Reaction of a sane person when seing the supernatural?

Depends on exactly how sane they are. Keep in mind that most people are not all that rational. By and large, however, a rational person who saw a ghost or a zombie would probably just deal with the situation "as-is". They would probably dismiss what they saw as a hallucination or something similar as long as they reasonably could. Once hallucinations were off the table, they'd probably just shrug and accept it.

Most of the Not Now, Kiddo events in horror movies are for the sake of the plot. If in an American town, people saw the dead walking and the animals acting strangely then called in the National Guard, who promptly gun the zombies down,the movie would be over.

Look at the first the Terminator film: the cyborg is dismissed as a psycho with a "bullet proof vest" by the police when they first meet Sara Connor in person. Because, until that point the T-800 hadn't done anything outside of normal crime.

It's all in the escalation of the "supernatural".

Walt Disney talked about the "plausible impossible": things that shouldn't happen (like running off a cliff but not falling until you look down) but "make sense" when you first look at it. It's only when Fridge Logic sets in that it doesn't make any sense.

This is because the brain will fill in any explanation to make sense of the world. When Reality Is Out to Lunch that's when the brain's reason center goes "PING!".

When the monster keeps moving despite being shot several times. When corpses get up and move, when the cute little waif turns into a monster, that's what sets people off. Casual violations of reality that the brain just can't except.

A lot of thinking once any danger has passed, followed by effectively "Yeah, I'm fairly certain that was a zombie/vampire/ghost/werewolf/whatever. Who'da thunk they were real?"

And cue the I Need a Freaking Drink and lost of changes of underwear....

I suppose I would first assume it was a hallucination or a trick of the brain. But if other people came forward who also witnessed the event, then somebody would start to put things together and investigate the true cause of it.

It also depends on how the world operates. In a world where the supernatural has always been around and operating according to set rules, it would be absurd to think that it wouldn't be well known. But if supernatural events occur seemingly randomly and unpredictably, it would be more reasonable for people to never hear of those things, or assume they were just random events with no clear explanation.

I think a sane person would do what the Ghostbusters did: Study it and try to determine how to measure, predict and control it.

You forget fear and hate.

Even if the supernatural thing is harmless, smells like strawberries and can cure cancer, if it looks wrong and violates a person's expectations of reality they will fear it.

Hence angels in the bible had to say "Be not afraid" because they weren't white sexy Hollywood actors, but wheels of eyes on fire. Or a bear with the head of a lion and wings etc.

There will be people who just won't accept it, there will be those who are just jittery and then there are those say "Once you get past the eyes, teeth and Alien Geometries, they are really nice."

Then there are the people who are the most sane rational individuals... they just happen to be really into the unexplainable.

Certainly some people would react with fear, depending on the nature of what they saw. There are also legends about people having a supernatural encounter but not realizing it until after the fact.

Take for example the stories of Jesus's resurrection in The Bible. The Gospel accounts vary, but they seem to agree that in most cases, Jesus just appeared to people out of nowhere, and then would say a few words and vanish just as quickly. But in all those accounts, Jesus appeared as an incorporeal being (unless you count the parts where it say he ate with them). And in most of them, sometimes the witnesses didn't even recognize him until he "opened their eyes".

Man, you people have zero faith in the ability of the average person to stay rational in the face of something they haven't seen in real life before. Almost like you want to think you're one of the elite few. The sheeple will be irrational, stupid, and and be slaughtered like the animals they are, you will keep a cool head and be safe.

It's not like we haven't seen vampires and werewolves and the like in pop culture. The reaction won't be "HOLY SHIT WHAT IS THAT THIS CAN'T BE REAL AAAAAAAAH", it would be "VAMPIRES ARE REAL OH SHIT EVERYONE IN THE MINIVAN".

edited 24th Feb '15 11:51:29 AM by Bonerfart

You kidding? I see the supernatural I am going to freak out. Might even start drinking.

Especially if it's something like a werewolf or a vampire. Freak out fully there cause I don't want to die.

There are also those for whom the word "Supernatural" is essentially meaningless. That is, either something exists or it doesn't. If it exists, then it must be subject to the laws of nature. Finding something that appeared to violate those laws would lead a scientific mind to conclude that there are as-yet undiscovered gaps in our understanding of the way the universe works.

Also consider this: If the Supernatural exists, but most humans have to abide by the dull old regular laws of Nature, that would imply that the world we live in and understand isn't actually the real world. Or to put it another way, the Supernatural world is the Real World, and the Natural world is artificial.

If I had good reason to believe that I was living in a fake, artificially constructed world that was actually subject to laws we couldn't understand and predict, I would probably go quite mad. But my madness would be a form of sanity, because it meant that I had a better grip on reality than a plain old mundane mind.