Do we have a lemming instinct?

[Erin]

Pity, I thought this was quite an interesting tpoic.

 

[EGarrett]

EGarrett,

I didn't feel fear. I felt anger at myself for ever 'considering' such a thing since I had a young family to care for. Like you said, more disgust than fear.

I can't say I sensed ".. a sort-of shut-off of my brain's rational mind". I was able to realise what I felt and that it was wrong and take a step back and yet still felt a little upset by it. I was curious as to why, and then anger at myself for thinking it. Imagining the situation doesn't "triggers the urge" for me. I have to actually be in the situation then the impulse comes over me like a wave.

I'm going to be completely honest here and say that what came with the 'impulse' was that it didn't matter much either way whether I did it or not. It was almost like an 'option' accompanied with complete detachment of anything that meant anything to me.

We're talking about two different things here. I know the instinct that makes you imagine throwing yourself off the balcony, and I've felt that...it's different from the "lemming" one I'm trying to describe.

I had what I self-diagnosed as a panic attack once, in a very crowded mall around Xmas. There were suddenly entirely too many people around, too close, moving too slowly, and there was really nowhere to get away from them. It was very hot.

Except my instincts were not to self-destruction; instead, I got the rising urge to slaughter everybody around me in a spree of bloodtastic rampagery the likes of which you don't see outside of video games. Luckily I contained my bloodlust long enough to get to an exit. I wound up having to walk around nearly half the outside of a large mall to get back to my car, but I thought it best not to reenter that humid rat trap. Not without weapons, anyway.

I've been in equally or even more- crowded situations since without the slightest twinge of such desires, so I'm inclined to think it was just a one-off combination of chance circumstance.

This is probably very close to what I felt. They're both "thin the herd" reactions...and it sounds like they were triggered by the same situation...being suddenly stuck in a hot, nightmarish situation of far too many people with no apparent way to escape. In that traffic situation, I could've easily started ramming all the cars around me and going nuts...the feeling is very close to the one that made me want to off-myself.

 

[Darth Rotor]

We're talking about two different things here. I know the instinct that makes you imagine throwing yourself off the balcony, and I've felt that...it's different from the "lemming" one I'm trying to describe.

This is probably very close to what I felt. They're both "thin the herd" reactions...and it sounds like they were triggered by the same situation...being suddenly stuck in a hot, nightmarish situation of far too many people with no apparent way to escape. In that traffic situation, I could've easily started ramming all the cars around me and going nuts...the feeling is very close to the one that made me want to off-myself.

How close to acting on that feeling do you think you will get before you call the 1-800 suicide prevention line? It's a resource our ancestors a hundred years ago didn't have, a macro level "call to talk you down off the ledge" at a finger tip.

If your idea is right, then having extra assistance to deflect this instinct is similar to people with poor eyesight breeding more people with poor eyesight, since spectacles ( a tool ) has improved function and competition to breed among the non myopic.

DR