Feel the Pain
 

Due to what I imagine are overactive mirror neurons, when I see someone else being physically injured I get an uncomfortable spasm in my lower legs. (This may be why I dislike those home video shows where parents place their children in danger then film the results for the amusement of others :rolleyes:. ) Anyway, it hadn't occurred to me that this might be unusual until I mentioned it to my wife who had no idea what I was talking about. I was just wondering if anyone else here gets any sort of physical sensation when witnessing another's injury?

don't suppose you have ever seen Clockwork Orange have you?..

I feel pain when I see someone else being injured. It makes it really hard to watch stuff like that as well. Especially broken bones...broken bones make my arms feel really funny.

No idea why some people feel this way and others don't. I can shake my eyes back and forth in a spasm as well (which is a bit odd), but it's nothing to worry about...

@ Photek -- I just read the synopsis, I can see the point you're is making... They were saying he was normal when his stomach started to hurt watching some nasty violence on film, right?

In related news, I watched the trailer on IMDB and whoever made the trailer for Clockwork orange had had waaaay to many hits before they went to the editing table.

That went right over my head :o. I have seen it but that was maybe twenty-something years ago. I'd forgotten about his 'therapy'.

Adam Smith talked about that as part of the basis for his "Theory of Moral Sentiments", if that helps any. :) most likely, though, this has nothing to do with mirror neurons (which are relatively high-level functions), but is simply a semi-reflexive reaction to threat (the same thing that makes you hit the brakes in your car even before you're consciously aware of a potential road hazard). you could probably train yourself out of it if you wanted...

Hmmm..., I guess the fact that I always feel it in my legs regardless of the type of injury being witnessed would support your theory. Though watching videos on telly are hardly a direct threat requiring action. Still, sounds like a reasonable intuition.

fazstp.... Zalister... take 2 hours out and watch A Clockwork Orange... its a seminal Stanley Kubrick movie...

They recently had a Stanley Kubrick fest on SBS and I wanted to watch "A Clockwork Orange" but forgot that it was on ... when I finally realised and turned the channel, there was only about 35 mins left. I watched it anyhow. I have seen it twice before but it's always great to watch. I love the different words used; glassies = eyes, gulliver = head ....

@Photek: fazstp has already seen the movie (see post #4), albeit quite a while back.

Although I have to say at the time Eraserhead affected me more.

lol ... that was one weird movie ... my girlfriend took me to see a John Waters movie; "Pink Flamingos" and I was shocked! I blame it on my Catholic upbringing of course ;)

I hate to mention it but we've strayed off track from your original post, fazstp .... sorry :)

dont watch saw...or killbill...or play farcry2...

Eewe yeah, Eraserhead.

Faz, my whole family gets tingles/pain in their legs when anyone talks about the injuries or injections in eyeballs and the like ;) ;)

My Dad loves to tell me all his medical adventures because he knows I'll react.

I don't understand why you guys get pain in your legs. I get the pain in my where ever the pain is happening in the person I'm watching. I wonder why it's different...

And I just decided to read the synopsis for EraserHead as well, plus watching a few short clips. All I know is that I know where I wont be going for movie recommendations in the future. You people seriously freak me out :p (Actually, they both looked pretty nifty...)

If it's the synopsis on Wikipedia I won't be offended if you never talk to me again :D. It's a seriously disturbing movie.

I know you just said that you wouldn't come to me for movie recommendations but if you're looking for old movies to see how about Harold and Maude?

Wings of Desire? Repo Man?

I can't watch SBS any more. I find the commercials so much more annoying knowing they never used to have them.


Maybe I should watch it again. It might be interesting seeing it again with a fresh (stale?) perspective. I was pretty young and naive for my first viewing. I'd just gotten my license and first car and was using my new mobility to hang out at the Valhalla. (Not to mention dingy pubs like the Espy and the Prince of Wales, but that's another story.)

Have you had much in the way of physical injury? If you had suffered your own breaks/sprains maybe your body knows what to expect from an injury?

pains of this sort are anticipatory, not reactive. basically, your mind anticipates a pain on a pre-conscious level, begins a defensive reaction, and a moment later represses the defensive reaction. the pain comes from tensing of musculature that doesn't get released in action. where you get the pain depends on what defensive reaction you're primed for: fastzp is probably inclined towards kicking, running, or using his legs to protect his body; you're probably more prone to ducking and dodging.

deep breathing is the best solution - that kicks in the parasympathetic nervous system which tends to relax the body.

Actually I'm more inclined towards zoning out :D. Whenever I experience real danger I seem to go on auto-pilot and carry on whatever I was doing in a weird sort of disembodied state.

I am fairly inclined towards hitting things with sticks or getting out of the way, so yeah, upper body. And I do have a bit of experience with, well, all sorts of injuries because I was a teenage klutz of some repute. So that does make sense.

As for the deep breathing, I've used that for other things but never thought to use it for this. I'll give it a shot.

I think I might try Wings of Desire and Repo Man, though Harold and Maude sounds just a bit strange... I wonder if Better Off Dead took itself from that movie? It seems likely.

Wings of Desire and Repo Man are primo (make sure you get the original German version of the first, not the cheesy hollywood remake). and Harold and Maude is a bit strange, but well worth it. you might also look at delicatessen...

Oddly the first thing I noticed when I got to rotten tomato's was the genre:"Foreign Film". That's interesting, basically that means the Moliere, Life is Beautiful, Akira and The Host are all in the same genre here in America...

Now that I've gotten that out of my system: I'll have to give Delicatessen a shot as well, it looks like it could be good.

On another note, why don't we have a "Suggest a Movie" thread on this forum. We have a "Suggest a Song" thread... (I'm not making it, I'll feel silly. For some reason suggesting something and then doing it makes me feel silly... Boy, that could probably use some psycho-analysis as well.)

Then take a few days and read the book

Also by the same director The City of the Lost Children and Amélie.

The only thing that makes me cringe, and it does it every time with out fail, is when someone scrapes their fingernails against a flat surface, ie a chalkboard....

I get the chills and feel sick in my stomach.

That one's a bit like biting on silver foil with your fillings.

Or watching that footage of the weight lifter in the last olympics when his elbow.... eewwe!

I clicked on that video even though it kind of described it in the link, and I couldn't get it out of my head for the rest of the day!

Don't know if you've seen this video of figure skaters Tatiana Totmianina and Maxim Marinin? You can test your cringe response about two minutes in.

You might like the E-type Hearse

That hearse could only be used for *ahem* the vertically challenged. Personally I think that's one of the most depressing things I've seen in some time. If someone wanted to go and ruin a perfectly go E-Type, they could have just given it to me instead! :D

Okay, a bit more seriously, it's pretty clever :).

Welly well well well well... could someone decode the title for me? :confused:
I'm guessing orange is a veiled reference to blood maybe, but clockwork?
The mind maybe?

"A Clockwork Orange" -- meaning what?

Not much?

The Boys. This Aussie movie had some pretty strong performances and a moody soundtrack by The Necks.

Perhaps its origin was such. But i decided to don my Google hat and see what else up with one could come:

Quotation from Burgess' Nov. 1986 introduction to "A Clockwork Orange Resucked":

Some Yahoo "Answers" page (somewhere):

Alex speaking in "The 21st chapter of A Clockwork Orange":

Uh, the answer is 42......

If you want to survive out here, you've got to know where your towel is. :D

fazstp has the quote from the author above. But I think it means somewhat more than that--an orange is a natural thing--an organic thing. On the other hand, clockwork is a man-made thing. The lead character of A Clockwork Orange began as a natural thing (a very flawed natural thing), but the aversion therapy that he goes through turns him into a man-made thing unable to make decisions for himself, just going forward doing what the clockwork makes him do. Hence he is no longer natural, even if he may look natural. He is a clockwork orange.

Trevor

Ah, you beat me to the explanation.

Trevor

Speaking of people not making decisions for themselves (and rambling thread topics :o), I watched a doco the other night on Jonestown. It's pretty shocking what people will go along with when enthralled by a sociopath.

I hadn't heard of this film but it looks interesting, I'll have to watch out for it as I love aussie films, well most of 'em ... ;)

I didn't watch the Jonestown doc as I find that stuff too disturbing ...


Gotta love that Clockwork Orange teen speak :)

Quote:

Clockwork Orange Use of slang The book, narrated by Alex, contains many words in a slang argot which Burgess invented for the book, called Nadsat. It is a mix of modified Slavic words, Polari, Cockney rhyming slang, derived Russian (like "baboochka"), and words invented by Burgess himself. For instance, these terms have the following meanings in Russian - 'droog' means 'friend' ; 'korova' means 'cow'; 'golova' (gulliver) means 'head'; 'malchick' or 'malchickiwick' means 'boy'; 'soomka' means 'sack' or 'bag'; 'Bog' means 'God'; 'khorosho' means good, 'prestoopnick' means 'criminal'; 'rooker' is 'hand', 'cal' is 'crap', 'vec' is 'old man'; 'litso' is 'face'; and so on. One of Alex's doctors explains the language to a colleague as "Odd bits of old rhyming slang; a bit of gypsy talk, too. But most of the roots are Slav propaganda. Subliminal penetration." Some words are not derived from anything, but merely easy to guess, e.g. 'in-out, in-out' or 'the old in-out' means sexual intercourse. 'Cutter', however, means money, because 'cutter' rhymes with 'bread-and-butter'; this is genuine Cockney rhyming slang, which is intended to be impenetrable to outsiders (especially eavesdropping policemen).

No sociopath needed. People will go along with shocking stuff if they're told to.

Trevor

David Wenham is menacingly cold.


I forgot about that experiment. It's pretty telling. Still Jonestown is something else altogether. Getting 900 people to kill their children and themselves is just beyond comprehension.

Yeah, just read about Jonestown. That was nuts. To be honest though, it's interesting what any authority figure can get you to do. Especially religious and political ones...

people will do (literally) anything when they believe it's the right thing to do. the trick of authority doesn't lie in telling people what to do, but rather in changing the conception of what 'right' is, and then telling people to do the right thing. If the authority succeeds, people will punish themselves if they fail, or get punished by the group as rebels without the authority figure lifting a finger. this is built really deeply into our psyches (fortunately or not): socialization relies on it, and I doubt you could have anything resembling a community (much less a nationality or a religion) without it.

I saw a PBS show on the training of Marines a while ago - I tell you, the Corps puts even the most notorious cult to shame when it comes to mind control...

I know enough about US Marines to know that they scare me and that I'm glad they are on my side. But hey, what are you expecting? They are, for lack of a nicer way of saying it, trained killers. And you don't want insubordination on the battlefield, that's for sure.

eh, I know a handful of marines (a friend of mine just got divorced from one, and a few ROTC students have passed through my class). they've always struck me as basically good people: a strong sense of honor that blurs into righteousness, and a tendency to be excessively serious about things that annoy them, but I've seen plenty of worse flaws... and frankly, if I had to choose between a world with professional killers and a world with people who kill because they enjoy it, I'd opt for the first... :o but they don't tend to negotiate the non-military world very well (hence the divorce). I just wish the military would be upfront about it - they know they brainwash the soldiers coming in, they out to at least take the effort to deprogram them coming out.