The Fear Paradox - Frank Faranda

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successful for the overall survival of the species. The adaptation of providing the male with distance via his long arm, although paradoxical, seems to improve the octopi’s reproductive functioning and balance within the ecosystem—for, while it is true that the female benefits from the additional nourishment required for gestation, most likely the species would not benefit if every male were caught and eaten with each act of insemination. Males come into the world primed to be cautious of the female during mating; the extension of the arm, along with that innate caution, seems to give the males enough of a head start.

      Innate fears and physiological adaptations develop in animals over eons. These fears are perhaps the most vital element in the maintenance of animal security. They correspond to expected dangers and reduce dependence on the vagaries of learning through experience. It is much easier to come into the world knowing what is dangerous than having to experiment or wait for guidance.

      Another unique example of species-specific threat detection is found in rats. We all assume that rats and mice come into the world fearing cats. But in actuality, rats and mice only innately fear the smell of cats. If you visually present a cat to a juvenile rat that has never learned what a cat looks like, it will not have a fear response. However, if you put a cloth that is saturated with cat odor into a cage with that same novice juvenile, it will innately have a fear response and attempt to get away from that smell.33

      As strange as this may seem, this adaptation makes a great deal of sense. Fearing the smell of cats innately will keep a rat or mouse from entering or remaining in a space that a cat has recently frequented. Avoidance of cat territory is more supportive of survival than innate fear of the sight of a cat. For, as we know, cats are very attracted to little mice on the run, and it only takes one accidental meeting for it to be too late. Between rats and cats, there is very little room for safe experimentation.

      For most mammals, as we mentioned, security is maintained through a complex neural and behavioral experience in which a threat is perceived and defensive behaviors are initiated.34 The first step in this process of maintaining security is the perception of danger. Information is continually being fed into the brain; if and when something threatening is perceived, activation of fear occurs. This security equation is similar to the equation that operates security systems in homes and businesses. We usually only become aware of these security systems when we hear an alarm go off. But beneath any alarm is a system that monitors the environment for certain specific changes that are deemed worthy of an alarm response. The effectiveness of any security system lies in the precision and accuracy of this monitoring system. We need to be assured, if we are monitoring for fire, for example, that our system knows what to look for and is sensitive enough to trigger an appropriate alarm response.

      In terms of human security, our brains have the capacity to differentiate between different kinds of threat and to initiate unique responses specific to the threat that is perceived. For instance, if you see your child about to run into traffic, you might have a very different fear response than you would if you were walking down an unfamiliar dark street at night. The same emotion, fear, is capable of eliciting different security responses.35 Even the fear response that causes freezing, one of the primary means of maintaining security, has subtle variations depending on the circumstances. An attentional freeze is designed to exact a razor-sharp focus for a distant threat, while a hiding freeze allows the nervous system to quiet and prepare to run again. One might even include in this list the “submission” response of tonic immobility that we explored in the last chapter, in which our non-conscious brains can shut down the entire nervous system in order to survive.

      What does all this mean to us? First, we need to broaden our understanding of human security. The emotion of fear is merely the alarm that triggers defensive behaviors. But this emotion needs something to activate it. Under most circumstances, our sensory perceptual systems determine the threshold for activating fear. And, as we saw with SM, without a functional pathway to the fear centers of the brain, the emotion of fear will fail to be activated. But reduced activation such as this is not what troubles us most about fear.

      No one would argue, I imagine, with the logic of desperately trying to outrun a tornado or escape from physical harm when threatened with a baseball bat. Those signals of danger are highly appropriate and worthy of the activation of fear. But the fear that is activated in obvious situations of danger is much the same fear as that activated in situations that our rational minds might deem relatively safe. A fear response that wisely keeps us from confronting a rude drunk in a bar can also keep us from applying for a job that we are well-qualified for. Although these fears are qualitatively and quantitatively different, the emotion is fundamentally the same. In each of these situations, something we perceive is processed in relation to our past experience. Signals are sent to the fear centers of the brain, and one of many types of fear response is initiated. This could be a vague sense of dread or an active attempt to flee.

      How is it that benign or even beneficial situations come to trigger a fear response? What happens in our brains and minds to create such an unreliable system of threat assessment? Shouldn’t something as important as our security have a system that is rational and reliable?

      Finding answers to these intriguing questions, as we will see, will not only help us understand the peculiarities of human security, but also lead us to a deeper wondering about the very foundations of our humanity.

      Note: From this point forward, when referring to the comprehensive security system of threat perception, emotion, cognition, and aversive behavior, I will use the word “Fear” in capitalized form. If I am referring to just the emotion, I will use the word “fear” in lowercase form.

      “Fear is not the adrenaline rush. It’s that helpless feeling of being alone in the dark.”

      —Travis Fahs

      A patient named Ella came in one day and told me her radiologist had found something suspicious on a recent x-ray. The x-ray was ordered to try to understand the source of a mysterious pain she was experiencing in her lower back. Ella was clearly upset and worried. Her grandfather had died of lung cancer, and Ella had been a smoker for many years before she quit. The fear of cancer was very close to the surface for her.

      My first feeling for Ella was concern. I cared a great deal for her, and as she spoke, I worried that maybe she did have cancer. A series of vague images began to fill my mind. I imagined us dealing with the pain and despair. A frightening future flashed before my eyes. I wondered what this would mean for her. What kind of a final chapter would this be? Ella had suffered a great deal in her life and had finally begun to find some peace.

      As Ella told me what she was experiencing, I could see how frightened she was. I could also see her imagination, just like mine, kicking into high gear. She began to recount all the tiny symptoms and physical sensations that she imagined were evidence of a cancer she was now about to face—the fatigue, the moments of dizziness, the insomnia the night before, the lack of appetite, a tenderness in her abdomen, stiffness in her neck, shortness of breath. And even though there was no conclusive evidence, Ella just kept repeating, “It could be; I was a smoker; it could be cancer.” And of course, Ella was right. It could be.

      Aristotle was perhaps one of the first to give voice to the phenomenon that had gripped Ella when he said, “Let fear, then, be a kind of pain or disturbance resulting from the imagination of impending danger, either destructive or painful.”36 The relationship of Fear to imagination that Aristotle was proposing brings front-and-center the question we arrived at in the last chapter related to perception. Fear, we discovered, is an emotional alarm that requires some form of activation. For the most part, this comes from sensory cues signaling danger. But now we are faced with another question. Can fear be triggered by imagination? And if so, as we saw with Ella,

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