How to get rid of the creeps?

January 2, 2010 8:58 AM

I get the 'creeps'. When I was young, I worried E.T. was out to get me. Now I get the chills from Japanese horror movies, David Lynch, or 'unsettling' internet stories. How do I cure myself on unreasonable fears when it's time to go to bed?

Okay, I enjoy watching unsettling things. But sometimes I overdo it and I have trouble sleeping, or walking through dark hallways, or otherwise going about everyday tasks. It's not a crippling paralysis, but it makes me feel sort of cowardly. I am looking for suggestions to trick yourself into getting 'unscared'. For example, my friend once told me a rather strange story of how she dealt with her Freddy Kreuger fear - she imagined that he was attracted to her and wanted to sleep with her and this diffused her fear. Any other psychological tricks like that to fool yourself into laughing off lingering fears?

posted by ajarbaday to Health & Fitness (25 answers total)

This works with for both kids and adults, I think. Think about the production company coming up with the idea for the scary movie. Picture chubby guys in T-shirts playing with different prototypes for uncanny monsters, getting vetoed on a certain shape head or a certain pitch of voice, and trying to make it scarier. Imagine the writer of the internet story deleting scenes and trying to think of scarier ones, then getting up to get a cookie. In other words, remind yourself that these are objects constructed by ordinary people with good imaginations, not actual entities.
posted by fullofragerie at 9:05 AM on January 2, 2010 [6 favorites]

I struggle with this, and I find that I just really have to avoid things that are disturbing. I am also attracted to those kinds of things, so it can be tough.

For me, I have learned to consistently direct my thoughts away from the thing that is freaking me out to something interesting but not scary. When I was freaked out by the Mefi post on sleep paralysis, I had to really redirect my thoughts to other things (the book I was reading, a problem at work, whether Barney and Robin should really be dating).

I have also learned how to yank myself out of nightmares, which is a very useful skill.

On preview, fullofragerie has great advice.
posted by jeoc at 9:07 AM on January 2, 2010

Right before bed read something that doesn't inspire the unsettling quite as much (which I do enjoy, that is until I've managed to freak myself out - which I guess is the point). Read about history (sorry! totally unsettling!), non-fiction, art histories, language instruction - even recipes.
posted by marimeko at 9:12 AM on January 2, 2010

When I'm going to bed and a scary movie or whatever freaked me out I try and focus on someone I'm close to sleeping soundly, that could be a so, a family member, close friend etc.

On preview that sounds kind of creepy. I promise I'm not a sketchball.
posted by kylej at 9:19 AM on January 2, 2010

The desensitization and contextualization methods mentioned in this thread can help of course, but if you find your dread irrational and recurrent despite them then...

[Not Alarmist] but when I used to get these issues they seem to have been indicative of some underlying anxiety mental health issues.

Having those issues treated has effectively ended my sensation of dread of things almost exactly like you describe - at bedtime, on entering an empty apartment, etc. Reading House of Leaves once had me bolting awake several times a night for weeks. Now I can enjoy the chill of things like The Ring and Lynch's orange-gummed-vampire-things but they don't keep me awake or make my heart race out of context.

Hope this helps.
posted by abulafa at 9:22 AM on January 2, 2010

I tend to listen to something funny from my iPod like The Bugle or SModcast.
posted by smallerdemon at 9:39 AM on January 2, 2010

Scary movies are meant to be scary, and it doesn't mean you have mental health issues if you get scared. Serial killer movies scare the everliving shit out of me because I know that kind of thing happens out in the real world, to real people, and I can't just imagine that it's "not real".

I focus on something else, similar to what marimeko suggested, but specifically something funny. I watch a comedy tv show, read a funny book/essay, watch kitten videos on YouTube... something to make me laugh or smile. Release the emotional energy that it takes to maintain the feeling of fear/dread, but through an alternative means (crying actually releases proteins/hormones related to stress, so if you laugh until you cry, you're doing yourself a lot of good).
posted by so_gracefully at 9:40 AM on January 2, 2010

I was this way as a young teenager. Then we got a dog who slept lightly and was prone to investigating anything suspicious. The combination of having another living being awake (or bound to wake up if anything was going on), knowing that she (large black barky dog) would scare away any intruders, plus simply being able to tell myself that any random noises were her moving around trained me out of being nervously alert all the time. Years later, I feel fine even when I'm alone.

Obviously, a dog is a huge responsibility, and I only recommend this route if you genuinely like dogs and have the time/desire/finances to take care of one....though I guess you could dog-sit or foster.
posted by needs more cowbell at 9:54 AM on January 2, 2010

Embrace the feeling -- you're lucky. I've been a horror movie/book buff since I was about 8, and often lament the fact that I rarely get scared anymore.

If you really want greater comfort at bedtime, needs more cowbell has a great point: get a dog.
posted by coolguymichael at 10:19 AM on January 2, 2010 [1 favorite]

I once got really creeped out while I was working on a project in Graduate School I had just seem The Blair Witch Project, and that, plus the really grim basement in which I was working (no one on the floor, no place to sit without my back to a long dark aisle of shelves) got me really worked up. I came very close to leaving with the job undone. Then I realized that, if some horrible thing did away with me, I wouldn't have to finish the assignment. That made me feel much better.

So when I get scared, I just think about some nuisance coming up that my horrible supernatural death would let me avoid. Works like a charm. I can imagine that this would not work for everyone...
posted by GenjiandProust at 10:24 AM on January 2, 2010 [1 favorite]

Sigmund Freud's essay The Uncanny is a highly perceptive and readable examination of what causes "the creeps" - altered normality, the animate made inanimate, the inanimate made animate and so on. Understanding exactly why creepy things are creepy certainly helps me enjoy the frisson of horror without the lingering aftertaste of fear.
posted by WPW at 10:38 AM on January 2, 2010 [3 favorites]

I LOVE scary stuff. But like you, the thrill often turned into anxiety when I tried to go to sleep (rarely in other situations). One thing seems to have helped almost completely eradicate this kind of anxiety: moving in with my beloved.

If that's not an option, here are some of the things that helped me alleviate the creeps when going to bed:
-falling asleep to music
-leaving a light on
-a strong brew of sleep-inducing herbal teas like camomile, calendula or verbena (but stay away from dream-inducers like valerian, passion flower and lavender)

Don't know what to say for daytime creep-outs. Breathe and be brave?
posted by Paris Elk at 11:13 AM on January 2, 2010

I used to have this problem, particularly with E.T. My solution was to listen to comedy - for me it was British comedy like Fawlty Towers or Yes Minister- those two particularly because they seemed to me the antithesis of scary. I would also prefer to listen to the same episodes because of their familiarity.

I don't have the creeps anymore. After a horrible breakup with my girlfriend, I completely lost my fear of creepy things. Real life was much more horrific.

How I manage my fear of danger is different but also might work in this case. I let the fear come, I let it wash through me, and I find it just fades away...

Being fearless comes with its problems too. Without fear, there is less to enjoy in life.
posted by niccolo at 11:16 AM on January 2, 2010

Previously.
posted by Nattie at 11:26 AM on January 2, 2010

You could try using flat out logic and rationality.

Suppose aliens do exist. Suppose they have the technology to travel anywhere in space. Now suppose they just so happened to find earth. And they chose your continent and your country to land in. Of all the cities, they just happened to pick yours. And of all the houses (which they somehow identified that this is where we live and where we sleep during the night), yours looked the nicest. Now suppose they figured out how to open your locked door and chose to abduct you.

That's a heck of a lot of supposing! Now compare to it the fact you watched a scary movie an hour ago and that sound you heard was likely the 25-year-old fridge you've been meaning to replace for a year. Not only is the more logical cause the most likely, the "scary" one is so unbelievable far fetched that it's almost funny.

The same can be used for ghosts ("Why did the ghost in my house wait 8 years to target me? And right after I watched "Ghost Chasers", too? What a coincidence!"), axe murderers, zombies, and everything else straight out of a horror film. Even if somehow they do exist, what are the odds of them targeting you? What are the odds of it being almost anything else?


I have also learned how to yank myself out of nightmares, which is a very useful skill. - jeoc
Same here. I rarely ever get a bad dream, but when I do I've learned to just "leave" the dream and myself wake up. It's probably not something you can do the first time, but eventually you can tell yourself in the dream "this is stupid, I'm outta here" and wake yourself up much like you wake yourself up to go to the bathroom.
posted by Kippersoft at 11:44 AM on January 2, 2010

Try fully imagining that you are the monster, with all of its horrific, traumatic energy.
posted by AlsoMike at 12:10 PM on January 2, 2010

I also like the suggestion to watch something funny. Sometimes I'll wake up from a nightmare or sleep paralysis moment too disturbed to go back to sleep right away. Even if I lucidly yanked myself out of the dream, the unease usually lingers on, so what works for me is watching an episode of some familiar sitcom. The cheesier the sitcom, the better. Ones with laugh tracks are extra comforting for some reason, perhaps because you hear so many other voices that there isn't as much downtime to think about whatever creeped you out earlier.

The last time this happened was a few days ago. I had an inordinately creepy sleep paralysis moment where I saw an undead girl in my room and she totally looked like the photos of embalmed mummies in books I read as a kid. (Which was additionally weird because I hadn't read anything about mummies in a long time and I tend not to watch horror movies about mummies, so what gives, brain?) After I woke up, I searched for Punky Brewster episodes on Youtube and ended up watching the one where she gets her first bra (part 1, part 2). It ended up being more heartwarming than I expected and the saccharine goofiness of it all greatly helped me quell my previous feelings of the creeps. (Seeing her best friend so earnestly try the "I must, I must, I must increase my bust!" chant was a riot.)

Episodes of The Golden Girls also work well for this.

As for feeling unsettled when you're awake, such as walking through dark hallways and going about everyday tasks, you can try amassing a stockpile of humorous memories and quotes to recall. Metafilter's actually been quite useful for this. I'll be waiting in line somewhere, thinking about something horrible, then I'll catch myself and actively recall something like the davesecretary stories or the neighborhood kids cheering tkchrist's dad after he fought the soda machine or the time when jjg put the end of a laptop power connector on his tongue to see what would happen if a baby did it. And so forth.

You can also try imagining the object of your fear in a life-or-death battle with St. Bea Arthur (or the awesome person of your choice), as suggested by this lovely painting of Bea vs a dinosaur.
posted by cobwebberies at 12:30 PM on January 2, 2010 [1 favorite]

I often mentally think back to the summer months after 3rd grade as my personal "Summer of Fear." We'd seen this child molester movie in school, and then afterward my Mom (no doubt meaning well) felt compelled to show me every news story in the paper about kids abducted and murdered. At the time, I didn't really understand what a child molester was; I just know that I couldn't sleep at night because I was sure someone was going to break into our house and murder me. The only thing that eventually soothed me to sleerp was leaving my radio on all night. At that time that meant CKLW and the Top 40 hits of the day, and once I got to know most of the songs my subconscious would take over and I'd drift off to sleep and have dreams that somehow incorporated the lyrics of the latest Hermans Hermits hit. In any case, I felt less alone with the radio "talking" to me during those dark spooky minutes before sleep finally set in.
posted by Oriole Adams at 12:44 PM on January 2, 2010

Be analytical - consider what things in the book or film make it scary. Think "How did they do that?".

One thing that might help is looking for outtakes and blooper reels as DVD extras or on the web - seeing the bloodied and terrified actress burst into laughter and lob severed limbs at the crew can break the spell, which is pretty much what you want.
posted by Wrinkled Stumpskin at 12:57 PM on January 2, 2010

This happens to me all the time, and recent events have all come together so that I've been getting this for the last few weeks. (And then the subsequent nightmares don't help much, either.) I haven't been able to completely stop the feeling come bedtime, but I can mitigate it with a few tactics:

-Not having a direct path between me and the bedroom door. My creeps focus around something coming into my room and attacking me, and it really calms me down to know that, should a knife-wielding serial killer come into the room, he can't just run straight at me. It's really stupid, but sometimes it can help just to embrace your creeps rather than trying to convince yourself that you're being irrational.
-Think of something else for about a half hour. I work through my next day's activities, puzzle over a book/TV show, outline a story I'm working on, etc.
-Focus just on breathing. If my mind keeps drifting back and I feel myself start to panic again, I go back a step and force myself to think about something else.
posted by lilac girl at 2:38 PM on January 2, 2010

Um, don't watch that kind of stuff? Seriously. Find the level of scary movie you can enjoy without getting overly terrified, and watch that instead.

Tricking yourself into not being scared of movies that are supposed to scare you is kind of like tricking yourself into not loving puppies and kittens. You're SUPPOSED to have those feelings, that's what the movie is there for. But you need to figure out how much of that feeling is enough for you, personally.

Everyone (mostly) has got a "not scary enough" level and a "holy crap too scary" level, and you need to find the threshold between "dang that movie was boring" and "OMG I'M NEVER SLEEPING AGAIN" for yourself.

Work out out exactly how much "unsettlement" you can deal with, then choose movies that will get you there.

If your goal is to be able to watch any scary movie ever made without being scared, you will be cheating yourself out of a whole lot of fun at the movies.
posted by Aquaman at 2:41 PM on January 2, 2010

ET? Even the kids in the movie loved the adorable little thing. The scary thing for me was the guys in the spacesuits.

Anyway, I avoid horror movies because I worry I'd end up too afraid to sleep or shower also.

Maybe this is obvious, but to add to the DVD behind-the-scenes suggestion, do you normally watch the "making of" extras that come with the movies? A lot of the mysterious and magical processes of making movies nowadays are pretty much all uncovered and dissected, so I'd think that'd help assure you that the deranged maniac with the butcher knife is just a humble member of the Screen Actor's Guild with a lovely wife, two cute kids, and an eccentric group of makeup and special effects artists behind him.
posted by TheSecretDecoderRing at 2:50 PM on January 2, 2010

I watch arrested development and ugly betty episodes at hulu or youtube. I find I always get into whatever I'm watching, both scary and funny, and usually whatever is most recent gets into the dream. So I go for funny every time.
posted by anitanita at 6:22 PM on January 2, 2010

Completely normal. I'm still afraid of E.T., and there is something seriously wrong with David Lynch. I watched 'Blue Velvet' late last night, and I had to watch Tom and Jerry for an hour before I could bring myself to go to bed. Dennis Hopper is the stuff of nightmares.

Coping with the creeps before bed: 1) Avoid anything that might bring the creeps, especially right before bedtime. 2) Put on something soothing while you're trying to fall asleep. Cheesy sitcoms with canned laugh-tracks, which I may find irritating during the day, are sometimes a comfort for me at night. Put on the sleep timer for an hour or so, and let the calming flicker of the television screen lull you to sleep. Music might also help. Whatever comforts you. You want something to either distract you from your fear (something that kind of fills up your brain so it can't wander to a scarier place) or lull you to sleep. That'll be different for each person. Sleeping with a light on, or having a nightlight or a light on in another room can also work. 3) Sleep with (or near to) another person or a pet. The only thing that got me through feeling apprehensive about being completely alone in my sister's house was having her cat with me.
posted by Mael Oui at 1:10 AM on January 3, 2010

This isn't marked resolved yet? Previous posters were right- the thing to do is to tkae what is scaring you then imagine it into something not scary.

I learned this trick when I had a reoccuring nightmare as a kid: I was dreaming this villian was climbing out of my art cabinet to shoot me and my mom told me the trick of changing it. So that night before I went to sleep, I imagined the same setting, same process, I pictured him getting out of the cupboard the same way, but then I imagined him smiling and instead of a gun in his head, I pictured him holding flowers. It worked like a charm! I think I started to have that nightmare only once more- it woke me up and I immediately reimagined it with my new scene and then I never had that nightmare again.

The other thing I learned as an adult: if you watch "the making of" or "behind the scenes" extras on scary movies and get to see how they set up the scenes (and start to understand the camera tricks and stuff a little better), then after getting deliciously scared, you can remind yourself how that's just an actor and how they achieved the effects. Removing the smoke and mirrors always removes the fear.
posted by Eicats at 12:27 PM on June 15, 2010