The beginning of fear

Today was a very interesting day in class.  Most people in the class went for the fear project.  The class started with Beth being absent leading several people in nervous anticipation.  After a little while she arrived and we started our projects.
     The first project was demonstrated out of the blue when a hand was lit on fire using hand sanitizer scaring several people. After the bang that that started with, Kathryn had a volunteer get shut inside of a large cardboard box.  While we were waiting to see the reaction this would lead to, several people started doing different things to mess with the participant.  A mouse was lowered into the box, the box was lit on fire, he was squirted with water, and the box was banged on.  After a few minutes he got out and was no worst for the wear.   We then had a stellar rendition of "I'm a little tea pot... no wait a sec" which was rather humorous.  Next we had a bug-o-matic chair shown as what could be used in a 4D theater... or possible Guantanamo bay.  Then was story time when we got to see the fear of someone telling a dirty story in front of classmates and a professor and the social pressure he felt as a result of telling the story.  During all of this another classmate had popped several balloons scaring a few people in the class.  Next a mouse was brought around the room and everyone got to play with it, especially the ones who were scared of mice.
      I went next and had everyone count off by 2's to get them thinking that i had a large regimented experiment.  Then i had them stare into the lights of the room for 30 seconds so that they would have the bright afterimages burnt into their eyes and after the 30 seconds were up I had them close their eyes and put in earplugs.  I turned off the lights in the room and waited.  The purpose was to leave them feeling the anxiety of being unsure of what comes next.  I walked around the room to mess with everyone and had a squirt bottle that I used on anyone who made any noise or opened their eyes.  After roughly 5 minutes I let everyone finish and asked how they all had felt during that time.
    Then we had two people swap already chewed gum, a slew of people who weren't ready to go, and someone who talked about the nature of external fear vs internal fear.  then we got to pop open biscuit containers which scared a few people, and then examined how music and noises can scare people.