You're blindfolded. Standing in darkness. Something brushes your ankle.
For four years, The Gainesville Fear Garden has terrorized guests with immersive horror stories while secretly studying their fear responses. Real psychological research. Real screams. Real data.
Now those stories are here-expanded into full horror fiction by one incredible rising-star writer, alongside the science behind why we pay to be scared.
Inside you'll find:
- Carnivorous plants hunting in Florida sinkholes (Bloodlines)
- A rogue psychologist experimenting on paying guests (The Haunt Lab)
- An AI that promises to customize your nightmares (AI House of Horrors)
- Sentient slime with a taste for human flesh (The Spill)
- Plus: Blood Brothers - the bonus story that started it all.
Each story includes a foreword revealing what we actually did to guests: the sensory manipulation, the psychological tricks, the moments people begged us to stop.
Also includes:
✓ Published research on recreational fear
✓ The Bugs and Hisses cocktail recipe (our most popular drink)
✓ Behind-the-scenes chaos of building a questionable haunted house
From the team that blindfolded thousands of people and led them into the dark without ever clearing an ethics board.
Perfect for fans of: creepypasta, experimental horror, haunted attractions, and anyone who's ever wondered why we love being scared.
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KEN SWAN, PH.D. is a former psychology professor who quit academia to build The Gainesville Fear Garden-a blindfolded haunted house that doubled as a real psychology laboratory. For four years, he studied fear while scaring paying customers. His research on recreational fear has been presented at national conferences and published in peer-reviewed journals. His credit is ruined. It was worth it. He lives in Gainesville, Florida with his wife Katie (co-founder and Chief Creative Officer of the Fear Garden), son Oliver (Chief Silly Officer), and corgi Hershey.
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