We humans are extraordinary.
Hi.
We have these great big brains but we also have animal instincts
that drive us to behave in sometimes unpredictable ways.
My God! (Screams)
I want to explore why we do what we do.
What makes us competitive?
Come on, Joe. That's 25 seconds.
Fearful? Argh!
Rrr!
(Women scream)
And how much does sex lie behind our actions?
Where do you think my mouth is? It's there, innit?
(People laugh)
I'm Dr Michael Mosley
and this grand country house is going to host
a series of unique events.
Forwards...
I give up.
(People cheer)
I've invited some unwitting guests
to take part in carefully constructed experiments,
cunningly disguised as everyday activities.
Oh, my God!
They have no idea
that actually they're part of my human laboratory.
That was an emotional rollercoaster.
I mean, just watching it was an emotional rollercoaster.
Yes! (Laughs)
I'm joined by experts.
Together we eavesdrop every conversation...
Oh! Did I?
..analyse every move...
Everything I thought I would like to find... Yeah?
It has been found. Aw...
His heart rate is very high.
..to reveal the real science behind human behaviour
before revealing all.
Hello.
(Gasps) Oh, my God. I love him. Sorry.
Blimey, humans are odd, aren't they?
(All laugh)
Fear is one of the most fundamental of the human emotions.
Once upon a time, it kept us safe from attack from wild animals.
These days, of course, the world is a much, much safer place
but we still live in a state of heightened anxiety
so what's going on?
I want to explore the biology of fear
and see how it drives anxiety in the modern world.
THUNDERCLAP
To examine fear and anxiety close up
I'm going to turn our country retreat into a haunted house
and, as a cover for my experiments,
I've sent up a fake fright experience company,
complete with a one-eyed butler.
WOMAN: I love this, I love this.
I know, I know, this is really exciting.
To study fear you have to make people afraid...
so I'll be trying to scare ten seasoned thrill-seekers
who claim they enjoy being frightened.
Oh, here it starts.
They believe they're being filmed
for a documentary about a fright night,
and, like musician Paul,
expect their fears to be put to the test.
To scare me properly I don't think it's that easy.
I say that now. (Laughs)
We'll get to the night and I'll be petrified.
Look over there at the zombie.
Why is he walking into the field?
But I've designed a night
which will not only put fear under the microscope...
Shall we get out? No!
I've seen too many horror films, I am not following.
See where he's going.
..but anxiety as well.
Oh, my God, it's the man from The Shining.
Peter is a minister, but along with the church he's got another passion.
I guess I am a bit of a weirdo cos I like scary things,
I mean, that's kind of odd, I, I totally get that.
PAUL: This guy's beckoning us. Yeah.
Oh yeah, that's a really good idea,
let's go towards the creepy guy who's beckoning us.
But I may be being naive.
Who knows, maybe I'll leave here and my head will start spinning
and I'll start vomiting pea soup and then I'll be like, darn...
He's still walking. Is anyone else kind of freaked out by that?
Joining me is psychologist Dr Jennifer Wild
and neuroscientist Dr Jack Lewis.
Do you have any irrational fears? Rats. Rats, okay.
Heights. I'm not very comfortable in heights any more.
What's yours?
Uh, probably confined spaces, yes, undoubtedly.
Oh, we can go in there.
Front door. So I'm guessing so.
Bad luck to be opening doors.
I'm gonna test one of their most basic fears
as soon as they walk through the door.
Oh... Oh wow.
How will they react to our strange-looking butler?
Ah, this is amazing, isn't it? It is.
Name? Paul.
He's quite scary.
Name? Charlie.
We're testing peoples' response to people who are obviously different.
He looks very uncomfortable.
They don't know where to look. They aren't looking at him.
Anywhere but him. Anywhere but.
That's quite weird, isn't it? Uh, yeah.
You don't often meet a butler who looks like that, do you?
No one looks more uncomfortable
than extreme sports enthusiast, Charlie.
The butler was really unnerving. I just couldn't look at him.
I got all British about it. I think we all did.
Whether you realise it or not
when you meet somebody who looks very different
you often get this immediate fear reaction.
That's because there is an ancient part of the brain
which links disfigurement with disease, and in the past
that would have been something you were desperate to avoid.
Hi.
A primitive part of their brain
is now sending out fight or flight messages.
Name? Matt.
But the modern part of their brains, the frontal cortex,
is telling them the butler is not a threat,
he is clearly not infectious.
It's this conflicting and confusing messages
which leaves us feeling intensely uncomfortable.
Hello.
We sat in the car for far too long.
I'm hoping to see all of this lot fully petrified at some point.
We shall see.
Oh, I think I'm staying. Oh, hello.
ALL: Hello.
My name is Dee, like the letter, and this is my friend Imogen.
We'll be your hosts for today's activities.
I like those two. They have a good look about them.
So, uh, steal yourselves.
I've asked my fake fright hosts to get everyone's heart rates racing.
Please come through.
The night kicks off with a trip to the movies.
Why did they put me at the front?
Yes!
My favourite is watching a horror film on a laptop
with your headphones on and the room's pitch black.
Yeah, in the dark by yourselves under your duvet.
I have watched literally hundreds and hundreds of horror films.
I'd say I'm just a normal everyday guy
but I definitely have a dark side where I love being scared.
They may say they love it
but I want to find out what really scares them
so I've created this film
to identify if they have any genuine fears.
Writer Zoe has grown up with horror.
My bond with my dad is we love all like, spooky things, scary things.
We go out all dressed in black, go home, watch a horror film.
We're like the Addams Family.
They have all been fitted with heart-rate monitors.
U-arggh. Aghh!
Oh nooo!
Zoe's heart rate shot up. Yeah Zoe's through the roof.
Interestingly, Zoe reacted strongly to creepy crawlies,
and she's not the only one.
I've never really been a fan of the insect community.
They freak me out, it just unlocks something in my brain
which is going like, step back, step back.
Peter didn't like the tarantula.
His heart rate's a bit high.
WOMAN SCREAMS
This information will be useful later on.
But first, I want to look at one of our more primal fear responses.
THUNDERCLAP
I went to The Exorcist live this Halloween and that was really good.
Was it the original Exorcist? Yeah.
See, that film, I love. I can watch that again and again.
I saw Sinister by myself in the cinema.
45 minutes in, everyone just gets up and leaves. Really?
Yeah, they couldn't handle it any more.
I like watching the horror films like The Human Centipede.
I haven't seen that. Have you not? Brilliant. I've seen all three.
Whaa-ahh!
(Laughs) It's your reaction, yeah. Did you see it?
It's your reaction that made me more scared though.
Your reaction, that was what it was. I'm really sorry.
That shit me up. That is the classic.
I'm a very flinchy person. I grew up with two brothers.
If one of us walked into the room then, you know,
and we weren't paying attention, we'd immediately sit up
and start watching them across the room
just thinking, well, what are you gonna do?
Um, and that still goes on to this day.
That's brilliant. Well done, Rachel, well done.
What we've just seen is the startle-fear response,
which I'm now going to examine in much greater detail
under the guise of a paranormal puzzle.
Here on 15 December 1896
the lady of the house suffered a fatal heart attack in the bath.
It is believed that the spirit now lives within the glass.
I'm scared!
Oh, thanks. DOOR SLAMS
Oh, you've shut me in here?
Once they reach the bathroom at the top of the house
they have to work out the name of the ghost that lives there
and then say her name three times.
They are in for a surprise.
Mirrors, mirrors on the wall.
Okay, so Charlie is looking pretty agitated.
Yeah, he's pacing a lot, he's very fidgety. Yeah.
Museum, station, sponge, R.A.
'I've got a real problem with mirrors
'because there's a famous scene that's in all the horror films'
and it's called like the mirror shot.
I know when they shut the mirror cabinet
that out of the shot is gonna be something weird.
'And that's what always messes me up.'
Victoria.
It's quite spooky-looking, isn't it?
Oh dear, Charlie. Here we go.
Victoria.
AIR HORN AND SCREAMS
Aghh. Victoria.
Wow.
That was quite extreme. That, okay, so...
I mean, that was startle reflex par excellence.
All his muscles contracted and he fell off the chair.
And then he turned into self-punishment,
did you see him hitting himself?
Charlie's fear response
is generated in a part of the brain known as the amygdala.
Now it's no bigger than a walnut but it's responsible for detecting
and then immediately reacting to any perceived threat.
It makes sense because you don't wanna sit around waiting
going "Furry object approaching me very fast with large claws,
"that's a tiger, must run away."
You just wanna go aghh, and then run.
Vic... tor.
Victoria.
So yeah, we need to... Are you sure? Yeah.
We can't voluntarily stop ourselves from displaying a startle response
which is over in a fraction of a second.
BOTH: Victoria.
AIR HORN
Oh-ooh! Jesus!
First the jaw muscles clench.
Victoria, Victor... AIR HORN Wahhh!
Next, the eyes blink, followed by a jerking of the head and the neck.
Within a tenth of a second the shoulders and arms also jerk.
AIR HORN Aghh!
Last of all, your legs kick out, trying to help you escape.
This cascading response
reflects what's happening to the electrical activity
which begins in your brain and works its way down to your legs.
The electrical message travels down the spinal cord
activating each motor neuron in turn.
The startle response has survival value.
If you're doing that then you are protecting your face
and also backing away from potential threats.
It also means you're sending a signal to the rest of the group
saying, there's danger, beware.
Ah, okay.
Facial expressions also play a big part
in communicating fear to a group,
and some do it better than others.
Victoria. Got ya.
Pastor Peter is kind of surprisingly up for this sort of stuff, isn't he,
and he's kind of, physiologically he's responded to almost everything.
Victoria... Victoria.
AIR HORN AND SCREAMS (Laughs)
Whoa!
Eyes lighting up, nose flaring,
basically more information in through the eyes,
more oxygen in through the nostrils,
that's what the fear expression is all about,
it has a biological kind of function as well as a social one.
We're not controlling it, we're not conscious of it
but it is communicating information to other people.
So this is communicating to the rest of the tribe, the group.
The startle response is really basic, even newborn babies have it,
but as we grow up,
how is it affected by our thoughts and feelings?
I am a queen and these things are named after me.
Sponge, bridge...
I have no idea.
I think his anxiety about trying to get the right answer
is potentially really slowing him down.
Museum. Station.
DR LEWIS: Jayne's trying to work it out now.
I think she's really a bit lost.
You can have a bit of performance anxiety
especially if you think everybody else in the group
has got the right answer and you actually can't figure it out.
Victoria. Oh, Victoria.
Right. Victoria. Victoria.
AIR HORN AND SCREAMS Victoria.
(Chuckles)
Victoria. Victoria. Victoria.
AIR HORN AND SCREAMS
He wasn't the slightest bit scared.
Oh my goodness, he didn't have a response, it didn't seem like it.
Oh, dear me.
Interesting that the two people
who had the most difficulty cracking the code
are the people who responded least to the startle response.
They were so preoccupied with, or with their own internal thoughts
about presumably going "I'm such a fool, I'm such an idiot,
"I should have cracked it, it's so obvious."
Isn't that funny how a sense of humiliation or embarrassment
can trump raw fear.
Well, it took me ages to get it at first, didn't it?
The same thing you did.
Cos I listened to the story but I didn't take the story in properly.
I think they became more and more self-conscious
but for me that's new, I wouldn't have guessed in advance
that anything, any kind of sort of social emotions
could attenuate a raw physiological fear response to danger. Yeah.
To the library. Oh wait, oh hello.
So our thoughts and expectations
really can exaggerate or diminish our response to fear.
I want to explore this further in my next fear experiment.
This one doesn't look nice! Sit on it.
We're gonna play a game. I'm gonna ask you questions.
Should you get the questions wrong you're gonna get shocked.
What? No. Okay.
PETER: Cool.
We've got some belts here.
I'm testing anticipatory fear, the fear of what might happen.
If you're gonna get shocked you might as well do it right.
Not that I like electric shocks, but, you know...
Let's begin.
Each question I ask you is going to be harder than the last.
Gradually we're gonna build up the intensity of the shocks.
Okay.
So... (Giggles) Question one.
What was the profession
of the man who is credited with inventing the electric chair?
Is it A, a butcher, B, a doctor,
or C, a dentist?
Umm...
Please hold up your answers now.
Duhhh-ah-ha.
The people with the wrong answers
are going to be shocked one at a time.
Oh, right! Wow, one at a time.
Cos until they feel the pain, they're expecting the worst.
Yeah.
Fa-ha-ha-ha. LAUGHTER AND GIGGLING
Unlike other animals
we spend a lot of time feeling fearful about the future,
but if we never switch that worry button off
then it can lead to extreme anxiety.
If you'd like to brace yourselves...
(Squeals and giggles)
Do it! No we don't wa...
Oh!
Okay. Okay. All right. Okay.
BUZZ Ow!
LAUGHTER That was nice!
I think we're all right. BUZZ
Ah, shit... (Laughs)
That's still tingling. Okay.
Uh, you guys got the answer correct, it was indeed a dentist.
Okay.
I'm gonna turn up the intensity.
Oh, what! We don't even get to experience the little one.
That's brilliant, so she's laughing, chuckling away,
but her heart rate is pretty high, so she's just masking the fear.
BUZZ I liked that that time, that was nice.
We often handle anticipatory fear through nervous laughter
and consciously trying to defuse the situation.
You wanted the shock. I did. You did want it.
I'll have to turn it up if you guys are getting used to it.
Initially I could really feel it and I was a bit like oh-uh oh-uh,
but then I was in a position where I was like,
well, I'm gonna get shocked, it's gonna happen,
which means I am in control, so bring it,
and at that point my emotions changed
from like, fear of being shocked
to actually "Go on then."
Do it again, do it again.
Can I change my answer? You wanna get shocked?
Who am I to mess with a man of God?
Awww! Thank you.
I haven't really been like electrocuted before
and I'm in a safe environment in which to experience it
and I doubt, I wouldn't wanna like wuss out and not have it.
Oh, mother lover. LAUGHTER
Once they discovered the electric shocks weren't actually harmful
they began to enjoy themselves.
The thing about this group of people is that they are sensation seekers,
they need new experiences
and when they've discovered something new
they then need to push things even further.
THUNDERCLAP
I'm really nervous about dinner. Are we gonna eat eyeballs?
I think well, I reckon so.
You don't think it's dinner?
I dunno, I just feel like it's gonna be something gross.
We might have to eat something like, horrible.
Yeah, that's what... Like a child's brain.
I've eaten a brain, not a child's. Cow brain.
What did it taste like? Disgusting, like fat.
But that's not the worst.
I went to an event and it was like six hours of simulated torture.
Wow! That was quite extreme.
How much did that cost? £70. It's 90 now.
90 quid to get tortured for six hours?
They forced us to eat this thing called,
it's like strummingson or something,
it's like a delicacy in Sweden but it's like fermented fish.
Oh, I've smelt that stuff. Yeah.
And are they forcing you in a kind of, go on do it,
like a really aggressive way?
There's a picture of me crying with the guy with the fish in my mouth
like this and I'm like...
I was blindfolded and they took me outside
and they took my blindfold off
and there was just a car staring at me, like revving,
and I was like okay, this is slightly terrifying
and they laid me down in front of the car,
put my head to one side and they were like, stay there, don't move.
Was it scary or more like just disturbing?
Yeah, it was quite scary cos a lot of the time you're blindfolded
so you don't know like what's gonna happen.
And I heard the car driving over to me
and suddenly there was pressure on one side of my face
and the car wheel spun on my cheek
and I just, I've never screamed like that in my life,
I just stayed still and just screamed and screamed and screamed.
So, see that doesn't, that doesn't sound appealing to me.
What made you want to do that?
I dunno, I just thought it looked fun, so... LAUGHTER
That was the most craziest experience I've ever had in my life
and I would do it again within a heartbeat, like.
Scare experiences like Zoe's
can give the thrill-seeker a boost in self confidence.
Their brain rewards them
for having conquered and mastered something threatening.
There is also the relief when it's over.
That's why so many people actively seek out fear.
Come into this darkened room.
Professionally run scare experiences are relatively niche.
I want to test their reactions
to another much more popular way of generating fear.
Another voyager. (Laughs)
Rachel has been a nurse for 15 years.
I quite like the, the gory side of things.
You know, blood and guts and wounds don't bother me.
The reality of situations is a little bit easier to handle
than the imagined.
Rachel is comfortable in real-life trauma situations
but how will she cope with this?
Hold on tight, admire the view.
And she has no idea she's about to experience
a rollercoaster ride of epic proportions.
(Gasps) Oh, my God.
I don't really like rollercoasters,
just the whoa, whoa thing, you know.
Ahh. Oh, my God.
(Squeals)
(Screams)
Oh God, my stomach! (Laughs)
I love it, "My stomach," so she actually felt the nausea.
Ahhh! I'm sorry.
Don't apologise, we love the screaming.
The reason so many people enjoy things like going on rollercoasters
is after that initial surge of fear
you get the release of feel-good chemicals
like dopamine, endorphins and serotonin,
and so you want to do it again and again.
(Laughing) Oh, my word!
Oh, I've never been up that high before on a rollercoaster.
So that for me was a really, really interesting way
of experiencing something, you know,
something that really would have frightened me in real life,
in a completely safe way.
(Laughs)
You absolutely feel then like you're just completely plummeting,
I was rocking all over the shop.
This is cool.
Virtual reality, or VR, is so realistic
your brain can be completely fooled.
Wow, it actually affects your balance.
Messages are sent from balance sensors in the inner ear
via the brain to the muscles, to react to what's being seen.
Whoa, whoa!
See that? He nearly fell over. Yes.
The visual information tricked his vestibular system,
sent the wrong messages to his muscles so that he nearly fell.
VR is so immersive it can even induce motion sickness.
Wow.
That was so weird.
Are you all right? Yeah!
Whoa, my legs have gone a bit jelly-like.
CROW CAWS
You can be scared by things you see...
even if they're not real
and you can of course be scared by sound
but strangely enough you can also be scared by vibrations
which are so low-frequency you're not even aware they're there
and yet they still produce a feeling of dread.
Well, that's the theory. I want to put that to the test.
These low-frequency soundwaves are known as infrasound.
Below 20 hertz they're outside the human hearing range.
Infrasound occurs naturally.
It's produced by large animals, earthquakes and volcanoes,
which may explain why we seem to be programmed to fear it.
In the modern world, infrasound can be generated by wind turbines,
airplanes or machinery.
THUNDERCLAP
To see if infrasound really does have a subconscious effect
I've split my guinea pigs into two groups
and asked them to rate some Victorian curios
on how scary they find them.
What, there's a gun! Hello, darling.
One group are left to get on with it.
That's a rhino foot.
Is it actually real? Yeah, that's a real rhino foot.
The other group are unwittingly under the influence of infrasound.
So they've got a giant speaker behind the screen in that room
producing this really low-frequency sound.
If we asked them they'd say they have no awareness whatsoever
of anything happening in the room.
That's fascinating that we can not hear something and be afraid.
That thing, could you imagine that flying? Exactly, that's...
They can't hear the infrasound
but we've shifted the pitch so you can.
Amongst this group is taxidermist Jayne.
No! This unnerves me more than the spider.
It says "do not touch". Jayne doesn't care.
Oh, I'm touching it. Jayne's rock and roll.
I'm a very logical person.
Things like that do not scare me at all.
I would say people scare me more.
That wouldn't hurt you, that could kill you, that could kill you.
That can't kill you, the person that's holding it would kill you.
It's back to humans, what humans are capable of, isn't it? Yeah.
My mother was extremely over-protective,
I mean, really over-protective.
"No, no, you can't go out, Jayne,
"somebody might grab you."
They have a lot to answer for, mothers.
Okay, so this is without infrasound, is that right?
That's right.
Each group have now rated the objects from a "not at all scared" - 1,
to a "frightened to death" - 10.
A couple of them are. So we're gonna go completely cumulative,
(Sings) da-da-da da-da da-da, grand total of 96.
Okay so the uh...
The non-infrasonic group... Get 96.
Bring in the next box. (All laugh)
Kind of small sample, so who knows, but in theory,
in theory this group should score slightly higher
because they've been exposed to infrasound
which should have subconscious....
So they were rating the same objects but under different conditions.
So Paul is 21.
Charlie's 18.
Jayne is a very underwhelming straight ones.
She could have had a floor effect, right?
What's the floor effect?
The floor effect is when you have no response.
The look that she had, the body posture, sort of chin jutting,
defiant pose, to me that suggested
that she was like, whatever you say I'm not gonna be scared.
My house is a bit like this. (Laughs)
Nice. Same size?
Yeah. The thing is I've got real human skulls
and a real human skeleton hand.
Uh 6 and 4... So I've got 28 out of these 2.
We'll say 85. 114.
Wow.
Jayne was unfazed, but even so,
her infrasound group found our objects more frightening.
The infrasound lot definitely scored a higher fear factor.
Yeah, they did, that's almost a 20 point difference.
Yeah, which is pretty cool.
Our small study is consistent with other research
which has found infrasound can make people feel uneasy, disturbed,
even a little bit anxious.
World wide, anxiety's on the rise. It's now as common as depression.
A recent study found one in ten of us suffer from it.
A common form is social anxiety, the fear of not fitting in.
Sometimes on the Underground when a train's coming,
just go down there and then, you know, splat and I'd be dead.
Pulse quite high, he, he might have a bit of social anxiety
about meeting new people.
Yes, which is again a very common fear, isn't it? Yeah.
I thought there was something wrong with me, like I was suicidal.
Just like the random thoughts. Yeah exactly, yeah that's...
There were about four conversations going on at once,
everybody trying to compete with volume levels
and I just couldn't hear anybody at all
because in situations like that it's a bit of a sensory overload.
LAUGHTER AND CHATTER
There's too much noise and it just merges into one
and I just sit there and go very quiet.
For some reason if I've got hot coffee I just wanna pour it on someone's head.
It was exhausting.
I felt so, I felt really wiped out.
Just went up to people and went rarrrh.
You see, it's a vocal thing, yeah. It's just so weird.
But I do it, I do it though.
Do either of you suffer from social anxiety?
He doesn't, he doesn't, she doesn't.
You? Yeah I think I probably do. Really?
I do, yeah, get quite, if you had my heart rate then
before I went into a room, particularly of people I didn't know.
I find that surprising, you hide it well.
Yeah, no I'm, I'm faking.
Most of us feel shy and self-conscious
when we meet other people for the first time,
and reliance on social media has made us less and less comfortable
with real-life interactions.
It often starts when you are a teenager and it can become crippling.
Anxiety is now one of the most common mental illnesses.
When it becomes extreme, it becomes a phobia.
You get glossophobia, which is the fear of public speaking,
and monophobia, which is the fear of being alone.
But what is the commonest phobia?
Dessert is on its way.
Ohhhh.
This is gonna be something gross.
I said the silver reveal.
Right, this looks ominous. Okay.
You see, they're expecting something unpleasant,
it's not gonna be up to their expectations.
Okay.
I'm gonna, no, I wanna lift it.
I'm scared it's gonna be something alive.
Let's see what's for dinner!
What?
PANICKED SCREAMING
I'm freaking out my mind, with that.
Ah, ah, I'm gonna be sick, I'm gonna be sick.
Oh, my goodness, don't come near me...
(Screams) No, no, no! No, fuck off!
147.
Who? Zoe. 153.
Don't bring them near me, please.
Ahhh. Whoa!
No, not near me, no no no, no no no!
Can I kill it if it comes near me?
Again there's another one you just wouldn't predict, would you?
She's been away for hard-core weekends
where you get sort of captured, kidnapped, tortured,
beaten up, you know, pretty well, she seeks out the hardest
and there she is freaking out with some pretty small spiders.
Are we eating one, or...?
Yeah, do we really have to eat them?
Careful, there's a really big one on the floor now.
You all right?
That was probably one of the most terrified points of my life.
I've never had that many spiders that close to me ever.
(Yells) Oh, my God, there's a huge, no I, no no no...
No, ah-ah, no no no.
That is really abnormal behaviour.
It's what you would expect with a phobia.
Everything she's doing is keeping her heart rate up,
so jogging on the spot is gonna keep her heart rate up
which is gonna keep her...
So everything she's doing basically is exacerbating the fear. Absolutely.
And I saw another big one and he's moving and he should be dead.
Arachnophobia, the fear of spiders, is THE number one phobia worldwide.
A study found that a third of women and one in five men
admitted to feeling nervous, anxious or frightened
when confronted by a spider.
Could you follow me to the library? Yeah, yeah.
Holy moly.
I saw Zoe and she was so petrified that I was thinking
"Oh, so maybe I'm not as scared, I'm not as scared as that,"
and that gave me confidence.
(Gasps) I think my heart rate monitor's probably like, whoo.
Will we just sit down?
We knew from her response to the creepy crawlies in the film
that Zoe really doesn't like spiders.
There's nothing on any of you, is there?
But even so, her response was extreme.
She showed some phobic signs, like a rapid heart rate and panic
but she was also able to stay in the room
which someone with a full-blown phobia is unlikely to do.
Oh ho-ho, I'm on edge.
While Zoe recovers from her spider scare, talk turns to the paranormal.
I'm very into my paranormal and supernaturals.
Go on, tell us some.
Last Christmas, doing the Christmas dinner,
I changed all the dials on the, on the oven,
saw something out the corner of my eye
and then turned to the sink just to do a bit of washing up, turned back,
all the dials had gone back to zero. Wow.
But I just thought maybe I was tired so I hadn't actually done it
so changed them all again, saw something run,
like something quite small run by the side
so I went to check where my little boy was
but he'd been playing up in his room or the lounge or something,
went back to the kitchen and they'd all been set back to zero again.
God, that is amazing.
When I was little and I was with my friend
that I used to watch all the horror films with
I had quite a few paranormal experiences then
and have done ever since.
You're obviously really sensitive to the... Yeah.
frequencies and energies that lift.
Well, that's what I half think and I half think it could be
or I could just be a bit odd.
(Laughs) I don't really know.
OWL HOOTS
Most of us at some point in our lives
have experienced something which we find really hard to explain.
Uhh, God, is that a ghost? No, it's probably a draft.
But if you are a sensation seeker
then you are much more likely to go for the paranormal explanation
than the mundane one.
And now it's dark, it's time to tap into those paranormal fears.
Eerie as hell.
HOST: Now we're out here in the dark
it seems appropriate to tell you about some murder, triple murder.
Night has always been a fearful time for humans,
the realm of dangerous predators like big cats and wolves
as well as more imaginary creatures.
Research suggests that over half the British population
believe in ghosts, so time for a walk to the local cemetery.
There's a very interesting inscription
on this particular tombstone.
"Why seek you the living...
"Among the dead."
Um, let's go back.
Until now I've been concentrating on creating individual fear
but I want to see how they will react as a group
when things go bump in the night.
Okay, we all watch the movies, right,
and when you split up everyone dies.
Easy.
SNARLING ANIMAL Ahhh!
(Laughs)
Wow. That's good.
Even sitting in here, that roar made me jump.
Yeah, yeah.
I've asked my fake fright hosts to try and create a bit of group fear.
So just listen out, because occasionally the church bell rings.
Oh, shit.
What, what, what? Where's she going?
Are we running? I'm running.
She just left us all behind and the others were like, what do we do,
and I said, well, you can either stay here in the dark
or she's got the torch, so I'm gonna run with her.
You'd better come this way.
Fear is contagious.
When one person appears to panic and run
then all the others join in,
even though they don't know what they're running away from.
Our remote ancestors would have been vulnerable
to an unexpected attack by vicious predators.
It's impossible to be alert all the time, cover every angle,
so we evolved to react to other people's fear.
In the modern world, we are still vulnerable to contagious fear.
When it happens in a big group, we call it mass hysteria.
Oh, I feel like it's been forever since we were in here.
Where can I sit for a while?
What's happening out there?
Oh, my God, there's a fire.
Out the window there is indeed a roaring fire.
Oh, that's lovely. Oh, wow!
When's it gonna dawn on them?
Are we gonna walk across the hot stones?
There we go. Yeah. The penny's dropped.
As we've just seen, fear is contagious.
I want to see if courage is as well.
Will group support help them get through my final challenge?
Ooh! Yay!
Will a fire walk hurt?
Everyone's had an experience of burning themselves
and so, irrespective of their lifetime experience,
they're gonna genuinely fear stamping on that coal.
No, I'm still not convinced.
Is this advisable medically to walk?
No, not coming from someone who works in a burns unit,
no, they're gonna rip me to shreds.
So she's the ideal person. I'm standing next to her.
Fear is the thing that holds people back
because fear stops you going out and exploring the world
and it stops you doing things.
But fear can motivate some people.
Fear can drive people to perform really well.
But this is a real and present danger.
Ah, this is exciting.
Eeeh! Am I going to...?
Okay guys, straight up to the top. Right to the top.
Okay. Here we go.
This is amazing.
Oh that's nice. Oh, God.
Looking lovely!
That is actually the coals now.
Okay, guys, keep it going. (All whoop)
With all this cheering, I think they're all gonna do it.
Humans get a lot of strength from other humans.
Go, go! "Go, go" can inspire...
Rather than be careful, be careful.
What's your name? Abi! Are you ready? Yes!
Show me Abi, let's go.
ALL WHOOP AND CHEER
Okay, show me, let's go.
'DIES IRAE' FROM VERDI'S REQUIEM
Yeah.
That's Peter, isn't it? Yeah, that's Peter.
What's your name? Peter!
Are you ready? Yeah! Show me, Peter.
Experiencing fear does... connect us with one another.
Yeah!
When actually so many of us feel disconnected with one another
and we feel isolated
and so having a shared feeling of vicarious thrills and fear
it, it draws people together, ironically.
What's your name? Paul! Are you ready? Yeah!
Come on, let's go.
Yes!
Oh, my God, no, I'm terrified.
Everyone go quiet. (Laughs)
I loved Buffy the Vampire Slayer,
she was kind of my female, like, heroine for life.
I'm scared I'm gonna fall over. No, no, Andy, we're here.
I kinda wanna rebel
and do something that just makes me feel really alive.
Okay, guys. What's your name? Zoe!
Are you ready? Yes!
Come on, Zoe, go.
I like the thought that I have a power in myself to go further,
you know, to do something that is difficult.
One day I'll be Buffy, like, that is for certain.
I have to say congratulations to everybody.
Conquering fear is all about kind of bonding, isn't it?
I'm fascinated by that, how quickly they overcome it
because of the group support and the, the enthusiasm.
It's really fascinating, it makes me wonder
if there are new treatments for anxiety out there
that could be done with groups with lots of support. Yeah.
Great, so it's inspired them, but it's inspired you too.
Thank you so much!
Our ten fear junkies have been put through
what I think has been a very revealing fright night.
They still don't know they've been watched every scream of the way
by me and my experts.
So, time for one last apparition.
D'you know what was creepy today? What?
When we got here and our drivers got out of our cars and walked off.
I liked that bit. And they're probably still just walking around.
Ooh. ALL: Hello! Hey!
Hello. Thank you all for being such brilliant guests.
Thank you. We really hope you've enjoyed it.
It's the end of our fright factory event.
We just have one last thing for you, a special guest to introduce.
Please welcome... Dr Michael Mosley.
CHEERING
I like this guy.
ALL CHEER Hello. Good evening.
Good morning, in fact I think it is.
Hello.
Ah, how are we this morning?
Good.
We have been watching you for the last 12 hours or so.
Ha ha! Wow!
This has all been a device so we can sort of study you in detail
and it has been really, really interesting, I have to say.
Once upon a time fear was there to protect you,
fear was there to stop you being eaten by the sabre-toothed tiger.
These days it tends to dominate people's lives in different ways.
Does anyone here sort of feel social anxiety?
That is the commonest form of fear that, you know, pervades society
is social anxiety,
and it's the willingness to go out there and engage in the world
which is actually, I think, a side of true bravery.
I get social anxiety, I find it very difficult
going into rooms full of strangers.
LAUGHTER Like now!
Your heart rate's up now.
I think the great thing is that you lot are evidence
that if people expose themselves enough to fear
that you can overcome lots of them.
Part of the brain called the amygdala
lights up any time you detect danger or threat
and because you lot treat danger as a form of entertainment
you've got another part of your brain very well trained,
the medial prefrontal cortex just here,
because that can kind of quieten the amygdala
so you feel less of a sense of threat.
I was quite taken by you, Zoe,
because you do come across as fearless
and yet your fear is contained in one particular stimulus
which is spiders.
Did you all enjoy the coals? ALL: Yeah!
That was awesome.
You guys worked really, really well together
and it actually made me think that group support
could actually be really helpful
to help people overcome anxious scenarios.
So well done for that.
So thank you very much,
it's been hugely entertaining watching you in action.
LAUGHTER
Through a night of jumps and screams
we've shown that fear can be induced in all sorts of different ways.
(Screams)
And that even hardened fear lovers can be made afraid.
But it's fear of things beyond our control
that can cause us anxiety.
So long as we harness fear in the right way
we can keep ourselves open to new experiences
rather than being debilitated by worry.
I want to get to the end of my life and just think, I gave it all a go,
there wasn't anything that I umm'd and ahh'd about
and then later regretted not doing.
What I've learnt, I guess,
is that I'm more of a suspicious person than I thought,
because I'm always assuming someone's gonna do something.
I'm pleased to say I am what I thought I was,
yeah, for somebody that's not even 5 foot, you know,
I'm quite a, a strong person.
I think I've learnt from myself that generally it takes a lot
to make me scared, um,
and I feel quite badass, like, I'm not gonna lie.
Captions (c) SBS Australia 2017