“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear…”
—H.P. Lovecraft

Fear can be fearsome.

“Halloween is a major holiday and $12 billion industry devoted to fear.”


When fear strikes the mind, panic strikes the body. A part of the brain called the amygdala lights a fire under the nervous system. Cortisol and adrenaline flood the bloodstream. Blood pressure, heart rate and respiration soar. The cerebral cortex, which controls judgment and reasoning, stands down as blood is redirected away from the brain and into the limbs, preparing them for violent action. It’s a primitive, desperate, disorienting shock to the system, and we should hate it. But we don’t.


Fear is our natural response to danger, and we hate danger. In the absence of mortal threat, however, that 440-volt goose is good times. And we spend a lot of time contriving non-threatening mental stimuli that will generate a physical fear reaction.


Halloween is a major holiday and $12 billion industry devoted to fear. Once upon a time we honored our dearly departed on October 31, but not anymore. We honor Count Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster, witches and werewolves, ghouls and goblins. It makes no difference that most people don’t believe those things are real. They’re all scary in concept, more or less, and we’ve been conditioned to be frightened of them since earliest childhood. While our conscious minds may regard a plastic dancing skeleton as cute and harmless, it strikes our subconscious as spooky and dangerous, igniting a mild physical fear response in the brain. And that’s fun.
How much fun is subjective. Surveys find that few people get uptight about Frankenstein’s monster, who’s generally seen as a sympathetic character. Witches also rank low on the national terror-meter, thanks in large part to the recent rise of the environmentally conscious crystals-and-chamomile style of witchery, which has softened public perceptions about the broom and caldron set. Mummies don’t get much rise out of people either, probably because they can be easily avoided by not digging up ancient Egyptian tombs.


A lot of people are still creeped out by vampires, even if “Twilight” has done its best to glamorize, pasteurize and puerilize the genre, and werewolves remain firmly frightful, possibly tapping into some genetically imprinted fear of hairy, drooling predators. Not surprisingly, ghosts and demons top our Halloween horror hit parade, probably because a majority of Americans believe they exist.
Halloween fear is happy fear, giddy little chills we give ourselves in measured doses. And it’s not by accident that almost nothing we like to be scared of at Halloween is recognized by mainstream science, or likely to be encountered face to fiendish face. A holiday highlighting the real things we’re afraid of wouldn’t be any fun at all.

“Halloween fear is happy fear, giddy little chills we give ourselves in measured doses.”


According to the clipboard-carrying canvassers at Gallup, some 51 percent of us fear snakes above all else, making those slithering fang-wagons our top terror. At 40 percent, public speaking ranks second, right ahead of heights at 36 percent. About a third of the people surveyed get the willies around insects and mice, with tight spaces, air travel and hypodermic needles not far behind. A solid 10 percent of us are scared of thunder and lightning, and while most children are afraid of the dark, only 5 percent of grown-ups admit to it.


For what it’s worth, women are between two and four times more often fearful in all categories except two. It seems guys hate needles and going to the doctor at least three times more than gals. Curiously, compared against a similar Gallup survey undertaken 10 years previous, the percentage of those suffering from the above-listed fears has gone down 5 percent across the board, which could mean either that people are 5 percent braver than they used to be, or that they’ve found 5 percent more things to be scared of instead.


Most fears are more or less universal—bugaboos evenly distributed across the timid map of humanity. Others, interestingly enough, appear to be specific to particular countries and cultures. That’s not to say everybody in Southeast Asia is scared of the number 4, but rather that many of them are, and nobody anywhere else is.


For example, many Koreans are afraid of electric fans. They’re not afraid of getting sliced and diced by the whirling blades, or of electrocution. They’re afraid that if they fall asleep in a room with a running fan they’ll freeze to death.


Russian history is tougher than most—long centuries of war, want and social upheaval have produced a population that prizes individual grit and public humility. It’s a uniquely Russian fear to be perceived as “poshlost,” a not-directly-translatable word for someone who aspires to elevated social station. Many Russians will self-impose harsh and unnecessary privation simply to avoid the appearance of being an elitist poser.
Japanese etiquette is complex, rigid and comprehensive, which has led some in that country to develop a phobia akin to anxiety disorder known in the local lingo as taijin kyofusho. In essence, sufferers of taijin kyofusho are so afraid of giving offense that they’re effectively paralyzed, socially speaking.


While every country has its share of stray dogs, in India the problem is vast and uncontrolled. Serious and often fatal attacks by packs of strays are common, instilling within many Indians an extreme fear of dogs. All dogs. Even the sight of a Pomeranian sitting quietly on somebody’s lap can provoke a violent emotional reaction.


Social phobia is not confined to Sweden, but when it comes to having difficulty interacting with others, the Swedish are without peers. It’s estimated that more than 15 percent of Swedish adults suffer from social phobia to some degree, and many of them to such a severe degree that researchers regard Sweden’s social phobia phenomenon as distinctly Swedish.


America can boast lots of singular features, so it’s only natural that we should have an exclusively American fear. In all the world, we’re the only nation afraid of ambulance bills. The average ambulance ride costs north of $1,000, and many insurance plans don’t cover medical transportation. There’s no shortage of bone-chilling tales of ill and injured Americans going to terrible lengths to avoid getting into an ambulance. And if that doesn’t light up the old amygdala, nothing will.

phobophobia… noun, [foh-buh-foh-bee-uh]: the fear of fear