Compose a 1000 words essay on A guide to Acrophobia:the Causes,symptoms,and nature of extreme fears of heights. Needs to be plagiarism free!Download file to see previous pages... A prevalent dream typ

Compose a 1000 words essay on A guide to Acrophobia:the Causes,symptoms,and nature of extreme fears of heights. Needs to be plagiarism free!

A prevalent dream type is that of falling. Psychoanalysts have noted that falling in a dream is common, especially among those who suffer from insecure feelings, unstable moods, and anxieties about the future. A fall dream culminates in an impact, which results in awakening out of the dream. In reality, the act of falling from a tall summit is no different. A fear of falling from such a great height is one of the most common and culturally universal fears among human beings. In the scientific literature, a fear of heights (and of consequently falling) is known as acrophobia. Acrophobia is a condition whose name is derived from the Greek words meaning “edge” and “fear.” As one can tell from this etymology, the fear of heights is not only about the fear of the high point at which one is standing, but also of the edge of that point, which implicates falling as the true source of one’s fear. Given the prevalence of the falling type of dreams, one would expect a human fascination or familiarity with falling from great heights. However, in reality, it is a threat to our individual survival, which is a helpful perspective to take in asking why this fear and this kind of dream are so common among human beings, regardless of their culture, social context, and stage in development. Firstly, acrophobia is defined by an extreme fear of heights, moving past the kind of caution that defines a normal aversion to heights. Also, acrophobia is an irrational sort of fear insofar as it is induced not to an immediately threatening stimulus, but to the thought of an immediately threatening stimulus paired with an actual stimulus. For instance, when an acrophobe sees a sharp edge over a cliff, that individual is likely to imagine falling off of that cliff rather than perceiving that edge without its associations to death and falling. Acrophobia affects somewhere between 2 and 5 percent of people. nearly twice as many women compared to men are acrophobic (Fritscher, 2011). The primary symptom of acrophobia, like with other irrational fears, is a panic attack when faced with the undesired stimulus. When a person who suffers from acrophobia enters a high place, he or she may suffer a panic attack, which is a suddenly and briefly occurring period of intense apprehension. Panic attacks are often debilitating and prevent physical movement. Accordingly, for an acrophobe, a panic attack may prevent that person from getting to a safer location. Being unable to remove oneself from a situation brings about a state of helplessness and makes the situation worse (Fritscher, 2011). Coping strategies to stressful situations include making oneself small, mistrust of one’s own sense of balance, and therefore crawling or kneeling. In addition to anxiety during the event, acrophobia also generates anxiety in individuals with respect to upcoming situations that have the inherent possibility of including height. For instance, a person might avoid visiting a friend’s home if it is in a high-rise apartment complex, and the balcony will be used. The origins of acrophobia is a complex issue. Researchers commonly associate phobias, which are irrational fears, to traumatic experiences. If, for example, a person nearly fell from a 10-story window as a child, the theory is that the person as an adult would suffer from acrophobia. In that case, even though falling from windows is relatively rare, one would be urged to ask whether that is indeed irrational: if an event happened in the past, it is in fact one of many possible events. Another issue that is raised by the traditional explanation of acrophobia in particular is that human beings seemingly have a natural apprehension of heights. The falling dream, as was mentioned previously, is one of the most common dreams for human beings.