Ten Unusual Phobias Two Trivia Quiz

Answer: Gravity

Barophobia is the fear of gravity - either that one will be crushed by it, or that one will disappear and will float away into space. This phobia is associated with basophobia - the fear of falling. Rather oddly, barophobia is also associated with a fear of being overweight.

Answer: A fear of bats

Batman, that caped crusader who fights criminals with every zap, powee and thump, likes to don a costume similar to a large bat when he is out doing his thing. He works from his laboratory known as the bat cave, drives a souped up, gas guzzling machine called the batmobile, and has a lot of other bat related objects he utilises in his crime fighting career. Chiroptophobia is a fear of bats more intense than the average reaction one would have to these dainty little creatures that look a little like savage cats attached to spooky looking wings.

Answer: The colour green

Chlorophobia is defined as an "abnormal aversion" to the colour green. This fear is also very much associated with a fear of vegetation of any kind. The word itself derives from the Greek "chloros" which is a yellow-greenish hue. People with this aversion can't even stand the sight of algae. Associated fears are chrysophobia, which is related to anything coloured orange, or cyanophobia, which is related to the colour blue.

Answer: Fear of time

An horologist is someone who works with watches, clocks and time keeping devices of all kinds. Anyone suffering from chronophobia suffers overwhelming anxiety over time and its passing. More prone perhaps to strike the elderly, this phobia is not specific to that group of people by any means. Chronophobia is also known to strike prison inmates, for example, particularly those with long jail terms, as they see their life slipping away from them.

This is such a sorrowful phobia as becoming so obsessed with time slipping away means that sufferers sometimes forget to enjoy the present.

Answer: Food

Symptoms of cibophobia include an irrational fear, panic and dread of food, rapid heartbeat, shortness of breath, shaking and anxiety. This condition can be treated, but, as with most phobias, this takes time. Treatment includes behaviour and cognitive modification therapy, anti-anxiety medications, relaxation therapy and gradual exposure to food.

The last method is rather interesting as it can be used with most objects that cause intense fear - snakes, for example. The patient is gradually exposed more and more to a snake, is encouraged to come closer and closer to one, and then, after a time, is encouraged further to touch and handle it.

But who, in their right mind, wants to be cured of a phobia about snakes in the first place? It seems to be a rather healthy phobia, all things considered.

Answer: Fear of cemeteries

I suffer from coimetrophobia in that I don't care to take up lodging in one for a long, long time. All jokes aside, because cemeteries are such large and visible places, a phobia about same could be very disabling if anyone has to drive past one to go anywhere, for example, when there is no other route available. Coimetrophobia falls under the general heading of specific phobias - those phobias related to a specific object in particular. For those who do not fear cemeteries, however, particularly older ones, these are fascinating places full of historical snippets of information.

Answer: Dogs

Cynophobia is another of the specific panic and fear disorders, and at least 36 per cent of sufferers who fall under this classification have a phobia about dogs. This high figure is partly explained by the fact that there are many more dogs around than other everyday animals.

In India, for example, there are roughly 25 million stray dogs wandering, starving, around the streets. This particular phobia usually begins in early childhood, but can emerge, more rarely, in people well into their twenties as well.

Answer: Freedom

Eleutherophobia is not just confined to prisoners who have spent long years behind bars. Some long term hospital residents, or institutionalised children, all of whom have spent years with their lives controlled by authority figures, are also prone to this condition. To go from the relative security and stability of that, to a life of "freedom" outside the institutions, where they now have to make their own decisions about everything in life, can be a very frightening experience indeed, and even develop into a phobia.

Some prisoners, for example, released after long years in jail, will deliberately commit a crime upon release so that they are imprisoned once more.

Answer: Enochlophobia

Enochlophobia falls under the anxiety classifications of disorders, all of which in turn are classified as agoraphobia - including claustrophobia. These all relate to being placed in situations over which you feel you have no control - and no escape. Being in large shopping centres where you cannot see the exit doors, for example, can bring overwhelming feelings of anxiety, as can being on public transport systems, or in a crowd of people, or even simply being outside the home.

These are all situations over which you have no direct control - and can bring on a disabling, and terrifying, panic attack.

Many returned soldiers, for example, prefer to sit near the exit door in any room, and will not sit with their back to that door. Once that happens, they can relax.

The alternative is total avoidance altogether - and that is not the answer. It doesn't treat the cause.

Answer: Ergophobia

Anyone can suffer from this phobia, manual labourers or otherwise, and instead of receiving understanding and treatment for this condition, are often the butt of cruel jokes instead. This phobia also falls under the classification of social and performance phobias, and includes a fear of failing, a fear of having to speak in public, a fear of being close to others and a fear of injuries.

It has nothing to do with laziness at all and is a disabling condition just as much as the other phobias listed in this quiz. Be gentle with one another.