Humanity has stepped far forward, but even today, with a person, there remains something that invariably launches its own script and there is nowhere to run away from it – this is our fear.
Our brain reacts subtly to any irritants and the feeling of fear is one of the strongest. Heart palpitations, sweaty palms, a lump in the throat – it’s so familiar to all of us, isn’t it?
However the nature of fear is complex and diverse. After all, so many people live in this world, so many fears. Everyone, perhaps, will find his list of frightening and exiting things. Someone is afraid of heights, but at the same time he is touched by domestic pythons and spiders, and for someone it is easier to climb to the very top of the mountain that to take a small mouse in his hands.
How does fear "work"?
Despite such a varieties of choices what to fear, our brain reacts to the similar call in almost the same way. A routine reaction called "hit or run" is launched with a bunch of hormones, among which, by the way, there is a place for dopamine – the so-called hormone of happiness and pleasure.
That is why some people like to "tickle" their nerves on some kind of roller coaster or when watching a horror – it is just that they have much of this dopamine during fear, than others.
Is fear contagious?
It is scientifically proven that we can literally feel the fear of our neighbor. It can be transmitted to a whole group of people from one person and plunge them into the abyss of panic.
Fear is not only personal, but also social. We are often focused on someone’s experience. If he is dangerous, negative, than we begin to fear. We are afraid of dying in a car accident, although its probability is much lower than other horrible events, we are afraid of nuclear war, apocalypses and poisonous snakes, although there are no logical reasons for it.
Remember the painting entitled "Hands resist him" by artist Bill Stoneham. The innocent-looking picture made a lot of noise in its time and launched a chain of frightening rumors, which were not confirmed by anything.
Someone said that a picture is "evil", that there are ghosts of children in it and that the image moves at night. It was fear, which added the popularity to the picture and desire to buy it, and some frightening stories about the canvas were layered on others.
Against any logic, there is also a fear of anything unusual that stands out of our usual life. May it be from that point of view that every nation on this planet has its own mysterious otherworldly creatures and ghosts, which we cannot control and understand?
It is uncertainly that makes us feel uncomfortable around the children’s clowns, because we do not see the real face of this person, and the floor’s creaking on the first floor makes us fear much more that thunderstorms outside the window.
Scientists agree on one thing: we have not lost the feeling of fear in the evolution, because we need it today. And if earlier this slippery feeling allowed us to survive preserve our offspring, today fears feeds us, revive and show a huge difference between our usual measured world and those hypothetically terrible consequences and dangers in which we may find ourselves. It gives our life new and bright colors.
What do you think about it?
All the images in this post are sourced from the free image website, pexels.com.