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Author Topic:   Supernatural/paranormal activity and the power of suggestion
Trixie
Member (Idle past 3706 days)
Posts: 1011
From: Edinburgh
Joined: 01-03-2004


(1)
Message 16 of 33 (646775)
01-06-2012 12:36 PM
Reply to: Message 13 by Omnivorous
01-06-2012 11:53 AM


Re: Too damn quiet...
This is really, really sad. Your post has creeped me out, particularly this
But when I realize the surrounding forest has gone dead silent--no bird movements or twitters, no scurrying ground squirrels, when even the wind seems to be holding its breath--my hackles rise. I pause, sniff the air, study the woods around me, and only move on when some intuitive, instinctual part of me is satisfied.
That's happened to me in the woods in broad daylight. None of the woods I go near are far from civilisation, we don't have any predators large enough to even try to damage a person, yet that feeling of my hackles rising has happened and I always freeze and do exactly what you do. However I then go a step further and shin up the nearest shinnable tree! Fast! Then sit with my heart pounding.
I've wondered about the cause of this for years. It isn't just when I've been reading scary stories or watching scary movies. It can be in an area I know very well and have walked in many times or it can be a little off my usual beaten track. Sometimes it can be caused by the snap of a twig, but usually there's nothing to explain it, at least nothing I'm consciously aware of.
I think you're onto something when you attribute it to survival instincts of our ancestors. We are rather puny, we don't have claws, teeth, speed, size. We have our intelligence and we use that to get or keep ourselves out of trouble. Yes, we may get false alarms, but they do no harm, however it could save our life if the threat is real.
Having said all that I have to admit that trying to explain to hubby why one minute I'm just behind him and the next minute I'm up a tree hasn't been easy.
I'm a real wus when it comes to the dark, but only indoors. It's always worse after a scary book or movie and that really is down to the power of suggestion. That's probably because it's better to learn from other people's experiences and so we have an inbuilt mechanism to make us wary of what dangerous tales, even if they are fiction. Maybe it doesn't matter that we know they're fiction, this little inbuilt mechanism can't tell the difference in some people.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 13 by Omnivorous, posted 01-06-2012 11:53 AM Omnivorous has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 23 by Omnivorous, posted 01-06-2012 4:53 PM Trixie has replied

  
Trixie
Member (Idle past 3706 days)
Posts: 1011
From: Edinburgh
Joined: 01-03-2004


Message 24 of 33 (646844)
01-06-2012 6:45 PM
Reply to: Message 23 by Omnivorous
01-06-2012 4:53 PM


Re: Too damn quiet...
Interesting thought about it being gendered. When this happens to me, the one thing that does come into very sharp focus is that I'm a very small female and don't stand a snowball's in a physical confrontation, stones or no stones. I'm also acutely aware that though I'm a fast runner, I won't get far cos I smoke.
These are all thoughts that tumble through my head at lightning speed. I've been attacked by a male human in the past so maybe that's why I shin up a tree. It's a position of advantage and I can boot them in the face if they try to climb up. The thing is that, at the time, it never enters my head that I'm getting away from a human, all I'm intent on is being safe. I have no interest in finding out what scared me at the time, I'll deal with that once I'm safe.
Another thing that resonated with me was hooah describing imagining something peeping in the window as he flipped off the light. No matter how hard you try not to, you can't help it. It's like someone saying to you "Don't think about elephants for 5 minutes". You can't!
I'm so glad we don't have bears here. The most ferocious beasties are my four cats. Funnily enough, noises in the night used to make me jump and hubby would have to peel me off the ceiling. Since getting marauding cats I can now sleep through the most godawful racket of stampeding cats. If I'm awake and hear the noise I just think "Bloody cats!" and go back to sleep. That's led me to wonder if the fear has it's root in the unknown - if you hear a noise and don't know what caused it or see a shape out of the corner of your eye that you can't identify.
With young hooah reading spooky stories, it may be that spooky things are nearer the suface of his imagination so that when he hears an unexpected noise or sees an unexpected shape, these spooky things get included in his mental list of what the cause could be.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 23 by Omnivorous, posted 01-06-2012 4:53 PM Omnivorous has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 25 by Omnivorous, posted 01-06-2012 10:00 PM Trixie has not replied

  
Trixie
Member (Idle past 3706 days)
Posts: 1011
From: Edinburgh
Joined: 01-03-2004


Message 27 of 33 (648608)
01-16-2012 9:52 PM
Reply to: Message 26 by hooah212002
01-16-2012 8:29 PM


I'm not sure which direction you want to go in, tbh. Give us some of the obvious implications and it might kickstart things.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 26 by hooah212002, posted 01-16-2012 8:29 PM hooah212002 has not replied

  
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