Spectrophobia: pathological fear of ghosts
In most cases, our fears and fears are normal elements that are present in the mental life of any healthy person. However, in some cases certain phobias may appear, which are pathological and totally irrational fears that damage our quality of life.
Sometimes, these phobias are based on objective and easy to recognize elements: for example, in the case of dog phobia, the source of terror and stress is almost always easy to identify in what surrounds us. But ... what happens when what produces extreme terror is something that does not even exist? This is the case of spectrophobia, or extreme fear of ghosts .
What is spectrophobia?
Spectrophobia is defined as a mental disorder that appears when someone experiences extreme and persistent terror to ghosts and ghosts in general ... or, rather, to what he interprets to be a manifestation of a phantasmagorical entity.
Normally, the fear of ghosts is so extreme that the focus of attention of people with spectrophobia becomes focused very easily on any stimulus from the environment that can be interpreted as a revelation that there are ghosts nearby.
This presence of delirious ideas works as a feedback system of fear: anxiety and tension leads to a state of alert in which one is very sensitive to everything that happens nearby, and the possibility of coming into contact with the spirits is so terrifying that all psychological processes are oriented towards the avoidance of this kind of situations.
How are people with spectrophobia?
People with spectrophobia remain in a state of constant tension when they find themselves in a space they believe is frequented by supernatural entities such as ghosts. That means they avoid being alone in dark, closed places or that have been associated with the supernatural through urban legends.
The proximity of one of these places coinciding with a context in which there are no or very few companions causes the spectrophobes to enter a state of extreme anxiety that in some cases results in panic attacks or mental blocks.
Of course, a certain fear of ghosts is still relatively common even in many adult people and that in principle they do not believe in supernatural entities, but in the case of spectrophobia this terror it is powerful enough to damage the quality of life of the person .
In addition, this fear will not appear only at the time of seeing, hearing or hearing, for example, immersive fiction works that work with the idea of spirits and ghosts; It will extend to all areas of life and its symptoms may appear at any time, without the person being able to control this.
The latter is relative, since people with spectrophobia tend to want to learn about topics related to parapsychology and the supernatural , and somehow learn to read their own life as if it were the script of a horror movie to be as prepared as possible before the possible arrival of ghosts.
The contagion of fear of spirits
As in most phobias, in addition, Suggestion has a very important role , and both what they say and what others do can make this extreme fear intensify.
This is relatively common, because many times the fear of the person with spectrophobia is transmitted to others (although to a lesser extent), and this in turn reinforces the delusional idea that there are ghosts nearby. In addition, while the fear experienced by people who see how the person reacts with spectrophobia is fleeting and only appears in that kind of specific situations, the terror of the latter is persistent and does not depend on the presence of others to reveal his symptoms.
- Related article: "Folie à Deux (shared madness): the strangest cases"
The symptoms
The symptoms of spectrophobia are physiological, cognitive and behavioral.
Physiological symptoms
The entry into the state of alert that produces this phobia is triggered by the mediation between the limbic system of the brain and the glands of hormones that are distributed throughout the body. In a matter of seconds, the person with spectrophobia notes how your pulse and the rhythm of your breathing accelerate sharply and sweating begins .
In addition, in this phase the sympathetic nervous system causes thinner and shallow blood vessels to narrow to prevent possible blood loss, which causes the skin to assume a pale tone. The muscles are tensed to be able to act quickly in case it is necessary to escape. In general, all the signs of anxiety appear.
Cognitive symptoms
In the cognitive facet, spectrophobic crises are characterized by inducing a state in which one stops wandering mentally and the attention is totally fixed on elements of the exterior , moving constantly. The person enters a state of maximum alert to try to find out where the danger might come from.
Behavioral symptoms
The most obvious behavioral symptom of people with spectrophobia is the constant avoidance of places considered dangerous for the risk associated with being a place where ghosts appear. If you are in one of these sites, you will do everything possible to get out of there, even if this has a high cost for your public image or for your personal or professional projects in the medium and long term.
