Fear of Holes: Do you have trypophobia?

[Kazimiera]

http://www.theworldnews.in/2012/02/15/trypophobia-definition-of-trypophobia-do-you-have-trypophobia/

This is an article on the internet. Not my own writing.

If you search any dictionary for trypophobia you are likely to come up blank, meaning the word apparently has no official recognition. To establish it’s meaning therefore, we have to dissect the word into its component parts and hopefully gain some kind of clue.
Do You Have Trypophobia? I’ve always thought it was strange to be afraid of small holes. They made me feel uncomfortable all over the place.But after looking it up on the Internet, I realized I wasn’t alone. Trypophobia is the fear of holes and asymmetrical clusters of small holes, often with things inside. It causes a creepy, itching, crawling feeling.

http://www.golivewire.com/forums/img.cgi?i=81721

If the pictures below make your skin crawl, you probably have Trypophobia.If you’re like me and you have a visceral reaction to the image above—if it makes your skin crawl, your hair hurt, and your stomach turn—you can count yourself among the trypophobic. According to its Facebook page, which is more than 4,000 members strong, trypophobia is fear of clustered holes. It is usually small holes in organic objects, such as lotus seed heads or bubbles in batter, that give trypophobics the extreme willies, triggering reactions like itchy skin, nausea and a general feeling of discomfort. (A picture of a candy bar with a pattern of small air bubbles did me in. Goodbye, dear chocolate.

Starting at the end and working backwards to the beginning is sometimes a good idea, and as trypophobia has a familiar looking ending, that would be a good place to start. So what is a phobia? A phobia is an irrational fear of an object, or activity – that leads to an overwhelming compulsion to avoid it. The key definition to make note of here is “irrational”. A phobia is an irrational fear, where irrational means “without reason”, or unsubstantiated.
Trypophobia skin large holes cause trypophobia
Now we know trypophobia is an unsubstantiated fear of, something, so now we have to look toward the remainder of the word to find out the full meaning. Greek is always a good place to start for definitions, and if we look towards ancient Greece we discover that “Trypo” means punching, drilling, or boring holes. The definition we arrive at therefore is …
Trypophobia- fear of holes in skin?

http://www.theworldnews.in/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Trypophobia-fear-of-holes-in-skin.jpg

Recently I googled Trypophobia, and I looked at the google images, and I saw the pictures of holes in people’s skin (with those weird things inside them), and know I keep seeing the images in my mind. It makes me want to vomit, I can’t stand it!!! It is making my skin crawl right now. Do I have trypophobia? And are those pictures real? What could make that happen to someone’s skin?
So next time you see holes in something spare a thought for the thousands of people that suffer from trypophobia.Trypophobia is the fear of holes.”Not all holes mind you, just tiny holes in asymmetrical clusters, often times with things in them.”
Do YOU Have Trypophobia?

The image below is a photoshop imagne (NOT REAL!!) but VERY disturbing to trypophobics, and probably other people too.

http://0.tqn.com/d/urbanlegends/1/0/4/D/breast_larvae.jpg

http://shltrip.com/sitebuilder/images/tree_bark_with_many_holes_and_acorns-IMG_7105_3_-747x563.jpg

http://s3.amazonaws.com/curbly_uploads_production/photos/0000/0006/1482/pumpkin_medium.jpg

http://i1183.photobucket.com/albums/x464/buffsandmaxsmom/Holeyhouse.jpg

[Siegfried]

I actually find small holes to be intriguing for some odd reason; the many possible little worlds to which they which I have no concept of might due as an explanation.

[Midori]

Ugh... :stop

[Queen B]

I remember my ex boyfriend now :lol:
He doesn't have a phobia, but he certainly gets irritated by these.
I have a blanket with some circles pattern, and he always said " Throw it, I feel like it looks at me'' :lol:

[Quorra]

Only now that you mention it

[Black Sun Dimension]

aCayq56wHSA

so cute :embarrassed

[Kazimiera]

aCayq56wHSA

so cute :embarrassed

:eek: That is TERRIBLE!!!! My skin crawled!

[Raskolnikov]

That actually gave me a bad nervous reaction (jumped out of my chair). It's not disgusting or scary but like "the willies". The very term "cluster" (like genetic cluster) can sometimes bring up the reaction. Staring at the images seen above I got used to it a little* because I want to get rid of this if possible, because additionally, for the time after I see images like the above I fear a situation where it never goes away or a certain thing is ruined (my ability to look at another human being again hur hur). This isn't the only source of this reaction.

*Staring at it some more as though I'd conquered it something in my neck kept forcefully twitching and my chest felt like it was imploding.

More of the article:

When that happens, a Wikipedia page dedicated to the fear should follow. Surprisingly, one doesn’t exist today. “I can barely keep a page up on the subject without it getting taken down,” Andrews says. In March 2009 the powers that be at Wikipedia determined trypophobia to be a “likely hoax and borderline patent nonsense.” The deletion page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Trypophobia) also says that Wikipedia is “not for things made up one day.” As for who actually made the word up, that distinction probably belongs to a blogger in Ireland named Louise, Andrews says. According to an archived Geocities page (http://web.archive.org/web/20090316071914/http://www.geocities.com/holephobia/trypophobia.html), Louise settled on “trypophobia” (Greek for “boring holes” + “fear”) after corresponding with a representative at the Oxford English Dictionary. Louise, Andrews and trypophobia Facebook group members have petitioned the dictionary to include the word. The term will need to be used for years and have multiple petitions and scholarly references before the dictionary accepts it, Andrews says. I, for one, would prefer to forget about it forever.

[PetiteParisienne]

Ugh. Bleurgh.

[Tarja]

The one of the girl makes my stomach and my teeth (:D) feel really strange. I've always had this, didn't know there was a name for it! Horrible sensation.

[Kazimiera]

My body feels very strange when I look at these pictures.

http://trypophobia.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/trypophobia2.jpghttp://i376.photobucket.com/albums/oo208/marcio0/Trypophobia_by_Ville13.jpghttp://cfile23.uf.tistory.com/media/185B1C374EF80EDE1B90BEhttp://trypophobia.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/trypophobia16.jpghttp://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m1w3lzRYn71rqpkleo1_500.jpghttp://trypophobia.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/trypophobia_picture6.jpghttp://trypophobia.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/trypophobia_picture12.jpghttp://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m5on2n4Dzv1qmaa05o1_500.jpghttp://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lkp3yz4K6y1qhkn5ao1_400.jpghttp://trypophobia.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/2.jpghttp://24.media.tumblr.com/ff4dc3f2fa8e79f7491a653e8cb067d2/tumblr_mgchhj7wIc1qmg0kfo1_1280.jpghttp://trypophobia.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/surinam-breeding.jpghttp://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1TO0t78Mlg0/Ti2rwsykPXI/AAAAAAAAAQA/ubJmExDSBqI/s1600/Sponge.jpg

[alfieb]

No.

Well, maybe to some extent. I don't know.

It's a good thing your fathers didn't have such problems, or none of you would be here.

[Smaug]

Fuck you.

[Hurrem sultana]

It disgusts me only

[Kazimiera]

Fuck you.

Fuck who? :confused:

[Zmey Gorynych]

My body feels very strange when I look at these pictures.
No, I don't fear holes nor these pictures disgust me, I'm actually eating right now. I have no phobias as far as I know.
PS: A man can not afford to be afraid of holes ;) It should be his natural habitat :D

[Smaug]

Fuck who? :confused:

Yew! :P

[larali]

Those pictures are gross, but I do not have a fear of holes.

Bad fear of heights, though!!

[Austo]

no. and i cant really imagine it why some do.

[Virtuous]

the fuck?

[Roy]

good thing that I don't have it. But have other phobia(s) anyway.

[Kazimiera]

EEK!


http://www.personal.psu.edu/afr3/blogs/siowfa12/mijikongju.jpg

http://trypophobia.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/trypophobia3.jpg

http://onebit.us/x/i/8FIffXPiL8.jpg

http://www.biotechlearn.org.nz/var/biotechlearn/storage/images/focus_stories/honey_to_heal/images/honeycomb/48310-1-eng-AU/honeycomb_large.jpg

http://trypophobia.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/1-262x300.jpg

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-X3AE4AVF2C4/UKGfjEWdWtI/AAAAAAAAiD4/bGSdvufHDxk/w497-h373/58757970108908151_jnCyeY9a_c.jpg

http://www.popsci.com/files/imagecache/photogallery_image/articles/4366809816_c2ba0c2870_b.jpg

[rashka]

As much as I have this fear of holes, I can still eat an aero!
http://thelandthatuglyforgot.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/aero-slice.jpg

[Kazimiera]

As much as I have this fear of holes, I can still eat an aero!


It doesn't bother me that much with food. I can eat bread, and flapjacks too. And I can use sponges, although I do prefer the ones with the tiny tiny holes you can't see.

When I was dealing with wounds which had maggots inside, it was terrible. I'd itch for hours and hours afterwards!

[arcticwolf]

Never heard of it before.

[Kazimiera]

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3537/3629797004_4b38b2d037.jpg

http://gallery.nen.gov.uk/gallery_images/0808/0000/0895/barnacles_01_mid.jpg

http://www.waspnestremoval.org/img/get-rid-of-wasps.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/4WMMk.jpg

http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT1EliKRZTAL-ufhlN-9gQVqfk8XZSFSi-F1cYHZvdM_mrBE0t6&t=1

http://i.imgur.com/K5bmNPS.jpg

[Atlantic Islander]

http://imageshack.us/a/img826/7981/7yqw.jpg
Trypophobia is a fear of holes, like those in this lotus flower seed pod.

A strange phobia makes people feel panicked or ill at the sight of holes, and new research hints at the cause.

In people who suffer from trypophobia, the sight of soap bubbles, aerated chocolate, or other objects with clusters of holes can cause migraines, panic attacks, hot sweats and a racing heart. The fear may stem from a visual resemblance to poisonous animals, according to a new study.

Trypophobia is "the most common phobia you have never heard of," said study researcher Geoff Cole, a psychologist at the University of Essex, in England, who suffers from the fear himself.

Though many people have complained of it on the Internet, few studies have investigated the phenomenon. In one study, Cole and his colleagues found that 16 percent of participants showed signs of trypophobia. In his new study, one sufferer described the reaction to hole clusters: "[I] can't really face small, irregularly or asymmetrically placed holes, they make me like, throw up in my mouth, cry a little bit, and shake all over, deeply."

Even so, the phobia is not recognized as a disorder by the recently updated mental health manual, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5).

Cole's team wanted to know if trypophobic objects shared a common visual feature, so they compared 76 images of objects on a trypophobia website with 76 images of holes not associated with the phobia.

The images of trypophobic objects had high contrast at midrange "spatial frequencies" — repetitive spatial features of an image — compared with the nontrypophobic images.

They had the same visual structure as stripes, which can sometimes trigger migraines.

One trypophobic participant provided a clue to understanding the strong aversion to certain hole patterns: He reported having this same negative reaction to seeing a blue-ringed octopus, one of the world's most poisonous animals.

To investigate whether poisonous creatures could be causing the phobia, Cole and his colleagues analyzed images of the blue-ringed octopus, the deathstalker scorpion, the king cobra snake and other poisonous snakes and spiders, finding that they all had high contrast at midrange frequencies, too.

Trypophobics' repulsive reaction to clusters of holes may be a side effect of an evolutionary adaptation to avoid poisonous animals, the researchers believe. "We think that everyone has trypophobic tendencies even though they may not be aware of it," Cole said in a statement. "We have an innate predisposition to be wary of things that can harm us."

Even people who don't fear such hole patterns rated the trypophobic images as less comfortable to look at, said Cole, who added that he cured his own trypophobia by looking at the images so often he became desensitized to them.

To see how ingrained trypophobia might be, Cole's team is now studying how images of everyday objects, like watches, can be manipulated to make people prefer them more or less.

The study was detailed in the journal Psychological Science.

source (http://www.livescience.com/39382-bizarre-phobia-makes-you-averse-to-holes.html)

[silver_surfer]

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3537/3629797004_4b38b2d037.jpg

http://gallery.nen.gov.uk/gallery_images/0808/0000/0895/barnacles_01_mid.jpg

http://www.waspnestremoval.org/img/get-rid-of-wasps.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/4WMMk.jpg

http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT1EliKRZTAL-ufhlN-9gQVqfk8XZSFSi-F1cYHZvdM_mrBE0t6&t=1

http://i.imgur.com/K5bmNPS.jpg

I don't really have it, but a lot of it makes me uncomfortable. Skin-crawly. I can relate to that... I see this and want to poke at the holes and scrape them with sharp things. Lol

[Prisoner Of Ice]

I'm always on the lookout for nice small holes.

[armenianbodyhair]

It makes my skin crawl but I can't stop staring.

[Kazimiera]

It makes me want to dig around in those holes and pull things out of there.