12 ‘90s Ghosts That Scared The Pants Off You
I know it’s only August, but I’m already getting super hyped up for the Halloween season. Why? Because it’s the one time of year that my bizarre fascination with ghosts and weird stuff comes in handy. Take, for example, these ghosts from the ‘90s that scared the pants off all of us when we were kids: If I’m really honest with myself, I think about these spooky, spectral figures all the time. But once the summer starts to draw to a close, the air gets crisp, and the leaves begin to change? Well, let’s just say that both my imagination and the nostalgia center of my brain go into hyper drive.
Many like to scoff at ghost stories, but on some level, I actually think we need them. Whether or not we believe in them, the possibility that they might exist can help us cope with difficult events — or, they can help us experience the sort of risk for which we have a psychological need, but don’t always encounter in our everyday lives. And even though some might maintain that kids should be kept away from scary stuff, I think we need to start being exposed to it when we’re young, too. Psychologist Bruno Bettelheim was right on the money with his 1976 book The Uses of Enchantment: The dark themes of fairy tales do let children begin to learn how to navigate their fears in symbolic terms. Ghost stories let us do that, too.
So here. Let’s take a look at just a few of the ghosts that populated a ‘90s childhood. There’s a reason we loved them so much even as we hid our heads under the covers.
