“Headless Woman”: Prepare To Have A Bad Night’s Sleep After Scrolling Through These 63 Creepy Pics

The world is scary enough without people still adding to it with their creepy and unsettling pics. But here we are… For some reason, human beings seem to have a bit of an obsession with stuff that makes the hair on our neck stand on end.

Experts put it down to us wanting to experience fear and thrill from the safety of our own homes or environments. It’s a complex mix of mix of psychology, biology, and evolution, they say. We actively seek out the thing we don’t really want to see. If you’re sitting there thinking, “even me,” you’ve come to the right place – but you probably already know that.

Bored Panda has put together a list of unsettling images that might earn you a badge for the “No Sleep Club.” Many are ordinary objects that somehow took an eerie turn, as if auditioning for a horror movie. From a yam shaped like a hand, to a headless woman performing on stage, there’s enough here to leave you feeling more than a little on edge. Note: these images are best viewed in the dark.

What on earth is wrong with us? In a world filled with bad and depressing news, we could be using the little bit of free time we have to reset our nervous systems. Hot bubble baths, long walks on the beach, browsing through dreamy photos of faraway places, that kind of thing.

But here we are, scrolling through creepy, unsettling, and scary photos – by choice…

It’s human nature, say the experts. According to researchers from Harvard University, one of the reasons we seek out horror is to experience stimulation.

Exposure to terrifying acts, or photos, can stimulate us — both mentally and physically, positively and negatively. We get scared or anxious (negative) but also excited or joyful (positive).

“For instance, watching a horror video simultaneously activates both types of stimulation, with the most pleasure experienced at the most fearful moment,” explain the researchers. “The biochemical inside our bodies also changes when we consume horror. Fright can trigger the release of adrenaline, resulting in heightened sensations and surging energy.”

Psychologists say that at its core, fear is an adaptive survival response.

“When we sense danger, the amygdala activates, triggering the body’s fight-or-flight system. Heart rate spikes, adrenaline floods the system, and our senses sharpen,” explains Dr. Melisa Arias-Valenzuela, founder and clinical director of Uprise Psychology & Wellness.

Arias-Valenzuela goes on to say that unlike real threats, spooky experiences are “safe dangers.” Basically, we can enjoy the physiological thrill without actual risk. Harmless fear, if you will. In psychology circles, this paradox is called benign masochism.

A few things need to be in place for us to be able to actually enjoy watching horror movies, reading scary stories or scrolling through creepy photos like the ones featured here.

In their paper, The Psychology Behind Why We Love Or Hate Horror, the Harvard researchers note that we must possess what’s known as a psychological “protective frame” to be able to derive pleasure from being horrified. These frames fall into three different categories.

A patient said he was scared. It was like they were waiting for him to rest in peace.

The first is the safety frame — we need to believe that we are physically safe.

“For example, although the evil entity in a movie might be committing terrifying acts in front of our eyes, we can derive pleasure from the horror as long as we believe that the evil entity is physically distant from us and hence cannot cause harm to us,” say Harvard’s Haiyang Yang and Kuangjie Zhang.

However, they add that if we start to believe that the evil entity is coming out of the screen to hurt us, then the experience stops being fun.

The second category is all about detachment, or whether we’re able to psychologically “remove” ourselves from something scary.

For example, say the experts, when we see a psycho hunting down their already-injured victim in a movie scene, we can activate psychological detachment by reminding ourselves that they are just actors. Or, when we see an image on this list, we understand that it’s just a photo.

“The third category of protective frame involves our confidence in controlling and managing the dangers we encounter,” say Yang and Zhang. “If we visit a haunted house, for instance, and a realistic-looking, blood-thirsty zombie charges at us, we can still derive pleasure from the encounter if we feel confident about overcoming the danger.”

They add that if any of the three protective frames are missing, it changes how we feel about consuming scary content, which could be why certain people love a good, terrifying thrill while others stay far away.

The researchers say that people with a higher sensation-seeking trait, like thrill seekers or adrenalin junkies, tend to seek out and enjoy horror or scary content than those who don’t like to live life in the fast lane.

“Relatedly, the trait of openness to experience (or the need to engage in imaginative activities) is also a predictor of horror consumption,” notes the paper. “A stronger openness to experience trait is associated with increased affinity towards horror.”

I moved to a new house a few months ago and was exploring the woods on the property and came across this laptop nailed to a tree.

Prints are facing away from the bathroom door, I’ve had no visitors in 4 months…. and I’d think I’d remember someone standing on my toilet….

You might not associate fear with love. But interestingly, research shows that watching a scary movie or going to a horror theme park with your date can trigger feelings of romance. That’s because co-experiencing horror (with two hearts pounding fast as one) can add to the excitement we feel toward each other.

That said, if any of the pics on this list made the hair on your neck stand on end, why not look at them again with your crush, the next time you’re together? Who knows, you may just be browsing bridal magazines in a few months’ time.

It is a brand new HP Envy 6100e series. I am using HP everyday photo paper and the ink that came with the box for setup. I tried having the paper face both sides.

I was taking pictures of the sunset and noticed the Text Selector was activating on this picture. Used the “Add to note” button and found it was some Chinese characters that translate to “Waiting for you”.

My bf thinks they were just trying to be funny but I truly don’t know…

In our building, we have been dealing with several break ins these past few months, so yesterday when it happened again we finally called the police. We live in a really old building with several weird entrances and a creepy basement. When the police came, we investigated all the entrances, and found one that leads to a hidden area in our basement. Then, we found this secret room hidden behind some curtains. The person even made their own improvised heating system tapping into our power.

I almost fainted. I work alone. That’s MY car. The store had be closed for almost an hour at this point.

Found underneath a fallen tree. 1976-1980.

The people who lived in my house before were really strange. They were talking about a ghost in the basement who’d come out if we were to close up the old well in the basement. It’s probably something they put on the wall.

I go to the grocery store this morning and I’m just sitting smoking a cigarette, and this dude pulls in directly across from me (in an otherwise empty lot since it was 5:30am) and he has a very obvious camera attached to his steering wheel, pointing directly at me. And he just sits there, and stares, for like twenty minutes. I finally work up the strength and courage to actually go into the store, and when I came back out after a very quick shopping experience, he was gone.
No, this is not a joke. No, I don’t know him. Yes, the pictures aren’t great. Have you ever tried to inconspicuously take a picture of someone, over your steering wheel? Mine is pretty high, but not high enough that I could take pictures through it, so I had to put my phone right in my face and act like I couldn’t see my screen, so I could have the camera high enough to take a snap of him. I ended up getting more of my dash than anything, but I did what I could.
This is just so weird.

My friend and I were looking up “dolls for sale” on Facebook to try and find the weirdest ones. We found a lot of creepy looking dolls but this has got to be one of the weirdest-scariest things I’ve seen for sale online.

Bushwhacked for miles behind a farm house i’m renting… found these circles in the snow above a frozen pond, deep into Green Mountain National Forest. Oddly immaculate.

“Headless Woman”: Prepare To Have A Bad Night’s Sleep After Scrolling Through These 63 Creepy Pics

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