h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I wake up now and then in terror that I'm falling. I can rationalise it- it has something to do with loss of feeling on the parts that are touching the bed. It still happens, though and I do NOT like being at the edge of a potential big fall.

Other than that I suppose I am concerned about an ill funded retirement, but that is bound to happen anyway.

Ill-funded retirement?

Conscious fear of spiders. Turned round in the shower once and there was a reasonable-sized one (8cm across, maybe?) right in front of my face that I hadn't noticed when I got in. I passed out.

Subconscious fear of needles. Which is to say I'll calmly walk into the doctor's/hospital etc. and let them stick something in me, because my conscious mind is quite comfortable, intellectually, with the idea of medicos sticking stuff in me to take samples or administer things that make me go Phhrreeeeoooowwww. I have learned NOT to look while they're doing it, though, because my subconscious mind has the screaming heebie-jeebies when it sees needles and if it sees a needle in my arm it drops my bloodpressure through the floor, presumably in an attempt to stop me bleeding out. The effect of this is that I pass out. I did this once in a doctor's surgery, sitting in a chair, and slowly enough that I remained entirely conscious and capable of speech while I gradually went completely blind, and was able to ask the doc what was happening, and understand him when he explained it to me. It didn't help, as such, but it was reassuring.

Now that really is a phobia. If it had come from anyone else, I would have just read it and not thought much of it. Interesting, too, the difference between conscious and subconscious fears.

Would somebody please explain to me, though, what it is about spiders and why they crop up every time in conversations like this? I just don't get it.

Snakes is another. OK - being bitten by a poisonous snake can be fatal and that is a rational, justified fear, but not many of us are likely to even encounter one. But just having a horror of snakes generally? Why?

I think in the case of both spiders and snakes it's the sheer unfamiliary of gait that freaks people out.

On the one hand, spiders simply have TOO MANY LEGS. For me, the fear is quite specific - as long as it wasn't a suprise, I could quite easily walk up to a table on which there was a stationary spider of any size you could muster. In many ways, as a piece of biological sculpture, they're quite beautiful. However, as soon as they move, I have a major problem. There's something about it that speaks of intention.

As a species, we're used to two legged walking, obviously. We see creatures getting about on four legs every day. You can look closely and see insects mindlessly trundling along on six legs, but they just look like clockwork toys, and beyond that there are centipedes and millipedes but they've too many legs to really take in so they don't have any effect.

But in the middle, there are spiders. Too many legs to look anything like natural, but few enough that you can just about keep track of them. And when they move, they always look like they've got a purpose. Plus, despite all the nonsense some idiots come out with to phobics, they are NOT more scared of you than you are of them. They are not scared of ANYTHING.

Then at the other end of the scale (pun! sorry) are snakes, which by any intuitive rights shouldn't be able to move at all, plus they all rock that cold-eyed stare thanks to no eyelids, plus the only sound they're capable of is not exactly friendly. Now I love snakes, I think they're great. I don't think I know anyone who is scared of both snakes and spiders, not phobic anyway.

I'm no expert, but I'd assume phobias are something we learn. They don't feel innate. I assume that when I was very small I watched some authority figure be nervous of a spider, and that connection was wired into my brain at that point. It's proven extremely hard to shift.

I'm not entirely convinced by the "number of legs" theory.

As you say, we can cope with four legs. Horses, for example, move on four legs in a way that is totally alien to us bipeds, yet we find their movement graceful and elegant - as we do with large cats chasing their prey on nature programmes. Paradoxically, we should really be scared by these, as they are capable of seriously maiming us, but we stop and admire them.

The gait of a little dog (e.g. a Scottish terrier) can be described as endearing.

Spiders do tickle a bit when they walk across your hand, but, again, as you say, so do other insects. And that's hardly going to scare anyone. Ladybirds, for example; they have a vicious bite, but we still let them walk across our hands and admire their shiny dotted carapace.

I was convinced, I found that explaination quite facinating and the one about needles

I can scarcely believe I am going to say this out loud, the fact that Hoo faints at the sight of needles and when surprised by a is one that I find an Incy Wincy bit endearing

My wife used to be terrified of Daddy Long Legs (Crane Flys). In fact, it developed beyond being scared to going literally rigid with fear when one was in the room or running away screaming. It's a terrible thing to see and she ended up having to go to therapy.

It was at therapy that she discovered why the phobia had developed. As a child she was abused and in one particularly traumatic incident she fixated upon a daddy long legs on the wall. As the years passed, she subconsciously blanked out the memory of the abuse - her mind almost bodyswerving the memory - but she remembered the daddy long legs and associated it with a Very Bad Thing. The longer the dissociation between the event and the sight of a daddy long legs went on, the more extreme her reaction became.

Once the real cause was identified and addressed in therapy, the fear disappeared - to be replaced with what others may now think is an irrational hatred of daddy long legs. She gets incredibly angry at the sight of one now and won't rest until she kills it.

Fears can be entirely rational and sensible but phobias may sometimes be rooted in a totally unrelated cause.

Is anyone afraid of bees?

My lawn is full of dandelions. I always check to see if anything is pollinating them. Yesterday, I saw some little tiny bees there. I found that reassuring. The bigger bees are easier to notice, and I keep a respectful distance from them. Later in the season, my perennials will be blooming,so there will be more bees.

Someone went to one of the islands in Bsoton Harbor and counted 96 difrferent species of native bees. In Berkeley, California, soemone counted 76 species of bees.

Bees I am not afraid of, but I keep my distance because I'm allergic to their stings. I worry as much as the next person about the stories of their dying out in great numbers.

The Daddy long legs story is very much an eye-opener as an example of some phobias. It is great that she got over it, too, and faced her demons.

But I would still like to get to the bottom of why spiders crop up so often in people's lists. It seems like about 80% of the population hates them. They can't all link them to childhood traumas.

Crabs move in that sideways scuttle, too, but they don't seem to cause the same commotion. Octopuses have 8 legs, but I wouldn't say than more than half the population is squidophobic (or whatever the word is - there's an entry somewhere on hootoo which lists phobias, I think).

Has anyone studied this?

Spiders are just cute... and so are bees Logical I guess to be a bit weary of bees, it doesn't take much to evoke getting one to sting

Physical and or mental decline into the big nothingness at the end of it, and losing friends and family.

The physical can be coped with (so far) but the mental... oh that is scaring

Dark, noisy, enclosed crowded areas. I'm not at all happy in nightclubs, which is why I probably don't go in them.

It can be dark, noisy, crowded and outside – such as a music festival, and that's fine. But enclosed -

<BB<

TC: <>

I think the thing is you don't suddenly look up and see a crab on the ceiling right above your head. Or an octopus for that matter.

I'm not spider-phobic, but I don't really like them. It's definitely the way they move. We have an agreement, the spiders and I. They stay away from parts of the house where they'll be above my head at any time, and I let them stay put. If they break their end of the bargain they quickly become garden spiders.*

Deb

* I would never kill a spider. My nan always said "kill a spider, kill a friend" and it's stuck with me.

The phone just rang (it's 20 minutes to midnight). What with my husband being in hospital and my mother in law being poorly it really scared me. Seems I wasn't the person they wanted to call, they hung up the moment I'd said my name.

My difficulty is working out Phobia versus Fear.

Just the thought of escalators (travelators in the U.S.) cause the palms of my hands to break into a seat, and are doing so as I speak.

This is allied to my fear of heights, explained as ground-fixation.

Since my disability became worse, I can do up escalators, but stare at a fixed a point, nd hope there is a reasonable, well-lit runoff.

The Big-House. The free Hotel. Hospital. , , needles, scalpels, cannulas? Not bothered one iota. In fact, I'm intrigued to the point of being transfixed, but the actual ediface scares me. It is the thought of being surrounded by people in various stages of illness, healing and dying, and the fact that if kept in there is no at night so no . Also my last visit ended with an infection that wasn't there when I went in?

Room 101 please.

Wasps! What are they for. Update on entry A225839 actually about wasps than eradication is overdue please?

Upsetting people. Having no ego and a very low elf-esteem, this has to be my worst trait, and the reason I have no RL friends (and I know I've met many hootoozens, except I imagine you as special VR friends, as I never know when I'll meet you again) This can cause difficulties and upset, for both parties. Especially when the Black dog is prowling.

Ah! That dreaded Black dog! My perennial nemesis and bane of my life! Fear? Phobia?

Not sure. Just resigned acceptance.

Picking up very young children and the fear of dropping them. This one is only too real, especially now. It meant my niece and nephew didn't get the attention I maybe should have given them, yet they still appear to love me.

I think that is enough for now

And I , if only by being intrigued by their webs, and the strength of their silk, that we are nowhere near copying!!!

MMF

My step-dad died of a smoking related cancer. I have ANOTHER dad who also smokes and I’m a feared that I will have to go through the exact same thing again. I found myself ideally wondering if it’d be best to cut contact now to avoid it.

And candles. I don't like candles.

So now we've got

- "scared of"
- "don't like"
- "phobia of"
- "fear of"

and other implied variants, including

- disgust,
- just avoiding things,
- trauma-related horror of

Each of these again has a different effect on the person involved - the variations are endless.

The entry, by the way, is at A3187244

That is interesting.

The reason I say I don’t like candles rather than I’m scared of is because I understand this is an irrational fear and so don’t avoid candles. My step-dad when I was 6 took me around the house with a candle trying to set fire to things and nothing caught.

Unfortunately I then moved to America with my real dad, who undid all this good work. He wanted to leave me in charge of my younger brothers (age 5 and 2). I was six and scared there would be a fire and I wouldn’t know what to do. My real dad said ‘of course there wouldn’t be a fire this was Baba’s ashram he wouldn’t allow it’. Of course there was a fire. We got lost trying to find the fire assembly point but nobody was hurt.

So the moral of this story is to trust experimentation over semi-divine beings.