Face Your Fears - Pediophobia

"Close your eyes and count to seven. When you wake, you'll be in heaven." ~Chucky

To many, pediophobia — the fear of dolls — seems ludicrous. For some, however, these models of human beings are an object of terror.

Pediophobia is believed to be a type of automatonophobia (the fear of humanoid figures) and includes dolls, manikins and robots. The reason some of us we are so scared of these inanimate objects is unclear, but psychologists usually look back into an individual's youth for answers.

Dolls have been a popular child's toy for many millennia. The first date back to Egyptian times, circa 2,000 BC, when It was fairly common to find them buried alongside dead children.

They are a common toy for young children, especially girls, and Austrian psychologist Sigmund Freud claimed that children fantasise about dolls coming to life. This is further supported by Ernst Jentsch's theory that uncanny feelings arise when there's an intellectual uncertainty about whether an object is alive or not.

If any of you have ever sat and watched one of the Child's Play movies, this fear of dolls might be well-founded. The foul-mouthed freak of nature's habit of hacking, cutting, biting and spiking his victims into submission is enough to make even the most hardened man clear his home of dolls. Even Ashton Kutcher has publicly stated that he is afraid of his wife's collection of dolls having watched the films as a child.

Scary doll stories are rife across the internet too, mostly retelling freaky occurrences of how their doll has started talking on its own, without any batteries. One particular account from a young girl is particularly chilling, as it tells of her doll, Sunny, bleeding from its eyes. We'll let you ponder that one...

Do you have pediophobia? Have you got what it takes to face your fears? The London Bridge Experience and London Tombs invites you to visit the Dolls Room where these inanimate beings often spring sporadically to life to send a shiver down your spine. Get ready to run for your life...