Creature Feature

[KacyRay]

As a former theist who was raised by a fundy family, I still find myself to this very day (not often, but sometimes) feeling that really creeped-out feeling under certain circumstances… like when it’s dark, I’m alone, maybe some unidentified sounds or noises going on… maybe I’ve just seen a creepy movie or read something…

One thing that, to this day, still freaks me out is to listen to backward tracks. Music, spoken words, anything like that played backwards just spooks the ever-loving daylights out of me.

I haven’t believed in anything supernatural in going on 25 years, but I still get these creeped-out feelings. Does this happen to all rationalists, or was I just so damaged with mysticism to begin with that it still hasn’t healed?

I’m not the only who still gets the heebie-jeebies, am I?

[Kyle Jacob Biodrowski]

It may not just be (or be at all) your past experiences with mysticism.

Many people, mystics and non-mystics alike, have fears of the dark and the things that go bump in the night.

I think it's something hardwired into the brain which was likely quite useful for survival in olden times.

Those who fear the dark are less likely to be eaten by creatures that lurk in the dark.

[Brant Gaede]

As a former theist who was raised by a fundy family, I still find myself to this very day (not often, but sometimes) feeling that really creeped-out feeling under certain circumstances… like when it’s dark, I’m alone, maybe some unidentified sounds or noises going on… maybe I’ve just seen a creepy movie or read something…

One thing that, to this day, still freaks me out is to listen to backward tracks. Music, spoken words, anything like that played backwards just spooks the ever-loving daylights out of me.

I haven’t believed in anything supernatural in going on 25 years, but I still get these creeped-out feelings. Does this happen to all rationalists, or was I just so damaged with mysticism to begin with that it still hasn’t healed?

I’m not the only who still gets the heebie-jeebies, am I?

As late as my teenage years I got the creeps walking by graveyards. As a boy I could hardly stand to watch those cheap si-fi black and white 1950s' horror films like Them. Even at 15 or 16 The Creature from the Black Lagoon kept sending me out to the theater lobby. But after military service and Vietnam it was all gone. This may have happened anyway just by growing up some more, of course, but if you can jump out of a helicopter at 800'-1200' above ground you can sleep in a cemetery.

--Brant

[dennislmay]

As a former theist who was raised by a fundy family, I still find myself to this very day (not often, but sometimes) feeling that really creeped-out feeling under certain circumstances… like when it’s dark, I’m alone, maybe some unidentified sounds or noises going on… maybe I’ve just seen a creepy movie or read something…

One thing that, to this day, still freaks me out is to listen to backward tracks. Music, spoken words, anything like that played backwards just spooks the ever-loving daylights out of me.

I haven’t believed in anything supernatural in going on 25 years, but I still get these creeped-out feelings. Does this happen to all rationalists, or was I just so damaged with mysticism to begin with that it still hasn’t healed?

I’m not the only who still gets the heebie-jeebies, am I?

As late as my teenage years I got the creeps walking by graveyards. As a boy I could hardly stand to watch those cheap si-fi black and white 1950s' horror films like Them. Even at 15 or 16 The Creature from the Black Lagoon kept sending me out to the theater lobby. But after military service and Vietnam it was all gone. This may have happened anyway just by growing up some more, of course, but if you can jump out of a helicopter at 800'-1200' above ground you can sleep in a cemetery.

--Brant

From the time I was 15 till about 23 I would wake up the drop of a pin, car doors a half mile away, any noise of any kind. My brother came to live with me and we got pet cats. Cats make all the noises of the night so I had to have white noise to block that out [fans]. Later when I went to work in a machine shop metal drops from a shear and every other kind of noise got me to the point that I nearly cannot flinch or be disturbed by any kind of noise in the daytime no matter how loud or how close. At night I have adjusted to about normal as to what will wake me up.

As far as fear of the creepy - I never had that. From the time I was born I was exposed to butchering of animals and weird animals [big snapping and soft-shell turtles], every kind of farm animal, and all the preserved animals at the biology lab my dad worked at. I was impressed by the original "A Nightmare on Elm Street" when Freddy scraped both walls as he walked down an ally. When a movie or anything can get me to shiver they have done well.

1:21 in this non-scary preview.

Dennis

[syrakusos]

It has been theorized that the universal "shush" to quiet others comes from mimicking the hiss of a snake. (See Dragons of Eden by Carl Sagan.) We also assume that "everyone" finds insects, spiders, etc., ugly, scary, distasteful and horrific. (But see the "WEIRD People" thread. Who knows what "most" people believe?) As for fear of death, that does seem to be our universal curse: not that we are mortal, but that we know it. I know no culture without a rite of passage for dying.

An interesting aside on that is "Shakespeare in the Bush. An American anthropologist set out to study the Tiv of West Africa and was taught the true meaning of Hamlet" By Laura Bohannan. Off to study the Tiv again, Bohannon took Hamlet with her to study during the two-month rainy season. The tribe left her in peace, as an outsider and the women never socialized with her, but in the lull, an old man asked her what she was reading. He invited her to tell the men her story. She started to tell them. They interrupted her with laughter. "You know there is no such thing as ghosts! No one has seen a ghost. But everyone has seen a zombi. So, Hamlet's father must have been made a zombi by a witch doctor."

Just sayin'... ghosts, zombies, whatever, ... the walking dead are creepy.

How that gets triggered by unusual noises or whatever seems variable, but somehow constant within a range.

[Mike82ARP]

As a former theist who was raised by a fundy family, I still find myself to this very day (not often, but sometimes) feeling that really creeped-out feeling under certain circumstances… like when it’s dark, I’m alone, maybe some unidentified sounds or noises going on… maybe I’ve just seen a creepy movie or read something…

One thing that, to this day, still freaks me out is to listen to backward tracks. Music, spoken words, anything like that played backwards just spooks the ever-loving daylights out of me.

I haven’t believed in anything supernatural in going on 25 years, but I still get these creeped-out feelings. Does this happen to all rationalists, or was I just so damaged with mysticism to begin with that it still hasn’t healed?

I’m not the only who still gets the heebie-jeebies, am I?

As a current, non-fundy theist, I'd say you were damaged by horror film mysticism, not fundy theism unless you were into voodoo or such.

[syrakusos]

One thing that, to this day, still freaks me out is to listen to backward tracks. Music, spoken words, anything like that played backwards just spooks the ever-loving daylights out of me.

Turn me on, dead man... Number Nine... Number Nine...

Apparently, millions of people agree with you, but they just like being scared. I think that it is the lack of actual fears which induces this as a market phenomenon. (Just my theory.)

[KacyRay]

As a current, non-fundy theist, I'd say you were damaged by horror film mysticism, not fundy theism unless you were into voodoo or such.

I admit, I am biased against religion, so I tend to place blame for most of my damaged childhood on religion, just as I tend to place the damage to society on faith in general.

But I don't think I'm off-base on this one. Growing up believing in demons, Satan, angels, possessions, backward-masking and other manifestations of unholy terror... I really internalized this stuff. As difficult as it would be to imagine now, I was 100% immersed in this culture during my formative years (Serapis Bey remembers, no doubt). I watched all kinds of videos on how demonic forces infiltrated rock and roll music, possess people, and basically do all sorts of evil that would scare the bajeezus out me. My church referred to Satan as "the ruler of this world" (as opposed to Jesus, who apparently ruled everything else).

Now, there are other forces that played a part, sure. Watching scary movies like "The Changeling" (George C Scott), and The Amittyville Horror (the original) instilled a sense of fear of being alone that has almost never left. Also, there was a book I read, plus The Changeling movie, that instilled a fear of mirrors in me that lasted ... well, it's almost gone by this point.

I mean, what could be more terrifying than seeing something in a mirror that isn't there when you turn around? So for years I always had that sense of dread... that I would see something in the mirror that wasn't otherwise visible. Scary stuff, man!

But nothing creeps me out like backward-played music tracks. I'd say that is the only thing that still freaks me out even in broad daylight, even if people are around me... doesn't matter. Still freaks me out. Thank religious fearmongering for that one!

Maybe it isn't *all* religion. I'm sure hollywood can take a lot of credit for instilling the heebie-jeebies in all of us from time to time. But it's one thing to watch a movie about scary stuff you know isn't real... quite another thing to watch a movie about scary stuff that you actually believe might be waiting for you when you get home and turn the lights out.

[BaalChatzaf]

I grew up with a Boogey Man free childhood. My main fear (promoted by my mother and grandmother) was having an eye put out by a stone, b-b or pointed object. No ghosts. No ghouls. No goblins.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[KacyRay]

I grew up with a Boogey Man free childhood. My main fear (promoted by my mother and grandmother) was having an eye put out by a stone, b-b or pointed object. No ghosts. No ghouls. No goblins.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Lucky you, brother.

[liliwayway]

While growing up as a catholic, I remember feeling like I was constantly being watched by some sort of presence that was taking a tally of my dirty deeds. Now that Im atheist I still feel the same discomfort when Im about to do something "wrong". I have a strong discomfort, as if my privacy is being violated by one of those mystic evil demons I was told so much of as a child.

A connection between religion and irrational fears doesn't seem too far off to me.