Hannah Tillman ’19 having a decidedly unscary lunch.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nEvery year at this time, we hunt out spook factors and pay them genuine human money to scare us. <\/span><\/p>\nHorror movies roll out in force, haunted houses open, Youtubers start exclusively playing horror games, and a few of us even venture to open a spooky book. We seek out horror experiences in controlled environments (movies, haunted houses, video games, etc.) because we know we\u2019re safe when they are over (Dwyer, 2018). <\/span><\/p>\nIt\u2019s rarer that you find people exploring dangerous grounds where their lives are actually forfeit; we want fear without the repercussions. Haunted houses are generally the closest we ever come to true danger and even then, it is scripted. It is safe.<\/span><\/p>\nWhen it comes to fear there is a tandem response: physical and emotional. Physically, our hearts race, we sweat, we scream, and\u2014in the case of genuine terror\u2014our fight or flight response kicks in; emotionally, anxiety sets in and we panic as our brains try to react to our primal physical reactions. Being scared makes us feel alive<\/i>, not just because it connects us to our primal response roots (if danger: fight, else: flight), but because our brains flood with adrenaline, endorphins, and dopamine (Dwyer, 2018). <\/span><\/p>\nThere is always a safety net\u2014we are never in real danger when taking horror media head-on\u2014so eventually we are able to intellectually recognize \u201cI am safe\u201d and bask in the euphoria of that brain rush. <\/span><\/p>\nIn regard to movies, books, and games, there is a voyeurism and an empathetic connection we experience. Since it is not our physical form in danger, our fear is a product of connecting with the other. This starts as a fear for the other but becomes a fear for the self the more we align ourselves with the on-screen\/on-page characters; empathy ties us to them and their experience. This sense of connection (and therefore danger) is heightened through prolonged contact to the media leading to medium dissolution\u2014the longer we are tied to the story and its world, the less we notice the screen in front of us or the pages of the book. As such, we begin to experience the fictional world \u201cas immediate and present\u201d (Visch et. al, 2010). Their journey is our journey; their fear is our fear\u2014at least until we close the book or the movie ends. <\/span><\/p>\nEven then, we carry that elicited emotional response. When you read a horror story then go to bed in the dark, the sounds of the house and shadows on the wall hold secret threats that were not there before. The fear lingers. This is the point. <\/span><\/p>\nWe seek out fear to be afraid. We seek out horror to be able to conquer it and keep going\u2014it gives us strength and pride. We are able to dabble in horror, see the darkness that humanity and the supernatural is capable of, and then keep going because everyone wants to feel insurmountable and euphoric at least once in a while.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This essay is part of an occasional series called Let\u2019s Talk that provides a forum to share thoughts by Detroit Mercy faculty, staff, alumni or invited guests and is designed to start conversations. It was written by Hannah Tillman ’19, a technical writing intern for Silicon Valley-based artificial intelligence company …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":2725,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[4,34],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/88\/2019\/10\/scary-faces.jpg?fit=900%2C472&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8Kcng-HV","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2723"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/66"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2723"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2723\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3155,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2723\/revisions\/3155"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"A](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/88\/2019\/10\/scary-faces.jpg?resize=900%2C472&ssl=1\")
<\/p>\n![\"Hannah](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/88\/2019\/10\/thumbnail_22554739_559360877728216_6908975602858799780_n.jpg?resize=400%2C300&ssl=1\")