False Evidence Appearing Real

Is it just an illusion?

- Sundar C V S

A man was walking in the night on a hilly terrain; he slipped on a rock and fell. Afraid that he would fall down thousands of feet, because he knew that just at the edge of the path was a very deep valley, he grabbed hold of a branch that was overhanging at the edge. In the darkness of the night, all he could see below him was a bottomless abyss. He shouted and he could hear only his own echo and nothing else; there was nobody to hear him. You can imagine the mental torture, this man would have undergone the whole night. Every moment there was death waiting underneath… His hands were becoming cold, he was losing his grip but he managed to hold on and as the sun came up in the morning, he looked down and he laughed! There was no abyss as he had imagined! Just 6 inches below his feet, there was a rock ledge. He could have rested the whole night, slept well since the ledge was big enough! What a pity, the whole night was a nightmare…

We all have our own fears; the intensity or size may vary but we all have some things which shake our very foundation. Fear is always about the future, that is of the 'unknown'. In scientific terms, fear is known as 'fight or flight response'. Our ancestors, a few million years ago, depended highly on this mechanism as almost every moment, there was danger of them getting killed or seriously injured. So, fear is a form of emergency signal given by our body to be watchful and prepared for upcoming threats. And so our ancestors used to think of all the possible ways they could be attacked and breached, so that they can be well prepared and be safe.