Saturday, July 16, 2011

You're afraid of. . .what?

We all have fears of different things. Sometimes we can understand why, and other times, it may be something of a mystery. These fears can be so strong sometimes that they can be classified as phobias--defined as an irrational fear. Granted, I think there are fears that are completely rational, but that is besides the point.  I looked up some different types of phobias, and it is amazing what has been defined.

Probably one of the most common, or well known, is Arachnophobia, or fear of spiders as made famous by a 1990 movie of the same name.

Here's the trailer for it:




The preview is almost misleading. This is actually a pretty creepy movie. At one point while I was watching it, I thought I felt something crawling on my leg and it freaked me out.

But what other type of phobias are out there?

Well, these are true phobias, in the sense that that have a name.
Ideophobia- Fear of ideas
Octophobia - Fear of the figure 8
Linonophobia- Fear of string
Nephophobia- Fear of clouds
Pupaphobia - Fear of puppets

Genuphobia- Fear of knees

Mottephobia- Fear of moths
I would say I have Mottephobia or fear of moths. And I can remember the exact moment when I developed this fear. 
It was a summer night and I was driving home from work. My windows were down in my car, and I had the radio blasting some rockin' 80's music. While turning left through a busy intersection (one of those where two lanes are turning left) a moth flew into my car. And not only that, it flew at my face. To make things worse, it got stuck between my glasses and my left eye. I remember it fluttering like mad to escape while I'm trying not to run into my fellow drivers. I was finally able to pull off to the side of the road and jump out of my car, removing my glasses and freeing the moth at the same time. Believe me, that really freaked me out. To this day, when I see a moth, that experience comes back to me.


Finally, there is Phobophobia. What  is that? Why, it is a fear of phobias.

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