Dolls are both fun playmates and common fears. As children, we all had a doll or action figure we played with. Now that we are older, however, dolls are unsettling. Their dead eyes and porcelain faces make humans tense up when they spot them at night. Some people, especially Tupelo High School senior Rebecca Dernar, know this fear better than others.

“When I was about 6 or 7, I admitted to doing something mean to Michael,” said Dernar, referencing her older brother. “Apparently he was really angry. I had five life-like porcelain dolls around my room. I was always afraid of the dolls moving and I woke up and saw them turned towards me.”

“I screamed and ran towards my parent’s room,” Dernar recalled. “I told my mom that the doll heads moved and she didn’t believe me. She came back to my room and all the dolls heads were back (in their original positions.)”

This event was not an isolated incident. On and off, over the course of months, Dernar experienced this phenomenon. She continued to wake up to the eyes of the dolls staring at her, only to find them moved back in their original position when her parents came to check. Such an event would be traumatizing to any adult, nonetheless a 7-year-old.

“It was only every once and while,” Dernar said. “I thought I was going crazy.”

However, neither ghosts nor demons were the cause of this hair-raising issue. It was something much more mundane.

“In my later years, I found out it was my brother waiting until I was asleep and turning their heads,” said Dernar, whose older brother was 11 at the time. “He would run out of the room when I woke up and turn them back when I got my mom.”

For years, Dernar was frightened of the dolls in her room. She hated that she owned them at all. However, because she was forced to endure this trial for months, she now finds herself unphased by their appearance.

“I used to be extremely afraid of dolls,” Dernar said. “But now I feel like they helped me overcome my fear.”

Dolls are common movie tropes used to strike fear in viewers’ hearts. The “Child’s Play” series is well known for its main villain, Chucky, a criminal whose spirit is fused into a doll. That movie was released in 1998, and similar concepts continue to this day. The movie “Annabelle,” released Oct. 3, is based on a similar concept. A woman’s murdered spirit latches on to her old doll and tortures people with it, something Dernar is very familiar with.

“‘Annabelle’ is gonna be reminiscent of old times,” she said.