With Halloween just around the corner, it’s just about time to get into the spooky mood! We’ve all seen stereotypical Halloween decorations that feature ghosts, goblins, graveyards, giant spiders, and witches in pointy black hats. I’m sure plenty of us have seen our share of Halloween-themed classics such as Hocus Pocus, Twitches, and Halloweentown. This year I decided I wanted to dig a little bit deeper into the eerie dreary part of Halloween. The real spooks and scares! I surveyed a random group of college-aged students to find out what really scares people our age. The survey was completely random and anonymous. The majority of participants were 20 years old, but the ages ranged from 18-23. Sure, Halloween brings out the cliches and we have fun with it, but when the day is done and the lights are out… what are we really scared of?
Plenty of people have unique (and some, even somewhat silly) fears. In fact, the vast majority of people’s fears varied from one another.* There are people afraid of bridges, bears, weight-gain, ghosts, the unknown, getting stuck on an airplane, and even Aaron Rodgers sustaining a career-ending injury. Some fears even coincide with others. For example, the person afraid of bears is also afraid of dying, they just happen to think that death-by-bear is scarier than plain old death.
Plain old death, however, was the most common recurring answer of what scares us, college-aged, people. “You don’t know what happens after you die and you don’t know when or how exactly you’ll die – there’s just lots of unknowns surrounding death. It’s spooky!” one anonymous 20-year-old participant wrote. The unknown aspects of death seem to be one of the things that make it so scary to people. Another participant wrote, “I can’t decide if it’s what happens next or being alone. They both terrify me.”
Death of oneself, the death of others or dying alone. These death-related fears also happened to be the top three recurring fears. For some, however, “dying alone,” is not scary because of the aspect of dying. Feeling alone is something that many people dread.
One participant wrote, “I’m scared I won’t find the right person to be with. I see my peers in happy relationships and want that for myself but it never works out for me, with my current/former love interests. My fear is it never will.”
This was also a concept that appeared in the fear of losing loved ones. Death is a scary concept to many, but a death leading to being or feeling alone can be just as terrifying. If death is taken away, being alone or feeling lonely is still quite eerie. This being considered, isolation was the sixth most common recurring fear that was submitted. (I hope everyone’s quarantine is going well!)
On a lighter note, the fear that repeated second most often (with the same amount of responses as losing a loved one AND dying alone) was, drum roll please… heights! To be frank, most people who are afraid of heights are afraid of falling from heights. This could maybe even be considered a fear of death in an obscure way. In fact, one participant (age 19) wrote, “The idea of traveling a long distance to hit the ground and possibly face a painful death or a challenging life is terrifying.”
To get back to the brutal, a lot of people also submitted crime-related fears. For the most part, the crimes involved were murder, r*pe, stalking, kidnapping, and torture. You can take action to prevent becoming a victim of crime (i.e. locking your door at night to prevent an invasion) but it is impossible to predict whether someone you may not even know will act out in a harmful or criminal way.*
Snakes had the same response rate as crime. One anonymous 22-year-old participant rationalized their fear of snakes by writing, “Snakes don’t have arms or legs and can still kill humans.”
A separate 20-year-old owned up to not even knowing what ignites their fear of snakes in the first place. “Literally I have no idea why I am so scared of snakes. They’re just so weird, terrifying, and gross. I feel like it’s the lack of legs that’s scary but I really can’t pinpoint one single thing about it.”
Failure is a fear that had the same response rate as snakes and crime. In order to keep things somewhat light-hearted, I won’t go into crippling details! Some people are afraid of failing to become successful, one person is even strictly afraid of failing a class, but the rest are generally afraid of failing. The reasoning varies from person to person, likely because failure can take on different meanings depending on one’s situation. One participant explained, “I have ambition and goals and I want to achieve those things.”
Bugs! Who could forget bugs? Bugs are another common fear amongst college-aged people. Some participants specified what bugs scared them the most, whether it be wasps, yellow jackets, big hairy spiders, or generally “nasty,” insects. Maybe the less popular pandemic (that of the lanternflies) has sent us into orbit.
There were PLENTY of fears I didn’t even touch on, mainly for the sake of article length (but I will add a list of all the fears in order of popularity at the end of this) but it was definitely interesting to look through all of the submissions I received. Although this information regarding the true fears of college-aged people may not change anybody’s Halloween plans, maybe it will change your outlook just a little. Maybe when you rewatch Halloweentown again (or any of the movies in the series), you will think about how right Grandma Aggie is. Ghouls and goblins and witches aren’t that scary after all.
Recurring fears: Death, Losing a loved one, Heights, Dying alone, Going through life without a significant other, Crime related fears*, Snakes, Failure, Isolation, Isolation (extended/forever), Bugs, Paralysis, Sharks, Being abandoned, The (deep) sea, Drowning, The dark, Being stuck (life, career, relationship), Being alone, (Social) Rejection, Aging / Growing Old, House burning down at night while sleeping, Quiet, Being buried/eaten alive, Dying early (getting terminally ill), Clowns, Dying unfulfilled, Disappointing (my mom, loved ones)
Non-repeated fears: Disappointment, Not being able to do the things I want in life, Being stuck in an airplane, The unknown, Bears, Heartbreak, Bridges, Dogs, People seeing through my insecurities, Throw up, Ending up with a partner who I will get divorced with, Horses, Gaining weight, Deep space, Being forgotten, Ghosts, Trump’s re-election, Not reaching my potential, Aaron Rodgers sustaining a career-ending injury
*Every crime-related fear was counted as independent due to the variations amongst each one. They are grouped together as crime-related in order to explain the ultimate fear of being victimized.