Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Locked thread
Roro
Oct 9, 2012

HOO'S HEAD GOES ALL THE WAY AROUND?
Other things I was afraid of as a child were drowning (both in video games and in real life) and escalators. I was okay with short one that went up, but long ones and any downward escalator terrified me. I once threw myself backwards off a downward escalator and sliced my leg open while screaming because I was too afraid to go down. :psyduck: What the gently caress, little me.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Say Nothing
Mar 5, 2013

by FactsAreUseless

UWBW posted:

So, who remembers The Mummy? Y'know, that family film where the beetles burrow into a man's flesh and you can see them travel up his arms and into his head and devouring his brain?

Yeah I scared myself awake a bunch of times thanks to that.

Similar, but older.
The parasite grubs from Star Trek: Wrath Of Khan, which burrowed into your brain through your ear. Gah!

Aesop Poprock
Oct 21, 2008


Grimey Drawer

Thin Privilege posted:

Elevators.

I was told "you will die" "the elevator will fall" "you'll get stuck in the door" "the elevator will stop and you won't be able to get out" and similar. Living in Russia with elevators that constantly broke so this was pretty true but also people who told me this thought it was *funny* to scare the kid by saying this stuff.

I still am afraid to get into elevators but luckily living in a tall building helps, but I still get nervous to get into elevators, especially if they're old ones.

I grew up in the US in the 90s and I was (and am) still terrified of elevators. I have a memory of using an older elevator in a 20 story hotel building at the beach when I was a 7 year old kid, by myself, to get up to our room on one of the higher levels. Combined with my fear of heights I was completely hyperventilating by the end of it. Any jostling or momentary pause and I was thinking

I still have both of those fears but I'm not a complete retard about the elevator anymore. Heights in general I'm still just immediately dizzy and panicky. I love hiking up mountains but if there's any point with a beautiful, breathtaking vista of a valley that opens up I sometimes feel like I'm gonna pass out

RareAcumen
Dec 28, 2012




Roro posted:

Other things I was afraid of as a child were drowning (both in video games and in real life) and escalators. I was okay with short one that went up, but long ones and any downward escalator terrified me. I once threw myself backwards off a downward escalator and sliced my leg open while screaming because I was too afraid to go down. :psyduck: What the gently caress, little me.

Jesus Christ, what?

Teriyaki Koinku
Nov 25, 2008

Bread! Bread! Bread!

Bread! BREAD! BREAD!

Thin Privilege posted:

Elevators.

I was told "you will die" "the elevator will fall" "you'll get stuck in the door" "the elevator will stop and you won't be able to get out" and similar. Living in Russia with elevators that constantly broke so this was pretty true but also people who told me this thought it was *funny* to scare the kid by saying this stuff.

I still am afraid to get into elevators but luckily living in a tall building helps, but I still get nervous to get into elevators, especially if they're old ones.

On the plus side, you'll get more exercise from using stairs more often. :)

Roro
Oct 9, 2012

HOO'S HEAD GOES ALL THE WAY AROUND?

RareAcumen posted:

Jesus Christ, what?

I think I was afraid of falling down them and being cut to shreds on the edges of the stairs? I dunno, it was a very long time ago. Now I just worry about them jamming and snapping open like they did with that poor guy who fell in and got mangled.

Michaellaneous
Oct 30, 2013

I watched a movie where a family got sucked through a TV dish into a gameshow. And the TV Dish had a red light in front.

Ever since that, I am scared of small lights in dark rooms.

RareAcumen
Dec 28, 2012




I had a real bad nightmare of being absorbed by Majin Buu, when I was a kid.

Lot of screaming involved. I'm just glad I never saw any of the Cell saga.

that dog ate a bee
Sep 24, 2007

this dog ate a bee
Nap Ghost
I could not poo poo peacefully for like two years.


And quicksand.

Tim Whatley
Mar 28, 2010

Chucky the killer doll

I saw the movie Signs in theaters when I was 11 and for the next year or so I couldn't look at my bedroom doorway without thinking the alien from the Brazilian news report was gonna just walk by in the same fashion. That movie is freaky as gently caress until the end.

Aesop Poprock
Oct 21, 2008


Grimey Drawer

Tim Whatley posted:

Chucky the killer doll

I saw the movie Signs in theaters when I was 11 and for the next year or so I couldn't look at my bedroom doorway without thinking the alien from the Brazilian news report was gonna just walk by in the same fashion. That movie is freaky as gently caress until the end.

M. Night Shyamalan, if nothing else, used to at least understand how a creepy out of place thing shot in a mundane way could be a really effective framing device for creeping horror. How he seemingly lost his only really effective technique is confusing as all hell

Bomrek
Oct 9, 2012

Tim Whatley posted:

Chucky the killer doll

I saw the movie Signs in theaters when I was 11 and for the next year or so I couldn't look at my bedroom doorway without thinking the alien from the Brazilian news report was gonna just walk by in the same fashion. That movie is freaky as gently caress until the end.

I've gotten into the habit of shutting that movie off right as the lights go off as they're still in the basement. It's a jarring end, but no more jarring than what actually happens.

I make a lot of editing judgement calls when it comes to M Night. He should give me money.

BrigadierSensible
Feb 16, 2012

I've got a pocket full of cheese🧀, and a garden full of trees🌴.

I was terrified by the music video for Micheal Jackson's Thriller.

All of it. The werewolf stuff at the beginning, Micheals weird shiny skin, the choreographed zombie dance, and at teh end when his eyes turn yellow to call back to the werewolf stuff.

My younger brother called me a pussy, and rightly so.

RareAcumen
Dec 28, 2012




I was terrified I was going to be bitten by a spider and die. Either a black widow or a brown recluse.

Hummingbirds
Feb 17, 2011

I really loved books about mummies and other gross stuff as well as the Scary Stories to Tell In the Dark books but I hated touching the pictures in these books. It was even transitive, so if a book cover with a mummy on it touched my pillowcase, I would flip the pillow over.

coronatae
Oct 14, 2012

You Are A Elf posted:

Pool drains. I loving loved swimming and could have been part mer-man if those goddamned pool drains weren't so sinister looking, waiting to suck me to the bottom and drown me.

Same, every year when the pool was ready to use it took me a few weeks to actually be able to swim over the pool drain. Til then I would skirt around it on the side of the pool.

Flaccid Trip
Apr 29, 2008

Pee-Wee Herman.

Still makes me uneasy.

Roro
Oct 9, 2012

HOO'S HEAD GOES ALL THE WAY AROUND?
All this pool drain talk is reminding me of that hosed up story about the guy who lost part of his intestine jacking off over the top of one, then his sister got pregnant from his sperm in the water somehow.
That was messed up.

Oh, does anyone remember there being a Goosebumps episode where a kid, I think like a big, bulky jock, got sucked into a hand dryer? That also freaked me out and I used hand towels for like a solid month. My imagination as a child was legitimately too strong and it made me a bitch rear end pussy about loving everything. I could probably fill this thread with dumb poo poo I was afraid of.

im pooping!
Nov 17, 2006


Roro posted:

All this pool drain talk is reminding me of that hosed up story about the guy who lost part of his intestine jacking off over the top of one, then his sister got pregnant from his sperm in the water somehow.
That was messed up.

Oh, does anyone remember there being a Goosebumps episode where a kid, I think like a big, bulky jock, got sucked into a hand dryer? That also freaked me out and I used hand towels for like a solid month. My imagination as a child was legitimately too strong and it made me a bitch rear end pussy about loving everything. I could probably fill this thread with dumb poo poo I was afraid of.

The first part is actually a short story called 'Guts' by chuck pahlaniuk in his book Haunted

Thin Privilege
Jul 8, 2009
IM A STUPID MORON WITH AN UGLY FACE AND A BIG BUTT AND MY BUTT SMELLS AND I LIKE TO KISS MY OWN BUTT
Gravy Boat 2k

Your Dunkle Sans posted:

On the plus side, you'll get more exercise from using stairs more often. :)

I wish, I'm a lazyass so I take the risk.

RareAcumen
Dec 28, 2012




Roro posted:

All this pool drain talk is reminding me of that hosed up story about the guy who lost part of his intestine jacking off over the top of one, then his sister got pregnant from his sperm in the water somehow.
That was messed up.

Oh, does anyone remember there being a Goosebumps episode where a kid, I think like a big, bulky jock, got sucked into a hand dryer? That also freaked me out and I used hand towels for like a solid month. My imagination as a child was legitimately too strong and it made me a bitch rear end pussy about loving everything. I could probably fill this thread with dumb poo poo I was afraid of.

By all means, do share!

Roro
Oct 9, 2012

HOO'S HEAD GOES ALL THE WAY AROUND?

im pooping! posted:

The first part is actually a short story called 'Guts' by chuck pahlaniuk in his book Haunted

Now that you've said his name, I remember exactly. The website I read it on had people arguing whether or not it was real (as if it could've been loving real) until someone posted a link that proved he wrote it.

RareAcumen posted:

By all means, do share!

You know not what you've done!

Okay so we have an attic in my home which is where all of my and my sister's toys were kept. We played up there and it kept our rooms free of toys and clutter since two little girls accumulate a lot of Barbie stuff together. From the age of about 4 till I was 8 I was scared that the lights would go out while I was up there, and someone or something would grab me and kill me in the darkness. I was also afraid of the attic door slamming open (it was a hatch in the ceiling of my sister's room) and a monster lunging down at me.
Also related to that, for one month when I was about 6 I convinced myself that my Barbies were alive, and that if I was alone in the attic with them I had to sing to them or they would come to life and murder me. Soft toys didn't do this because they didn't had the quite frankly deadly pointy limbs that Barbie has.

In my room, I had a small cupboard where we stored a bunch of poo poo like the Christmas tree. I was pissed about this as a kid because I wanted it to be my private playroom. One night I pretended to roar like a lion at the cupboard (?? I was super into the Lion King) and immediately heard a very realistic roar back that made me near about poo poo myself. In hindsight, it was probably just the toy lion I had put in there the night before falling over and setting off its voice box.
Uhh... Once hallucinated a cartoon Devil that looked like a red Genie from Aladdin laughing at me from the top corner of my doorframe. Scared me.

For some reason, and for a good number of years, I had to run down the stairs, practically throwing myself down them and more than once slamming into the wall at the bottom painfully because I thought monsters would grab at me if I didn't.

Once thought that the washing machine would come to life and kill me because of the loud noises it made mid cycle. It was just a really old machine.

We had a window on the side of our garage, that you could look into when you went down the lane on the side of our house. It was always pitch black unless someone had the light on inside the garage and I was always afraid that suddenly something would slam into the window from the other side.

Also related to dark windows, I could not look out of the windows at night because out house backed onto a hugeass field and if I did something would see me and know to kill me.

There is no reason why I was so afraid of loving everything besides the fact that I had an overactive imagination and probably read books that were too mature for me at the time.

RareAcumen
Dec 28, 2012




Roro posted:

There is no reason why I was so afraid of loving everything besides the fact that I had an overactive imagination and probably read books that were too mature for me at the time.

I guess I lucked out in not being able to picture anything after all.

Roro
Oct 9, 2012

HOO'S HEAD GOES ALL THE WAY AROUND?

RareAcumen posted:

I guess I lucked out in not being able to picture anything after all.

Yeah, being a mewling pissbaby is a pretty poo poo reward for having a good imagination.

RareAcumen
Dec 28, 2012




Roro posted:

Yeah, being a mewling pissbaby is a pretty poo poo reward for having a good imagination.

Oh, I meant to specify, I mean when it comes to reading. I don't manage to make images for what I'm reading more than half the time, sadly.

KiteAuraan
Aug 5, 2014

JER GEDDA FERDA RADDA ARA!


The Blue screen at the end of VHS tapes, those loving aliens on Sesame Street, a big statue of a frog in a local park that had glowing red eyes and a fog machine (what in the gently caress?).

Internet Kraken
Apr 24, 2010

slightly amused

KiteAuraan posted:

a big statue of a frog in a local park that had glowing red eyes and a fog machine (what in the gently caress?).

This sounds rad as hell.

spite house
Apr 28, 2009

This bitch right here.



For years I had no idea what happened in that part of the book because I had to skip the previous and subsequent 15 or so pages to avoid looking at her.

Also, giant propellers. This fear came about because when I was six I was forced to visit the propeller room on the Queen Mary, which features a really hideous gargantuan propeller at the bottom of a VERY deep VERY murky pool, and to look at it, although I can't imagine why you'd want to, you have to walk around the pool on a narrow clattery catwalk. It's pretty horrifying and I'm not posting a picture because it still gives me the willies.

KiteAuraan posted:

those loving aliens on Sesame Street
AAAAAAGH I'D FORGOTTEN ABOUT THOSE :gonk: :gonk: :gonk:

spite house has a new favorite as of 01:48 on Feb 7, 2016

Bonk
Aug 4, 2002

Douche Baggins
My father worked at a post office so I'd see the Wanted posters all the time on the wall, and there was a diner right next door that was always understaffed. So my tiny mind put 2 and 2 together and I interpreted that the scary red and black "Help Wanted" signs in a restaurant/business window meant "Help! There's a Wanted man on the loose nearby!" I'd be afraid to go into any establishment with the sign because criminals might get me.

GIANT OUIJA BOARD
Aug 22, 2011

177 Years of Your Dick
All
Night
Non
Stop

im pooping! posted:

The first part is actually a short story called 'Guts' by chuck pahlaniuk in his book Haunted

It's actually from his nonfiction book, iirc.

coronatae
Oct 14, 2012

Supposedly while he was attending sex addict group meetings as research for Choke, he met a painfully thin man who'd had massive bowel resectioning as a result of something similar to what happens in the story. Minus the pregnancy thing.

Other childhood fear: the front room of my parents' house, which was rarely used and quite dark at night. There used to be french doors so I could close them and feel okay walking past it to go to bed, but once we got rid of those...the room just felt like a dark gaping mouth from which all my nightmares could emerge. There was also the weird balance between the back of the house with the living room, which was warm and bright and noisy, versus the dark silence of the front room and formal dining room that you passed to reach the stairs. I hated that poo poo

Anachronist
Feb 13, 2009


I was very scared of squirrels due to hearing about an incident of rabid squirrels relatively near where I grew up.

I also recall reading a book at age 7 or younger in which a) characters end up in an underwater cave and someone has a snail inserted into their ear and maybe dies from it and b) someone dies or almost dies from the bends. It would've been published before 2000 at the very least and my feeling is that it was fairly old when I read it. Does anyone else remember this book? Did it even actually exist or did I imagine the whole thing?

Haruharuharuko
Mar 24, 2008

Yeah I lied; so what is the truth?

Heffalumps and Woozles... I was a very sheltered child.


And trains scared the poo poo out of me until i was like 6.

weak wrists big dick
Dec 18, 2012

good job. you are getting legitametly upset because I won't confrom to your secret internet cliques gross social standards. Sorry I don't like anime. Sorry I don't like being gross on the internet. Sorry that you are getting caremad.


your stupid shit internet argument is also only half true once I get probated, so checkmate anyways but nice try.

]
My dad is a real dick. He's a Taiwanese immigrant, and he took this little paper Lantern one time we were camping (just me and him, one of his friends and his son) and placed it at the end of a long clearing where there was a line of telephone poles. We were camping in another clearing, and this long, almost "corridor" of trees shot off to the side. My father told me it was an "Alien Runway" and to stay away from it (it was full of bullkettle (?) and he would have to pee on me if it touched me, which spawned another fear). Eventually, once the two dads got enough beers in them, one of them disappeared for a while. I didn't realize this but he was lighting the paper Lantern at the end of the "runway". Me and the other boy (we were 4 and 6 respectively at the time) suddenly realized he was gone, and my dad, who was in on it, told us he was abducted by aliens and he had seen the whole thing. He explained to us the only way to get him back was to go retrieve the landing Beacon (lantern) from the end of the runway and bring it back to him. The other boy, determined to find his father, dragged me along with him (almost literally, I was crying so hard from sheer fear and nearly refusing to go). The runway must have only been maybe a quarter of a mile, but I swear we walked for an hour. We eventually found the Lantern, but angry, foreign yelling suddenly surrounded us and we were scared shitless. Turns out, it was just Mandarin our fathers were shouting, and they came out, our tears stopped, and we were left with a sense of confusion. As naive as we were, our dads told us they managed to scare the aliens away, my father had saved my friends dad, everything would be OK, not to tell our moms, etc. Etc.

I was a firm believer in aliens for about 10 years after that

Klaus88
Jan 23, 2011

Violence has its own economy, therefore be thoughtful and precise in your investment
Sharks and small swarming stinging insects.

I still flinch whenever a wasp flies near me. :supaburn:

I know wasps generally don't sting people without good reason but my lizard brain still makes me flinch away.

Also, my personal hell is these things.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2P7Q1ncgcoY

their loving stings can dissolve flesh, Jesus Chirst why does this exist

Vladimir Poutine
Aug 13, 2012
:madmax:
I had an irrational fear of balloons as a kid, I think just because they could make sudden loud noises at any time.

Also, this thing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqCumqMWJok

VoteTedJameson
Jan 10, 2014

And stack the four!
Mothman. Also mummies. I still read a lot of books about mummies...but mothman was no laughing matter.
My big brother and I once convinced our mom to watch a TV show about mothman with us, and at the end we were all (including my mom who is a reasonable human being) too scared to walk through the kitchen cause we didn't want to go past any windows. In retrospect, nice bonding experience. At the time, worst terror I had ever experienced.

Duke of Flies
Jul 2, 2007

I croaked "Get Out"
Then I stood, and croaked "GET OUT"

Or... get in..
Soiled Meat
Guy Smiley from Sesame Street.

Logo splashes at the end of movies or shows.

Alutiiq masks like this one:


That part in Nightmare Before Christmas where the kid yanks a severed head from his present and the parent scream. This scene also made me afraid to the point of wailing and running when I saw the Touchstone Pictures logo. Because I was scared it was the trailer that had the head scene in question. I like the movie now, but I still have to close my eyes and cover my ears when this part comes on.

Honestly, I'm still mostly afraid of all these things. :mrwhite:

Aesop Poprock
Oct 21, 2008


Grimey Drawer
I loved the kings quest games when I was little, including the original ones that I'd play on floppy disk on my aunts old Apple II. The part in Kings Quest 6 with the Sense Gnomes used to freak the hell out of me though. I would always have to mute it because their voices combined with their faces and the fact that you can't escape from them freaked me the hell out. Plus they would murder the poo poo out of you if you didn't choose right

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTeH6Xxy2E8

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

YeahTubaMike
Mar 24, 2005

*hic* Gotta finish thish . . .
Doctor Rope
For some reason when I was a little kid, Honda commercials scared the hell out of me. I think maybe it was the guy's voice or something, because I was never afraid of Hondas themselves.

Also, I was terrified of my uncle's best friend. If I was at my grandmother's house and my uncle's friend visited, I would run & hide in the bedroom by myself. I would also cover my ears & squeeze my eyes shut if I heard him laugh. Eventually and suddenly, I got over it at around age 7. He's a really nice fun guy and he never intentionally said or did anything frightening, so I don't know what the gently caress.

  • Locked thread