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Why do holes horrify me?

mosaicscience.com

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Re: Why do holes horrify me?

#51

Post by booleandilemma »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #26
Buttons840 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that trypophobia is more than just a social contagion. I personally had physical reactions of disgust and an unusual desire to destroy Lotus seed pods the first time I saw them. I wanted to put them on the cement and smash and grind them with my shoe until they were a fine paste. This was before I had ever heard the word "trypophobia". The only thing in nature I've found to trigger me is Lotus seed pods. Unli…

> Lotus seed pods Should've read the rest of your comment before googling that. I didn't expect as strong a reaction as I just had upon seeing those. Deeply unsettling.

I’m curious to Google it and at the same time afraid...

Re: Why do holes horrify me?

#52

Post by Buttons840 »

booleandilemma wrote: post #51
TeMPOraL wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Lotus seed pods Should've read the rest of your comment before googling that. I didn't expect as strong a reaction as I just had upon seeing those. Deeply unsettling.

I’m curious to Google it and at the same time afraid...

Don't be afraid. It is a plant. A green-leaf garden variety plant. The seed pod is harmless, even if its shape is unsettling.

Re: Why do holes horrify me?

#53

Post by corobo »

kstrauser wrote: post #46
toomanybeersies wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's the picture I'm thinking of, it's actually a photo of a girls knees after she was made to kneel on frozen peas as a punishment. If you Google "Kneeling On Frozen Peas" you can find articles about it.

No, that’s not the one. This was definitely shopped to depict occupied holes in a person.

I remember my first experience with the fear of holes in things being a lotus seed pod shopped onto a boob, with the claim it was an infection or parasite of some sort

Re: Why do holes horrify me?

#54

Post by taneq »

limomium wrote: post #49
taneq wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the thing, most "example images" aren't just a bunch of holes or circles (I've never heard anyone claim security mesh or a half-cooked pancake are horrifying, although apparently crumpets are a known trigger?). They're photos (either shopped or real) of something that looks like a gnarly parasite infection. Disliking that is not 'phobia', it's legitimately yuck.

It's not merely a 'dislike' though. I've had arachnophobia (spiders). It feels like an intense, paranoid, startling horror which demands visual attention and quick jumping away of the body. If I know there's a spider nearby, I must be able to see it from a safe distance. I have trypophobia (holes). It feels like my skin is crawling, like I'm being eaten alive from the inside, like my very essence of being is being vi…

Fair, and I should have added a rider that "if you're actively incapable of dealing with such things, then that's not dislike, that's a phobia."

Please don't feel obliged to answer this, but - is it only biological-looking pictures that trigger this? Or do you get it from clearly non-biological things (eg. security mesh, ventilation grills, cheesegraters) as well?

Re: Why do holes horrify me?

#55

Post by oarabbus_ »

hprotagonist wrote: post #2

social contaigon is a weird, weird thing. I have always understood /r/trypophobia to be a deep in-joke, and the earliest i can find reference to the idea at all is 2005: https://web.archive.org/web/20090316071914/http://www.geocit... and that smells tongue-in-cheek too.

You're utterly off. It evokes a strong reaction of disgust and horror in many people.

Re: Why do holes horrify me?

#57

Post by scruple »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #26
Buttons840 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that trypophobia is more than just a social contagion. I personally had physical reactions of disgust and an unusual desire to destroy Lotus seed pods the first time I saw them. I wanted to put them on the cement and smash and grind them with my shoe until they were a fine paste. This was before I had ever heard the word "trypophobia". The only thing in nature I've found to trigger me is Lotus seed pods. Unli…

> Lotus seed pods Should've read the rest of your comment before googling that. I didn't expect as strong a reaction as I just had upon seeing those. Deeply unsettling.

The small, oval shaped lakes that you can find littering satellite imagery of northern Siberia, northern Alaska, etc... Those are where I first discovered that these sorts of pictures induce anxiety in me and that there's even a name for it. Unsettling is a good word to describe the feeling it elicits.

Re: Why do holes horrify me?

#58

Post by JKCalhoun »

khendron wrote: post #16
vesche wrote: post #13

Not even clicking on this article because I know it's about trypophobia and I'm afraid of seeing the pictures!

There actually are no triggering images. I guess they want trypophobics to be able to read it.

Ummm, just don't click any of the links in the article though.

Re: Why do holes horrify me?

#59

Post by executesorder66 »

hnick wrote: post #33
Buttons840 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that trypophobia is more than just a social contagion. I personally had physical reactions of disgust and an unusual desire to destroy Lotus seed pods the first time I saw them. I wanted to put them on the cement and smash and grind them with my shoe until they were a fine paste. This was before I had ever heard the word "trypophobia". The only thing in nature I've found to trigger me is Lotus seed pods. Unli…

I wouldn't always call it a phobia, they look unnerving to me too. The way I've always interpreted it is that it looks like and reminds us of an infected pimple/abscess/parasite/something growing under the skin where it shouldn't be, coupled with enough empathy or imagination to picture it happening to us. The natural reaction is then disgust and aversion. It's just a result of the way our brains are built, similar t…

Interesting. I would call it a phobia, because after looking up images of lotus seed pods, I had no reaction to it at all. I can see how someone would associate it with an insect nest or something, but it doesn't bother me at all.

Re: Why do holes horrify me?

#60

Post by wruza »

cc-d wrote: post #35
kstrauser wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps it's a local thing. If you're around guinea worms, you evolve to be afraid of their signs, maybe? Not everyone is afraid of spiders or snakes, but there's a good evolutionary reason to be, so maybe people who aren't afraid of them are from areas without extremely venomous versions?

> Not everyone is afraid of spiders or snakes, but there's a good evolutionary reason to be, so maybe people who aren't afraid of them are from areas without extremely venomous versions? This reaction is almost certainly a taught cultural behaviour. In some areas of the world, snakes/spiders are considered food sources. Many of these areas, such as the amazon, also contain the highest concentrations of venomous speci…

>taught cultural behaviour

There was a video that presented images very quickly and asked you to count spiders and snakes percentages among innocent pics. Most respondents (me included) evaluated to at least 50%, while real ratio was something like 1/5 or less. Also, when you watch it, it feels like snake-spider-snake-grass-spider-snake. You may not run in panic, but you do see it.

Cannot find the video, and it was probably a gif, afair.

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