It can go from seemingly mundane to horrifically disturbing, and all in between.
For example, outer space tends to creep me out. I saw something on television that said that the universe had no edge and no middle, and it made me feel weird and… small. Then I would start thinking about the human race. Then I would start thinking about our purpose on this godforsaken rock.
Then I’d look to the sky and stare at the stars lightyears away and shudder. I don’t really think “small” would be too accurate of a description, but it fits my point well enough.
And listening to “Astronomy Domine” doesn’t help either.
Spiders and centipedes. I think this needs no explanation. The thought of having one of those bastards crawl up my leg makes me want to cry from fear.
I agree with the space thing. I feel insignificantly small every time I look up at the night sky and I see all those stars, knowing they’re millions and millions of miles away. Death creeps me out, too. I mean, it’s eternal and forever and you can’t get out of it. I think of death as eternal darkness and that just scares me. When I was small, I was thinking about death and I burst out crying, knowing that I was going to die someday. And cockroaches…can’t stand the little bastards.
Heh. I’m the opposite about you with regards to space… I always feel frustrated knowing that I’ll never get to jaunt out into the cosmos in search of weirdness. This also means I’ll never crash-land my little red spaceship, so I guess it balances out.
I get really creeped out by throat or wrist wounds. The scene in Braveheart where the chick’s throat gets sliced makes me want to crumple my body into a little ball and bounce around the room.
Watching people swim on a movie screen. For some reason, it gives me the willies. I’m not afraid of water IRL.
Looking down from great hights in movies (the bridge in Moria from TFOTR). It gives me a wicked attack of vertigo even though I don’t usually have problems with vertigo.
Shipwrecks. Which is weird because I like reading about them, and old ocean liners, like the Titanic, or the Lusitania. But the pictures of the wrecks seem really creepy.
open water, and i’m not in a boat. treadin water, middle of the ocean. if somethin was to bump my leg, i would $hit myself. seeing pictures of things that the tsunami washed up helps not.
Me too. If there’s any truth to this reincarnation thing, I’m coming back when we have established space travel and signing up for Star Fleet.
For me, anything to do with eyes. I used to be really bad, curling up into a little ball and humming loudly until I got the image out of my head, but hearing about things poking in eyes or eye injuries or having to pick something off the cornea still gives me the willies.
And slugs. And fat witchety grubs. Excuse me while I flee screaming from the room.
They’ve always terrified me. Just yesterday I was flipping channels and saw an image of them burrowing in their dens. Sheesh those things freak me out.
Being able to see underwater; glass-bottomed boats, video footage of people snorkeling/scuba-diving, etc. - it’s even worse if you can see half-above/half-below. It’s doubly bad if the water is dark, like the Atlantic.
Everything. Insects creep me out. Snakes walk with their stomachs and that’s creepy. Skeletons and blood and muscles are all in our bodies and that creeps me out. The dark is creepy. The sound the water makes in the pipes when our upstairs neighbor takes a shower is creepy. Mirrors are creepy - what if one day I look in one and there’s something in the reflection that isn’t in the room with me? I’m easily frightened.
Oddly enough I have decorated my home with dozens of antiques of various provenances, including a British Army rifle that may have been used for killing people, and although I sometimes wonder what the original owners were like and lament that I’ll never actually know or get to go back and see the way the world was like when these things were new, I’m never creeped out by it.
Some antiques stores, on the other hand, are creepy as fuck. Like the one we went in today, that, like most antiques stores in Texas, was in a former department store in the historic downtown. It’s technically a three-story building - the main floor has high ceilings in most of it, but the back half of the main floor has a second story, and the third floor is a separate (and beautiful in its sunlit plastered ruin) area. The second story in the back had a room with a glass window and a little display/tableau of a well-decorated kitchen and a mannequin in a dress; everything was covered by a thick coat of dust, including the inside of the glass window, and when we went up the stairs to examine the wares we discovered that there was no way to get in to the display room. At all. No door, nothing. That was creepy.
Large nonhuman primates. Baboons, chimpanzees, that sort of thing. They frighten me. I guess it’s because they’re so similar to humans, but, you know, not.
I remember watching a nature special about some sort of freaking mandrills or something. The announcer (David Attenborough, probably) was describing how they have a very heirarchical society. The dominant male went up to a smaller male and – are you ready for this? - ***raised his eyebrows * ** at him. The smaller male ran away, and I did too. It was an incredibly human-looking facial gesture on a big scary fanged blue-muzzled animal. Totally gave me the creeps.
Porcelain figurines. I dunno why. I was looking at some knick-knacks and I got the thought “Hm. Look at them literally…” and the suddenly I found them grotesque and creepy as hell.
I have no problems with them in general it’s just when someone chops them so far down they have no white at all, or when they are extremely long (and I consider anything with more than ~1cm of white at the top to be extremely long). The first makes me think it’s painful to do, the second just makes me wonder how they can do anything without breaking them. The people in the Guinness book of world records for longest fingernails REALLY creep me out.
This also extends to any wounds, on or around the nails. Which is bad because my Dad and brother work with their hands and are always hurting them somehow and have short nails. I feel really creeped just thinking about this.
Big spiders creep me out (naturally big, not stuff like Shelob) and only when I’m near them… small ones are okay as long as I have warning. Like I spot them first, or they aren’t crawling on me.
I agree with the people who talk about outer space as a creepy place. Not only are we infinitesimally small compared to the entire expanse that is out there, but its also very dangerous. Anything from the lack of oxygen to the extreme cold to the intense cosmic radiation could kill you in an instant. Our hunble little blue planet is but a tiny oasis that protects us from these conditions that surround us. Also, being in a vacuum and not being able to hear any sound would be weird, too.
Closer to home, I’d say bees, wasps, hornets, etc. freak me out. They attack en masse, they are aggressive and easily provoked, and difficukt to escape from if threatened, and they just look so menacing! While spiders freak me out, at least they don’t pose as much of an immediate threat most of the time and don’t usually occur in large numbers.
I’m also creeped out by clowns. I hated them as a child (and this was before I saw the infamous toy clown attack scene in Poltergeist). Many of them look so freaky.