the uncanny
Disturbing yet recognizable
The uncanny describes something strangely unsettling—familiar enough to recognize yet wrong enough to disturb.
A wax figure, a too-human robot, an old photograph where someone's smile seems off.
Freud wrote influentially on the concept, linking it to the return of repressed fears.
The uncanny valley refers to the revulsion people feel toward almost-but-not-quite-human figures: The animation fell into the uncanny valley.
- eerieDisturbingly strange
- strangeUnusual or unfamiliar
- unsettlingCausing unease or discomfort
- familiarKnown from experience
- childhood homeEarly-life dwelling place
doppelganger · long lost twin · creepy · weird · haunting · ghostly · déjà vu · mirror · double · automaton · wax figure · mannequin · lifelike · dead eyes · disturbing · hollow feeling · inexplicable · supernatural
- Gothic horrorghost story, haunted houses, Dracula, vampires, Frankenstein
- Gothic LiteratureEdgar Allan Poe, Jane Eyre, Heathcliff, Wuthering Heights, haunted house
- German RomanticismHoffmann, blue flower, Brothers Grimm, creative imagination, lieder
- Psychoanalytic Artdream imagery, unconscious, dream interpretation, symbolic art, Dali
- dreamsnightmare, dreaming, daydream, nightmares, dreams
- horrorhorror, terror, fear, dread, haunted