Don’t look now.
Catoptrophobia is the
fear of mirrors.
Let’s reflect for a moment how this might look in real life.
It’s not that catoptrophobic people are scary looking or
anything. OK, they’re not all scary
looking. Most of them look pretty much like the rest of us.
This fear may take multiple forms. Some may be afraid of
mirrors, simply because they are unhappy with their own appearances. They just
don’t like what they see when they look into a mirror.
Others may be leery of mirrors for superstitious reasons.
Throughout human history, legends have abounded of the souls staring back from
folks’ own reflections in looking-glasses and bodies of water. Some still fear
this idea. Plenty of people still carry superstitions of how breaking a mirror
might lead to a long stretch of bad luck.
Illusionists are said to use smoke and mirrors to work many
of their wonders.
Looking-glasses have also been used in fortune telling, fiction,
and even horror films.
Mirrors may stimulate fantasies and imaginings that prove
scary to some. Remember Lewis Carroll’s Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass? The mirror actually represented a gateway to a stranger
place.
Alfred Hitchcock, the classic scary moviemaker, used mirrors
in all sorts of creepy and mysterious ways in his TV episodes.
All of these ideas (and more) can feed into catoptrophobia,
the fear of mirrors.
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