Halloween, or the Hallow E'en as they call it in Ireland, means All Hallows Eve, or the night before the All Hallows. It is thought to have originated around 4,000 BC, which means Halloween has been around for more than 6,000 years. Typically linked to the Celtic festival of Samhain, Halloween celebrates the end of the lighter half of the year and beginning of the darker half, and is sometimes regarded as the Celtic New Year.
The ancient Celts believed that the border between this world and the Otherworld opened on Samhain, allowing spirits (both harmless and harmful) to pass through. The family's ancestors were honoured and invited home, while harmful spirits were warded off. It is believed that the need to ward off harmful spirits led to the wearing of costumes and masks.
Anyone with samhainophobia would do just about anything to avoid Halloween activities. This includes giving out candy, wearing a costume, or even acknowledging that October 31 is a holiday. The most common symptoms of this phobia include breathlessness, excessive sweating, dry mouth, feeling sick, trembling, heart palpitations, inability to speak or think clearly, a fear of dying or a full blown anxiety attack. So for the sufferer, it can be a pretty nasty time.
It is not known why people develop a phobia for this holiday, but like all fears and phobias, samhainophobia is created by the unconscious mind as a protective mechanism. In some cases the actual cause or initial reasoning for fearing Halloween may be unknown. A little fact for you - Harry Houdini, one of the most famous and mysterious magicians who ever lived, strangely enough died in 1926 on Halloween night.
So, how do you cure your fear of Halloween? Well, we recommend coming down to The London Bridge Experience and London Tombs for an exciting and terrifying late night Phobophobia Halloween show. It is sure to scare you beyond belief, shock all of your senses, and test your nerve - but it is also so much fun that you will want to come back again and again!
"Bathophobia" is derived from the Greek "bathos" (depth) and "phobos" (fear).
Bathophobia is the abnormal and persistent fear of depths. Some sufferers experience anxiety even though they realise that they are actually safe from falling. Other symptoms can include a feeling of panic or dread, a shortness of breath, increased heart rate and trembling.
So just imagine how a Bathophobic would have felt when, in 2009, six people were hurt when the lift at Tower Bridge in London suddenly dropped 10 feet whilst on the way down. Pretty scary stuff. Most of us would have been rather terrified by this event anyway, but for a Bathophobic this would have induced panic attacks, hysteria and the feeling that they were dying.
This fear of depths can be caused by anything from deep water, to looking down a dark well or shaft where the blackness renders you unable to see the bottom. Bathophobia can then lead to fears of other things, such as elevators, as by entering a lift you are then putting yourself in a position where you could possibly fall. Famous Star Trek actor, William Shatner, unfortunately suffers from this phobia. So, I hear you ask, what is the best way to cure your fear? Well, why not come and try out The Hellevator at The London Tombs? Known only as London's Deadliest Lift, you are sure to test your nerve and be put through your paces with this thrilling ride. After all...what goes up, must come down!
Phobophobia: 1.(n) a morbid fear of developing a phobia.
2.(n) the best halloween event in London.
Admittedly, I might have added the second entry, but you get the idea.
Over the last few weeks, we've been covering all manner of phobias in the lead up to our Halloween extravaganza, Phobophobia. If you haven't seen or heard anything about this yet, a) where have you been? and b) check out our Phobophobia event page for full details.
Phobophobia, in the first sense of the word is when a person worries about getting a phobia. For example: "I won't be going to the snake show in case I develop a phobia of snakes. In fact, I'm so worried about getting snakephobia that I'm starting to getting sweaty palms and I'm feeling rather faint."
You can apply this school of thought to every phobia. Instead of trying to explain it myself, I stole these words from akorra.com: "It is liked with anxiety disorders and more common phobias like agoraphobia, (the fear of the market place, or the outdoors in today’s language). But it is more commonly described as a fear of fears, or a fear of developing phobias. People suffering from this disorder often have anxiety issues to begin with and phobophobia is the result of being so afraid of the internal consequences of anxiety. In other words a person can get so afraid of the sensation of anxiety that they become petrified of it happening again."
While it may not be the most common phobia out there, it surely has to be one of the worst for sufferers.
There are, of course a number of treatments that can help alleviate the symptoms of Phobophobia, but what better way than by facing your fears at the UK's Best Year Round Scare Attraction, The London Bridge Experience and The London Tombs?
See you there….
The average male body contains approximately five litres of blood. The average female body contains approximately three-and-a-half litres of blood. Imagine then, being scared of the sight of blood. Thousands of people across the world are, and can be referred to as hemophobiacs. 
Hemophobia is an irrational and persistent fear of blood. The mere sight of claret will often remind sufferers of their own vulnerability and the eventuality that they will in fact one day die.
Symptoms are varied. Some sufferers might experience an increase in blood pressure and heart rate. Conversely, others suffer from a drop in blood pressure and heart rate, faintness and weakness, which can, in turn, lead to a new fear: the fear of fainting.
When you suffer from ophidiophobia, you can ease the problem by not hanging around in snake-infested places. However, people with an uncontrollable fear of blood have much more to worry about: a paper cut, Sweeny Todd, Call of Duty and a good old Shakespearean tragedy all need to be avoided at all costs.
It's usually this point that I suggest some sort of cure, which mostly involves visiting the London Bridge Experience and London Tombs to face your fears. Not this week. If you suffer from hemophobia, the last thing you'd want to do is visit the UK's number one scare attraction. It'd be enough to make your knees go weak.
Ok, so for the last few weeks, we've covered a fairly standard set of phobias - spiders, snakes and dolls - this week, I thought we'd have a little fun with Lunaediesophobia. 
Lunaediesophobia, or the fear of Mondays as it more commonly known, has affected every one of us at some point in our lives. Whether it's double science first thing; an end-of-month of report that needs completing by lunchtime; or just the thought of actually having to do something constructive after a weekend of merry mayhem, there comes a point in everyone's lives when you simply say to yourself - 'I'm really not looking forward to tomorrow'.
Evidence supporting this particular phobia is pretty scanty, other than the lines of Rainy Days and Mondays by the Carpenters. There's no Freudian theory behind it, there are no facts about how long Monday will actually take to kill you, and it doesn't appear in the top 100 of the world's greatest phobias… yet amazingly, it affects us all. And if the truth be told, the reason it's made it onto the interwebs today is through my own dread of getting up this morning.
You see, I rely on public transport to get to into the office, and schools have started up again for the autumn term, which means two things:
1• There's less seats on my train
2• My enjoyment of C.S. Lewis's Voyage of the Dawn Treader will be somewhat lessened due to the fact I can't sit and read in quiet.
Add to this the love I have for my bed and the huge mountain of work that sits between me and my monitor, and you can understand why Sunday just didn't last long enough.
Do you feel my pain? Can you understand where I'm coming from? Better still, can you top it? I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Join the conversation on Facebook, add your two pennies on Twitter, and we'll compile a list of the worst Monday morning experiences on the whole web.
