Have you ever been stopped dead in your tracks due to a scary sight? Maybe you’ve felt this crawling feeling down your spine. Fear is a feeling is an emotion we all experience. What exactly is fear? Out of all our emotions, fear is known to be the most complex emotion felt by humans. What causes this feeling we all hate?
The brain is a profoundly complex organ. More than 100 billion nerve cells put together as the starting point of everything we sense, think and do. Some of these communications lead to conscious thought and action, while others produce subconscious responses. The fear response is almost entirely subconscious: We respond in fear when we perceive danger or if we feel anticipation in a moment. We often try to avoid the feeling, but sadly, it can come at us even when we don’t expect it! Fear is a chain reaction in the brain that starts with a stressful stimulus and ends with the release of chemicals that can cause a racing heartbeat, fast breathing and tightened muscles, among other things, also known as the fight-or-flight response. We don't consciously trigger it or even know what's going on until it has run its course. With other emotions, such as happiness, a substance, causing the emotion, is secreted slowly throughout
…show more content…
Frank Farley, professor at Temple University says otherwise. He said the reason a horror movie can make you fearful is because it relies on your brain to make connections between fake and real events.
“We know that there are horrendously awful people out there," Farley said. "It gets into your head and makes all the connections with real life. Even fake horror can affect people in real life by heightening their senses,” Farley said, “so that they start to be more afraid even after the lights come up. You can be afraid of some sounds or images and have a sense of fear, only because of the connection to real horror that you hear of,” he
In classical Hollywood cinema, horror films were produced in the notion that as human beings we enjoy the concept of being scared and take it as a form of entertainment. This review examines five scholarly peer-reviewed
Fear is something that has helped keep mankind and other animals alive. I believe that many of our fears have been caused by evolution. Take, for instance, some peoples fear of snakes. Many individuals hold a fear of them. For some their fear could have been triggered by an experience they had as a child, like stepping on a snake while playing in the backyard. However, for most individuals they do not have an actual reason for their fear other than their distaste for how they look and feel. Why could that be? Well at one-time human beings survived mostly outdoors without the protection of heavy duty shelters and were susceptible to snakes and other creatures. Not having scientists around to classify whether a snake was venomous or not, humans just became fearful of them all and either avoided or killed the snakes they came across. This behavior would then be passed on to their offspring and would continue down the line until individuals began to realize that snakes were not the biggest predator out there and their fears began to shrink. Nevertheless, that fear still lingers in the back of many individual’s minds and dictates how they react to snakes whether in real life or on screen. The evolution of fear is what has kept mankind alive and what will continue to keep mankind alive. Without it we would probably jump off that bridge with our friends or pet that cute little shark we see in the water next to
It is believed that fear is a feeling which humans try to control, but they
Our emotions are said to be the most subjective of all our biological components. It seems that we have a difficult time grasping them, and an even more difficult time controlling them. Fear seems to be one of the most challenging of our human emotions when it comes to trying to subdue it ourselves. When we see a creepy bug, or are caught off guard by an extremely loud noise, we jump before even thinking about it. It seems like a normal reaction, and then after the initial surprise we can assure ourselves that we are still alive, everything is fine. But what about people who have abnormal reactions to fears? People who develop a phobia that is not so easy to subdue?
Horror movies are one of the most fascinating genres of film that exists. They are unrealistic but at the same time, they are also realistic. This realism that they contain is what draws people’s interest towards them because viewers are able to associate aspects of their own lives with the film. Every horror movie, no matter how farfetched the theme or plot may be, contains an element that people can relate to. This element may not be observable to a conscious mind, but to an unconscious mind, it brings back memories of something that has been repressed earlier in our lives (Wood, 197). This recollection of suppressed memories is how horror films create a sense of fear and it is literally what Robin Wood means when he talks about “the return
Fear can be caused by many different things and can be a result of different situations. “Fear is a primary emotion. It is an evolved and adaptive physiological response that occurs automatically in response to particular
‘Fear is an idea-crippling, success-stalling inhibitor inflicted only by yourself': Stephanie Melish, a motivational speaker and sales barista, effectively expressing the entire basis of fear. As an emotion, fear is essentially invisible, but it has the power to manifest into something physical, but what is the reasoning for this?Perhaps the reasoning is science, a change in metabolic and organ functions, or the individuals own mindset, their personal experiences and memory? Tense muscles, and widened eyes are some of common responses of defence to fear in the human race. However, as much as there was a full understanding into why we respond in this way to immediate danger, there is still a lack of reasoning into why a person becomes so confined
Adrenaline invigorates people and feeds the natural human desire for it. The easiest way to supply this craving is by being scared. Halloween is a day revolving around this beast and all wishes for it will be fulfilled, causing my time to be spent at a haunted house. Right before Halloween, my friends, Caroline, Sydney, Amanda, and Abe, decided that being scared was the best way to celebrate the coming of our favorite holiday. Sydney found a place that claimed to be the scariest place in New Jersey. I agreed because I knew that it was only going to be actors wearing makeup who were just trying to startle people. We were told that it would take us around thirty minutes to get through the house, so it would not be too bad if one of
Fear motivates many people to act upon matters, right or wrong. This emotion has been important in many events in both works of literature, and in the real world. It has forced military geniuses into retreat, and influenced them to plan another method of attack. Fear can be both a positive and a negative acting force in one’s life, a quality that can motivate one to success as well as to downfall.
Fear is something very foreign to countless people, not the idea, but the response to it, the way people react to fear. Everyone has their own fears; their own definitions and triggers to these unique varieties of fear. We imagine our worst fears and what would happen if they became a reality. This is where imagination plays a key role in the response to fear. Imagination can overcome one’s ability to reason out an abnormal situation, in which fear kicks in; frequently resulting in the situation becoming worse than the previous extent. Fear is in everyone’s lives, although it doesn’t affect some as much as others due to their response to this fear. Meaning they don’t let their imagination overcome their reason, creating a mindless fear as exhibited throughout our lifetime.
1. When watchers experience a horror movie they are usually in a theater or the comfort of their own homes. Although the killings can be a bit frightening the viewer’s know that that what they are seeing is not at all real.
This paper is focused on how fear as a subject is being perceived by many as a dominant and primitive human emotion. An uncontrollable energy that’s exists and created within every individual, which is directed towards an object or a given situation that does not present an actual danger. The individual then analyzes that the fear is contradictory and thus cannot help the reaction. Gradually, the phobia aims to build up and aggravate as the fear of fear response takes hold. Eventually they distinguish their fear responses as negative, and go out of their way to avoid those reactions. ‘Fear is derived as a basic feeling and therefore created by us – it is not something we have, but something we do. The principle of fear is to keep us safe.’
We have all had a special interest in horror as long as we can remember. Whether our outlet is through fables, movies, or even figments of our imaginations we all find reason to fear something. (ScienceDaily). The issue is when we begin reaching out to these outlets and pursuing them, putting ourselves in the environment of fear to feel the exhilaration of being frightened but the question is why? Many scientists have given their own explanation to this question but they all differ and there is no solid reasoning.
Technically speaking everyone is afraid of something. Some people fears spider, some are not. Some were terrified with worms some were not. When you feel danger or afraid your hair might stand, your heartbeat would increase abnormally or in some cases you might have a panic attack. So, it is the amygdale, a part of your brain that triggers fear. It governs some of your major body neurons, hormones and senses. It enables your body to react within seconds when having a feeling or sight of threat
Fear is a human emotion everyone dislikes. Fear is in every person with no exception. It can be difficult problem to solve. We can overcome our fears by challenging ourselves by analyzing fear and developing a growth mindset.