Has anyone had the opposite experience where a rational realization has an immediate emotional impact? For example, as a child I was quite afraid of the dark and would have to switch lights off in a particular order to ensure I was never subjected to too much darkness. I vividly remember the exact moment I overcame this fear. I was in the bathroom at the sink trying to avoid looking in the mirror because I had just watched a horror movie involving mirrors. It suddenly occurred to me that all my life I had been looking in the mirror without fear and that nothing had changed except my own disposition. This epiphany rushed through me. I suddenly realized that all such “supernatural” things were my own superstitions and not “out there” in the world. The world was concrete and could not change in inexplicable, “supernatural” ways (the concept of which was almost completely associated with camera trickery in movies for me—i.e., if it was dark something might happen, if I look away and look back something might be there, etc). I immediately lost my fear of the dark and it never returned. It could be, of course, that this loss of fear had been building over time and only in this moment did I manage to disassociate the rituals I had built around it, etc, rather than it being the case that this rational epiphany led to my loss of fear.
My own story of rationality overcoming fear involves, ironically, belief in ghosts. Long after I was a devoted rationalist, I still had a lingering fear of hauntings and ghosts. You see, I’d been constantly told as a child that I had lived in a haunted house when I was too young too remember.
There was documented proof. Every time we had occasion to pass by the house, it would constantly have a ‘for sale’ or ‘for rent’ sign on it over the course of years, changing hands every time. Two suicides and a number of deaths occurred there (including one double suicide/homicide) and my mom had newspaper clippings. Surely, even I couldn’t contest that.
More salient were the personal stories. Everyone in the family would see apparitions in the night, like nightmares made real. Other times the whole family would all be overcome by fear simultaneously. They would sense spirits but feel paralyzed to move. They’d see other people in the corner of their eye, but they’d disappear before they could talk to them. Sometimes they would lose time as if possessed in a trance. Othertimes the spirits would possess members of the family and make them do odd things or unable to move well or at all.
So while I had grown up a rationalist, I still had a phobia of spirits and haunted houses. It took finally doing research on that house to understand what really happened. You see, carbon monoxide poisoning has all of those effects. It was mysterious in magical back then, but looking back it’s just sad. Several lives lost, other lives ruined, and massive negative utility all because somebody probably messed up the gas piping and nobody thought to install a CO detector. And part of that was because idiots (my family included) thought the place was haunted instead of trying to solve an unexplained problem with science.
This also implies that it’s a good idea to avoid houses with a history of mysterious deaths. The deaths were no longer mysterious when carbon monoxide poisoning was figured out, but before that?
Wow, this is a powerful story. I’m more and more sympathetic the more I think about it… Did you manage to convince your family about your findings? Did you alert someone of the danger (like the current owners perhaps)?
A Toilet Flush Monster climbed out of my toilet whenever I used to flush at night. If I could get back into bed completely covered by a blanket before it fully climbed out (i.e. the tank filled in with water and stopped making noises), then I was safe. All lights had to be off the whole time, or else the monster could see me.
Don’t laugh.
In one of my childhood’s flashes of clarity, I must have wondered how I knew about the monster if I’d never actually seen it. So one day I watched the toilet flush, and no monster came out. I checked with the lights off, and light on, and nothing. Since then, I could go to the bathroom with lights on, for once.
Well, I defeated the monster. But I’m still a little afraid of using a flashlight at night, or stepping into the floodlight when there’s a lot of darkness around. So the monster vacated the toilet, but continues to haunt me.
PS: For fear that my statement may be misinterpreted: I don’t actually believe in the monster, duh! But I still show symptoms of the Toilet Flush Monster disease.
Has anyone had the opposite experience where a rational realization has an immediate emotional impact?
Absolutely! I must admit I haven’t had one quite as impacting as you describe yet I certainly relish those moments when my rational thinking has an immediate emotional impact.
Has anyone had the opposite experience where a rational realization has an immediate emotional impact? For example, as a child I was quite afraid of the dark and would have to switch lights off in a particular order to ensure I was never subjected to too much darkness. I vividly remember the exact moment I overcame this fear. I was in the bathroom at the sink trying to avoid looking in the mirror because I had just watched a horror movie involving mirrors. It suddenly occurred to me that all my life I had been looking in the mirror without fear and that nothing had changed except my own disposition. This epiphany rushed through me. I suddenly realized that all such “supernatural” things were my own superstitions and not “out there” in the world. The world was concrete and could not change in inexplicable, “supernatural” ways (the concept of which was almost completely associated with camera trickery in movies for me—i.e., if it was dark something might happen, if I look away and look back something might be there, etc). I immediately lost my fear of the dark and it never returned. It could be, of course, that this loss of fear had been building over time and only in this moment did I manage to disassociate the rituals I had built around it, etc, rather than it being the case that this rational epiphany led to my loss of fear.
My own story of rationality overcoming fear involves, ironically, belief in ghosts. Long after I was a devoted rationalist, I still had a lingering fear of hauntings and ghosts. You see, I’d been constantly told as a child that I had lived in a haunted house when I was too young too remember.
There was documented proof. Every time we had occasion to pass by the house, it would constantly have a ‘for sale’ or ‘for rent’ sign on it over the course of years, changing hands every time. Two suicides and a number of deaths occurred there (including one double suicide/homicide) and my mom had newspaper clippings. Surely, even I couldn’t contest that.
More salient were the personal stories. Everyone in the family would see apparitions in the night, like nightmares made real. Other times the whole family would all be overcome by fear simultaneously. They would sense spirits but feel paralyzed to move. They’d see other people in the corner of their eye, but they’d disappear before they could talk to them. Sometimes they would lose time as if possessed in a trance. Othertimes the spirits would possess members of the family and make them do odd things or unable to move well or at all.
So while I had grown up a rationalist, I still had a phobia of spirits and haunted houses. It took finally doing research on that house to understand what really happened. You see, carbon monoxide poisoning has all of those effects. It was mysterious in magical back then, but looking back it’s just sad. Several lives lost, other lives ruined, and massive negative utility all because somebody probably messed up the gas piping and nobody thought to install a CO detector. And part of that was because idiots (my family included) thought the place was haunted instead of trying to solve an unexplained problem with science.
This also implies that it’s a good idea to avoid houses with a history of mysterious deaths. The deaths were no longer mysterious when carbon monoxide poisoning was figured out, but before that?
Wow, this is a powerful story. I’m more and more sympathetic the more I think about it… Did you manage to convince your family about your findings? Did you alert someone of the danger (like the current owners perhaps)?
A Toilet Flush Monster climbed out of my toilet whenever I used to flush at night. If I could get back into bed completely covered by a blanket before it fully climbed out (i.e. the tank filled in with water and stopped making noises), then I was safe. All lights had to be off the whole time, or else the monster could see me.
Don’t laugh.
In one of my childhood’s flashes of clarity, I must have wondered how I knew about the monster if I’d never actually seen it. So one day I watched the toilet flush, and no monster came out. I checked with the lights off, and light on, and nothing. Since then, I could go to the bathroom with lights on, for once.
Well, I defeated the monster. But I’m still a little afraid of using a flashlight at night, or stepping into the floodlight when there’s a lot of darkness around. So the monster vacated the toilet, but continues to haunt me.
PS: For fear that my statement may be misinterpreted: I don’t actually believe in the monster, duh! But I still show symptoms of the Toilet Flush Monster disease.
Absolutely! I must admit I haven’t had one quite as impacting as you describe yet I certainly relish those moments when my rational thinking has an immediate emotional impact.