Pediophobia

Oh, and I forgot to add....

I've read that in Japan, dolls used to be burned when the little girl was done playing with them. They did this because they believed the doll DID have a soul, and by burning it, the soul was set free.

 

I absolutely hate those real-life sleeping baby dolls. They're often very well made, but I find them unspeakably horrific and can't imagine why anyone would want them in their house. They just look like dead babies to me. I was looking at several pictures of them while looking for doll stuff...and actually had nightmares.

Rather bizarrely, I do like the Victorian death photos as I find them sad and beautiful... a bit odd as they actually are dead people. I suppose it's because the baby dolls are often photographed to show the detail, whereas the Victorian photos are often posed more sensitively.

I would imagine non BJD collectors wouldn't like the dreaming types, as their expressions are more corpse-like.

 

Well it's good to see I'm not the only one who didn't feel disturbed by the pictures of the dead. I don't think I've ever had a place where just 'could not' go. I have a forested area with a playpark in the center (clear of trees, with an ice rink) just across from my house. One one side I'm ok but in the other half it's a little unnerving.

I have two porcelain/cloth dolls which stay in my room and I have never felt they were creepy. One stands on my other night table and Penny just sits wherever. My mom has old bisque and cloth Czech dolls and one plastic one, they are chipped up but I never thought they were creepy though I can totally appreciate someone saying the plastic one is, she has eyes that move and they roll halfway into her head when she stands.

I think it's the eyes, you can look at a portrait and aprreciate the artistry but when you look at the face and you catch the eyes it's like "oh" and they seem to follow you around. BJDs look so human like (compared to Barbie) and I guess to some people like glorified statues of the dead that they find it disturbing and scary. THey do say "It's all in the eyes" or "Eyes are the window to the soul" perhaps, it's something about the eyes that gives the dolls a realistic gaze that seems to follow you that creeps them out.

 

Katie_Raven: I don't like realistic life-size baby dolls at all: I hated having to wade through pictures of them on Ebay when looking for doll eye-lashes.

neverland: I probably will be starting a family in the next couple of years, but, for someone who thinks & worries too much about everything, & is vain enough to be horrified at the thought of having someone REALLY change her body-shape, it's pretty freaky, even before considering the expense & responsibility! But my husband is gorgeous, & I'd like to meet our kid one day.

Did I mention that, as a child, I disliked dolls primarily because as a girl, I was EXPECTED to like them, & I'm the most stubborn creature in the world?

Lucy

 

The false eye comment reminded me of something...My mom and aunt *love* to go antiquing and some years back they were in an antique mall and found a box full of glass eyes (meant for real people). They both like odd things and now regret not buying any of the eyes (they said they were quite beautiful) since they weren't able to track them down again. And this is one example of why no one in my family gets to make fun of me for liking bjds ha ha ha.

Ok, back on topic...This is a very interesting thread, and the connection between dolls and death is one I hadn't thought of before. The fear of dolls I'm sure varies from person to person. I feel no fear from bjds, and have a hard time finding my sweet looking little guy scary, but with their expressionate faces and that quality that is "alive" I think I can see how someone could be thrown off by them.

 

For the mose part, I don't think people who say, "Dolls SCARE me!!" really have a phobia of dolls, they are just trying to be funny. Sort of like everyone who says that they are afraid of clowns? But, honestly, if you put someone who says, "Clowns scare me!" In a room with a clown, I'm sure they'd be fine.
Those are like the two big things that everyone in our society simply HAS to be afraid of, or else they're considered to be "weird": dolls and clowns.

 

...which is funny, because my brother was actully legitamly scared of clowns for years after watching IT at a very young age. Which does go to show the things we watch as children can have a profound effect on us. And coicdently my brother is also afraid of my dolls. I thought he was joking at first, but he does seem a bit creeped out by them. Maybe because of their size or the way they look? I shall have to ask him one day hehe.

 

Okay, I'm the guilty one here--I'm afraid of sleepies. I think it has something to do with the fact that you can't see their eyes--I love eyes, but with sleepy heads I also have an irrational fear that they will suddenly snap their eyes open. Crazy, huh? Damned if you do, damned if you don't. But I'm not as bad as another friend of ours--she thinks the dolls are gorgeous, but has already announced that she will never, I repeat never sleep in the same room as one.

This thread is simply fascinating--I can't stop reading it! Its amazing to hear so many stories and theories.... I can't wait for my girl to arrive so I can learn a bit about this on my own!

 

I've always had a fascination with the rituals surrounding death and dying.. my pet mythology is Egyptian. I also have a very weak stomach, so it's a love/hate relationship.

Dolls and ancient tombs have similarities in the way they are glorified, and the way they allow others to connect to previous generations. Imagine what your great great great grandchildren would think if they got to see your dolls, perfectly preserved as they are now?

(Does anyone have a link for Victorian post-mortem photagraphy?)

 

~Hi Lucy, I see what you meant, I got my wires totally crossed OI!, I have both photos and a couple of these paintings and mixed both things up.

~The paintings are NOT in black and white and some might look sepia but that's because they are really old and the colors are faded. Only the photos are in blak and white or sepia tone. Sorry about the BS post! ops:

~I'm glad your hubby is gorgeous, I find that a good looking partner can help a relationship tremedously!

Niomi: here's some links, the first one has a very brief story of the portraits and pix and some additional links.

http://www.morbidoutlook.com/nonfiction/articles/2004_01_photograph.html

http://www.anamorfose.be/postmortem.htm

http://www.deathonline.net/remembering/mourning/victorian.cfm#photos

~This is very similar to my locket, without the pic;
http://www.rubylane.com/shops/sentimentaljourney/item/287

 

When I frist discovered these guys years ago, i thought they were the creepest most gothic hobby ever. I was like ahhhh. I actually showed my mom, because i thought they were so creepy and frighting. I also laughed at people who would collect them. However. later after i returned to the site to show a friend I would one doll that I thought was beautiful. Creepy but really alluring. she drew me to her. I forgot about the experience and then one day I found a picture of Nono. I loved her. Then I saw U and loved him. Then i met this lovely girl at Otakon a couple years ago. Now I have 3. I adore them to bits. and would never ever find them scary. Funny how that turns out. I was so repulsed yet now so adoring. I try to keep this story in mine when introducing them to others. :cow

 

Uh wee bit OT but I had an irrational clowns. Though I am mostly over it, they still disturb me. I believe those old urban legends of clowns being evil and what not creeped me out badly as a child and I was so afraid to go in to a party where a clown was I almot started crying. Some fears, can't just be written off.

I think perhaps the fear also lies in some sort of base fear about the death of a child, the word re-animated puppet comes to my mind.
I dunno just perhaps the similarities, the sameness, creeps people out. I watched Japan week on Discovery and at one point they learned about a robot being built and the men said they would make her realistic but not so much that she was too human, too real and therefore, a "threat" or such. Maybe the dollfie is past the too realistic line for some people?

 

Fascinating links, but I understand how you might find them too affecting to have out all the time nowadays: I was browsing through them calmly until I found the husband lying beside his dead wife, & burst into tears.

OK, also it is 3am & I should go back to bed, but I see how moving they can be.

I'll be enjoying that Morbid Outlook site thoroughly tomorrow, now, back to bed with some cold meds

Lucy

 

Back on the first page, I linked to a site discussing that theory... the link is here, if you are interested:

http://www.arclight.net/~pdb/nonfiction/uncanny-valley.html

Pretty fascinating stuff: dolls, aliens, elves, oh my!

Lucy

 

~Sh... Lucy, you are sick too? I swear I'm so sick with the flu that my voice sounds like it's coming out of my dog. That's how stuffed up I am... YUK!

The morbidoutlook link is cool, I can deal with that! The rest I don't think I'll visit again!

Hope you feel better soon! :grin:
Nina

 

I rememebred something from psycology class!!

when a baby is first born, she is natrually attracted to things arranged in a facial form, and even more attracted to very symmetrical female faces. but faces that are almost normal but not quite, like dolls or clowns can create a sense of unease, and when backed with negative experiances, can create phobias.
kinda like how I was scared of men wearing ball caps when I was little *eyeshift* but this might explain some things.

 

Yup, I'm in that grotty, coming-down-with-something stage, & just woke up in mild hysteria because my throat was all closed up. Took a throat-lozenge thingy, & have calmed down now, but NEARLY 4am!!! Gah. Stupid subconcious! Stop freaking out! It's just a sore throat!

My husband had it last week, & got the sexiest gravelly voice, which was quite hilarious.

Good news, however, as I got my Lishe head from a DoAer! Huzzah! Another doll for the household!

And now I must sleep.

Lucy

 

These have been some interesting links. That one of the preserved girl was rather desturbing though. She just looked asleep. O_o

I agree with many of you in that I think it has to do with dolls being close to humans but at the same time just a bit different. We pick up signals from eachother in how we move, how we rest, and things like that. All of which are different in both dolls and people who have passed on. Different in a way that's close enough to make some people uneasy. Also in response to earlier comments about it possibly coming from movies, it's more the other way around. Dolls have been the subject of horror stories for a long time, not because they were picked out of a hat but because people already found them a bit scary.

I used to be afraid of dolls when I was little because several of them were the same size as me and there was one I had that was realistic enough I actually thought it WAS a dead person. ops: That doll is somewhere in the back of my closet I think. Now I don't feel that way but at the time it was just something from my imagination. I also had a plastic skeleton that I though ran around when I wasn't looking... I think in some cases it's just that we associate human shapes closely with movement and the closer that something is to looking human the more we expect it to move. Which is a common theme when it comes to doll fear. People thinking that they will move and do something when we're not looking. It's also a common theme in NON scary doll stories. How many stories did people here hear when you were kids about dolls that had lives? Even classics like the nutcracker or pinnochio.

I think why adults are more likely to be afraid of dolls that children is because a lot of children arn't as aware of cruel intent. Sure kids know that bad people are out there. But most of the ones I've known arn't as likely to assume that anyone or anything that doesn't look violent is out to get them. The idea of a doll having sentience isn't as terrifying to a child in some ways because dolls usually look fairly happy or at least pretty calm. But an adult is more likely to look at anything that can think as being something that can be a threat. *shrugs* This is just my take on it anyway. Based on my own personal feelings and some of the things I've heard my friends say about their feelings on the subject.

 

I don't have my dolls yet, so I don't know how qualified my opinion is. ops: But from what I've seen online and the one time I saw BJDs in person, I find them more fascinating than scary. I've had baby dolls before, one of which was extremely lifelike, but awake. He never bothered me, nor did Rainbow Brite and any of my other dolls, which were baby dolls or barbies. (all of these have since been regulated to the attic, albiet lovingly). I did have one doll that creeped the heck out of me. She was a Chatty Cathy or somesuch, as big as a toddler, and could talk and look around. OMG. I was scared to death of her. I don't know if it was because she was so big or because she could look and talk, but she was banished to the closet until even that was too much to handle, and I got rid of her. I've also been creeped out by porcelin dolls before...some of them have really sinister expressions. Or the paint chipping. Or something...WRONG, that makes me shiver.
BJDs (so far) have not bothered me, although everyone in my family and most of my friends have made some comment to the effect of them being 'creepy'.
Also kinda off-topic and kinda on...if you search 'haunted doll' on ebay you get some really interesting auctions. I can't decide if these people are truthful, scammers, or just nuts.

edit: Just a note on the kinda OT portion of this topic. I am morbid and have been to the mummy site before...I find it and the embalmed child utterly fascinating (as well as the post mortum pics), but at the same time they creep me out.

 

i have a friend who is afraid of older dolls. i even had to hold her hand near the spot where one used to be in an antique store, because it scared her for years. it took a lot of convince her to even walk by the spot where the doll formerly was. she hates clowns, and ventriliqist (spelling sucks,i know) dolls. it is baby and child like dolls that scare her.

i just view dolls as objects, it is fun and i love giving them personalities and such, but i know they are dolls. this is very true with random dolls, i see, they are a doll and nothing more. obviously the ones i own are a lot more special to me.

i think people are scared of dolls that look like humans because they project bad human traits onto the dolls. or they project things they are scared of, onto the doll. this is just one of many reasons though.

(paintings of dead people, primitive photography, mummies, i love reading it all! i also think "death masks" are very interesting. they are a mold of a person's face, that is taken after they died, and you can tell when it is a death mask, because it has the characteristics of dead, like hollow cheeks. i'm such a bad art history student i don't remember any sort of time period, culture...to give you. but it definately started B.C.)