Do You Have an Irrational Fear?

0:00 Here we go.

0:01 Stand by.

0:02 Three, two, one.

0:05 The thinking atheist. It's not a person. It's a symbol. An idea.

0:10 The population of atheists in this country is going through the roof.

0:13 Rejecting faith. Pursuing knowledge. challenging the sacred if i tell.

0:19 The truth it's because i tell the truth not because i put my hand on a book and made a wish.

0:25 And working together for a more rational world.

0:28 Take the risk of thinking for yourself much more happiness truth beauty and wisdom will come to you that.

0:34 Way assume nothing question everything and start thinking this is the thinking atheist podcast Hosted by Seth Andrews.

0:56 I do welcome your calls. Today we're talking about phobias and fears because it is the month of October. It is my favorite month of the year. Halloween really is a way of life for a great many of us. And I'm not sure where all that comes from. Many have asked me with my Puritan background. How is it that you are just so fascinated by horror films and Halloween and Halloween decorations? Is it a backlash effect? Because things were so Puritan when I was being raised. We weren't allowed to do any costumes with blood because blood was sacred. It gave us life. We talked a lot about the blood of Jesus. I know that sounds odd, but you couldn't do Dracula with blood coming out of your mouth and stuff like that. We just were forbidden.

1:42 There were no witches around. No devils, no demons, no warlocks, no wizards. Nothing like that, right? Because that's witchcraft. But, you know, we did get away with Frankenstein. You know, some of the classic hammer monsters. Bible characters. When I was very young, those were extremely welcome. Would you like to dress up this year? Be a Bible character. And they would take us to a religious party. You know, some function. But even then, when I was younger... On Channel 8, they used to air these old-school scary movies.

2:16 I mean, classic Bela Lugosi Dracula. We'd watch Frankenstein and Gargoyles and Creature from the Black Lagoon. It was called Plenty Scary Movie is the name of the show. You can still see the intro on YouTube. I looked it up. It's KTUL Channel 8 Plants Like Plenty Scary Movie. And I remember they had this cutaway scene from Renfield, from the Bela Lugosi 1930 Dracula, where he's standing in the stairwell in the ship when they open up the hatch, and he's like.

2:49 And it just burned itself into my mind. And even though I lost countless nights of sleep. I lost so much sleep because I would watch stuff that would scare the shit out of me. As a very young child, I was still gravitating back to it, which is a weird contrast to the rather benign entertainment that I had in the rest of my life. What's the psychology behind that? I'm not sure I know, but I'm that guy. Not a huge gore hound. I think gore is often very lazy, but... Scary stuff. Things that go bump in the night. I've been a huge fan of these indie storytelling enterprises like Back Rooms. And I know the new Resident Evil film is supposed to be quite good. I'm not a big fan of the previous incarnations.

3:37 And I'm always in on conversations about what drives us. Our minds, our perceptions of the world, the things that scare us. Now, I have pulled up a few articles about phobias, and there are categories of phobias. And I want to know what scares you, especially if it's irrational, something wacky, something that's, you know, it's not garden variety.

4:02 But I pulled up from the Perlman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania a list of various phobias and some explanations. So that'll be the primer as I wait for you to populate the switchboard. A specific phobia. An intense, persistent, irrational fear of a specific object, situation, or activity or person. Usually the fear is proportionally greater than the actual danger or threat associated People with specific phobias are highly distressed about having the fear and often will go to great lengths to avoid the object or situation in question. Examples of phobia. A teenager with a dog phobia. avoids going into the houses of friends and family who own dogs. A businessman with a fear of

4:50 flying loses out on a promotion because he simply refuses to travel. A woman with a needle phobia avoids getting blood work from her primary care physician even though it is deemed necessary for her physical health. A young man with a fear of enclosed spaces takes the stairs every day on the 11th floor to avoid taking the elevators.

5:14 I don't know that I've ever had a fear of the elevator. Have you heard that myth? And it is a myth that if you are in an elevator and all of a sudden the cable snaps and that sucker begins to fall, it free falls from the 25th floor down to the basement, that the way to survive is at the last second you jump up in the air.

5:34 And then somehow this negates the gravity and you will not get squished like a bug. That is absolute crap. I think Mythbusters did a debunking, a busting of this particular bug. We used to think that. Look, if this thing ever falls at the last possible second, jump up in the air and then you will survive. I used to be a little weird about escalators, especially the real tall, narrow ones. I have an unusual and totally irrational fear of tsunamis. I live in Oklahoma. Someone explain why this flips me on. When I stay near a coast, near a coastline near the ocean, I seriously want a hotel room that is three or four stories high, if possible.

6:27 Because I have this irrational fear that there will be an 8.8 level earthquake 100 miles off of the shore. And, you know, the floor of the ocean will shift up as it did with the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2000. What year was that? 2011? 2011. And all of a sudden, a massive wave is going to come and there's nowhere to run. There's nowhere to escape. And I will be one of hundreds of thousands of people who perish horribly.

6:57 And even though I know I'm not in a geographically active area, I know that there's no indication geologically that something's going to happen. There is a primal part of me that's terrified. Natalie thinks it's hysterical. She thinks it's hysterical. And I admit it's irrational. I guess that's part of the fun. So, I'm just saying, tsunamis, they flip me out.

7:24 Maybe it's a lack of control. It's the fact that tsunamis have done such massive real-world damage. It's not like it's a fake threat. This planet very often is out to kill us, is it not? So, maybe it's not an irrational fear, hmm? Maybe it's not an irrational fear. Specific phobias. There are certain risk factors, according to the Mayo Clinic. Your age. Specific phobias can first show up when you're a kid, typically by the age of 10, but they can also occur later in life. Your relatives may have an impact on you. If a family member has a specific phobia or anxiety, you're more likely to develop it. It could be something passed down to you from a blood relative, or you learn it by watching how a specific family member reacts to an object or

8:16 a situation. Your temperament. If you're more sensitive to anxiety or you're more reserved or negative than what's typical, you may have a phobia issue. There's a bad experience in your life. Something distressing took place. You were trapped in an elevator. You were attacked by an animal. And from then on, you are irrationally afraid. You hear about bad experiences, the plane crash, etc. That can cause the phobia to start.

8:47 And avoidance. So if something does bother you, by avoiding it, it actually becomes a bigger and bigger problem. A greater threat. Because you have not been addressing it, you have been already running the other direction. There's a ton of examples of different types of fears and phobias. And I think we have to say that evolutionarily, our fears have often kept us alive. How often has fear been an effective survival mechanism? You and I are out in the African savannah.

9:19 And we hear the rustling in the trees. We fear it is a lion, a tiger, or whatever. Our fear causes us to retreat to safety. And that fear keeps us safe. And even if we're wrong, what really have we lost? And we've talked a lot about the type 1 and type 2 errors when it comes to our fears. I would like to know what scares you. So I'm going to dial in to the switchboard myself and speak to a web caller. I don't see a name. What do I call you?

9:50 Hello, Seth.

9:51 Yes.

9:51 Hi.

9:52 What's your name?

9:52 Hi.

9:53 My name is Dulandu. It's a complicated name from South Africa.

9:57 Dulandu. Welcome to the show. We're talking about phobias.

10:01 I just want to say I'm such a big fan. I've been a longtime fan. I just watched your streams about the unholy trinity. That was hilarious and awesome.

10:09 Thank you.

10:09 Nice to see you guys together and everything. Yeah, you talk about irrational fears. I also was raised very religious, very evangelical, you know. So we have a bunch of these irrational fears. Luckily, science cleared up most of it. But I still find myself like haunted houses. It's still an interesting and exciting experience.

10:29 You know.

10:29 And I was wondering, how do you feel about the supernatural poltergeist type of stuff? Would you be able to sleep in a room with the, you know, like the Annabelle doll in the room?

10:42 I would.

10:43 Natalie and I had this conversation. Now, she is a believer in there's something that may get us in the night, right? If we were to get serious.

10:51 Oh, yeah.

10:51 So if I brought the Annabelle doll in, not the real one, which is just the Raggedy Ann doll, which is not scary, but I mean, the one in the James Wan films. Oh, boy. She would lose her mind. She would be like, oh, hell no. At least she would make me take it into the other room. But I am totally game. I would love to stay in a quote unquote haunted house. Don't judge me, but I have actually said I would stay in a murder house.

11:17 You know, those ones they turn into tourist attractions. I don't know. How do you feel about it?

11:22 No, I haven't had the opportunity, but it still creeps me out. Everything tells me it's not stupid. It's all BS. It's not real. But yeah, I guess, you know, it's part of that religious trauma you've been talking about.

11:39 I don't think it's just about religion. I'm not saying I wouldn't be freaked out. There used to be a show on that was hosted by Linda Blair 20 some years ago called The Scariest Houses in America. And they would grab a family and they would pay them like $ 10, 000 if they could spend all night inside a haunted castle.

11:58 And so they would take them to like Scotland and all these exotic places with these supposedly very haunted castles. And they would shut off almost all the lights. And they would separate the family. So you had the sister in this haunted bedroom, and you put the dad down in the basement, and you put somebody else up in the tower, and you split them all up, and you rig them with cameras, and then everybody leaves. I would freak out. I would be genuinely scared. I would hear every rustle. My brain would be hyperactivated. And I think that doesn't even require religion. Whatever was going on, no matter what was happening logically, I'm sure I would be freaked out. I mean, wouldn't you? Yes, yes.

12:41 No, totally. It would definitely take me a moment to adjust to the whole environment and the stages. It plays a lot on your mind. I wanted to ask you, do you also play like haunted scare games? You play a bit of games.

12:56 Yeah, I used to. I haven't had much time recently, but I love Phasmophobia and I've played many of the Resident Evil games. I love a good immersive ghost game. Some people are like, well, how could you be scared at a movie about demons or ghosts if you don't believe in ghosts? And for me, it's about storytelling and atmosphere.

13:17 Let's say I see the first Conjuring film. And there's a scene about 40 minutes into it where the mother is locked in the stairwell and the ghost wants to play hide and clap. It is a terrifying scene. Now, I don't have to believe in ghosts to be able to suspend disbelief and to be creeped out by the idea of being locked in a dark basement stairwell with a couple of hands popping out of nowhere. I mean, I think that's pretty effective.

13:44 So, yeah. Have you perhaps seen that new Obsession movie?

13:49 Oh, yeah. Yeah, he was made for like a buck and a half, and it is so effective and so creepy.

13:58 That's good.

13:59 Just loved it.

13:59 The actress lady, yes, she nails it. terrifyingly nails it.

14:03 So do me a favor. Tell me, is there a part of South African culture that is kind of superstitious, gets weird about ghosts and witches and devils?

14:15 Very much. So we have a bunch of mixed cultures. And so a lot of different, like from Asian influences, obviously African influences, and then, yeah, the colonized English and Dutch and German stuff mixed in all together. My mother was terrified for, of course, my mother. She's terrified for the voodoo magic that she said black people can cast on you. You must watch out for that.

14:38 Oh, so we've got a little apartheid thrown in. We got a little racism thrown in on that.

14:44 Oh, man.

14:45 It just gets worse the deeper you dig.

14:48 But I mean, that makes, like, in terms of human nature, that makes partial sense, right? Tribalism, you have an in-group, you have an out-group, you're scared of the other with a capital O. And in a great many cultures, the other is a person who has a different skin color, they're from a different place, they have a different culture, they do different things, they believe in a different god or nun. I mean, it makes a lot of sense, I think. Yeah.

15:12 So yeah, like, literally... My mother is like the American Conservative Party. Like Muslims have their own curses that come from, and then the Africans, they have their own curses, and then Indian people, and they each have a thing. And it's like deeply ingrained into our culture, unfortunately. It's just always been taught from generation to generation. But we are shaking it loose, I must say. We are much better than we were just 30 years ago.

15:41 Well, as you're Shaking it loose, apparently a lot of it's drifting over this way. So we're making up for all of that. All right, my friend.

15:50 We've gone full circle.

15:51 I appreciate you very much. It's been a fun chat with you. And you have a happy Halloween, okay?

15:58 You too. Thank you, Sam. Good day.

16:00 All right, we'll see you later. I also have a weird phobia about turning doorknobs to check a door is locked. And it's linked to a dream I had when I was 12-ish. I often would be the last person awake in my house. And so my job would be to go and make sure all the doors are locked before I went to bed. And, you know, you tug on the door to make sure that the lock has snapped in, you know, the deadbolt. And in my dream, I would do this door and it was locked and I would do this door and it was locked. And in the third door, which was the door to the backyard, it was not locked and it would swing open and there was a shadowy figure standing in the door and he looked at me. And then I would wake up. Same dream.

16:42 I must have had it three or four times. And so I've carried that with me. I've got Corey, who is dialing in from area code 402. Did I get your name right, Corey?

16:54 Yep, that's right.

16:55 Welcome to the show. We're talking about fears and phobias. What do you think?

17:00 I know you probably hear this all the time, but it was the fear of hell. And I was just going to tell you that. Like, have you ever listened to those YouTube pastors that claim that they have, like, been to hell and like god took them on like a tour of hell and they give like all the details and they talk about how they're like in a prison cell and there's demons like torturing you because they they say that you're like made in the image of god and they so they hate the way you look and there's like all this torture going on and they like just go on and on like some of them go on for like an hour talking about the details of like how they died and they like went to hell have you ever heard of anything like that.

17:39 All the time. All the time. And it was posited as proof that hell is real. You know, they'd bring some guy in and he'd say, I saw the white light. And then I felt myself descending down. And there were, you know, there were moans and wails and it was unbelievably hot. And then sometimes either God gave them the tour of hell or Satan would give them the tour of hell to show them what was in store for then they would wake up and their job was to come tell the rest of us how awful it would be, turn or burn, repent for the day is at hand.

18:15 And yeah, this is, there was an entire genre of people who, and they exist even today. Were you a religious person at one point?

18:23 Oh yeah.

18:24 Raised Christian.

18:26 Like hellfire Christianity or what?

18:28 Yeah.

18:28 Hellfire, you know, just all the classic stuff. But, um, Yeah, just some of the details that some of those guys give in their stories. And, you know, some of them, they say, like, Jesus finally shows up. And I saw a white light. And then Jesus came to finally rescue me and take me out of there. And he just wanted to show me, like, how bad it was. And then I asked him, like, when he's coming back, and he said, soon.

18:54 Soon. Look to the east. My return is imminent.

19:00 What do you think it is, Seth? Do you think these people are just, like, making this stuff up? Or, like, some of these people seem so genuine, like, when they're telling their story about how they went to hell. I mean, what do they do? Because this is, like, really freaking some people out.

19:13 I think it varies by person. I mean, the brain is a wacky place. It's a pinball machine. And I think you get people ramped up, highly emotional. You get the power of suggestion, perhaps decades of indoctrination, perhaps even add some substances into the mix. I don't know. I think there's a lot of reasons people think what they think.

19:35 Did you have to overcome your fear of hell? Did it take a while?

19:39 No, I still freaked out about it all the time. I don't know if that's something I'll ever get over.

19:44 That's common, by the way. Your logical brain says, I know it's bunk. but in your bones, it's still branded onto you and you still wrestle with it.

19:54 I just can't even imagine passing away and then waking up and being like, oh my gosh, it was all real. And just knowing that you have to stay there forever until the end of time. Well, forever.

20:05 It's freaky, man. Part of my journey out was, if nothing else, first of all, how much it controls people and how useful that has been to the people in power. But two, the idea that an omnibenevolent God would even think of a hell and would ever torture anybody, that immediately disqualifies it. And that has helped me in my journey to understand how it's been utilized and that it makes no moral sense. But it's a journey for everybody.

20:31 I wish you the best on yours, and I hope the rest of the month is absolutely fantastic and scary in the best way for you.

20:39 Okay?

20:39 Thank you so much for taking my call.

20:41 R.N.

20:41 Ross says that you could commit the most heinous atrocities for your whole entire life and still not deserve an eternity of hellfire.

20:49 It doesn't make any logical sense either. Carl Sagan is in hell, but Jeffrey Dahmer, who accepted Jesus in prison, is in heaven. It makes absolutely no sense.

21:03 There's no way to make it better and get out so you can be better. It's just relentless torture forever. It doesn't make any sense.

21:12 Well, it sounds like you're already ahead of the game on that one. Thanks for the call. Be safe out there, okay?

21:17 Thank you, Seth.

21:17 Appreciate it.

21:18 All right. Have a good day.

21:19 Bye.

21:20 I'm reminded of, there was a classic, I guess you call it a hymn. I don't know when this was first written, but the hymn is called Poor Man's Lazarus, and it's drawn from the book of Luke. And the lyrics are exactly what he was talking about. Poor man, Lazarus, sick and disabled, dip your finger in the water, come and cool my tongue, because I'm tormented in the flame.

21:46 That's how they sold it to us. You'll be begging for a drop of water, and yet you will get none in the depths of the fiery hell. When I come back, I'm going to talk about some bizarre phobias, just wacky stuff that'll make you smile, and more of your calls coming up next. I'm going to butcher the names of some of these phobias, but these are kind of off the radar from the mainstream. And they're fascinating to hear about. There is a fear of long words.

22:31 And of course, the phobia is named with a massively long word. Hippopotamonstrosesquipedaliphobia. That's brutal. The fear of long words. There is a fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth. Arachibutrophobia. There's a fear of being without your cell phone. That's nomophobia. Xanthophobia is a fear of the color yellow. Pogonophobia is the fear of beards. Ablutophobia, the fear of taking a bath or cleaning yourself in any way. And if you have a fear of making decisions, uh-oh, you suffer from decidophobia. There are also other phobias out there.

23:20 I'll skip the names, but the fear of money, fear of the number eight, Fear of balloons, fear of children, fear of belly buttons, fear of string, fear of mirrors. And of course, there has to be a phobophobia, which is the fear of phobias. Well, of course, that would have to exist. I see another web call from Sarah this time. Sarah, welcome. Glad to have you. Are you there?

23:50 Can you hear me?

23:51 I can indeed, Sarah. We're heading toward Halloween talking about fears and phobias. What do you think?

23:58 I do have a very irrational fear of looking out the window and having someone maybe looking back at me. That's like my biggest fear.

24:07 In a house, car, somewhere else?

24:10 Like in a house, when you open up your curtain, say you open up your curtain one night, And you're just looking out the window and maybe I've been watching too many scary movies, but yeah, somebody's just looking back at you.

24:23 You peel back the window curtain and all of a sudden there's a face. I'm not trying to make it worse. I'm just painting the picture, Sarah.

24:31 You get it.

24:31 You get it.

24:32 And this is my first time, so thank you for making it easy for me.

24:36 Oh yeah, you're amazing. You're amazing. Well, I wish you no unwelcome faces in your windows in the weeks ahead. And I hope you have a happy Halloween, okay?

24:45 All right.

24:46 I appreciate it.

24:46 Thank you.

24:47 See you later. I remember my twin sister. And yes, I have a twin. She was babysitting in a house across the street. And the house, they had this big, it wasn't a log cabin house, but it was that style, lots of wood. And the downstairs was all these really big open windows, and they had no coverings on the windows.

25:09 It was just wide open. So there really was, especially at night, no privacy downstairs. You could see right inside their living room. And she hates horror movies. For some reason, she starts watching When a Stranger Calls. And this was even the edited version. I'm sure it was on television. So they had to cut tons of stuff out. But this is the film where the babysitter is downstairs. You know, the old trope. Babysitter's downstairs and the phone rings and the voice says, have you checked the children? And she freaks out. Oh my God, somebody's prank calling me. Before you know it, she's liaising with the police. And they're like, we're going to try to trace the call. And they're driving to the house. And he calls back, have you

25:55 checked the children? And of course, we all know by now that the calls were coming from inside the house. The killer was upstairs the whole time using a different line. You can see the shadow of the door opening. It's very effective. Carol Kane in the babysitter role. Well, my sister is in this house with exposed windows babysitting by herself.

26:19 So she calls and she's like, I need you to come over. I can't be alone. So I had to hop on my bike and go all the way down and sit with her for the rest of the night until the parents got back because it totally freaked her out. Anne is dialing in from 951. Glad you're here, Anne. Welcome.

26:41 Hi, Seth.

26:42 How are you?

26:42 I'm so good. I love this time of year. And I like talking about scary stuff. I don't know, Anne. Do you have a fear, phobia, something?

26:53 Well, I want to start out by saying that we spoke the other day when you're talking about the death penalty issue. And I remember talking to you and saying that I would think of like old photos of people, you know, going to lynchings and making a day of it and making it a spectator sport. And then the next day, they announced there's going to be a public execution.

27:15 Yeah, it's very relevant conversation. I saw there was someone who had posted, and I agree that the execution isn't about justice as much as it's about priming the public for a culture of violence.

27:29 Yeah, and I think that a lot of fears that I thought were irrational have become rational in some ways. Like, I used to fear, because I'm from California, I used to fear giant, big waves. When I'm feeling overwhelmed and everything, I dream that giant waves are coming at me. And then the last few days, they've been actually showing videos on YouTube of these large waves hitting Long Beach, Newport Beach, and houses and going into the ocean. And I'm like, oh, my gosh. And that's like a fear come true, even though I don't live near there.

28:06 That's scary. I wouldn't have you seen those videos of the tankers that are out in the middle of the ocean during a massive storm and these hundred foot waves just about break the ships in half. And I'm just like, oh, hell no. Never, not ever, ever. And I would be terrified to be anywhere near that. I'd be overwhelmed. And absolutely mortified. So I don't think that's irrational. Anything else kind of give you the willies?

28:33 Spiders.

28:34 Well, I don't like horror movies, but spiders. No, I'm terrified of spiders. I'm constantly trying to, you know, keep my house free of spiders. It's really hard here, but there's black widows all over the place.

28:50 Well, that's common as well. There are evolutionary reasons. For our fear of arachnids and reptiles, etc., it doesn't mean that what we do to them is deserved. But there's been a lot of ink spilled about how, again, when we see something that might have been venomous and we didn't know the difference, we would often overreact because that was part of our survival mechanism. And, of course, that's one of the reasons now where when people see a snake, even a harmless, like a grass snake, they jump on the couch and lose their minds and flip out. And often they kill the poor snake, you know. And getting educated about that stuff has actually evolved my own thinking about it. So now when I see the snake, I

29:29 just scoop them up and send them out and tell them to have a nice life. So was there anything else, Ann, before I move on?

29:36 No, just an irrational fear I used to have, like if I would hang my hand. over the bed when I'm sleeping, that something would come out from under the bed and like bite me or grab me.

29:46 No, that's not irrational. That's actually survival, that there are things under the bed and you can't dangle. If you dangle... you are in danger. And I don't mean to frighten you, but if anything, ankle or below is out of the covers, dangling off the end of the bed, it may get eaten. And so you should be safe. So you just go easy out there.

30:09 Okay.

30:09 Protect yourself.

30:10 All right. All right.

30:12 Thank you.

30:13 See you later.

30:13 Okay.

30:14 Bye. Can't leave a foot or leg dangling off the end of the bed. Don't people know? There are things with little spindly fingers, and then they crawl up outside of the bedpost. That's a public service. Don't, don't, do not. Donovan, thank you so much for dialing in from 902. Are you there?

30:41 Yeah, I'm here. Welcome.

30:42 Beers and phobias, what do you think?

30:45 So it's been a thing for like as long as I can remember that it's not like the perfectly normal illnesses that air the crap out of me. Like I know the flu kills people. I know cancer is a thing that happens. But now like Ebola virus nowhere near me. Never been a case where I live.

31:02 Terrifying.

31:03 Well, it's a terrifying disease.

31:07 Right.

31:07 But it's like the likelihood, the probability of it happening to me is completely irrational. Things like that, and even getting a version of the plague, way more likely. Nope, that one. Or rare genetic illnesses. You're just going to get Alzheimer's, by the way. You're going to lose your mind and not be you anymore. And it's going to happen gradually.

31:30 Nope.

31:30 Don't want that.

31:32 I have that fear.

31:33 No, no, no.

31:33 We've got, I mean, Natalie's mother is going through the Alzheimer's journey. And we've had that conversation. The loss of identity, the loss of autonomy, the long goodbye. That's terrifying. Anything else kind of make you crazy?

31:47 No.

31:48 Mostly just that stuff. I mean, right now, I think most of my phobias are pretty rational. It's the state of the world. It's the, you know, the economy, the amount of truth denial, etc.

32:00 Yeah, well, some of that's understandable. And I think our fear may help keep us alive. Hopefully it doesn't dominate our lives.

32:07 And I love horror, like the horror movies and stuff. I like being scared on my own terms.

32:12 You're safe. Well, you walk in and it's a roller coaster and you know you are not in danger, even when you're kind of freaked out. And at the end, everybody laughs and high fives and goes on with the rest of their life. It's a different type of fear.

32:25 Okay, confession, you got me there. Roller coasters and generally height, not afraid to fly, but getting on a roller coaster, no way.

32:33 No, you and I share that. I almost passed out on the Camp Snoopy coaster at the Mall of America 20 years ago. I will never get on a roller coaster, ever, ever again. I appreciate the call, and happy Halloween, Donovan. Take care, okay?

32:48 Happy Halloween, Tom.

32:50 See you later. I was looking at a list of common phobias. I'm going to try to pronounce some of these. We've got acrophobia, the fear of heights, agoraphobia. Fear of situations where escape might be difficult or help unavailable. Isn't agoraphobia where you can't leave your house? I always thought that was agoraphobia. Arachnophobia, of course, fear of spiders. Also the title of a movie starring Jeff Daniels from the 1990s. Astrophobia, the fear of thunder and lightning, which my dog Linus definitely has. Claustrophobia, enclosed spaces. Is it sino or sinophobia? C-Y-N-O.

33:34 The fear of dogs. Glossophobia, the fear of public speaking. You know what's funny? I used to have that. which is so weird because I've been a public speaker for so many decades. But back when I was in high school, I was kind of a student leader type. And part of what came with that package is you had to stand on stage and do shit in front of your school.

33:58 And when I would go on stage, my nervousness would exhibit itself in three ways. My palms would sweat. My leg would shake, just one. It would shake so much that I almost locked my knees. And if you lock your knees, sometimes you cut off blood flow and some people will pass out and fall over. That never happened to me, but I would shake and I would have to brace myself on stage. And my voice would flutter because my breath would be like, like I couldn't get a full breath of air in. And they would keep having me go up to make announcements and talk about the student council thing or promote whatever was happening with the school musical or whatever. And for the first year, I was a mess. I wanted to do it. I

34:47 wanted to be good at it. But it took a long time to overcome that. And it kept me up at night. I mean, I was so traumatized by, I don't want to go. I don't want to screw up. I don't want to embarrass myself. And, uh, Finally, I got to the point where I was comfortable and then I developed the rhythm of it and I was able to go up without being nervous. And people ask if I ever get nervous before I public speak today, and I just simply do not. I have sometimes a sense of adrenaline before I go on stage. I feel that little bit of a rush. I want it to go well, especially with new material. I hope they take the journey.

35:23 I hope they respond. I hope they laugh at all the jokes. I hope they're entertained. I hope But I don't feel any sense of fear. Sometimes I'm more comfortable on stage than I am in other parts of my life. Isn't that weird? I've got Danny dialing in from Florida. Danny, welcome. You're on the air. What's up?

35:43 I just want to talk about some OCD phobias possibly today. It's my first time joining the call, so I'm super nervous. But I watch you all the time.

35:52 Love your stuff.

35:52 You're very kind. So you have obsessive compulsive disorder?

35:57 Yes.

35:57 And some of the fears you had brought up, I still have to check under my bed before I go to bed to make sure that nothing is... Like you were saying earlier, right? Maybe that's not irrational. But I also.

36:09 I don't know.

36:11 I check under my bed.

36:12 I have to make sure my door's locked three times before I actually am in bed.

36:16 Phobias of.

36:17 I think the phobia is that someone will break in and, I don't know, do something. But I have really bad phobias of that. I have phobias of opening up to people and being emotionally vulnerable, stuff like that.

36:26 You know what I mean?

36:28 Can you tell me what OCD is like? How does it manifest in your life? And you can share as much as you want. Is it mostly about routine? You have to do something in a certain order, a certain way to be released, to be able to move on to the next thing in your life?

36:43 Yeah, it really just basically kind of keeps me a hermit, honestly. Because yeah, it keeps me doing the same thing over and over again. It keeps me waking up knowing that I can Like if anyone's up, I wait till they, like my roommates, if they're home, I'd rather wait until they leave the house to do their thing so that I can wake up with an empty house that I can chill in. Like, it's so particular. And if I don't do things right, like if, like today, someone knocked on the door and I was like, I'm closest to the door. And I thought it was, I wasn't announced of this. So I got like, oh my God, my schedule is being ruined. There's someone at the door. Like, it's just very, very annoying.

37:19 You know?

37:19 Wow.

37:20 Well, I hope it's not paralyzing for you. That grieves me, you know, the idea that you're not fully living life because of a fear.

37:28 I kind of agree. I know it is. It makes me want to, like, for me, I would say it stops me from opening up. I have a lot of like emotional phobia of being vulnerable to people and them judging me with scrutiny. But I would say that everything has been holding back. And my main thing that I do want to do, mainly from watching you guys, some of the religion, some of the philosophy stuff, is I honestly possibly want to go back to philosophy school. I don't know if that would be good, but it would help get past some of my phobias, you know?

37:52 You know, it's a process. A lot of it's exposure therapy. You know, you take one step out and you retreat and recover and then you take two steps out and you go back and recover and you just go out at your own pace a little more every day if possible and do your best. We do the best that we can with what we have. And I appreciate you sharing your specific circumstance and story with us. I find it fascinating.

38:16 Well, thank you so much for letting me call in and speak. I really appreciate it.

38:19 Oh, you did great. Take care of yourself. We'll see you later.

38:22 Thank you, you too. Bye-bye.

38:23 More collars and more phobias still to come. We continue our conversations next. Thank you for indulging me and my love for the spooky season. As we talk about the things that kind of creep us out, irrational fears, phobias, etc., And of course, our listeners are bringing a lot of those to the table today. Let's see. Mario dialing in from 714. Hi, Mario. What's up?

38:59 Hey, Seth. How's it going?

39:01 I'm well. Fears and phobias. What do you think?

39:05 Okay, this one might sound very silly, but it's very real. I'm actually scared of like lions or puma or a big cat walking through my neighborhood. So I drive everywhere and... Like if I'm walking through my neighborhood, I'm constantly thinking like, what if I just get randomly attacked by a big cat?

39:26 Can I ask what part of the world you live in roughly?

39:30 Garden Grove, California.

39:32 Is that big cat territory over there?

39:35 Not even close, no.

39:36 Yeah. So, I mean, this show's about irrational fears.

39:41 So.

39:42 A puma, a mountain lion, a tiger comes out and devours you when you're out walking the sidewalk in California. Did you see some kind of an animal attack in a film growing up or documentary series? Anything trigger this?

39:59 Probably the one case of the one crazy guy who let all his exotic animals out, maybe.

40:06 Crazy guy who let his exotic animals out. Doesn't ring a bell, but I have no doubt that it's happened.

40:15 I think we had like lions and other big cats and they were just roaming around here. Neighborhood, either Arizona or Texas, one of those two states.

40:25 Well, I'm reminded of this recent story out of Yorkshire in England where a guy, some 20-something, went into a tiger enclosure and the thing killed him. So, I mean, if I can be weird about tsunamis, hey, you can be weird about big cats. No judgment here.

40:42 Yeah, it's very, very weird, very random, but I'm terrified.

40:48 All right. Stay in the car and keep the windows up, lock your doors and scan the horizon for big cats. If that makes you feel safe, do what you got to do.

40:56 Okay.

40:57 All right.

40:58 That's exactly what I'll do.

40:59 All right. You have a, you have a nice one. We'll see you later. All right.

41:03 All right.

41:04 This has reminded me of an article that released in 2015. I'm just going to read part of this. Your cat may want to kill you now. We have talked a lot about the dangers of big cats. It's like those two people who decided they wanted to go have sex in a wildlife enclosure. They went out and said, you know what, we've got to go do it near the lions.

41:30 And I guess it's not funny, but they both got eaten. You know what I'm saying? This freaking Darwin Award. They went out, they got naked, they did it, and the lion said, what's that sound? Yummy. And then they ate the couple.

41:46 Okay.

41:47 From USA Today, from 2015, an article by Mallory Davis, people think of cats as cuddly. Research published in a psychology journal calls them neurotic and unstable. Researchers from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and the Bronx Zoo in New York compared the personalities of domestic house cats to those of four different types of wild cats. To better understand feline personalities, the researchers rated a number of animal behaviors on what psychologists call the big five human personality traits. Extroversion. agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness. Domestic house cats have similar personality structures to African lions with high inclinations toward dominance, impulsiveness, and neuroticism,

42:40 researchers found. It's what cats pretty much do on a daily basis. Things like being anxious, being timid, being excitable, being aggressive toward humans and each other. All of these characteristics you see in those cute little fuzzy house cats, you see them in lions. Well, when I look at cat, it's three in the morning and he will come up.

43:04 I have little cat stares and he will come up to me and he wants affection. I wake up and I know that he won't let me sleep. So I reach back and I start to like pet him around the shoulders. And I scratch the back of his sort of haunches there on his back. And then I scratch the top of his head. And then I take my fingers and I rub the side of his cheek. And he kind of rubs it back. And all of a sudden, at random moments, he will decide, I'm done. I've had enough.

43:38 And probably one out of ten times, he will go and bite me. Little asshole will bite me. And I was telling Natalie, if this story is true, If he was the size of a lion, tiger, cougar, whatever, and did that, I'm dead. I am Roy from Siegfried and Roy. I am literally bleeding out on the ground, and the only difference in the cat's behavior is its size. So in this case, I am thankful. He still messed me up.

44:12 Damn cat. putting Band-Aids on my hand three in the morning, and then he acts like it's my fault. Look, you overstimulated me, man. I just wanted 30 seconds of affection, not 35. What's the matter with you, he says. That's just my cat. Have you had a similar experience with your kitty? 678 Katie dialing in. Welcome to the show, Katie.

44:36 Glad you're here. What's going on?

44:38 Hi, Seth.

44:39 I don't have a phobia, but I did for a couple of days, and it gave me a real empathy on how devastating they can be and how easily they can happen. It was several years back, and I was reading meters for a utility company, so I was driving all over. And then one day, I'm going across this bridge, which for my area was kind of high and long, and I began to panic, and I couldn't wait. I thought I was going to die before I got off that bridge, and I couldn't figure this out. It came out of nowhere. And then the next day, I experienced the same thing, and it was growing with intensity. At one point, I was thinking of stopping the car and getting out and running, because there was just unbelievable.

45:24 Was it a tall bridge?

45:26 Well, for this area, it was. But this is northeast Georgia. We're not talking going across the gulf here.

45:32 Okay.

45:33 But I took some time to think about this, and I remembered several days before that I was driving in North Atlanta. I was on Jimmy Carter Boulevard, and I was on the overpass going over I-85, and the traffic stopped, and I was locked in on the bridge, and the traffic below me was just whizzing by, and it was causing the bridge to vibrate, which was unnerving, and I thought about it rationally. Well, I know that bridges, overpasses, and the type of structure is meant to flex the So it doesn't break. So I thought, okay, I got this.

46:11 But what I didn't realize, it had really got into my irrational brain or whatever, and it really did a number on me for a few days. I'm lucky. I was able to figure out what had happened to me and work myself out of this. But I know that for a lot of people, they don't get that insight. They don't have a chance or don't realize what happened to them And as time goes on, it just escalates.

46:39 Well, I'm glad you were able to deconstruct what happened. And I think it's a relatable story.

46:45 It was, but it also gave me an appreciation and an empathy for people who have these unreasonable fears.

46:52 Well, it was a fortuitous event in that regard, wasn't it? It kind of opened up your mind. Yeah. All right. Well, I appreciate your call very much. Thanks for bringing that to our attention. And be safe out there, okay, Katie?

47:04 You too.

47:05 All right, we'll see you. There is a name for this. I'm going to say it incorrectly, I'll bet. G-E-P-H-Y-R-O-phobia. Jeffyrophobia? Gephirophobia? I don't know how to say this. But it is a specific phobia characterized by the fear of bridges and tunnels, especially those that are older. And people who suffer from this may avoid routes that take them over bridges or through tunnels. I mean, I think we've all driven over some high, high, high, narrow bridges and gotten a little weird.

47:46 Come on. You know, you're up there and you're like, oh, my God, we are way up high. Then you see those videos of the ships with the tall masts that think that they can clear the bridges when they go underneath and they calculate it incorrectly. And then there goes the bridge. Yeah, we've all heard those stories. John dialing in from 603. Hi, John. Are you there?

48:09 Hey, how you doing, Seth?

48:10 Yeah, I'm here. Welcome to the show. Let's talk fears and phobias.

48:14 Well, I've got fears and phobias, but what I originally called about was somebody was talking about obsessive compulsive disorder and how he deals with it, I guess the tics or whatever he has. And I have that too. And I think for me, I do a lot of, I count, I'm like, if I can count to 10 before whatever happens, then things will be okay. You know what I mean?

48:36 Like I'll turn off the water or I'll do something. I'll be like, all right, I've got to, you know, the last drip is going to happen on the water faucet before I cut to 10. And I usually go from 10 backwards. And I also have this OCD thing where I'll count like tiles or look for patterns in the floor, you know, like the four by four tiles, maybe on a wall or a tile floor. So I'll look for patterns and I'll keep looking for repeating patterns in the floor as I'm walking along it or looking at the wall. So that's, I think, an OCD thing that I was able to relate to when I was listening to your last call or the caller before that was talking about that.

49:11 So counting down from 10, what does that give your mind a beat to reset and realize that nothing untoward is happening to you?

49:20 Yeah, I think, and it's funny because I was watching Sarah Silverman, a comedy tour that she was doing, watching it on Netflix or whatever. And she said something about, it helps with our fear of dying. She's like, that's, and I forget what she said, but she goes, that's why sometimes we count backwards from 10 and tell ourselves everything's going to be okay. And I was like, oh, that sounds like what I do. But I'm not I forget what she was talking about. But Sarah Silverman, I think, kind of referenced this thing of it's a way of dealing with. Yeah, I guess like telling yourself everything's going to be OK. You know, it makes no difference at all.

49:51 But it's a way of just how some people, I guess, calm themselves down.

49:55 You know, I buy it. Count to 10, count from 10. I think there may be a meditative aspect to it. So, yeah, I don't think that's irrational or I think that's terrific. You know, if it works, it works, man.

50:07 And for fears, I was thinking of them as I was on hold. I'll go with kind of these horrible dreams I have. You know, I dream a lot, especially lately, of like tornadoes. I'll see a tornado in the distance or right up front. And I have a lot of dreams of a nuclear bomb going off in the distance. Those are my deepest fears, like seeing that. And also teeth mashing. Sometimes I have these dreams where I'm crushing my teeth. You know what I mean? Or, you know, I'm chewing and my teeth are exploding. A lot of these visceral fears come out in dreams.

50:42 That's a movie.

50:43 Those are my big fears.

50:43 That's a movie. Somebody is at dinner and they're vigorously biting and their teeth explode. Yeah, that's a movie. All right. That's awesome. Thanks for your perspective on the OCD thing, too, as well. That's fascinating stuff, Bob. You take care of yourself, okay?

50:58 Thanks, Seth.

50:59 You too. See you, John.

51:00 Bye.

51:02 Let's see. Let's do one more. I've got a caller at 815.

51:05 Hi.

51:05 What's your name? Bob, what's happening?

51:10 Okay. That phobia that that lady had, I don't remember how you pronounce it, but it sounds like being afraid of Jafar from the Aladdin movie.

51:20 By the way, before I continue the call, when you mentioned tornadoes in the previous call, the best tornado documentary series I have ever seen, and I live in Oklahoma, and I've seen them all. It's now streaming on HBO. It's called In the Eye of the Storm. And they take cell phone and security cam footage from literally hundreds of sources and somehow have compiled them all. And they display them in almost real time as major twisters hit major towns and cities. It's riveting stuff in the eye of the storm. OK, Bob, thanks for indulging me. Fears and phobias. What do you think?

52:02 I've always been afraid to drive. I never wanted to drive. They had to take driver's ed, and I would go out on the range, and I would just turn left. I would just kept going on. They said, you keep going on to the left. I go, well, that's all I can manage. And I think I did one behind the wheel, and I just, my brain said, stop doing this, stop doing this, stop doing this.

52:26 How many years ago was driver's ed? Decades or what?

52:31 About 53.

52:32 53?

52:33 Oh, 53 years ago. So that would make you, you're, you are.

52:38 Okay.

52:38 Oh, you're 71. And you, you just, you, your whole life, you have not driven. Is that right?

52:46 No, no.

52:47 I just made, I worked on a college campus and I, for the first half of the semester, I took a long walk and some days, six in the morning to get to work. And then in the fall, I moved right across the street from campus. So And then I worked in various dormitories. So my longest walk was like 15 minutes. And the shortest one was about five or six, especially if I was running late.

53:13 So I just walked over. How people drive. I'm not sure I blame you for not wanting to be on the road. There are some terrifying people behind the wheel out there, man. They're on their cell phones or they're just clueless or reckless. We were cruising along. And three guys on motorcycles thought it'd be awesome to zip between the vehicles on the white line doing what must have been 90 plus miles an hour. Scared the shit out of us. So, I mean, it is a jungle out there, man.

53:44 So I'm not sure I blame you. You don't feel like you've missed out on anything?

53:48 It's kind of infantilizing, you know, like a kid who always needs to be taken to whatever. But yeah, I don't know.

53:58 I'm just used to it.

53:59 I was registering for a community college, and I was talking to the thing, and somehow it came up. I mentioned I don't drive, and he goes, oh, we got to fix that. I'm not going to do that. I didn't have to talk to him again. And I had another counselor back when I was a Christian. I deconverted seven years ago. So when I was a Christian, they had a Christian counselor come in, and I was talking about it, and I wanted to know why I don't drive.

54:26 He goes, oh, no, no, we just have to get you used to it so you can do it. And it's like, yeah, that's not, I think it's my brain. It just doesn't like it. And I like roller coasters. I have no, you know, I have no fear of roller coasters. It gets your adrenaline up, but it's fun because it's controlled. The chances of getting hurt on a roller coaster already happen, but they're very slim, yeah?

54:50 Yeah.

54:51 I guess there's a logic to that. So if they were to put the car on rails and it couldn't leave and everybody was on in order and no one can swerve into your lane, it might be a little more attractive. Now I've got a visual. You know what? If you have managed and navigated your life without driving and you're good with it, I don't know why anybody else would feel like they had to pressure you to do it. I mean, maybe in a good natured way, they want to see you overcome. Doesn't sound like it's anything you wanted or needed.

55:21 Yeah, I haven't had to deal with that for a long time.

55:23 All right.

55:24 You know, because I'm just mostly dealing with family. I don't have too much outside contact, except online. I'm a member with RFR, and I go to three hangouts a week, and I go to support groups and participate in the online community. So I'm out in the middle of nowhere, basically. So when I left church, I had no community other than my family.

55:46 Well, we're covering from religion. It's an amazing group and community arrives in many forms. And a lot of that is virtual. It's online and it's just as valid. So, Bob, I think that's amazing. And I think for some people it is very relatable. You know, I'd offer you a lift to the next place you got to go, but it doesn't sound like we live in the same part of the world. So in the meantime, you keep navigating.

56:08 Okay.

56:09 Okay, I just got one more thing. If anybody gets on the online community and you see Flockmeister, that's me.

56:16 Flockmeister? Yeah, I have chickens.

56:22 Because we moved out.

56:23 That's my thing.

56:25 I love it.

56:26 When I do the hangouts, I do chicken cam. So I'll go let the chickens out or go in the coop with them and just have the camera on them.

56:35 Flockmeister has dialed the show and now leaves the chat. Nice talking to you. You be safe out there, okay?

56:42 Yeah, thanks.

56:43 Okay.

56:43 Before I let everybody go, while he was talking, I looked this up. If he has chickens, there's a fear of chickens. Elektorophobia. A-L-E-K-T-O-R-O. Phobia. The intense, irrational, and persistent fear of chickens, roosters, or hens. Well, there are some people afraid of chickens. The way others might be afraid of snakes and spiners. I would just call it chicken phobia.

57:10 Let's keep it simple. Electorophobia or chicken phobia? Which one immediately sends the message so that you understand what I'm talking about? Kind of a fun one today as we get in. For many of us who love the month of October, getting in the spirit. I hope your spooky season is already proving absolutely wonderful. I will see you back here on the show next time.

57:32 Follow The Thinking Atheist on Facebook and Twitter. For a complete archive of podcasts and videos, products like mugs and t-shirts featuring The Thinking Atheist logo, links to Atheist pages and resources, and details on upcoming free thought events and conventions, log on to our website, thethinkingatheist.com.