Stop Watching Horror Movies If You Want To Be Happy!

Recently, I have seen American horror TV series called The Purge. After watching this show, I was in shock. For the next 24 hours, I would walk around paranoid and think about the dark side of human nature. I could not trust other human beings, and I was afraid of my own shadow. My mind was negatively framed, and it took me a lot of effort to get back to positive thinking.

I guess this is the main reason why people should stop watching horror movies. They make us afraid, paranoid and put us into a negative mood. Watch enough of them, and you will successfully brainwash yourself towards a permanent state of negativity, which, if you read enough of this blog, is far from an ideal state of mind.

But Horror Movies Do Not Affect Me

I honestly believe that most people who watch scary movies do not think they are affected by these scary images. But, I also think that these same people don’t understand what these movies do to their psychics as otherwise, they would not watch these videos. The reason for this is because our minds are like a sponge. It absorbs information fast, quickly, and without any conscious effort. It absorbs the bad and the good, like the lyrics to that song that you don’t like, but probably can sing along if you heard it on the radio. 

Indeed, consciously we can say just about anything, like that we are not affected by this film genre, and we can make it sound convincing, too. Subconsciously, however, it is an entirely different story. Just think of procrastination. No one wants to procrastinate if they know they have to do something else. We often do it anyway because consciously, we know procrastination is wrong, while subconsciously, there is something in our mind that prevents us from doing that critical task.

The same thing happens with scary movies. They make us think negatively, and if you watch enough of these movies, you will permanently brainwash yourself to be scared, paranoid, and afraid. Horror movies reinforce and change our brains’ negative passways in detriment to the positive ones and turn our minds towards negative thinking. The same people start complaining that they see enemies at every turn and cannot stay happy. This is a mystery, indeed…

Why We Like Horror Movies

I am a movie lover. My favorite genre is Sky-Fi and Action movies. I love them because they energize me and make me feel alive. Constant action in these movies makes me want to go out in an action mode, which might not be accurate for everyone, but it is true. However, what is right for most people is that they can least partially identify with the main character of the movies they like. The more we can identify with these characters, the more we feel engaged with that movie. This is perhaps why we feel so bad when the main character we liked dies, as it feels like a piece of us broke.

Still, we don’t just like movies because they are relatable. We are also looking out for something. Specifically, we are looking at how the main characters behave in these movies, and we are trying to imagine how we would act in a similar situation. We try to figure out how we would work in horror movies if this situation happens to us. This, too, is subconscious.

If I was in The Purge, how would I react? I would probably be terrified. After all, Purge could happen to us, especially with Trump. I don’t say that everything in every movie is possible and that it will occur, but not everything has to occur. Even if 1% occurs, then all this investment into mental preparation was already worth it, or at least so is our mind programmed to think. After all, the world is such a random and, at times, scary place. If it’s not this, it is something else. So the more information we have, the better, right?

I mean, let’s think about it. Why would a caveman be interested in watching scary moving pictures on a screen? What basic human need does it serve? I’d say it helps the most basic need of them all – survival. We learn from others’ mistakes, and TV offers us endless ideas of how to survive or act in a different situation. In the case of horror movies, we learn how we could survive these honors. Again, this is what our brains look for when we watch these movies. As such, if a film is too unrealistic or does not support our values, we will dismiss it as a whole. But what if it does? Then we start learning. 

We might not even need to be learning anything useful, but we understand it nonetheless. In this way, it’s hard to use from useless because the world is so complex, and there are so many things that we could potentially need. So we nearly trashed our brains with information that is entirely irrelevant to us, thinking that it is relevant and hoard people who become experts in things that don’t bring them grand tangible improvements in their lives, such as they become experts in football or celebrities gossip. They could have invested the same time into learning about building a business or how to be happier. This would serve them better than spending the same amount of time learning all the players’ names for different soccer teams and all the game scores for the last decade.

The same applies to horror movies. If we watch them, we become cynical and learn new ways of scaring ourselves, making us think: why am I watching these movies?

What We Should Do Instead Of Watching Horror Movies

Some people like fear. At least they want it from the safety of their TV. Fear makes their blood boil, it increases their adrenaline levels, and people feel more aware, engaged, and alive. Sometimes they think busy watching these movies than at any other point in their lives. Indeed, they often find the world dull, boring, and uninteresting, so they escape by doing anything that makes them feel a bit more alive. Conclusion This is the same principle as to why people take drugs, except that perhaps it is not as addictive, but with the similarity of looking for these pick emotions which these activities provide. 

But the world is not that dull, boring, and uninteresting as we sometimes think of it to be. Just look at all these cool things out there, like a fridge that cools your food or a tree that produces air. We just do not think of these things as cool because we are constantly overstimulated by all that information that is out there. Today, we managed to push virtually every sensation to the max. We pushed our auditory sense by stimulating it with different music, taste sensations with different tastes, spices, and textures. And we did the same to every other sensation we have. But this emotional over-stimulation is what closed us to subtle feelings about the world. This is to say that we are just spoiled. As such, a solution is, counter-intuitively, to do less than more. We should stop trying to make ourselves feel more every second of our lives, and instead to calm our mind almost to the point where everything is dull, boring, and uninteresting. At this point, we will finally see our fridge and the trees, and we will realize how fascinating these things are, which will make our lives overall more colorful.

So, in summary, horror movies are not an answer. Instead, it is a psychological trap, which so many of us fall for. We cannot see why it is not suitable for us and why we should stop watching them. I could manage to shed some light on this unhappiness trap, and we will explore many other traps of happiness in upcoming posts, so stay tuned!