Watching myself die slowly and painfully.
When I was about 12 I took a walking tour of a beautiful limestone cave. The tour path went over a bridge that spanned a fast moving stream. The bridge had no rails of any kind, and the path of the stream, while shallow, looked extremely slick. I had nightmares for quite some time about what would have happened if I had fallen over the side of the bridge and slid down the steambed into the darkness.
I visited the cave again the next year and found that a floor-to-ceiling chain link fence had been installed on either side of the bridge.
So either someone was just taking precautions, or my nightmare had come true for somebody.
Shudder.
TVeblen and MissGypsy, don’t feel too stupid about the spiders thing. I, too, am deathly afraid of them. If I see one, I will run. I remember one night, I was home by myself and saw a spider on the ceiling. Well I couldn’t just leave it there, so I shot it with hair spray until it fell down. Then (and I still don’t know how I managed to do this), I grabbed a plastic cup and put it on top of the spider. I had my brother kill it the next day. Its hard to express to a non-spider-fearer just how incredibly scared I get when I see these things. Its like facing death! Well not quite that bad but Veb and Gypsy know what I mean!
I can deal with most small spiders (not if they are furry, though). I do have my limit, however.
Several years ago at my mother-in-law’s house in Rio, I recoiled in horror as my wife opened a kitchen cabinet and one of these monsters came skittering out. The page where that image came from said that its body is 2" long. The whole thing was bigger than my hand :eek:
It scrambled into the bathroom on its spindly legs, where the only hiding place was a basket full of laundry. I stood back like a true man as my wife and her sister used broom handles to pick out each piece of clothing and shake it. They finally tipped the basket, the creature came out, and they pummeled it with their brooms.
I wouldn’t sleep in a house knowing that a thing like that was loose.
Getting mauled to death by an animal. A Shark to be more specific. And as a sidenote, I am deathly afraid of those aliens from the “Aliens” movies. Yes, I am aware that they in fact do not exist. It goes so far as that I will occasionally have nightmares about them. Usually its the same thing as the plot to the movies, but I always end up being the guy that gets impregnated by the face huggers.
Having nearly drowning as a child, I think that it is one of my biggest fears, that and dying a slow lingering death.
Fear of loss of mental & physical faculties and having to rely on other people for care etc.
Tunnels, caves, in the interests of brevity, being buried alive. That’s why I definitely want to be creamated (but please wait until you’re relatively certain I’m already dead first).
being mentally ill is probably my biggest fear.
second would be being homeless
my likewise to odd-socks, drowning and being hit by a train.
I just think it wouldn’t be over as fast as I hope it would.
Sharks. I am another one of those. I tried to swim laps in a lake this summer, a man made lake in the middle of texas. But the water is murky, and there is fish and stuff in it. I couldn’t do it, I nearly had a panic attack. If I can’t see through the water, there could possibly be something there. And it could have big teeth and eat me. It seems to be a newish fear though, when I was younger I found sharks fascinating. I used to live in the bay area of CA, and we would go to the beaches, and I would swim out until I could no longer touch the bottom, without fear. Now I go up to my ankles.
And birds. Not like crows on the street, but the birds people keep as pets. Terrified of them. Now THAT’S an illogical fear.
when sharp objects like knives are waved in my face.
Given this phobia, my worst experience was the time I had a metal splinter get in my eye. The doctor put some anesthetic in it and then bounced this supershart instrument off my eyeball to remove the metal fgarment. The worst part was the sound. The damn thing went BOINK every time the doctor hit my eyeball. I thought I was gonna have a heart attack.
Seriously? The possibility of an afterlife. Every part of my rational mind thinks it’s completely silly. I know that I’m not trying not to believe what I know to be true (or whatever), because there are times at which I’ve wanted that possibility to exist, and searched with every part of my mind to find a reason to believe in an afterlife and found nothing. Nonetheless, unlikely though my being wrong seems to me, it isn’t really enough to offset the fear given some of the horrible crap some people believe in. Seriously, I want to know who originally came up with the notion of Hell. Unbelievable.
Next to that, I’m with the person who said ‘painful death’, though mostly the ‘painful’ bit is what concerns me.
As for irrational fears… spiders kind of freak me out, especially if I’m in a confined area. That’s all I can really think of for the moment.
~ Isaac
Being boiled alive, but mainly that someone could find out thats my fear and make it happen.
My worst fear is becoming an unpleasant, poor, ugly woman.
I’d hate to be so poor I can only afford to live someplace totally depressing and have to work hard at a menial job I hate. I’d hate to be so unpleasant in personality (as a result of failure, or bitterness or maybe a mental illness?) that I’ve scared every possible friend away.
What scares me most about this scenario is that the suffering could take so long. Years, even decades. Being eaten alive by a shart takes 5 minutes, tops.
I’m with Maastricht. Poverty and/or involuntary unemployment (really the same thing) are my greatest fears. Along with this goes the fear of surviving a worldwide apocalypse, whether from plague, nuclear war, or environmental catastrophe. It’s the poverty that would make life in those circumstances so unbearable.
Is well, to be general, major fear of heights, and also possibly related, large gas giants 
Pretty bad when even just thinking of Jupiter, or seeing a pic or hearing it mentioned can make me within seconds very weak, shaking at the knees/sweating/trying not to pass out, trying to block it out.
Only had a nightmare about it once, but if I remember right it had such a negative effect I think I was very ill (like effectively being essentially a mass of jello, not able to remotely focus/concentrate/form a clear thought).
Somehow I doubt I’d be able to handle having another one like that
Also have a major fear of drowning, but probably explainable due to my having numerous drowning incidents, also totally unable to learn how to swim.
And…<shudder> a problem I think my mind has been mostly trying to block out automatically, but is far worse nowadays considering how stressed out I am, I think it might be referred to as “night terrors”
Oddly enough I don’t have any fear of death of my physical body, actually oddly looking forward to it :dubious: . Probably related, but also think I’ve pretty much become immune to being intimidated by threats of physical violence against myself (probably due to so many near-fatal occurances, as well as some major influence from beings I’ve met in what may have been a dream) 
Anything fluttering around in a confined space, moths, birds, etc
This really seems to be a genuine phobia as it’s completely irrational and I didn’t realise I had a problem with it until a friend let his budgie out of the cage while I was in the room and I went completely nuts. They don’t really bother me when I’m outside though.
My childhood fear was also a werewolf, most specifically a big twisted one with huge glowing eyes. I always used to avoid looking out of windows at night for fear of seeing those big eye’s looking back at me, and I always used to have to sleep facing the windows so it couldn’t stare at me without my realising it (while trying to avoid actually looking out of them obviously 
).
I nearly freaked the first time I saw Neverending Story as my werewolf had a starring role, I also met a girl (a flatmate) who had the exact same nightmare and the exact same reaction to that film.
prison and/or jail
My grandfather, mother, uncle, aunt and one cousin were all police officers. My cousins and I were taken into the county jail and showed around. One look at the toilet out in the open did it for me. Scared any criminal tendencies out of me.
Oh, Radu Lycan, I’m so sorry, but…
Jupiter? You’re scared of a planet! BWAHAHAHAHA!
I’m really, really sorry. I am. I’m sorry. It’s just a rather…odd fear.
Hehehe.