No, my experience with alone/together situations is quite different.
I usually don’t laugh when I’m watching a funny movie by myself and, although I might flinch during jump scenes, I don’t normally find scary movies to be all that scary when I watch them by myself.
There are hotels that tout themselves as “haunted hotels” and even bring in teams of “ghost experts” to get an official certificate proudly declaring the amount and type of “haunting” taking place at that location.
If it’s known to be a joke, then sure, it’s all fun and games—just as there is a sense of security in walking through the woods with a group of friends. But if even one of those friends is genuinely terrified, then that’s a whole other story. It’s enough to put everybody in the group on edge. You would be much better off walking through the woods alone.
Perhaps it’s herd mentality—but knowing that other people are genuinely scared has a way of bleeding into your own psyche. Even if you rationally know better.
You have to be careful when dismissing subconscious fears as irrational. They were put there for a reason, and they may still be relevant. If I was staying in a “haunted house” in a city where it was not isolated or abandoned or anything, I don’t think it’d scare me one bit. A secluded/abandoned haunted house might be scary, and for good reasons. It would be unwise to assume that your fear is entirely irrational.
I went to a local park with some friends one night to hang out. Both I and another friend were uneasy about it, but dismissed our fears as irrational (and didn’t mention it). We both figured that we didn’t have any reason to think that something bad was gonna happen in the sense that you can’t predict the future through “ESP”, but it didn’t occur to us that “you’re scared because that isn’t a safe place to be at night you dolt!”
Turns out some guys showed up and tried to stab us, nearly succeeding. I learned the “almost hard” way not to disregard fears right off the bat.
That’s pretty much how I see it—if you’ve spent your life in a culture where it’s common to believe in dangerous ghosts, your default reactions will be affected, and likewise if you’ve spent your life in a culture where it’s common to believe in fan death. I bet it doesn’t even take a lifetime—I’m expecting something like five or ten years.
I think a lot of emotional reactions are picked up from images and body language.
No, my experience with alone/together situations is quite different.
I usually don’t laugh when I’m watching a funny movie by myself and, although I might flinch during jump scenes, I don’t normally find scary movies to be all that scary when I watch them by myself.
There are hotels that tout themselves as “haunted hotels” and even bring in teams of “ghost experts” to get an official certificate proudly declaring the amount and type of “haunting” taking place at that location.
If it’s known to be a joke, then sure, it’s all fun and games—just as there is a sense of security in walking through the woods with a group of friends. But if even one of those friends is genuinely terrified, then that’s a whole other story. It’s enough to put everybody in the group on edge. You would be much better off walking through the woods alone.
Perhaps it’s herd mentality—but knowing that other people are genuinely scared has a way of bleeding into your own psyche. Even if you rationally know better.
You have to be careful when dismissing subconscious fears as irrational. They were put there for a reason, and they may still be relevant. If I was staying in a “haunted house” in a city where it was not isolated or abandoned or anything, I don’t think it’d scare me one bit. A secluded/abandoned haunted house might be scary, and for good reasons. It would be unwise to assume that your fear is entirely irrational.
I went to a local park with some friends one night to hang out. Both I and another friend were uneasy about it, but dismissed our fears as irrational (and didn’t mention it). We both figured that we didn’t have any reason to think that something bad was gonna happen in the sense that you can’t predict the future through “ESP”, but it didn’t occur to us that “you’re scared because that isn’t a safe place to be at night you dolt!”
Turns out some guys showed up and tried to stab us, nearly succeeding. I learned the “almost hard” way not to disregard fears right off the bat.
That’s pretty much how I see it—if you’ve spent your life in a culture where it’s common to believe in dangerous ghosts, your default reactions will be affected, and likewise if you’ve spent your life in a culture where it’s common to believe in fan death. I bet it doesn’t even take a lifetime—I’m expecting something like five or ten years.
I think a lot of emotional reactions are picked up from images and body language.