Heh, so that’s what the name of it is. It was an object in the book John Dies at the End, part of a series of supernatural items in the main character’s (Paranormal Investigator) shed. Reading the wikipedia article it recycled the urban legend about the kid shudder leaving the painting. I didn’t see the hands until now, but they may have inspired the scary story on the author’s forum that ultimately inspired the book, which I will not recount here for everyone’s sanity.
I, for one, am afraid of mirrors in the dark (especially if they’re just dimly illuminated). I just am, okay?
No, he’s the devil. And he won’t go away like The Noid. I’d hated to have been an opposing lawyer–I’d have run out the courtroom, arms flailing over my head wailing like a scared little girl. BrrRRrrrrr, just seeing that Wikipedia photo. And that’s GOOD one. You should see the scary ones.
The Jupiter thing is actually quite reasonable. The surface gravity is enough to crush you into a thin smear. Except there is no surface so you’d just sink for thousands of miles as the pressure grows high enough to compress hydrogen into metal. The wind howls at near-sonic speed with enough force to shred your crushed remains into confetti. Earth-sized hurricanes last for hundreds of years. The radiation is so intense it’s hard to get even a robotic probe near the planet. It makes a bunch more heat than it has any right to and nobody can figure it out. And if I was a betting man, I’d bet it is likely to be inhabited by some very strange critters. Yup, Jupiter is creepy allright.
But mountains?? That’s just weird. I won’t live where there are no mountains.
Flying, I hate it, with a passion, really bad. I am a mess for days before and days after the flight, full blown anxiety and panic…lol, absolutely the worst thing I can imagine doing. BUT…it seems to be only commercial flights. I’ve flown for hours at a time in helicopters on SAR missions and have spent four hours at a time in a Cessna flying fire patrols, not the best experience of my life, not really totally relaxed, but not anywhere near as bad as the 2.5 hour flight from say Halifax to Toronto.
So maybe someone can help explain this to me cause I don’t have a clue why I am like this, the only thing I see is the fact that I am sitting up front and can see whats going on???
It’s not really a fear like “Jupiter’s going to get me!” but more of a nameless feeling of dread. Looking at pictures, especially high-resolution pictures, just makes me horribly uneasy. Just looking at a picture for about 30 seconds to try to describe it literally made my eyes tear up.
I am fascinated with astronomy but am a complete layman. The incredible vastness of the universe just weirds me out in an indescribable way, and Jupiter somehow encompasses that concept visually. I look at its strange, alien appearance and then start thinking of how enormously vast it is and how overpowering its gravitational force is. I imagine flying through space and being pulled towards it with the inevitable conclusion of being drawn ever deeper into its vast depths of dense gas, unable to escape its clutches. Think of how big it is compared to everything you’ve ever known, and then think how incredibly small it is compared to the Sun, and how in turn how small the Sun is compared to… and so on and so on.
Just looking at a picture of Jupiter makes my head reel. Imagining those tiny swirls and their incredible size and vastness in actuality… I dunno, it just creeps me out.
fluiddruid, I feel like that about the ocean. Going to the ocean life exhibit of the Natural History Museum skeeves me out kind of. I like it, but it’s weird. Thinking of things down below the surface…whales, and gigantic squid, and all kinds of creepy things. It makes me feel light headed.
Those tall “T” cranes that they use to build skyscrapers. I’m slowly getting over it but twenty years ago they gave me near panic attacks whenever I saw one.
I’m freaked out by heights too. It takes me a while to walk over to the window if I’m in a tall building.
My evil, hated and long-since-disowned for a variety of reasons sister used to do that to me when I was a kid. Now, if I even get inadvertantly tickled, it’s all I can do not to have a full on wig out.
Crickets and grasshoppers. It’s not a full on uncontrollable thing, but it’s all I can do not to screech like a little girl if a grasshopper launches itself toward me like the locusty missle of death that it is.
If I’m not too late to warn you, I strongly recommend that you never watch the film 2010. Especially on the big screen. (Or perhaps it would help you after all, as a kind of aversion therapy?)
Anyway, I can understand your rationale better. Thanks for responding.
I experience a similar kind of dread or anxiety sometimes when I start thinking about the question, “Why is there something instead of nothing?” — which usually drops by to haunt me around 4 AM on a sleepless night, maybe two or three times a year. The question seems childish and silly in the light of day, when I’m busy with life and work — but then seems like the most important question of all, trumping all others, when it’s dark and quiet and I’m dwelling on it interminably.
I understand about the size and vastness of things cosmological. Freaks me out a bit too. Just when you think you grasp how large the earth is, you see it compared to Jupiter. Then you see Jupiter to the sun. Then you see the sun compared to a red giant star. Then you see what that star is compared to how far away the nearest star is.
