Fear Analysis

FEAR

A distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc., whether the threat is real or imagined; the feeling or condition of being afraid.

An emotion i think everyone has or had.

This emotion can come from just about anything.

Some things we are just naturally scared of from birth.

Why do you think this is?

Many people speculate that, Perhaps the reason why we fear certain things from birth, is because of certain past life experiences.

Some things we fear over time, during our life experience.

Many people say it is best to face your fears, but some things can't and shouldn't be faced, some things people just live with.

Also, i see in the media these days, much more FEAR being spread, whether it is because the world is turning into a much darker place, or the government just trying to scare the masses, i do not know.

Perhaps it has always been a dark place, that is for you to decide.

These nouns denote the agitation and anxiety caused by the presence or imminence of danger.

Fear is the most general term: "Fear is the parent of cruelty"

Fright is sudden, usually momentary, great fear.

Dread is strong fear, especially of what one is powerless to avoid.

Horror is a combination of fear and aversion or repugnance.

Panic is sudden frantic fear, often groundless.

Alarm is fright aroused by the first realization of danger.

Dismay robs one of courage or the power to act effectively.

Those are just to name a few.

I can speak for everyone, when i say, fear is one of worst emotions one can experience.

Perhaps it is opposite of love.

My questions are,

What do YOU fear?

Why is it you think you FEAR this?

Have you developed this over time?, or did you always feel that way since birth or early childhood?

Have you ever overcame a certain FEAR?

Do you believe past life experiences might have sometihng to do with peoples fears?

Out of the listed variations of FEAR(or any other one you can think of) which do you think is worse, i realize they all are terrible, but which one in your opinion do you think is the worst?

If you were to choose an emotion opposite of Fear, what would it be?


There are also many people who have Nightmares, what do you make of this? Perhaps it is an inner reflection of our unconscious fears?



This is an open discussion on fear and emotions in general for that matter, I am all ears and willing to help those who open up. Perhaps just talking about this will help with ones own fears.

[edit on 18-1-2009 by darcon]

[edit on 18-1-2009 by darcon]

I will Start.

What do YOU fear?

I have had a natural fear of sharks, since i can remember. They frighten me like no other animal, and always have, even before watching JAWS and Deep Blue Sea.

I have had many nightmarish dreams about sharks.

I also will not go into the ocean, that is how my FEAR is effecting me.

Why is it you think you FEAR this?

Have you developed this over time?, or did you always feel that way since birth or early childhood?

Do you believe past life experiences might have sometihng to do with peoples fears?

I have had this certain fear since the begining, but i think it has developed even more, because of the media and even nightmares.

I just want to say right now, i do believe in past lives.

Perhaps in my past life i was eaten by a shark, and carried that into my next life, developing a fear from sharks. Perhaps this has nothing to do with a past life, and it is just naturally what i am afraid of.

Out of the listed variations of FEAR(or any other one you can think of) which do you think is worse, i realize they all are terrible, but which one in your opinion do you think is the worst?

To me DREAD is the worst from. I have felt it before, it's like you know something terrible has happened, or is going to happen, and there is nothing you can do. I describe it like slow FEAR.

If you were to choose an emotion opposite of Fear, what would it be?

Like i said in the opening post, i think LOVE is the opposite of FEAR. Love can bring so many other emotions with it, but positive emotions.

Meanwhile fear is like the opposite in my opinion, with fear comes anger and other negetive emotions.

Have you ever overcame a certain FEAR?

I have overcome many minor fears, but not big ones.


Anyways, thats just one of a few fears i have.

Originally posted by darcon
I can speak for everyone, when i say, fear is one of worst emotions one can experience.

I would say Loss is worse in a lot of cases. Fear of loss a close second.

Perhaps it is opposite of love.

Love is many emotions all rolled into one.

Some people fear Love too.

I would say FEAR is a lack of knowledge in most respects. Afraid of what we don't know.

As we get older we lose our fears of childhood things because we grow and understand more, but gain new fears in the bigger world we encounter as time goes by.

If people are afraid of the current economic situation or the war situation it's because they don't have enough information they trust to feel at ease with the situation. The future always contains an element of fear doesn't it?

Fear of getting old, ugly, broke or just plain scared of that spider you know is under your bed. If we can familiarise ourselves more with the things we fear, the fear is lessened by knowledge.

To accept you WILL die one day can lessen the fear of dying.
To learn to accept how you look and be happy regardless, knowing it's "inside" that counts can lessen your fear of feeling ugly.
To accept that 99.9% of spiders are more scared of us than we are of them, don't jump up at your face or bite you really fast can lessen our fear of spiders.

Same with fear of the news and what's going on in the world out there. Information and a willingness to find things out, rather than accept a story at face value. Research and a healthy understanding of the possibilities dilutes the natural fear that a lot of people see or hear about who just mentally run away without any confrontation. They are the sheep. Not their fault entirely, they react as others do....unless they get the chance to get smart!

That's where a friend or a new piece of information can turn on a light and show at least one more path other than fear.

So...fears come and fears go. How we deal with them or confront them changes over time. The one's that evolve from the subconcious are maybe the hardest to deal with because there's no obvious starting point. Hypnotherapy can regress a person to find those kind of roots maybe.

Opposite of fear imo......security.. perhaps. Security of knowing.

Of course I could fear being punched if confronted by a thug but knowing it's going to happen won't stop the fear until it's done

Funny old world innit? ...nerb

[edit on 19/1/2009 by nerbot]

I agree that past-life traumas have a strong impact on current fears and insecurities. There are many cases within hypnotherapy whereby a patient has an unreasonable fear of something. Past-life regression therapy was utilized and it was learned over time that the irrational fear stemmed from certain former incarnations.

For example, I remember reading about the case of a man who had an absolute terror of even walking on to a boat. Turns out that he didn't die once but many times through drowning in boat related incidents, in ancient battles on the water and also from storms at sea which ended his life.

I also agree that the opposite of fear is a sense of safety. While the opposite of love is indifference and the opposite of hate is selflessness.

Some feel that we should strive to have no fear at all about anything. That it is somehow a noble effort to focus yourself to cut off your ability to feel and thereby have fear. I disagree with that perspective. Fear is often there for a reason. Those who have absolutely no fear at all because they have shut out their feelings (albeit temporarily) have a serious psychological problem and handicap.

Courage can be defined as the ability to deal with fear constructively. Allowing yourself to feel while cultivating courage is, in my opinion, the best course of action

reply to post by nerbot


I would say Loss is worse in a lot of cases. Fear of loss a close second.

You are right with that one, loss is something that can be worse than fear, That can be assosiated with many emotions, but one of the biggest ones, that is almost a guarantee when one has lost a love one, is depression.

Through fear, Loss can become an even worse process, wouldn't you agree.

Some people fear Love too.

I am sure that is true, but i believe more people are afraid of comitment, than actual love.

Also, because many people do not know what love is, the word is tossed around so much these days, that the word is being used more than the emotion.

I would say FEAR is a lack of knowledge in most respects. Afraid of what we don't know.

I think you hit the nail right on the head, i think most people just fear the unknown.

If we can familiarise ourselves more with the things we fear, the fear is lessened by knowledge.

Which is exactly why without knowledge, i think people are more fearful than ever, a fear of not knowing.

To accept you WILL die one day can lessen the fear of dying. To learn to accept how you look and be happy regardless, knowing it's "inside" that counts can lessen your fear of feeling ugly. To accept that 99.9% of spiders are more scared of us than we are of them

So perhaps Accepting is part off how you can face your fears.

Knowledge and acceptance, not a bad start.

Same with fear of the news and what's going on in the world out there.

Information and a willingness to find things out, rather than accept a story at face value. Research and a healthy understanding of the possibilities dilutes the natural fear that a lot of people see or hear about who just mentally run away without any confrontation. They are the sheep.

I agree!

But i think people are starting to be aware of this, there are many different types of media.

When i turn on the news, i myself realize that, half the stories, if not more, are bogus. I mean, it seems like they really are trying to scare you though.

That's where a friend or a new piece of information can turn on a light and show at least one more path other than fear.

Agreed.

Opposite of fear imo......security.. perhaps. Security of knowing.

Thats a good one, the power of KNOWLEDGE and ACCEPTANCE.

Of course I could fear being punched if confronted by a thug but knowing it's going to happen won't stop the fear until it's done



Thanks for taking the time and responding.

[edit on 19-1-2009 by darcon]

reply to post by Paul_Richard


There are many cases within hypnotherapy whereby a patient has an unreasonable fear of something. Past-life regression therapy was utilized and it was learned over time that the irrational fear stemmed from certain former incarnations.

It is as i suspected.

So if certain peoples past lives have effected their fears in their current lives,

Is it possible that fear is not the only emotion it has effected?

I remember reading about the case of a man who had an absolute terror of even walking on to a boat. Turns out that he didn't die once but many times through drowning in boat related incidents, in ancient battles on the water and also from storms at sea which ended his life.

Very interesting.

I also agree that the opposite of fear is a sense of safety. While the opposite of love is indifference and the opposite of hate is selflessness.

Yes it seems more suitable, that the opposite of love, be lack of emotion.

I never looked at it that way.

Some feel that we should strive to have no fear at all about anything. That it is somehow a noble effort to focus yourself to cut off your ability to feel and thereby have fear. I disagree with that perspective. Fear is often there for a reason.

Yes, it seems we are all here for a reason, and fear is a big part in this.

But don't you think perhaps someone who has no fear, has overcome it?

I am not saying everyone who has no fear has over come it, but perhaps a certain few.

but perhaps everyone has a fear, whether they recognize it or not, even if that fear small.

Allowing yourself to feel while cultivating courage is, in my opinion, the best course of action

I like it, Courage does seem like a spearpoint against fear.

Thanks for sharing you opinion.

[edit on 19-1-2009 by darcon]

So, with just these couple posts, we have found perhaps 3 ways to deal wth fear.

Knowledge, Acceptance, and Courage.

The last posters both agree that the opposite emotion to fear, is security.

reply to post by darcon


What do you fear?

I used to fear a lot of things. Not so much now, but I did fear the dark, the Greys (alien race), swimming in the sea due to a shark attack, heights and probably a whole lot more.

I fear the above because Ive felt and seen paranormal things in the dark , Ive had strange abduction memories full of fear, the shark fear is most probably from the film Jaws and heights is something Ive been born fearful of.

I have over come most of these fears except the height one. Its just some thing that I cant reason with, the fear is automatic, built in me from birth.

However now I have a new fear, I fear my 3rd eye and what it will show me. I just panic when it opens, what will I see? What horrors will it show me, this for me is now the thing I fear . I dread seeing monsters and creatures in it, demons and devils. Entities of horror. I have no idea why I think this, probably because it is such an unknown.

We should not fear anything, fear is generated in our own minds. To quote the very excellent teacher Eckhart Tolle :-

" Psychological fear (fear not based on a life threatening situation) is divorced from any concrete or true immediate danger. It comes in many forms: unease,worry,anxiety,nervousness, tension, dread, phobia and so on. This kind of psychological fear is ALWAYS of someting that MIGHT happen, not of something that is happening now. You are here and now, while your mind is in the future. This creates an anxiety gap."

He is saying identify with your mind, identify with fear. This fear will then become a self feeding mechanism between you and your mind. Realize your mind is projecting you into a "future fear" and you loose this fear.

So I guess Im allowing my mind to project a fear of what I may see in my 3rd eye, based on no reason at all, just on future fear, which of course never happens, Ive never seen a monster in my 3rd eye so why fear something that has never happened. Like Mr Tolle says fear is always based on what might happen NOT what is happening.

reply to post by Mr Green


Hey Green,

Ive had strange abduction memories full of fear, the shark fear is most probably from the film Jaws and heights is something Ive been born fearful of.

So it is safe to say you developed those fears over time(Except Heights).

I too have a fear of sharks, but my fear has always been there, even before the movies.

I have over come most of these fears except the height one. Its just some thing that I cant reason with, the fear is automatic, built in me from birth.

I am glad to hear that most of your fears have been dealt with.

Like i was discussing with paul, pperhas your fear of hieghts goes beyond this life. Perhaps your fear of hieghts goes back into a past life?

Do you believe that is possible?

However now I have a new fear, I fear my 3rd eye and what it will show me. I just panic when it opens, what will I see? What horrors will it show me, this for me is now the thing I fear . I dread seeing monsters and creatures in it, demons and devils. Entities of horror. I have no idea why I think this, probably because it is such an unknown.

Not all things that come from your 3rd eye(Chakra) is bad. Discernment is hard thing to master. It's safe to say that you have been having problems for a while now with your 3rd chakra, and it seems that it is fully open.

Perhaps Acknowledging that it is open, and accepting that, might help.

Fearing the Unknown is a common trait among humans it seems. It also has come to my attention that perhaps, the variation of fear, Dread, is associated with this type of phobia if you will.

Also, again as Paul said, the one of the greatest tools against fear is courage.

We should not fear anything, fear is generated in our own minds.

Perhaps though, we all have fears for a reason. Perhaps we are born with certain ones, or develop some over time, to overcome it, as part of are progress here on earth.

Food for thought.

" Psychological fear (fear not based on a life threatening situation) is divorced from any concrete or true immediate danger. It comes in many forms: unease,worry,anxiety,nervousness, tension, dread, phobia and so on. This kind of psychological fear is ALWAYS of someting that MIGHT happen, not of something that is happening now. You are here and now, while your mind is in the future. This creates an anxiety gap."

I think this kind of fear(nease,worry,anxiety,nervousness, tension, dread, phobia) is the most detrimental to our healh.

He is saying identify with your mind, identify with fear. This fear will then become a self feeding mechanism between you and your mind. Realize your mind is projecting you into a "future fear" and you loose this fear.

So confronting our fears in our mind helps.

That is a good one. So for the fears in which you cannot face in real life, confront them psychologically.

So I guess Im allowing my mind to project a fear of what I may see in my 3rd eye, based on no reason at all, just on future fear, which of course never happens

So it seems you have answered your own fears.

Thanks for sharing Green.

Although there are only two base emotions - Love and Fear - I don't believe Fear is the opposite of Love - Indifference is. Whether we experience a majority of positive or negative emotions in our lives stems ultimately from where we mainly approach our lives, namely from love or from fear.

It's my belief that how we approach our lives (either from love or fear) is directly a result of how we see ourselves in the environment we live in. If we are loved (or some subset emotion of love) then we will love to the extent we are loved. If we are made to feel fearful (or some subset emotion of fear) then will make others fearful to the extent we are fearful. It's unconscious based on our own feelings of ourselves. That is the reason why loving ourselves is so important and that is also the reason why people who have come from destructiveness have such a hard time loving other people. They first have to recognize that they must love themselves and only then can they learn to love themselves.

Fear, for the most part, stems from ignorance. I use the term ignorance here to mean lack of knowledge or the unknown. I used to be Afraid (fear) of snakes. I educated myself on them through reading and talking to others. I no longer am Afraid of them... I do Respect (subset of love) them though. I used to kill them (fear) I now realize that they have many valuable functions to offer (they eat bugs, rats, etc...) so now I avoid getting close enough to be hurt (respect - subset of love) and when poisonous ones are in my yard, I relocate them.

Fear is the projecting of our ignorant perception of the negative outcomes from past experiences to future ones. It has nothing whatsoever to do with now. In my snake example, my past experiences (people telling me I could die from a snake bite) projected to future ones shaped my fear of snakes. Therefore, when I came across a snake I was afraid of it and therefore killed it.

Originally posted by darcon
reply to post by Mr Green

 

Like i was discussing with paul, pperhas your fear of hieghts goes beyond this life. Perhaps your fear of hieghts goes back into a past life?

Do you believe that is possible?

Well my Mum is scared of heights even more than me, the fear with me kicks in when Im say at the height of a house, but with my Mum its at say at small bridge height. I remember many a family holiday turned into a nightmare for us because a walk would involve a bridge over a small river and my Mum could not cross it. So yes it could be hereditary.

Is it from a past life? Im not sure. This takes you into the very complex area of soul memory. Can a soul retain memory, and if so how. I do believe in reincarnation, but I also think our soul memory is wiped from us at birth, to aid in our life this time around. It would be almost impossible getting on with this life if we constantly remembered past lives. The lessons learnt in those incarnations are probably very different from lessons we have to learn in this.

How do I know my fear of heights was not slowly brought on in childhood by seeing the distress of my Mum and her fear of heights? Her fear of heights was brought on by a bad airplane trip, she was not born with it.

Interesting topic Darcon.

reply to post by Iamonlyhuman


Interesting post.

Indeed it make more sense that the opposite of love is lack of emotion.

Thanks for sharing your experiences.

[edit on 19-1-2009 by darcon]

Originally posted by Iamonlyhuman

Fear is the projecting of our ignorant perception of the negative outcomes from past experiences to future ones. It has nothing whatsoever to do with now. In my snake example, my past experiences (people telling me I could die from a snake bite) projected to future ones shaped my fear of snakes. Therefore, when I came across a snake I was afraid of it and therefore killed it.

This is more or less what I quoted from Eckhart Tolle, you have given a real life situation where your mind took the past fear and projected it into a future fear. The fear was not of the now it was generated by your mind.

reply to post by darcon

Hey there darcon my friend,

I just got the u2u that you sent and came straight over to take a look. This is a great idea for a thread ... I've read what is here so far ... now I'm going to digest the content of your OP and come backwith my reply a little later.

But I'll just add a small contribution here by saying my opposite to FEAR is CALM.

S&F (I don't usually bother but I think this has the potential to go far)

Woody


[edit on 19-1-2009 by woodwytch]

reply to post by Mr Green


Is it from a past life? Im not sure. This takes you into the very complex area of soul memory. Can a soul retain memory, and if so how. I do believe in reincarnation, but I also think our soul memory is wiped from us at birth, to aid in our life this time around. It would be almost impossible getting on with this life if we constantly remembered past lives. The lessons learnt in those incarnations are probably very different from lessons we have to learn in this.

Well it is of my belief that souls do retain memory, but it is temporarily erased when in physical life. So when birth comes, we do not remember past lives and such. But when we die, we remember everything, including the life we just led. This is just my opinion.

Even if we don't remember our past lives, our soul still went through it.

So maybe we do not remember memories, but still certain traits develop as a result of a past life, like fears, and other emotions for that matter.

Haven't you ever had the feeling you know someone before, but never met them, perhaps you knew them in a past life. Intriguing is it not.

Read Pauls post., he had some good insight on this particular subject.

How do I know my fear of heights was not slowly brought on in childhood by seeing the distress of my Mum and her fear of heights?

Well, we don't know. Perhaps it is both, that would be interesting.

Interesting topic Darcon.

Thank you.

reply to post by woodwytch


Hey Woody,

I've read what is here so far ... now I'm going to digest the content of your OP and come backwith my reply a little later.

Sure thing

Were also discussing past lives, and what that effect might have on a persons fear.

But I'll just add a small contribution here by saying my opposite to FEAR is CALM.

That is very interesting, most have said Security, but i could see calm

S&F (I don't usually bother but I think this has the potential to go far)

Thanks!

[edit on 19-1-2009 by darcon]

[edit on 19-1-2009 by darcon]

What do YOU fear?

Flying...
China/Porcelain dolls...
Though I have also faced dread AND fear before of things that don't usually scare me.



Why is it you think you FEAR this?

China Dolls : They just encapsulate evil to me...I can't help but feeling, and it sounds stupid, that they are going to kill me. To the point of, if I was locked in a room with one I would attempt to kill myself....they absolutely are my biggest fear.

Flying: I don't like the prolonged lack of control....if I was flying the plane I would be okay.




Have you developed this over time?, or did you always feel that way since birth or early childhood?

Always felt this way on both of my main fears, no reason for it.



Have you ever overcame a certain FEAR?

No.



If you were to choose an emotion opposite of Fear, what would it be?

Anything that isn't fear is pretty much it's opposite. If you suffer true fear (At least for me) nothing else matters, you will risk your life doing stupid things to escape it.

They just encapsulate evil to me...I can't help but feeling, and it sounds stupid, that they are going to kill me. To the point of, if I was locked in a room with one I would attempt to kill myself....they absolutely are my biggest fear.

Wow, this is a very strong fear with you.

Like you said this has always been, since you can first remember it was like this. Do you think this fear got worse over the years, or have you always been this fearfull?

I don't like the prolonged lack of control....if I was flying the plane I would be okay.

Very insightful.

This prolonged lack of control, do you always fear this, or is it only when you fly?

Anything that isn't fear is pretty much it's opposite. If you suffer true fear (At least for me) nothing else matters, you will risk your life doing stupid things to escape it.

It sounds like you have feared alot in your life. I agree, pretty much any emotion is better than fear, for the exception of a few. Though most negetive emotions sprout out of fear, like anger and sadness.

Thanks for sharing.

[edit on 19-1-2009 by darcon]

reply to post by darcon


I would say it has gotten worse over the years as I have gotten to understand life. Say, before I was close to suicide, I never would've realised how scared I was of these dolls that I would actually attempt to kill myself.


Only flying really...though if it was a small plane, say 20 or so people, I wouldn't feel so scared. Not sure why, possibly because if someone tried to do something theres a better chance of stopping them...but I wouldn't say that is for sure.


Yeh...my reasons were pretty rubbish though to be honest.

I once had to share a room on holiday with a china doll...I daredn't move it out of the room so I never slept at night because I was scared.

I reched a creepy place in the wods with my mate, and we could swear we saw something staring at us in the bushes....and we ran...so fast, so far.... straight over some sort of bog that was much depper than both of us...that really did our heads in.

Another time was when I saw some type of military plane I guess...the light on front of it could be seen sitting still for about 5 minutes, before appearing to slowly rise and then come over our heads on a plane. Somehow i got it in my head that it was a bomb and that I was about to die... go figure.

The more rational fears would be:

When I was on a plane ride (Small plane about 15 people, so I didn't midn too much) But it was an old plane, and coming in for landing both enjines out out for a while....there were quite few worried looks lol.

Another was when I had my appendix out and the doctor told me it was really bad, and had it been even an hour longer it would have burst and i could have died... sort of an after fear.


And I have no problems sharing stuff on this site for some reason, most people here are very mature.



[edit on 19-1-2009 by StevenDye]

I would say it has gotten worse over the years as I have gotten to understand life. Say, before I was close to suicide

This must be something that has effected your life very much.

Is it just china dolls, or all dolls?

and do you remember when you first relaized you were scared of dolls?

or were you to young to remember?

I reched a creepy place in the wods with my mate, and we could swear we saw something staring at us in the bushes....and we ran...so fast, so far.... straight over some sort of bog that was much depper than both of us...that really did our heads in.

That stoyy reminds me of me and my friend, when we were swimming in the lake, far out, and we saw something huge, almost eel like underneath us, we never swam so fast in our lives.

Somehow i got it in my head that it was a bomb and that I was about to die... go figure.

It sounds like what Mr. Green was talking about, psychological fear.

But it was an old plane, and coming in for landing both enjines out out for a while....there were quite few worried looks lol.

ahhh, so it reinforced your flying fear.

though if it was a small plane, say 20 or so people, I wouldn't feel so scared

Very strange indeed, most people feel more secure in a big plane, but you seem to feel better in a small one. Interesting.

Another was when I had my appendix out and the doctor told me it was really bad, and had it been even an hour longer it would have burst and i could have died... sort of an after fear.

It is funny you should menton that experience, because a couple years back, i had the same thing happen to me, only my appendix burst after waiting 15 hours in the emergency room. The doctor said i was lucky to be alive. The pain was so severe was it not, it felt like(To me) internel electrical pain. I have no reason to fear this, because my appendix is gone, but i do fear that pain.

most people here are very mature.

true, thanks for sharing.