Motif of harmful sensation

The motif of harmful sensation involves harm befalling a person directly from the mere fact of their experiencing a sensation that would not normally be harmful; it appears in both traditional and authored stories.

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This is an idea with close affinities to the sight that harms is the gaze that harms, and the evil eye: the harm is thought to be caused by, respectively, seeing something or being seen by it. (A parallel topic is the contrast between metaphysical or vitalist conceptions that treat vision as an active function of the eye, and the scientific conception of the eye as passively receiving light that is present even when vision does not occur.)

Related Topics:
Evil eye - Metaphysical - Vitalist

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While this motif is largely imaginary, a real-world parallel is epileptic seizures triggered by strobe lights. Light flashing at a specific frequency can "pump" EEG rhythms at the same frequency and induce an epileptic seizure in people who already have epilepsy. Real examples of this happening have included flashing screens in video games and anime.

Related Topics:
Epileptic seizure - EEG - Epilepsy - Video game - Anime

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More recently, some nonlethal weapons have used sounds to induce paralysis or extreme discomfort.

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Related Topics:
Switzerland - Oxytocin

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