Why do we like feeling scared?

We like getting scared because we know that it is going to end. We also have the prior knowledge or fail-safe (usually) that the threat is not real. But what happens to our bodies physiologically?

Initially, your brain picks up a scare stimulus aka you see/hear/feel something that invokes fear in you i.e. a blurry dark tall shape in your periphery, a (seemingly) demonic growl (and it’s a cat fight outside your bedroom window instead - ahem, something I’m all too familiar with), etc.

This scare stimulus is not always completely processed by your brain before you release adrenaline (via neurotransmitters: glutamate, serotonin, and dopamine) and your sympathetic nervous system has you up and running as fast as you can in the opposite direction. The scare stimulus is first perceived by the visual cortex in the occipital lobe of your brain, this sends a signal to the cerebral cortex which then signals the amygdala (emotion processing area) which immediately process the stimulus as a real threat. Of course, this is only if you are easily frightened or aren’t as able to control your fear as someone else that doesn’t react that way.

If you are able to process the fear stimulus slower, then you might realize the dark shadowy figure is just your elderly neighbor taking out the trash at an ungodly hour. If that’s the case, GABA neurotransmitters are released instead and the body evades the stimulatory reaction of the sympathetic system and returns to normal.

It takes 250-300 milliseconds to process a stimulus in a way that you are consciously aware of it. However, a fear stimulus can only take 12 milliseconds to reach the amygdala. In other words, our fear response can be triggered unconsciously.

Pathway: Eye to retina to optic nerve to the visual thalamus to visual cortex to amygdala to the hypothalamus to the anterior pituitary gland to the adrenal glands to release adrenaline, which then stimulates the release of endorphins. The endorphins are the pleasure drug which makes the whole event a positive experience after all.

All in all, this explains why some people, myself included, love watching horror movies.
Now, if the threat is real, as in you aren’t watching a horror movie in celebration of Halloween, then we stick to the original pathway and the adrenal glands produce cortisol (stress hormone) which suppresses insulin, blood glucose levels elevated to provide muscles with enough energy for you to go through with your fight-or-flight response and run or fight your way out of trouble. Simultaneously, other metabolic processes are inhibited which means you are not in homeostasis but will return to it once the valid threat is no longer around.


References:
March, A. “Why we love to scare ourselves.” 26 Oct 2010. Retrieved from www.insidescience.org on 24 Oct 2017.

LeDeoux, J. E., et al. The amygdala modulates memory consolidation of fear-motivated inhibitory avoidance learning but not classical fear conditioning. Journal of Neuroscience, 15 Sept 2000, 20(18): 7059-7066.