the door, my heart races every time!

I’m glad she’s liking The Gruffalo more lately and Disney princess short stories! But she asked me to read Bear Hunt tonight and it just gives me the willies as my late Nanna would say!

So scary. General Woundwort 😫

The light thing is sooo interesting!

I wonder if any of this is related to past lives and the like if you believe in them, I don’t know what I believe in to be fair but maybe I was hunted and killed by a bear 😂

The Owl Service is Alan Gardner? I think. If so all his books are brilliant/creepy. Terrifying myths and legends of Alderly Edge. Which is where all the footballers live now. Don't know what happened to the goblins/elves? Got moved on probably.

It was meant to be scary - but a YA novel from the 80s still occasionally gives me sleepless nights.

Empty World, John Christopher