Talk:Acrophobia

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[edit] Citation wanted: Urge to jump off high places

(The original poster left no headline. I made up one. --Netizen 12:08, 10 March 2006 (UTC))

"Some acrophobics also suffer from urges to throw themselves off high places, despite not being suicidal."

Is there a reference? I've done a search on the web for the definition for acrophobia & have only found http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=9944 and variants of such (http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/acrophobia?view=uk , http://www.infoplease.com/dictionary/acrophobia).

My own experience of acrophobia includes the symptom I'm asking about, but is merely hearsay & anecdotal until a reference is given. wbm 17:10, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Following Netizen's lead, I added the footnote indicator *{{citation needed}}* to the discussed line of text. I perhaps should've labelled it a minor edit, but was not sure. wbm 21:34, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm afraid I can't provide a citation either but not marking the edit "minor" is quite alright. As per Help:Minor edit any change that makes the article "worth reviewing for anyone who watches it" should be marked major. Since peer review is exactly what is wanted by the "citation needed" tag "major change" it is. --Netizen 22:22, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

I nowikied the citation needed template so that this talk page does not show up in the NPOV disputes category. -- Kjkolb 18:34, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Probably what they're experiencing is momentary confusion. They look for a path down and see one but it takes their brain a split second to reject it as unsafe. Since they instantaneously considered an unsafe route, they interpret the error as a signal to jump. Since they're not traveling down but staying in the same place they play the same loop over and over. They may feel OK in a plane when its clear from the get-go they can't climb down. We may be able to email and ask a specialist in the neurophysiology of motion. Cayte 00:38, 17 May 2006 (UTC)Cayte

Got an idea for an experiment. Set up various VR simulation landscapes. Monitor a subject with a PET and track the eye movements. Betcha it would track the most plausible path of ledges to ground. The computational power explains the dizzziness, the difficulty balancing and the seething quality of the valleyThe Pleisticene huntress in me scents a failsafe mechanism. Come worst case, the CNS is priming to attempt a last ditch ratchet to safety by jumping from latch to latch. A bit like tacking in a sailboat except no one has ever done the ratchet maneuver by choice and I'm sure the autonomic nervous system is charge at this point and the cortex is zoned out. .64.140.228.113 02:03, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Irrational Fear?

It says it is an irrational fear. But should it be considered one? It's only completly irrational in more severe cases. Irrational seems more to be like Xenophobia...because theres no reason to be Xenophobia...but the fear of heights...that can make sense I mean falling of somthing high can kill you. Foreigners or strangers won't really do that (well I mean they could but so could anyone else that isn't a foreigner or stranger). So is it really all that "irrational"? Caleb09 01:00, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

I would have to say it's irrational. I'm a mild acrophobic, but there's no reason for it - I know there isn't a rational reason, and it'll be safe if I'm normal and keep my head, but my brain doesn't listen. So while there's a rational fear of heights, the cause of it can be and looks like it's irrational. --Dayn 10:57, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Engvall

C'mon.. it can't be a coincidence that his name almost reads 'Scared Fall' in Dutch, right? -- Harry 10:36, 27 November 2006 (UTC)