A Peep into ‘FEAR’

Abstract

A basic human instinct fear is the most dreaded emotion which we all want to avoid. Rightly said by Herman Melville “Ignorance is the parent of Fear”. Fear mostly stems out of ignorance, we are ignorant about what happens after we die so we fear death, we are ignorant about what is lurking behind the darkness and we fear the darkness. Fear has many facets. In this paper, we take a peep into fear and try to understand what is meant by fear, how it evolved over the ages as a basic instinct in humans, what are various types of fear, what changes are caused in the body and brain when we are in grip of fear and shall also look at positive aspects of fear. Fear is the basic factor to arouse survival instinct in humans and this survival instinct has made us survive while many species have become extinct.