Is fear only in our minds?

Question

"Fear is only in our minds,
but it's taking over all the time..."

The lyrics of Evanescence's new track Sweet Sacrifice pose the following question: How often does one's preconceived notions of what reality is act as a screen that prevents the world from convincing one otherwise? How can we know what's real and what's our imagination? What are you afraid of? Is this fear in your mind or is it real?

Answer 1

I know a lot about fear, because I am inherently a worrier. When fear is over something imaginary, that fear can be controlled. When I fear that my boyfriend no longer loves me, I know deep down that my fear is imaginary. However just recently I have been introduced to a new kind of fear beyond my control. I have been having heart problems, and the fear that I may suddenly die from them in my sleep has kept me up nights.

Therefore my answer is two-part. You can create fear. There are many things to be fearful of in the world, and even the strongest of us succumb to worry about things that will likely never happen. This fear can be overcome with reassurance from yourself and potentially from others (although if you are worrying pointlessly about another, even their repeated assurances will do nothing to calm you if you cannot calm yourself.) The other side to my question is that there is real fear, and while it may not be an external force, it is not necessarily something you can control. Fear about medical issues is one that I see as most potent, because aside from trusting your doctor, there really is nothing you could do if your heart were to stop beating.

For both types of fear, it is best to take a deep breath, hold presently in your mind the good things in your life, and brace your shoulders toward the future. Worrying and fearing the worst will never allow you to fully appreciate the good things you are afraid of losing.

Answer 2

"humans always need a definite answer and if they can't get one then it creates fear. "

I agree with this statement below, from Kelsey. Health issues are an excellent example, because for the most part we have no clue what's going on inside of us. Do I have cancer? Am I pregnant?

I will also go further to say that humans need to be able to control the situation that they are in, or else there is some anxiety or fear. Is illness plaguing you or a member of your family or a beloved pet and there is nothing you can do or you don't know what the right course of action is? Then you will likely worry and be anxious and fearful of what's to come. Likewise if for some reason you have broken the law and now you are facing a long imprisonment; again, it is a situation over which you have no control and you may fear the prison term. World events cause fear and worry as well, because there is so little that one person can do to make a difference.

Answer 3

Our minds comprehend the fact we are feeling fear. It's our minds that deal with our fears. It's our primitive flesh and blood that give us our fears. These fears in us and all life is what gives us the ability to survive. The problem is that we can't control fears being present in our lives. Nature gave the first mammals fear in a time when dinosaurs walked the earth. That fear kept the small little furry creatures alive. The path started then came to us. these fears are still there. these fears are the reason people kill each other time and time again. How many generations does it take for a species to realize their controlled by fear? The answer is blowing in the wind. Until there is nothing to fear in each other there will be fears. The sad truth is this: To have no fear there must be nothing to fear. Thus there must be nothing to fear to have no fear. there will always be fear. The mind is the only thing that can set you free of it, for the mind is the only part of you that can find truth.

Answer 4

Good Question. Fear is real, but then again it's only in our minds. If we were not here to experience(or create for that matter) fear it would not exist. Would you be afraid if a comet hit the earth? I'm betting you would -- thus there would be fear. But lets take it back a billion years. A comet collides with earth. No one is afraid because there is no one. This poses the question, was there fear present at that moment? I think not, but of course, it's more debatable than a person might think(Because of the obvious -- no one has ever been present where no one is present to experience the fear that isn't there.) Then again, just because fear is our mind's creation, does it make it any less real than the question you asked?

Answer 5

Fear is based on what we worry about the most. The emotion itself is a form of self defense but often it is relied up too much and that is where we see obession, depression, and other illness form. Fear is healty and we all need it. However, reliance on too much fear is unhealthy and even dangerous. Those who have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder know exaclty what it means to be afraid. In this case fear is often only in the mind and no where else.

I know what it is to be afraid of non existent fear. Three years ago, during a bad time in my life, I developed OCD. Since then I have come to deal with it but it has been a long and difficult battle. I have to remind myself that what I am afraid of is only in my mind. However, it feels as if I am in a prison and I can't escape. There are days where I feel trapped and only after a few hours of remorse over my situation can I escape.

Answer 6

Fear like any emotional response can change at any given point by establishing new neural pathways through perception, cognitive or otherwise. A textbook response to this would be a conditional response ie pavlovian and that labelling it as such is likening all the clothes at Harvey Knicks are designer when in fact they are mere rip offs and have no intellectual proprties of their own. Which may or not be true. Likewise can be said that of the idea to percieve the advent of TV before it existed. Man (and women) can take great leaps of the imagination from landing on the moon to finding a cure for cancer. Drugs this time round. What it cannot do all the time is define infinite details ie such as complex computer programmes ok the english cracked the enigma code but they did not understand why David Blaine would suspend himself halfway up above tower bridge all in the name of celebrity. So sometimes fear can be projectory but like all psychological thought processes ie dream sequences and the spiritual self ie the anima it can take on new life forms - like the american dream inspirational.

Answer 7

Like they say, we fear the unknown. I believe you can do anything if you are willing to get past your fear of not knowing what to expect and just go for it. Easier said than done, I am scared that I will fail school if I go back. In reality I probably won't but I fear the thought of it.

Fear is in your mind. Unless you are in a war and you are faced with bullets flying your way on a daily basis. Or if you have to watch your back to make sure someone does not come behind and stab you. That is real fear. Facing your attacker right before your attacked. That is fear.

Answer 8

This is a complex question but the immediate answer is simple: yes, fear is only in our minds. But that does not make it (or its effects) unreal.
That being said, the effects of the fear we feel (how it affects our perceptions, our responses, our thoughts, our subsequent actions) are not limited to our minds.
It is said in some Eastern philosophies that "perception is reality" and here is an example of how fear fits that statement.
Imagine that you are walking on a shadowy trail and you see a curvy, long shape curled along the edge of shadow...you are terrified as you realize that an enormous snake is blocking your path! You take out a flashlight and turn the beam onto the snake only to realize it is an old length of rope, dropped by a hiker days ago. Nothing to fear from an old piece of rope...in fact, it may even come in handy.
So it is with many of our fears: it is some limited perception, some unknown factor that troubles us...when the bright light of awareness or confidence is turned on, we perceive the reality and fear vanishes. The experience usually leaves us with something useful...a perspective, a wisdom, which like the rope, can come in handy some day!
Hope this helps!

Answer 9

"how often does one's preconceived notions of what reality is act as a screen that prevents the world from convincing one otherwise?" I believe that your term "reality" here means, the way that an individual perceives the world, i.e. MY reality. And I think what you're asking is, if I believe something to be true -the sky is blue or terrorism is bad, how easily could I be dissauded from that position. I believe that depends on how interwoven it is in my reality. If I identify strongly with the Christian faith -maybe I go to church every Wenesday and Sunday. All of my social events are centered around the church and all of my family is involved in the same church. I count myself as one of a handful of true believers and think all others will be damned. Let's say that you tell me that there's no god and point out the lack of order in the universe, good people dying and bad people succeeding. Do you think you'd be able to change me into an atheist? I doubt it.

Instead, if I had learned in school that Pluto was a planet. I spent hours and hours learning about Pluto in school and now years later, you tell me that Pluto is not a planet at all. You'd have little trouble convinving me because I could give less of a **** about how you define the piece of rock out there. It's not important to my reality.

Your second question, "How can we know what's real and what's our imagination", requires us to redefine the word, "reality". In this case, I believe that reality neccessarily means that there's a agreed upon consensus that something IS real and I think your question is, assuming that you believe that there is a consensus that something exists, how do you know it truly does. I used to spend a lot of time wondering the same thing, wondering whether I could prove to myself that what I saw and felt was actually there. Maybe instead, I completely ******* nuts and simply concocted my entire life, memories, daily goings-on, even my sense of touch and smell. Maybe I was strapped down in psycho ward, drooling and shitting myself and as an escape, created another life in mind that overcame the reality. In the end, I decided not to pursue that anymore. If this wasn't real, well, if was all I had and I might as well live is like it was real.

What am I afraid -easy question- a lot - but I made a decision to not let fear rule my life. I've likened the task of living to walking a tightrope across a canyon. You can constantly look down into canyon and live in fear that you'll misstep and plunge to your death. Eventually, you'll be right but meanwhile, you're not embracing life. You're embracing death. You can dance wildly on this tightrop; you'll enjoy your time, but you'll fall well before reaching the other side. Or you try to step surely and enjoy the view. I'm trying to do the latter.

Is fear in your mind? - absolutely. Fear is not objective but rather based on your preception of some raw data, an event or thing. Fear varies from person to person. If I'm a strong and confident swimmer, I'd have no problem jumping into the deep end of the pool and swimming endlessly. If instead, I can't swim and assuming that I had good sense, I'd be afraid of deep water and would avoid it.

Answer 10

Fear is very real. Just because humans like us have much more complex thought processes than other creatures does not mean that fear is only something in our mind. Animal besides humans display fear, such as in cats when their fur stands on end, or when a rattlesnake shakes its rattle. Fear is just a defensive mechanism that tells an organism that its survival is in jeopardy. However, disorders with fear, such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and anxiety disorder (which I have), are unnatural responses to things not physically real. There usually is a recurring trigger that initiates fear in a person. This trigger can be something that the brain remembers being a traumatic experience, and initiates the fight or flight response, or it can be cause by a chemical imbalance.