Gunnar_Zarncke comments on Open thread, Mar. 16 - Mar. 22, 2015 - Less Wrong
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I think I recall seeing somewhere that the open thread is a good place for potentially silly questions. So I've got one to ask.
As long as I can remember small things give me the willies. Objects around the size of a penny or smaller trigger a kind of revulsion response if I have to handle them. Things like small coins, those paper circles created when using a hole punch, those stickers that they stick on fruit. I'm not typically bothered by handling a lot of the objects at the same time, a handful of pennies wouldn't bother me.
One thing that's odd, well aside from everything else about it, is that it seems to be especially triggered by jewelry. Rings, basically any piercings, even smallish necklaces. I'm alright as long as they don't get too close to me, but I start feeling weird if I have to interact with them.
Anyway, I've always thought this was pretty strange and it recently occurred to me that someone here probably has some idea of what's going on. Thanks in advance for any thoughts.
Interesting. Great that you shared it. Have never heard of something like this. To me it looks like one basic fear pattern matching gone wrong (wired differently than usual in the brain). I mean there must be some pre-wiring of object recognition in the brain that triggers on e.g. spider-like and snake-like forms. Why should such a wiring go wrong (mutation or whatever) and pattern-match against small-ringlike.
See also What universal experiences are you missing without realizing it. Where people mention a lot special things and maybe by now you can find something comparable to yours.
Ha, it was actually looking through the Universal Experiences comments that prompted me to come here and ask if anyone had any experience with something like this. I didn't see anything in the comments there that sounded similar.
I kind of doubt it's related to fear triggers, because I don't like spiders either, and my aversion to spiders feels very different from this. Interesting thing to think about though. Thanks.