Popadoo said:
Scoleciphobia - Phobia of Maggots
So you're scared of Slipknot fans?
Joking aside and on topic:
I think everyone has a slight case of claustrophobia so I wouldn't consider my own particularly unusual. For instance, I could without much of a problem crawl around in air ventilation ducts, but the thought of being buried alive or otherwise trapped in a really tight and confined space makes me scared. But then again, who isn't? So perhaps that's more of a fear of asphyxiating or getting stuck in a place where you will eventually starve to death or die of thirst.
So if we're going to take a more unusual phobia that I have it would be floating in open water. A swimming pool is okay, and staying in really shallow water close to a beach is fine (like, up to my shoulders or neck at the most). But the thought of swimming in an open ocean or being in the middle of a lake several meters deep makes me very uncomfortable. The same goes for sticking my head under the surface and looking under water if it's especially deep, which cause me to get a touch of vertigo.
Now I know that most of the places I've been swimming in doesn't have any maneating sharks or any similar monstrous sea-creature that is going to drag me down and kill me from a rational perspective. But the very thought that im not in my natural element, and that water-dwelling creatures certainly are and can move a lot faster than me as well as percieve their surroundings a lot better than me makes me uncomfortable.
Heck I could be swimming next to the friendliest and most benign sea-dwellers in existence (like dolphins or non-aggressive whales) and I'd still be scared of their very prescence. Interstingly enough this sense of discomfort actually transcends to video games as well. I get the same feeling if im playing a game where I have to swim under water and it gets even worse if there are hostile creatures in there with whatever in-game avatar I use for the moment.
The under-water sequences in Bioshock 2 didn't have that effect on me though. I guess it's because you don't really "swim" as much as walk on the sea-floor. In fact, I felt so safe I almost wished that something hostile would attack me during those sequences. :S
Anyhow, open water is something I want to stay away from.
That said, I might some day try to conquer my fear by taking deep sea diving lessons and perhaps even try out that thing where you watch sharks through a sunken cage. But it's going to be difficult for me.