Would you rather sleep in a bed full of beetles or swim through a pool full of sharks? Do you find alligators or rattlesnakes more frightening? And do you happen to be scared of clowns?
There are plenty of things that can make us uneasy, whether they’re actually dangerous or not. So if you’re interested in seeing some photos that you might find unsettling, you’ve come to the right place. We took a trip to the Oddly Terrifying subreddit and gathered some of their creepiest pics below. These images may technically be innocuous, but they can still give you the heebie-jeebies! Keep reading to also find conversations with Cory Speicher, clinician at Modern Therapy, and British Psychological Society chartered member, Professor Craig Jackson. And be sure to upvote the things you’re glad you didn’t encounter in real life!
#1 A Photo Of The Exact Time Lightning Hits The Water
To learn more about why we sometimes find innocent things frightening, we reached out to Cory Speicher, clinician at Modern Therapy. He was kind enough to have a chat with We and shine some on this topic.
“As cliché as it may sound, we typically fear what we don’t understand,” Cory shared. “People are typically comforted by familiarity, and there is a sense of calm that we experience when we know what we are facing.”
#2 Moose In Fog
#3 When S***m Whales Need A Nap, They Take A Deep Breath, Dive Down About 45 Feet And Arrange Themselvs Into Perfectly-Level, Vertical Patterns. They Sleep Sound And Still For Up To Two Hours At A Time Between Breaths, In Pods Of 5 Or 6 Whales, Presumably For Protection
“However, when we perceive something to be unfamiliar, different, or strange, our ‘fight or flight’ response gets triggered,” the expert explained.“While some people may go into ‘fight’ and become intrigued by something innocuous, others will go into ‘flight’ and feel fear. This could result in them engaging in avoidant behavior that is facilitated by the feeling of fear.”
So is it healthy for us to feel fear from time to time? “Fear is one of our core emotions,” Cory shared. “From a survival perspective, fear is what helps keep us safe, and be aware of potential dangers. Due to this, fear is absolutely a healthy emotion to experience from time to time.”
#4 Total Solar Eclipse Photo From 1991 Taken By Antonio Turok In Mexico
#5 Photo Of A Dog Jumping Out Of Water
#6 A Special Effects Artist Made Himself A Mask For The Pandemic
“One of the main reasons that people look to avoid fear is due to the discomfort that it brings us,” the expert says. “If we are too fixated on avoiding fear, then we are stripping ourselves of the ability to be cognizant of potential threats, and limits our ability to build an understanding. So, instead of looking to avoid feeling fear, we want to be accepting of it, and learn to understand what triggers it.”
#7 When 9 Pillars Of Light Appeared In The Night Sky Above A Coastal Japanese Town
#8 Applying A Window Sticker
#9 Michael Collins, The Astronaut Who Took This Photo In 1969, Is The Only Human, Living Or Dead, Who Is Not In The Frame Of This Picture
We also asked Cory how we can go about facing our fears. “While it may sound simplistic, one of the most effective ways to overcome fear is by talking about it,” he told We. “It can be with a therapist, a friend, or someone you trust, but openly discussing what we are afraid of actually gives us control back over the emotion.”
#10 23 Million Light-Year Long Plasma Beam From A Black Hole
#11 A Blood Clot Coughed Up By Patient That Perfectly Shaped The Lung’s Cavity It Filled
#12 When Fish Jumps In Front Of Camera
“When someone feels shame about feeling fear, that triggers a sense of insecurity in that feeling, and we can then experience other unpleasant emotions, such as shame,” Cory warns.
“Sometimes, we need to expose ourselves to what we fear, which gives the brain an opportunity to become desensitized to the intensity of the feeling. Working with a professional to help you better understand the fear, and work together to come up with a plan to help you confront the fear is one of the best ways to address it,” the expert shared.
#13 An Opening Of The Forest
#14 This Plant In The Corner
#15 Cat Candles
Finally, Cory added, “Remember that there are two sides to every coin, and the same goes for negative emotions like fear. Fear has plenty of benefits, and helps keep us safe and mindful of our surroundings. The more accepting of fear we can be, the more control we can have over the way that we respond to it, and in turn, feel more secure in experiencing fear.”
#16 A Photo Published In The New England Journal Of Medicine Shows A Delivery Truck Driver’s Severe Sun Damage On His Left Side After 28 Years Of Uva Exposure Through His Window
#17 This Fisherman Holding A Deep Water Wolf Eel
#18 Schizophrenic Person Uses Typewriter To Visualize The Voices They Hear
We were also lucky enough to get in touch withBritish Psychological Societychartered member, Professor Craig Jackson, to hear his thoughts on this topic.
“The photos tend to fall into a number of categories: body shocks, scary nature, entrapment/entombment, horror pop culture, true crime, or hyper-real photography,” he shared. “These are typically harmless photographs but the viewers’ previous experiences of horror movies, true crime or even scary experiences with nature can give such photos an additional layer of fear or trepidation.”
“This works by capitalizing on typical and common sources of fear e.g. the unknown, death, illness, isolation, attack,” the expert explained. “As such, the photographs work best when the viewer brings their own subconscious fears with them to add an additional layer of stimulation to the photographs. As most great artists know, it’s not what is on the canvas that scares, but it’s about what the image unlocks in the viewer’s mind.”
#19 I See Your Japanese Spider Crab And I Raise You A Coconut Crab
#20 A Man Was Discovered To Be Unknowingly Missing 90% Of His Brain, Yet He Was Living A Normal Life
#21 In Honor Of My Mother, I Present To You: Her Knit Self Portrait
Professor Jackson also says fear can be healthy because there’s an evolutionary benefit to fear. “It keeps one safe from a range of hazards – be that fear of animals with sharp teeth or dangerous parts of a city at night – and helps people live longer,” he told We. “But a life avoiding all fears is perhaps too boring, hence why we have developed access to ‘controlled fear’ such as scary movies, roller coasters or blind dates – all are sociably acceptable things we willingly pay for.”
#22 Witnessed This Crazy Sunset The Other Day
#23 This Thing I Found My Little Girl Waving At
#24 These Red Lights Captured In France
“There is a large growth recently in the ‘fear transformation’ movement that works in two ways,” the expert continued. “First, the idea is that by facing things we may be fearful of, it will make us view things differently and change our perceptions and therefore our abilities too. It’s about embracing change, knowing we can’t be good at everything, but also demonstrating that we can learn new things. It’s a way of taking everyday experiences and turning them into self-help exercises.”
“Second, by exposing ourselves to the fear (of doing something we are fearful of), we will get used to the feelings of fear and after enough exposure this fear will dissipate,” he continued. “Facing failure, rejection or the fear of failure for long enough removes its sting.”
#25 Sacabambaspis, A Jawless Fish That Lived In The Ordovician Period
#26 Human Skull With Stage 1 Bone Cancer. Credit : Prinoth-1
#27 Mind Blowing Close Up Image Of The Sun
While it’s important for some people to face their fears and feel “alive,” Professor Jackson says this isn’t the case for everyone. “Those who may need constant stimulation or the need to grow (the ‘experientials’) may feel the benefits, but for many people, their comfort zone is just the right place for them to be. This obviously changes with age as we have more to lose as we get older, so the idea is to challenge the comfortable drift towards becoming ‘stale’. As Milos Forman put it, ‘a little humility is good for the soul.'”
“Being masterful of everything also leads to arrogance and over-confidence, and in such a state, we tend not to learn anything new or novel,” the professor continued. “A reduction in confidence from fear means an increased need to listen to and learn from others, and approach things in a new way. Losing confidence is necessary as part of gaining more confidence in the long run.”
#28 The Pacific Ocean
Finally, Professor Jackson added, “The current TikTok trend of filming oneself doing ‘failure tasks’ and things that scare us is a modern twist on those behavioral principles from the 1950s. It goes back to what Franklin D Roosevelt said in 1933 – ‘We have nothing to fear but fear itself’ – or at least our fear of the fear. Losing fear can be quite liberating. See Fearless (1993 Directed by Peter Weir).”
#29 Golf Course That Got Struck By Lightning
#30 The Face Of A Tapeworm Under An Electron Microscope
Are the photos on this list making you nervous, pandas? Keep upvoting all of your favorites, and let us know in the comments below if you’ve seen anything recently that gave you the heebie-jeebies. Then, if you’re looking for another We list featuring unsettling images, look no further than right here!
#31 Green Antarctica
#32 The Way My Wife Left Our Bed This Morning For Me To Find
#33 Being Chased By A Southern Cassowary For 15 Minutes On A Rainforest Trail
#34 A Two Milligram Dose Of Fentanyl Powder Is Enough To K**l Most People
#35 Car Broke Down And Tow Guy Found A Car Tracker
#36 Cancer Cell Hit By An Ion Beam
#37 This Photo
#38 Chinese Foot Binding For Women
#39 My Mri Pictures Are Straight Up Nightmare Fuel
#40 My Childhood Nightmares
#41 Scan Of A Face With Years Of Dermal Filler Build Up
#42 The Largest Paracas Skull Found Yet
#43 Was Cleaning My Room Today And Discovered The Door To My “Other Parents”
#44 This Is Walking Palm But The Warning Sign Look Like Analogue Horror Psa
#45 Real Life Outfits Doctor’s Would Use To Treat Plague Patients In The 1600s
#46 What’s Left Of The Baby Sinclair Puppet Head From “Dinosaurs” (1991)
#47 Veneers Preparation
#48 Ominous Ring In Night Sky
#49 This Sign
#50 An Apartment Above My Floor Opened Up After Being Closed For Years
#51 Never Been To A Concert And Looking At This Made Me Feel Stressed. What If You Need To Pee?
#52 Last Photograph Of A Bubal Hartebeest In 1895, Before It Went Extinct In 1925
#53 Whales Have Fully Formed, Human-Looking Fingers Inside Of Their Fins; Which Can Be Exposed During A Dissection
#54 My “Fortune” From Dinner
#55 The Pale Blue Dot, A Photo Taken By Voyager 1. The Dot Is Earth
#56 Guy Got Stung By A Jellyfish When He Was Diving
#57 Doc Drained That Out Of My Left Knee Today
#58 Is It Just Me Who Would Find It Genuinely Unnerving, Dare I Say Oddly Terrifying, To Stand In Front Of This Art Piece?
#59 The 13-Mile Long Abandoned Pennsylvania Turnpike: No Motor Vehicles Are Allowed On The Property, But Bicycle Riders Are Free To Use It At Their Own Risk. The Trail Requires Helmets And Lights
#60 The Depth Of Lake Baikal
#61 German Observation Tower In Guernsey
#62 Desperately Needed A Toilet And Was Directed To This…
#63 Sign At Sleeping Bear Dunes. Rescue Fees Up To $3k
#64 Spotted By My Gym Earlier
#65 Brain Tissue Of A Cjd Patient Under A Microscope, Showing Holes Everywhere (White Circles). Cjd Is Closely Related To “Zombie Deer Disease” (Cwd). It Is 100% Fatal And There Is No Treatment
#66 One Of The Stranger Places I’ve Delivered Too
#67 Abandoned Hospital
#68 Entrance Exam For An Art School In China
#69 Creepy Text Message, I Keep Blocking The Number And They Send It Again With A Different Number. This Is What I Woke Up To
#70 Hurricane Milton Looking Like Some Sort Of Cosmic Horror Entity
#71 Senators Merged Together
#72 The Silver Mannequin My Parents Are Using To Deter Animals From Their Garden
#73 This Dog Statue From A Farm In Brazil
#74 I Retained My Memory While Under Partial Anesthesia — And Afterward Painted What My Surgeons ‘Looked’ Like
#75 Max The Rat Has Lived In My Aunt & Uncle’s Basement For Over 40 Years
#76 I Don’t Own An AirTag
#77 “Do Not Enter”
#78 Til There Are “Rogue Holes” In The Ocean As Well As “Rogue Waves”
#79 Poorly Lit Mcdonald’s Play Place
#80 First Ever Underwater Photograph From 1899 Is Unsettling To Me
#81 Old Santa Doll That’s Lost Almost All Of Its Hair/Beard
#82 Discovering That “Hip Filler” As A New Plastic Surgery Thing
#83 Found While Packing For A Move. Husband Made This As A Child, He Says It’s His Mom And Her Kids
#84 I Just Found A Tooth In My Luggage While Traveling…
#85 The Inverted And Mirrored King Charles Portrait
#86 Spotted Today In Paris. They Didn’t Move For Like 20min
#87 Jonathan Yeo’s Oil-On-Canvas Portrait Of King Charles III
#88 A New Photo Of The Titan Submersible Has Been Released Showing Its Tail After It Imploded
#89 This Subway Escalator In Georgia
#90 Got Film Developed From Hiking In The Mountains. Is That A Hand?
#91 These Kids In The Polar Express
#92 Redditors Are Literally Missing Parts Of Their Brains
#93 What Exactly Am I Supposed To Remember On This Mountain?
#94 Mom Stored A Few Pillow In My Sensory Swing And It Looks Like Someone Is Lying In It
#95 A Tree Stump With Hundreds Of Coins Jammed Into It
#96 On August 20th 2001, Mohamed Atta Locked His Keys In His Car. I Was The Aaa Dispatcher Who Took The Call & Sent Him A Locksmith
#97 This Was Pass To All Of The House In The Neighborhood
#98 Random Old Lady That Asked Me For Gas Because Her Car Was On Empty. Her Husband Was In The Passenger Seat And Also The Only Other Car At The Station At 11pm
#99 A Note From Housekeeping At My Hotel
#100 Dude Stuck A Normal Flashlight On His Cat’s Head
