Reacher wrote: One thing I always thought curious when I studied them was that there is very little violence or death onstage for the Greek tragedies. Most often a messenger would inform the audience of what occurred or the doomed would exit finally and ominously. Part of the reason for this was because the tragedies were a form of worship during a festival, and death - even depicted - might seem blasphemous. I always did think it was a wonderful mechanism for empathy, regardless. The audience imagined the event - thereby making it very intimate to each person based on their own perception of death and violence. Contrast that against the Roman culture...pankration and boxing vs the Coliseum. Interesting juxtaposition as we explore this topic. One seemed to glory in human form and capability while the other in its destruction and gore.
in a way this is even more frightening imo
the movies that always scared me the most were things like the exorcist and the ring ect and i was least frightened by jason or michael myers or any slasher style
what ive heard from several people who are the opposite is that the slasher flick and its latest evolution, the torture context (which i feel is really unhealthy at every level) are more frightening because they have more affinity with real life possibility
for me the idea of non physical consciousness has always been theoretically possible so the "realness" of it was not so clearly defined but what i found frightening was the of something which i could not physically affect but it could affect me
even though they were technically indestructable the slashers are always physical beings who can be at least delayed by physical means, so they can be fought
the idea for me was that the greater my ability to affect the antagonist the less frightening it eventually becomes
what you describe in the greek tragedies, for a strong imagination is maybe the most frightening of all
its those who are least able to put themselves into the context who will have the least understanding of this
if you can immerse yourself in the story from.the experience of the character
then by the time he leaves the stage to meet a fate which is likely just as ominous as it is vague
this can be pretty unsettling if you dont have some mental mechanism for limiting your imagery
i mean its the stuff of nightmares, really
if one can sufficiently immerse ones self in an internal construction
i.e. to see and hear and feel and smell the context that one is constructing
from this state the body will show the same physiological responses as what would be present if one were experiencing the context in reality
a way to highligh this is to understand that both the body and mind of a person who is having a complete sensory hallucination are unaware that it is a hallucination,the body belives in the hallucination just as much as the mind
and so things like adrenaline and cortisol as well as neuro synaptical activity and just the entire spectrum of physiological response are all engaged in exactly the same way as would happen if the hallucination were real
to a greater or lesser extent this is what happens when we watch a well constructed movie or listen to a well made song or even read a good book
i think this would be the cause of a person eventually not feeling empathy or at least not connecting with the feeling very strongly
because after being subjected to the physiological experiences of emotionally traumatizing and highly stressful imagery the body just gets worn down on it and hits the emotional STOP button as defensive mechanism
this is possible but its not healthy
it would basically be a self induced PTSD to some or another degree
the question does however lead to a very interesting line lf thought
if this is all true (and i welcome anyone interested to dig around for a while because this is real jedi stuff here)
what are the potential uses for this?
if we allow that our minds can construct settings so powerfully that our bodies belive them to be real, what kind of applications might that have for a jedi?
