Are there ghosts in this world? This question has been asked too many times. Basically everyone can give the answer easily. But everyone's answer is different. Some people will say that there is no such thing as a ghost, it’s all about scaring yourself. Who has seen a ghost? And some people will say, don’t be so self-righteous. The world is full of wonders, and many things cannot be explained by science. I think there are really ghosts in this world. Some people will say, don’t worry about whether there are ghosts or not. In short, if you don’t do anything wrong, don’t be afraid of ghosts knocking on your door! Some people will even say, so what if you do something wrong? Money can make a millstone go round! Some people may even say, well, I think money can make a millstone go round!
However, this article is not about whether there are ghosts or not. It’s not about discussing how everyone’s worldview differs. The author wants to explore such an issue. That is, why are people afraid of ghosts?
The question of why people are afraid of ghosts is not as simple as it seems. From a psychological perspective, there are probably not many people who can explain this issue very thoroughly. So, today I want to discuss this issue.
I find that many people like to answer questions by deflecting questions. In fact, he obviously couldn't answer the question and didn't want to appear stupid or ignorant, so he tried to change the question by being clever. I think this mentality is very bad. It does not help solve the problem, nor does it help to sublimate your own thoughts. It is completely opportunistic, but it seems that you have less depth.
On the question of why people are afraid of ghosts, I guess some people will also use deflection questions instead of answering questions. For example, some people may say that people are afraid of ghosts because ghosts are designed to be evil and murderous. If ghosts were said to be friendly, cute, and cute, you would not be afraid. Does this count as answering the question? I still have to ask, why is it that evil is scary if it is designed to kill? Some people will say that people are afraid of ghosts, but they are actually afraid of death. Then I still have to ask, why should people be afraid of death? Some people will say, who said people are afraid of ghosts? I'm not afraid. Then I still have to ask, even if you are not afraid, there are always people who are afraid. Why are those people afraid? You see, unless you answer this question in essence, it is just evading or shifting the problem.
So, why are people afraid of ghosts? It is interesting to study the essence of the problem. To study the essence, we must thoroughly analyze people's fear of ghosts and see what exactly creates this psychology.
First of all, are people afraid of ghosts because ghosts can hurt people? In people's common sense and culture, ghosts are considered to be harmful things. But are people afraid of ghosts just because ghosts harm people? We have seen many horror movies. In many movies, ghosts do not directly harm people. Even if they do not touch you or use any physical means to cause harm to you, they just create a scary atmosphere and may scare you. dead. So it seems that this fear is definitely not as simple as fear of being hurt. If you scared yourself to death because you were afraid of being hurt, that would be too exaggerated. Could it be that if someone wanted to hit you, you would scare yourself to death before taking action? No way. What's more, smoking is harmful, and many people still smoke. Drinking is harmful, and many people still drink. Some people will even sacrifice themselves to save others. It can be seen that human beings are not that afraid of being hurt. Even if they are afraid of being hurt, this fear is different from the fear of ghosts. It can be seen that human beings' fear of ghosts definitely does not stem from the fear of injury.
So are people afraid of ghosts because ghosts kill people? Of course, we admit that people are afraid of death, but are people afraid of ghosts and afraid of death the same thing? It feels a bit unjustifiable. Because there are many things that can kill people, such as tigers, lions, pistols, murderers, etc. Of course humans are afraid of tigers, lions, pistols and murderers, but this fear is always different from the fear of ghosts. Moreover, ghosts may not always kill people. Many times, ghosts will not kill you, but you still feel scared. For example, imagine that you are alone in a room and you always hear a woman sighing, and you know clearly that this is definitely not a neighbor sighing. You know that this is in your room, but you can't see it. woman. In this case, people will feel scared. However, it's just a woman sighing and it won't kill you. Why should you be afraid? If you say you're afraid of being killed, that's a bit unreasonable, right? For example, in The Ring, the ghost crawled out of the TV and didn't touch the man at all, so he was frightened to death. I don’t think anyone was scared to death just because a gun was pointed at them, right? Why is it so scary when a ghost crawls out of a TV? It seems that this fear does not come from the fear of death.
The fear of ghosts has gone beyond the fear of injury and death.
So people are afraid of ghosts because they look scary? For example, Sadako in The Ring is really scary. However, don’t forget that the ghosts in many horror movies are not only not scary, but also very beautiful. Basically, those who are qualified to play female ghosts must be beautiful women. In comparison, European and American zombie films are much more disgusting and ugly. However, everyone generally feels that the psychological horror of Asian ghost films far exceeds the visual horror of Europe and the United States. This is not only how Asians feel. In fact, Japanese and Korean horror films are now popular in the United States, causing American horror films to imitate them. This shows that in the eyes of Europeans and Americans, this kind of psychological horror in Asia is also very scary. It can be seen that this kind of psychological terror is not only unique to specific cultures and races, but is a psychology shared by all human beings. Asian beauty ghosts are scarier than European and American zombie skeletons, which is enough to show that people’s fear of ghosts is not due to their appearance.
So why are humans afraid of ghosts? Let me tell you a few ghost stories here.
1. It is said that an incident happened in a certain student dormitory. One night, seven of the eight students were frightened to death and one went crazy. People are puzzled, what happened? Finally, the frightened student frantically told the truth. It turned out that he had a dream that night. He dreamed of a girl wearing white clothes, with long black hair and no face visible. She was humming a vague tune in a low and hoarse voice while sitting on a light tube. swing. . . . . . .
2. A woman went hiking with her boyfriend and some companions. The woman felt exhausted while walking halfway up the mountain, so she stayed to rest while the others continued climbing. The woman waited on the mountainside for two days but no one came down, and she was a little anxious. At this time, I saw those people finally came back, but only without his boyfriend. These people told her that her boyfriend unfortunately fell off a cliff and died while climbing. When she was heartbroken, she suddenly saw a man running down the mountain with his face covered in blood. The man picked her up and ran away. Only then did she see that this man was her boyfriend. Her boyfriend told her that during the climb, everyone else died and he was the only one who survived. . . . . . .
3. One day, a man was playing at a friend's house late at night. He was very happy, but it was getting late and he had to go home. A friend lives in a high-rise building. After saying goodbye to his friends, he turned around and went out. But when the door closed, he found that the entire corridor was pitch black. The room was also quiet. It was as if everything had disappeared. He tried knocking on the door, but there was no response. So he had to go downstairs in the dark. There was no light in the entire corridor, and only the moonlight outside allowed him to barely see the steps. But soon he found that he had been unable to go down to the next level. He went down a level only to return to the previous level. He was stunned. Then he heard footsteps. I saw a woman in white walking slowly up from downstairs. . . . . . . . . 4. I went home alone late one night. When I was almost home, I suddenly found a group of children surrounding a woman in the yard. The children were noisy, beating, kicking, and bullying the woman. The woman squatted on the ground and held her head motionless. At this time, he ran over to stop these children, but the children immediately scattered without a trace. He took a deep breath and said to himself that children nowadays are really ignorant, they are all spoiled and uneducated. Then when he was about to ask the woman if she was okay, he found that the woman was still squatting on the ground holding her head, motionless. . . . . . .
5. There is a girls' dormitory that is haunted. Everyone says that someone has died in the room at the end of the corridor, so strange things often happen in that room. Xiaolan was very curious and wanted to see if ghosts really existed, so one night after everyone went to bed, she took her classmate Xiaosha to see what happened. But Xiaosha persuaded her not to go. That room was really scary. There is something unclean. Xiaolan said, I'm not afraid, I don't believe there are real ghosts. I'd like to see what it looks like. Xiaosha couldn't control Xiaolan, so she had to go with her. They tried their best to hide their nervousness and slowly walked towards the room at the end of the corridor. Opening the door and walking in, I found that there was thick dust in the house and messy things were piled up in the house. Xiaosha grabbed Xiaolan's arm and said, it's too scary, let's go back. But Xiaolan refused. She said that she must take a closer look to see what strange thing happened. So Xiaolan flipped around and finally found a diary. Xiaolan was very happy and said that she had gained a lot now. As she spoke, she began to look through the diary.
On the last page of the diary, she saw a yellowed photo. It was a picture of a woman. She held the photo up to the moonlight and looked at it carefully. Suddenly broke out in a cold sweat. She felt that Xiaosha beside her had not spoken for a long time. So she trembled and said, "Xiao Sha, this woman looks similar." . . . . . . This is Xiaosha's sneer coming from behind. She looks like me, right? . . . . . . .
Let me tell you so much first. Some of these stories are from the Internet and you may have heard them. Some of them are made up by me and you may not have heard of them. I don't tell these stories to scare people, and I don't spend any time trying to create an atmosphere, so they shouldn't be very scary. So don’t tell nonsense stories, it’s not scary at all. I tell these stories to demonstrate my point. Remember, I am writing a paper, not a ghost story. Although these stories are not very scary, I think everyone can still understand that there is something scary in them. If the space is spent to create atmosphere and brew emotions, these stories can also become very scary ghost stories. So, now let’s analyze why these stories scare everyone? First of all, there are no ghosts in the story that hurt people, kill people, or eat people. There are no scary, ugly, or scary ghosts. So, we feel fear, but it’s hard to tell what we’re afraid of? Why are people afraid of ghosts? Now I would like to ask everyone to pay attention to what are the similarities between these stories? I want to tell you that these stories all have one common feature, that is, they are absurd and difficult to understand.
In the first story, a woman is sitting on a swing on a light stick and humming a song. This is completely unreasonable, absurd and incomprehensible.
In the second story, the woman is not sure who to believe, whether to believe her boyfriend or others, or whether to believe neither. So she is in a completely absurd world. She cannot know everything around her, and she cannot understand what is happening.
The third story is also contrary to common sense. Why can't I go downstairs? Why can't I knock on my friend's door? This seems absurd. Why is a woman walking up the stairs at this time? it's incomprehensible.
The fourth story, in the dead of night, how could a group of children bully a woman? This is absurd. Why is this woman squatting on the ground holding her head motionless, completely silent? it's incomprehensible.
In the fifth story, I went to explore the truth about the haunting with anxiety and excitement, and finally found an old diary, and the photos in the diary turned out to be of my friends. So, the whole world is turned upside down, and you are in the midst of great absurdity.
So, now we can see that basically all ghost stories, good ghost stories, have one characteristic, which is to create an absurd and incomprehensible atmosphere. In other words, what people are really afraid of is not injury, death, or ugly faces, but absurdity and incomprehensibility! And essentially, it all stems from the unknown. Because you don't know what has happened or what will happen. You are in a completely unknown world. You cannot use common sense to infer, logic becomes unworkable, and the rules of the world are subverted. The whole world becomes absurd and incomprehensible. This is the source of fear.
So, now I want to officially give the answer to the question. That is that human beings' fear of ghosts stems from the fear of the unknown. When you feel unknown about everything around you, when the world becomes absurd and incomprehensible, you will be afraid. So, if we dig deeper, why is the unknown scary?
Because when humans face other death threats, such as encountering a tiger, or having a gun pointed at your head, or falling from a building, you will be afraid, because you are likely to die. But this fear is different from the fear you feel when faced with a ghost. Because in the face of death threats in the real world, the world is still running according to common sense, and all your common sense and all logic are completely valid. You can think of ways to kill a tiger, knock out someone who is pointing a gun at you, or open a parachute when you fall, all of which can save your life. And even if you can't save yourself, when you die, you can completely understand why you died. In short, whether dead or alive, everything is known. However, when facing ghosts, the situation is completely different. The world becomes incomprehensible. Your common sense and logic don't work. Ghosts can subvert everything. It may pass through walls, it may appear suddenly, it may disappear suddenly, it may sneer, it may cry, it may twist its body, it may hold its own head.
In short, everything becomes unknown. When facing a tiger, you can use weapons to defend yourself. When facing a pistol, you can use a body armor to protect yourself. When facing a fall, you can use a parachute to save yourself. But how do you protect yourself when facing ghosts? The answer is nothing can be done. This makes you extremely insecure. Because there is nothing to protect you. This extreme unknown leads to an extreme lack of security. It is the root of all fear. This is why people are afraid of ghosts.
So, once you understand the root cause of why people are afraid of ghosts, everything will be easily solved. For ordinary people, there are two ways to alleviate the fear of ghosts. One is to use Buddha statues to protect the body. Why does this alleviate human fears? Because humans gain a sense of security through Buddha statues. Got the known. This is known to mean that under the protection of the Buddha statue, the absurd world caused by ghosts is contained, and at least within the protection scope of the Buddha statue, the world order is corrected. Your common sense and logic kick in again. Second, you won’t be afraid of ghosts when there are many people. Some people say that when there are many people, the fear of ghosts is shared, or because when there are many people, the chance of ghosts killing you becomes smaller. In fact, they all missed the point. Because ghosts can kill everyone at the same time, or when there are many people, there will be more ghosts. In this way, you cannot share the fear of ghosts, nor can you reduce the chance of being killed by ghosts, but you are less afraid. Why? Or because the world has become known. Because ghosts are unknown and incomprehensible. On the contrary, man is known and understandable. So when other people appear, there is an additional part of your world that is known and understandable. Your fear will lessen.
So, when you find that the Dharma is ineffective, or find that other people have become absurd and difficult to understand, your fear of ghosts and the unknown will rise again.
So, now we understand essentially why humans are afraid of ghosts through the analysis of human psychology.
So, the reason why humans are afraid of ghosts is very simple. It stems from humans’ instinctive fear of the unknown. Human beings' fear of the dark and fear of death all come from fear of the unknown. The unknown causes humans to lack the ability to control, lack the ability to protect themselves, and lack a sense of security.
So, now we know that we are inherently afraid of the unknown. The reason why man is the spirit of all things is that he is smarter than animals. The point is that humans know more and understand more than animals. Therefore, for people, the most important thing is to seek knowledge, and the most terrifying thing is ignorance. That’s why Confucius said, “Hear the Tao in the morning and die in the evening.” He is worthy of being a saint. Because he knows that what is more terrible than death is ignorance. If he knew the truth, he could even die right away. Confucius understood this truth more than 2,000 years ago, but many people still do not understand this truth today. This is the difference between a saint and a stupid pig.