Mine is werewolves. Seriously. I know they don't exist, I know I can step outside in the dark and stroll through a forest. But damn, sometimes I feel like I'm being watched by one of those creatures waiting to pounce me and rip me to pieces. Hell even the cheesiest werewolf horror film creeps me out. I think it comes from when back when I was a kid where I saw a book with a werewolf on the cover of it, looking directly at me with its mouth open ready to eat me.
But see these aren't irrational. You could easily drown if you're a sucky swimmer and catching diseases and getting attacked in bathrooms is very possible.
Being swooped by birds. I have never been swooped by a bird, I have never heard of a serious injury from someone being swooped by a bird, Birds don't do it 10 months of the year. I live in the friggin city. And yet almost every week I will at some point jump/flinch to avoid an incoming bird attack (usually it is a falling leaf or something not even a bird). Even while walking through the aussie bush which contains a good share of nasties I am worried about getting swooped much more than anything else.
Vertigo. I get the spins up high on buildings, but not as much in nature. I almost puked as a child when brought to the top of the World Trade Center.
It's strange, alot of people have that fear of werewolves. I wonder if the idea of a werewolf combines our natural instinct to fear predators with the sadistic nature of the most dangerous predator of all -- man. What ever it is, that's a fairly common fear. When I was a kid and into my early teens they used to frighten me beyond belief. I had a crazy realistic nightmare when I was sleeping on my trampoline. I dreamed that I awoke from the nightmare, but really didn't, and proceeded to get my leg ripped off in the dream. I actually woke up at that point, but heard something breathing outside of my closed door. As I laid there petrified, I heard something start to scratch at the door, starting clear at the top and slowly dragging its claws toward the bottom. It was fucking horrible. EDIT: I wrote that bad. I actually woke up in my bed in my room despite going to sleep on the trampoline. In the dream I was on the trampoline still. I used to sleep walk sometimes as a kid.
I know that feel. One of my friends lives in a high-rise apartment. If I go on his balcony, I can't look down for more than a few seconds without feeling uneasy...
I can't drive over a bridge, or even a high overpass. On the way to South Padre Island recently, I had to pull over right before the bridge and let my wife drive.
I love heights,but my father freaks out over them. It is always fun to mess with him. At the hoover damn, the grand canyon, and the badlands I kept getting right up to the edge, partially because I would anyway and partially because it was funto see him freak out a little bit. These days he knows I am pretty sure footed and has gotten used to me doing that type of thing so it doesn't bother him.
