Horror - Phobias Research.

Phobias

A phobia is an irrational fear, meaning that there is really no need to be afraid of what they fear, but they do, they usually develop when a person begins to organise their life around avoiding the thing that they fear, whether it be an animal, object, place or situation.

Phobias can be classed as a type of anxiety disorder. Someone with a phobia will have the overwhelming need to dodge all contact with the source of fear. Even just the thought of what someone is afraid of can cause a person to feel anxious or to maybe panic.

Some phobias are not as life altering as others, if you were to have the fear of crocodiles (Crocodyliphobia) and lived in the UK, your day-to-day life is unlikely to be affected by this phobia. However if you were to have the fear of washing or bathing (Ablutophobia) this would affect your life more severely and would find it more difficult to lead a ‘normal’ life.

There are two different classes of phobia, one is Simple and these are fears about simple object, situations or activities. Complex phobias tend to be more disabling to a person; they are often linked with deep-rooted fears about particular circumstances or situations.

Examples of Simple phobias would be – dogs, spiders, snakes, enclosed spaces and flying, these are sometimes classes as simple because these types of things can be avoided easily in day-to-day life.

Examples of Complex – would be agoraphobia (situations where escape might be difficult) and social phobia – these are types of situations that are kind of unavoidable; someone with agoraphobia might be scared of traveling on public transport or in a more severe situation, leaving the home. Social phobia would make it difficult to attend parties or performing in social situations, like, public speaking. This is because they fear being embarrassed or humiliated in public. Both of these phobias would make life a lot more difficult day-to-day.

The fears that I am going to look into for my Horror Project are –

Achluophobia, this is the fear of darkness.

·         What’s in the dark

·         That something is watching you

·         Elongated shadows

·         Isolation

·         Places feel bigger

·         Caught unawares

·         That something is behind you

·         Imagined dangers

·         That something is behind every corner ready to get you

Necrophobia, this is the fear of the death and/or the dead

 That something is going to drag you into the world of the dead

·         That something is going to cause harm and kill you

·         That the dead may be coming to get you

·         That the dead beings may harm you

·         That spirits of the dead may return to haunt the living

·         Dead bodies

·         Things associated with death, funerals and coffins and other such things

Tetraphobia, this is the fear of the number 4.

·         Avoiding instances with the number 4

·         The resemblance in the Chinese language that it shares similarities with the word ‘death’

·         Avoiding using the number 4

·         Public places such as hospitals miss out floors that have a 4 in them

·         Special care may be taken to avoid occurrences with the number 4 during festive holidays or when a family member is sick

·         Bad luck

·         Sign of death

Ornithophobia, this is the fear of birds.

Stems from birds of prey

Being attacked by a bird

 Crows/Ravens/vultures symbolising death

Texture of the feathers

That they carry disease

That they are loud

That they are menacing

They are large

Some birds are aggressive

Coming into the home through windows and chimneys

Symbolise Pain and misery

Swooping

Pediophobia, this is the fear of dolls.

·         That they could come to life

·         Symptom would be the feeling of insanity

·         That they sometimes look human

·         The confusion of whether they are alive or not

·         Stems from childhood of fantasising that toys would come alive

·         Lots of ghost stories stem from this phobia

·         China dolls

·         Clowns

·         Little girls

Hemophobia, this is the fear of blood.

·         Usually caused by trauma

·         Colour red

·         Red liquid

·         Terrifying accidents

·         Fight or flight response is activated

·         Conditioned into this type of phobia

·         The metallic smell

·         Disease

·         Varying amounts of blood (pools and splatters)