FEAR Factor

Primal-Affect Systems

1. SEEKING or expectancy
2. RAGE
3. FEAR
4. LUST
5. CARING
6. PANIC/GRIEF
7. PLAY

Like the other six prime-affect systems, FEAR is at first objectless and becomes connected to the outside world through learning. In other words, evolution created the capacity for fearfulness in the brain but did not (and could not) inform us of the things we might need to fear and avoid. These things have to be learned.

Panksepp demonstrated this innate objectless system by electrically stimulating the PAG  area of the brain of rats who never experienced pain or danger or early trauma. This direct stimulation arouses fear itself.

FEAR System

Terror can be so powerful that an animal cannot flee. When I was a very young child my father took me to the Newark Museum one Saturday morning to watch the huge snakes get fed.  A live mouse was put into their enclosure. At first, the mouse ran away to a corner of the box. But as the snake slowly approached, the mouse remained frozen in terror, as the snake wriggled closer and closer and opened its huge mouth and took the mouse in (It may have crushed it first.). It terrifies me even now to picture this.

Dinokonda @ pixaby.com
Rachaelmarie

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This initially objectless primal-affect system runs from the periaqueductal gray (PAG) to the amygdala and back again, passing through the hypothalamus, basically, the same as in the RAGE system. When suddenly aroused, the system produces terror, and it promotes chronic anxiety in response to milder, more sustained arousal. When fear stimuli are far away, the higher cognitive parts of the brain, such as the medial frontal cortex are aroused. But when a fearful situation is right before you, then the lower regions of circuitry, especially in the midbrain PAG, take over. These unconditional lower circuits are what compels you to take flight or the mouse to freeze.

We are like other animals in that our FEAR system is designed to anticipate bad things, but we go beyond other animals in creating fears for ourselves beyond the imagination of any other species. Our imaginations run wild with all kinds of phantoms that can be set off just by being alone in the dark.

We don’t have to think deeply to find moments in our lives when we were consumed with fear, especially when we were young. I recall lying on my bed in my bedroom and suddenly bathed in fear when I realized I was going to die. I don’t mean die then, but I came to the sudden realization of my mortality. I was only five and never had experienced anyone dying. But it was so terrifyingly vivid that I can picture the scene as clear as being back there now in my eighties.

Trauma

The FEAR system becomes hypersensitized when we have been traumatized, especially as a very young child. At birth, FEAR is objectless and can be activated by only a very few unconditioned stimuli such as pain. But when traumatized, fearful memories build that can be triggered by previously neutral events.

Trauma can produce an over-responsive FEAR system in all mammals, especially in cases of early trauma. Any trauma gradually penetrates into the soul. When mixtures of pure FEAR connect to learned fears, you may develop PTSD. As your emotional system becomes oversensitized, you may begin to experience the debilitating agony of FEAR itself, sometimes spiraling into out-of-control panic attacks and persistent feelings of anxiety that gnaw at your sense of security.

Not only humans experience PTSD. All mammals can be afflicted with PTSD because we all have very similar ancient FEAR systems that can become sensitized and full of trepidation within the cognitive darkness of our core affective consciousness. Harry Harlow’s infamous experiments with rhesus macaque monkeys deprived of maternal love from early on produced monkeys that were psychotically fearful for the rest of their lives.

This system, like the other primal emotional systems, behaves like the sinews and muscles of our bodies. The more they are used, the stronger they become. And you don’t have to get up and exercise to work fears. Unattended, they roil and fester in your brain. But you can counter and even use our fears to become stronger by being aware without ruminating. You do this through attention therapies like Insight Meditation, Ki Breathing Meditation, and Open Focus.

Survival Fear

Rats are instinctively afraid of cats. The odor of cats sets off their FEAR system, even if they have never seen a cat before. Recognition of certain threatening external stimuli becomes encoded in the brain-building DNA of their ancestors, yielding innate fears of stimuli that caused pain or forewarned of danger. The innate capacity of rats to fear the smell of cats promotes survival because the inherited FEAR system motivates them to hide and freeze and flee if the cats get close.

It works this way in humans, too. After his first professional match, a one-round knockout over Hector Mercedes, Mike Tyson was asked by a reporter, “Were you concerned when that bell rang and you saw this big man coming at you?”

“No, I was not concerned, I was afraid. No normal boxer can enter the ring fearless. Fear is a friend of every good and reasonable athlete.”

We don’t want to give up all fears. Like Mike Tyson, we need to be aware and use them protectively.

Self-help books that help:

Total Self-Renewal through Attention Therapies and Open Focus

The Open-Focus Brain: Harnessing the Power of Attention to Heal Mind and Body