User:Clener74/First huge scare

My biggest experience with a screamer was with what I heavily suspect to be Optical Illusions, but naturally I'm not going to try and confirm it. I must have been around 10 at the time it happened. Basically, it was a set of optical illusions, and I, along with my parents, my younger brother and other family members, were going through it. It was fairly straightforward; see the illusion, click on "next" to proceed, and so on. "Okay, I'm catching all of these, this is cool", I remember thinking to myself just as I was commenting with my dad about them.

Eventually we get to the final illusion. From what I remember, it was two circles on a fully white background; the circles were on the left and right of the screen, at center height, spinning counter-clockwise. Of note is that I, along with my dad, were the ones with their faces almost glued to the screen; my little brother was watching from above my dad's shoulders, standing on the bed. The rest were a bit farther back into the room.

As far as I remember there was no description as to what the "trick" of each illusion was. Or at least the final illusion didn't have one. That would explain why my dad and I were sticking so close to the screen, we were likely trying to find out what was supposed to be the illusion. Either that, or it did have a description/question that asked us to look closer, or implied we should do that.

Not long after, the screamer pops up in all its fullscreen glory. Once it happened, it was like someone had given me a strong shove in the front; I sent myself flying back, tripped and fell. I also remember my brother jumping backwards and falling on the bed, immediately starting to cry. The actual shock of the scare didn't last long for me, but the constant feeling of deep unease was there permanently due to the image getting burned into my mind.

While I've gotten past everything related to screamers, even now I cannot look at Regan or the What's Wrong faces, or similar images, not even by accident. Though that might just be the natural thing to do for people who at the very least feel uncomfortable seeing them.