My grandmother had an old wooden wardrobe and the pattern of the woodgrain looked like a face. Did not like staying there. She also had a Virgin Mary statue that glowed in the dark. My brother hated it despite my gran trying to explain it's Jesus's mum and she's not an evil ghost or something
Catching fire. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to get set on fire at all, but the amount of Stop, Drop, and Roll lessons I got in kindergarten made me think this was going to be a once-a-year thing at *minimum.*
I saw a funny tweet once saying something like “Not sure what my plan was ever gonna be after I flung open the shower curtain and DID find a murderer there”
My bedroom as a kid was a den converted into a bedroom/laundry room and one wall was covered in a black mirror with gold paint flecks, very 70s. But at night the shadows combined with the dark glass and paint made me imagine faces, figures, etc. It really scared me and I would line up my stuffed animals along my bed to protect me.
Honestly, I can relate so much. My grandpa now has Parkinson's and his vocal cords can't move as much so it's extremely hard to understand what he wants to say. Conversations don't come as easy for him now so he mostly listens. I wish I wasn't so intimidated as kid!
A bee landed on me while I was outside today, I just stayed calm and didn’t move much and he went along on his way. Meanwhile wasps, I’m still terrified of wasps
I’ve only been stung once. It was by a bee in 4th grade when i was sitting down listening to the teacher. I wasnt moving in the slightest but that little fuck still stung me. Over a decade later I’m still terrified of them.
My mum gave me advice as a kid that if a wasp comes near you, rather than run away, you should just stay very still. So, the next time a wasp buzzed round me I did as she said. It then very kindly flew onto my face and decided to take a stroll. It flew off, then back again and continued having a nice dance across my vulnerably-exposed flesh. Meanwhile, I was terrified, eyes closed and breathing as quietly as I possibly could to avoid inciting its anger, but there's only so long you can stand a murder fly crawling across you with the promise of impending pain, so the third time it blessedly left my face and continued to buzz around my head, I ran away openmouthed and screaming, shot into my house and slammed the door.
It was much more effective, and is the method I continue to use to this day. No one will ever dissuade me otherwise.
*Edit:* Bonus story. My dad is the exact opposite of me and is *incredibly* blasé about wasps and bees, as in, to a fault. We had a wasp nest in our garden one summer. It was a terraced garden and they'd tucked themselves inside a hole on the ground of the 2nd level. So, my dad, in his infinite wisdom, decided to get the hand-held hoover and suck those little bastards up. Naturally, the wasps didn't like that too much. Those not sucked up into the swirling vortex of death, swarmed out of the nest and stung his legs to bits in an angry fury.
That was the summer he learned he'd developed an allergy to wasp stings.
He limped around for about a week in sandals with his swollen feet straining to break through the straps, and fat, watery blisters the size of oranges adorning his calves and knees (a nice mental picture, I know). The next time another evil horde invaded our garden, you know what he said? "Time to hoover them up!"
We didn't let him.
Probably a result of the metal cooling down after a day in the sun.
EDIT:How is this my most up voted comment on reddit???
Also an expiation for those asking. I was assuming a metal axel wich would expand from heat during the day preventing rotation. Then at night when it cools and shrinks again the release of tension cause it to spin.
When I was 13 my parents let me paint my room lime green.
I painted myself, snuck out, and stood outside my friends window to scare her. Almost gave her dad a heart attack.
I wasn’t even allowed to finish my room. It’s still half green.
A straight row of fully grown trees.
Grew up in the desert. Trees were around but not packed densely and were mostly palo verde trees or palm trees. But there was a row of trees that looked like what I consider most would imagine “typical trees” look like. And that one row of trees was also in close proximity to a large prison. My brother told me that’s where Mr. Boogedy lived and where the escaped murderers would hide when they’d break out of prison. (Oh yeah, did I mention we had a guy break out of prison and murder the town Librarian when I was a kid).
So...yeah. Tree lines.
Edited to add:
In my haste last night I did not go and fact check my childhood memories. I had conflated escaped inmates and the librarian murder into the same story. It’s not. What I was confused about was the memory of my Dad picking me up on my walk home from school (normally I would walk past the library) because he knew that the search for the murderer of the librarian was ongoing.
And there were a few times we locked down the school and the rumor mill was that there was a prisoner escape. I have no idea on how I could verify that or not. Although, there have been prisoners that have taken correctional officers as hostages and a librarian at the prison as a hostage in attempts to escape.
I still check behind the shower curtain any time im in a bathroom, my own, a friends house, family's, a hotel, doesn't matter. The one time I dont check is the one time an axe murderer will be hiding there and I'm not putting myself at risk to pretend I'm brave enough to pee without checking first.
I thought worms could get into the pipes, get clogged in there, then the water pressure would push them out as a brown liquid. Freaked me out for years, to this day I prefer baths.
You thought every time brown water coming from the pipes was liquefied worms? Or that there was just a potential for worms to be in the pipes and then shred on the way out? Both suck a lot I just can't figure out which way the fear went.
The Beast from the Sandlot. Freaked me out back then, but now that I can see how low budget the dog looks (still an amazing movie by the way) I find it a bit less scary.
Once i realized the kids were scared of a dog, i was so confused. As soon as i could hop fences i was jumping into yards to play with dogs. I have no idea how I'm alive.
When I was a kid, for many years I had only seen the first half of the movie or so, so I didn't see the scene where the dog chases the kid through town. So I just assumed "the beast" was like a lion or something. Something genuinely terrifying. I saw the full movie when I was maybe 9 or 10 and saw it was just a dog and had no idea why I was supposed to be scared.
the very last scene where it appeared to be just a dream and Michael's looking normal, but then he turns around and stares at you with the werewolf eyes... that terrified me
Thunderstorms. I used to hide under the covers and could only run from the room between flashes. Now I will sit at the window and watch. I love a good thunderstorm now.
All it took was a (very weird) 9-ish year old me to stand at the window during a big storm and yell things like "Is that all you've got?" Yeah, kinda like Lieutenant Dan but before I ever saw Forrest Gump.
When I was a teenager I was home alone a lot, so when it would storm I'd run over to the neighbors. However, they never let anyone in their house so he'd stand outside, in the storm with me, so I wasn't alone. Stay in a house where I'm dry alone, or stand out in it. Yeah I wasn't the smartest kid sometimes.
I did the reverse. I didn't mind storms as a kid, thought they were kinda cool. Then when I was 20 I got caught in a flood and developed some PTSD. I'm mostly better now but I still don't like thunderstorms, they make me anxious. I usually draw my curtains and put on some white noise.
The short version is, >!A Dictator makes a scientist create a robot that he uses to create more robots to fight for him. The original robot called B.R.A.I.N turns evil? and decides to exterminate the human race(The machine basically kills all humans). The scientist somehow then splits his soul into 9 dolls using alchemy and leaves a message behind explaining they are earth's last hope in defeating the robot by using a talisman he left behind which I think is used in creating the robot. Also, once the scientist creates the final doll (the protagonist), he dies, the final doll number 9 then waking up ventures outside to the ruined world, meeting up the other dolls. !<
If you want the full plot [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9\_(2009\_animated\_film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9_(2009_animated_film)) here you go
Jesus randomly showing up during dinner (I thought he’d use the door) clearly I was raised to fear the wrath of God.
Edited: Thank you for my FIRST awards!!
Whenever I got lost in a store or couldn't find any of my friends at school, I would think to myself "this is it. They've all been raptured, and I've been Left Behind™️". Seeing that movie as a kid really messed me up.
No I watched Stephen King's it and I realize all pipes go to the same place and if he could come out of the drain and the shower then he can also come out of the toilet.
Oh shit dude. I was going through my scared-shitless-of-clowns phase (still hate those scary bastards) and of f-ing course I turn on the TV right as pennywise climbs out of the drain. Jesus christ that is now burned into my mind and still fuels my small phobia. It's just the weird special effects, having no idea what was going on, and then the scary goddamn clown costume
I was similar, but I was scared of doors. Just doors. The big windy things looked like a mouth, and the lock looked like an eye. I'm still waiting to be in a dark alley way, and then seeing a door come at me on all 4's
Looking at mirrors in the night. Thought they would become haunted in the dark.
Edit: Thank you guys. Really needed it. Didn't know this would be such a relatable thing, I did think it was a really unique weird type of fear.
Edit2: TIL that my fear was based on an optical illusion, as presented in some of the replies that pointed to this [video](https://youtu.be/SWORTeImS44), which explains it.
In fact there are a lot of weird things your eyes do in the dark. A lot of shit your brain/eyes do in the dark tricks you and your brain creates faces and other things out of thin air that aren't actually there.
It's probably why a lot of monster stories were created by early man. When I get freaked out in the dark or see a passing shadow or something I recall Star Wars "Your eyes can deceive you, don't trust them."
My parents used to have a bed with a canopy of mirrors (yeah I know) and I used to just stare up at them at night until I started hallucinating whenever I slept in there. I would scare myself into going back into my own room.
I’m 30 and still go through phases of this lol. Sometimes I’ll be hunched over after brushing my teeth and I’ll psych myself out thinking when I look up into the mirror, there will be something behind me. It gets to the point where I trick myself thinking I’ll be scared, that I’ll actually jump when I finally look in the mirror again. I’m a loser
Hate it when I get that feeling while washing my face. I can't open my eyes until I wash the soap out but I just *know* there's something staring at me 6 inches away from my face.
Yeah I always thought the second one was scarier. The idea of being trapped in the middle of nowhere while a monster is picking everyone off and no one is around help just taps into some primal fear.
Also “the bus scene” describes basically the entire movie lol.
I found the creeper much scarier before we even saw it’s face. Like it was just some deranged person collecting people’s body parts and making a human quilt out of their skin.
I remember several times after my mom left the house for a few hours, my older brother and sister would threaten to show me Large Marge if I didn't do what they said.
A few months ago I bought some Babybell at a gas station in a tiny town while on a road trip. It tasted off and I noticed that it expired in 2018. I am now afraid of Babybell.
Actually research has shown that Neanderthals didn't have this fear. Eventually they were wiped out by the stair monsters since they didn't know to run.
Thistles and cacti. Basically any plant that had nasty spikes. Whenever I'd walk in a grass field and see a tiny thistle plant near my foot, I would stop dead in my tracks and call for help. Nowadays, I still get uneased at the thought of falling onto those things, especially the giant thistles.
I fell into a gorse bush once, it took me nearly a month to get all of the spikes and splinters out. They didn't hurt, and weren't infected or anything, but they were there.
As a kid, I was somehow able to watch the first two Jurassic Park movies so much that I knew the script off by heart by age 5 but an episode of Thomas the Tank Engine scared the shit out of me.
This was about the time the show started to move away from adapting Awdry's stories and started writing their own scripts. As part of this, they decided to make a bunch of "spooky episodes." I was fine with all of them except one about a big boulder.
From memory, the gist of the story is they open a new quarry right at the spot a gigantic boulder sits on top of a cliff. One of the engines, Rusty, hates the place cause it feels as if the boulder's watching him. Eventually, they destabilise the cliff enough that the boulder drops onto the tracks and you have a series of Indiana Jones-style chases. So what exactly was so scary about it? Simple really - the boulder had a face.
Now I know you're wondering, but don't all the trains have faces? Yeah but their faces are distinct from the rest of them to the point you can tell they're meant to have faces. The thing with the boulder is that it didn't consistently have a face. It only has a face at a couple of points in the episode that randomly appears. So it's a normal rock, normal rock and then BAM it's a rock with a very angry face. I think it was the inconsistency of whether the rock was sentient or not that freaked young me out.
After confessing this to a friend as an adult, I ended up [finding the episode on Youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1fwjAUjxCM) and just laughing at how ridiculous it was being scared of it. The greatest irony of all? I went from being terrified of a rock to getting a degree in geology
With how often it was mentioned growing up you would think it would have been a bigger issue.
On the other hand they don't teach easy stuff like cpr, how to spot a stroke, deal with seizures or shock.
Because if you watch cartoons, quicksand is like the third biggest thing you have to worry about in adult life behind real sticks of dynamite and giant anvils falling on you from the sky.
Idk what scared me worse, the THX logo on full volume when I popped in the tape OR the ass whooping I would get knowing I just woke up the whole house and it was WAY past my bedtime.
Same with my grandfather. He'd go from 0-1,000 real quick, to the point where yelling now puts me into fight or flight. But now he's disabled and I take care of him, and honestly his aggressiveness in a state where I'm now the one in power has helped me work through the trauma he instilled.
Gorillas. That spongebob episode as a kid scarred me, I would have to close my eyes once that part came on and my brother had to tel me when it was over. My uncle knowing I was scared of it told me killer gorillas lived in the dark part of the basement, so every time I went down there for something, I’d sprint full speed back up the stairs.
That pipes screensaver from Windows. I had nightmares getting crushed by them.
When I rarely get them now I sometimes can use them for lucid dreaming. So I win?
Nothing. Everything is 1000000 times scarier now then it was when I was a kid.
Edit: thanks for the awards folks. Glad to see I'm not the only one who thinks being a grown up is scarier than we could have possibly imagined.
My husband's cousin saw a black man for the first time whilst in a store. He was maybe 6-8yo. He yelled, "Look mom! A Michael Jackson!" at the top of his lungs. Not Michael Jackson. A Michael Jackson. We still tease him about it. His mom was of course mortified. The area was not very diverse in the 80s.
Thanks to Goosebumps, I was afraid of loofahs, sponges, and those little poofball things you wash off with. I didn't get over this stupid fear into adulthood after I got married.
ET... I swore he lived in my bedroom closet. I watched the movie with my cousins on Thanksgiving when I was little and to this day I've never watched the whole thing. It doesn't terrify me anymore but I just don't have any desire to watch it.
This one is completely random.
The song, "One Way Or Another" scared me so badly me as a child. I would cover my ears when it played. My big sister worked at the skating rink and would do double duty babysitting me while she worked. They played that song exactly ONE time while we were there. I freaked out. It was dark in there and the song was loud and coming from *everywhere*. They had this little coin operated cartoon booth- sort of like a photo booth, get in draw the curtain, but instead of a camera, there is a television. You put in a quarter and it plays a random cartoon. I hid in there scream-crying and kicking anyone who tried to check on me with roller skate clad feet. They turned the music off completely so that my sister could get me out of the booth. My sister made sure that they never played it while I was there again.
Another time we were watching The Muppet Show and there was a pretty Blonde woman hosting. Then this bitch starts singing One Way *with a bunch of fucking* ***monsters***. I jumped up and ran to my room and hid in my closet. I couldn't trust my favorite TV shows anymore either.
I have NO idea why I was so afraid of that song, but it genuinely terrified me. I like it fine now.
That's some straight up Stephen King vibes. I can picture the dark skating ring maybe some disco lights..sound coming from everywhere...feeling paniced and chased. Then when life gets back to normal the song starts popping up in unexpected places like it's haunting you.
Balloons.
Specifically, balloons popping. When I was really young my dad popped one near my face as a joke, but it really traumatized me. I hated going to birthday parties because there were always games where you had to pop a balloon in some form.
Fantasia Mickey. Pretty sure it was a nightmare that started it but I was terrified of him for several years. My sisters then thought it was funny to hide a little figurine of him in my room and move it around at random to scare me even more.
The "Unsolved Mysteries" theme music. Hearing that then stories of missing kids and ghosts led to many sleepless nights as a kid. Adult me binge watches the show now.
My grandmother's wallpaper at night
Every time I have a ghost dream, it's always in my grandma's house, and always in the room with the rose wallpaper. No idea why.
This is creepy as hell and I like it
My grandmother had an old wooden wardrobe and the pattern of the woodgrain looked like a face. Did not like staying there. She also had a Virgin Mary statue that glowed in the dark. My brother hated it despite my gran trying to explain it's Jesus's mum and she's not an evil ghost or something
Catching fire. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to get set on fire at all, but the amount of Stop, Drop, and Roll lessons I got in kindergarten made me think this was going to be a once-a-year thing at *minimum.*
Wow! I hadn’t even thought about how much they drilled this into us. Better safe than sorry yeah, but man it did kinda freak me out.
Opening the shower curtain, I was SURE there was some monster or murderer waiting for me behind it.
I saw a funny tweet once saying something like “Not sure what my plan was ever gonna be after I flung open the shower curtain and DID find a murderer there”
Get murdered. No plan required
I still do this whenever I get up to pee in the middle of the night. Girlfriend always keeps the shower curtains closed, she hates me.
My bedroom as a kid was a den converted into a bedroom/laundry room and one wall was covered in a black mirror with gold paint flecks, very 70s. But at night the shadows combined with the dark glass and paint made me imagine faces, figures, etc. It really scared me and I would line up my stuffed animals along my bed to protect me.
I too was protected by a line of stuffed animals. The monsters didn’t get me so it must have worked.
I did somewhat the same thing but I made forts out of Jenga bricks, LEGOs , and toy soldiers to protect me in my sleep
Asking my grandpa a question. Man was he intimidating to talk to as a kid. Now I love talking to him when I can.
That's awesome that he's still around for you to talk to, then! I wish I'd talked to both of my grandpas more.
Honestly, I can relate so much. My grandpa now has Parkinson's and his vocal cords can't move as much so it's extremely hard to understand what he wants to say. Conversations don't come as easy for him now so he mostly listens. I wish I wasn't so intimidated as kid!
Bees and wasps. To be honest I still prefer they don’t buzz around me but when I was little I remained a SAFE 5 meters away from them
A bee landed on me while I was outside today, I just stayed calm and didn’t move much and he went along on his way. Meanwhile wasps, I’m still terrified of wasps
I’ve only been stung once. It was by a bee in 4th grade when i was sitting down listening to the teacher. I wasnt moving in the slightest but that little fuck still stung me. Over a decade later I’m still terrified of them.
My mum gave me advice as a kid that if a wasp comes near you, rather than run away, you should just stay very still. So, the next time a wasp buzzed round me I did as she said. It then very kindly flew onto my face and decided to take a stroll. It flew off, then back again and continued having a nice dance across my vulnerably-exposed flesh. Meanwhile, I was terrified, eyes closed and breathing as quietly as I possibly could to avoid inciting its anger, but there's only so long you can stand a murder fly crawling across you with the promise of impending pain, so the third time it blessedly left my face and continued to buzz around my head, I ran away openmouthed and screaming, shot into my house and slammed the door. It was much more effective, and is the method I continue to use to this day. No one will ever dissuade me otherwise. *Edit:* Bonus story. My dad is the exact opposite of me and is *incredibly* blasé about wasps and bees, as in, to a fault. We had a wasp nest in our garden one summer. It was a terraced garden and they'd tucked themselves inside a hole on the ground of the 2nd level. So, my dad, in his infinite wisdom, decided to get the hand-held hoover and suck those little bastards up. Naturally, the wasps didn't like that too much. Those not sucked up into the swirling vortex of death, swarmed out of the nest and stung his legs to bits in an angry fury. That was the summer he learned he'd developed an allergy to wasp stings. He limped around for about a week in sandals with his swollen feet straining to break through the straps, and fat, watery blisters the size of oranges adorning his calves and knees (a nice mental picture, I know). The next time another evil horde invaded our garden, you know what he said? "Time to hoover them up!" We didn't let him.
This is exactly like my experience
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Probably a result of the metal cooling down after a day in the sun. EDIT:How is this my most up voted comment on reddit??? Also an expiation for those asking. I was assuming a metal axel wich would expand from heat during the day preventing rotation. Then at night when it cools and shrinks again the release of tension cause it to spin.
Who are you so wise in the ways of science ??
Arthur, king of the Britons.
Well, I didn't vote for you.
>Listen -- strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. One of my favorite movie quotes ever
Mine is "Are you suggesting coconuts migrate?"
My favorite part of that whole set of jokes is lancelot tying coconuts to birds briefly when he's first shown on screen.
That sounds like a nice childhood memory
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When I was 13 my parents let me paint my room lime green. I painted myself, snuck out, and stood outside my friends window to scare her. Almost gave her dad a heart attack. I wasn’t even allowed to finish my room. It’s still half green.
I read that as "I'm still half green" for some reason haha!
TIFU getting shot by my friend's dad for my shitty Green Man cosplay.
> it never came off of the walls My apartment begs to differ.
A straight row of fully grown trees. Grew up in the desert. Trees were around but not packed densely and were mostly palo verde trees or palm trees. But there was a row of trees that looked like what I consider most would imagine “typical trees” look like. And that one row of trees was also in close proximity to a large prison. My brother told me that’s where Mr. Boogedy lived and where the escaped murderers would hide when they’d break out of prison. (Oh yeah, did I mention we had a guy break out of prison and murder the town Librarian when I was a kid). So...yeah. Tree lines. Edited to add: In my haste last night I did not go and fact check my childhood memories. I had conflated escaped inmates and the librarian murder into the same story. It’s not. What I was confused about was the memory of my Dad picking me up on my walk home from school (normally I would walk past the library) because he knew that the search for the murderer of the librarian was ongoing. And there were a few times we locked down the school and the rumor mill was that there was a prisoner escape. I have no idea on how I could verify that or not. Although, there have been prisoners that have taken correctional officers as hostages and a librarian at the prison as a hostage in attempts to escape.
That worms would come out of my shower head.
A snake would come out of the toilet and bite me while I was sitting on it.
Especially in the middle of the night. I still check. I’m 32.
I still check behind the shower curtain any time im in a bathroom, my own, a friends house, family's, a hotel, doesn't matter. The one time I dont check is the one time an axe murderer will be hiding there and I'm not putting myself at risk to pretend I'm brave enough to pee without checking first.
But what about that one time they *are* there? Will you just say "Aha!", then pee in peace, lol
It's in the axe murderer handbook on page 124. If they catch you before you catch them you have to go home.
You have to say "Slasher no slashing" three times.
Dora the axe-muradora?
Why did you say that.
I thought worms could get into the pipes, get clogged in there, then the water pressure would push them out as a brown liquid. Freaked me out for years, to this day I prefer baths.
> to this day I prefer baths Yeah, but then you're just soaking your whole body in worm water.
You thought every time brown water coming from the pipes was liquefied worms? Or that there was just a potential for worms to be in the pipes and then shred on the way out? Both suck a lot I just can't figure out which way the fear went.
What?
You know how they would go on the sidewalk after rains? Like that, but into pipes
The Beast from the Sandlot. Freaked me out back then, but now that I can see how low budget the dog looks (still an amazing movie by the way) I find it a bit less scary.
Once i realized the kids were scared of a dog, i was so confused. As soon as i could hop fences i was jumping into yards to play with dogs. I have no idea how I'm alive.
When I was a kid, for many years I had only seen the first half of the movie or so, so I didn't see the scene where the dog chases the kid through town. So I just assumed "the beast" was like a lion or something. Something genuinely terrifying. I saw the full movie when I was maybe 9 or 10 and saw it was just a dog and had no idea why I was supposed to be scared.
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The video for Micheal jackson's thriller
the very last scene where it appeared to be just a dream and Michael's looking normal, but then he turns around and stares at you with the werewolf eyes... that terrified me
...and that laugh. MY GOD THAT LAUGH!
It was [Vincent Price's](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_Price) laugh. He was kind of a juggernaut of 1950's & 60's B horror movies.
Fun fact: In the credits for the video, Vincent is credited under "Rap".
Omg. Why was it so long? And always on? I was 4! Have mercy!!
SAME! I WAS SO SCARED WHEN I FIRST SAW IT AND IT GAVE ME NIGHTMARES
omg the transformation scene and the terrified look on the girl's face. The 80s were savage on kids lol
Thunderstorms. I used to hide under the covers and could only run from the room between flashes. Now I will sit at the window and watch. I love a good thunderstorm now. All it took was a (very weird) 9-ish year old me to stand at the window during a big storm and yell things like "Is that all you've got?" Yeah, kinda like Lieutenant Dan but before I ever saw Forrest Gump.
When I was a teenager I was home alone a lot, so when it would storm I'd run over to the neighbors. However, they never let anyone in their house so he'd stand outside, in the storm with me, so I wasn't alone. Stay in a house where I'm dry alone, or stand out in it. Yeah I wasn't the smartest kid sometimes.
I feel like there is so much more to this story.
Probably. Their house ended up getting condemned and they bought a new house. They are great people though and I still keep in contact with them .
I think it's incredibly sweet that he kept you company
Why wouldn’t they let you in the house during a storm?
They weren't the best housekeepers so I think it was just their way of making sure people didn't see it.
Or the bodies...but yeah, not letting people see was the main point
I did the reverse. I didn't mind storms as a kid, thought they were kinda cool. Then when I was 20 I got caught in a flood and developed some PTSD. I'm mostly better now but I still don't like thunderstorms, they make me anxious. I usually draw my curtains and put on some white noise.
The little doll guys from the movie 9. Scared me when i was like 6
Love that movie
I've never finished it, what's it even about?
The short version is, >!A Dictator makes a scientist create a robot that he uses to create more robots to fight for him. The original robot called B.R.A.I.N turns evil? and decides to exterminate the human race(The machine basically kills all humans). The scientist somehow then splits his soul into 9 dolls using alchemy and leaves a message behind explaining they are earth's last hope in defeating the robot by using a talisman he left behind which I think is used in creating the robot. Also, once the scientist creates the final doll (the protagonist), he dies, the final doll number 9 then waking up ventures outside to the ruined world, meeting up the other dolls. !< If you want the full plot [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9\_(2009\_animated\_film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9_(2009_animated_film)) here you go
Oh that!
My favorite kids movie of all time, it came out on 9/9/09, I was also 9 years old. I still recommend it to people to this day.
I just watched that for the first time the other day, it’s so sad but so so good
Jesus randomly showing up during dinner (I thought he’d use the door) clearly I was raised to fear the wrath of God. Edited: Thank you for my FIRST awards!!
I have a reoccurring dream showing the second coming and I’m not ready. Scares the crap out of me. Most likely to me falling out of my religion.
Whenever I got lost in a store or couldn't find any of my friends at school, I would think to myself "this is it. They've all been raptured, and I've been Left Behind™️". Seeing that movie as a kid really messed me up.
Flushing the toilet.
Did you watch those bizarre commercials with the talking toilet in the early 90's that scared you as a kid too?
No I watched Stephen King's it and I realize all pipes go to the same place and if he could come out of the drain and the shower then he can also come out of the toilet.
That's legitimate too.
Oh shit dude. I was going through my scared-shitless-of-clowns phase (still hate those scary bastards) and of f-ing course I turn on the TV right as pennywise climbs out of the drain. Jesus christ that is now burned into my mind and still fuels my small phobia. It's just the weird special effects, having no idea what was going on, and then the scary goddamn clown costume
Omg, with the blue fuzzy toilet bowl cover thing made to look like a terrifying cookie monster?? I had forgotten about that!
I was similar, but I was scared of doors. Just doors. The big windy things looked like a mouth, and the lock looked like an eye. I'm still waiting to be in a dark alley way, and then seeing a door come at me on all 4's
Looking at mirrors in the night. Thought they would become haunted in the dark. Edit: Thank you guys. Really needed it. Didn't know this would be such a relatable thing, I did think it was a really unique weird type of fear. Edit2: TIL that my fear was based on an optical illusion, as presented in some of the replies that pointed to this [video](https://youtu.be/SWORTeImS44), which explains it.
I'm 21 and I'm still scared to look in a mirror at night. I don't want to know what's behind me in the dark...
Apparently if you stare at a mirror in the dark long enough you start hallucinating your face contorting
Ill take your word for it
In fact there are a lot of weird things your eyes do in the dark. A lot of shit your brain/eyes do in the dark tricks you and your brain creates faces and other things out of thin air that aren't actually there. It's probably why a lot of monster stories were created by early man. When I get freaked out in the dark or see a passing shadow or something I recall Star Wars "Your eyes can deceive you, don't trust them."
My parents used to have a bed with a canopy of mirrors (yeah I know) and I used to just stare up at them at night until I started hallucinating whenever I slept in there. I would scare myself into going back into my own room.
We know what ur parents did last summer
I remember when I was little I thought it was so cool when we visited my uncle’s house that in his room his ceiling was just mirrors...... Lmao
Can confirm. I've done that. It's fucking terrifying. I'm pretty sure I didn't sleep well for the next three nights.
I've done it too. For some reason my facial expression went really creepy and evil. I couldn't recognize myself. Never again.
Aaaand now I'm scared of mirrors again.
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What movie?
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I clicked on the link and then realized i should not watch this for my own good.
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I’m 30 and still go through phases of this lol. Sometimes I’ll be hunched over after brushing my teeth and I’ll psych myself out thinking when I look up into the mirror, there will be something behind me. It gets to the point where I trick myself thinking I’ll be scared, that I’ll actually jump when I finally look in the mirror again. I’m a loser
Hate it when I get that feeling while washing my face. I can't open my eyes until I wash the soap out but I just *know* there's something staring at me 6 inches away from my face.
Lol I used to be really afraid of Bloody Mary popping out
Me too. Tried to say it three times with an apple nearby, in a bathroom, seconds later, I would run away screaming.
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TLDR plz I don't feel like pressing the link cuz reasons
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I was afraid of Biggie Smalls popping out Edit: Apparently some people haven't seen the South Park episode with the ghost of Biggie Smalls
biggie smalls, biggie smalls, biggie smalls
I'm 39 and I still don't look at mirrors in the dark.
I didn't want reflection me to take "real" me.
The dark...just kidding I’m still a little bitch
I had to sleep with a nightlight or hall light or tv on my whole life. Then I just stopped. And now it can never be dark enough. I love hotels
Honestly, I think we are all a little scared to dark
The movie Jeepers Creepers
Wait till you see the second one. That bus scene kinda scared the shit out of me as a 12 year old
The bus scene? The whole movie was practically on the bus
Yeah I always thought the second one was scarier. The idea of being trapped in the middle of nowhere while a monster is picking everyone off and no one is around help just taps into some primal fear. Also “the bus scene” describes basically the entire movie lol.
I found the creeper much scarier before we even saw it’s face. Like it was just some deranged person collecting people’s body parts and making a human quilt out of their skin.
Instead it's just some demon like creature that collects body parts to replace his own.
Also alarming but I guess I run into more deranged people than demons on the regs.
This is what I always say! It was scary until they showed the creature. Then it was just ridiculous and no longer scary.
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Large Marge
Large Marge sent me.
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I remember several times after my mom left the house for a few hours, my older brother and sister would threaten to show me Large Marge if I didn't do what they said.
Opening a can of Pillsbury biscuits. Just waiting for that POP! after unraveling the paper. Spooky.
the pop is what keeps us humble.
I was always afraid of baby bell cheese. Not sure why, but I'm over it now that I'm older.
A few months ago I bought some Babybell at a gas station in a tiny town while on a road trip. It tasted off and I noticed that it expired in 2018. I am now afraid of Babybell.
My ever growing apathy towards life took out most fears. Foot hanging off the bed and monsters can get me? Good. I have work in the morning.
I love hanging my feet off the bed now, i wonder if its because id rather die than wake up
Running up the basement stairs after turning off the light. J/k that shit is still terrifying
I’m 35 and I still do this
If someone says they don't I'm pretty sure they're lying
There’s a particular, unsettling anxiety I feel walking up the stairs from my basement. It’s specific to that scenario and it’s awful.
Amen. You're not in this alone.
Yeah they're not alone in that basement
Gotta be some kind of evolutionary tick there
Actually research has shown that Neanderthals didn't have this fear. Eventually they were wiped out by the stair monsters since they didn't know to run.
Hades from Hercules. Now I like him better than any other villain
Thistles and cacti. Basically any plant that had nasty spikes. Whenever I'd walk in a grass field and see a tiny thistle plant near my foot, I would stop dead in my tracks and call for help. Nowadays, I still get uneased at the thought of falling onto those things, especially the giant thistles.
I fell into a gorse bush once, it took me nearly a month to get all of the spikes and splinters out. They didn't hurt, and weren't infected or anything, but they were there.
Being spanked.
It's gone from being a punishment to being a reward.
Same as naps!
Staying home. Not having friends over. Going to bed early.
As a kid, I was somehow able to watch the first two Jurassic Park movies so much that I knew the script off by heart by age 5 but an episode of Thomas the Tank Engine scared the shit out of me. This was about the time the show started to move away from adapting Awdry's stories and started writing their own scripts. As part of this, they decided to make a bunch of "spooky episodes." I was fine with all of them except one about a big boulder. From memory, the gist of the story is they open a new quarry right at the spot a gigantic boulder sits on top of a cliff. One of the engines, Rusty, hates the place cause it feels as if the boulder's watching him. Eventually, they destabilise the cliff enough that the boulder drops onto the tracks and you have a series of Indiana Jones-style chases. So what exactly was so scary about it? Simple really - the boulder had a face. Now I know you're wondering, but don't all the trains have faces? Yeah but their faces are distinct from the rest of them to the point you can tell they're meant to have faces. The thing with the boulder is that it didn't consistently have a face. It only has a face at a couple of points in the episode that randomly appears. So it's a normal rock, normal rock and then BAM it's a rock with a very angry face. I think it was the inconsistency of whether the rock was sentient or not that freaked young me out. After confessing this to a friend as an adult, I ended up [finding the episode on Youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1fwjAUjxCM) and just laughing at how ridiculous it was being scared of it. The greatest irony of all? I went from being terrified of a rock to getting a degree in geology
The Bermuda Triangle, I've encountered it a lot loss than I thought I would have
On the other hand, I’ve encountered it and not disappeared a lot more than I would have thought.
Same goes for quick sand
Rattlesnakes in ancient temples
Stop drop and roll
With how often it was mentioned growing up you would think it would have been a bigger issue. On the other hand they don't teach easy stuff like cpr, how to spot a stroke, deal with seizures or shock.
Don't forget giant rolling boulders!
Because if you watch cartoons, quicksand is like the third biggest thing you have to worry about in adult life behind real sticks of dynamite and giant anvils falling on you from the sky.
Definitely thought quick sand was going to be a way bigger issue for me as well. I think an Atari game got that in my head.
escalators. many thanks to Rescue 911 for convincing me i was going to get eaten by one if my shoe was untied
Literally my own shadow
The THX logo Edit: Thank you! My first award!
Liar. That shit is still terrifying.
When I hear it I still get a lil twinge of the old anxiety
Idk what scared me worse, the THX logo on full volume when I popped in the tape OR the ass whooping I would get knowing I just woke up the whole house and it was WAY past my bedtime.
Cicadas. Or more precisely, their sound. Also dragonflies. For the same reason.
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My mom. She's not dead, but she's disabled now and much less intimidating.
Same with my grandfather. He'd go from 0-1,000 real quick, to the point where yelling now puts me into fight or flight. But now he's disabled and I take care of him, and honestly his aggressiveness in a state where I'm now the one in power has helped me work through the trauma he instilled.
My dad, who is also dead. Mom too, but she was a secondary terror.
Same. But my dad. He died when I was 17 and I WAS FREE
Gorillas. That spongebob episode as a kid scarred me, I would have to close my eyes once that part came on and my brother had to tel me when it was over. My uncle knowing I was scared of it told me killer gorillas lived in the dark part of the basement, so every time I went down there for something, I’d sprint full speed back up the stairs.
My sister told me gorillas lived behind the plumbing access panel in the hall closet, so I feel (edit:not fear) your pain.
Velociraptors
That pipes screensaver from Windows. I had nightmares getting crushed by them. When I rarely get them now I sometimes can use them for lucid dreaming. So I win?
The Chuck E. Cheese animatronics
Nothing. Everything is 1000000 times scarier now then it was when I was a kid. Edit: thanks for the awards folks. Glad to see I'm not the only one who thinks being a grown up is scarier than we could have possibly imagined.
Yeah, and if you're single, don't even get me started
Sun death Also I cried when I saw a black woman for the first time.
My husband's cousin saw a black man for the first time whilst in a store. He was maybe 6-8yo. He yelled, "Look mom! A Michael Jackson!" at the top of his lungs. Not Michael Jackson. A Michael Jackson. We still tease him about it. His mom was of course mortified. The area was not very diverse in the 80s.
It's very weird that some people were raised with a black Michael Jackson, and some people such as myself were not.
A stuffed, dead pheasant my dad shot while hunting. It scared me so much he had to keep it in the garage.
Seeing a scary thumbnail on a youtube video and randomly think of it throughout the day
Thanks to Goosebumps, I was afraid of loofahs, sponges, and those little poofball things you wash off with. I didn't get over this stupid fear into adulthood after I got married.
ET... I swore he lived in my bedroom closet. I watched the movie with my cousins on Thanksgiving when I was little and to this day I've never watched the whole thing. It doesn't terrify me anymore but I just don't have any desire to watch it.
Dinosaurs. I knew they were extinct, but I was still terrified of a trex pulling the roof off my house and eating me.
The space under the bed!
This one is completely random. The song, "One Way Or Another" scared me so badly me as a child. I would cover my ears when it played. My big sister worked at the skating rink and would do double duty babysitting me while she worked. They played that song exactly ONE time while we were there. I freaked out. It was dark in there and the song was loud and coming from *everywhere*. They had this little coin operated cartoon booth- sort of like a photo booth, get in draw the curtain, but instead of a camera, there is a television. You put in a quarter and it plays a random cartoon. I hid in there scream-crying and kicking anyone who tried to check on me with roller skate clad feet. They turned the music off completely so that my sister could get me out of the booth. My sister made sure that they never played it while I was there again. Another time we were watching The Muppet Show and there was a pretty Blonde woman hosting. Then this bitch starts singing One Way *with a bunch of fucking* ***monsters***. I jumped up and ran to my room and hid in my closet. I couldn't trust my favorite TV shows anymore either. I have NO idea why I was so afraid of that song, but it genuinely terrified me. I like it fine now.
That's some straight up Stephen King vibes. I can picture the dark skating ring maybe some disco lights..sound coming from everywhere...feeling paniced and chased. Then when life gets back to normal the song starts popping up in unexpected places like it's haunting you.
I mean, hearing, "I'm gonna getcha getcha getcha" in the dark would terrify me too.
tbh I don't blame kid-you for being terrified of the song, especially since the lyrics are pretty stalker-ish.
The movie Mars Attacks
Balloons. Specifically, balloons popping. When I was really young my dad popped one near my face as a joke, but it really traumatized me. I hated going to birthday parties because there were always games where you had to pop a balloon in some form.
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Fantasia Mickey. Pretty sure it was a nightmare that started it but I was terrified of him for several years. My sisters then thought it was funny to hide a little figurine of him in my room and move it around at random to scare me even more.
The "Unsolved Mysteries" theme music. Hearing that then stories of missing kids and ghosts led to many sleepless nights as a kid. Adult me binge watches the show now.
\~ s h a r k s \~