I was fiddling with this this morning, to see where my shaking attacks originate from, and how they differ in quality. I found there is a spot just above my heart which, when I focused on it, would reliably induce shaking. This is presumably both some sort of nerve center plexus, and a place where subtle energy is blocked or held. Same with both kidneys, which I have always heard are repositories of fear. The heart center created the most powerful shaking; the kidneys mainly caused shaking on my back.
This is actually a useful discovery. I can do regular release work, and hopefully the analogy of a wound up spring is a good one: eventually the energy dissipates. I will try and do this for a period of up to half an hour before I go to bed. Some day I will sleep through the night like what I assume is a normal person.
But I got to thinking. What is the only condition in which you do not need to fear an attack of fear? When you are already afraid. That is the only safe place. If you relax–if I relax–that wild beast is bound to pounce on me unexpectedly, and that is always very unpleasant. So some part of me keeps the anxiety wound up, makes me hurry here and there even when there is no hurry. It likely creates problems where none needed exist.
I watched The Shining last night and was pondering for the umpteenth time the psychological role of horror films. It seems to me they grant us access to occulted psychological processes which are normally barred from view. They grant us access to these senses of awe and fear that are absent from our normal lives, which are largely devoid of real risk and real reward.
And it seems to me that viewed in GROUPS, as horror films often are, they serve as a sort of sacrificial ritual. Even though you may cringe on some level every time some innocent person dies, you KNOW that that is how these movies are constructed. The innocent always die, usually in awful ways, and there is no reason to count on the murderers being punished.
As I look this up, I see that there are Elite Hunting T-shirts on the web, quite a few: http://www.zazzle.com/hostels_elite_hunting_logo_type_print_t_shirt-235741646291879273 There are also tattoos, which were portrayed in the movies.
Here is a brief description of what this means: http://horror.wikia.com/wiki/Elite_Hunting_Club
Thus, you have a virtual cult of human sacrifice. One does not have to go too far down this path to see that there are people who wear these t-shirts who literally wish to be able to commit these acts. The movies, like an actual sacrificial ritual, act as mediums of what I will call “traumatic bonding”. To the extent that this emotional need is met without actual violence, that is good, but I would argue that this sort of bonding only reinforces flight from authenticity. It enhances and fosters evil, which is being unable to live happily on ones own, and deriving pleasure from the pain–real or simulated–of others.
Looking further, I see at some point Roth recreated briefly the movie sets of the Hostel films: http://www.dreadcentral.com/news/25789/universal-studios-hollywood-dares-you-to-wander-into-eli-roth-s-hostel-hunting-season-maze/
People paid to be terrified.
Again, I think this dynamic plays out on many levels. The sickest people pay to see fear and pain in others. Whatever trauma they have in them is much too large to be integrated into their bodies–or at least the faintest hint of this never occurs to them–and they like seeing others hurt so they can feel. They “out-source” the pain function, as I have said before.
The less sick people pay to feel fear and pain in themselves, as a way of entering altered states of consciousness that allow them to at least briefly integrate the parts of themselves absent from awareness, from traumas they can’t consciously contact on an emotional level, even if they remember them.
Then there are likely a lot of people who are just bored, which is to say their animal instincts are fully unengaged in our ridiculously safe modern world, and who feel it, and sense that absence, and are unable to figure out more healthy ways to integrate them with ordinary awareness.
These of course are speculations. I will say this, though: problems have solutions. It is absolutely possible for human beings to learn how to live happy, engaged, creative, interesting lives filled with love and healthy social connection, the world over. The horrors of the past need not be the horrors of the future. Without having any way to gauge the actual possibility of success, my life’s mission is to do my part to help lead the way into that future.