It’s the most wonderful time of the year: spooky season is here! October is filled with a sense of mystery and excitement as Halloween approaches, bringing with it a mix of fear and thrill. And what is that uneasy, off-kilter feeling you get when something is scary? Well, Freud had a theory about that.
Broadly, Freudian psychology posits that fear and anxiety are often rooted in our subconscious mind, stemming from repressed desires, unresolved conflicts, or traumatic experiences. This theory suggests that when we encounter something frightening, it can trigger deep-seated emotions and memories that we may not even be aware of. So, during this time of year when ghosts, ghouls, and monsters lurk around every corner, it's no wonder that we experience a range of emotions that both terrify and exhilarate us.
Let's take a closer look at Freud's thought on how this uneasy, creeping feeling comes up for us.
More specifically, Freud wrote about ‘Das Unheimliche’ or as we’ve come to translate it in English: Freud’s theory of the uncanny.
In his essay from 1919, Freud spends time trying to define “unheimliche”, because it is an unsettling feeling that we can recall having experienced but is difficult to provide a concrete definition.
The German “heimliche”, meaning familiar/of the home, would lead us to conclude that “unheimliche” (uncanny) means the opposite, but Freud insists that the concept of the uncanny sits in between the two words. Here are two key ideas to understanding the uncanny:
On some level, experiencing the uncanny is personal since it is a matter of coming face-to-face with something or someone that is familiar to you, but your senses are telling you that there is an undercurrent of threat. It is both something seen and unseen. And when it comes to creepy works of literature, authors use this theory to build suspense and feelings of “unheimliche” in the reading experience with references as cultural shorthands, allusions, red hearrings, and more.
Given Freud’s study of childhood memories on the adult mind, this is also folded into his concept of the uncanny. Memories that were lived as a child and then supressed as we mature can have that quality of being familiar in some way, but the threat comes from the fact that we have shied away from the memory. Is your brain protecting you from a negative experience? And if it is already part of you, there is no escape (the absolute horror!). We are haunted by our own thoughts and experiences and begin to question what is real.
Freud’s theory of the uncanny presents an idea of a second self that exists beneath our adult surface that has been repressed. Here, Freud introduces the concept of the “doppelgänger”, or double, that can come to the surface of our personality and fears. And what tends to scare us as a child? Ghosts, zombies, reflections, wax figures, vampires, automatons… All these examples confuse our familiar/unfamiliar radar since they double as human representations, but we don’t know if we should classify them as alive or dead—or somewhere in between. And, of course, these images are perfect for creating the creepy factor in horror and Gothic literature!
Even Freud thought so. To demonstrate more broadly what the uncanny means, and how it works in practice, in his essay Freud upholds E. T. A. Hoffman’s short story “The Sandman” as a perfect example of giving people feelings of the uncanny. It has a Victor Frankenstein-esque protagonist who had a terrifying childhood experience and unknowingly has carried it into adulthood (he also falls in love with an automaton). Of course, this is Freud, so the fact that this protagonist fears losing his eyes is obviously a metaphor for castration (calling to mind the tragedy of Oedipus).
Freud’s ‘uncanny’ is a slippery theory that we’ve all certainly experienced but is difficult to put our finger on. But embracing spooky season allows us to confront our fears in a controlled environment, providing a cathartic release and a sense of empowerment as we navigate the shadows of our psyche.