Ghosts and monsters might give us a scare, but real life has its own horrors, and they’re often much harder to escape.
Redditors recently shared what they believe are the most terrifying things that actually exist. From devastating diseases and mental health struggles to the threat of nuclear war, their answers paint a chilling picture of the fears that keep us up at night.
You’ll find their most haunting picks below—and who knows, you might even want to add your own.
#1
Alzheimer's.
namdor:
Knowing that it is eating the memories, emotions, personality, body, and life of someone you love is brutal. It is so dark and terrifying not knowing how many years the shell of a body will live, while the person inside is gone.
Image credits: Smart-Way1246
#2
Anti-vaxxers.
Image credits: Lipsiekins
#3
Human traffickers. No sense of morality and atrocious humans.
IndelibleIguana:
Pretty much one of the worst crimes that exist.
Image credits: Frrv2112
#4
Dictators that think they just can bust into any sovereign country and claim it.
It scary, it causes death and destruction and is generally bad for the mental health of all involved.
Image credits: Express_Selection345
#5
'The sin of empathy' being a literal thing people live by like wtaf.
Image credits: jebelle87
#6
Working until you die.
Image credits: Apprehensive_Web9494
#7
A few handful of Super Rich people we probably never heard of who are pulling and manipulating the strings of the masses. Who control everything. It’s a spooky thought in my opinion.
Image credits: jeffbono22
#8
The banality of evil. Good German citizens that rounded up Jews and put them in concentration camps. Put little babies in the gas Chambers. Hung people on meat hooks while they were still alive and cut their guts out while taking notes. Scientist that put them in freezing ice water to gain statistical data on how long it took to freeze to death. American college students that were willing to administer 450 volt shocks to unseen scientific experiment subjects as long as somebody else took responsibility. Don't think it can't happen here because it's about to.
Image credits: danvilleman
#9
Locked in Syndrome (LIS) basically you have total body paralysis but you have all your normal cognitive abilities. It’s basically a waking nightmare where you can’t move but you can feel and process everything like you normally would. It’s a big bag of no thanks.
Image credits: Lokenlives4now
#10
Environmental collapse. Entirely preventable but being ignored or refuted so that a group of rich men can keep their power.
Image credits: spandexvalet
#11
Sinkholes. I often think about that guy that was in bed when a sinkhole opened up and swallowed him. His brother could hear his screams but could do nothing to help.
Image credits: wanderingnomad85
#12
Cancer. I lost a loved one to this disease. I lived with her screaming in pain 24 hours a day, for 6 months. I wouldn't wish this on anyone, not even the most evil human being.
Image credits: SirPulga
#13
Knowing that our lives could change for the worse in an instant.
obxtalldude:
Yep - I was having a great summer in 2016 until my Mom got dizzy.
Within a week we found she had a glioblastoma at 75.
From perfect health to a state I wish I could forget in 6 months. I had to hire a team of nurses for hospice after it became too much for me.
Brain cancer is no way to go.
There's a certain look from Doctors I realized afterwards - they know what's coming, and know you don't.
Image credits: st2826
#14
Was a Marine for 6 years and deployed constantly to countries in Asia via naval carriers, there is nothing more terrifying and more humbling than being in the middle of the ocean, ESPECIALLY during the night.
Image credits: EmployFew2509
#15
Rabies. The second theres symptoms, chances are, you're already screwed. Theres only a few known cases of someone surviving rabies without the vaccine, and as of 2016, only 14 people are known to have survived it.
So if you get scratched or bitten by an animal, it's better to be safe rather than sorry and get it checked out.
Image credits: help-my-shrimp
#16
Burning alive. No, not dying in a house fire, when smoke will get you before the flames. But literally dying in flames. Or surviving for a short while with massive burn injuries. Burn injuries are absolutely horrific.
Image credits: Vanarene
#17
Prions.
peridaniel:
Misshapen proteins that, once they get in your brain, cause the proteins in your brain to deform too. basically, something that malforms the proteins in your brain until the cells in it die. if you've ever heard of mad cow disease, that's a well known prion disease.
and since it's a protein rather than any organism, there's nothing that can be done about it once you have a prion disease. once you're diagnosed, it's just a ticking clock as your brain degenerates.
Image credits: Danatious
#18
Predatory humans.
Image credits: Showdown5618
#19
The fact that brain eating amoeba exists in warm freshwater lakes keeps me up at night.
Agreeable_Cow_7230:
My uncle contracted that. While he was fishing.
Image credits: Curvy00Bunny
#20
That group chat that had 70,000 men in it talking about assaulting their mothers/sisters/wives.
Image credits: a-little-much
#21
Mental health issues.
Image credits: Radiant_Gas_4642
#22
Suffocation.
The starving of oxygen is one experience that scares even those without a functioning amygdala in their brain (the part that regulates emotions such as fear).
And those are the most fearless people of us all.
Image credits: MultiMillionaire_
#23
Fatal familial insomnia.
Image credits: Trips-Over-Tail
