From TV shows like Hollywood Teen Medium and the drama filled series Vampire Diaries to creepy movies like Paranormal Activity and 10 Cloverfield Lane, paranormal beings and urban legends have taken over society; whether it be a seducing vampire, sinister ghost, or power-hungry alien, we love to watch and hear about their unworldly actions.
So why are we so addicted to watching these things? Is it because they are things that are unworldly and things that draw out our curiosity? In actuality, we are so consumed by the paranormal because, like any other outlet, we use it as a way to express ourselves and create our own world. This is much like in fan fiction where people attempt to live the lives of the characters. Simply put, we enjoy hearing about things we don't experience in our day to day life.
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| Edward Cullen from the Twilight Saga |
But even if it is because we are expressing ourselves, how did we turn an evil, blood sucking vampire into a character we fall in love with? Dr. Belisa Vranich from Huffington Post gives us some reasons in why we love vampires, that might cause an obsession with these monsters. Vampires are the archetype of bad boys, yet are sensitive loners, fearless, powerful, and over all attractive. So, sure, I guess vampire fascination can be justified, but why do we enjoy watching scary movies that keep us up at night and give us heart attacks at every jump scare?
The science of why we like to be scared is based around the release of the chemical Dopamine. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that is used to control the pleasure and reward center in the brain, thus our reactions to the movie cause a release which allows those horrifying scenes to become fun and addictive. So if watching scary movies can also be justified, can we justify whether or not these paranormal beings are real or fake.
Many people have eyewitness accounts of UFOs and ghosts, odd personal stories about premonition dreams that come true, or tellings of big foot stomping through the forest. Are these claims really trustworthy? If you have experienced any of these things for yourself, of course you would say "yes"! However, in reality it is easy for people perceive situations incorrectly, not only that, but most of the time we also have inaccurate recollections of our accounts. In CSI's post eyewitness testimony and the paranormal, they talk of studies that prove how inaccurately people recall accounts of "paranormal experiences." A lot of these inaccuracies stemmed from the participants who believed in then paranormal.
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| famous Bigfoot sighting |
What causes a person to believe or not believe. For most people seeing is believing; which is typically the case for any situation. But not everyone has a paranormal experiences in their life, so is the paranormal only real if you think it is real? I'd say yes, most experiences happen when the person is open minded to the possibility or has the slightest of curiosity about paranormal. But you can also decide whether you believe by looking at pictures or videos; there is a multitude of of these claiming to be real footage paranormal activity.
The paranormal may be taking over the media, but can it take over the world?
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