Halloween is the season for getting scared. For many Wildcats, getting scared can be as easy as one, two, three. There are all types of situations where it seems as though your fears come alive.
Getting scared by someone can be unintentional, but at the same time it can be really scary. Jeremy Price, a theater major, spoke of a time when he thought he was home alone but proved to be very wrong.
“I was going to get my dog’s food and had my headphones in,” Price said. His dad snuck up behind him, which scared Price so badly he jumped forward into the pantry.
To help get over being frightened, Price explained how he just laughed about the situation. Making light of a frightening situation is one of the best ways to limit being scared.
Watching a scary movie is a classic example of how many students can become tremendously scared. “I hate jump scares,” WSU student Jace Arellano said. “I hate scary movies.”
He told of the time he watched the horror film “Oculus,” and how he had a hard time dealing with being scared.
“I ate a lot of junk food during and after the movie,” Arellano said. For Arellano, eating was his way to help take his mind off the scary movie.
Uriel Flores, a mechanical engineering technology major, had a similar experience while watching a scary movie. For Flores it was when he saw the horror flick “Chucky.”
“When I saw people dying by a little doll, it kind of freaked me out,” Flores said. It was something he wasn’t used to seeing.
Along with Arellano, Nichole Fuit, a computer science major, also agrees that jump scares are the worst. A time when Fuit got crazy scared was when she went to the haunted house, Nightmare on 13th. For Fuit there was one particular part out of the whole haunted house that got her good.
“There was that part where the floor drops and I lost it.” Fuit said.
That was something she definitely was not anticipating to happen.
“I laughed as hard as I could,” Fuit said. Once she realized what happened, the only thing she saw fit to do was to simply smile and laugh.
Daniel Hernandez, a computer science major, also had a scary experience at Nightmare on 13th. He was frightened every time someone popped out at him, and he never saw it coming.
The best way for him to deal with it was to just keep going. When being trapped in a haunted house, it’s not like there is any where to go. “I just kept going and then got scared by the next person that came out,” Hernandez said.
So why is that many people get so scared even though it isn’t real?
According to Arellano, it’s mainly because people put themselves in that kind of a situation in their mind and they try and think how they would react in that situation, but the fear of actually being in it is way too much for them to handle.
Fuit believes it’s because it simply feels real. “When you are going through a haunted house there’s people with chainsaws and it smells real, and looks real like it’s right there,” Fuit said.
Price said that by expecting what’s happening, even if it’s not happening, students can get less scared. In other words, by expecting the unexpected, it will be lessen the chance of getting scared. By assuming the worst, things won’t turn out to be as bad.
“Don’t go alone, bring food and adequate lighting,” Arellano said, which in his opinion are the best ways to ensure not getting scared.
According to Fuit, the best medicine to reduce being scared is to just laugh.
“It’s a panic response, but it just makes you feel better about yourself a little bit,” Fuit said. In her opinion it’s a lot less hard to laugh than it is to cry about it.
During this Halloween season, getting scared becomes more inevitable. To those who absolutely hate being scared Hernandez said, “Hang in there and overcome your fears.”
