You could try desensitizing yourself Clockwork Orange style!
A friend of mine got over a problem of this sort by envisioning the monsters from movies and games that frightened him doing absurdly mundane things. It’s tough to be afraid of zombies (for example) when they’re sitting calmly around a table playing poker or shuffling around a grocery store with shopping baskets trying to pick out the best bananas. Extend it in any direction you like. I’m a fan of Jigsaw (the Rube Goldberg-esque serial killer from the Saw movies) devising devilishly complicated devices to fold laundry or open a jar of salsa.
Lord Il Palazzo I like that very much!
TheCrow I just realize that I’m the scariest thing in the room. Last time I had a dream about Freddy Kreuger, I repeatedly stabbed him with a screwdriver until he ran away.
If that does not work for you, I suggest imagining a protector. Picture whatever monster is scaring you in as much detail as you can. Then, also in as much detail as you can manage, picture Shrek or Superman beating the stuffing out of it. Telling yourself ‘it is not real’ never works. Part of you still insists that there are monsters under the bed or in the closet. So put Shrek in the closet and Hellboy under the bed.
Speaking as somebody who was a complete, total, and utter pansy as a child to the point that he had to leave the room (or campfire as the case may be) the second people started telling scary stories – as someone who was absolutely terrified of the movie ET – I feel like this is one subject that I can really speak on at a personal level (not a psychiatrist so I can’t speak in general). I really did go from being absolutely avoidantly terrified of anything the least bit scary to somebody who can go into “the scariest movie/game EVAR” and go “oh… quaint.”
It, perhaps not quite coincidentally, is also how I probably became a skeptic/atheist, my interest in folklore/the paranormal, and why I used to be a fan of ghost hunting shows (before the only good one became crap).
The method I used was testing stuff. I tested a lot of scary stories, or things that induced fear, plain and simple. Don’t take this the wrong way, don’t take this to mean “be an adrenaline junky”. I never did anything exceedingly dangerous, and especially refused to try anything that would harm somebody else or inconvenience them. Anything that involved summoning demons by slitting your wrists, or sacrificing someone’s pet, or a ghost story that calls going into a hospital and bugging the secretary, I never tried that sort of stuff. Be rational about it. I also recommend using discretion and at the very least bringing another person (and possibly a knife or something to protect yourself with) if you care to try investigating "haunted’ abandoned buildings because a lot of abandoned buildings have homeless people or gangs (or are not really abandoned and the owner is just crap at building maintenance).
For instance, the first scary story I tested was “Bloody Mary”. If somebody had a Bloody Mary myth, I would test it (again, assuming no grievous self-mutilation was required). By the time I was in 7th grade, I’d probably tested over 100 stupid variations of the damn thing. Eventually I branched out to other testable things. I’ve tried summoning demons, opening my chakras, and praying to jugs of milk. I’ve tried an endless number of occult things, both “dangerous” ones* and beneficial ones.
I’m not implying that you think that the ghosts and demons in movies and games are real. I’m sure you’re a perfectly rational, same person. When I was a kid, I also knew the difference between play and reality, and if anyone asked me if Bloody Mary was real when I was still scared shitless of that story you wouldn’t have gotten so much as a “maybe” out of me, you would have gotten a flat “of course not.” The point is, there’s a big difference, for me at least, between verification and intellectually just “knowing” something. Once I tried all of this, I became so desensitized that scary stories, movies, and games just plain didn’t faze me (though sometimes I am, funnily enough, very scared that they WILL scare me before I go into them, ah well).
- As a sidenote (spoilered just to reduce length and because it’s a bit of an aside): [spoiler]This is exactly why I laugh really hard whenever I stumble on an occult forum where its members are direly warning against saying certain magic words or performing certain rituals. “This isn’t some RP or game site. This stuff is real, we don’t want you getting hurt. Please don’t try this.” Right. I’ve seen this warning hundreds of times, and I’ve tried these rituals hundreds of times. I suppose there’s a chance I’m just a colossal fuckup and have absolutely botched every magical ritual I’ve ever attempted, despite multiple attempts at many of them (good lord some of them are needlessly complex), or maybe demons just don’t like me and would prefer to leave me alone, but excuse me if I don’t put much stock in your warning.
You see, the vast majority of the rituals these people condone doing either are meant to have no effect (like propitiating some other power just because it’s a cool thing to do), or have some fuzzy benefit like “luck” or “health.” It’s because they’re very susceptible to confirmation bias and other rationalizations. When it “works” (i.e. random chance, placebo effect, external factors), it’s the ritual. When it doesn’t it’s because you botched it, or the power “wasn’t enough” or any other thing. So once you’ve convinced yourself that these occult rituals work, you become convinced these other rituals also work, and that if they do bad things you shouldn’t attempt them, so you never try any of the stuff with clear, obvious, instantly verifiable outcomes (like “fucking Lucifer is right next to me now”).[/spoiler]
This certainly helps. And jump scares aren’t scary they’re, startling. I’ve heard it described as the “pie in the face of horror”, and I find that a fair comparison. They’re cheap, visceral, automatic responses – especially when the directors combine it with things like “little girl with limbs bent in the wrong direction.” That isn’t to say jump scares are evil or devalue any work they’re in, but they have to be earned. For instance, I found the jump scare at the very end of the first Paranormal activity to be fine and I believe that it enhanced the film. The overwhelming sense of dread in the movie built up nicely, and the jump scare at the end provided a nice “money shot” so to speak, a payoff for all the tension. Which is why I hate jump scare heavy films. Often the only tension is your threshold of annoyance and interest in avoiding being startled again, not any focus on the atmosphere or situation.
Back to the “learning techniques” thing though, I played about 3/4ths of Amnesia: The Dark Descent recently, and I didn’t really find it that scary. I got some adrenaline, but mostly normal game “I don’t want my character to die” adrenaline. Why did this happen? Because I could smell the game design. I figured out a little too much about the game, and how they placed the monster and made him move at certain points to deliberately corral you to certain scenes and triggers. How sometimes they would despawn the monster after it had served this purpose, rather than having him patrolling. This isn’t to say it’s a bad game, it’s great, especially the atmosphere, just that since I could kind of tell what was going on I wasn’t filled with a whole lot of that deep, looming, gut-wrenching fear response. Even in the infamous water sections I felt more of “oh shit… I have to go in the water, hope I make it” than real fear.
This is also where watching a lot of horror and reading a lot of stories comes into play. I’ve read so much creepypasta that by the second paragraph I can usually predict with near perfect accuracy “oh, this is one of those stories where<…>, or a variation on it!” I might not get the minor details, but it’s hard to build up huge amounts of tension when you’ve figured out the broad strokes of the horror they’re going to try at the beginning.
I’m the same. Can’t do scary movies/books/games. I played Fallout 3 and nearly wore out my index finger spamming the VATS button so the game would pause when anything scary came in view - and it still didn’t stop feral fucking ghouls from getting behind me somehow. Gah.
Anyway, what I do when forced to watch a scary movie - look over the top of my glasses. LOOKS like I’m staring, completely unimpressed by what’s going on, but in reality I see nothing but a blur. Don’t have glasses? Sorry!
Only other thing I have is I know the first scare is ALWAYS a red herring. So when the movie is doing the music-suspense-tension-JUMP thing, the first time it’s never going to be the monster/ghost/whatever, just a cat or something. Had to go watch Sinister because it was a friend’s birthday recently - sure enough, first scare was just the guy’s kid sleeping in a box for whatever reason, then jumping out.
Jragon, lots of horror isn’t supernatural though. Jigsaw isn’t (he is however ridiculous and far-fetched). Did you become less scared of more “realistic” ones at the same rate? Although that genre has reappeared the last few years with torture-rape-porn, with normal, if sometimes overpowered serial killers. And you can watch some of these and cringe at the heroes’/victims’ stupidity, making it less scary. And guess which stereotype will get it first. I find those torture scenes mostly just uncomfortable. And I avoid stuff like the Paranormal Activity series because I have a moral objection to “found footage” and “based on true events” lies, so they affect less.
Agreed, random jump scares the worst, where you know it’s a horror movie so are primed, but before the horror starts some dumbass side character pops out with “BARTYOUWANTTOSEEMYNEWCHAINSAWANDHOCKEYMASK?”
Fallout 3: Feral ghouls are normally 1-shot kills, except for the tougher ones added in some add-on, so not too scary. The Swamp Folk scared me the most. Nothing like going into the Lovecraft-homage cave and having a deformed product-of-incest-Whateley-without-the-literacy pop out at you.
I have a method for avoiding “shockers,” although I does require some anticipation. Thankfully, movies often suggest that something is going to happen soon. So, I learned my method while young and watching, umm, “Ernest Scared Stupid.” When I thought something was coming up, I shook my shoulders to release tension and avoid the embarrassing startle reflex. Kind of like how they show boxers warming up, except with minute movements.
I’m also more resilient to “realistic horror”, not sure why. I’ve asked myself that question. That may come from the “analysis of horror media” part more than the “testing stuff” part. I will say outright though, that if horror is going to actually scare me at all (and it basically never does), that twinge will probably be from something remotely plausible rather than a completely over the top ghost story. That said, I avoid torture porn (and similar things like The Human Centipede stuff) like the plague. It doesn’t terrify or scare me, it’s just… ew. I mean, I give it more credit than jump scares as far as calling it “horror” goes because it at least it targets an actual emotion (revulsion) rather than just startling you, but eh, not my thing.
Ernest is criminally under rated. I bought the entire run of his Saturday morning series from Target for $5. Every episode is a gem. Seriously.
Exactly what I wanted to say. It’s just a guy in a rubber suit. The knives are fake.
My other technique is to watch on as small a screen as possible. For movies, use a window 1/4 the size of your screen.
Avoid horror games entirely. Instead, play soothing titles like Dead Space 2.
…never strike because you won’t watch horror movies. As you already know, it’s not rational to try to fight every fear.
And you have to weigh the downsides. The primary enjoyment of a scary movie is in the fact that you get scared. If exposure therapy leaves you not scared, what is there to enjoy? It’s not as if exposure therapy makes you enjoy fear itself.
There’s also the very real downside that exposure can actually reinforce fear if the fear becomes too great. This is why techniques like flooding are less effective than gradual exposure. I’ve been flooded before, and the result was that I pretended to be cured and then completely avoided the person entirely, and my fear became much much worse.
If, after all that, the OP still wants to try, please do it gradually. And, yes, reduce the potency of the stressor by watching with the lights on, after reinforcing to your mind that it’s fake, etc.
I wish I had an answer for you, but unfortunately I don’t. The last time I made the mistake of playing a scary game was when the Slenderman thing was still pretty new. I kept hearing about it and how scary it was. And I read the description of the game and thought ‘Wtf. Walking around a dark forest? What’s so scary about that?’. So of course I decided to try it out. At night, when everyone else was asleep. In the dark. Omg, I’ve never been so scared in my life. I had to turn off the game because it was affecting me so badly. I was too scared to even stand up and turn on the lights XD So I just sat there, in front of my computer for like an hour, trying to take my mind off of it. Slowly, nerves settled and I was able to relax but I still made a running leap for the bed and ducked under the covers when it was sleepy time lol Then again, I’m a bit of a scaredy cat XD
The problem I’ve always had hasn’t been being scared of what I’m watching/reading/playing at the time, it’s the aftermath. I actually enjoy reading a good spooky story. My problems come after I’m done, and it’s bedtime. It’s like something primitive in my brain gets overstimulated. I’m not thinking of anything scary, there’s nothing scary to hear or see, but I’m SCARED. I hate it, because there seems to be no dealing with it. It’s very frustrating.
Don’t forget, every blanket, duvet, or comforter emits a monster-proof shield, but it is only effect if you cover your head. Also, closing your eyes also makes it so that monsters can’t see you.