Our subconscious is always trying to express itself, through our hair colour, the things we display in our homes, our clothes, our creativity. At Halloween, we feel it’s acceptable to publicly express our shadow side, even though our conscious mind thinks we’re just dressing up for a laugh. Halloween can give us the most fascinating psychological insight into ourselves and the people around us.

Michael’s likely being killed by his unrequited love feels. His social skills have let him down and he’s resorted to being a creepy stalker, out to punish those sorority girls and anyone having sex with them, because he feels he can’t. Anyone who dresses up as him, likely has a bit of stalker inside them too, if they’re honest with themselves! They hopefully won’t act on it, but what do they think about in secret, or watch on the internet? That’s the secret shadow side of Michael Myers fans.

Adults who express themselves as a devil or demon on Halloween (or through snapchat filters any time of year) – are subconsciously representing the subconscious monster inside, controlling and enhancing their conscious fear and anger. They’re either metaphors for their inner demons, the thoughts that plague them at night when they’re trying to sleep… or they’re negative spirit attachments, depending on what you believe.

Ghosts are heard but not seen – they don’t matter or aren’t taken seriously in daily life, they might make a lot of noise but still get ignored, and may as well be invisible.

Buffy the vampire slayer / Faith – they’re probably a bit of a mess but fighting back, and totally kicking ass!

Vampires = energy vampires. They don’t love themselves, they’re broken inside and narcissistic. To make themselves feel good they slowly suck the life out of the people around them, literally feeding on their happiness / energy until their victim’s an empty husk.

Superheroes / film characters – they relate to this character, they feel their feels, they want others to understand them and see them as this character in a way. Most superheroes have a tragic past, but overcome it or use it to become something greater than they were before, or maybe they just get revenge on their oppressors. It depends on the character.

Supervillains? Same as superheroes, but more damaged. i.e. The Halloween Jokers & Harley Quinns relate to their character’s inner madness. Inside them there’s a psychopath just waiting to come out… all it takes it one bad day to go completely insane, and then they might beat you to death with a baseball bat and a grin on their face.

Freddy Krueger wants to scare and abuse teenagers for some likely very dark reasons, and does so while they’re sleeping… *shudder*

Jason Vorhees? See Michael Myers, but less of a stalker, more of an angry psycho! Trapped in a watery grave of emotion, likely because of his demanding mother. Anyone sexually active is going to get stabbed, ’cause if he can’t get some, no-one can.

Sexy cats or anything sexy on a night meant to be about Samhain? They likely use sex to numb their pain, and use their sexuality to control others to get what they need.

T-Rex? They’re powerful and scary but also extinct / old / irrelevant, they feel their thoughts and actions don’t matter and are rejected by others.

Princesses don’t take responsibility for their own life, instead they want a prince / king / sugar daddy to look after them. They require a pony, a palace, and all of your money, or they’ll scream and scream until they turn blue!

Pirates want to live free, irresponsibly, drunkenly, stealing their treasure from others. They have a great time, but are emotionally plundering society / others’ hard work / finances, unless they’ve got their own treasure – in which case they’re just party animals.

Witches – well, basically yeah, they’re a witch. They’ve got special skills, commune with spirit / nature, feel outcast by society who want to burn them ‘cause they’re scared of their power. Witches can be lovely, there are many good ones, but people dressing as evil witches on Halloween are likely expressing they’re drawn to power and spells / manifestations to control and influence others. Spells don’t turn out well, dark witches! See “The Craft”!

As for me.. my go to Halloween costume has always been Pinhead. I apparently enjoy my own suffering and raising hell – I see shadow work as the route to happiness. Angel to some, demon to others! But I have such sights to show you…

We’ve all got our shadow sides, it’s nothing to be ashamed of, expressing it once a year isn’t a problem… and is quite cathartically healthy, in a way. We can’t ignore our dark side, we all have one. One year we might be having a hard time and may feel drawn to dressing as a vampire, the next we might be feeling better and want to be a superhero. That’s OK. We can explore our dark side safely, though Halloween fancy dress.

If we’re not aware of our dark side though or are in denial, we might just be destroying our relationships with our toxic behaviour. What’s important is, whether or not it’s our fault we feel bad, to take responsibility for it, to heal our hurts rather than ignore them, and try to improve ourselves a little bit at a time. It can take ages, so don’t be hard on yourself if this suddenly makes you realise you’re masking some unhappy / dark feels – almost everyone is! The first step to feeling better is acknowledgement and acceptance.