by: Will Rutherford, owner of the locally-owned Escape Artist

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The best time of year is upon us, Halloween season. A time where it is socially acceptable to dress up as your favorite character and eat as much miniature candy as you can possibly consume. The season is also known for frightening thrills. From haunted houses, spooky trails, and the Escape Artist Greenville’s newest thrilling room “The Starlight Motel.”

There are two options that always seem to loom over as friends and family decide how to spend the season – terrified out of their minds or keep it light and watch Hocus Pocus. As people get older, the popular vote appears to be attending the events that will make us jump when things go bump in the night. So what makes humans so excited to be scared? There are a few key elements that make us want to choose fear over fantasy this time of the year.

Fear creates endorphins and endorphins make you happy. Well sort of. The endorphins create a natural high, the same feeling you get after a great workout. This reaction in most people makes things like haunted escape rooms seem thrilling and fun. On the other hand, some may let their imaginations get the better of them – hence the people running kicking and screaming after breaking out from haunted houses.

Being away from reality is another reason people gravitate towards hair-raising Halloween thrills. The freeing feeling of not having to worry about work, school, or how much candy to get for trick-or-treaters leaves room to focus on what may pop out next. Once realizing there is no true danger, that’s when fear becomes fun allowing us to relax and shift our thinking from paranoia to excitement.

While most themes this time of year involve skeletons and ghosts, being afraid lets you know you’re alive seeing as fear is a healthy experience. People’s instincts to be scared of an object or fictional character (such as witches and vampires) develop over time. Our fears are a combination of part instinct, part learned, and part taught. The more terrified you feel, the scarier things may appear.

Watching 30 days of Halloween movies can put anyone in the pumpkin buying spirit. However, checking out escape rooms based off outrageously bad hotel reviews that send chills down your spine to being chased out of a haunted house by a guy with a fake chainsaw, screams bonding experience. Taking on these terrifying challenges with friends and family will create memories that you will fearfully never forget.