It can be anything from the most frightening movie you ever saw, if you live a peaceful life, or a genuine near-death experience, if you're James Bond...

My scariest experience when I was on a sidewalk and was walking towards my car. I looked both ways & nobody was coming from either direction. I stepped off of the sidewalk & almost got hit by a car. I managed to jump back onto the curb unscathed. I don't know where that car came from. It just came out of nowhere! The guy behind the wheel was the Illinois Fire Marshal. (It was marked on the car)

The scariest experience I've ever had was in 2000 when the media, at first, falsely announced the Al Gore had won the election.

How about something recent? There was a fire in my parents' house last night. It gives me the willies, considering that my son, brother and I had dinner there only three hours before the flames began. The house is smoke and soot filled but salvagable, and my mom (she's 80, BTW) got out OK. She came to my place to use the facility, and warm up. She was concerned with tar marks on my kitchen floor. My dad (he's 79) was away for a long weekend, but came home a day early. He was apparently dealing with the situation OK, as he said it was better to come home to a charred house than to a funeral. Right now, their aim is to fix it back up and move back in.

I went to Six Flags Great Adventure when I was in the sixth grade. It was a field trip for grades 6, 7, & 8, so my sister, in the eighth grade, went too. After I went through the Haunted House with some group of strangers, I hooked up with my friends, and we went through together several times ourselves. I was really pleased, because they were all terrified, and I, having gone before, thought it was cool, so Danny, the big "bodyguard" of the class, was hanging onto the back of my jacket, asking me not to leave them. We then went on Roaring Rapids, and decided during this that we'd go back to the Haunted House. As our Roaring Rapids ride was ending, we noticed large amounts of smoke billowing over Lightning Loops, the roller coaster. When we walked through the park to trace the source of the smoke, it was the Haunted House. My sister was there with some friends, crying because (IIRC), she thought I could've been inside there. Apparently, some kid had light a lighter near an air conditioning unit (IIRC), and it exploded it. Two of my sisters friends were in there ahead of the explosion, and ran out when they heard it. If we had gotten through Roaring Rapids any more quickly, my friends and I would've been in there. We had to cut our trip short, and migrated back to the parking lot, with ash raining down around us, getting into the eyes of one seventh grade student. When we got home, it was on the news.

I can think of some scary dreams I had when I was a kid. I remember one where my mother and I couldn't walk out the front gate of our yard for her to take me to school because there was some type of "demon" there. Black skin, cat-like face, with yellow eyes and small ears (then again, childhood memories can be inaccurate), so we went back inside and I woke up. Then, I went back to sleep, and dreamt that after going grocery shopping, my father was driving me home, but my mother stayed behind at the store (maybe to get something they forgot?), and as we drove away, we passed the same demon, who said he was going to get my mother, and I had to explain to my father who that thing was. I remember being really shaken because that thing popped up in two separate dreams in two different sleep sessions, almost as if he was "waiting for me" when I went to sleep.

I've almost drowned twice. Once when I was 4 and again at 17.

Last week. I accidentally broke a glass pippette during a Chemistry experiment, stabbed myself with it through a glove, and inadvertently injected myself with what was in the pippette (fortunately it was a harmless vanadium compound).

Thankfully, I didn't get shards.

By Dan on Sunday, October 17, 2004 - 04:11 pm:

The scariest experience I've ever had was in 2000 when the media, at first, falsely announced the Al Gore had won the election.

I don't know if that was the scariest for me, but I definitely had a good scare there as well. Went to bed thinking Gore'd won, then went a few days in a self-imposed media blackout as well as a bit of funk. Didn't even know about the Florida stuff for several days!

Yeah... Couple weeks from now are gonna be REAL fun for me...</sarcasm>

I almost drowned in Putnam Lake, New York when I was 13. My cousin threw me in the water, and the sight of being under the water line was tattooed onto my brain.
In 1975, I was driving my old Chevy, and I went into a serious skid on black ice. My friend even had a pole picked out that he figured we would hit. It was only by the grace of God that I got out of it in time.

In college (in the early 90's), there was a terrifying atmosphere of harrassment for the campus feminists. The Young Republicans would unceasingly harrass and taunt the feminists. I learned how hateful Right-wingers are.

Rona, what kind of harassment did they do?

No, don't encourage her!

Gee whiz.

The Young Republicans were the worst offenders. Emboldened by their hatred of Clinton, they took particular delight in harrassing the feminists (none of whom were Republican). Brenda, the woman who organized many rallies in support of womens' issues and arranged for feminist authors to visit and give speeches, was a particular target for their hate. They would yell insulting remarks at her (such as what she really needed was a "big d*ck"). The ugliness escalated into an ugly hate crime. A male student, who had been verbally harrassing her, spray-painted huge a giant phallus (erect, of course) on both sides of her car. When the Campus Police made an arrest, they failed to charge him with a hate crime- the phallic symbol was used as an intimidating symbol of male power and dominance (the phallus is also the central psychic image of the oppression of women). Just as upsetting was the reaction of many male students. They found it humorous. Their reaction reminded me of photos of lynching from the old South where whites are standing by smiling.

Flyers and posters for the women's groups were often defaced with vulgar sexual drawings and words. When feminist authors came to speak, the Young Republicans would attend just to yell insults and disrupt the speeches. The right-wingers also had intentions toward some of the females. They wanted to have sex with some of them. One male yelled out to me; "Show me your t*ts". There was undeniably an intolerable atmosphere of hate.

This is only scary in retrospect. At about 4:30 this morning, I was awaken by my bed shaking. I thought my girlfriend, who has a key to my apartment, had come in and was playing a joke. There wasn't any sign of her, so I dismissed the sensation, thinking I only dreamed it and went back to sleep. At 11, my sister called asking if I felt the earthquake this morning? EARTHQUAKE?!?!? I live in freakin' Central Illinois!! We don't have earthquakes here. But sure enough, when I logged on the computer and looked at CNN.com, I found this article and learned I just went through my first earthquake. I would never had known anything like that happened looking over my apartment. Nothing's been disturbed. The only evidence I had was the bed shook (and I was by myself at the same.) (Insert your own dirty joke here.)

This may not be the scariest thing to happen to me. But it is freaky to find out that Illinois is subject to tectonic shifts. So much for the stability of the Midwest.

"I feel the Earth move/Under my feet."

Benn- I was bringing in carts for my grocery store in the 89 quake. 7.1.I saw everyone pile out of the stores nearby, then it shoooook!

My boss gave away free wine and beer when it was all over. 5:07 pm pst, and no one at home answered..(my family was at another grocery store , shopping ,when I finally came home).
--------------------------------

I almost died 4 times...the hospital got sick of me.

Benn, the Midwest has long been known to be on a major fault.

Specifically, the New Madrid Fault. This is an 8-point plus fault. When it cut loose in the early 1800s, it rang church bells in New England.

>I live in freakin' Central Illinois!! We don't have earthquakes here.>

You do NOW!

PS I live in Western Kentucky.

PSS Is is wrong of me to watch "The Day the Earth Stood Still" just after an earthquake.

PSSS I think the Midwest should have a "This Dosen't Happen Here" Scale. The TDHH scale would work much better in the Midwest instead of the Richter scale.

PSSSS Who put Andy Richter (Conan's former sidekick) incharge of earthquakes?

The year 2003. 'Nuff said

Google "New Madrid fault"

I was in the bathroom finishing my business when I heard a faint sound like paper bag tearing followed by the loudest explosion I have ever heard. I literaly jumped 3 feet into the air. Turned out there was a lightning strike in the immediate area. The "bag tearing" sound was from the "feeler" bolts that form right before the main strike.