That I might not be able to tell when an author is just AI.

There was this one story that lives rent free in my head, which is terrifying when you realise. And this comment might pass it on, so read on at your peril.

It might be a Steven Baxter story. I know I read it in an anthology, but it could have been a different author.

The story is about a person who lives in a world where it’s illegal to not use augmented reality devices every moment of every day, to ensure that you’re seeing enough ads and behaving like a law-abiding citizen.

The protagonist is in charge of an investigation into people who deliberately live outside this system and seek to disrupt it. One of these people may or may not be the protagonist’s son.

The story meanders for a bit but the investigation is hampered by the very technology it seeks to enforce, so the protagonist insists that their augmented reality device temporarily disable everything.

It claims to have done so, but it soon becomes clear that augmentation is still going on.

So the protagonist invokes an override to turn it all off.

Not really, though occasionally a book will give me very vivid thoughts and dreams.

For instance, I read ‘Incidents Around the House’ last year, and it made me think of all the things I was scared of when I was a kid in a very visceral way. I occasionally had to remind myself out loud that it’s just a book.

This isn’t a book, and it didn’t keep me up all night, but hot damn it sure made me think: https://open.library.ubc.ca/soa/cIRcle/collections/facultyresearchandpublications/52383/items/1.0437324

Not books, but there have been a few creepypastas that had me on edge for weeks after reading them. There was one about a murderous doppelganger that disguised itself as a household pet that had me nervous around one of my cats.

I saw her napping in my living room and then a few seconds later sitting patiently by the bathroom. She must have slipped by me without me noticing, but I was a bit afraid of her for a while after.

I read a book that took place in Haida Gwaii, an island off of the coast is British Columbia, Canada. At one point in the story a the dad of the protagonist, who is a fisherman,

This has been a fear whenever I’m on the water or otherwise near sea lions ever since.

All Quiet on the Western Front gave me a ton of medical anxiety. I already knew war is hell, but the hospital somehow seemed worse. Being killed sucks, sure, but being wounded is something you have to live with. Not to mention most people are more likely to end up in the hospital than on the the front.

There’s a bit I thought was amusing though. The protagonist is a volunteer soldier, and I think by the time he’s been wounded he’s already had to kill someone and moved on from it. Anyway, he’s on the hospital train and he’s got to go to the bathroom but he can’t get up. He’s completely mortified to ask the nurse for help, who incidentally thinks it’s no big deal. The killer was too embarrassed to go pee-pee, and that’s somehow extremely relatable.

I did not know 1984 was non fiction.

For years I have been afraid of quicksand, alligators, and piranhas.

I live in central Europe.

I developed hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia

Introduction to Java…

Still have nightmares

I’m afraid of papercuts.

I have no mouth yet I must scream.

I saw a movie, based on a true story, where a young healthy man suddenly dies of a brain aneurism. Now that I know that’s a thing that can happen, even though it’s extremely rare, I’m paranoid about dying at an any moment without warning. The good news is, you greatly reduce your chances of a brain aneurism by being healthy.

Only fear I ever got from reading was a fear of paper cuts from turning the pages on a super new book.