Inner Fear of the self , and the adrenaline it produces !

Fear is strange. When we’re in a moment of life-or-death danger, we’re frequently amazed by how our brains and bodies react. That’s because the fear response is carried out by subconscious systems to which we have no direct conscious access. It’s like a separate personality lurking deep within our skulls. The only time we get to meet it is when our lives are on the line.

Fear is fast. Like all automatic systems, the fear response deploys much more quickly than our conscious thought processes. The amygdala can identify danger and prompt an effective response before our higher-level mind is even aware than a problem exists.

Fear is clever. We tend to think of automatic processes as being stereotyped, if not wholly irrational. Creativity tends to get credited to the frontal cortex. But in the laser-like focus of a life-or-death crisis, people are often able to come up with creative solutions with astonishing speed.

Fear is effortless. Automatic processes don’t require mental effort. Time and again, people who survive mortal danger report functioning with unusual clarity, as they immediately perceived what needed to be done, and did it.

Fear is unforgettable. Amygdala activation jolts the hippocampus, the region that mediates long-term memory storage. This results in the “flash-bulb memory effect”: we can vividly remember events that took place in conjunction with intense fear.
These experiences play an outsize role in how we view ourselves. They are formative, transcendent, and unforgettable.

Have you ever been surprised by your reaction to an acute crisis? Have you ever experienced danger so intense it changed the way it looked at the world? I’d love to hear your stories.