I recently came across this link on Facebook; it is a collection of nine, two sentence horror stories (http://canyouactually.com/9-of-the-most-terrifying-two-sentence-horror-stories-ever-told/). Although all were eery, number two terrified me because it dealt with my long-lost (or so I had thought) fear of nightmares.

(You might want to read the second story before reading this!)

Number two describes a scenario where the author is met with a terrifying monster at 12:07 AM. When the monster starts to push her “long rotting nails” through the author’s chest, he or she wakes up. The author is relieved that it was only a nightmare but then notices that it is only 12:06 AM. At that moment, he or she hears the closet door creak open.

Ever since I was a little kid I was scared to go to sleep because I felt vulnerable to my mind. I had no way to defend myself against any of the terrifying images or scenes my mind would conjure up. Usually when people wake up from a nightmare, they are instantly comforted by the relief of knowing it was all fake. In my case, there was no relief when I woke up. In the darkness of my room, I felt my heart beating out of my chest and remembered the terror I had just experienced. In a sense, the author of this story shares a similar experience with me. He or she woke up from a nightmare only to find that he or she was still being terrorized by it. Although my nightmares obviously never materialized into reality (knock on wood), my mind was still centered around that feeling of horror.

I have not had any nightmares for years, so I had “forgotten” about my fear. However, this story has brought it back into my mind and I can’t help but wonder why I am so afraid of having a nightmare. Perhaps I am so scared of them because I do not know what provokes them. To me, they were always entirely unpredictable.

Can we actually conquer a fear? Or do we simply “forget” it until something triggers it? And more importantly, why did Facebook ruin my life?

The creature of the black lagoon was characterized as the epitome of terror. This film gave life to a magnificent monster. Many of his physical features are meant to intimidate and pester people. Even the movie ads portray a monster that looks dangerous and repulsive. This monster originates from the amazons and is a combination of human and fish. His extremities are covered by scales, and he is able to agilely swim and walk. The success of this monster was mostly because many of the 50’s Sci-Fi films began to make use of various side effects.

What is particularly surprising is that aside from the fact the monster displays a physically dangerous appearance all of the movies present a creature that is mellow. It is somewhat ironic to see the monster in the ads as a scary monster, yet the first movie is about a creature that falls in love with a member of the explorer team. The second movie, The Revenge of the Creature (1955) exhibits him as a powerless being that is mistreated while in captivity. Lastly the movie entitled, The Creature Walks Among Us (1956) makes of this monster a fragile creature that is old and hurt, desperate to be sent back to its natural habitat. All of these movies, instead of making the creature of the Black Lagoon appear as the monster, they make humans appear as the real heartless individuals who show no remorse in mistreating and vilely exhibiting a poor creature as if he were the worst creation in the world.  Nevertheless, the “scaring” effect this monster produced resulted in innumerable copies and remakes of this character. In my point of view this creature is anything but a monster; he clearly exhibits very human-like qualities such as vulnerability, compassion, love and fear. Yet, during the time period the movie was aired the monster was detested and scary. This drives me to think whether movie industries attempt to display the image of a typical monster only by means of disturbing physical characteristics, after all that was the only thing scary of this monster.

The title of the show is very misleading and I will be the first one to point that out. “Teen Wolf” does not sound like it could be something enjoyable for anyone else but a tween girl obsessed with the mainstream appeal of the supernatural. Sure, the show has all the ingredients of a potentially bad plot: attractive actors/actresses playing characters in distress, overly dramatic music and werewolves. Majority of the world has deemed werewolves no longer as something feared but cool. Thus, many do not stop and try to give Teen Wolf a viewing it deserves. Honestly, I find the show to be extremely entertaining. The past 3 seasons had incredible story lines and some unforgettable characters, Personally, I especially enjoy and appreciate how much effort the writers put in the backstory of the monsters that the viewers come to know over the course of the show.

There is always great attention and inspiration taken from various mythology backgrounds as well as history itself. One of my favorite monsters created on the show was a nogitsune – a dark fox spirit who feeds on pain and chaos. It was originally called upon by a fox (another supernatural creature) in order to seek revenge on the soldiers at an internment camp for the japanese during World War II. After possessing a body of a person the spirit became uncontrollable, killing everything in sight and was soon stopped. In the present day, due to certain events the spirit was accidentally unleashed yet again and it took over one of the main characters, Stiles Stilinski. Throughout the season we see an internal fight within his best friend Scott Macall as to whether or not the consciousness of Stiles is still present in his body to be potentially saved or is he forever lost under possession and would have to be killed. What would you do if you’re best friend was suddenly committing mass murders, sending out freakish mass hallucinations and indulging from emotional vampirism? I would certainly be lost in action.

…petrifying.

While yes, it is true, kids are some of the scariest things in existence and can very often be more terrifying and monster-like than any other creature in imaginable, the fear caused by young, snot-filled, dirty children is not what this entry is about. This post is meant to be thought provoking on the subject of why kids are afraid of things that go bump in the night and when (or if) they grow out of this. Young children all seem to have common fears—the dark, a monster under their bed, a vicious creature in their closet at night. They also tend to go to their parents for help in these situations, asking them to check under the bed for The Bogeyman or to turn on a night light near their bed. A rather interesting question to ask ourselves is why don’t kids need to check under Mom and Dad’s bed for a monster lurking in the dark? A rather far-fetched scenario, I’ll admit, but still one with thinking about.

Is being frightened by monsters something children grow out of? or is it more so that adults are able to get used to the idea of a monster? While it is the job of a parent to ensure the safety of their child (even if it is from an imaginary beast), when do humans make the switch from being afraid of the monster to being the thing the monster is afraid of? Why are parents the child’s saving grace when they are frozen with the fear of an unlikely danger? Perhaps its just an act, because I personally believe no one would ever be able to grow out of being afraid of a monster. No matter the age, no one would ever be able to look a monster in the eye (let’s just go with the idea that there is such a thing) and say they weren’t even the slightest bit on edge. Being afraid is something which can only be repressed— not eliminated completely.

When it comes to the topic of monster, “Nian” is usually the first name that pops up in Chinese people’s minds. As a China born kid, i have heard numerous terrifying stories about superb Chinese monster Nian. In Chinese mythology, Nian has a shape of lion body and head of a unicorn. Ordinarily, Nian lives under the deep sea; however, it will come out and eats people, cattle and children in each spring around Chinese New Year time. With its extraordinary strength, lightening speed and the ability of controlling fire,   Nian can easily tear down a village in minutes. Eye of the Cyclops, neck of the titans (from Attack on titan), heel of the Achilles, even the greatests have their weakness, fortunately, Nian has two. This big bad ferocious beast is very sensitive to loud noises  and is afraid of red color (surprise haha).

By now, you probably can figure out why do Chinese people like to wear red color and light up fireworks during New Year time. With the combination of loud drums and red custom body suit, Chinese Dragon/Lion dance was made to scare off monster Nian essentially. Furthermore, the tradition of giving kids red pocket during New Year shares the same ideas. As far as i know, at least half amount of Chinese traditions were invented because of the existence of monster Nian. How lovely, isn’t it?

Along the same lines as the connection between Nian and Chinese custom; ghost, monsters and hallows have conspicuously effects on the eastern tradition holiday Halloween. And With more and more samples coming together, the relationships between peoples customs and the stories of monsters had me thinking, how much percentage of our tradition was based on the stories of monsters? What would our life be without monsters’ stories? Although monsters are precisely not something that we should be thankful to, our life certainly would be less interesting without them.

If you were to ever hear a loud shrilling scream in the middle of the night, followed by heaving breathing and desperate cries for help, you’ll certainly know that I have just crossed paths with a centipede. With sometimes over a hundred skinny legs attached to individual segments of their long brown bodies, these monstrous creatures never fail to make me cringe in utmost fear. They roam around dark, damp places and carry around deadly venom in their system as they search far and wide for prey to inject it into. Although this venom isn’t toxic enough to be life endangering to humans, the fact that these centipedes practically move at the speed of light and will disappear from my sights in a matter of seconds definitely doesn’t help to ease my mind at all.

Carroll points out that some artists use the technique of magnification as they significantly increase the size of creatures we already deem as horrifyingly disgusting in order to evoke a more intense feeling of revolution and fear among viewers. For me, a certain Dutch horror film called “The Human Centipede” immediately comes to mind. For those who have never heard of the movie, it is about a doctor named Heiter who specializes in separating Siamese twins but is eager to perform a new experiment where he surgically connects three humans to create a creature that shares a single digestive system. He trains his human centipedes to perform tasks and physically harms them if they disobey his orders. Eventually, in an attempt to escape from the ward, the victims attack Heiter by stabbing his left leg with a scalpel.

In a side by side comparison between the typical house centipede and this malicious human centipede, the house centipede truly appears to be harmless. My irrational fear is purely psychological and I’m aware that all sharp toothed, hairy, and hundred-legged critters have no intention of killing humans. In thinking under this light – Can this scenario apply to other monsters as well? Are some monsters more scared of us than we are of them? Have they just been exerting means of self defense because they see us humans as a threat? Have we just been oblivious to their true intentions all this time?