The ten things people are most afraid of are as following (according to a study of 1000 people in France in 1990):
Snakes
Nauseatingly high places
Spiders
Rats
Bees
Enclosed spaces
Fire
Blood
Darkness
Crowds/audience
Ants do not feel fear. The reason is simple. An ant does not know the meaning of death or its own frailty. It may worry about the survival of its city and the entire society, but even then they do not fear their own death.
To understand why they are never afraid, one must first consider that an anthill acts as a single organism. Each ant acts like a cell in the human body.
When we clip our nails, are our fingertips afraid? When we shave, is the hair scared as the razor approaches it? When you dip your feet in the bath to check the temperature, does the toe shudder in fear? Because they do not act as an autonomous unit, they do not feel fear.
Similarly, when we pinch our right hand with the left hand, the right hand does not feel contempt towards the left hand. If the left hand has more rings, the right hand does not envy it. If you forget self and think of the community like an organism, all your worries disappear. Perhaps this is how ants run such a successful, efficient society.
(from The Encyclopaedia of Relative and Absolute Knowledge by Bernard Werber)
The term brainwashing describes the act of converting a person’s deepest thoughts and ideologies. The term originated from the efforts of the Chinese army to convert US soldiers to communism in the Korean War.
The Chinese first made American prisoners-of-war write essays hailing communism, then gave them some rice, candy or cigarettes as rewards. The intelligence officers posited that the prisoners would be tormented by the reality of having to act against their ideology (of anti-communism) to receive such petty rewards, and that they would convert their beliefs to escape this. They were right.
A significant number of Americans who were given rewards after writing the essays defected to become communists after the war. This was because they justified their actions, believing that they did not write the essays to get a few candies, but because they truly are communists. Converting them did not require horrific torture or heavy bribery. All the officers needed were some candy, and the powerful psychological phenomenon known as cognitive dissonance to play with a grown man’s mind.
Leon Festinger said: “People are not rational beings, but beings that rationalise themselves”. People easily get caught in the trap of self-justification, and distort reality and even their own memories to accommodate it.
It is human nature to want to know more about another person. However, ironically most people know less about themselves than they know others. The following is a simple psychological test that tells you about your true self.
Complete as many sentences as freely as you can, writing down whatever comes to your head. You have 5 minutes: (e.g. I am a male, I attend university)
I _____________________
I _____________________
I _____________________
I _____________________
I _____________________
I _____________________
I _____________________
I _____________________
I _____________________
I _____________________
I _____________________
I _____________________
I _____________________
I _____________________
I _____________________
I _____________________
I _____________________
I _____________________
I _____________________
I _____________________
This test is very useful as it is simple yet accurately portrays the subconscious mind and inner self. It is especially used in adult psychiatry consultations as answers become more subjective and creative as the subject’s age increases. According to a study, from about number 10 the answers show the person’s wants and potential, and from 15 onwards subconscious desires and concerns. Ergo, answers become more accurate in their depiction of the true self as you fill in the lines.
The responses are sorted into six main categories:
Social status (I am an employee of…)
Faith (I am sure that justice will always win in the end)
Desire (I want to be rich)
Likes (I like watermelons)
Judgement (I am stubborn)
Blank (nothing written)
Interestingly, nothing shows more than you expect. For example, those who do not finish all twenty lines tend to be authoritative. This is because they show a tendency of seeing the world as black or white, or good or evil and cannot stand fuzzy, “grey” statements. Therefore, their view of their self tend to be simplistic, making their answers less detailed.
Now, let us explore the world of the inner self and the subconscious mind. For a more objective analysis of yourself, ask someone else to scrutinise your answers.
There’s only one thing other than love that can make a person oversee another’s weaknesses and amplify their strengths – alcohol. The term beer goggles refers to this phenomenon, where a member of the opposite sex appears more attractive due to the influence of alcohol. This is because alcohol inhibits the cerebral cortex where higher order thinking occurs, reducing sexual inhibition and allowing primitive behaviour to surface.
Beer goggles can be utilised to increase the chances of succeeding in courtship if one knows how to manipulate it.
There is even an equation to calculate the strength of beer goggles, produced from actual scientific research and experiments. The equation is:
An = number of units of alcohol consumed S = smokiness of the room (graded from 0-10, where 0 clear air; 10 extremely smoky) L = luminance of ‘person of interest’ (candelas per square metre; typically 1 pitch black; 150 as seen in normal room lighting) Vo = Snellen visual acuity (6/6 normal; 6/12 just meets driving standard) d = distance from ‘person of interest’ (metres; 0.5 to 3 metres)
Ergo, the more you drink, the further you are from them, the smokier and darker it is and the worse your eyesight, the beer goggle index (ß) rises and the subject becomes more attractive, thus increasing the probability that you will approach that person.
If you do it, it’s verbal abuse; if I do it, it’s humour. If you do it, it’s an affair; if I do it, it’s romance. If you do it, it’s graffiti; if I do it, it’s art. If you do it, it’s showing off; if I do it, it’s romance.
If you do it, it’s being drunk; if I do it, it’s entertainment. If you do it, it’s foolish; if I do it, it’s romance. If you do it, it’s a lie; if I do it, it’s the truth. If you do it, it’s a scandal; if I do it, it’s romance.
If you do it, it’s wasting time; if I do it, it’s resting. If you do it, it’s stalking; if I do it, it’s romance. If you do it, it’s your fault; if I do it, it’s your fault. If you do it, it’s insane; if I do it, it’s romance.
If you do it, it’s impossible; if I do it, it’s possible.
Dreams are wonderful things. Within a dream, nothing is impossible and the mind unleashes its full potential creativity. Is there a way to harness such power? The short answer is: yes.
Lucid dreams are defined as the state of being aware that you are in a dream. This means that unlike normal dreams, you know that you are dreaming. Although this may sound easy, it is quite hard to enter and stay in a lucid dream. Many people experience a lucid dream a few times in their life, but tend to pass it off as a normal dream or some paranormal event (many “out-of-body” experiences can be explained as lucid dreams).
The major difference between a normal dream and a lucid dream is the ability to control your dream. This concept is explored in detail in the movie Inception, where characters utilise the creative power of dreamspace, tricking the victim that they are in reality to manipulate information out of them. Inception is actually a great example of what a lucid dream is like: the architect can manipulate the dreamspace to her wishes, even going as far as ignoring the laws of physics and conjuring objects out of nothing. This ability is not exclusive to movies – you too can exert this power within your own dreams, every night.
The most important point to remember is that lucid dreams are based on memory. Reason being, if you cannot remember the dream, then it might as well not have happened. Also, you need the ability to distinguish a dream from reality, as otherwise it will pass you by without you realising. There are a few tips and tricks that can help the induction of a lucid dream.
Firstly, keep a dream diary – a record of every dream you have in excruciating detail. This not only trains your ability to remember dreams in detail, but also lets you prepare for when a lucid dream comes. So every morning when you wake up, record whatever you can remember from the night’s dream. Many people complain that they never dream, but this is false – they are merely forgetting it. After keeping a dream diary for at least a couple weeks, you will find that the frequency of dreams increase dramatically, with increasing creativity.
Secondly, look for dream signs. You will notice from your dream diary that certain things appear often in your dreams. This may be a certain person, an impossible object (such as the staircase from Inception), meeting a deceased person or something happening (e.g. falling). A classic example is a clock. In a dream, when you look at a clock (preferably digital) and blink, time suddenly leaps around, such as 3pm suddenly becoming 6pm. Looking for these signs in your surrounding can easily alert you to the fact that you are dreaming.
Lastly, do reality checks as often as possible. These are actions that confirm that you are in reality, or conversely if the check fails, that you are dreaming. Reality checks are represented as totems in Inception, and although the risk of “getting lost in a dream” is close to nothing in a lucid dream, it is an extremely useful tool. Reality checks (RC) are based on the fact that the laws of reality do not function in dreams. For example, a common RC is bending your fingers backwards. In real life, your fingers will only go back so far. In a dream, the fingers can touch the back of your hand: a definitive proof that you are not in reality. Other examples include breathing through a pinched nose, pinching yourself (no sensation in a dream) and… anything creative actually. The general rule is: “habituate what is not your habit” – i.e. make a habit of something that is not usually your habit, so you can do it in a dream as a RC.
After a few weeks practising using the above skills, prepare your mind for a lucid dream. Every night before going to sleep, keep thinking “I will dream” or “I will stay awake in my dream”. Continuous reinforcement directly increases your chance of “waking up” in your dream, and allows you to begin your journey into lucid dreams.
As mentioned above, within a dream, you have almost godly powers as you can manipulate the entire dreamspace to your will. However, there is a catch: you have to control the dreamspace. This may sound absurd, but it will be relevant when you have your first lucid dream. Dreams are like wild mustangs – they will spiral out of control as soon as you try to take control. For instance, a novice lucid dreamer (or, in Greek, oneironaut) will find that as soon as they acknowledge that they are in a dream, they will instantly wake up. This is a form of defence mechanism as the boundary of reality and dream is faded, causing your brain to become confused.
There are methods to help your stay in dreamstate. It has been suggested that when you notice signs of waking up (e.g. the surroundings become blurred and slowly disappear), spinning on the spot can prolong the dreamstate. Rubbing your hands together also helps. The duration you stay in the dream becomes longer as you become more proficient in lucid dreaming.
This is only the first step. The more you manipulate your dream, the more your brain will “reject” your dream-self. Again, this is seen in Inception (it is actually quite an accurate depiction of lucid dreaming). You will find that through practice, you not only lengthen your lucid dream, but also increase the power to manipulate things. In the advanced stage, you will not only be able to completely recreate the world around you, but also achieve flying and the ability to summon people.
A final point to learn about lucid dreaming is that there are two ways into a lucid dream: DILD and WILD.
The first, and the most common, type is Dream-Induced Lucid Dream. This is by far the easiest method. In DILD, you “wake up”, or become self-aware, in a dream and then continue to dream the same dream (except now it is lucid). It is easier to achieve this during a nap or when you go back to sleep after waking up in the middle of the night.
The second, and more advanced method, is the Wake-Induced Lucid Dream. WILD is when a lucid dreamer can go straight into a lucid dream from a state of alertness. This lets you enter a lucid dream anytime at will, and can be more powerful than a DILD. However, there is a catch. WILD easily induces sleep paralysis (see Sleep Paralysis) due to the forced induction of REM paralysis. This can be a horrifying experience for the unprepared, especially due to the nightmarish hallucinations it brings. But after practice and the correct mindset, you can easily vanquish this state with willpower, and freely enter a lucid dream. Sleep paralysis should not deter you from attempting lucid dreaming, for it is only a temporary side effect.
Lucid dreaming is one of the most useful skills one can learn. Not only does it let you explore your mind freely, you can go deeper to discover your subconscious (often through imagery), solve complex problems you couldn’t in real life and relieve the stress built up from reality. An interesting feature about dreams is that time is completely relative; this means you will enjoy a lengthy dream much longer than your actual sleep, giving you a better rested sleep. If you are lucky, you may even enjoy the delightful experience of a “dream within a dream” (or go even deeper).
Sometimes just before you fall asleep, or just after you wake up, it is impossible to move any muscles. The panic caused by this sudden paralysis is soon followed by a sense of impending doom and unknown horror. When trying to look around to figure out what is happening, you see a ghost or demon sitting on your chest, pinning you down. This is a typical scenario of sleep paralysis. It occurs when the mind wakes up before the body (in loose terms) and is experienced by everyone at least once throughout their life.
Sleep is divided into two phases: REM (rapid eye movement) sleep and non-REM sleep. These two phases cycle to make up sleep at a 1:3 ratio (i.e. about 90 minutes non-REM, 30 minutes REM, repeat). NREM sleep is often thought of as “shallow sleep”, but this is incorrect as the third phase of NREM is literally “deep sleep”. This is followed by REM sleep, characterised by relaxation of muscle tone and the eyes darting in all directions (rapid eye movements). The brain cuts off motor signals to the body during REM sleep to prevent it acting out the movements in a dream (without this, many people would injure themselves or others during sleep). For example, patients suffering from diseases such as Parkinson’s disease with REM sleep disorder show vigorous movements during sleep, often hitting their partners in the process.
The problem occurs when the onset of REM atonia (relaxation) comes before the person fully falls asleep, or fails to disappear after waking up. As the motor system has been shut down, the muscles cannot be moved yet the person has regained consciousness. The more frightening thing is that sleep paralysis is usually accompanied by an intense visual and auditory hallucination, which is almost always related the person’s worst nightmares and fears. This explains why so many cultures associate it with demons and ghosts, and it is also possibly the cause of alien abduction experiences and ghost sightings. Reason being, the hallucination is so vivid the person easily believes that it actually happened.
Sleep paralysis can be caused by excessive drinking, stress or the induction of lucid dreams, but tend to be spontaneous and can happen to you on any day.
When two conflicting ideas exist at the same time in the human mind, it causes uneasiness and discomfort. Human beings instinctively tried to reduce the dissonance, most easily achieved by adaptation and blaming. For example, when a person wants something strongly but cannot attain it, they choose to believe that they do not want it any longer, discarding one idea to dissolve the dissonance.
A famous portrayal of this condition is Aesop’s fable The Fox and the Grapes, which goes as following:
A fox sees a grape on a tree and wants to eat it. However, the grape is too high up, so the fox says “That grape is surely sour.” and turns away.
This fable shows the classic pattern of: Wants something -> finds it unattainable -> criticises it to reduce their want, and ultimately the dissonance caused by it.
This effect is quite powerful and explains many of mankind’s unique behaviours. As stated above, people try to reduce the dissonance by justification, denial and even blaming a third party to ease their mind. Interestingly, the act of “justification” is brought on by another human feature: arrogance. Most people consider themselves intelligent and always making the right decisions, ergo when they make a mistake it conflicts with their self-image. Instead of accepting that they made a mistake (thus altering their image), they instead believe that they intended that action. This belief is so strong that they do not even know the justification happened subconsciously.
For example, there is a phenomenon called buyer’s remorse, where a buyer finds a flaw or a better product after buying something, feeling remorse (which is due to the discomfort caused by cognitive dissonance). Instead of blaming themselves, people will justify their reasons for buying that product, and paradoxically value that item even more. This shows how cognitive dissonance can be seen everywhere in everyday life.
In short, people cannot accept paradoxes, believe they always make the right decisions, and twist reality and make excuses when it does not fit what they desire. People are fascinating.
There is a disease called Alice in Wonderland Syndrome. This causes patients to suffer massive migraines, while suffering visual hallucinations that alter their perception of what they see. For example, they see objects as bigger or smaller than what they actually are, or even see them as upside-down. Because of this, people who have experienced this syndrome say that it was like living in a fairy tale. There is no known cure, but it is often temporary and will one day disappear like magic.
When you fall in love, the other person’s weaknesses seem smaller, their strengths seem bigger, and sometimes they turn your world upside-down. So is love like living in a fairy tale, or like suffering a disease?.
A gaze is defined as “to look fixedly, intently, or deliberately at something”, but its true meaning is far deeper than that. In art and psychology, the “gaze” is described as a complex medium of communication between the subject and the object being gazed at. There are many theories as to what the gaze signifies.
A popular explanation is the exertion of dominance by the subject by gazing at an object. In essence, this act objectifies something, such as a painting or a person, placing it on an inferior level relative to the observer. This applies to the concept of the “medical gaze” – where the doctor can see the patient as just an anatomical body, or a holistic being with a soul – or the “male gaze”, which feminists claim to be the tendency for films to objectify women and play to the male audience, providing them with the power and dominance. In this case, the gaze acts as a projection of the viewer, placing himself as a dominant figure indirectly interacting with the female being gazed at in the movie. Although the male gaze itself is questionable, there is no doubt that people tend to project themselves into the characters in a movie through gaze. This theory explains the uncanny feeling brought on by a gaze, as it gives the impression that you are being defined by someone’s gaze, whilst becoming dominated.
The gaze plays a vital role in the development of babies as they pass through what is called the “mirror stage”. This is when babies first conceive the idea of self, as they see an external image of themselves in the mirror. At this point, the baby’s gaze defines the external image (reflection) while the reflection’s gaze gives the baby an uncanny feeling of “self”. The concept of the gaze has been well-known throughout history, and is reflected in myths such as the evil eye (that brings bad fortune to those being gazed at) or Medusa (the gorgon who petrifies those who make eye contact with her). Interestingly, the story of Narcissus shows the danger of gaze by misidentifying “self”.
Artists use this concept of gaze effectively by either letting the audience simply gaze at the picture, essentially letting it be defined only when being looked at, or invite the audience in a “conversation” with the painting. This can be achieved when characters in the painting are gazing at the audience, giving the illusion that they can actually see past the two-dimensional plane, gazing into the viewer’s eyes. This produces a strange feeling, while also giving the viewer a heightened appreciation for the painting as he/she feels at level with the painting. Furthermore, as the gaze is a two-way conversation, there are also examples of “setting oneself at gaze”. This means that they are exposing themselves to be gazed at, a common example being nude art. Of course, this ties into voyeurism and scopophilia, showing just how complex the meaning behind the word “gaze” can be.
