As long as I can remember, conversations (and in some cases, simply reading) about creepy or unsettling occurances makes me tear up. I’m not crying, I’m not upset. If I’m in a conversation, I interact completely normally and rationally, with the exception of tears streaming down my face. The severity increases with the intensity of the discussion, and if I’m the one relating the story.
I only know one other person that this happens to. She’s pretty normal (as much as I, I’d say). Neither of us have anything too god-awful in our pasts. I’ve had my share of creepy happenings, but nothing to top anyone else’s experiences.
Full out horror doesn’t do it. It’s mostly unexplained, slightly malevolent phenomena. Think of the infamous Art Bell “Area 51” callerthat got rudely interrupted one night - sheesh, I’m starting to tear up as I type this. (BTW, I make no claims for the veracity of any theories put forth by the link’s author - I only include it for the transcript. There’s a more subdued explaination here.)
So, what’s the deal? Is this at all common, and why does it happen?
OK, I hate bumping my own threads, but Dijon Warlock has given me hope that its not just some isolated, wierd as hell occurance that I’ll just have to live in isolation with forever and ever.
Mayhaps I overstate my case. :smack:
But it really is weird, it really does happen, I have no control over it, and I’d just like to know what it is. Is there any Doper that can shed some light on this? Anyone? Even if only to tell me what search term I can Google with to find out more about it…
A big, hearty, thanks in advance to anyone that can contribute. And Dijon Warlock, lets get together sometime and trade spooky stories. I’ll bring the tissues.
I’ll give this another bump, because I’ve often wondered what causes me to tear up when I hear something spooky. I don’t know what the survival advantage is for my eyes to well up with tears upon listening to EVP and such, but it sure happens every time I do.
I get this, but what does it for me is not so much hearing spooky stuff, but looking into the vastness of space. I first noticed it as a kid, staring upwards out of the back window of the car as Dad drove back from my grandparents’ house. The road went over some very dark countryside so the stars would be really bright.
I can replicate the same feeling, reading this thread. I sometimes find I get a similar response if I read or hear something and have a strong feeling of empathy with the opinion, or someone is clearly thinking on exactly the same lines as I do. It’s hard to put this into words, though.
I should add that this doesn’t lead to actual tears falling; just that I can feel the water in my eyes. If I concentrated I could get the tears to flow (handy for acting work, I guess) but it doesn’t generally happen.
I don’t know that we’re particularly talking survival advantage. Sometimes there are characteristics that are just along for the ride, or whose survival advantage lies so far back in time (but it’s not doing any harm, so losing it causes no advantage either) that they might as well be.
As for the eerie causing you to tear up, I would say that this is a stress reaction well within the norm. I remember when I was young and naive and read Chariots of the Gods? by von Idiot. At the time, I lacked knowledge or analytical experience to dismiss it, and I was shaking like a leaf by the time I was through. Not because I was afraid; there was nothing to be afraid of. But it obviously hit home in a way that stressed me to such an extent that it was expressed physiologically.
Tears are definitely a physical way of expressing stress. I almost never cry out of sadness (Oddly, I cry easily at books and movies - my GOd, the Southpark Movie had me tearing up at the end!). But when I’m furiously angry, it’s often all I can do to keep from humiliating myself by bursting into tears.
I’ve just finished a number of web searches for ‘involuntary tears’, plus some modifiers like ‘odd’, ‘eerie’, ‘strange’, ‘listen’, ‘psycology’, ‘phenomenon’, ‘syndrom’, ‘cause’, etc.
From the results, it appears you are a character in a novel. A dramatic novel, perhaps bad, certainly not mainstream. You might even be a fanfic character.
Sorry, and yes, I know this is GQ. It’s just so unusual that such varied searches all return bad fiction, with the only common point being ‘involuntary tears’. I found nothing on the web referring to this phenomenon. I find myself tearing easily, but not from listening to anything ‘eerie’ or ‘spooky’.
Well, I have been described as “a character”, dramatic, sometimes bad and never mainstream.
:eek:
I guess my preteen delusion that I’m simply a character in someone else’s book wasn’t too far from the truth, then. But dear god almighty, please don’t tell me I’m a…fanfic character. shudder What did I do in a past life to deserve that one?
Thanks to all who have responded, if only to commiserate. I guess stress - in whatever guise it presents itself as - can cause some freaky things. I’ll admit now that I had some friends that encouraged me to see a psychologist about this behavior, thinking that I had some deep dark (and eerie!) secret in my past that I suppressed, but that I still harbored to the point that anything strange and spooky would set off the physiological reaction.
So here’s a question that might have a more concrete answer: what’s the latest on memory suppression therapy? Bunk, or a modicum of truth hiding in there somewhere? Would something like that help me determine why this stress reaction kicks in over something so odd as merely relating spooky occurances - and not over something like a high-stress job situation? The curiosity is killing me.
I remember distinctly this happening to me when I was younger and I’d talk to my friends about ghosts or aliens or ESP. Always wondered why. Guess I’ll never know. File it with pee-shivers under “who knows.” Now that I’m older it almost never happens.
I think it must be a subconscious fear response.
Yeah, I figured. Thanks for the link, though.
Maybe someday I’ll put this in IMHO and see how many other Dopers (that might not visit GQ) experience this. Then we’ll start talking about MIBs and haunted houses, play some audio reversal tapes, and we’ll all take turns to run off and blow our noses, with eyes running like we’re chopping onions
I have also noticed this phenomenon, it happens to me on occasion but not in the same way. I will occasionally get a tug at my tear ducts when I talk passionately about off beat topics like aliens, ghosts, and UFOs. I notice it when I am listening or speaking about any topic which has not been fully explored by science…when it feels like any grain of fact might contribute to my understanding of something obscure. Its when I believe I know (or think I know) something other people have not realized. No name for it that I can think of.
Yea so ever since i can remember (im 17 now), when ever i am watching a show or video( i think what im watching has to be true) if its something about ghosts of aliens or something that cant be explained that people dont knoe alot about like maybe space or something, i will start to tear up really bad depending on i guess how “awsome” it is. Its actually quite embarrasing when your with other people. It happends alot when i watch shows on conspiracy theories, especially about aliens and area 51 and such. It also happened when i was watching a conspiracy show about the 9/11 attack being an inside job and the president and vice president i guess planning it. It seems as if im watching it and im kinda believing what there saying a little or whatever, then they say that one thing that makes me truley believe in what ever there talking about. its wierd.
This is continued from my last post above. I wish i knew why (obviously only a few people experience this occurance) had this happen to them.(us). I mean are we different from other people in ways that we arent capable of knowing? (giving me that teary feeling typing this) Do we maybe have a “6th sense”? I mean could us tearing up be a reaction to something that will have a impact on our lives in the future? It sure seems wierd to think about it that way since the topic we tear up on are supernatural things that people dont really know much about and aliens.
I appreciate these threads because whenever I start reading along, minding my own business, then suddenly I discover the age of the thread - almost a decade hop, it enables me to feel this time rift sensation, which would be undoubtedly unattainable, anywhere or anyhow, otherwise. Thanks. Awesome!
Well, I can’t speak for the original posters in the thread, but I doubt that it’s a sixth sense or a future-tingle. I had a “tearing up” reaction to spooky stuff (for me it was primarily ghost-type stuff) commonly throughout my childhood, but haven’t had it in years (I’m 26 now). I also haven’t had any interactions with ghosts, aliens, etc., that my 6th sense would have warned me about.
