Fears and Phobias

Fear is a feeling experienced in anticipation of pain or threat.  Everyone gets scared once in a while.  They feel nervous or anxious about something that they find scary.  When people get scared their hearts beat faster, blood pressure rises, pupils dilate, or they start to sweat.  These are all defensive reactions.  The body is preparing and the reaction is called the “fight or flight” response.  A person prepares to stand and fight their fears or run from them.  Your heart pumps blood faster into your brain and muscles for a faster response and your lungs quickly supply your body with oxygen.  Pupils dilate to let in more light so you can see what going on around you and even your digestive system slows down so your body can focus on more significant things, such as survival.

            Fear is a survival instinct.  People feel afraid when hey thing they are in danger or unsure about something.  Phobias are an intensified version of fears and the fears are blown out of proportion because the negative feelings towards them are so strong.  Phobias interfere with real life activities because they control how a person perceives certain things.  If a person has a phobia of cats they will be afraid to go to a friend’s house because they might have cat, or they will be afraid to cross the street because they saw a cat there a week ago.  Most phobias are caused by bad encounters.  With a cat phobia, a person would have had a bad encounter with a cat, and seeing a cat triggers negative feelings to come back.

            There are so many fears and phobias out there that it’s impossible to count all of them, but here’s the top ten phobias:

1. Arachnophobia- the fear or spiders

2. Social Phobia- Social Anxiety Disorder

3. Aerophobia- the fear of flying

4. Agoraphobia- Fear of wide open spaces

5. Claustrophobia- Fear of being trapped in small spaces

6. Acrophobia- Fear of heights

7. Nyctophobia- Fear of the dark

8.  Brontophobia- Fear of thunder and lightening

9. Necrophobia- Fear of death or dead things

10. Aquaphobia- Fear of water

            If fear is so intense and makes people feel weak and helpless why do we ride roller coasters, watch scary movies, and read horror stories?  People like the rush and the exhilaration they get from the experience.  It’s stimulating and people want to see what it’s like and have some excitement while still knowing deep down that they will be okay in the end. 

Why do movies and books scare people just as much or even more then haunted trails and houses?  Haunted trails and houses seem like reality because people could reach out and touch the creepy effects.  But aren’t movies and books even further from reality?  No.  The books and movies make people think, and feel as if they are trapped in the house with the killer.  You put yourself in the characters shoes and you start to think.  Sometimes the movies that play mind games with you and movies you can relate to are more terrifying then the typical killer outside trying to come in and get you movies.  People’s minds make books scary, people imagine everything in their mind and it scares them.  When they read Stephen King’s Carrie, they put themselves in the gymnasium at the prom and imagine everything happening to them and around them.  You might be able to feel the props at a haunted house or trail but the fact that you can’t touch the things in the books and movies and they scare you just as much or even more, makes them more intense. 

Haunted houses, haunted trails, horror stories and scary movies have many things in common.  One similarity in particular is there's always a way to escape the fear.  In haunted houses and haunted trails there’s always an exit, you can always close a book when it gets to scary, and you can always hit stop on the DVD player when you can’t take it anymore.  But when real life comes into play it’s different.  People can’t close the book and they can’t hit stop.  There’s only one end and that’s what most people are truly afraid of.

For more information on fears and phobias go to Being Afraid, Fears and Phobias, and Discovery Health.

"To Be Or Not To Be..." Comparisons

Hamlet's "To Be Or Not To Be" speech is the best known speech from the story Hamlet.  The "To Be Or Not To Be" speech is given many times and each time is a little different.  The first performance was directed by Franco Zeffirelli and Starred Mel Gibson.  In this version Hamlet is by himself in a basement surrounded by stone coffins with stone people on top.  Hamlet paces around and leans on different coffins.  It is dark and gives a gloomy feeling very early on.  The coffins give the idea of death.  These things affect the scene because it makes people think Hamlet is seriously thinking about death and killing himself, because he is surrounded by death related items.

            The second performance of the "To Be Or Not To Be" speech was directed by and starred Lawrence Olivier.  In this edition Hamlet gives his speech by himself, sitting on a rock, on top of a cliff.  It is cloudy and foggy outside.  The clip is black and white which gives it an older look.  I don't take him as seriously as the other performances, because he's in the clouds and sitting on a rock.  At one point he holds a dagger, but that is the only thing that suggests some type of suicide until the end when he looks over the edge of the cliff.

            The third piece was directed by and starred Kenneth Branaugh.  In this performance of the speech Hamlet is in a royal looking room with mirrors.  It looks more current then the others.  The colors are not as dark as the other two versions.  The room is gold and white with a black and white checkered floor.  This makes the mood less sad and depressing.  He gives the speech to himself while looking in the mirror, but other people are watching him.  In the other two versions Hamlet is the only one there.  Hamlet holds a dagger up to his throat.  He makes it look like he is really about to kill himself, but he gets interrupted by a woman running into the room.  This setting makes you think he is crazy because he's thinking of killing himself while he's in this wonderful and fancy palace.

            All three performances had the same speech but the settings of each set a different mood for them.  Some of them were dark and some of them were not taken as serious.  The settings and props affects the scenes significantly.  It makes you think about the stability of the actual person and what they are feeling and what they may be thinking at that moment.  When a man is giving the "To Be Or Not To Be" speech while holding a dagger up to their neck, it  hits you over the head pretty hard that he is thinking of suicide.  If he was not holding the dagger, would you think he was serious?  It all depends on the settings and the props.