Fear has ability to numb senses

          Strange as it may sound, sometimes the eye cannot register what it sees. Or the ears do not hear the sounds they listen to. There are many surprises and contradictions in our sensory perceptions which we should understand as we get older. For example, one would expect several eyewitness accounts of the same incident to concur on all aspects. But talk to any criminal investigator and you would be surprised at the amount of variance that emerges from such eyewitness reports when under trauma.

The victim of a mugging, it has been found, generally perceives the person who assaulted him to be larger and more menacing than he actually is. That is because the mind of the victim, out of fear, already has conjured up that vision while the incident is underway, overriding the images that are streaming in from the lens of his eyes. It is a time when reality — as seen through his eyes — has been relegated to the backseat by his mind. Similarly, people in an earthquake always believe that their harrowing experience lasted more than it actually did.

One can understand that human powers of observation become suspect when under traumatic conditions. But the sad aspect is that in many cases, our powers of observation are compromised for long periods in normal times. That is because we choose to see only what we wish to see and choose to hear what we want to hear.

What I am talking about is that even a standard reply by someone will elicit different responses from us at different times; depending on our mindset and how we wish to interpret the signal. For example, if you are extremely upset with your son for whatever reason, even if he would genuinely ask you how you are when you returned from a walk, you are likely to snap at him and perhaps tell him it was none of his business! That same question in the same tone would, at better times, be answered with a lot of warmth and affection.

Why the change in your response? The answer to that lies in yourself; it was your mental condition of being upset that triggered off a negative response in the earlier example. And that is so true in all our responses; they depend on our state of mind at that point of time.

It does not deserve any great insight to see the irrationality of such behaviour and decide that we must make amends and change such an attitude. Every response of ours must be independent of our mental makeup at that point in time and should be on its own merit.

And while the benefits to the people we deal with are apparent, it also has a lot of advantages for ourselves. For starters, we will not be misunderstood. Nor will we be manipulated. Because if the people around you know you are a person of moods, they can play the game to their own advantage as well!

                                                                                                  - Anupam Kher