Why do brains like to scare themselves, by making themselves believe they are being followed or something?
In: Other
It’s not so much that your brain likes to do those things. Your brain is just designed to keep you alive because the cautious suspicious brained animals that we evolved from lived. The ones who weren’t suspicious of that big scary predator chasing them didn’t survive to pass on their genetics.
We have what is called a reptilian vision system. This vision system we do not experience consciously, and it only sees black and white. Whereas our conscious vision sees color. This reptilian vision system is tied into our reflexes. Just as we can see illusions with color vision, sometimes reptilian vision gets tricked, and gives you a little jolt to keep you from getting eaten by the illusory Jaguar it just saw.
Because it uses “black and white” vision, shadows have a big impact. Shadows are useful because a shape cast from behind you into your visual range alert you to otherwise hidden danger behind you. Because that’s a particular bad threat — the sneak attack — it scares you pretty good. So I think perhaps we don’t believe we are being followed more often than other things or reptilian vision tells us. It’s just the creepiest and most memorable. So it seems that it happens a lot.
Edit. Spelling
Latest Answers