Hi all! My name is Nina, and I keep myself occupied with doing an MA in English at Aarhus University. This semester, I’m doing an internship at Recreational Fear Lab – for which I am excited.

I’ve been a part of RFL’s yearly research at Dystopia for quite some time. Seeing how differently people handle going into and coming out of a haunted house attraction is surprisingly interesting, especially when used for research.

My own interest in horror has differed a lot throughout my life. As a kid, my mum and I went to the no longer existing Blockbuster store and rented horror films to watch as a weekend activity. As I got older, I kind of couldn’t be bothered with horror because the films were often plotless – at least I thought so. Now, I am extremely fascinated by the ways in which us humans engage with horror and which processes occur at the top floor of the flesh building – in our brain. I did my minor in psychology and gained insight into neuropsychology. This heightened my interest in horror even further. It turns out, the brain really likes horror. Naturally, exactly how much depends on the person in question, but the brain (we!) can actually learn something by engaging with fear through horror. How cool is that?

Due to the combined interest in horror and our brain processes, I wrote my bachelor on the horror video game Subnautica, exploring how the brain progressively learns what (and what not) to fear as you continue to explore the deep sea virtually. I want to take this knowledge out of the virtual realm and see how it applies in real life.