Thread: Why do we hallucinate scary things?

Just like the title says...

When some of use try to enter sleep paralysis, we hallucinate something scary. Why is that?

I've always had my eyes closed when I try to fall asleep and enter SP, but sometimes when I open my eyes when I'm really tired, it looks like theres these little black fuzzy things on my wall.

I always thought back in the olden days, people had no idea what it was. They thought it was demons messing with them or something. Then their mind hallucinated that which actually made a demon like image on them, so it just got drilled in our minds that SP is scary.

Black fuzzy things aren't that scary. Sounds like the soot from Spirited Away, in fact.

Really, it is expectation.

I am not entirely sure why this would occur, but I suppose I would think it was because you were unsure of what is happening, or some of us lose more control than others. Perhaps you are afraid something will happen and thus are more opted to think of scary things?

Originally Posted by Abra

the soot from Spirited Away

Those are so cute!

seems to be a universal thing if you check this out under the folklore section, doesn't explain it though

Personally, I think it's probably healthy to become terrified or alert or alarmed when you sense that there is something in your sleeping place. The number of people who experience SP as a disorder is so slight, the majority of the world doesn't have to deal with this more than a couple of times during their life. But when it does, you know you react the same way you would if a lion or a murderer was in your room. Which to me is probably a good thing.

It's most likely an evolutionary trait.
Essentially when it comes to the crunch, we are animals. Like other animals, our number one priority is self preservation.
Given a novel or unusual situation, it is our minds first reaction to assess the potential danger. As hallucinations are not only a novel experience, but they are also a reflection of our thoughts, if our mind is scanning for danger AND the environment it is scanning adapts to our expectations and thoughts... then the thought "is there danger" is most likely to produce a hallucination that fits the expectation for that question. So suddently that dark shadow that looks a bit like a stranger in your room, is all of a sudden a stranger in your room.
It's the same primal instinctive fear that makes so many children afraid of the dark.

However not all hallucinations are fearful, otherwise the recreational use of psychedelics would never have taken off, for example. We may be animals, but we are also adaptive thinking animals. If we can learn to be aware of how our minds work, we can free ourselves from a simple instinctual reaction, and instead have an aware and adaptive response.

Originally Posted by Abra

Black fuzzy things aren't that scary. Sounds like the soot from Spirited Away, in fact.

ahhhhh I love those!!!

I suppose its because people fear SP and hallucinations, I like both lol so not that scary.

Originally Posted by Abra

Black fuzzy things aren't that scary. Sounds like the soot from Spirited Away, in fact.

Or the black cloud from Ju-on...



But in reference to OP:

• I don't think we do hallucinate scary things inherently, rather, any kind of hallucination by its nature will be scary to us. A hallucination will look weird, and be out of place, whatever it is. Thats what we find scary mainly, not the thing in and of itself.

Carousoul, why is there a black circle in your sentence?

Also, next time I'll think of them as the fuzzy things from Spirited Away than wanna-be spiders.

Originally Posted by slayer

Carousoul, why is there a black circle in your sentence?

Also, next time I'll think of them as the fuzzy things from Spirited Away than wanna-be spiders.

Why not burnt cookies or brownies.... Completely harmless.