God forbade...must reading!

Uncanny




  The uncanny is a Freudian concept where something can be familiar and foreign, at the same time, coming to be uncomfortably strange.



  The uncanny brings about the paradox of being attracted to, while repulsed, as a cognitive dissonance. This dissonance leads to an outright rejection as one would rather reject than rationalize.



  Ernst Jentsch defines uncanny as “doubts whether an apparently animate object is really alive, or conversely, whether a lifeless object may indeed be animate.



   In a story of one of the most successful uncanny effects is to leave the reader guessing whether a figure is a mannequin, or just another pretty face. But to do it in a way that his attention is not focused on his uncertainty so that he doesn't investigate and clear up the uncertainty, immediately.



  Of the same story Freud describes the effect of “robbing one's eyes” as the more striking evidence of the uncanny. He goes on to describe uncanny effects that come from repetition of the same thing, where one gets lost and accidentally retraces his steps. This refers to Carl Jung's synchronicity where random number occur and to Otto Rank's the “doppleganger”, or evil twin.



   Freud contrasts the German concept “unheimlich”, the secret and hidden as in a social taboo that yields not only a pious reverence but horror and and even disgust as that hidden from the public eye must be a dangerous threat or even abomination, especially if the threat is presumably sexual in nature.



  A further breakdown of”unheimlich”, the secret and hidden is with one opposite meaning, “heimlich”, the agreeable and familiar. Schelling takes it further saying everything “unheimlich” that ought to have remained secret and hidden has come to light.



Wikipedia