Shadow Puppet Storyteller

Personal Horror

My experience of images, normal sounds made scary , anything that happens in the mind before I am fully awake; eyes closed or open, are like a personal and penetrating video monitor in my head. For the first time, I've realized that when I have watched any horror movie on television, my experience is more penetrating and long-lasting. My best example was the early morning "can't sleep" moments after watching Carrie home alone as a young teen. When I stepped out of my bedroom into the dark hallway to get to mom, I could hear my own heartbeat, loud and heavy in my chest. That just made my terror worse.

So what is it that makes the experience in the theater, perhaps stronger reaction at the moment, but less likely to freak later? Trying to help my daughter, a young teen, get over her self-imposed anxiety (having watched a Grudge movie yesterday at a friends' house) and then not being able to deal with her room environment last night.

Now this morning needing to relax after being awakened because my snoring apparently sounds like the Grudge creature (Huh? bet my shamble is pretty close too -- heheh.) But I wouldn't know because I don't watch a great number of the horror movies out there? So, why is she?