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Pavitra comments on The Mystery of the Haunted Rationalist - Less Wrong
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Has anyone had the opposite experience where a rational realization has an immediate emotional impact? For example, as a child I was quite afraid of the dark and would have to switch lights off in a particular order to ensure I was never subjected to too much darkness. I vividly remember the exact moment I overcame this fear. I was in the bathroom at the sink trying to avoid looking in the mirror because I had just watched a horror movie involving mirrors. It suddenly occurred to me that all my life I had been looking in the mirror without fear and that nothing had changed except my own disposition. This epiphany rushed through me. I suddenly realized that all such "supernatural" things were my own superstitions and not "out there" in the world. The world was concrete and could not change in inexplicable, "supernatural" ways (the concept of which was almost completely associated with camera trickery in movies for me - i.e., if it was dark something might happen, if I look away and look back something might be there, etc). I immediately lost my fear of the dark and it never returned. It could be, of course, that this loss of fear had been building over time and only in this moment did I manage to disassociate the rituals I had built around it, etc, rather than it being the case that this rational epiphany led to my loss of fear.
A Toilet Flush Monster climbed out of my toilet whenever I used to flush at night. If I could get back into bed completely covered by a blanket before it fully climbed out (i.e. the tank filled in with water and stopped making noises), then I was safe. All lights had to be off the whole time, or else the monster could see me.
Don't laugh.
In one of my childhood's flashes of clarity, I must have wondered how I knew about the monster if I'd never actually seen it. So one day I watched the toilet flush, and no monster came out. I checked with the lights off, and light on, and nothing. Since then, I could go to the bathroom with lights on, for once.
Well, I defeated the monster. But I'm still a little afraid of using a flashlight at night, or stepping into the floodlight when there's a lot of darkness around. So the monster vacated the toilet, but continues to haunt me.
PS: For fear that my statement may be misinterpreted: I don't actually believe in the monster, duh! But I still show symptoms of the Toilet Flush Monster disease.