extremely "uncanny" thoughts

One question continues to "haunt" me (pardon the pun): what is scary? This question goes into an eternal category of impossible questions in the company of two others: What is cute? And (perhaps hardest of all) what is funny? I know it's shocking, but I don't plan to answer all three of these eternal questions in a fifty word blog post (I know, I'm letting everybody down), but what I do hope is to probe a bit into the nature of "what is scary."

In his article on "The Uncanny," Freud takes a typically Freudian (I know, we're full of surprises here today) angle on that which we find "haunting," or "spooky," or "freaky": the experience reminds us of some experience from long ago, nestled deep in the subconscious or unconscious.

Maybe this is right, but I want to zoom out a bit and instead look at what makes something scary, not just uncanny. In high school, an English teacher told his class, "All fears are rooted in death," and I don't think I believe this. But I do believe all fears are rooted in uncertainty; that is, in the future (which by nature is uncertain). For example, I never wake up in the middle of the night worrying, "Oh my God, am I going to get accepted into NYU?!" because I'm already here.

Even now as I write that though I'm thinking about the recurring dream that no doubt haunts each and every one of us: looking for the classroom where a final exam is to be held, and never finding it. So I think I just completely contradicted myself, but hey, what the hell, it's just a blog, I'm not sure anyone is reading this so I'll just go with it...

In this case, the dream can bring up a fear that is already been realized/not realized... So maybe there is truth to what Freud is saying... that is, fears, or this idea of the "uncanny," is a very strong bridge between the conscious and the unconscious (God it's so hard to talk about this stuff without sounding like I'm talking about a conspiracy theory) but the point is, the feeling of noticing something that is "uncanny" has an intrinsic sense of vagueness associated with it; that is, something isn't uncanny if it's merely hard recognition... i.e. "I have that bike, and this guy on the street has the same bike..." It's more of "I have that bike and this guy on the street... who looks strangely, eerily similar to me also has the same bike." It's not conclusive.. it's just kind of a hazy coincidence, a shadowy blur... The tension without the release.

So maybe a huge part of Freud's uncanny is this liminal nature of the experience... and maybe this is why horror movies so often deal with teenagers (is this not the most liminal phase of all?)... Things are spooky, ambiguous. Anything can happen, and usually, it does.