As humans, we know about the extent to which fear can be subjective. Some people like that feeling, being a little bit scared in certain circumstances, which explains the existence of horror novels and films, and scary games. Others find the idea of voluntarily exposing themselves to something scary as utter insanity. Still others find difficulties in everyday living because they have a phobia of something most people regard as commonplace. I fall into that final category – I describe it in brief as a phobia of dolls, but it actually extends to what is known as automatonophobia, which is a fear of anything that imitates the human form. This can make clothes shopping ‘interesting’ as, while I’m usually ok with most store mannequins, some provoke a big old ‘NOPE’.
