Hello, everyone! I'm not sure if I'm in the right forum for this discussion, but it's the closest category that fit

I have what I consider a strange phobia... I'm scared of a sound! No one I have talked to about this has heard of anyone having this fear. The first and only sound I was scared of, since I was about 11, was the fire siren in the town I grew up in. I guess they're air raid sirens. I'm not fearful of emergency vehicle sirens, just the initial fire house siren. I get this uncontrollable urge to run and hide and while it's going off, I experience total chaos in my thoughts. And it happens with every air raid type siren I hear. I can pick up the sound of one miles away in neighboring towns. Some that I have heard go off were at least 15 miles away. In these cases, when I am with friends or family, they don't hear it unless it's dead quiet, but I can hear the faintest siren over other town related noises with no problem at all. I'm 26 now, and after years of dealing with this, I thought that maybe the fear subsided, but it didn't. I have been sound asleep next to my boyfriend, the siren goes off, and I have flipped around, grabbed him, and hid under the blanket until it was over. I feel like such a big wuss! I've joked that maybe I was reincarnated from WWI! I also had to have an MRI done when I was 24... The sound of the machine had me in tears! All the nurses thought I was just claustrophobic, but I love being in tiny spaces, that doesn't bother me at all.

I'm just wondering if anyone else is an "audiophobe" and if so, please share your story! I feel like a boob being frightened by a noise.

I kind of understand where you are coming from on the air raid siren. I grew up in Los Angeles during the cold war when we had monthly nuclear attack drills in the city.

On the last thursday of the month at 9:00 am the city would fire up the air raid sirens and the kids in school would all climb under their desks until we got the all clear signal. At the time nuclear war seemed so inevitable; it seemed like just a matter of time until somebody pushed the button. I built up such stress over that damn siren becasue I knew that Los Angeles was going to get attacked for sure in the event of a war. The sound would make my blood run cold everytime I heard it.

As for why you have this phobia I don't know. If you buy into the whole reincarnation concept it could be explained that way, but who knows for sure. If it is something that you would like to work on getting over there are therapists who specialize in phobias that can help...

I had the same kind of fear but when I was a child. There was a young offenders prison about 10 miles from where I used to live and everytime someone tried to escape the siren would go off and I would panic. In heinsight I think this was probably because at that time the Falklands war was kicking off and the undestanding in my immature head that war kills many people and watching wwII and hearing the air raid sirens in those films panicked and frightened me alot. Also knowing that a bad person was on the run did not help the situation.

The last time I heard an air raid siren I still became a little unnerved, its a very eerie sound anyway.

As for reincarnation I also thought when I was younger that this fear of air raid sirens may of been to do with me being reincarnated from WWII. Now I am older I doubt that alot and feel is what to do with what I wrote above.

I thin air raid sirens are made to be scary, the same way a car's horn or an alarm clock's sound is made to be alarming and get your attention. It's a sound that just reverberates "danger!" I was semi-traumatised as a little kid being locked outside the house when an air raid siren went off. I was too young to understand what it was at the time. The siren was set off by a couple punk kids who were playing a prank. It went on and on for hours and I was terrified.

They test a siren near my school these days. While I don't run screaming from it it does unnerve me.

I was never afraid of sounds, but I did have a phobia, so I understand how hard it is to live with a phobia. I was teased to no end as a child because of my phobia. I was afraid of butterflies and Moths and Birds. Anything that fluttered. Notice that I am using the past tence. That is because I over came my phobia. I did it little by little. First by buying a book on butterflies and Moths. I looked at pictures of them, studied about them. Then I went out and watched them. I think I did that for about a month. Then one day I caught a butterfly in my hand. That was a happy day for me. Later I even bought and owned a bird. No more phobia. You can do it too. Start small buy a siren that is not really loud, but you have control over. Go to a station and ask if you can see the siren. Look at it. When you hear one. Make yourself stand still and think about the sound. Its tone and pitch, what note it. You can over come a phobia. It takes time, but you can do it.

I guess I can understand your phobia just a little. It's not that I get panic stricken, and run and hide or anything like that, but when our emergency tornado sirens go off in town, *shiver* it makes me nervous!

Thank you for the advice I have actually seen pictures of them online. Unfortunately, most sirens are up too far to see in person. I also live near Three Mile Island, ya know, the nuclear power plant that had the meltdown back in 1979, and they have little yellow sirens all over the place in this area. I don't hide anymore when one is sounded, however, I do get that eerie feeling in my gut. It's when I hear them at night that I really get funny. I'm just glad other people also get that feeling. No one I talk to gets weird when they hear one, that's why I thought I was strange, lol. Well, I am strange, but that's a whole other thread.

Since Darkwind and I shared our phobias, anyone else wanna share too?
I also have a fear of the dark while in a wooded area or remote areas, but I don't consider that a phobia since a lot of people I know feel the same way.

the term for one who fears noises is a phonophobe


I dont fear noices, but im terrified of heights and being alone in the dark.

Everyone is afraid of something..Iremembered I watched that talk show Maury one time a women was afraide of kittens! A little kitty cat and she was scared.

Thank you for setting me straight on that cheat Since I never met anyone with the same phobia, I was using what I thought made sense. Anyway, today was interesting... The town I live in was testing the damn air raid siren. It went off 4 times while i was sitting outside. I think just getting it off my chest helped, cause I wasn't in a panic. Thanks to everyone who replied to my post!