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Outside Magazine September 2002

Phobias
What Scares Me

Intro | Swimming, Sleeping Bags, Freezing to Death | Lightning, Jumping, Armadillos, Lima Beans | Bats, Ticks, Whitewater | Being Buried Alive, Snakes, Stars


	Cryophobia (Photograph by Chris Buck)

Sure, fear itself has plenty of fans—people with the good sense to be terrified when the rope snaps, the elephant charges, or the boat capsizes. But what about PHOBIAS, those singular, irrational, often inexplicable anxieties that lurk even in nature's happiest scenes, waiting to creep you out and propel you into the panic zone? In the confessions that follow, our 13 unlucky writers reveal the things that give them the waking nightmares—from time-tested classics like snakes and vertigo to oddities like engorged ticks and beady-eyed armadillos. But don't fret! There's nothing like the shivery pinprick of dread to make you feel truly alive.

SWIMMING
He's afraid of water—exquisitely afraid.
BY JOHN UPDIKE
FREEZING
When the ice starts to crack, somebody's going in.
BY STEWART O'NAN
SLEEPING BAGS
The demons that haunt your snooze sack.
BY MiCHAEL PERRY
LIGHTNING
If an electric bolt catches you outside, you're toast.
BY KATIE ARNOLD
JUMPING
Forget vertigo. How do you handle the urge to leap?
BY PICO IYER
ARMADILLOS
Tiny dinosaurs may lurk under the porch.
BY BUCKY MCMAHON
LIMA BEANS
One man trembles before the sinister legume.
BY BRUCE MCCALL
TICKS
They exist for one reason: to drink your blood.
BY JANE SMILEY
WHITEWATER
Once you almost drown, you're always underwater.
BY DONALD KATZ
BATS
Hell hath no fury like a million flying creatures in a cave.
BY JACK HITT
BEING BURIED ALIVE
Rest assured—you will never be found.
BY DAVID RAKOFF
SNAKES
When a cottonmouth hits the ground, run like hell.
BY JO ANN BEARD
STARS
Why the night sky is infinitely terrifying.
BY MARY ROACH

Next Page: Fear of freezing to death, sleeping bags, and swimming

Intro | Swimming, Sleeping Bags, Freezing to Death | Lightning, Jumping, Armadillos, Lima Beans | Bats, Ticks, Whitewater | Being Buried Alive, Snakes, Stars