Its unreasonable, which means that its like a fear on steroids. It prevents us from doing the things that we want and being the person who we really are. Okay, so, how does a phobia differ from just plain everyday fear . An everyday plain fear is good because its there to protect us. You wanna fear fire to a certain degree because you want to avoid it so you remain safe. You wanna be fearful of not doing well on your test so that you take all the steps necessary to get the grade that you want. Alright, so, besides fire and fear of failing a test, what are some of the things people have phobias about . All sorts of things like dogs, spiders, snakes, clowns, ghosts and even the dark. You name it. Okay, ghosts i can understand since i dont believe ghosts exist but i am afraid of snakes. They can be deadly, which is real. Is my fear of snakes a phobia . The key word is irrational fear because if you live in a place where there arent many snakes and that prevents you from going outside beca