JAMES M. SPEA
Halloween is in the air. The unmistakable signs of the season surround us. Falling leaves blanket the chilly city. Paper skeletons and cobwebs decorate every other window. At this time of the year, Academy square not only looks run down, it looks scary. Halloween will be here before you know it. Do you know what really makes you afraid?
There are many definitions of fear, said Jared Warren, a psychology major from Colorado. Irrational fears or phobias, like the fear of failure or of being rejected plague many of us.
Warren said that often these fears arise and take root when something frightening has happened in the past — when you were first exposed to a certain situation. Warren said that many people share the fear of heights or of falling.
“There was a time in their life they came close and got scared,” Warren explained. “For example, someone going up a tall building in an elevator. As they get higher, they also get more anxious. Finally, they decide they can’t go up any more and turn around. Going down, they become less anxious and their fears are reconfirmed.”
Interestingly many of our fears are self-inflicted. Books, movies, TV shows and haunted houses generate fears inside us. Writers like Edgar Allen Poe or Stephen King, and movie directors like Alfred Hitchcock, have created images and stories that terrify us to the very core. Nightmares ensue, accompanied by a myriad of fears we never even knew we had.
David Ryan, an accounting major from New Mexico, is terrified of being attacked or mauled by large animals, especially sharks. Ryan has never had a close call in the open sea. He’s never even been close to anyone who this actually happened to. Instead, Ryan attributes this fear to the movies and TV programs he saw where people were attacked by sharks.
Ryan said there is one vivid scene that comes to him often: “I’m out in the ocean getting torn apart by a shark and I’m helpless; I can’t get away from it,” Ryan said.
Janelle Hodge, a high school student from Oklahoma, described her fears.
“Fear is being afraid of the unknown; not knowing what’s there,” she said. “I’m scared of spiders…the bigger…the creepier! Also noises and creaks in the house when I’m alone, I know It’s not the cat.”
For some people the most frightening things are reoccurring nightmares. Steven Gardner of Provo remembers dreams of being pursued, cornered and then picked up by a giant dinosaur.
“He never ate me, he just held me there with his tiny arms, looking at me while I scream,” Gardner said.
Other bad dreams lacking in bare-faced terror are the equally unsettling dreams of failure or embarrassment.
“I’ve had a dream I was in a play and I didn’t memorize my lines,” Ryan said. “Thousands of people looking at me on the stage — thinking I’m a fool and an idiot.”
One questions what drives us to scare ourselves. Why do we allow these things in our minds? Many people actually enjoy getting scared.
Hodge loves watching horror movies as long as she is not all by herself. She explained that it’s fun to get scared with a bunch of other people around because you can all scream, jump and then laugh about how frightened you were.
Ryan enjoys getting scared. He thinks the thrill is worth the fright. According to Ryan, that is the real attraction to haunted houses, carnival rides, scary movies and books. Those experiences evoke powerful emotions, but the best part, according to Ryan, is when it’s all over.
“I think it’s the adrenalin inside that makes you feel good; its a kick,” Ryan said.
