To learn more about why we sometimes find innocent things frightening, we reached out to Cory Speicher, clinician at Modern Therapy. He was kind enough to have a chat with Bored Panda and shine some on this topic.

“As cliché as it may sound, we typically fear what we don’t understand,” Cory shared. “People are typically comforted by familiarity, and there is a sense of calm that we experience when we know what we are facing.”

“However, when we perceive something to be unfamiliar, different, or strange, our ‘fight or flight’ response gets triggered,” the expert explained. “While some people may go into ‘fight’ and become intrigued by something innocuous, others will go into ‘flight’ and feel fear. This could result in them engaging in avoidant behavior that is facilitated by the feeling of fear.”

So is it healthy for us to feel fear from time to time? “Fear is one of our core emotions,” Cory shared. “From a survival perspective, fear is what helps keep us safe, and be aware of potential dangers. Due to this, fear is absolutely a healthy emotion to experience from time to time.”

“One of the main reasons that people look to avoid fear is due to the discomfort that it brings us,” the expert says. “If we are too fixated on avoiding fear, then we are stripping ourselves of the ability to be cognizant of potential threats, and limits our ability to build an understanding. So, instead of looking to avoid feeling fear, we want to be accepting of it, and learn to understand what triggers it.”

We also asked Cory how we can go about facing our fears. “While it may sound simplistic, one of the most effective ways to overcome fear is by talking about it,” he told Bored Panda. “It can be with a therapist, a friend, or someone you trust, but openly discussing what we are afraid of actually gives us control back over the emotion.”

“When someone feels shame about feeling fear, that triggers a sense of insecurity in that feeling, and we can then experience other unpleasant emotions, such as shame,” Cory warns. 

“Sometimes, we need to expose ourselves to what we fear, which gives the brain an opportunity to become desensitized to the intensity of the feeling. Working with a professional to help you better understand the fear, and work together to come up with a plan to help you confront the fear is one of the best ways to address it,” the expert shared. 

Finally, Cory added, “Remember that there are two sides to every coin, and the same goes for negative emotions like fear. Fear has plenty of benefits, and helps keep us safe and mindful of our surroundings. The more accepting of fear we can be, the more control we can have over the way that we respond to it, and in turn, feel more secure in experiencing fear.”

We were also lucky enough to get in touch with British Psychological Society chartered member, Professor Craig Jackson, to hear his thoughts on this topic.

"The photos tend to fall into a number of categories: body shocks, scary nature, entrapment/entombment, horror pop culture, true crime, or hyper-real photography," he shared. "These are typically harmless photographs but the viewers' previous experiences of horror movies, true crime or even scary experiences with nature can give such photos an additional layer of fear or trepidation."

"This works by capitalizing on typical and common sources of fear e.g. the unknown, death, illness, isolation, attack," the expert explained. "As such, the photographs work best when the viewer brings their own subconscious fears with them to add an additional layer of stimulation to the photographs. As most great artists know, it's not what is on the canvas that scares, but it’s about what the image unlocks in the viewer's mind."

Professor Jackson also says fear can be healthy because there’s an evolutionary benefit to fear. "It keeps one safe from a range of hazards - be that fear of animals with sharp teeth or dangerous parts of a city at night - and helps people live longer," he told Bored Panda. "But a life avoiding all fears is perhaps too boring, hence why we have developed access to 'controlled fear' such as scary movies, roller coasters or blind dates - all are sociably acceptable things we willingly pay for."

"There is a large growth recently in the 'fear transformation' movement that works in two ways," the expert continued. "First, the idea is that by facing things we may be fearful of, it will make us view things differently and change our perceptions and therefore our abilities too. It's about embracing change, knowing we can’t be good at everything, but also demonstrating that we can learn new things. It's a way of taking everyday experiences and turning them into self-help exercises."

"Second, by exposing ourselves to the fear (of doing something we are fearful of), we will get used to the feelings of fear and after enough exposure this fear will dissipate," he continued. "Facing failure, rejection or the fear of failure for long enough removes its sting."

While it’s important for some people to face their fears and feel "alive," Professor Jackson says this isn't the case for everyone. "Those who may need constant stimulation or the need to grow (the 'experientials') may feel the benefits, but for many people, their comfort zone is just the right place for them to be. This obviously changes with age as we have more to lose as we get older, so the idea is to challenge the comfortable drift towards becoming 'stale'. As Milos Forman put it, 'a little humility is good for the soul.'"

"Being masterful of everything also leads to arrogance and over-confidence, and in such a state, we tend not to learn anything new or novel," the professor continued. "A reduction in confidence from fear means an increased need to listen to and learn from others, and approach things in a new way. Losing confidence is necessary as part of gaining more confidence in the long run."

Finally, Professor Jackson added, "The current TikTok trend of filming oneself doing 'failure tasks' and things that scare us is a modern twist on those behavioral principles from the 1950s. It goes back to what Franklin D Roosevelt said in 1933 - 'We have nothing to fear but fear itself' - or at least our fear of the fear. Losing fear can be quite liberating. See Fearless (1993 Directed by Peter Weir)."

Are the photos on this list making you nervous, pandas? Keep upvoting all of your favorites, and let us know in the comments below if you’ve seen anything recently that gave you the heebie-jeebies. Then, if you’re looking for another Bored Panda list featuring unsettling images, look no further than right here!