2024 Author: Adelina Croftoon | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 02:07
During the First World War, there were a huge number of contusions, when physically a soldier was not seriously injured, but he suddenly lost his hearing, sight or the ability to speak. And the doctors could not find a reason for this in any way
For centuries, people have known that a very strong fear can have a physical effect not only on the psyche, but also on the human body. From fear, people became blind, lost their voice, hearing, could remain paralyzed, or even die. Even mentally hardened people such as experienced soldiers died of fear.
Medicine has known about the physical impact of fear on people for a long time, but for the first time, military doctors faced massive manifestations of this kind in the First World War. Now these symptoms are called conversion disorder and is most often considered a consequence of severe stress.
Earlier in history, doctors faced the consequences of intense fear in the form of paralysis of the limbs or even severe spasms of the bladder in people who had a fear of witches. It happened in that period of the Middle Ages, when there was a notorious witch hunt.
Case from the New Testament
Perhaps the most unusual (and surprisingly little-known) case of conversion disorder is found in the New Testament. The story is described in the book of Acts of the Apostles and tells how the Apostle Paul once came into conflict with the magician Variisus (Elymas) in Cyprus.
The Apostle Paul presses on Elyma and expresses to him what looks like a curse: "You are the enemy of all righteousness … here is the Hand of the Lord on you and you will be blind, not seeing the sun for some time."
After this, the Apostle Paul "gazes" at Elyma twice and Elymas temporarily becomes blind. "And immediately fog and darkness fell on him, and he walked in search of someone who would lead him by the hand."
Submissive expectation of death
The submissive expectation of death, for example, with the Voodoo curse, is also considered by many to be the influence of strong fear on the human psyche. Upon learning that he was cursed by the Voodoo sorcerer, the victim almost always loses all hope of a different outcome. Fear can even foam at her mouth, the victim weakens, cannot walk, lies down, refuses to eat and drink, and dies within 1-3 days.
"I saw one hardened old soldier who died slowly because he considered himself bewitched, and no food or medicine that was given to him had the slightest effect either to contain the harm caused to him, or to improve his condition," he wrote in his memoirs, the soldier A. Leonard, who visited the Lower Niger region in West Africa.
Missionary John Roscoe saw similar things in East Africa in the 1920s. Three natives were slightly injured while hunting a leopard, and at the same time, the one who suffered the least decided that the leopard was summoned by magic and that now he would certainly die from its scratches.
Within just 24 hours after being wounded, this man died, and two of his relatives, who were wounded more seriously, did not consider the leopard to be a magical manifestation and soon recovered.
In Australia, an aborigine considered himself damned and was already on his deathbed when a missionary working in the area decided to try out the "reverse" treatment on him. He found someone who "cursed" the victim and convinced him to tell the victim that it was all just a joke and not real magic. In the end, the victim believed and soon recovered.
Hit a predator in the teeth - die
What is the exact physiology of extreme fear? Some researchers believe that a person or animal, attacked by a dangerous predator, instinctively "turns on" an evolutionary mechanism called "tonic immobility" or "opossum play", that is, to pretend to be dead.
When a person or animal is seized by an attacker, the caudal ventrolateral region of their brain generates a reaction that looks like a complete collapse. The body becomes insensitive to pain, completely relaxes, falls to the ground with outstretched limbs and thrown back neck. The eyes are closed, the body trembles slightly, the muscles are relaxed, including those controlling the bowel movement, the limbs do not move.
Well-known adventurer and fear researcher Jeff Wise believes that this evolutionary response suggests that most active predators will not eat prey that looks like they are dead, because they are not scavengers. And he really believes that such a mechanism exists.
Wise cites as one of the most striking examples of the case of the missionary David Livingstone, who fell into a similar state after being attacked by a lion and bitten by his teeth. When the missionary's body became limp and began to look like a corpse, the lion abandoned the "unappetizing" man and went about his business.
According to the same Wise, if such a state lasts too long, then the person may indeed die, since the heart rate and blood pressure will fall too low.
Nervus vagus
"Curse of Voodoo" requires at least one day to kill a person, but there were many cases when people died of horror literally in a matter of minutes or even seconds. The reason, according to some speculations, is the sudden overstimulation of the so-called vagus nerve leading to the heart.
Vagus nerve suppression can be caused by many factors, and fear is one of them. A nerve injury due to intense fear can look like a combination of mental and physical shock and can even occur from a sudden pat on the back of the shoulder or a sudden immersion in cold water.
There have been cases where people died instantly while playing cricket when the ball hit the vagus nerve zone. And there is also a known case from Birmingham, when the dead body of a little girl was found in the bushes and the cause of death was the suppression of the vagus nerve due to severe fright.
Another case is known when a 12-year-old girl died of a vagus nerve injury when she saw that her dog ran out onto the road and was hit by a car (the dog, by the way, did not die). In another case, a Pakistani driver was attacked by racist gangsters who did not inflict any dangerous injuries on him, but the man died due to severe fright.
Died standing on his feet
About 200 years ago in London, there was the strange death of a 9-year-old boy. In July 1811, the boy did not return home from school and went missing. A few days later he was found dead at St George's Chapel in Paddington.
The boy's body stood upright against the crypt wall, next to the coffins, and he still carried his textbook bag over his shoulder. It was assumed that the boy wandered into the crypt out of curiosity, but at the sight of the coffins he was so scared that his body froze in paralysis, and then he died within a few minutes.
Death in a dream
Horror films from the series "A Nightmare on Elm Street" are considered complete fiction, but sudden deaths in a dream, without any signs of illness, have been recorded for many centuries. In particular, in a scientific work of the 19th century on the nature of nightmares by Robert McIntosh and John Waller, several cases were described when people died in their sleep with a grimace of horror on their faces.
In the 1970s and 1980s, strange deaths in their sleep began to be recorded in the community of emigrants from war-torn Cambodia in the United States. And they have always been outwardly completely healthy men about 30 years old. They were found dead in their beds in the morning, sometimes with a grimace of fear on their faces.
Researcher Shelley Adler, author of a book on sleep paralysis, believed that these people died due to the fact that their ancestors came to them in their dreams, who were angry with them for violating some religious rituals that were impossible to perform in the United States. These strange deaths are believed to have inspired director Wes Craven to create A Nightmare on Elm Street.
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