Do you have trypophobia? Why so many people fear holes…

by Staff writer

There is a strange, rather unpopular phobia that makes people feel panicky or ill at the sight of holes.

According to Live Science, the sight of clusters of holes or bumps in various formations can cause intensely unpleasant reactions to people with this condition.

These reactions could range from serious migraines and panic attacks to hot sweats and increased heart rate.

New research by visual science experts Dr Geoff Cole and Professor Arnold Wilkins from the University of Essex suggests that trypophobia may occur as a result of a specific visual feature also found among various poisonous animals.

In the study published in the journal Psychological Science in 2013, Wilkins and Cole write that the reaction is based on a brain response that associates the shapes with danger.

“These findings suggest that there may be an ancient evolutionary part of the brain telling people that they are looking at a poisonous animal,” explained Dr Cole.

If this image scares you, you might have trypophobia.

Although trypophobia has been widely documented by sufferers on the internet, it is still hardly known about and was only recently accepted by Wikipedia, who earlier thought it was just an internet hoax.

In one study, the Essex research team found that 16 per cent of participants reported trypophobic reactions.

Despite this, there has been little scientific investigation of the phenomenon, leading Dr Cole to refer to trypophobia – which he suffered from himself – as “the most common phobia you have never heard of”.