Trypophobia is an irrational fear of holes. Many people have never heard of the word trypophobia, but a simple search online will tell you that it is actually quite a common fear. We are surrounded by holes in our daily lives, such as the pores on our skin or the holes on clothes, but no one really has a fear of those. Trypophobia does not mean the fear of any hole, but refers specifically to a cluster of holes. Many things found in nature such as honeycombs, and lotus seed pods may strike a feeling of disgust in some people.
A sea creature full of holes
However, there has been debates going on about if trypophobia is a real phobia. A study was done by two researchers who monitored the brain activities of patients using an image scan and found extreme brain activities whenever the participants saw an object with a cluster of holes. Many scientists still disregard trypophobia as an actual phobia because they believe people just feel discomfort based on what they see, and are not experiencing actual fear. A phobia by definition is an extreme or irrational fear of or aversion to something. Meanwhile, other scientists believe that people are just influenced by others who have some discomfort when seeing clusters of holes and end up believing they as well have trypophobia
Although scientists are not quite sure about the cause of trypophobia, they have hypothesized that it may have an evolutionary basis. They compared pictures of clusters of holes and found that it resembled spots found on poisonous animals. However, trypophobia is still not very well known, so more research must be done in order to come to a conclusion. Currently, it is not considered to be an official phobia by many Psychological associations and is not written in books regarding mental disorders.
-Jean Wang
Lotus Seeds
