Reaction of a sane person when seing the supernatural?

What do you think the proper reaction of a sane, normal person, when confronted with something clearly supernatural? I'm thinking that couldn't be easily brushed off as a trick of the imagination or the light.

For example, a policeman in clear daylight sees a man stabbing another. The situation deteriorates and the policeman is forced to shoot the man. It's very short distance, but the man doesn't go down. The policeman keeps shooting, a couple of the bullets go straight into the man's skull, but they just bounce off.

Does the man go to a therapist thinking he's going insane? Does he pretend it didn't happen? Does he start to question his idea of what is possible and what isn't?

Depends, if it's something that is clearly dangerous fight-or-flight will kick in and he'll try to terminate it in self-defense, not much room for thought so it would play out like a normal dangerous scenario, growing more and more desperate as the normal methods don't work.

Afterwords the normal sane man would probably try to rationalize away the supernatural as hard as possible. (And people can perform some pretty damn impressive mental calisthenics to avoid seeming crazy) They would likely try to avoid bringing it up in therapy as much as possible due to "not wanting to admit they're crazy" as it is very stigmatized.

Once again this depends on the person, a conspiracy theorist or crazy person may see it as vindication that their theories are correct. Other's may accept it more readily. It's alot like The Matrix, "The mind has trouble letting go."

First of all, I think it's important for you to define what you mean by "supernatural". It's a very nebulous term that unfortunately has been politicized today, so I'm asking not out of pedantics, but so that people can have a clear idea what you want.

When I was part of a ghost-hunting group I thought about this. I had every intention of studying the phenomenon as rigorously as possible. Not only would I have wanted to learn as much as I could about whatever it was that was going on, but imagine being the first person ever with proof of the supernatural!

By supernatural I understand any phenomena that clearly contradicts what experience and the laws of physics tells us is normal. Examples: - A human lifting a car. - A human flying, without any visible external aid. - An animal speaking. - A river flowing uphill.

Etc.

"Goddammit, who spiked my coffee" wouldn't be so odd nowadays. "That has to be a- that isn't a trick? Huh."

It really depends on a couple of things, the first of which is how much the person is attuned to the idea that the abnormal or just plain weird can happen in real life, and whether or not it should. A stage magician would approach it differently (professionally?) than their intended audience would, and those things you mention could all be done by a competent performer with a bit of prep time. (That is, give Adam Savage an hour on a bet, and watch the impossible happen.)

The other thing is, how much of a threat does this supernatural thing represent to the person? If it's obviously presented as a sort of parlor trick ('stupid human tricks' comes to mind), then the reaction's going to be relatively muted no matter how amazing or spectacular it is. The situation also plays a part: a man lifting a burning car to rescue a child won't get the same response as a man lifting a car for charity or a woman doing the same (gender biases being what they are), but how would someone doing so unprompted be seen? A show-off, perhaps?

I've seen enough strange shit in a supernatural sense that "Ah jeez not this shit again! Go away!" is actually one of my responses to seeing it. Especially when trying to sleep.

And I'm not a patient at Colorado Mental Hospital.

My definition of a "sane" person is someone who would trust their senses to the point that if something paranormal/supernatural happened in such a way that it's clear that it's real their reaction would be "well, that's supposed to be impossible but it clearly did happen" and then respond in a manner appropriate to the situation.

One of the characters in my story finds himself mysteriously transported some unknown, but obviously considerable, distance from where he had been a few seconds ago.

He's fully aware of how "impossible" and unusual the situation is - and is even geeky enough to know that teleportation would cause serious Conservation of Momentum issues - but the event obviously did happen, so he puts aside all the "but it can't have happened" crap and responds to the situation he now finds himself in.

Later, he is informed that he is no longer on Earth, which he accepts on the grounds that it fits the observed data and is no more "impossible" than his sudden transportation.

The first thing to do would be to gauge how impossible the supposedly supernatural event appears to be; in other words, think about possible rational explanations. If the event was very blatantly supernatural, such rationalization may be impossible, which means the event is much more likely to be legit.

Do research. Question other witnesses, if there were any. If there are no other witnesses, discreetly search for and follow the person or thing that triggered the event. If it is seen reproduced several times from a clear vantage point, it is most likely legit.

edited 3rd Oct '14 5:13:54 PM by shiro_okami

In your fiction, things do need to be thoughout.

Sf Debris has a review of the Star Trek The Next Generation episode Datalore. The One With Data's Evil Twin. That's the A plot.

The B plot has an Eldritch Abomination: "The Crystaline Entity".

It sucks whole worlds dry of all life. Children drew pictures of in, depicting them and their families cringing in horror.

Picard and co? "Who can understand the ways of the universe? Engange and make it so."

I'm in Joking Mode of course. Roddenberry was all about the cool ideas but didn't think it through.

Consider -

• They might Go Mad from the Revelation and be a gibbering wreck.
  • Or they might go the other way and hunt down the unnatural Godless horrors they see (or think they see).

• A blog post on a pagan website talked about being careful with omens, lest you see omens in everything. Something we pagans tend to take for granted, something the muggles tend to dismiss. Well guess what Muggle, in this universe it's serious business now! So now the muggles are jumping at shadows and wondering if some random thing will turn them into a newt or eat their liver, or turn them into a liver eating newt-monster. Even if that won't happen, the thought will haunt the characters.
  • See "The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street". I recommend the original Twilight Zone show then Sf Debris review.

• And there are the teeny, tiny fractions that are okay with it:
  • They aid the characters and are the Secret-Keeper.
  • Or they get all Weyland-Yutani on their supernatural asses, hunting the characters for their magical powers.

edited 26th Oct '14 9:18:21 PM by TairaMai

Also, it depends of what thing they are seeing, a guy with super strnght will get a big WHAT? or a explation if the person is friend or relative.

But if they see a werewolf,really creepy ghost or some elderich abomination....yeah they stop be sane

So it depends of what they see and how

Clearly they should go about upgrading their beliefs about reality.

I have a hard time with this as well, since I am trying to write about a world full of Otaku. Even if they're sane, how should they react? Should they be Genre Savvy? Wrong Genre Savvy? AUGHHHH

It might look a bit like this.

YOU ARE BRILLIANT AND I LOVE YOU.

Paranoia. After the shock wears off, the characters would have Fridge Logic moments. Only broken Fridge logic.

• Are things that happened in the past the fault of the supernatural?

• Why does this thing/event/person/Negative Space Wedgie exist?

• Are there more?

I would bank on them trying to rationalize it away or they start worrying about the state of their brain.

I'm not the most sane of people, myself... but I've never had any clearly supernatural thing happen to me. I am open to it in the way that I love reading stuff about the paranormal, but if it happened to me, knowing that I already have emotional problems, I'd probably worry about my brain further degrading. I would either seek out the root of the "problem" in my brain, or I'd keep it all to my damn self out of fear of ow people with worse problems than I already have are treated.

In fact, knowing how people with ANY problems are treated, even in matters of "I'm just sad enough to commit suicide, please help me," no supernature involved would have me likely keeping shit to myself.

And, in keeping shit to myself, I'd be doing all kinds of mental gymnastics trying to figure out HOW I experienced what I experienced. I might even come to the conclusion that the event didn't happen and must have been a dream.

If you have a very scientifically-minded character, expect them to be sciencing the hell out of it, too. Smart people have even more reason to not accept what's in front of them in the case of something freaky going on because trying to convey it might mean you lose your awesome science-job, as well as your sense of a rational world. Though if a science-hero is very brave and is very confident in themselves not to be wrong about what they saw, they might investigate the hell out of what happened on their own and make a breakthrough discovery.

I actually wrote something interesting recently in regards to a fanfiction about characters who have contact with the supernatural in their canons on a regular basis and still having problems believing something. It was a Zombie Fic I wrote for Super Smash Brothers as a Halloween present for the fandom on fanfiction . net. —- In the course of the story (no spoiler tags because I doubt anyone here actually cares about the bloody thing), one character, Pit, gets sick with the zombie-infection and requests that the leader of the survivors, Link, put him down. Link reluctantly does so, and after that, starts seeing Pit's ghost bothering him. It was kind of a joke on an obnoxiously-chatty character being the new "Navi" for Link. Link has had contact with spirits before, all over the Legend Of Zelda games, but in this case, he doubts, at first, that the ghost of Pit is real because there are lots of magically-inclined and psychic characters in the survivor's group who should be seeing him who do not. Since Link had just killed his friend (heroic sacrifice aside), he thinks that he's undergoing hallucinations brought on by guilt, grief, and the general emotional stress of leading a group of people through zombie-country. He eventually accepts the ghost as real, but it takes a while of him thinking he's gone crazy because none of his psychic-buddies can see what he does.

That's kind of a twist on the theme, I guess. I had a character who regularly knows about spirits doubting one because of specific circumstances.

Sane people will rationalize it away, unless it happens repeatedly- that's how we stay "sane", we believe the same things everyone else in society does. What we regard as "sane" really mostly boils down to "acts fairly normal", regardless of why someone does so. Sanity, properly regarded, is the ability to make choices and perceive the world without obstacle; that's not what most people think of. Sane, to most, is somebody who acts normal.

So a sane person, unless they have to confront it, simply won't. They'll maintain the facade of sanity rather than deal with truth.

Or they'll just have a Heroic BSoD, and break.

A fair point- insanity is the other possible reaction.

Ugh. "Insanity" isn't a mental condition, it's a legal term defining someone as unfit to function in society. The original Latin "sanus" just means "healthy" or "clean", it's where the word "sanitary" comes from. Mental disorders / illness are really complex, as illustrated by the many editions of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders over the years, even classifying them is difficult. And humanity is extremely diverse. There is no such thing as normal and nearly anyone could have a different reaction to the same thing as someone else; depending on their mood, life experience, culture, genetics, and so on.

As for reactions to the supernatural, it'd probably depend on what fiction a person is familiar with. A UFO is likely to get a different response if seen by a politician debating on agriculture versus a SciFi fan during a convention. A cop seeing bullets bounce should think of body armor first, maybe a helmet, or even just missing their shots. If you want some actual responses, there's plenty of books and websites that collect them. Here, for example.

A fair point; I should have stated "develop a mental illness", because you're right, insanity IS just a legal term. I believe some form of mental trauma would be the most likely result.

And on the note of cops thinking armor, the first Jeepers Creepers film had cops fighting the titular monstrosity believe he was some drugged-up freak wearing weird body armor, so it's got precedent- and it was quite effective in the movie.

The typical cop reaction to trying and failing to stop a perp by emptying a clip of bullets into him? "PCP is a hell of a drug."

Denial is common even when faced with it. Coming up with rational explanations is another.

Or in the case of Darrin from Bewitched in a time travel episode, freaking out and running away. True he got over it but it was a lot to process.

I get the point. Society had had alot of attempts at psychology, trying to recreate how people would react to ghosts,demons and zombies.

Actually I think normal people wouldn't react with panic, how scary a Ghost or Demon appear wouldn't be proportional to how dangerous it is. If people do get panic, I think it is more because of the build up of anticipation and fear.

Lets take zombies/vampires who supposedly appears as pale or sickly humans if you don't know why they eat people. Real story: there is a real persons who have opened the door at wrong time and was witness to a serial killers eating his girlfriend, the police refused to believe him and arrested him as a subject until the killer killed again. The witness didn't go into instant denial or chock, he escaped and went to the police. Weeks later the mental break down begun, he became paranoid and isolated himself for some time.

Alternative I think the author just want to build up fear in the audience by showing a actor who acts hysterical so the audience can imitate the hysteria. Either that or I expect the supernatural kind of have an aura of fear and hypnotize the humans to feel fear. I really don't believe zombies,vampires, devils, ghosts etcs would have the same effect without the movie music, without the fear inducing situations and without us being audience in third person.

Especially, I don't think scientists or smart people would always be the first to retreat into instant denial. I would love a character who just react " I be damned, so "X" does exist!".

This assume that we are talking about how things look and not what we know about them from films.