Blogpost # 7: Did you see that !?

Your eyes can deceive you and make you believe that everything that we see is real but have you ever think that everything we see, touch, smell, feel, taste or know is just a one big lie? How sure are you that as of now you are not dreaming? So what I'm telling is that even if we think that this is the reality there is a possible change that we are being deceived by something and everything we know is just a one big fat lie.

Based on my experience as a guy with a vast and creative imagination I get deceived so easily without my glasses and because of that blurry vision I could see a lot things that my brains tells me to see. To further explain that I looked up for the meaning of deception and what I got was it's meaning was the word deception means that a major relational transgression that often leads to feelings of betrayal and distrust between relational partners. Deception violates relational rules and is considered to be a negative violation of expectations. Most people expect friends, relational partners, and even strangers to be truthful most of the time. If people expected most conversations to be untruthful, talking and communicating with others would require distraction and misdirection to acquire reliable information..

As I was watching discovery channel I saw things that were really unexplained and they are just really creepy and the scary thing is that the only proof they had was just blurred pics and they somehow relied on their own sight then because of lack of proof they'll just settle by telling them that their eyes deceived them. Now I'm searching for fresh new articles I saw and an article on the site LiveScience entitled Mermaids & Mermen: Facts & Legends by Benjamin Radford . By reading this article I also learned some new things that are surprising and I recalled some interesting information that I forgot.

As stated in the article, the author said that there are many sightings of mermaids back then one example was a mermaid that entered Holland through a dike and by then the mermaid was injured so she was taken to a nearby lake to restore her health back. It is also said that she eventually turned into a productive citizen and learned to speak Dutch and she can do some household chores and the surprising thing is she even became a roman catholic. I think that based on what I've read is when the mermaid was nursed back to health she became grateful with the people of Holland and decided to give the help back.. well it was just my guess but most likely I think that happend. But the tail .. err I mean tale of mermaids didn't stop from this.. there are a lot of strange stories of mermaid sightings from all over the world but the craziest thing is we dont have a lot of proof to back it up. On a recent TV movie called "Mermaids: The Body Found" showed a somewhat legit proof of real mermaids in the deep blue depths of the ocean and because of that video recording a lot of people renewed their curiosity on mermaids and if they were real.

As I was reading through Radford's work he wrote something that retained on my mind and really made an impact to me, and that quote was "Though legends of half-human, half-fish seem archaic, mermaids are not merely dusty relics of bygone days. They are still a vibrant part of our culture and in their images can be found all around us in films, books, Disney movies, and even on Starbucks coffee cups. ".

Well yeah it seems like mermaids and some other mythical stuff are old now but even if mermaid tales are old it still come to trend because of curiosity and even if they are not in the news or being spotted it somehow stirs up our curiosity and bring the phrase "we are not alone". Maybe they are extinct or Maybe they are hiding ... Well we'll never know until we find out. About that quote that made an impact to me.. It is the fact that the logo of starbucks is really a mermaid I Dont Really Know That.

On my next article I focused on the idea of ghost and why some people can't see them. The site TheShadowlands had and article entitled Why Can't Everyone See Ghosts? by Dave Juliano.

On this article Dave Juliano explained here on how to see a ghost by the means of signals. He said that even if we are tuned into one station  we are able to get three different results and one of these results may get the spirit's signal string and by that they will see the spirit or ghost. Another factor is that people should have a great sense and psychic abilities to see ghost easily but if you dont have those qualities then you will have a hard time spotting one.

On this article also, Dave said that "Each person is actually a receiver of the signals or energy that a spirit gives off. Sometimes the signal can be tuned in and other times in cannot.".

So this literally means that you can't really see ghosts if they don't want to be seen and even if you have no experiences seeing ghost this just really means that you could still see them whether you like it or not and if the signal string of the ghost is recieved them probably you will see it.

Sometimes we see unexpected things and sometimes we don't believe what we see because we always thought that our mind is playing tricks on us. Our eyes can deceive us more than anything so we better watch out because sometimes we will not like what we see.

Blogpost  # 6 : Aaaah Monsters !

Sometimes we think that monsters hides in our closets, hides under the beds of an innocent little child and some hides inside our head. Kids may ask you "What is a monster" well for me when I was a kid I've always been told that monsters aren't real but because of my wild imagination I have a tendency to see monstrous visions of shadows that scares me and sometimes I can't even sleep at night because of the dark and because of that darkness my imagination starts to play tricks on me and puts images of human bodies without anatomy or scary faces of monsters that I saw on tv. Now I am not afraid of monsters anymore and I even use my vast monster imagination as references for my artworks when drawing.

We all have different opinions or knowledge of monster but do we really know what is a true monster? As i search its true definition a monster is just a figment of our imagination that is typically huge, scary and ugly and the second definition is a monster is a creature that is usually found in legends that produces fear in its physcial appearance and its action. Examples of monsters are the Minotaur of the Labyrnth , The Leviathan , The Krakken, Cyclops (not the X-men character) and many other creatures from the myth.

I have been fascinated by monsters all these years but there are still questions that bothers me "Why are there monsters?" and  "Why did I imagine such a thing", well what i saw in this this article entitle "Why We Invented  Monsters" by Paul A. Trout from the site Salon. I somehow managed to get the idea on why our mind creates such monstrosities without even seeing something like them

I have been quite interested in this article that Paul Trout worked on because I've learned a lot of things. First I learned here in this article that even if monsters have different traits, characteristics , features and abilities they all have one thing in common and that is "They all eat or kill humans". Next is I also learned that monsters are an exaggerated combination of human, anymals and objects that is mixed up together in the mind and they produce a horrifying image that result in a monster. After that I've learned that Monsters too can be a symbol of an emotion for example a fat monster is often times associated with greed and a nude body is associated with lust so thats how emotions create new monsters and syncing it with our minds. Lastly I learned that we are not actually born killers we just mimic the actions of the predators we've seen through past experiences like for weapons we use sharp objects as sharp as talon,claws,teeth of the predators who tried to opppose us and that results into the weapons machete,scythes,knives or stones and this is called mimesis.

After reading that interesting article Paul Trout wrote something in the article that I haven't forget easily and that quote is "One answer is to say that the “monster” was always in us, as part of our primate inheritance — the “killer ape” view. Faced with so many environmental threats, early humans had to band together in collective group defense rather than kill and eat each other, a task already performed so well by predators. No doubt within the group there was jostling for status and goods, but intra-group and inter-group homicide was probably very rare, or we would not be here to speculate about it. It took a very long time for humans to be transformed — indeed to transform themselves — into the alpha predator of the planet. ".

And in that quote he explained a new type of monster, a monster in our heads and I think he is stating the fact that we have our own monsters waiting to go out and unleash every bit of power we have. He also stated that we havent unleashed our true monsters within ourselves because we are helping each other to fight a better foe and not each other and this trait helped us to survive centuries and now we don't have better foes to fight, mankind started killing each other to fight for the top and if this helped us to survive I think this will also be the result of extinction and this is what made us MONSTERS.

 After that Im at it again browsing for more articles to write in the blog then I read this article on the site and I remembered as a kid I was afraid of monsters thats why I searched for an article that states why do kids fear monsters and how to get rid of that fear and I saw that article on Hubpages.com entitled Bed Time: When Young Children are Afraid of Monsters by TPSicotte.

As TPSicotte said in this article children has a wide imagination thats why they are afraid sometimes because they are seeing things that are somewhat unusual for the others to see. As kids they still cannot really distinguish reality and fantasy and they tend to mix those things up so thats w



hy they are really afraid of monsters because they think they were real. Next is that as grownups or teens we could easily help children to not be afraid of monsters by telling them that monsters aren't real or not scaring them all the time but eventually they will get over it when they grow up. Lastly he also said that we could use our everyday items to get rid of monster problems for kids like opening the nightlight on for them to not feel alone due to the darkness , turning on the radio playing soft music to make them feel comfortable and sometimes sleeping besides them to make them feel secure and all that.

The author also quoted that "It is typical for young children to have a good imagination and to believe in magical creatures and monsters. Between the ages of three and six many kids have a difficult time separating the fantasy world from the real world."

Because kids are really imaginative and their thoughts in their minds are not yet in sync with the real world so thats why some of them always imagine monsters because they are always scared with things they dont know. They will grow out of it eventually but to avoid trauma in children we should avoid scaring them and start caring children or on my part we should show them the positive side of monsters for them to truly accept and never be scared of monsters ever again.

There are monsters everywhere you look they arent just hiding under your bed or peeping inside your closet sometimes they all around you, wherever you look there are monsters but the thing is inside yourself is also a monster just waiting for the one trigger to be free but its alright dont be afraid we are going to meet someone whose monsters are compatible with ours. "We all go a little mad sometimes".

Blogpost # 5 : Big Screen Screamers

Ever wondered at some point why we spend a lot just to scare the crap out of us? Is it because we like to feel adrenaline rushing through our veins? Is it because we like to act tough in front of the ladies? Or plainly just because we find peace in those creepy Friday night flicks that makes us hooked into them. Well no matter what the reason is,we can't deny the fact that even if we don't like horror movies we peek at the screen out of curiosity and regret it when we get scared. As for me I watch horror movies because it is my only bonding time with my friends and family and I like scaring them while they are watching horror movies and tend to laugh at their faces full of fear and anger.

To further enhance our knowledge in horror movies let us first define what really makes a horror movie well.... horrific? Well as the definition states in the dictionary a horror movie is a film genre seeking to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's primal fears. So that means it is 

somewhat a form of entertainment that its primary role is to scare us and use our fears to scare us. Common horror films are always associated with supernatural creatures and stuff that is odd and somehow makes our brain think and say "What was that?".

Sometimes I wonder why horror movies are made because as I said a while ago "Who spends a lot of money just to scare yourself?". So now I bump into an article entitled "Why Are There Horror Movies" which is made by Norman Holland in the site PsychologyToday gave me a pretty neat answer on my question.

In the article that Norman Holland wrote, he explained his experience and thoughts on why are there horror movies when he saw the movie "Repulsion" and he quoted that it is one of the most scariest movie that he saw. Also in this article I learned that the reason why horror movies was made because we learn from the ugly and painful things, and we enjoy learning.

Norman Holland quoted that "Evolution suggests a different answer. Driving past a particularly gruesome accident on the highway, we crane our necks around to see the blood and guts. Fear and disgust signal dangers, and we do well, evolutionarily, to pay attention to them in order to maximize our chances for survival and reproduction. " 

For me it is a fact that we often avoid something that we dont know. Maybe it is just a form of self defence based on our instinct, but that instinct kept us alive for a lots and lots of years and that instinct is the fear of death or the fear of dying because sometimes that is the only thing that keeps us alive and if we pay attention to them as what Norman said therefore our chances of survival and reproduction boosts up.

Now off to a new article to read. I saw an article made by Margarita Tartakovsky which was entitled "Why Some People Loves Horror Movies While Others Hate Them" on the site Psychcentral.

Tartakovsky first explained here in the article is the Excitation transfer process that means that this is what you feel after finishing a horror movie and she also stated that when people watch horror movies their heart rate and respiration increases because of the stress that is caused by the movie. Next is the Novelty where Tartakovsky said that when danger appears curiosity comes to do what ever to survive and she also stated that someone said that negative emotions can triumph over novelty and ruin the entertainment value of a horror movie. Then lastly she said that parents should be careful in letting kids watch horror movies because they still cant distinguish whether the things they watch are reality or fantasy.

Tartakovsky also quoted that  "In one males liked a horror movie more when they saw it with a female who was scared, and females liked the movie more when they saw it with a male who wasn’t scared."  

It means that gender could also trigger the opinions of people who watch horror movies because on my opinion men watches scary movies is just because they want to see the reaction of women to see if they're scared or not and female likes the movie if they saw it with a male because it kinda makes them feel more secured if they are not scared in horror movies.

Even though we might get scared and shocked because of this movies we all still enjoy them because of the thrill factor they give us and as we get older we gain more courage and because of that we are not afraid anymore.So my advice to you guys keep on watching horror movies until you get scared because someday you want to feel that adrenaline rush and thrill on your spine when watching horror movies.

 

Blogpost # 4 :  Illustrating Your Pleasant Nightmares

Art is expressing your emotions and ideas and making them visible for the others can see and sometimes feel what you are feeling inside. For some people no matter how much they try to make their artworks cute,happy and cheerful they always end up being grotesque, scary and creepy so thats what gave birth to this kind of nightmares. This type of nightmares is what i call "Pleasant Nightmares" because everytime i see something like this i am always amazed on how they pictured their nightmares and made them into awesome artworks.

As they say "Art is limitless" everyone has their own ideas that is waiting to come out of the brain of yours and their own style in expressing the things they want us to see.On my own preference I became interested in the artworks with the grotesque and abnormal because I have an intense imagination and I always had been curious on the dark sides of everything and unlike those typical stereotypes of people I like things that other people fear and horror and creepy things inspires me more than cute and cuddly beings.

When i am searching for art inspiration, I saw Zdzisław Beksiński's artworks and they just blew my mind away because of its awesomeness and it inspired me and now while i was searching for articles about him I saw an article on the site io9.com that was entitled The Haunting Nightmarescapes of Zdzisław Beksiński that was made by Ed Grabianowski and on this article they talked about the life of Beksiński and his artworks.

It is said that Beksiński was first an architect and worked as a construction supervisor but he was not happy on the things that he do and got interested in sculpting then photography and lastly painting. If you saw Beksiński's paintings they are like a reali0stic photography of hell and the way that he puts details on his painting is really quite remarkable. None of his paintings are titled and there was a rumor spreading that Beksiński hated his works because it was a paintings of the nightmares he had but for me those paintings that he did is just a physical representation on what he feels.

Unfortunately his wife also died due to an illness and his son commited suicide in the late 1990s. Sadly, Beksiński died in 2005. He was murdered by the son of his caretaker because he didnt lend him $100.

On this article the author Ed said that "Despite the artist's claims to the contrary, it's difficult to view these paintings and not experience a chill of horror, or a pervasive sense of loss, abandonment and sadness."

I somewhat agree on what Ed said because his artworks truly has lots and lots of mixed emotions and even if I feel some horror on the masterpieces that he created, it still gives me inspirations and i still see the beauty hidden in darkness that Beksiński did. As i said earlier his artworks are his adventures on hell and because of that unknown feeling that is where fear popped up and gives us chills in our spine and you can clearly feel his emotions that is instilled in his works.

The next article i chose is just a short one and it is from the site Trendhunter.com and the article was Dreamy Demonic Drawings by Gil Haddi and in this article Gil explained here the artworks of Lucian Stanculescu and what is his style.

Lucian Stanculescu is self proclaimed antagonist meaning that he dont like those typical "good" characters and focuses on the nightmarish character types that most likely be the bad guys. His artsyle is creatively amazing because he uses his imagination and combines it in the disfigured anatomy of the body and he doesn't have a background to distract the characters and on my opinion his style is like the style of the shin megami tensei game series "Persona" and some of his artworks looks like the horde of monsters that is seen on the game and even if his art style is considered nightmarish it still looks awesomely beautiful for me.



Gil Haddi also said that "Using these two different styles, the Lucian Stanculescu Illustrations explore different aspects of dreams; some are strange yet pleasant and some can be nightmarish."

Because of that "dream" style, reality and fantasy gets mixed up and it turns out to be a perfect combination when doing it with art and this is one of my draw styles too but I have a difficulty of drawing realistic stuff but overall Lucian has a pretty extreme style that is appealing to the crowds.




Even if only a few people likes this brand of art on the past years I think on this timeline we are starting to appreciate artworks like this and even if some of it looks disturbing, gruesome or somewhat scary it is still interesting to see this kinds of arts because it is most likely the brand of art that you can feel the emotion of the artist and by that you could connect your hearts so that you could somewhat understand the masterpiece that the artist made.

Blogpost # 3 : Jeff the Killer and The Slenderman

Are they real or not? That is the question that always come up if we are scared because we have this fear of the unknown and if something is odd or unusual but the real question is if I tell you the truth will you believe me? Jeff the Killer and the Slenderman are included the most scary creatures that started on the internet because they have this intimidating spine chilling looks.

So first let's start with the question "Who is Jeff the Killer?". Jeff the killer is actually from a video posted from Sesseur and made a disturbing image using photoshop and it is said that Jeff's picture is said to be haunted because they used a corpse's eye and a dog's broken jaw and because of that it added a more scary feel in the picture.

While searching for related topic on Jeff the Killer i came across and article at io9.com,  the article was written by Annalee Newitz and entitled "Who is Jeff the Killer? And is his picture haunted by real death?" where they explained the history of Jeff and discussed the creepy history in the picture.

In the article they discussed first the history of Jeff that is first seen in a weird creepy video on youtube and it was photoshoped then they also explained how Jeff's picture became part in a disturbing death wherein the girl who was said to did suicide was photoshoped into Jeff's to make it more terrifying but i don't know why people do that, it is cruel and creepy on so many levels but yeah we can't tell people how to live their own life.

In this article Annalee Newitz also said that "There is a kind of "haunted Photoshop" aspect to the tale as well, with some people claiming that the final version of the Jeff the Killer face isn't Katy, but is made up of a corpse's eyes and a dog's broken jaw."  near the last part of the article

On what the author said on that quote somehow bothered me because it is mixed up  with different body parts of the body and the eyes are from a corpse and sometimes i wonder what crazy mind did this creator had when he did Jeff? As you can see now Jeff is popular as an internet heartthrob or something like that and the funny thing is Jeff does not only make girls scream because of fear, some scream because they are inlove with Jeff and they are just fangirling around.

On the next part since we are talking about popular internet scarers we are going to tackle on things about Slenderman or Slendy for short. Some say Slenderman is an alien from another planet, Others say a spawn from hell but  by reading some articles, Slendy also has a goodside and i think of him as a misunderstood monster that only wants the best for us.

While i was browsing this article called "The Slender Man Myth" which is made by Alastair Stephens on the site alastairstephens.com I am feeling creeped out at the moment because of the things im starting to learn about slenderman and here in the article the author explained mostly the myth of slenderman and parts of his history.

In this article they explained how slenderman was created and it all started when Something Awful forums users gathered together  to make fake paranormal images with which to
 perpetrate hoaxes and when Victor Surge posted two photos of children with slenderman in the background which when i first saw them it creeped out the crap out of me.

On the last paragraphs it is stated that Slenderman used his terrifying feel to get into the digital industry and now he has a lot of forums, games and some other stuff and like Jeff , Slenderman also has a lot of stories in the site creepypasta and because of that slenderman has been more and more popular in scaring kids and adults because when the game became popular some other popular youtubers started playing the game and exposing it into the public.

The author Alastair said that "The myth takes root in the smallest crack of doubt or fear, and is perpetuated by our own desire to no longer feel afraid; we don’t want to think about the Slender Man any more, because if I think about him he will know. If we don’t think about him, he’ll wait with infinite patience until we do. 

It means that slenderman will get you no matter what, if you think even one idea about him he will know and if not he will wait with infinite patience which is really terrifying because what ever you do he will find you and he will get you and if you say you are no longer afraid it just fuels up your fear for him.

Even if these you dont believe in these kinds of stories you will still be afraid because the true definition of fear is not knowing what is out there that is coming to get you.

Blogpost  # 2  : Surviving The Horror. Virtually.

Some people play horror games for the thrill, suspense and

the concept of “conquering your fears” and some people don’t want to play because they’re just too scared to play something like that. Even if im pretty much scared of everything I still have the urge to play or to watch horror games and after playing lots of horror games back then, it really didn’t bother me now and I use those games to fill up my imagination and I use them to become creative in making new artworks. I think being scared a lot of times allowed me to get used to it and now I could watch horror movies and play horror games without even getting scared.

For us to know more about horror games we should know the the main definition of the horror genre or on a more technical term it is "Survival Horror". Survival horror is a subgenre of action-adventure video games inspired by horror fiction that focuses on survival of the character. Although combat can be a part of the gameplay, the player is made to feel less powerful than in typical action games, because of limited ammunition, health, speed, or other limitations. The player is also challenged to find items that unlock the path to new areas, and solve puzzles at certain locations. Games make use of strong horror themes, and the player is often challenged to navigate dark maze-like environments, and react to unexpected attacks from enemies.

As I was searching for a great article on Survival Horror games then I saw and article on the site Gamasutra which is written by Darren McKettrick that is entitled “An Investigation into the Effects of Horror Games” where they tackled and did a research on how does the survival horror game affect the player and the psychology of horror.

First thing is they tackled about how the players are affected by horror game and it came into conclusion that the more the realistic looking the game is the more fear will be given to that person playing it, like the game that they played which is called Silent Hill. In the game the protagonist helps a woman and then communicates with all the characters throughout the game and the scary thing about silent hill is that the enemies within the game all take after a character’s mental aspects for example the mannequins symbolizes the sexual desires of the protagonist and that the boss represented the father’s abuse in the main characters of the game. These monsters combined with the foggy atmosphere that adds up the ambiguity of the game to make it more unknown and mysterious that sums up into an excellent horror game that could pretty much scare the soul out of you.

The next thing that they explained is the psychology of horror and gave 3 subjects that affect that psychology of horror. The First one is the Mirror Neurons, mirror neurons are motor cells that sends signals to our muscles to move our body. A great example there is that when you see or feel the facial expression or the actions of the character you are playing then you will act the same way too, like when the main character is depressed your facial expression will become sad. So we really could feel the emotions or acts of the character that makes it more scarier when playing a horror game.

Second is empathy which means the ability to understand another person’s emotional condition from their perspective. In the article Darren gave the types of empathy. First perspective taking which means putting yourself on someone else’s shoes, next is personal distress when you feel somebody else’s emotion and last is the emphatic concern which is the ability to recognize another persons reactions and understand them.

Last is the term “Fight or Flight” which is a psychological reaction that happens in the presence of something terrifying because you will now know either you will kill it or just flee. This can still happen even if the threat is imaginary.

When i read Darren's article i saw an interesting phrase that he said, it is one of the factors on what makes a video game scary and that phrase is" Fear must be grounded within something real. All emotions are personal. Fear should be made personal by linking it to something that is mundane.". 

To make a video game more scary well sometimes they used the words "Based On a True Story" to make it extra creepy because it is grounded with something real and it gives a more spine chilling feel to play a game that is based on a true story. The next sentence states that all emotions are personal, we have our own preferences in happiness, sadness, fear, anger and other emotions so that's why in horror games they create a game wherein different people will agree to be afraid of something . On the last sentence we always have been afraid on something that is unusual,odd,creepy ... things like that because it is part of our instincts and on the early years being afraid of something helped us survive so that is why we are afraid of the unknown.

After reading that long article I now realized that the person gets scared because of  the fear of the unknown and that he somehow mixes reality with the game that he is playing because of the resonance of feelings and emotions of the main character and the player.

When i was browsing for the history of survival horror I saw an article on GAMEREACTOR  entitled The History of Horror: A Video Game Retrospective by Jon Newcombe and here he discussed and summarized the history of survival horror.

The first this he said in his article is the first horror video game that was ever created. It was the Haunted House for the Magnavox Odyssey and even if its graphics were not that gre
at it still made a good start for the horror game industry and they even made the game with just a plastic overlay for the tv screen and two blinking lights. 

Then Atari released the 1990 Xenophobe and it is inspired by the Aliens franchise. This game was one of the first steps the lead into the famous action horror survival genre because in this game as you progress the games get more gorier and the mood gets more suspense.

When the gaming industry gets larger, more consoles starts to appear like the playstation console which lead to a new era of gaming and the dawn of new games such as Clocktower, Hellnight and Overblood. Then became the dawn of the era of Resident Evil and Silent Hill, The two games that became award winners and the two games that brought the horror survival genre up.

Then Microsoft's Xbox featured Silent Hill, Fatal Frame and Manhunt series which made Xbox popular in a way. But then game developers creates less innovate content and fans are just tired of getting jumpscares, blood and gore, screams and other stuff that creeps you out and starts to find other things that interests them.

Jon Newcombe also said that "Visuals and audio had developed to a point where developers could generate realistic scares. Fans couldn't get enough. Sadly, horror developers started creating less innovative content, and fans started to turn their attention elsewhere."

For me generating realistic scares brings out the best in any horror game but i think it is just too much and game developers are getting tired of making another generic type of horror may that be some killing psychopath, ghost that haunts you or a monster in a tuxedo that is out to get you. Horror fans started to turn their attention away from horror because developers haven't developed a new spine chilling idea that could bring the fans back. We dont know what the future holds and maybe someday there will be more survival horror games that will sure knock the souls out of our hearts.

Playing scary game is always fun and exciting but when things get tough we should have cute cat pictures to peek on whenever we get stressed and scared on whats happening on the screen.