But emotions are complicated things. Even if we do feel an emotion, there are parts associated with it that we aren’t usually aware of. Clinical psychologists, for example, recommend to patients with anger issues to look out for the warning signs—sweating in the palms, for example, or clenching of the jaws—so they can perhaps mitigate upcoming rage. And when we are frightened, or sexually aroused, our heart and breathing rates increase often without our notice (though we can recognize the change if its pointed out). What’s more, fear seems capable of covertly heightening sexual arousal—or being mistaken for it. [...]
Perhaps, if emotions used to work without conscious awareness, that explains why they still can. “The original function of emotion,” they say, “was to allow the organism to react appropriately” to the good and bad things in life, “and conscious feelings might not always have been required.”
Indeed, one 2005 study in humans showed a difference in brain pattern between unconscious and conscious—or “subliminal and supraliminal”—fear. The researchers thought this could help us understand the mechanisms underlying fear following trauma, which, they say, is “automatic and outside immediate conscious control.”
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