Mirror, Mirror, On The Wall…

No, no, never fear! This isn’t another Mandela Effect thread. But more specifically: The Fear of Mirrors. Or even more specifically: The Fear of Looking at Mirrors During the Night. (Because you just -know- there is something sinister staring at you from within)

I have such a phobia, and it's been a part of me since at least my teenage years.

My son occasionally wakes up in the middle of the night/wee hours of the morning, and I dread it, not because he’s disrupted mine and probably my neighbour’s sleep, but because in order to get up and check on him I have to stand up in front of a wardrobe-door mirror. And then once I’m in his room, he also has a wardrobe-door mirror that faces his bed. My heart pounds as I walk past them, and I refuse to look at the things. I don’t know what it is or if this fear was caused by an event in the past, but when it comes to mirrors at night time, in the dark, I do everything in my power to avoid looking at them.

The one night I dare peek, there’ll be an apparition or entity in the mirror staring back at me, and that’ll be it. I’ll never have a mirror in my home again!

People were warned never to look into a mirror at night or by candlelight. If you did, you would be certain to see ghosts, demons and portents of death - even your own!

Even while asleep, it was thought best to cover your mirror as you could be vulnerable to attack from negative spirits or demons during the dark hours. It was also advised, to never place your bed in a place where it is reflected in a mirror.

(Source: Exemplore - Spirit and Ghost Reflections in Haunted Mirrors)

I’m interested to hear if there are others on ATS who feel this fear? Or more interesting perhaps, if someone has actually seen something "unexpected" when gazing into or just simply passing by a mirror?

I'm looking forward to hearing any stories!

a reply to: kaelci

I thought i was the only one.
I've never heard anyone else admit they are mirror phobic.
Although, i do know what caused this with me.
When i was a younger man. I liked to hallucinate. Looking in a mirror while tripping only once was enough to affect me even to this day.
Was it my darker side i saw? I don't know really.
Scared me enough to have long lasting effects.

Black ink bowl visions allow ones self to see their entire mortal future.

Sometimes mirrors allow people to their higher / lower selves as either angels of light or daemons of darkness.

There is nothing to fear, because whatever your mirror image is, its your other self anyway that needs a physical body with to survive in anyway. So the last thing a entity will do is destroy you, otherwise it will terminate itself.

a reply to: kaelci

That's awful! I don't share your phobia but your story encouraged me to look it up.
Catoptrophobia:

Majority of the cases of fear of mirrors phobia have their roots in the early past. Earliest known fear of mirrors can be traced back to mankind’s fear of still waters. Before modern advances, humans did not use mirrors; rather they saw their reflection in still waters of lakes, rivers etc. They often thought that “it was their soul staring back at them”. This gave rise to the concept that the ‘soul could be separated from the body even before death’. Many folktales were also developed around this concept. For example, there is a story about the disturbance in a character’s reflection in a lake that eventually leads to impending doom or disaster.

This too:

In several cultures, children less than a year old are not shown a mirror due to the belief that they might die when shown their reflection. Similarly, in certain cultures, mirrors in households where death has occurred are kept veiled so that mourning family members do not see their reflection (or they too would die soon)

I recalled my Mother yelling at me once when my oldest was an infant for doing just that with a mirror. It really freaked me out! My Mother was born and raised deep in the Appalachians in the 20s & 30s so it may have very well been a cultural belief that she was taught. When a member of her family died, she never covered the mirrors but did cover their photos or put them away.

I hope that you find some relief or an answer to what has caused your phobia. Have you considered just removing the mirrors and only keeping one in the home somewhere that you won't have to pass at night?
Good luck friend!

*www.fearof.net...

originally posted by: blackcrowe
I thought i was the only one.
I've never heard anyone else admit they are mirror phobic.

I didn't really think it was that common either, until I had the urge to Google it earlier. Turns out such a fear is more common than I originally thought and I read a few stories here and there, and a couple of people had an experience the like you have just insinuated... though many stories were more like my own, just this mostly unexplainable fear.

a reply to: kaelci

I just thought of something else.

Did you ever play that 'Bloody Mary' game when you were younger?

My kids did that's why I ask. When all of the children were at home at one point we lived in a rather large house. Many bathrooms with large mirrors. They would try different experiments and I was always finding candles/flashlights in the bathrooms.

One experiment was they would take their walkie/talkies and each child would go into a bathroom and do the whole 'Bloody Mary' thing and communicate back and forth what they saw.

It didn't seem to impact them negatively regarding mirrors but I would imagine it could for some folks.

a reply to: TNMockingbird

Thank you for the link!

In my Googlings for more information of the phobia, I found quite a few older cultural references, and having read them I do indeed understand your Mother's reaction to the mirror in your infant's room. Mirrors have quite the diabolical history!

I would love to remove the mirrors, but being in a rental home and the mirrors being a physical part of every wardrobe in every bedroom, the best I can do is find a way to cover them. Which I will be doing soon, will buy some extra sheets when I can and somehow get them over the mirrors.

ETA:
I never played Bloody Mary, though I DID read a few people blaming that for their phobias also!

In the 2000s I was living in a small place that had a wall of mirrors and a small corridor that ended with a mirror, it did the place look bigger.

The only scare those mirrors gave me is that it was almost impossible to leave with my then girlfriend (wife now) from that place, i swear it was an hour process until she stop looking at herself in the mirror, I still get PTSD when i see a mirror near my wife and a lill voice inside me scream NOOOOO!!!!!!

a reply to: Rapha

It's not so much a fear of destruction, but the fear that there will indeed be an entity IN the mirror, staring back. I'm not sure what I would do if I saw such a thing... apart from faint, or run away in terror and hide under a blanket.

In saying that though, I am curious to hear more about black ink bowl visions... I may have to do some more investigating!

a reply to: kaelci

IIRC what Rapha mentioned is called "scrying".
There's more than one medium to do it with, black bowls with water, mirrors, etc....

This my first post so i hope its ok to post ?
One story about mirrors that was sci fi but always kept me wondering about demons was the story the unpleasant profession of Jonathan hoag.

a reply to: kaelci

This phobia has lasted over 25 years now for me.
I have only 2 mirrors. A hand mirror for shaving, which is kept in a cupboard, face down at all other times. And a mirror in the bathroom.
It's the eye contact more than anything else with me. But. On the occasions i have made eye contact. Nothing bad happened. And, i'm sure nothing will.
But. I still avoid mirrors. Just in case.
It's irrational and silly. But we all have a phobia of something.

a reply to: blackcrowe

About 15 years or so now for me. I would only have a bathroom mirror if I could! That's honestly the only place in a house that needs a mirror, and yet somehow I have one placed in every room.

Thank you for sharing your fear. Irrational and silly or not (indeed, "phobia" itself means "irrational fear"), you are correct, we all have a phobia of something, and we somehow got lumped with mirrors.

Though from the reading I've done, there has always been a fear of mirrors/reflective-surfaces in human history, in different cultures and superstitions and folk lore. We aren't alone, which is comforting in a way.

a reply to: kaelci

Oh yes I share this fear. I have a huge mirror in my bathroom on the wall behind the toilet and sink. I used to keep a night light on in there for when I had to go to the bathroom at night. I was really scared of it. I decided to get rid of the bathroom night light a few years ago because there is one on in the kitchen, which we walk through to get to the bathroom. One time, I decided to face my fear and stare into the mirror. I looked at everything around me then settled on my face. It looked weird, like it wasn't me, so I stopped. Now I don't look at the mirror, always looking down while getting to the toilet, and only looking down when washing hands. Then I hurry out.

When I was a kid, my cousin and I were sleeping in the same bed at our grandma's house. We were being silly and whatever, and for some reason went to look at ourselves in the mirror in the dark. We both stopped quickly because we both saw a weird version of ourselves in the mirror.

I won't have a mirror in my bedroom because I feel like someone/thing could be looking out of it at me while I sleep. Not totally related, but I also make sure my glasses on my shelf don't face me, like someone/thing could be looking through them at me.

Interestingly, if you watch the movie "The Skeleton Key," you'll see that mirrors figure prominently in the story in a supernatural way.


I just remembered something kinda funny. You know how cats have different reactions to mirrors? I had a cat who would NOT look at a mirror! Even when we held her in front of it (nicely, I love my cats), she would just keep turning her head side to side like she was avoiding it. She lived to be 17 and never saw herself.

a reply to: kaelci

Only 4 other people have ever known my secret. Up until now.
I was embarrassed about it more than anything.
I think i replied to this to try and find an answer for myself.
But. If nothing else. I've learned i'm not alone.
Thanks for the thread.
I hope you find your answer.

originally posted by: kaelci
It's not so much a fear of destruction, but the fear that there will indeed be an entity IN the mirror, staring back. I'm not sure what I would do if I saw such a thing... apart from faint, or run away in terror and hide under a blanket.

In saying that though, I am curious to hear more about black ink bowl visions... I may have to do some more investigating!

To come through the mirror it will have to communicate with you via telepathy and ask you if you want to let it into this world through you.

If there is an entity that does want you to 'help it out', then you have probably already met it in dreams. If you have met a friend in dreams that just doesn't seem right, then run or destroy them in the dream itself.

Ink bowl visions might be dangerous. If the vision is forced on you against your will then there is nothing to fear as you see your future. If you do this willingly however, then a entity could show you a lie in the vision that creates fear in you for it to feed off.

a reply to: kaelci
That reminds me of the Stephen King book Lisey's Story. The main character avoids looking at mirrors or any reflective surface at night because there's a beast from another world hunting him and the reflection might show it where he is.

You might want to avoid watching the movie Mirrors. That one will give you real problems.

I have no problems with mirrors, but i know it is useful in some complicated rituals looking through the flames of candlelight. one time i saw my father looking at me in the mirror but i was so amazed that i had no time for fear, only wondering why do i see him looking at me, slowly while i was studying the image it become me. I said nothing to my girlfriend just sat down and wondered what i had done wrong or what to watch out for. He had been dead for 10 years.

a reply to: Ellie Sagan

Thank you for sharing!
That would be rather unnerving... looking into the mirror at night and seeing yourself, but, not yourself, a weird yourself.

(Okay, I should probably drink coffee or something this morning before responding to anyone, but you get my gist, haha)

I am grateful that I've always had a toilet that is in it's own separate room. I "go" in the middle of the night every few nights, and if it were in the bathroom where the mirror is I wouldn't be able to do it. Well, apart from turning the light on and fully waking myself up first. And then spending an hour or 2 getting back to sleep or just not even bothering.

Speaking of sleep. I REALLY should not have written and read this thread before bedtime last night. Took me forever to get to sleep, paranoid about my bedroom mirror.

a reply to: blackcrowe

I'm not really looking for an answer as much as hearing about other peoples mirror-phobia, or mirror-experiences... I think I've come to terms with the fact that I just can't handle the things at night, in the dark, in the shadows, and just deal with it really and find ways around it. Like the aforementioned sheets covering them, somehow.

My contract on this house is up in 4-5 months and I wanted to look for a cheaper place to rent anyway, perhaps a place that only has one mirror in the entire house. That would be nice.

But thank -you- for responding to the thread and sharing! As I grow older, I find less and less things to be embarrassing and more just a part of who I am. I doubt I would have said anything 10 years ago, but pretty open about such things now. Feel free to keep checking back to the thread if someone else says anything! Maybe you will find an answer too.