A few weeks ago I mentioned how, as a child, I was afraid of everything. Oddly enough, I wasn’t afraid of the dark most of the time. But every so often I’d wake in the darkest hours of the night, terrified for no reason I could understand. I couldn’t tie the fear to a dream, or to any particular possibility: I just found myself flooded with intense dread. I learned early on that waking my parents at such times would only lead to a scolding, so I would suffer through the fear until exhaustion took over and I went back to sleep. Some time in my twenties, these night time episodes ceased. I’ve never understood what caused them, or why they went away. But I’ll never forget how it felt to be alone and frightened in the dark.

I know these kinds of fears aren’t unusual, especially in children. We’ve all heard of, or experienced, the certainty that there’s a monster under the bed or in the closet, regardless of what we could see when the lights were on. We’ve all woken to the proverbial bump in the night, and either investigated until our worries were soothed, or huddled under the covers until the moment passed. 

These days my fears – even the ones that keep me awake at night – have a lot more to do with the prosaic concerns of daily life, and the horrors strutting around in full daylight, than with anything I think might be hiding in the dark. I’ve made friends with enough spirits, and talked to enough ghosts, that I don’t worry very much about supernatural nasties. In fact a lot of my favorite stories are about the exact things we so often fear as children: the monsters in the shadows, the things that haunt dark and abandoned places. The best horror asks who the real monsters are, and its rarely the things that go bump in the night.

So this week I’m excited to creatively explore the “irrational” fears we all experience at some point or other in our lives. It’ll be a nice break from my very rational, very real fears.

Questions to ponder:

What were you afraid of as a child, but not as an adult? Do you know how you got over that fear?

Are there still things you’re afraid of that don’t make sense to you? How do you navigate those fears in your day to day life?

Do any of your old or existing fears have a story behind them? Is there away you could use that story as creative fuel?

Photo by Jon Butterworth, courtesy of Unsplash.

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