afraid of the dark? fear resides in all of us shared experience My dad has always said fear is the only man-made emotion. But aren’t all emotions man-made? Chemicals and hormones and systems in our brain create all of them. Each and every emotion. Fear— an unpleasant feeling triggered by the perception of danger, real or imagined. An instinctive reaction; a powerful and primitive emotion. In most cases, fear is a learned experience. You learn to be afraid of dogs from an attack from when you were younger, or of clowns because of a movie you watched. But what if you weren’t attacked by dogs? Or you’ve never watched a clown movie because of your fear? Some people get over their fears. Maybe they pet that dog they saw on a walk, or watched that scary clown movie with their friends. Maybe they just grew out of it. All of us have experienced fear. But it’s never the same experience.