Thought of the Day: “Where there is no imagination, there is no horror.” — Arthur Conan Doyle

October 27, 2025

Halloween is just around the corner, and Arthur Conan Doyle reminds us that imagination is both our gift and our curse. “Where there is no imagination, there is no horror.” Think about that for a moment. Without imagination, there would be no fear of what’s under the bed, no goosebumps when the lights flicker, no thrill when something goes bump in the night.

But also, without imagination, there’d be no stories, no invention, no spark that turns ordinary moments into something magical (or terrifying). Horror is just imagination that got a little too curious.

When Fear Wears a Mask

The funny thing about fear is how it disguises itself. As adults, we tell ourselves we don’t believe in ghosts, monsters, or cursed dolls. And yet, we flinch when the house settles after midnight. We hesitate before opening a dark closet door. We still check behind the shower curtain, because what if?

Imagination gives shape to the unknown. It lets us put a face on our fears, even if that face is made of shadow and suggestion. Horror movies understand this perfectly. The scariest moments don’t come from what you see, but from what you don’t. Alfred Hitchcock once said, “There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it.” It’s the waiting, the wondering, the mental theater we build that makes us jump at our own reflections.

If you like this kind of deep dive into fear and imagination, you’ll love “There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it.” and “I don’t believe in ghosts, but I do believe in demons.”

Of course, imagination doesn’t just create fear, it creates everything else too. The same mind that dreams up haunted houses and serial killers also gives us poetry, music, and love stories. It’s the most powerful engine we’ve got.

Sometimes, imagination turns on us. We picture the worst-case scenario before it even has a chance to exist. We catastrophize, invent stories that keep us awake at night, or assume the worst about people and situations. That’s just horror rebranded as anxiety.

But imagination also gets us through the dark. It’s how a child turns a blanket into a superhero cape. How an artist turns grief into something beautiful. How you, sitting here right now, can picture something better, something that doesn’t exist yet, and decide to make it real.

So maybe Doyle wasn’t warning us about imagination. Maybe he was praising it. Because even horror, at its core, is proof of creativity. The fear you feel means your mind is alive, searching, curious. It’s capable of turning nothing into something. And that’s a kind of magic.

🧠 Read the full blog post where I explore this Thought of the Day and the Question of the Day

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