Fright or Flight
The Automatic survival response prepares your body to confront danger or escape from it.
These frightening dreams can cause you to wake up feeling scared or anxious.
Nightmares
A zombie may be portrayed as having trouble thinking, but this real organ controls thought, memory, and movement.
Brain
This neurotransmitter is involved in movement, motivation, and reward-related learning.
Dopamine
This visual phenomenon tricks your brain into perceiving something differently from its physical reality.
Deja Vu
When you're scared, tiny muscles attached to your hair follicles contract, causing this reaction on your skin.
Goosebumps
This hormone, produced by the pineal gland, helps signal to your body that it's nighttime and time to sleep.
Melatonin
This neurological condition can cause recurring seizures due to abnormal electrical activity in the brain.
Epilepsy
This neurotransmitter helps regulate mood, sleep, and other functions and is targeted by many antidepressant medications.
Serotonin
This term describes the brain's ability to change its connections and organization through learning or experience.
Neuroplasticity
This hormone can rapidly increase heart rate during a frightening encounter.
Adrenaline
This stage of sleep is associated with vivid dreaming and rapid eye movements.
REM sleep
This phenomenon can cause someone to feel pain or other sensations in an arm or leg that has been amputated.
phantom limb sensation
This neurotransmitter is released at the neuromuscular junction to trigger skeletal muscle contraction.
acetylcholine
This memory phenomenon occurs when someone recalls an event or detail that did not happen or remembers it inaccurately.
False memory
This almond-shaped brain structure plays an important role in detecting threats and processing fear.
Amygdala
This phenomenon can make you temporarily unable to move or speak while falling asleep or waking up, sometimes accompanied by frightening hallucinations.
Sleep paralysis
This neurotransmitter is the brain's primary excitatory chemical messenger and is essential for learning and memory.
Glutamate
Often called the body's primary stress hormone, this chemical is released by the adrenal cortex and helps regulate the body's response to prolonged stress.
Cortisol
This phenomenon describes when many people share the same incorrect memory of an event or detail.
The Mandela effect
When you encounter something terrifying, this branch of the autonomic nervous system increases your heart rate and prepares you for action.
Sympathetic nervous system
This internal biological rhythm operates on an approximately 24-hour cycle and helps regulate when you feel sleepy or awake.
Circadian rhythm
This neurological condition, sometimes called face blindness, makes it difficult to recognize familiar faces despite adequate vision.
prosopagnosia
This class of naturally produced chemicals binds to opioid receptors in the nervous system and can help reduce pain during stressful or frightening situations.
Endorphins
In this famous attention experiment, participants counting basketball passes often failed to notice a person wearing a gorilla costume.
Inattentional blindness