Question about fear and controlled heart-rate

[Vypernight]

This is mostly research for something in my Star Wars story, but since it seemed to fit real-world appications, I thought I'd ask it here.  Hopefully, someone can shed some light on this.

Hypothetically, a person is placed in a situation which terrifies him, and even though he is in no danger, the continued exposure would drive him insane.  If his hear-rate and/or brain-waves (I'm not sure which would matter or both) are controlled and deliberately slowed, would he still feel fear, especially enough to drive him insane?  Is it possible, again hypothetically, to lower the person's heart/brain but still keep him conscious?

Thanks in advance.

[Auggziliary]

Do you have something going on in your basement that involves this?

[Old Viking]

I'm not qualified to address the question, other than to note that I control fear by fainting.

[Vypernight]

Do you have something going on in your basement that involves this?

Attic.

Actually, in my Star Wars story, the person is frozen in Carbonite for over a decade.  Now, according to the books and online sites, the person frozen is still aware that they are trapped and cannot move, but their heart rate and/or brain functions are slowed considerably.  Since being aware that you're trapped like that should be terrifying, I thought someone would go insane if trapped even for a few days, let alone years. 

Yet, everyone who comes out of it seems fine except for blindless and disorientation.  I was wondering if the slowed heartbeat had anything to do with it, or even if a person could be aware if their heart and brain were slowed that much.

[Sylvana]

Well the slowed brain "rate" would effectively mean that the person would experience stimulus slower. Effectively making say a day for people outside feel like a minute to him. This would lessen the total amount of terror the person was exposed to.

However, as you say, the person has been stuck in there for over a decade, so it would still be pretty traumatic based on just the total exposure to the terrifying stimulus.

On the other hand, if you assume slower heart rate but normal brain activity, the net effect of the terror would be less. Fear is based on chemicals within the brain. With the heart rate slowed these chemicals would be distributed far more slowly resulting in less exposure to these fear related chemicals.

Effectively the near stasis effect of the carbonite should reduce the total terror of the horror of being frozen within. It will still be traumatic though. However the full effect will not be the same as say a normal person at their normal metabolic rates being immobile for over a decade.

It should be noted though, that if we assume that the brain activity is normal, the fear aspect wont be as bad as the denial of external stimulus for that duration. Imagine being unable to feel any part of your body, see anything, or hear anything and being unable to move, all you have are your thoughts. Just your own internal monologue for over a decade, will definitely result in some kind of dissociative identity disorder and probably severe schizophrenia and delusions. Having lived for so long without any stimulus, the person in question will be unable to deal with the sudden renewal of outside stimulus and would be overwhelmed, or unable to discern reality from the thoughts of his own mind.

One last note. The bodies natural reaction to these kinds of traumas are unconsciousness and coma. The brain effectively shuts down to spare itself from facing the realities of the situation. Being trapped but aware, would quickly result in the person lapsing into a coma to deal with the trauma.

Of course reality and science are not as much fun, and star wars is pretty much the poster child for science ignoring science fiction, so Go with whatever seems the most fun for you.

[Vypernight]

Okay thanks.  I didn't want the person severely traumatized, just maybe shaken up.  Han Solo was trapped that way for a year so I don't know bow bad it would be for someone longer.  In the novel, he describes the experience as conscious painful aphyxiation, though if he were in a como, he might've just been dreaming. 

[Askold]

I thought that Carbonite functions like cryogenics and freezes the subject. I suppose that having that subject in "hibernation" would be more plausible scientifically.

As if that matters in a world such as the Star wars with their highly advanced technology.

(Although if the body is still functioning, at a slower "speed," this raises up all kinds of unfortunate implications about people who are in carbonite for a really long time. Like the carbonite army, which was preserved for centuries if not millenias.)

[Vypernight]

Well Han described it as a, "wide awake nothing."  Then again, just because he thought he was awake doesn't mean he actually was.

[Jack Mann]

I'm going to go with Sylvana.  You're writing Star Wars.  As science fiction goes, it's about as "hard" as talcum.  What makes for the best story, while keeping as close to the canon as possible?

[Osama bin Bambi]

There's been reports of drugs like L-dopa occasionally being used to "revive" coma patients. If there was some kind of drug that was an opposite to that yet easily reversible, then that might work.