The Haunter of the Dark by HP Lovecraft made me scared of windows at night for at least a couple of years. Didn’t help that, when I first read it, my room had a huge window and we lived in a very rural area at the edge of a tiny village so there were literally zero (0) lights outside at night. I still occasionally get a bit nervous when I’m next to a window at night and I can’t see outside.
I’ve never read that book and I probably shouldn’t because I had that fear as a teenager. I didn’t like to sit up in my room at night because of an irrational fear (I fully knew it was irrational but still couldn’t shake it) that some sort of alien, ghost, or monster woukd see me and grab me. Even now, the fear creeps up occasionally at night that if I look out the window, a person’s face will be there. And I live on a high floor of an apartment building
I used to have that similar sort of fear, but for different reasons. And when I was like younger than 10. For me it was actually vampires for some reason. But then a new commercial channel opened, they started showing Buffy the Vampire Slayer and with her, Spike, Drusilla and especially Angel, my fears went… right out the window.
So my anecdote was more about losing fears with stories I guess.
The Haunter of the Dark by HP Lovecraft made me scared of windows at night for at least a couple of years. Didn’t help that, when I first read it, my room had a huge window and we lived in a very rural area at the edge of a tiny village so there were literally zero (0) lights outside at night. I still occasionally get a bit nervous when I’m next to a window at night and I can’t see outside.
I’ve never read that book and I probably shouldn’t because I had that fear as a teenager. I didn’t like to sit up in my room at night because of an irrational fear (I fully knew it was irrational but still couldn’t shake it) that some sort of alien, ghost, or monster woukd see me and grab me. Even now, the fear creeps up occasionally at night that if I look out the window, a person’s face will be there. And I live on a high floor of an apartment building
I used to have that similar sort of fear, but for different reasons. And when I was like younger than 10. For me it was actually vampires for some reason. But then a new commercial channel opened, they started showing Buffy the Vampire Slayer and with her, Spike, Drusilla and especially Angel, my fears went… right out the window.
So my anecdote was more about losing fears with stories I guess.