Question: Why does our brain make us feel scared during the night, or any other scary moments?

Charlotte Flavell answered on 25 Jun 2014:

Fear is a very important emotion. It is something that a lot of animals can experience, from rats and mice to cats, dogs and rabbits. We get scared mainly so that we don’t do something silly! Most people are a little bit afraid of heights because if you spend too much time up high you might fall and hurt yourself. Some people are afraid of snakes or spiders, which is probably a good thing as a lot of snakes and spiders are poisonous.

If you are afraid of something you are less likely to go near it and because of this you might be more likely to live and go on to have children. This way the fear of spiders or whatever will be passed on to your children and they will stay away as well. Someone who isn’t afraid might try and stroke a tiger for example. This is probably a bad idea and they are likely to get eaten. If they are eaten they wont go on to have kids and pass on their bravery. The only people left will be the ones that were afraid of the tiger.

Sometimes, people can get scared of things that aren’t really there, like when we have bad dreams or when people get something called “night terrors”. This usually happens to kids and is similar to sleep walking. If your parents did it when they were little you, are more likely to do it too. We don’t really know why we dream, or why those dreams are sometimes nightmares, but most people tend to grow out of them as they get older.