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Poorly Lit Pareidolia

128 statements
24 feature instances
15 referencing feature instances

Poorly Lit Pareidolia	type	FeatureClass
Poorly Lit Pareidolia	label	Poorly Lit Pareidolia
Poorly Lit Pareidolia	page	PoorlyLitPareidolia
Poorly Lit Pareidolia	comment	Pareidolia is the human tendency to mistakenly interpret random visual stimuli as meaningful. More specifically, it entails seeing faces in inanimate objects. Does the door of that house look like a mouth, those two windows above the door like eyes, and the keystone of the door like a nose? That's pareidolia. The object in question isn't a face, nor was it necessarily intended to resemble one, but that's what the human brain has evolved to instinctively perceive certain arrangements of shapes as. Combine this tendency with humans' tendency to be afraid of the dark — on the grounds that humans are vulnerable to predators in the dark — and you get this trope. A character (most commonly a young child) is alone in their bedroom, or in a basement, or a forest, or a cave, or somewhere similar, at night (or otherwise in the dark). Increasingly frightened, they begin imagining threats in the form of inanimate objects appearing as monsters. Shadows are cast on surfaces in just such a way as to create scowling faces. Tree branches resemble scraggly claws. Stalactites and stalagmites appear as teeth and indents in the rock as eyes. And as the character's pulse and pace quicken, they'll start seeing more, and more, and more, until they're completely surrounded by monstrous impressions and terrified... whereupon someone will turn the light on, and they'll realize that all those teeth and claws were just rakes and pitchforks hanging on the wall of the garage. This only applies to everyday objects such as trees or rocks or furniture happening to resemble monsters. If it turns out there's an actual, literal monster stalking the character, it isn't an example. (Sometimes, a character might think something is a monster, verify that it's just an inanimate object, only for it to then turn out that, no, actually it really was a monster after all. Although in that case, it would be a subversion.) This also doesn't encompass objects purposely-sculpted so as to resemble monsters, such as statues. Can overlap with Beware the Skull Base, if the base is in a natural formation (such as a cave) resembling a human skull rather than intentionally built or carved to look like one. Most common in Western Animation. A rich source of Nightmare Fuel. See also: Scary Shadow Fakeout and Things That Go "Bump" in the Night. Often overlaps with Cave Mouth, It Kind of Looks Like a Face and The Trees Have Faces.
Poorly Lit Pareidolia	fetched	2024-04-12T17:46:14Z
Poorly Lit Pareidolia	parsed	2024-04-12T17:46:14Z
Poorly Lit Pareidolia	processingComment	Dropped link to OriginStory: Not an Item - FEATURE
Poorly Lit Pareidolia	isPartOf	DBTropes
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_14494034	type	Poorly Lit Pareidolia
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_14494034	comment	Abraxas (Hrodvitnon): In this Godzilla MonsterVerse fanfiction, Vivienne Graham briefly hallucinates stalagmites and stalactites as Scary Teeth and gore. Justified by Ghidorah telepathically messing with her head.
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_14494034	featureApplicability	1.0
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Abraxas (Hrodvitnon) (Fanfic)	hasFeature	Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_14494034
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_1fc7499e	type	Poorly Lit Pareidolia
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_1fc7499e	comment	In Reaper Man, Bill Door is trying to find a tarpaulin to protect Miss Flitworth's harvest on a stormy night. He thinks he sees a robed, skeletal, scythe-wielding silhouette (the New Death) coming for him, but it turns out to be Ned Simnel's harvesting machine. Later inverted, when Bill assures Miss Flitworth that a figure on the hillside illuminated by lightning is just the shadow of the Combination Harvester, but it turns out to be the actual New Death.
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_1fc7499e	featureApplicability	1.0
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Reaper Man	hasFeature	Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_1fc7499e
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_28c6afce	type	Poorly Lit Pareidolia
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_28c6afce	comment	In the Thomas & Friends movie Tale of the Brave, Percy imagines that a pile of scrap is a monster, but it really wasn't, as James left it there to scare Percy.
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_28c6afce	featureApplicability	1.0
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Thomas & Friends	hasFeature	Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_28c6afce
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_2ac52633	type	Poorly Lit Pareidolia
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_2ac52633	comment	To start the third act of Pooh's Grand Adventure, the "Skull" cave, which Pooh Bear and company react with terror on waking on a foggy morning and see a terrifying visage. However, after they find Christopher Robin (or more accurately, Christopher Robin finds them) and exit the cave in broad daylight, they discover that it's just a rather benign pile of rocks. In the following song as they head back home, we also are shown that several of the other scary places that they previously went through were also being made scarier than they actually were by their fears.
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Pooh's Grand Adventure	hasFeature	Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_2ac52633
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_343ad13c	type	Poorly Lit Pareidolia
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_343ad13c	comment	A recurring motif in The Babadook is that the Haunted Heroine keeps seeing a coat and hat hung up on the wall in a way that suggests the Babadook as he appeared in a disturbing and mysterious pop-up book she found on her son's shelf earlier in the movie.
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The Babadook	hasFeature	Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_343ad13c
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_46518682	type	Poorly Lit Pareidolia
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_46518682	comment	In one Sesame Street skit, Cookie Monster sleeps over at Ernie and Bert's house (Bert is absent because he's visiting his grandmother, so Cookie Monster gets his bed). After the lights are turned out at bedtime, he gets scared of what he thinks is a monster in the corner of the room. It turns out to be a rumpled blanket on a toy chest.
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Sesame Street	hasFeature	Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_46518682
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_468bebb0	type	Poorly Lit Pareidolia
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_468bebb0	comment	Discworld: In Reaper Man, Bill Door is trying to find a tarpaulin to protect Miss Flitworth's harvest on a stormy night. He thinks he sees a robed, skeletal, scythe-wielding silhouette (the New Death) coming for him, but it turns out to be Ned Simnel's harvesting machine. Later inverted, when Bill assures Miss Flitworth that a figure on the hillside illuminated by lightning is just the shadow of the Combination Harvester, but it turns out to be the actual New Death. In Hogfather, one of the thugs' great childhood fear was a wardrobe with a carved door that vaguely resembled a face. And in the night... Inverted by Granny Weatherwax in Maskerade, where a combination of furniture and background elements looks like an old woman until she starts moving.
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_468bebb0	featureApplicability	1.0
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Discworld	hasFeature	Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_468bebb0
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_4a94a5fc	type	Poorly Lit Pareidolia
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_4a94a5fc	comment	Inverted by Granny Weatherwax in Maskerade, where a combination of furniture and background elements looks like an old woman until she starts moving.
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_4a94a5fc	featureApplicability	1.0
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_4a94a5fc	featureConfidence	1.0
Maskerade	hasFeature	Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_4a94a5fc
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_59650ab9	type	Poorly Lit Pareidolia
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_59650ab9	comment	The Neverending Story: Bastian is scared of the stuffed animals, skeletons and other objects in the attic.
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_59650ab9	featureApplicability	1.0
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The NeverEnding Story	hasFeature	Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_59650ab9
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_627b3897	type	Poorly Lit Pareidolia
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_627b3897	comment	In the episode "Ray Home Alone" of Everybody Loves Raymond, Ray teases Robert about how when he was a child, he was scared of a shoe tree in his closet which he thought looked like "a monkey holding an axe".
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_627b3897	featureApplicability	1.0
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Everybody Loves Raymond	hasFeature	Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_627b3897
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_6c4031ea	type	Poorly Lit Pareidolia
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_6c4031ea	comment	The dark forest sequence from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: Snow White flees, at the hunter's behest, through a forest, and envisions every tree trunk as a leering ogre until she breaks down and collapses to the ground in terror.
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_6c4031ea	featureApplicability	1.0
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_6c4031ea	featureConfidence	1.0
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs	hasFeature	Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_6c4031ea
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_746814ae	type	Poorly Lit Pareidolia
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_746814ae	comment	Arthur: "Arthur's First Sleepover": Arthur recounts being afraid of the dark as a younger child, and envisioning the radiator in his bedroom as a toothy monster. "Locked in the Library": Arthur and Francine are locked in the town's public library at night, and Arthur sees a scowling face in a hanging overhead mobile. "Arthur's New Puppy": Pal has to sleep in the garage, but is scared due to envisioning a rake, lawnmower and tree branch as monsters. "Tales From The Crib" has 3 year old D.W. getting out of her new big girl bed and going downstairs, seeing what looks like a monster with teeth. It's just a lamp with chimes on it
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_746814ae	featureApplicability	1.0
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_746814ae	featureConfidence	1.0
Arthur	hasFeature	Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_746814ae
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_844b4f9e	type	Poorly Lit Pareidolia
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_844b4f9e	comment	MouseHunt: The two protagonists venture into the attic of an old mansion at night, wherein a lightning strike casts the scary shadow of a jack-in-the-box against the wall.
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_844b4f9e	featureApplicability	1.0
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MouseHunt	hasFeature	Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_844b4f9e
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_9004922f	type	Poorly Lit Pareidolia
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_9004922f	comment	In Hogfather, one of the thugs' great childhood fear was a wardrobe with a carved door that vaguely resembled a face. And in the night...
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_9004922f	featureApplicability	1.0
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_9004922f	featureConfidence	1.0
Hogfather	hasFeature	Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_9004922f
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_9935a6d7	type	Poorly Lit Pareidolia
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_9935a6d7	comment	Pingu: In "Pingu Runs Away", Pingu runs off into the night after his parents spank him for misbehaving, and promptly encounters three slabs of ice shaped like ugly faces.
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Pingu	hasFeature	Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_9935a6d7
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_a0500a06	type	Poorly Lit Pareidolia
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_a0500a06	comment	Rugrats: "Let There Be Light": During a blackout, Chuckie points out the shapes of various scary monsters in the dark, but Tommy's flashlight reveals them to be the shadows of things like discarded toys or the branch of a tree outside the window. "The Legend of Satchmo": Chuckie walks through a backyard at night, and imagines the windows of houses as scowling faces and the shadow of a tree as a chomping monster. "Under Chuckie's Bed": Chuckie - his father having traded in his crib for his first bed - is afraid to sleep in it because he sees a monster underneath it. Turns out, it's just one of his dad's sweaters.
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Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_a0500a06	featureConfidence	1.0
Rugrats	hasFeature	Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_a0500a06
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_a1abc483	type	Poorly Lit Pareidolia
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_a1abc483	comment	The Rugrats Movie: Chuckie, Phil and Lil are lost in a forest during a thunderstorm, with the lightning strikes creating the impression of faces in the treetops.
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_a1abc483	featureApplicability	1.0
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The Rugrats Movie	hasFeature	Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_a1abc483
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_bc848d30	type	Poorly Lit Pareidolia
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_bc848d30	comment	SpongeBob SquarePants: In "Night Light", SpongeBob develops a fear of the dark after reading a scary book. He imagines he sees a monster's hand tapping on his window (actually a coral branch) and a giant brain monster in his room (his chair). In "InSPONGEiac", during SpongeBob's coffee-induced hallucination, he imagines that he sees a sea troll from a book Patrick read him. He begins to talk to it, but soon realizes that it's just a bush.
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Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_bd1172d0	type	Poorly Lit Pareidolia
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_bd1172d0	comment	Silly Symphonies: The short Babes in the Woods opens with two children wandering through some dark woods. They are frightened by a monstrous-looking tree with big red eyes, but they turn out to be a spotted butterfly resting on the trunk.
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_bd1172d0	featureApplicability	1.0
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Silly Symphonies	hasFeature	Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_bd1172d0
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_c01df100	type	Poorly Lit Pareidolia
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_c01df100	comment	Pink Floyd - The Wall: During the song 'Mother', young Pink, sick in bed, is scared by shadows resembling faces on the ceiling of his bedroom.
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_c01df100	featureApplicability	1.0
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_c01df100	featureConfidence	1.0
The Wall (Music)	hasFeature	Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_c01df100
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_c4282b71	type	Poorly Lit Pareidolia
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_c4282b71	comment	My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: In the second half of the pilot, "Elements of Harmony", the Mane Six are traveling through the Everfree Forest and see terrifying faces in the old trees, but Pinkie Pie teaches them how to laugh their fears away.
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Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_c61af5c6	type	Poorly Lit Pareidolia
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_c61af5c6	comment	A game mechanic in Creaks, all the creatures in the castle sans the Bird People are objects from the surface that have become alive, the doglike creatures were cabinets, goat creatures were chairs, the jellyfish were globes, the deer people were coatracks with trenchcoats on them etc. Strong light renders them inanimate for the duration.
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Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_d26874b6	type	Poorly Lit Pareidolia
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_d26874b6	comment	Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Wrecking Ball: Greg overhears his parents talking about the "nasty grout" in the bathroom and assumes that the Grout is a monster. At night, he thinks he sees the shadow of the Grout in his room; when he wakes up, it's revealed to be a hockey stick leaning against a chair and covered in clothes.
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Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_e098e5ef	type	Poorly Lit Pareidolia
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_e098e5ef	comment	Home Alone: Kevin is scared of going into the basement because he envisions the furnace as a monster.
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_e098e5ef	featureApplicability	1.0
Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_e098e5ef	featureConfidence	1.0
Home Alone	hasFeature	Poorly Lit Pareidolia / int_e098e5ef

The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.

Poorly Lit Pareidolia	processingCategory2	Adverbly Adjective Noun
Poorly Lit Pareidolia	processingCategory2	Fear Tropes
Poorly Lit Pareidolia	processingCategory2	Horror Tropes
Poorly Lit Pareidolia	processingCategory2	The Index Is Watching You
Home Alone / int_bfb0f737	type	Poorly Lit Pareidolia
MouseHunt / int_bfb0f737	type	Poorly Lit Pareidolia
The Babadook / int_bfb0f737	type	Poorly Lit Pareidolia
Hogfather / int_bfb0f737	type	Poorly Lit Pareidolia
Reaper Man / int_bfb0f737	type	Poorly Lit Pareidolia
The Wall (Music) / int_bfb0f737	type	Poorly Lit Pareidolia
The Exit 8 (Video Game) / int_bfb0f737	type	Poorly Lit Pareidolia
Pingu / int_bfb0f737	type	Poorly Lit Pareidolia
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs / int_bfb0f737	type	Poorly Lit Pareidolia
The Rugrats Movie / int_bfb0f737	type	Poorly Lit Pareidolia
The Wind in the Willows (1995) / int_bfb0f737	type	Poorly Lit Pareidolia

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