Creepy animals are the ones that cause a person to react in a "fight or flight" pattern. Of course, because we each are
wired differently and come from a different set of
experiences, we each will have a different set of creepy animals.
Some animals are almost
universally creepy though.
Spiders, for instance. Research has found that there is a part of the optical lobe of the
brain which recognizes a round object with eight projections and reacts to it by notifying the ARAS (ascending reticular activating system) to do a fight-or-flight
reaction before our brains can even cognitively
recognize the spider. This direct-wiring exists in some people but not in others.
A similar
connection exists for snake-type objects. I remember my
cat being terrified of a coil of chain that we kept in our garage for a while. The cat KNEW it wasn't a snake, but whenever we set it down near the chain it
leapt at least 4 feet into the air. The cat itself was probably wondering why it did that.
Through
experience, we can modify the
immediate reaction, or find ways to
deal with it. I have somehow learned not to
jump and
scream every time I see a spider (I only do it about 10% of the time now). There are a bunch of methods developed by
psychologists to help people become comfortable with their creepy animals.
The one method I would
not recommend is "
Immersion Therapy". They experimented with this at my University by putting people in a
small room and then dumping severy thousand spiders on them from an opening in the ceiling. One guy died of a heart attack. It was NOT good therapy.
A better method, I think, is
desensitization. This approach helps a person
slowly get closer to the frightening animal, until they are finally able to sit
comfortably with the animal in close
proximity or even touching it. It is designed to go slowly, so that undue
stress is not placed on the client.