Pediophobia is the unwarranted, irrational and persistent fear or worry of dolls. It is a specific phobia belonging to the category of ‘automatonphobia’. This is a type of phobia where the individual is afraid of all humanoid or “human-like-but-not-quite” objects including mannequins, marionettes, ventriloquist’s dummies, wax figures, animatrix or robotic figures etc. The word Pediophobia originates from ‘Paidion’ which means ‘little child’ in Greek and ‘Phobos’ meaning fear or deep dread. Many adult sufferers of Pediophobia are also known to fear little children.
Some Pediophobes are afraid of all kinds of dolls while others are known to be afraid of only specific kinds like the talking/walking dolls, Chinese porcelain dolls, stuffed dolls etc.
Dolls are, in reality, child’s playthings. Little girls are especially known to love dolls and pretend play with them which can help in fostering imagination and creativity. Naturally, it is a matter of great worry for parents when their little daughter starts screaming at the sight of dolls. While most childhood cases of Pediophobia disappear once the child has grown, in some cases though, this fear can persist even in adulthood.
Causes of Pediophobia or fear of dolls
Like any other phobia, Pediophobia is also possibly triggered by an intensely negative or traumatic incident in one’s past/childhood that is remotely connected to dolls. The young mind then forever associates dolls with the trauma and recalls the negative feelings experienced then.
Dolls, especially voodoo dolls are associated with witch craft. Burning voodoo dolls to bring misfortune to an individual was a common practice in the past. To an individual already suffering from nervous or anxiety disorders, all dolls represent evil.
Dolls have fixed staring eyes. Some dolls also have button eyes that appear “soulless pools devoid of any emotion akin to those of a corpse”. This can make younger children especially afraid of them.
Dolls have been shown in a negative light in pop culture. Many horror movies (Chucky in Child’s Play) and novels (Althea, Stone Dead etc) have portrayed dolls as evil or villainous characters that come to life to cause harm to humans. This can induce fear in young or overly-nervous minds.
Mischievous older siblings or friends etc can also unknowingly instill a fear of dolls in the minds of younger kids by telling stories of dolls coming to life at night.
Symptoms of Pediophobia
Whatever the cause of fear of dolls phobia, there can be intense emotional upheaval and turmoil in the mind of the sufferer. Some people might experience a full blown panic attack upon sighting a doll. Still others live in constant fear of dolls. The following physical and psychological symptoms may be present in the phobic:
- Rapid breathing
- Elevated heartbeat
- Dry mouth. Feeling like being choked to death
- Shivering, trembling
- Freezing on the spot
- Crying, screaming, trying to flee etc.
Some phobics experience a full blown anxiety attack in the presence of dolls including store mannequins. This can be quite embarrassing as well as debilitating enough to affect normal functioning of the individual.
Treating and overcoming the fear of dolls
Hypnosis and desensitization therapies are the two most popular ways of overcoming the fear of dolls phobia.
Desensitization or gradual exposure therapy consists of slowly exposing the phobic to dolls. They can begin by looking at photographs of dolls, reading books or watching movies about dolls etc until they are able to remain calm in the presence of dolls without having an anxiety attack. This is usually done in the presence of a therapist or can be done at home with the help of close friends and loved ones.
Hypnosis, Cognitive behavior therapy and behavior therapy also aim to reprogram the Pediophobic to help him/her rationalize fearful thoughts about dolls and change them into positive ones.
These are a few ways of overcoming Pediophobia or the fear of dolls.
I have had a fear of walking/talking dolls for as long as I could remember. I dont know how I could handle them when I was little and I actually now cant believe I played with them. I cant eat or drink near them and when my dad found of of them in the attic one day and came closer to me with it I ran outside to the car crying my eyes out. This wasnt long ago.
Extending to this, I cant eat when I know that these dolls have these features, and only get scared when the dolls are turned on. If I dont know, then I will be ok.
My fear started when I was about 4 and my older brother had one of my baby dolls in front of me while I was asleep. When I awoke that was the first thing I saw, after that day I threw all life like dolls away and cant go near them. I worked at target and when someone would come to my line with a doll I had to ask a coworker to scan it. I found out I was having a girl which was my biggest fear. I would like to get over it for my daughter but i doubt that would happen.
i hate dolls
My fear of dolls (and things like ventriloquist dummies and wooden puppets) started when I was around 5 or 6, I watched a live action Pinocchio film in class and I had nightmares for weeks, since the Pinocchio puppet was particularly frightening.
I’m 18 now, and thought I got my over it, until my friend suggested we watch the new Annabelle movie and it triggered a full on panic attack 🙁
I’ve had a fear of dolls since I was a toddler. I am now 20 and not much has changed. My fear pertains to all types of dolls and it’s hard to be around them without feeling uncomfortable. The hardest part is that I cannot eat when a doll is in the same room as me. I remember when I was a kid my cousins would always tease me about it. In some situations they would chase me with dolls to the point where I would cry. This would continue throughout my life and at the age of 11 I stopped telling people. I mainly feared the ridicule and sometimes I would go whole days without eating when visiting family, I just wanted the teasing to stop. In my highschool and college years however, it hasn’t been an issue. Most of my female friends and peers grew out of dolls, but the fear still persists. I’ve been doing my best in the past year to get over this fear and for the most part I’m in a better spot. The only types of dolls I’m afraid of now are porcelain dolls and baby dolls. I still can’t eat when dolls are around, but I can at least be around them without being afraid.
It’s comforting to hear that there are others out there with a similar phobia as me. I hope my short summary of a story helps!
My parents don’t believe I’m as terrified as I make it sound like, but I’m absolutely not exaggerating when I’m saying that I can’t stand dolls. Like at all!
My fear hasn’t always been there and I’m 16 by the time I’m writing this but I don’t expect this will wear off. I’ve had a couple of memorable encounters with dolls. On two of the encounters I was actually on the phone with my girlfriend. I will take both these in more detail.
First one was in my basement at home. It was 23 o’clock and my mother and her man had gone to bed already. I had recently come home from my grandparents house. I had unpacked my bag and decided to put it in the storage room to rid it from my floor. When I opened the storage room I saw it sitting there, staring at me from a shelf. I went silent as a rock. Unable to talk or scream (as in one of those nightmares), I felt as being choked and stumbled back into our laundry. Fortunately my girlfriend was there and hearing her voice and knowing that she’d be there to hear everything that happened helped me to calm down. After calming down I still didn’t know what to do. It was crawling in my skin as my hand came even near the thing. I honestly don’t know how I managed but it’s now tucked in nicely in an unused guestroom in our basement. That still doesn’t satisfy me though. I’m having a hard time sleeping when it’s in the house. Yet I can’t get rid of it because I’m seriously afraid that I will upset it and make it haunt me.
The other encounter was when I was home alone at 1 – 2am. I was about to change the sand in my cat’s toilet. Her toilet is ofcourse nicely placed between the door to our storage room and our laundry. I forgot to say that the storage room and laundry is at the end of a long corridor and there’s is a door that leads to out backyard next to the door to the storage. However when I reach her toilet I look around me (as any normal person would when it’s dark) guess what I see… a creepy, worn, blonde little doll, the size of a real baby. It was my mom’s and she used to love it. She had put it on top of the laundry as some kind of joke! I was on the phone with my girlfriend this time too. But this time I wasn’t quiet. I went from talking about everyday-stuff to crying and making low screams. I pushed myself up against the door to our backyard so that I’d have an overview over everything. I remember thinking that I would die right there (Like when you panicked under water and thought that it was the end). Fortunately, even here, my girlfriend was there to calm me down. That doll is now also tucked in nicely in a bed in our guestroom.
It honestly feel as though one of the dolls is about to open my bedroom door as I’m writing this.
Pray for me.
i am so sorry for you
I have this phobia about the china porcelain dolls, those who have white face, striking eyes and bloody red lips. Whenever i see them even just a glimpse, goosebumps all over. I even try to look at them longer to see if I can lessen my fears, but unfortunately it doesn’t. I always imagine them crawling up in the wall and ceiling holding a knife or something. It really freaks me out. One time, me and my boyfriend were eating dinner at a Japanese restaurant. As walking over and looking for some nice food, at the dessert area, more than 5 china dolls were there staring at me. I froze. Tried not to scream. I hurriedly walked back to our table. I was trembling, breathing heavily and i felt like the place was swirling like crazy. My boyfriend helped me to calm down. I freaking really hate that feeling. I thought i was going to collapse. Worst.
me too
Hey, my sister has this phobia about blinking dolls, and whenever i show here these dolls she gets frightened and screams like hell. She is a medical student and doesn’t go in a practical room because they have dolls in there. It started when she was about 7 years old and one night a doll fell upon her from the shelf.
I am a mother of a 9 year old son that is terrified of dolls. I don’t know how it started but it has been this way since he was practically an infant. If he has any knowledge that a doll is in that room he will not go in there even if you put it in the closet he refuses to go in there. Just wondering if any of you adults have suggestions for him or me on how to get over this fear I would love it.
hi christina. i am a former sufferer of pediophobia and i used to have the same reactions as your son, often even unable to sleep alone because of the knowledge that dolls were in the house. i think it’s something that you grow out of usually, at least that’s been the case for me, but in the mean time try to keep dolls out of the house and reassure him that the fear is irrational.
It’s weird reading the definition of this because I hate, HATE porcelain dolls but I don’t mind kids. My mother had a doll on top of her book shelf in her room and my older sibling locked me in there whenever babysitting so I wouldn’t see the rated R movies being watched. I always felt like it was moving, further and further towards me when I wasn’t looking. Didn’t help it fell down in my general direction.. haven’t been alone with a doll since.
Hey jaron I agree Porcelain dolls are the creepiest but other dolls are fine.
Yes, I agree 100%, those pseudo-Victorian ones freak me out yet I love my nephews and nieces, I think it’s the blank indifference in their faces that gets me.
I had these twin dolls when i was little. My mom and aunt used to play with them as kids and they were really ugly. They had blonde hair and their eyebrows covered their eyes and they were always smiling. I always had the same nightmare, every friday night as soon as i fell asleep about the dolls coming to life like Chucky and destroying everything. I would play with other dolls, but i would not even enter the room if i could see those two dolls in particular, or touch anything that had touched them. If i had to play in my sister’s room i would ask her to put them somewhere where i couldnt see them or she would put them in another room. We got rid of them when i was about 8 and i stopped having that nightmare. Then we went to visit my dad’s cousin in australia when i was about 10 and the older kids decided to watch Dead Silent. I was of course sitting in the lounge too scared to even blink as it was the first time id ever seen a horror movie, and since then ive been scared of dolls in general. Teddies i can handle, but anything that resembles a human. Ive never had a serious reaction to a doll but i dont know how i would react to one because i havent been around dolls for about 8 years now. Except the little porcelain dolls in the hallway but i never really notice or pay attention to those.
This really helped me
I have this fear as well, and in my childhood I remember having THREE dolls in my closet. I didn’t want them but my mom did and she had no where else to put them. I decide to turn them around so they’d face the wall, but sometimes I would go in my closet and see them staring down at me. I finally got rid of them but I have never gotten over my fear. My friends dared me to watch child’s play so I went to the store to get it but I found all six movies so my friends dared me to watch all of them. I only have one more to watch but I am too scared and stalling so I don’t have to watch it. I wish I wouldn’t have inside panics every time I see dolls or manikins. But that’s just my life and I can’t change it.D:
I have been afraid of dolls when their heads are taken off but I really become panicked stricken when the doll in question has stuffing in the body and I can see it coming out of the body when the head is taken off. I am not afraid of stuffed animals unless there is stuffing coming out of them .I then become fearful of that particular stuffed animal but not stuffed animals in general. Even though I am not afraid of dolls that are intact I get very nervous around them in case their heads might come off. I think this fear might stem back to when I was about 3 and I was playing with a new doll on my bed and my dog started chewing up a doll that was on the floor. When I looked down I became terrified and have never gotten over that. I am now 65 and the terror hasn’t lessened at all.
Wow its nice to know that I am not the only one. I am now 28 years old. I have partially conditioned myself. As far as I can be in the same room as dolls I can touch them. But I honestly still feel uneasy around them. This phobia has been since a child. At one point when I was younger I had them played with them. But then one day I woke up terrified. I honestly don’t know what happened. Unfortunately when family found out they tortured me. One day my cousin even bought one to school and chased me around the yard. My cousins also made a fort for me to go under covered it with blankets and then when I was in the middle uncovered it and trapped me in. I almost died. All of these events make me really want to know why the fear runs so deep. No one really knows. But I think the trauma of teasing made it even worse. Now that I have found Jesus Christ. This has helped me with all of my fears. 🙂
I know right my mom bought me a my life doll I don’t ever go near it and we have 3 girl dolls that are in the dining room they freek me out when I am home all alone for 5 hours or shorter I don’t make my self lunch or breakfast I lock myself in my room and we’re supers and I’m 10.
I’m a 46 year old man, 6′ 3″ tall, 200 lbs and while I am not terrified like most of you guys, my heart goes out to you. Dolls do however really creep me out a lot. My aunt used to have this Barbie hung on her wall with teased hair she called Dolly after Dolly Parton, it scared me so bad as a kid cause her house was already haunted and creepy. As for dummies they just creep me out side of the realism but are not alive at the same time. Like I said I’m not terrified just really creeped out, same for clowns too. Good luck to you all on this very real fear.
I also have a fear of dolls. I actually had a panic attack last night because I was watching a creepy doll video at 3:00 am. Yeah, I know. Bad idea. One of them in particular gave me a panic attack. It had spiked teeth, white face, completely black eyes and black spiked hair. I had a full blown panic attack. My heart was pounding, I was breathing fast and heavy, I even started to cry a little. It’s honestly a little embarrassing. I am an 18 year old and I’m scared of dolls. But I’m glad to know I’m not the only one. :/
I have had a fear of dolls since I was three especially if the head came off or arms or legs, and all I could see was the holes. And also if the eyes came out and that cold plastic I would get hysterical. And would be physically sick.
For the longest time, I have had a fear of shop dummies. Whenever I go into a shop, and see one, I have to stay well away from one, but I can’t stand whenever my nan is by one, I think it’s going to attack people.
I have had this fear since I was 7 and I remember going into a castle tour with my dad and when they had a walk-tour around it and it had a show of middle-aged play, and when we went to the dungeon, it had a dying man and the doctors said to him “You have 5 minutes until you die”.
Right after that, the man groaned loudly, and died.
My dad wouldn’t let me leave, even though I was crying in fear.
Please help.
Laura
I have automatonophobia and i’ve always had issues with it but it’s escalating, please help me cure it
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I don’t have a fear of dolls but my friend does and I was wondering how to fix it because I collect creepy and somewhat normal dolls and she won’t stay nowhere near my bedroom.
I’m hoping I can fix her fear and show her my collection and she won’t be scared. I’m glad I found this website.
I didn’t really mind dolls, until one of my friends showed me the trailer for ‘Annabelle’, which really scared me. Now, sometimes when I am alone and in complete darkness, I get scared that Annabelle might be right beside me and I would never know.
I can cope with dolls, wax figures (despite seeing ‘The House of Wax’) but I cannot stand ventriloquist’s dummies. Maybe it’s something to do with we know that the dummy is saying what the operator would like to say but can’t.
I’m afraid of dolls and have been ever since my childhood. Now I’m 29 years old.
I used to fear dolls when I was a small kid of 2yrs first, but my dad kept that doll on the shelf. Slowly I thought it started growing up as me. And I started to fear dolls as I banged and beat that doll very much.
But in that shelf there was another doll which was bigger than the previous one and I got scared.
I don’t fear barbies and all dolls but only the porcelain dolls that covered the shelf has started that fear in me but still I get scared of a doll even though I know it’s just my imagination. I am really happy that I’m not the only one who fears dolls.
If anyone overcomes this fear please let me know.
I hate porcelain dolls and puppets, they are absolutely the worst thing ever because nothing should look that realistic and I feel like every time I turn around their heads turn and they watch me, they are horrible.
I’m also afraid of dolls. I remember, it started when my cousin always threw a doll whenever I walked down the stairs. I’ve tried overcoming it many times when I was in my childhood days but until now I’m still afraid of them. It feels so good that there are other people who understand me.
I remember the department store mannequins used to creep me out! I saw somebody taking one apart once when I was young. I can understand why you might be uncomfortable around them.
I have this phobia as for the fact that whenever I see a mannequin (not that I show it) I feel very uneasy. These kind of things just aren’t right. Humans are meant to look like that and nothing else! At least that’s how I see it.
I’m afraid of Porcelain dolls, and even more afraid of Ventriloquist’s Dummies. I don’t know why I have this fear but all I know is when I see a Porcelian doll or a Dummy I start to get really nervous, have a rapid heart beat and have and overwhelming feeling that the doll itself will come alive. I want to get away from the doll or lock up somewhere so “it” can’t harm me. What scares me about the dummy is the way its mouth moves and its cold soulless eyes piercing into your’s (it’s just chilling) and lets be honest, they look CREEPY like I mean creepy morbid little things. Even if you’re not scared of them you have to at least agree they look creepy. As for Porcelain dolls, it’s the way the eyes “follow” you around the room.
I watched a movie on dolls coming to life. I am hindu and it was a hindi movie. I was also told stories of dolls coming to life by older siblings. Since then I have been so afraid of dolls that my younger siblings and sometimes adults, who think I am faking it, use dolls as a means to scare me. I am just 16 years old and am so afraid of dolls. No one seems to take it seriously that I am suffering from pediophobia. I run away on the sight of dolls. When my sister corners me with a doll my heart beats so fast and sometimes I can’t even let out a scream. Glad to know that I am not the only one because I was beginning to think that I was being ridiculous at times when I actually thought about how I get scared of dolls.
Hi I am also afraid of dolls my fear is just so scary I always wake up at night after a terrible nightmare about dolls since 2012 I have never had a peaceful night without thinking about dolls 🙁
I have pediophobia, I remember being terrified of dolls since I was little. My aunt and mom used to run around the house with them and I would curl up in a ball, crying and screaming. Nobody ever understood why I would be so scared of them, initially I was teased because of it. My fear of dolls have since remained with me, but it’s for specific dolls now. I cannot be in a room alone with one or have it touch me still. I’ve tried to condition myself but I just can’t, it becomes too much. For a long time, I thought this irrational fear made me a freak. It’s nice to know other people have the same phobia, that I’m not alone.
I’m scared of dolls too and I was just 9 when my grandpa bought me two and I stuffed them under my bed but that did not work.
Please don’t be ashamed. The fear is very real for me as well. I have been terrified of dolls since I was 5 years old and I’m 50 now and nothing has changed for me. I cannot eat or be anywhere they are. I cannot touch one without hyperventilating. My family knew of my fear and respected it. My husband also understands it.
After therapy, I realized the reason for my fear of dolls…. I was molasted by a family friend when I was 5 years old and I had my doll with me when it happend. So, in my 5 year old rational, that doll knew my secret and every time I saw a doll, the fear of the very ugly thing that happend to me, would be exposed. I didn’t uncover this until I was in my late twenties. I still to this day carry the burden & blame of being molested & still terribly frightened by dolls.