Fear Factor

So my project last week over fear was to intially put someone in a box and see how uncomfortable they would feel in such a small space. Now, while this concept was good, it did not have the desired effect I was aiming for. Thisw as mainly due to the fact that instead of being serious about the situation as it would be in real life, no one in the class seemed to be capable of this. Everyone was laughing and poking fun at the expirement more than actually trying to scare the person inside of the box. I think it would have helped if we hade a severe clausterphobic person in the box as well, but I think that person would have been me, and let's just say no way was I getting n the box.

The point of clausterphobia is that the person feels they have no way to escape, so with people constantly laughing and giggling, they know people are around, that the situation is not serious nor permanent. If I had a physical way to shut him in the box without it being so easy to escape, I think the onset of fear would have taken place, but because of my resources it was not possible.

Now some people did try to increase the experience, but to no avail. Beth tried to light the box on fire, someone tried to drop in a mouse, I squirted water in the box, and other people just banged on it. This part of the project was not my actual concept. I really wanted it to just be extremely quiet and watched the box squirm, however if I had said that directly I think it would have ruined the experience. I think clausterphobia is somethine that can not be experimented with because it is something that is situational. It depends on the space and atmosphere which differs in various people.

So to conclude I think my experiment really needs reworking. The atmosphere needs to be reworked to a non humorous one. It needs to be quiet and ominous. People need to be quiet and let the expirament playout instead of wanting to be so involved and be the center of experience. I also think using a different box would help. Not a cardboard box, of course. I mean like a wooden box with a padlock. I would poke holes for air. I think making it seem more inexcapable would make the person inside feel much more helpless. Clausterphobia is a fear I do not see to the extreme all to often. Most of the time I just see a very small uncomfortable nature. My idea really needs to step outside the realm of being just an expirement so something much more.

I know we have more expirements to go next week, but the one project so far that bothered me the most was William Wallace setting his hand on fire. Now, this irritated me because it wasn't based on fear in my opinion. It was based on stupidity. Fear is an emotional state, not a physical one. Causing physical harm to yourself was not. Not to mention it was right next to me. What would have happened if the actually burnt himself? If it misfired? The project should not have been allowed. He could have lit the room, himself, or someone else up in flames and I just find it completely stupid for him to have even considered doing that.

In my last post you saw me talk about the one kid who talked about how fear is controllable. I still disagree with that until this day. I think is opinion is not very open to the possibilities of what fear is and can be to someone. For a person to never have truly experienced fear, I think it is unjust to make a decision like that and to be so bold as to state that fear is controllable when to many it isn't, but you can read my last blog to understand why I say this.

I look forward to seeing the rest of the expirements play out this week. Hopefully they really play on fear instead of just coming up with some random test. I think to really know fear, it has to be a fear you actually have felt and known. This should be a personal expirement I think because in order to know what scares a person you need to know why and have it actually effect you, otherwise you are wasting your time trying to scare someone.