Origins of the sensation of horror

[Kyriakos]

This is a question which interests me a lot, and is central in my literature as well

The sensation of fear, and horror, is obviously ancient, but one should guess that it predated its first manifestation in humans or their ancestors. That for the simple reason that did that which enable it form not predate its first cause, then the cause itself could not have shaped it in any way. This irregardless of the logical argument that despite such a claim that first cause would have had an impact, and so would the next causes.

Fear seems to be at least categorisable into two main types, in relation to our own consciousness of what had caused it. The first is fear caused by an external object, for example from a pack of wolves. The second is fear caused either in the absense of such an external cause, or by a psychotic episode. For example one can feel horror by closing his eyes and imagining against his will some hideous form, and then being alarmed that this had happened.

Ofcourse the fear caused by an external object is again synthesised with the fear caused by a non-external object, due to the fact that even an external object remains to be a mental object, viewed as different from an imaginary one for reasons of how our consciousness has developed in time. However if one is in a mountain resort, walking outside it in the snow, and there sees a wolf, he will not be wondering if the wolf is understood by him as a mental image or not, but be clearly worried about the wolve's teeth which could possibly bite into him if he is not carefull. In essense, perhaps, fear of an external object is not entirely different from fear of an internal one, but here the difference that the internal one has appeared for unexplained reasons (unlike the appearence of the wolf, which was caused by its own nature and psysical form) provides another parameter in the threatening emotion.

'Fear of the unknown' is a common phrase, although ofcourse one should agree that it has been used to refer to cases of largely different essense. But fear of the unknown can be expected to hit a very sensitive note inside one's mind, namely that whose meaning is that we cannot realise where we are moving inside our consciousness. Symbolically one could say that a person who suffers from a short episode of such horror caused by an internal object is in a way stumbling inside a corridor in his mind, or rather has fallen inside a small pit, whereas before he had been walking in fast pace without being aware of the existence of such mental pits.

Very important is to note that there are many other factors of horror caused by internal objects, which do not expand possibly all the way towards the deeper question about the ability we have to feel fear. For example in early childhood it is ussual that small children identify physical form with characteristics of character, and therefore they can personify a negative- or a positive- characteristic in one's actual body. Due to this a child can see his mother as a demon, or as an angelic being. However this fact of psychology does not explain how and why one is able to demonise.

It seems very likely- if not absolutely certain- that the ability to demonise, or to angelify, is linked with the ability to form scales of appreciation of the form and of any other characteristic. Everyone has these scales, and they serve as a background (they can also be in the foreground of thought ofcourse, as is very ussual in adolescence) in one's decisions about what is to him good and what is not.
In the genealogy of ethics, Nietzsche had claimed that the origins of the notions of good and evil appear to have strong connections with the notions of beautiful and ugly. Following some developments of this thought he reached the conclusion that ethics have been serving either as a tool of the noble/strong against the weak, or in more decadent times which he saw in christianity, as a tool of the weak against the strong. However he did not try to examine the origin of the scales of comparisson which inevitably are to be found beneath the notions of beautiful and ugly, or of good and evil.

My view is that horror, as an emotion, deserves very serious research, and ofcourse in the world of art it has a place as well. Ideally in the future we will have very different terms for all emotions, mental mechanisms, thought patterns and overall moods, and those should be heavily de-socialised and de-humanised, but be more particular to the state of the ego inside the world of personal consciousness.

With my own literature i have the goal of discussing this issue, and also utilising universal symbolisms so as to provoke the bridges which are lowered above the dark river which normally seperates us from horror, to present theirselves more clearly. Definately horror is personal to anyone, but like any other topic, it too can be examined from a more overall perspective as well

 

[Birdjaguar]

Edgar Allen Poe was one of the earliest horror fiction writers in the US. His stuff holds up well even today.

 

[Narz]

I, for one, think it's a good thing to explore. I do not support the war on horrorism!

 

[Rambuchan]

varwnos: Another good read here. Thanks.

Although I agree with your identification of internal and external catalysts to the horror experience, I disagree that they are one and the same, or even similar.

Fear of say, a pack of wolves, is the most fundamental and primordial type of fear / horror a human being experiences. It's our survival instinct as possible prey to larger predators kicking in, together with its related chemicals in the brain. More interesting though is how deliciously fun such horror is. Don't think it's fun? Check how much little children love being chased around by "monsters". We love it, need it and express it from a very early age.

Note that the internal form of horror / fear raises its head up quite a bit later in life. Kids are too innocent and have not developed the faculties to question their place in the world or the nature of their own mind. That comes later. And such existential angst is what drives the horror from inside. I see a "fear of God" and "fear of the unknown" as other forms of this internal, existential type of horror.

 

[Kyriakos]

Ty Ram

I am not saying that external and internal causes are the same, but that inevitably even those which are seen as external are in a deeper level entirely internal, due to the inevitable internalisation of anything we see in our environment.
The wolf is existant as a being outside a human observer of it, but what the human observer thinks/sees of it are internal calculations and formations of thought, and they lead downwards to more obscure mental abilities.

We can see this in a different way: someone can have a brief psychotic episode, where he is of the view that a wolf is really a few metres away from him, walking between two trees. That the wolf was not there is verified by some other people who happened to be close, and also were observing those trees. However the first person would have had felt fear of the sort he would have felt while watching a real wolf, and at the same time his mental state would also have the characteristics of a psychotic episode (ie it would be different from a state where the wolf had not been imagined).
Although it would thus different from the state where the wolf wouldnt have been imagined, it would have been generally similar to that where he would have found himself, had he seen a real wolf.
On the other hand if he had seen a real wolf, his fear would again have some elements of imagination as part of it: he would have had imagined imminent, or at least possible, death. Whereas the notion of a wolf would play a role as well (eg he could imagine the death as being a very violent one, due to the wolf's teeth and ruthless sinking of them on his body) the notion of being annihilated also would have a part in his emotions. In the htought of annihilation, i think, all types of horror are connected.

Internaly caused horror - or the badly termed 'psychological horror' - also has one of its parts being the fear of annihilation, or at least of reduction. I remember being very horrified when i was 8 years old, upon seing an image of Polyphemus, in an illustrated book about the Odyssey. I had been given it as a birthday present, and was very pleased about it, so i hurried back to my room to immediately begin reading it. However as i did not at all expect to find inside it any such horrible image, i felt terror when i saw the cyclops.
This horror was not caused because i was of the view that the cyclops existed in the external world, but because of its different form. Also the cyclops's only eye meant that this creature had symbolically the ability to only observe one mental plane (the mental planes being the external and internal world, as at the time i had differentiated them thus). This meant that a creature like that would be locked in only one plane, thus being reduced, and probably having been turned into a savage in reaction to that reduction.
Also the fact that it was being depicted in a book symbolically granted it more significance, since the book symbolised importance, due to its connection with the world of thought.

It is known that small children are very involved in examining what is beautiful and what is ugly, and it is very important for them to be of the view that they are not ugly, since they identify uglyness with diminishment. However it must be stressed that what they view in other people's forms is a lot more sunk in strong emotions than what most adults would view. For a small child an "ugly" person takes mythical proportions, like the cyclops in that book, and likewise a 'beautiful' person can be seen as something angelic. It must also be noted that they can see a person who has a very normal look, as beautiful, or ugly, depending on his general mood. So a plump and short elementary school teacher can be seen as pretty, if she is friendly to the child, whereas a girl who has a more athletic physique can still be seen as ugly if she is hostile or violent to it. This also depends on just how much a child is willing to identify its own needs with what is correct, since it is basically its own instinct of self-preservation that urges it to make such comfortable distinctions.

I am interested in fear as a barrier against the examination of parts of one's internal world which for one reason or another are systematically kept out of the immediate level of consciousness. For obvious reasons every person has the tendancy to form a generally set way of understanding most of the variables of his existence, for example the notion of an external world, the notion of an ego, the notion of an internal world, the notion of being human, the notion of a society, the notion of communication with others. This is very helpfull, since no one can solve an equation that is filled with unknown variables, and likewise no one could make even a small step in his thoughts if he constantly viewed everything in them as being an unknown variable. However in this way fear can exist as an internal mechanism which ensures that one does not move outside of the perimeters of his way of thinking, and into a very unknown area for him.

 

[Ansar]

Fear is something everyone pretends to not have. I, for one, get scared by "R" rated horror movies, one which I saw about a month ago, it bothered me for 2 weeks. As for internal horror, its based on experiences during the younger years,though its mostly during the teen years because teens realize in about 5-10 years the mistakes they cause and what effect it had on their lives. The only internal horror I can think of is getting raped by various men/women which could cause an abnormal shyness/phobia to strangers.

And...sorry if this whole post was spam, but I didnt know what to write about... anyways, this thread seems very interesting. good idea, varwnos!

 

[Tycoon101]

I am too lazy to read your posts, so I am sorry if my impression is incorrect:

I believe that Fear/Horror is the lack of knoledge/understanding. The pack of wolves may make you fearful, but only because you do not know how to deal with them. If you have immense knoledge, then there is no reason why you should fear. The only fear that you should have is of fear itself, because then you recognise that you are missing a crucial piece of evidence.

You may fear until you learn to cope with it. I am arachnaphobic, and I fear spiders, but I do not understand why I am afraid of touching them. That is why I fear them, because I lack the reason why they have imprinted themselves so horribly upon my mind. If I learn to love them, and learn that they are fine creatures, then I will lose my phobia.

Fear is very simple if you look at it's core.