"Uncanny is what one calls everything that was meant to remain secret and hidden and has come into the open" (Schilling).
The uncanny, a concept coined by Freud, postulates that something can be both familiar and foreign to someone - if something is uncanny, it is recognizable, yet alien. When someone looks at something they find uncanny, they are paradoxically attracted to and drawn away from that thing simultaneously. It is one of the more interesting aspects of cognitive dissonance, and one which is present in a lot of fiction. The uncanny is used in many instances to create a subtle sense ...
