Understanding your fears
Historically, Halloween has marked harvest’s end and the beginning of the cold, dark winter. A time of year recognised as the season of death. The Celts believed that at this time of year the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On the night Samhain (circa October 31), people believed the ghosts of the dead returned to earth. Druids would have their village build huge bonfires. As the night drew in people would gather wearing animal skin costumes to sacrifice to their Gods. Over the centuries, the spooky holiday has evolved into one of the most commercialized events of the year – the celebration of fear.?
Fear itself is deeply wired into our nature, having evolved to protect our ancestors from threats (to our integrity or existence). Similar to all animals, we often learn fear through our experiences, such as being attacked by an angry dog, or watching someone being attacked by an angry dog. However, an evolutionarily unique and fascinating way through which humans can learn about fear is through instruction – we can learn from the spoken or written word. If a sign says ‘beware of the dog’ then approaching the dog is (more) likely to trigger fear.
Fear-inducing tales were (most likely) useful in early societies as a way to teach children about natural predators like bears and wolves. But, as we started to ponder the meaning of life and death, ourstories began to reflect that self-recognition and struggle with inner demons. The monsters are us, in a sense, they reflect that dangerous part of us. And it’s good to recognize and be afraid of those demons. You could say that life’s most important lessons lurk in tales of ghosts and monsters. We like to think of ourselves as living safe and well-adjusted society, and yet we’re aware that horrible things still happen.
In our more enlightened times, we have commoditised fear. You can now get your ‘frights’ in easy to administer packages. Being petrified can be exhilarating (and addictive). We like novelty, something that departs from our everyday experience. This is fair enough, but have you read the instructions on the side of the packet??
The reaction starts in the brain before spreading through the body making adjustments in anticipation of your ‘flight-or-fright’ response. Initiating in the amygdala, this almond-shaped set of nuclei in the temporal lobe of the brain is dedicated to detecting the emotional relevance and importance of stimuli. This primes the motor systems areas involved in our escape mechanisms. It also triggers the sympathetic nervous system and the release of stress hormones. Pupils dilate, the bronchi distend and breathing accelerates. Heart rate and blood pressure rise. Blood flow and stream of glucose to the skeletal muscles increase. Organs not vital in survival, such as the gastrointestinal system, slow down. The hippocampus and prefrontal cortex go into overdrive to help the brain interpret the perceived threat. These centres are involved in a higher-level processing of context, which helps a person know whether a perceived threat is real or not. Your ability to make rational decisions becomes impaired, fear turns off the exploratory and risk-taking functions of your brain so you’re only able to react defensively, preventing you from assessing all your options and making smarter decisions. This is why you should never force someone to make a big decision when they’re afraid or taken off-guard; in this moment they aren’t capable of rationally thinking through their options.
Not surprisingly for something as deep rooted in our psyche as fear, we find that it also associates with our nature as social animals. Emotions are contagious in a positive way when we experience frightening things in the company of friends. We feed off each other’s emotional state. When we are able to recognise something as not being a real threat, we can re-label the experience and enjoy the thrill of that moment, we are ultimately at a place where we are ‘in control’. So, when you look to your friend at the haunted house you can quickly shift from screaming to laughing. Then we can overcome the initial fight-or-flight rush and be left feeling satisfied, reassured of our safety and more confident in our ability to confront the things that initially scared us.
While social learning, context and distraction have potential to influence the way we experience fear, a common theme that connects all of them is our sense of control. It is important to keep in mind that everyone is different, with a unique sense of what we find scary or enjoyable. This happens even in those who love scary experiences. You can be mentally inoculated against vampires and yet be terrified by zombies depending on whether or not your response is not ‘modulated by the cortical brain. Likewise, if an experience doesn’t trigger your emotional brain sufficiently, or if an experience is too unreal for the thinking cognitive brain it can end up feeling predictable. For example, as a clinical scientist, I for one can believe that draining the blood of fresh young ‘people’ can extend your life — and yet I find vampires dull.??However, I cannot fathom the excitement I get from biologically-impossible zombies.
All fun aside, the abnormal levels of fear and anxiety experienced by one in four of us leads to more serious distress and dysfunction. I for one know how fear can impact on your ability to enjoy life. I was one of the nearly 10% of the population who have suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Disorders of anxiety and fear include phobias, social phobia, generalized anxiety disorder, separation anxiety, PTSD and obsessive compulsive disorder. These conditions often begin at a young age, and without appropriate treatment can become chronic and debilitating. As in my case, they can also be precipitated by a traumatic experience. The good news is that we have effective treatments that work (at least for a lucky few).
Fear is ultimately linked with superstitions, exercises that can sometimes have a soothing effect, relieving our anxieties about the unknown by giving people a sense of control. This could be why superstitions have remained in our society, being passed from generation to generation, despite our scientific advancement. They are rooted in our prehistoric past when our ancestors could not understand the forces and whims of [the] natural world. By alleviating anxiety, superstition activities such as crossing our fingers can improve performance (and so we might assume our ability to survive). Research shows that repeating statements like “break a leg” or “good luck,” boosts our performance, amplifying our ability to master tasks, which in turn improves performance. At first sight there seems to be few downsides to superstition, quickly knocking on a wooden surface (when commenting that one has been in great health for years) is a small price to pay compared with the potentially devastating consequences of illness. However, research shows that an over-dependence on superstition-driven repeated behaviours can develop into an obsessive-compulsive disorders such as excessive hand washing, ritualized bathing or grooming, checking behaviours, mental rituals, need to repeat activities, re-reading text, hoarding behaviours, etc.
Our monsters teach us a lot about ourselves and they play an interesting role in shaping our cultures. Monster folklore is useful means of tracking the influence of cultures as peoples spread across the globe. For example, zombies are part of West African traditions, vampires have been traced back to Eastern Europe and genii most likely originated in the Arabic world. We are constantly reinventing our demons. In more recent times, cinema (or Netflix) offers a window into our collective fears and how, by conquering them together (assuming a happy ending), we achieve some shared catharsis. These days movies abound where the human race battles evil robots and malevolent computers. Monsters often arise with the emergence of new technologies. A frequently cited example is the classic 1954 sci-fi film Godzilla (a dinosaur-like monster created by nuclear radiation) as a thinly veiled representation of Japan’s anxiety over the lingering effects of the atomic attacks during World War II?
Whether we love or hate to experience fear, it’s hard to deny that we certainly revere it – devoting an entire holiday at this time of year to its celebration. Some of the chemicals that contribute to the panic response are also involved in other positive emotional states, such as happiness and excitement. So, it makes sense that the high arousal state we experience during a scare may also be experienced in a more positive light. But what makes the difference between getting a ‘rush’ and feeling completely terrorized? In the end we are back to ‘reading the instructions’ regarding the difference between our packaged ‘frights’ that exploit (for entertainment) the primitive parts of our brain and the fears that haunt our daily lives.
Despite Hollywood’s fixation with zombies, vampires and werewolves it seems that you need to look no further than everyday life for real terror. Survey data tell us that our top fears include: public speaking, heights, bugs (snakes and creepy crawlies), drowning and bloodletting/needles. With the exception of drowning, they aren’t exactly life-threatening and yet we react to the threat of them as if they are a virtual death sentence. Perhaps a sign of the times is that, in a recent survey, nearly two thirds of participants said that one of their greatest concerns was government corruption (the next was cyberterrorism).?
Happy Halloween.
Tim Hardman?is Managing Director of?Niche Science & Technology Ltd., a bespoke services CRO based in the UK. He is also Chairman of the?Association of Human Pharmacology in the Pharmaceutical Industry, President of the European Federation for Exploratory Medicines Development?and an occasional commentator on science, business and the process of drug development.