Human Brain's reaction to Scary Stuff

[Melvin]

I'd go with height, blood, worms, and many-legged creatures as my main phobias. Not sure how that's relevant to the thread, but everyone is discussing them.

On-topic: Personally, I think doubt is the largest root of fear. Not all animals can comprehend uncertainty, or at least be in an "uncertain" state; somewhere along our evolutionary line we learned that there are things we're unsure of, such as who's hiding behind our backs, and that made us more cautious and thus more able to survive.

No irrational fears of boogie-men under the bed, or Kman hiding in your closet at night.

Why would you ever be scared of something like that?

If you know about those stories, imagine you're looking at that closet at the end of your room. The closet is a little bit open. If you think about those things, like the Kman, you'll keep looking at that closet and keep thinking about it.

If you're kinda paranoid, you'll hear stuff inside your closet, or your mind lets you think that there are eyes peeking at you.

Could be pretty scary.

[Robby]

If you know about those stories, imagine you're looking at that closet at the end of your room. The closet is a little bit open. If you think about those things, like the Kman, you'll keep looking at that closet and keep thinking about it.

If you're kinda paranoid, you'll hear stuff inside your closet, or your mind lets you think that there are eyes peeking at you.

Could be pretty scary.

Hallucinations, anybody?

[Ghieri]

Hallucinations, anybody?

Nah, precautions. I mean, ever since he saw Dickbutt...

[Kman]

All I'll say is you might want to check in your crawl space before you go to bed tonight

[Bridge]

Pretty simple. Is it harmful? If yes, the brain uses fear to dissuade you from taking unnecessary risks or to force you to avoid it in general.

[Obliviator27]

I would love to climb this tower.

[Zaffre]

I think depending on the person's personality, combined with human nature, leads to different fears. For me, I actually fear creatures with many legs like centipedes more than spiders. My personality is that many-legged insects are harmful, even though they usually aren't.

Darkness is a major contribution to horror media because of the simple fact that our retinal system cannot detect things as well in darkness. If Amnesia: The Dark Descent was never dark, it would not have the same effect that it did when we played it because we didn't know what was in the dark. We wanted to stay out of the darkness, so the lantern was used. This fear of the dark ties in perfectly with the sanity system. You can be terrified of the darkness and hear hallucinations or you can use the lantern constantly for light but be scared even more when the lights went out.

[Froge]

I think depending on the person's personality, combined with human nature, leads to different fears. For me, I actually fear creatures with many legs like centipedes more than spiders. My personality is that many-legged insects are harmful, even though they usually aren't.

THIS. I don't fear spiders much at all; unless they're huge or very poisonous (lolAustralia) I actually find them kind of cute. But anything > 10 legs is just fucking disgusting. Centipedes move in such mesmerizing ways and twist and twirl around like fucked up bastards.

Darkness is a major contribution to horror media because of the simple fact that our retinal system cannot detect things as well in darkness. If Amnesia: The Dark Descent was never dark, it would not have the same effect that it did when we played it because we didn't know what was in the dark. We wanted to stay out of the darkness, so the lantern was used. This fear of the dark ties in perfectly with the sanity system. You can be terrified of the darkness and hear hallucinations or you can use the lantern constantly for light but be scared even more when the lights went out.

I would say that darkness actually created the greatest amount of immersion in Amnesia. Because there's no constant light source (unless you're a lamp oil whore) the player is constantly being forced to "see" through the darkness, thereby immersing themselves very deeply into the environment. It actually makes you scared of dying even though there's zero penalty for it.

[Melvin]

I think depending on the person's personality, combined with human nature, leads to different fears. For me, I actually fear creatures with many legs like centipedes more than spiders. My personality is that many-legged insects are harmful, even though they usually aren't.

Darkness is a major contribution to horror media because of the simple fact that our retinal system cannot detect things as well in darkness. If Amnesia: The Dark Descent was never dark, it would not have the same effect that it did when we played it because we didn't know what was in the dark. We wanted to stay out of the darkness, so the lantern was used. This fear of the dark ties in perfectly with the sanity system. You can be terrified of the darkness and hear hallucinations or you can use the lantern constantly for light but be scared even more when the lights went out.

Awesome, how was your experience in Amnesia: the dark descent/Justine when being in the dark? Just like you just described or different?

[Zaffre]

I think depending on the person's personality, combined with human nature, leads to different fears. For me, I actually fear creatures with many legs like centipedes more than spiders. My personality is that many-legged insects are harmful, even though they usually aren't.

Darkness is a major contribution to horror media because of the simple fact that our retinal system cannot detect things as well in darkness. If Amnesia: The Dark Descent was never dark, it would not have the same effect that it did when we played it because we didn't know what was in the dark. We wanted to stay out of the darkness, so the lantern was used. This fear of the dark ties in perfectly with the sanity system. You can be terrified of the darkness and hear hallucinations or you can use the lantern constantly for light but be scared even more when the lights went out.

Awesome, how was your experience in Amnesia: the dark descent/Justine when being in the dark? Just like you just described or different?

I tended to use a lot of tinderboxes but not in places like the Prison where I knew there were monsters. I always kept a bit of emergency oil in case it was extremely dark. I mostly kept the lantern on at all times because I was very nervous.