What is actually happening when we feel a tingling sensation or an urge to jump for people who are afraid of heights? Why is it hard to want to look over the edge of something that is tall?
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That is the sensation of your pituitary gland dumping all the adrenaline into your blood stream causing your skin capillaries to contract. (Blood draining from face) to keep it away from the surface and in the core of you body where you need it.
Contraction of bowl and bladder muscles. (Pee and poo yourself) so you don’t waste resources on carrying stuff around when you need to run for your life.
And increases heart rate to crank up metabolism so you can run for your life.
It’s your body’s survival instinct screaming: “Danger, Will Robinson! Step back from the ledge!”
This is actually a super complex thing involving certain parts of the brain firing and communicating messages but it really boils down to most fears of things comes from instinctual fear of bodily harm
As a human, your brain generally tries to avoid things that could cause you injury or death
Hear a lion roar even at the zoo? “Wow that’s a loud noise, that’s a dangerous animal”
See a dark hallway you have to go down? “I really hope there’s not a bad person down that hallway that will attack me”
See a colorful snake in your path? “I only have a split second to determine whether it’s dangerous or not. Better be cautious”
See a tornado or flood? “I need to get to safety or else I can be killed by the weather”
See a huge drop off “I need to be careful
because if I fall, I will die”
I have vertigo.
When I see a huge dropoff I can feel my blood leaving my head, I get shaky and my legs as well. Its like an imaginary rock inside my body that just falls from my head to my toes.
Being shaky, fearing the worst plus the added intrusive thoughts from something called “call of the void”, I just know that I cant trust my mind or body near anything that I could conceivably break through or jump over. At that point I am my worst enemy and its a life or death situation.
Its really not something Id wish upon anyone that havent felt it.
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