question: Why does your fear of heights get triggered while playing a video game?
comment: Your brain doesn't know the difference between a video game and real life. Any phobia you have will be triggered inside of a virtual space as well.
passages: A few months after The International, Fear returned to Evil Geniuses, where he has been ever since.
  
  Section::::History.:"Dota 2".:2014.
   It is recommended that the terms "distress" and "impairment" take into account the context of the person's environment during diagnosis. The DSM-IV-TR states that if a feared stimulus, whether it be an object or a social situation, is absent entirely in an environment, a diagnosis cannot be made. An example of this situation would be an individual who has a fear of mice but lives in an area devoid of mice. Even though the concept of mice causes marked distress and impairment within the individual, because the individual does not usually encounter mice, no actual distress or impairment is ever experienced. It is recommended that proximity to, and ability to escape from, the stimulus also be considered. As the phobic person approaches a feared stimulus, anxiety levels increase, and the degree to which the person perceives they might escape from the stimulus affects the intensity of fear in instances such as riding an elevator (e.g. anxiety increases at the midway point between floors and decreases when the floor is reached and the doors open).
   Fear and Evil Geniuses took third place at the Shanghai Major 2016. On June 26, Fear qualified with Evil Geniuses to The International 2016 by coming first in the Americas Qualifier Group Stage with a 5-1 record (and after defeating compLexity Gaming in a first place tiebreaker.) Fear and Evil Geniuses eventually finished third place in the event. After the tournament, Fear retired as a player, citing health issues, to focus on being the team's coach.
   There are also physics glitches, such as the glitch with the swingset in "Grand Theft Auto IV", where if the player climbs on top of the swingset, the shaking of its chains will cause the physics to oversell the impact and send the player flying a great distance away. Similarly in GTA III, if the player stands in a gate or is in a car (but still aligned within in a gate) and the gate is closed, the player character will be flung a great distance.
   Most people experience a degree of natural fear when exposed to heights, known as the fear of falling. On the other hand, those who have little fear of such exposure are said to have a head for heights. A head for heights is advantageous for those hiking or climbing in mountainous terrain and also in certain jobs such as steeplejacks or wind turbine mechanics. Some people may also be afraid of the high wind, as an addition of falling. This is actually known as added ancraophobia.
   There are logical biological causes of fear of falling. Firstly, there is the innate so-called "cliff edge phenomenon", whereby even toddlers, as well as many animals, avoid large drops, even without having previously had a bad experience.
   Mohawk ironworkers have worked for generations erecting New York City skyscrapers,
  
  though it is a myth they have an innate skill for doing so.
  
  Unlike acrophobia, a natural fear of heights is a normal phenomenon. When one finds oneself in an exposed place at a great height, one feels one's own posture as unstable. A normal fear of heights can generate feelings of anxiety as well as autonomic symptoms like outbreaks of sweat.
  
  Section::::Causes of fear of heights.
   Section::::Media treatment.
  
  In the Alfred Hitchcock film "Vertigo", the hero, played by James Stewart, has to resign from the police force after an incident which causes him to develop both acrophobia and vertigo. Early on in the film he faints while climbing a stepladder. There are numerous references throughout the film to fear of heights and falling,
   Sometimes, for the sake of realism, information normally displayed in the HUD is instead disguised as part of the scenery or part of the vehicle in which the player is traveling. For example, when the player is driving a car that can sustain a certain number of hits, a smoke trail might appear when the car can take only two more hits, fire might appear from the car to indicate that the next hit will be fatal. Wounds and bloodstains may sometimes appear on injured characters who may also limp, stagger, slouch over or breathe heavily to indicate they are injured, a notable example being "Resident Evil 2".
   A possible contributing factor is a dysfunction in maintaining balance. In this case the anxiety is both well founded and secondary. The human balance system integrates proprioceptive, vestibular and nearby visual cues to reckon position and motion. As height increases, visual cues recede and balance becomes poorer even in normal people. However, most people respond by shifting to more reliance on the proprioceptive and vestibular branches of the equilibrium system.
   Another case study investigated the effectiveness of virtual reality subjection in the case of a patient who was diagnosed with two particular phobias (claustrophobia and storms). Participant met DSM-IV criteria for two specific phobias, situational type (claustrophobia) and natural environment type (storms). She suffered from fear of closed spaces, such as buses, elevators, crowds, and planes, which began after a crowd trampled her in a shopping mall 12 years prior. In response to this event, she developed the specific phobia, natural environment type (storms) because the cause of the stampede was the racket of a big storm. Participant was assigned to two individual VR environments to distinguish the levels of difficulty in a "claustrophobic" environment, with one setting being a house and the other being an elevator. There was a total of eight sessions that were carried out over the span of 30 days, with each session lasting between 35-45 minutes. The results from this treatment proved to be successful in reducing the fear of enclosed spaces and additionally improved over the course of 3 months.
   The game's title refers to the player's life bar, a meter which resembles a pulsing EKG. When the player is damaged, the green line of the EKG will pulse faster and turn red. It is possible to 'regain' health by performing acts that will calm that character's heart rate. These include solving a puzzle or sneaking behind a guard to perform a stealth kill. Both will be rewarded with a health boost that brings the meter back to green.
  
  Section::::Plot.
   Physical signs linked to excessive video game playing include black rings in the skin under the eyes and muscular stiffness in the shoulders, possibly caused by a tense posture or sleep deprivation.
  
  Existing literature on gaming is inconsistent, and studies occasionally produce contradictory results. Some studies show strong correlations between gaming and psychological issues like increased aggression in males and increased depression in females. Another study claims that girls who gamed were less likely to experience depression but were more likely to get into fights.
   After recovering, Fear rejoined EG in August.
  
  EG took first place at the Dota 2 Asia Championships in February 2015. Later that year, Fear and the team won The International 2015, winning over six million dollars in prize money. After TI5, he transitioned from the "carry" to the "support" position to accommodate the return of his former teammate Arteezy. This new EG roster finished in third place in Frankfurt Major 2015 despite a strong showing early in the tournament.
   Section::::Factors that influence the fear of falling.:Height vertigo.
   Each game in "Platform Panic" begins with a robot dropping the player's chosen character into the level. Once the game starts, the player's task is to avoid the enemies and other obstacles, whilst leaping from platform to platform. Coins can also be collected during gameplay, and these can be used to purchase new characters, and to upgrade existing ones. The character is controlled by using simple touch screen controls; the player never stops moving, and the only way to change its path is by swiping up on the screen to make it jump.
   In an interview with CNN, Edward Castronova, a professor of Telecommunications at Indiana University Bloomington said he was not surprised by the outcome of the Australian study but also discussed the issue of causal connection. "Though there is a link between gaming and higher math and science scores, it doesn't mean playing games caused the higher scores. It could just be that kids who are sharp are looking for a challenge, and they don't find it on social media, and maybe they do find it on board games and video games," he explained.
   Hostile mutants in The Big Table are troublesome: human beings (both living and undead) are being transformed into grotesque creatures that kill. The hostile mutants are weakened by high levels of oxygen and so they try to destroy The Big Table's oxygen generators.
  
  The mutation creating the hostile mutants is the result of the effect of cosmic radiation on common bacteria. John Mayor, who is afflicted with a cold, is unaffected by the infectious mutation and must try to rescue The Big Table's occupants and escape.
  
  Section::::Development.
  
  Rieko Kodama was a developer for the game.
  
  Section::::Release.
   Viewing angle has been shown to increase a user's sickness symptoms, especially at extreme angles. One example of such an extreme angle would be when a user must look downwards a short distance in front of their virtual feet. As opposed to a forward viewing angle, an extreme downward angle such as this has been shown to markedly increase sickness in virtual environments.
   Various factors can result in failure to complete a level. As well as toppling all of the dominoes, the player must be able to access the exit door once the dominoes have fallen. For instance, the player will be unable to reach the exit if a ledge leading to the exit has been destroyed, or if a gap leading to the exit has not been bridged, or if a line of dominoes lie across the exit. G.I. Ant may die by falling from a large height, by falling off the bottom of the screen, or by being crushed under a falling domino. The player is then greeted with the message "You Failed, You Died" and has to restart the level. Also, the level will be failed if any dominoes are destroyed by landing one domino on top of another.
   After The International 2017, Fear rejoined the active roster of EG and assumed the captain role after the departures of zai and ppd. In May 2018, following a string of bad placements in Dota Pro Circuit tournaments, EG announced that Fear had been released but would remain a part of the organization in an undisclosed role. On December 14th 2018, Fear joined North American team J.Storm.
   Section::::Contributing factors.:Acrophobia.
  
  Most roller coasters combine substantial heights with seemingly insignificant support, as well as free-falls and the illusion of uncontrolled drops. Because acrophobia involves an extreme fear of heights and falling, these conditions could cause someone who is an acrophobic to have an extremely negative reaction to riding roller coasters.
  
  Section::::Contributing factors.:Claustrophobia.
   Research exploring perception, emotions and physiological responses within virtual reality suggest that controlled virtual environments can alter how a person feels or responds to stimuli.  For example, a controlled virtual environment of a park coupled with a strong perceived feeling of presence causes an individual to feel anxious or relaxed. Similarly, simulated driving through areas of darkness in a virtual tunnel can induce fear. Social interaction with virtual characters in a virtual environment has also been shown to produce physiological responses such as changes in heart rate and galvanic skin responses. In fact, individuals with high levels of social anxiety were found to have larger changes in heart rate than their more socially confident counterparts.
   A 2015 study examined the impact of violent video games on young adults players with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). The study found no evidence for an impact of playing such games on aggression among ASD players. These results appeared to contradict concerns following the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting, that individuals with ASD or other mental conditions might be particularly susceptible to violent video game effects.
   Enemy monsters inhabit the levels, but the player can crush them by flattening impassable blocks against them. The player may also encounter timers in the form of alarm clocks that will begin to elapse when crushed for the first time and can only be stopped when Danny jumps on them. Danny wakes from his mental explorations if he falls off the level or too high of a surface, is touched by a monster, or fails to stop a timer, but the C.R.U.S.H. device reinserts him at the start of the level or the last checkpoint Danny passed.
  