With all of the haunted houses that ramp themselves up to give us the maximum scare for our buck, I thought it might be prudent to look into this thing we call fear. The sheer number of haunted houses that crop up this time of year is a good indication that, in a controlled environment, we love to be scared. We love the adrenaline rush offered when brutally confronted with something that frightens us, making us scream like sissies.
But the other side of fear – something that’s debilitating and is quite the opposite of anything we might experience at Halloween – is outside of our control and often prevents us from functioning as we might want to. Millions of people suffer from varying degrees of phobias, ranging from mild to something that almost requires medication.
While searching for stuff to share and focus on this month, discovering the “official” term for someone who is affraid of ghosts – phasmophobia – I thought I might search for other phobias that can be related to our favourite holiday. Leave a comment if you, or someone you know, suffers from any of the phobias listed, or any that aren’t.
achluophobia – fear of darkness
agliophobia – fear of pain
alliumphobia- fear of garlic (this must be Dracula’s phobia)
arachnophobia – fear of spiders
bogyphobia – fear the bogeyman
chiroptophobia – fear of bats
claustrophobia – fear of confined spaces
coimetrophobia – fear of cemeteries
coulrophobia – fear of clowns
daemonophobia – fear of demons
hadephobia – fear of hell
hemophobia – fear of blood
hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia – fear of the number 666
hormephobia – fear of shock
katsaridaphobia – fear of cockroaches
lygophobia – fear of darkness
merinthophobia – fear of being bound or tied up
myctophobia – fear of darkness
necrophobia – fear of death or dead things
noctiphobia – fear of the night
nyctohylophobia – fear of dark wooded areas or of forests at night
nyctophobia – fear of the dark or of night
ophidiophobia – fear of snakes
paraskavedekatriaphobia – fear of Friday the 13th
placophobia – fear of tombstones
pneumatiphobia – fear of spirits (I’m assuming not the alcoholic variety.)
Samhainophobia – fear of Halloween (oh no!)
Satanophobia – fear of Satan
sciaphobia – fear of shadows
scotophobia – fear of darkness
selenophobia – fear of the moon
seplophobia – fear of decaying matter
spectrophobia – fear of specters or ghosts
taphophobia – fear of being buried alive or of cemeteries
thantophobia – fear of death or dying
wiccaphobia – fear of witches and witchcraft
Anyone else notice how many different words describe the fear of darkness?
The Witching Hour 