Spiders are scary. At least that’s what my brain tells me. I don’t really know when it started, but sometime when I was younger I developed a phobia of spiders (arachnophobia). The most interesting thing about phobias, in my opinion, is that almost all of them are by definition irrational. I’ve never had a bad experience with a spider. There exists no rational explanation for my fear of spiders. What’s worse is that this fear extends to other arachnids (e.g. ticks, scorpions) and even other bugs by way of my brain registering them as “spider-esque”, though spiders are the only thing that I’m truly afraid of.
By far one of the strangest afflictions that results from my phobia is that my brain catalogues dark spots, marks, etc. that are on walls. Whenever I enter a room, I unconsciously look around and register the marks on the walls. My brain then filters out the ones that are most likely not spiders. If any remain, they’re brought to my conscious mind and I examine them. If they’re a spider, I get terrified and have someone kill it. The spots that are either filtered out or discovered to be non-spiders are then added to my unconscious brain catalogue of non-spider wall things. This means that when I re-enter a room, I don’t have to re-catalogue all of those spots. When a new spot appears, however, I go through the same process for that spot, determining its danger and reacting accordingly.
This process is utterly fascinating to me, because it’s such an unconscious process that I’m almost never aware that I’m doing it. It’s strange how this irrational fear of spiders has programmed my brain to constantly and unconsciously catalogue wall markings. I’m sure other phobias have similar unconscious afflictions, such as a phobia of clowns causing one to catalogue split-second clips of the beginnings of McDonald’s commercials.
This type of fear cataloguing helps make living with fears and phobias easier. It helps with horror films and television, as well. The one medium that I can think of that has managed to create consistently scary content is the video game. Horror and thriller genre video games have begun to take into account this fear catalogue. Games like Remedy’s story-intensive thriller Alan Wake—a game I would highly recommend for it’s incredible use of narrative—have worked in a minor random event mechanic to create certain unpredictable encounters to keep you on the edge of your seat, but must still have certain events be set in order to advance the story. Other games like Valve’s Left 4 Dead or Parsec Productions’ Slender: The Eight Pages have created engines that randomize the fear-inducing enemy location(s) so that players never know when they might be attacked. Whatever method the developers choose, they do their best to make it so that the players cannot catalogue the events of their game. It’s for this reason that these video games can be replayed and are consistently frightening to the player, no matter how many times one plays them, and why many of them, especially of the horror genre, become so viral.
I’d encourage all of you to play these video games if you get a chance to. Don’t let your fear keep you from enjoying them (unless the consequential fear would be more harmful). More generally, don’t ever let your fears prevent you from enjoying life. While my phobia of spiders merely keeps me on my toes and keeps my walls clean, other fears can cause people to avoid opportunities that they could find to be incredibly enjoyable. Go out and live your life, and don’t let fear get in your way. (Although, pro tip: a healthy dose of fear can keep you safe.)
Wishing you all an enjoyable, chances-taken day,
I’m Michael, and this is my life.
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