My big one is arachnophobia. When I'm under a lot of stress, I have night terrors where I wake up and see spiders descending from the ceiling. I've been known to jump out of bed screaming, only to wake my husband up as I'm standing at the foot of the bed shaking.
I've got another weird one that comes and goes: astrophobia. And it's all my father's fault. When I was a little kid, I found a photo in an encyclopedia that was a composite of satellite photos of all the planets in our solar system, side-by-side. Like an arc across the page. Not but a couple days later, my dad said that Jupiter was visible in the night sky and he wanted to take me outside and show me.
Well, I had the image of that photo in my head - with great big Jupiter and that swirly spot on it - and I said no, I don't want to see it. We argued, and he said I was being silly, so he picked me up and bodily carried me out onto the back porch.
Turns out that night was also a super moon. So the first thing I see is this big, fat orange moon hanging near the horizon - and I started screaming and shaking. My first panic attack ever. Of course, Jupiter was just a larger-than-normal star, but I wouldn't calm down enough to listen.
Since then, I have a recurring nightmare about standing in the middle of an open field, looking up at the stars, and suddenly the planets come whizzing across the sky, one by one, until they're all hanging over my head - and then they come closer, and closer, and closer - and I wake up right before I'm swallowed whole by Jupiter's spot. This is going on 40 years I still have that damn dream.
I still sometimes get the shakes and panicky when I'm outside under the stars. Planetariums can trigger a panic attack. Even using Google Earth where you can zoom out and fly over the planet can trigger me. But I've tried over the years to force myself to go out and look at the stars for short periods of time... trying to desensitize myself. Hasn't worked yet, but I'm still trying.
Weird, huh?
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