Why do holes horrify me?

https://mosaicscience.com/story/trypophobia-why-clusters-holes-horrify-fear-disgust/

by bingden • 7 years ago

73 91 7 years ago

social contaigon is a weird, weird thing.

I have always understood /r/trypophobia to be a deep in-joke, and the earliest i can find reference to the idea at all is 2005: https://web.archive.org/web/20090316071914/http://www.geocit...

and that smells tongue-in-cheek too.

kstrauser5• 7 years ago

I don't think it's just that, though. I'd never heard of it, or the concept of it, when I first saw one of those "doctors hate this weird trick for getting rid of parasites" or whatever ads. It had a photoshop of some kind of a seed pod onto human skin, so it looked like a bunch of worm heads inside holes or something. I almost threw up the instant I looked at it. I later found out that lots of people have that reaction, and it had a name. I think sometimes just naming something gives it life, because then it's an actual thing that people can identify with or not. I'm sure there are lots of phobias or... I dunno, triggers?... that would affect me but I've never experienced or heard of them before so I have no awareness of them. A name might give me that awareness.

But yes, it's a weird, weird thing. No one ever talked about being afraid of clowns when I was a kid. Lots of people liked them, lots were indifferent, but I don't recall ever hearing anyone say they were frightened of them until much later in life. And I clearly remember the first time I heard of anyone disliking the word "moist", and thinking I was being trolled.

nsxwolf• 7 years ago

I was about to comment about the "moist" thing but you beat me to it. It's a very recent phenomenon and makes absolutely no sense. But I remember having the same sickened reaction to that lotus seed pod photo.

ansible• 7 years ago

I definitely had a mild reaction to that sort of image, long, long before it was discussed anywhere. My first instance, as a teenager, was where I had found a lump of play-doh, and (for whatever reason) jabbed it repeatedly with a pencil. I was then disgusted by what I had created.

My second early incident was seeing the cover of the O'Reilly book "Windows Annoyances", which features an image of a Surinam toad with young embedded on its back. Yes, I wasn't a fan of Windows at the time, but I couldn't imagine what the editors were thinking when they chose that cover image.

Buttons8402• 7 years ago

I agree that trypophobia is more than just a social contagion.

I personally had physical reactions of disgust and an unusual desire to destroy Lotus seed pods the first time I saw them. I wanted to put them on the cement and smash and grind them with my shoe until they were a fine paste. This was before I had ever heard the word "trypophobia".

The only thing in nature I've found to trigger me is Lotus seed pods. Unlike your example of the doctored images, there is nothing objectively gross about seed pods, they are a natural part of a healthy and harmless plant.

Call it morbid curiosity, but I will sometimes browse /r/trypophobia and I get the same feelings there, but never worse than simply viewing a seed pod.

toomanybeersies• 7 years ago

If it's the picture I'm thinking of, it's actually a photo of a girls knees after she was made to kneel on frozen peas as a punishment. If you Google "Kneeling On Frozen Peas" you can find articles about it.

ramenmeal• 7 years ago

It's not a joke for me! Google image searching "trypophobia" is terrifying!

ultrarunner• 7 years ago

I used DuckDuckGo, but a lot of that seems intentionally disturbing rather than coincidentally so. Graphic depictions of skin conditions can be difficult to not empathize with. There is certainly room for someone else's reaction to be an extreme magnification of mine, but "terrifying" seems so subjective already I have a hard time ruling out a big joke on that basis alone.

philwelch• 7 years ago

I don't think I have it to the degree that it's a "phobia", but I find a lot of trypophobia images really creepy/gross/frightening. Basically the same reaction I have to arthopods.

I also have had a history, prior to being exposed to the concept of trypophobia, of body-horror nightmares where lots of tiny holes open up in my skin around my joints, so yeah, it's probably one of those common fears.

wruza2• 7 years ago

Oh, that nightmare when you stress your muscles and they rip into holes. I also had it, and it was weird, not terrifying.

maxander3• 7 years ago

It's definitely a real thing. I don't have it badly, but when I learned about tryptophobia it was satisfying to know why lotus seed pods had always made me feel somewhat uncomfortable.

(Google that only if you're reasonably confident you're not a tryptophobe. :) )

ryanmcbride2• 7 years ago

When I was a little kid I was terrified of coral because of the little holes. I definitely wouldn't say I have a phobia but images of things with lots of holes makes my skin crawl.

saiya-jin• 7 years ago

well thank you for ruining coral diving for me, one of most wonderful experiences in life...

more seriously though, it seems strange that a lot of things I wouldn't notice at all unless there was some really bad trigger, like photoshopped trypto images and then I start noticing this pattern more (especially if there is something sticking out of those holes...)

bee/wasp honey combs with their younglings, anybody?

dliff• 7 years ago

I experienced this long before I ever saw it on the internet. For me it's especially bad if there is a hole and something small is stuck in it. Even as I type this I remember a specific object I used to see often and I feel my face flush. It's a strangely uncomfortable experience that I can physically feel in my "bones" as they say. I wouldn't say it's a phobia in the sense that I am afraid of it, and I don't often experience it, but it's quite disturbing. An eerie, undefinable discomfort.

oarabbus_• 7 years ago

You're utterly off. It evokes a strong reaction of disgust and horror in many people.

elliekelly• 7 years ago

I remember seeing a PostSecret about it (but not referencing trypophobia by name) when I was in college ~2008.

miguelmota• 7 years ago

Humans want to avoid disease and some diseases can causes holes or hole-like symptoms on victims, so it's human nature to be horrified of clusters of holes because it's abnormal.

thfuran• 7 years ago

Probably not. Lots of abnormal things aren't viscerally horrifying and I'd expect something with a strong evolutionary basis like avoidance of disease to be much more widespread than trypophobia. Such as, for example, the nearly universal dislike of the taste and smell of rotting meat.

kstrauser5• 7 years ago

Perhaps it's a local thing. If you're around guinea worms, you evolve to be afraid of their signs, maybe? Not everyone is afraid of spiders or snakes, but there's a good evolutionary reason to be, so maybe people who aren't afraid of them are from areas without extremely venomous versions?

maxander3• 7 years ago

Trypophobia is presumably an abnormal, overly-aggressive version of the disease-avoidance mechanism, though; there's no evolutionary reason to be unsettled by holes on inorganic objects, or even most kinds of holes on organic ones. Presumably, almost everyone has some level of the underlying mechanism; go look at a picture of a smallpox victim and see how you feel about it.

taneq2• 7 years ago

That's the thing, most "example images" aren't just a bunch of holes or circles (I've never heard anyone claim security mesh or a half-cooked pancake are horrifying, although apparently crumpets are a known trigger?). They're photos (either shopped or real) of something that looks like a gnarly parasite infection. Disliking that is not 'phobia', it's legitimately yuck.

limomium2• 7 years ago

It's not merely a 'dislike' though.

I've had arachnophobia (spiders). It feels like an intense, paranoid, startling horror which demands visual attention and quick jumping away of the body. If I know there's a spider nearby, I must be able to see it from a safe distance.

I have trypophobia (holes). It feels like my skin is crawling, like I'm being eaten alive from the inside, like my very essence of being is being violated by some cosmic plague, commanding me to look away and get as far away from the holed object as possible -- though without excessive urgency.

I can look at many things I dislike; many things I know for fact are dangerous. I can't look at certain kinds of clusters of holes.

xaedes2• 7 years ago

Probably. This also explains that people find comfort in pimple popping and ASMR. The first is a direct skin health care routine and ASMR is simulating human intimacy, probably giving the impression of being cared for by others, which helps when being sick.

I guess it is not widespread because the evolutionary pressure only evolved it on part of human people for local reasons.

Or what I want to believe: Its phenotypical expression is different for different folks because of gene activation. Could be that traumatic occurences in the past (like being serious sick of s.th. like that, or being in the midst of an epidemy, while avoiding it oneself) activate the gene and this is passed on to the next few generations.

mapcars2• 7 years ago

Well, disease is not abnormal nor death is. Only our culture makes it abnormal.

redleggedfrog• 7 years ago

Whoa! I have trypophobia and just never knew what it was - I thought it was just a quirk of my brain.

Sometimes it creeps into my dreams - can be very disturbing.

vesche• 7 years ago

Not even clicking on this article because I know it's about trypophobia and I'm afraid of seeing the pictures!

khendron• 7 years ago

There actually are no triggering images. I guess they want trypophobics to be able to read it.

maxander3• 7 years ago

Pretty few would take the risk, I bet. It's an interesting problem- we have "trigger warnings" and "content warnings" but not "content all-clears."

vagab0nd• 7 years ago

Not even joking here, I got triggered by the "mosaic newsletter" animation half way through the article and I had to close the article. That's how strong my trypophobia is. Heck, even the word "trypophobia" is a trigger for me.

JKCalhoun• 7 years ago

Ummm, just don't click any of the links in the article though.

hangonhn• 7 years ago

I had the exact same reaction but clicked it anyways. I really appreciated them not doing that. All the past articles I've read always included an image -- I can't help but feel the author/editors thought it would be funny or are being dismissive of this fear/aversion. For me it is also triggered by the sight of sick fishes when their scales are puffed up. Images of large numbers of holes triggers a strong fight or flight reaction in me.

mapcars2• 7 years ago

I wonder can't you see the picture is just a picture? In a way as when you watch a movie where people die or something you realize it's just a movie, right?

kup02• 7 years ago

I think it's not really about the rational/analyzing part of the brain being involved here.

A lot of phobias have "involuntary" reactions, so, for me, it doesn't matter that I know the picture can't hurt me- I still get the negative reaction to it every time and no amount of rational thinking or understanding has any effect.

It's something more primal than that.

stared• 7 years ago

If you want a trypophobia dataset, my mentees created one: https://www.kaggle.com/cytadela8/trypophobia (for a deep learning project). Use it at your own risk. Great Old Ones warn you.

Here is one of the abstracts (with some references): https://www.dropbox.com/s/pb1h19kslroyro8/TrypophobiaTFML.pd...

me_me_me• 7 years ago

And here I was, wonder why people in horror movies go and have a look for the monster. Immediately opening that gallery.

normalnorm• 7 years ago

mentees

Sounds like something you would use for bad breath.

ChrisRR• 7 years ago

Jesus, some of those images turn my stomach and I can't explain why.

LeonB• 7 years ago

Just want to mention Steve Jobs likely had a similar phobia/disgust around buttons, known as Koumpounophobia.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/2014/11/steve-jobss-button-phobi...

ncmncm2• 7 years ago

Crumpets!

I can't help but think that cognitive therapy would enable anyone to overcome the syndrome. But maybe the thought of a future self having overcome it is itself a trigger?

DrOctagon• 7 years ago

I'm fine with crumpets but the thought of lotus pods is too much.

jcims• 7 years ago

Probably because you can’t eat them doused in butter and honey.

Hitton• 7 years ago

I knew about trypophobia and it doesn't really disgust me, but the linked "Dr. Pimple Popper", has some rather disturbingly "tasty" stuff. I hope I don't dream about.

huehehue• 7 years ago

I worked with a designer who had Trypophobia and refused to mock out a GitHub-style contribution graph / punchcard. Friendly reminder to not create products that inadvertently terrify people.

xaedes2• 7 years ago

Did you come up with a different design that doesnt trigger it? I would be interested to hear.

pvaldes• 7 years ago

Mangoworm

Good night

scotty792• 7 years ago

When I was a kid I tried to make porous plaster brick with baking soda and gypsum. I think I used chalk instead of gypsum because it didn't set. However it was porous and when I saw holes inside I felt as if it was dangerous (maybe even evil).

I had to wait till the internet happened to find out what was that all about.

I have to repeat this experiment some day. I probably got less sensitive since then.

r00fus• 7 years ago

Interesting - does the Apple Watch Nike sport band (with holes) inspire the same revulsion from you?

scotty792• 7 years ago

Not really. I've seen that kind of imagery on the internet and even the worst ones give me bearly noticeable uneasiness.

I want to try to recreate that first thing that triggered me. Maybe physical object will work stronger than images or some specific proportions between hole size, distance, shading, randomness.

It wasn't even revulsion. Just a feeling it's dangerous or somehow evil. Despite full knowledge it's not because I just made it with perfectly safe ingredients that don't react to create something worse.

Spare_account• 7 years ago

Not the same guy but for me, the regularity of the holes in the watch strap renders it safe. Something that appears more organic tends to trigger revulsion more strongly. The implication of lots of holes in skin is very difficult to look at, actual holes in an animals skin is the worst (there's a frog that pops babies directly out of holes on its back).

lioeters• 7 years ago

That's fascinating that the feeling was so memorable, even after so many years, and how you describe it as not only dangerous but "evil" - that seems to be tapping into some primal instinct, like "horror" in a Lovecraftian sense.

I have to repeat this experiment some day.

Gotta love the pursuit of knowledge, the curiosity to understand one's own psychology. It reminds me of the various experiments conducted in the surrealist movement, inspired by Freud's exploration of the unconscious, the "art of the insane", anthropogical literature.

In another comment of yours, you mention that the holes being physical, rather than a 2D image, was probably an important aspect of its effectiveness in raising a strong reaction. That makes me wonder about what other natural phenomena produce such trypophobic textures, in terms of physics, chemistry, biology.

Strangely, I think I have a kind of "trypophilia", a sense of aesthetic pleasure from dense, complexly patterned structures.

mirimir• 7 years ago

Huh. I'd miss some of my favorite foods.

Pancakes. Crispy fried eggs. Fudge. Raw honeycomb.

Edit: And crumpets.

Rifu• 7 years ago

Even without the images, just the descriptions alone were enough to trigger feelings of revulsion.

ratsimihah• 7 years ago

I thought it was a universal condition...

aaron695• 7 years ago

/r/Submechanophobia (submerged man-made objects) and /r/Thalassophobia (deep water) are other populated subreddits where people use these these lower emotions to get high.

If you're not phobic you like the adrenaline I guess.

Other than Acrophobia and gore not sure of others that are common enough to get popular subreddits? ASMR is a more enjoyment high.

A lot don't transfer well to a computer screen I think. /r/claustrophobia is quite small compared to Submechanophobia.

[edit] And the reason Trypophobia is thought to not be a phobia -

"While phobias are triggered by the emotion of fear, the study published in the open-access journal PeerJ concludes that trypophobia is more likely driven by disgust instead." https://www.straitstimes.com/world/united-states/trypophobia...

n1000• 7 years ago

Apparently the new iPhone is known to trigger trypophobia. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/09/12/iphone-tryp...

EvanAnderson• 7 years ago

I have no problem with the lotus pod-type holes, but things like dam spillways and other large pipe-like structures are creepy: https://old.reddit.com/r/thalassophobia/comments/2tosha/how_...

dkarras• 7 years ago

I find Trypophobia phenomenon interesting. For most phobias, I can understand how one can develop a repulsion to them. But things that bother you guys, I have 0% reaction to.

Lio• 7 years ago

Whenever this comes up it makes me think of William Gibson’s Neuromancer.

There’s a flashback description of the main character’s revulsion with a smashed wasp’s nest.

That was written in 1984ish so this has been around for longer than the web anyway.

kup02• 7 years ago

My skin is crawling/itching just from reading the discussion about trypophobia, and I haven't even looked at the pictures (and can't, because I definitely have the phobia).

I think there are other visual phobias that maybe are even lesser known. I have some kind of phobia-like thing with industrial/mechanical things that are dirty-looking or poorly-lit. It's hard to explain. Also things like dam spillways/etc.

Like, opening up an indoor furnace to repair or check for issues. The dust, the rust, the coils, etc all give me a weird feeling. It's not as heavy or pronounced as my trypophobia. I can overcome it much easier (with strong/bright lighting, etc) but I still notice its presence.

Also, I'm not sure if "phobia" is the best term or not either. For me, in some cases there can be some kind of fear or disgust involved. But mostly for me it's not any kind of mental analysis ("ew, gross", etc) it's just a reaction. Looking at the pictures just immediately induces an unsettling feeling, crawling/itching head and skin, etc.

Why do holes horrify me?

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