what causes arachnophobia?

Factual Questions
21

[QUOTE=Renee]

It is something I would like to get over, though. I do know that it’s irrational. Lynne, you say you researched them. How long did it take for the horror to go away?
[/QUOTE]
I’m interested in this too. I also have quite a phobia. I would like to try to get rid of it, though, because I don’t want to pass it on to my (now 2 year old) son.

I’m not sure where mine came from, unfortunately. I don’t think I had it when I was little, but I don’t remember any kind of trauma that might have brought it on. I think the earliest I can recall realizing that they really freaked me out when when I moved into a basement suite in college.

I’m more afraid of some types than others. Little black ones are not so bad, but if they’re in the house they have to die. Sorry spider-lovers, but I can’t just transport them outside because they already got in somehow, right? Maybe they’ve developed a taste for my crumbs. Usually, if I have to pick one up with a paper towel, I’ll take my glasses off first. Then it’s just a vaguely spider-shaped black blob. A little trick for any other myopic arachnophobics out there. I need to use a thick wad of paper towel too, because if I can feel it’s little body at all through the towel I’ll probably just drop the whole wad on the floor.

The big jewel spiders we get building giant webs on the corners of our house in the summer are awful. We haven’t had one in our house yet, but when it happens, I think we’ll just have to move out.

I can’t touch pictures of them in a book, especially close-ups. One thing that really freaks me out about those is when you can see all their eyes. Ugh, just thinking about that gave me a shiver.

Except for the eyes (and fangs), things like tarantulas freak me out a little bit less than other spiders I think, because any time I’ve seen one (on TV, or whatever), they’re moving pretty slowly. There doesn’t seem to be a big risk of it suddenly skittering up your arm and down into your shirt. Brrr.

Maybe I should also mention that for me, it’s not just spiders. I don’t like most insects, either. Scorpions. Even lobsters and crabs freak me out a little. I can look at them in a tank, but I don’t think I would pick one up. And eating one is right out.

Bugs that are very common up here (mosquitoes, ants) don’t bother me in the least. It’s good that I live a lot closer to the Arctic than the rain forest.

[QUOTE=Renee]
Part of it for me is the web. If you’re walking in the woods or whatever and run into a web, there it is all wrapped up and sticky on your face and skin and where the hell is the spider!?!? How big is the spider that is probably crawling all over you as you try to get it’s sticky web off your body?!
[/QUOTE]
Oh god yes, if I get a little web on me, it freaks me out. I can’t imagine what would happen if I accidentally walked face-first through a big orb-type web. I suspect I’d vomit. I have a recurring nightmare where I’m trying to walk somewhere, sometimes indoors, sometimes outdoors, but when I start walking, I realize my path is blocked by a big web. So I try to go a different way, and that’s blocked too. And then I realize that no matter which way I go, there are huge webs (with big ugly spiders on them) blocking my path.

I don’t know if any of this helps your research, but it felt kind of good to share. :slight_smile:

22

[QUOTE=mr. jp]
You can’t “torture” a spider. They don’t have feelings.
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I take exception to that. They do not have human feelings as characterized by specific mammalian neural systems. It would be incorrect to claim spiders do not have equivalent feelings or emotions based only on the simplicity of their neural system.

23

[QUOTE=lynne-42]
Thank you for raising this - it does not match the way my zoologist friends talk about spiders nor why they are so careful to avoid ‘hurting’ them, but I will certainly check it out with them. Wikipedia specifically says that “Scientifically, pain (a subjective experience) is separate and distinct from nociception[1].” and defines pain as “Pain is an unpleasant sensation, ranging in intensity from slight through severe to indescribable.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pain

Spiders will run and avoid being blown on. Doesn’t that indicate it is unpleasant sensation? I am not trying to be pedantic, and am well aware that my obsession has reached irrational levels and I must be scientifically accurate in the book, but I am still not convinced by what you say. I am willing to be - then I don’t need to worry about hurting them!

Lynne
[/QUOTE]

Don’t worry about being pedantic. This is the great SDMB. We only care about finding the truth. :slight_smile:

If you couldn’t feel pain, wouldn’t you still run and avoid being blown on?

24

As a child, spider fascinated me. I liked to play with, plucking them from webs, having them crawl around my fingers, feed them cockroaches, crickets, etc.

Then, one day, when I was in my early teens, I found them icky. It might have been because I had just seen for the first time the movie, “The Fly”? Or it might have been after the time we found a cane spider, complete with an egg sack, which got stepped on by my brother, releasing a swarm of tiny spiders in concentric circle that came toward us as we stomped and screamed.

25

[QUOTE=lynne-42]
I am writing a natural history book on spiders, titled Spider: from arachnophobia to obsession. Partly the title reflects my own journey, but also refelcts the contents as the book covers the natural history through the people who fear them through to those who are obsessed by them - such as the zoologists who are helping with the book. It will also include myths and legends, which often reflect, and maybe even fuel, arachnophobia.

I don’t think asking questions for research for a book breaks any SD protocols, but if it does, could the moderator please act accordingly and accept my apologies?

I am intrigued by what causes arachophpbia and would be keen to hear any theories as well as personal anecdotes. My case started as an adult - I had never liked them, but it became full blown arachnophobia through ongoing nightmares of huge spiders crossing my bed. It got to the stage I could not even touch a picture of them. When it started really disrupting my life, I started studying them to overcome what I knew was an irrational fear. I overdid the cure. I am now obessed by them.

Last week, I was wearing my spider jewellery as usual (I said I was obessed) and a teenage girl went pale and started shaking. I removed the jewellery, and asked if she could define what scares her so much. It didn’t seem to be any fear of being bitten. She could only define it as to do with them being ‘spidery’, which was a tad vague.

Could I please ask that there be NO gleeful stories about torturing or killing spiders. I am now so obssessed with them that such stories really upset me.

Lynne
[/QUOTE]

Oddly, I have never thought much about it, but I also had at one point a phobia about them (as a child), then later grew out of it - and became facinated by 'em.

When I first met my wife, I gave her a spider I made out of femo and rock crystal. She loved it, because she too had a phobia/obsession about 'em.

Just how common is this?

26

I learned as a kid from experience that while mosquito bites would itch, spider bites would swell up a pimple that hurt. That was in Michigan. The spiders where I am now seem to avoid people.

27

Bad experiences and movies:

When I was a kid we had what we called Banana spiders in our garden, huge f’ing black spiders with bright yellow bits. One of my brothers dared me to catch one so I did. We put it in a jar and tossed in a couple of flies. I saw the spider catch and eat a fly. :eek:

Then I saw that horrible 60’s b&w movie with the giant spider.

Then I watched an Outer Limits?? show with a spider that kept coming back bigger every day after being killed the night before.

Then I noticed the spiders in my room that kept getting closer and closer to my bed every night.

Then, when I was an adult I took my kids to Lanai to check out the petroglyphs in the cane fields. I blazed a trail thru the cane to the rocks with the petroglyphs and turned to the kiddies to show them, whoo hoo how cool is this. They jumped back in horror as I was covered with cane spiders. :eek:

Then I moved into a house with a gazillion daring jumping spiders that liked to drop down on me at any moment while I was innocently reading a book on my porch. One bit (stung) me last summer. This is not one of those incidents where someone says they got bit by a spider because they have a bite and don’t remember being bitten. This SOB was on a bottle of water I picked up. It bit (stung) me (felt like a shard of glass going into my finger) and I caught the SOB on my finger. Damn finger swelled up to twice it’s size and I had a painful bump on my finger tip for six months. I squashed him and called an exterminator who killed all of them and the Wasps they like to eat too.

SO yeah I do have a problem with spiders. I think the feeling is mutual.

BTW have you ever seen one of these Damn jumping spiders. When you go after them they don’t run away. They raise up on their back legs and threaten you. Worse than hissing cockroaches in Hong Kong. (Who chased me out into the street one night)

28

I decided to make peace with spiders whenI was a kid. I picked them up ,played with them and didn’t think anything about it. One day a little(1/4 inch) brown furry spider walked on my arm. I looked at it and then ignored it. Then it gave me an excruciating bite. I screamed and ran into the bathroom and washed the arm with cold water. After the pain was gone I went back to find it. Too late. But all little brown spiders are on my hit list.He was in for a squishing if I found him.

29

I would say from a Darwinian perspective, humans have been programmed to naturally fear that which is potentially harmful… Snakes, spiders, and other venomous creatures would fall under that category.

Secondly, I think much of the disdain for spiders comes from their appearance and how different they are than us. We can look at another (perhaps more) ferocious creature, such as a bear, but humans can often feel pity or even think a baby bear is cute because we share many common features (two “legs” whenever they stand up), a similar head w/2 eyes, a nose/snout, mouth, etc. Can’t say the same for a spider… Virtually nothing is similar and since we know so little, I think it’s natural to fear the unknown because that’s often the safest thing to do in a natural situation.

Those are my two theories. And don’t expect to get a pity trip from a spider. I doubt any spider can have complex thoughts or emotions. Regardless of whether they feel pain the same way, who’s not to say it’s just more of a reactionary thing (X could/is causing harm to me so I’m going to move away from X). Is there gonna be a PETA for spiders now? :wink:

30

[QUOTE=Nava]

I’m still not fond of them, even after spending half a year in Costa Rica (where they’re seen as a sort of domestic animal, since they eat mosquitoes and the mosquitoes give you dengue, which kills several people every year)
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Thank you for this. Much appreciated personal story. Does that mean that you saw no arachnophobia in Costa Rica?

Lynne

31

[QUOTE=Staggerlee]
There’s the theory that arachnophobia is an innate, evolved reaction, learnt way back in human history when any small dark scuttling things were a potential venomous threat, which makes sense if humans originated in Africa.

I feel that there is something sinister about spiders’ behaviour - their seemingly calculated stop-start movement, that of a predator, is inherently more threatening than the workaday rambling of a woodlouse for instance.
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There are two really important features coming out here.

One - is the fear inherent or learned? Of course it could be a combination of both. But many of the stories here isolate incidents which actually started their arachnophobia. This is intriguing. That is why I asked Nava about arachnophobia in Costa Rica. If there are places where it is non-existent, then we have to wonder if they do something to overcome the natural instinct, or it is a learned reaction.

Secondly is the nature of spiders. I hadn’t thought about the fact they are predators and therefore move in a different way to woodlice, for example. Indierock82 mentioned the same reaction, or even worse, to centipedes which are also predators. Fascinating idea! Thank you.

Lynne

32

[QUOTE=Renee]
Ugh. Spiders. They’re fast, silent, hairy, evil looking. Where I grew up, some of them were dangerous (black widows, brown recluses). Part of it for me is the web. If you’re walking in the woods or whatever and run into a web, there it is all wrapped up and sticky on your face and skin and where the hell is the spider!?!? How big is the spider that is probably *crawling all over you * as you try to get it’s sticky web off your body?!
[/quote]

That is something else worth considering. How much does the web play a part? Most spiders, when you walk into the web, will drop straight to the ground. They don’t want to be eaten by you! But does this natural reaction, and the image of the great hairy thing somewhere on you, somehow increase the fear?

I started by looking at the little ones in the window corners and observing their behaviour. Then I started to learn how to identify them. Once I had started to find them interesting and thought I was heading for something that might help, I got in touch with a spider expert who had live exhibits. He now runs the live exhibits for the Melbourne Museum. With his passion for them, he taught me so much I started to get intrigued and could sense the fear easing. The one night, about six months after I had started this process, I watched a garden orb weaver weave her web from start to finish. The fear turned to obsesison in that 45 minute experience. I still get the nightmares occassionally, but they just don’t scare me any more. So the recovery took me about 6 months studying them for at least a short time every day. From then on the obsession just grew to what is now an irrational level! I cannot look at a spider and see anything but a really beautiful creature. That is what really surprises me - I am looking at the same animal and seeing a different thing. The way they delicately place their feet is just gorgeous.

[QUOTE=ScareyFaerie]

A while ago, I went to a local zoo that ran an arachnophobia session with the help of a zoologist and a hypnotist. That’s where I met Geri
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Thank you for that link to your hand (I assume) holding the tarantula. I have never gone that far, fearing going back the way I was. But I think the time has come. The Museum Guy also runs the quarantine section for Melbourne - it is illegal to have them as pets here so any imported are impounded - so I may go to that stage.

How long did it take you, ScareyFaerie, and what did the tarantula feel like?

Lynne

33

[QUOTE=hotflungwok]
So are you talking about actual phobias, or just the general ‘spiders are icky’ feeling?

Phobias are caused by abnormal linkage in sections of the brain. Through trauma or imprint or whatever, X gets linked with Y, when it normally wouldnt. Since its a fear and not just another bit of information, the link is especially strong.
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Good point. Thank you. Both are of interest as both are typical human reactions and the ‘icky’ is far, far more common than the ‘wow, what a gorgeous creature’. My goal is to convert the entire world to arachnophilia. What chance do you give me? (No need to answer that.)

34

[QUOTE=MrSquishy]

The big jewel spiders we get building giant webs on the corners of our house in the summer are awful. We haven’t had one in our house yet, but when it happens, I think we’ll just have to move out. …

I don’t know if any of this helps your research, but it felt kind of good to share. :slight_smile:
[/QUOTE]

Helped enormously, as are so many of these replies, so thank you. Our jewel spiders are cute tiny things which would fail to scare any but the most arachnophobic and rarely come near houses. I would really love to know what your jewel spiders are, if there is any chance of a link. That is the trouble with common names - they work locally but not globally.

Lynne

35

I can pin point exactly when I became terrified by spiders (arachnophobia? Maybe. I can’t watch them on TV or look at pictures in books, but I don’t crumble into a heap in the corner at the thought of 8 legged things coming to get me).

I was four years old and my mom was dropping me off at my dad’s office after taking me to take pictures. His office had a little front office and a big warehouse space in the back with concrete floors and fluorescent lights.

I was all dressed up in my little black and white puffy sleeved dress with my black, shiny, mary jane shoes. While playing, I noticed a big crack in the wall, so I went to investigate. Out from the crack came (what I remember to be) a giant black spider. Huge. Like, I remember it being bigger than my foot.

Which brings me to the next part. I squashed that spider like there was no tomorrow. My parents then came in (they had been talking in the main office) and I proudly showed them what I had done. “ANGEL!” they screamed in unison, “THAT IS A BLACK WIDOW! IT COULD HAVE KILLED YOU! DON’T YOU KNOW THAT COULD HAVE KILLED YOU? THOSE ARE VERY DANGEROUS! THEY WILL BITE YOU AND YOU CAN GET VERY. VERY. SICK. Do not go near them again, do you understand, young lady?”

Ever since then, man, spiders freak me the hell out.

36

[QUOTE=lynne-42]
what causes arachnophobia?
[/QUOTE]

spiders

37

[QUOTE=lynne-42]
Good point. Thank you. Both are of interest as both are typical human reactions and the ‘icky’ is far, far more common than the ‘wow, what a gorgeous creature’. My goal is to convert the entire world to arachnophilia. What chance do you give me? (No need to answer that.)
[/QUOTE]

I’m with you on the gorgeous creature bit. I like spiders well enough, provided they’re outside my house TYVM.

I wanted to show you a picture of a Florida spider, the black and yellow argiope, that I thought you might find pretty. The underside, while the spider waits on its web.

I have a picture of the top side too, but Flickr’s not cooperating right now.

38

[QUOTE=bigbabysweets2000]
spiders
[/QUOTE]
Brilliant!

39

[QUOTE=MrSquishy]

Maybe I should also mention that for me, it’s not just spiders. I don’t like most insects, either. Scorpions. Even lobsters and crabs freak me out a little. I can look at them in a tank, but I don’t think I would pick one up. And eating one is right out.

[/QUOTE]

I’m like this, I’m not fond of most insects, although I can abide them as long as they don’t touch me. I’ll rescue beetles, bees and moths, but there’s only a limited time I can stand the feel of them before I start to get panicky. On the other hand, I can’t abide spiders, I can’t even pick up dead ones. And seeing crabs skitter around gives me the same sort of sense of fear, it’s obviously the shape and the movement which remind me of spiders.

I’ve got a bit better as I’ve got older, and I can look at small spiders (as long as they’re outside) and not close to me, and appreciate them. However, the spiders I most commonly get in my house are these, (don’t look of you’re arachnophobic, I had to do it very quickly and couldn’t stand to open the pictures to full size), and I have to kill them, because even walking past them scares me. It’s actually a sign of my decreasing fear that I can actually bring myself to whack one with a broom, because when I was younger I’d have shut up the room and not gone in there until someone killed the spider for me.

It’s not a rational fear, although we have poisonous spiders in Australia, it’s not fear of being bitten. I have a few species of deadly snakes live on my property, and I’m cautious, but snakes fascinate me and I like watching them.

One my my more terrifying memories is of a three day riding/camping trip I did in the High Country out of Bright. I was sitting around the campfire and caught movement out of the corner of my eye. It was an enormous, coal-black, shiny spider (as it turned out, a male Funnel Web, and you can look those up for yourself). Just thinking about it gives me the shivers, I had to camp that night and I couldn’t sleep because of the fear that there might be more of the things about.

Neither of my parents are afraid of spiders, my mother used to catch the Huntsmen in her hand and put them outside, or feed them with little bits of meat, but my sister and I are both arachnophobes.

40

[QUOTE=Bambi Hassenpfeffer]
I’m with you on the gorgeous creature bit. I like spiders well enough, provided they’re outside my house TYVM.

I wanted to show you a picture of a Florida spider, the black and yellow argiope, that I thought you might find pretty. The underside, while the spider waits on its web.

I have a picture of the top side too, but Flickr’s not cooperating right now.
[/QUOTE]

Flickr’s back in a good mood, so here’s its top side.