10 Rare or Bizarre Phobias

Phobias are irrational fears of seemingly random things. Some of them are very serious and even harmful, while some of them are just annoying. Here are ten that I found interesting.

Metrophobia

Metrophobia is a fear of poetry. A lot of times, the fear is started during school years, when kids are made to read poems by teachers. It can be a fear of all poetry, or just certain styles or subjects. Sometimes people with the phobia won't read books for fear of there being a poem somewhere in it.

Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia

This is the fear of the number 666, although it's debated as to whether this is actually a phobia, or just a superstition. It's closely related to triskaidekaphobia (fear of the number 13) or tetraphobia (fear of the number 4). Most people know that the origin of 666 is in the Bible, and is supposedly the number of the Antichrist. Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia is fairly common; one famous example is when Ronald and Nancy Reagan moved to Bel-Air after his presidency and had their house number changed from 666 to 668.

Automatonphobia

This phobia is the fear of humanoid figures. One of the most common sources of fear are wax figures, but dolls and robots are others. Luckily, full-on automatonphobia is rare.

I can see how this is terrifying.

Ablutophobia

This one is pretty serious. Ablutophobia is a fear of bathing or washing. Not only does it hurt one socially, but you can also get diseases from not washing yourself. Ablutophobia can be caused by traumatic experiences; many people cite seeing Psycho as a reason to fear showers. It can also be caused by leftover childhood habbits.

Euphobia

This one might be the strangest one one this list. It's the fear of hearing good news. I couldn't find much information on this one, but it was so interesting, I had to put it on here.




Myxophobia

This is the fear of slime. I always knew most people don't like slime, but I never know there were people who were afraid of it. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a lot of information out there about this one either, but it surprised me that something like this existed, so I put it on here.

Nomatophobia

This is a fear of names. This just seems like it would be hard to live with. I imagine you would have friends with names like "the short one", or "the blonde one". I think that would definately be hard.






This is along the lines of the last one in terms of how much it must affect one's daily life. Syngenesophobia is a fear of relatives. When someone who has it knows they have family coming over, he or she gets anxious. I'm sure this isn't healthy relationship-wise. A common treatment for this phobia seems to be hypnosis.





Papaphobia

I had to put this one on here, just because it was so strange. Papaphobia is a fear of the Pope or the Roman Catholic Church. It's usually brought on by bad childhood experiences.





Lepidophobia

I'll admit it, I'm afraid of butterflies. Turns out I'm not alone. It's hard to explain why butterflies are scary, although, I think a lot of it is the wings. I mean, they just flap around all haphazardly, like the thing has no control over them. It kind of reminds me of a plane right before it crashes. It's also the tongue. I remember watching this video once of a turtle who was getting its eyeballs licked by butterflies. Creepy.


There are a ton of different phobias out there. Do you know anyone with one?