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Proverb: Fear has big eyes.

Interpretation of meaning, meaning:

Analogs of this Russian folk proverb sound in many languages ​​of the world. Fear is a natural human feeling that has helped to survive for a long time. An unarmed ancient man saw a terrible beast - he was frightened and ran away. So fear saved his life.

But there is also excessive, exaggerated fear. Sometimes people tend to be afraid even of something that is not there, to see troubles from scratch, to worry about imaginary danger. In such cases, the proverb will be appropriate: "Fear has big eyes." That is, a person draws in his imagination more than it really is. Most often, this behavior is characteristic of cowardly, fearful people.

The proverb is also based on real observations: in a person experiencing fear, the eyes really become large (pupils dilate, eyelids open wide).

Continuation of the proverb

The collection "Encyclopedia of Folk Wisdom" (compiled by N. Uvarov) contains the following extended versions of the proverb "Fear has large eyes" (with a continuation):

• Fear has big eyes, but they see nothing.
• Fear has eyes like bowls, but does not see a crumb.

How to understand a proverb, expression: Fear has big eyes ...

Let's look at phraseological, explanatory dictionaries - they help to understand the meaning of this or that expression, give an explanation in a concise form:

• So they say in colloquial speech about a frightened person who exaggerates the danger. (A large dictionary of Russian sayings).
• The coward sees danger everywhere. (Synonym dictionary)

In addition, there is a cartoon of the same name and a fairy tale called "Fear Has Big Eyes."

The heroes of the fairy tale: grandmother, granddaughter, chicken and mouse. They all went together for water, an apple in the orchard fell right on the bunny's forehead, he threw himself at everyone's feet. And each hero imagined his own fear in him: the grandmother saw a bear, the granddaughter - a wolf, a chicken - a fox, a mouse - a cat, and the bunny thought that it was 4 hunters who attacked him. The tale ends with the proverb: "Fear has big eyes: what is not, and that is what they see."

Thus, the tale shows us an example of a situation where fear is exaggerated.

And how do you understand the meaning of the proverb "Fear has big eyes." Share your opinion in the comments 😉

In the 17th century, the famous French philosopher, mathematician, physicist Rene Descartes came to a startling conclusion, with which not only his contemporaries, but also scientists who lived a hundred and two hundred years after him, could not agree in any way. Only in the 80s of the XIX century, the greatest psychologists American W. James and German K. Lange returned to the idea of ​​Descartes and made an assumption that entered science as the James-Lange hypothesis.
Descartes probably proposed the first-ever neurological model of emotion. According to ideas, a person, like any animal, acts like a machine. Breathing and blood circulation are done mechanically. The management of the processes taking place in the body is carried out without the participation of the soul.
Colleagues asked in disbelief whether Descartes really believed that people flee from danger not because they feel fear, they heard in response that the brain receives a signal about a threat and automatically forces a person to escape. However, there is a difference between humans and animals. People, fleeing, experience fear. According to Descartes, it is wrong to say that a man runs away from a wolf because he is afraid. It would be more correct to say: he is afraid because he runs away.
There are plenty of reasons for anxiety and all kinds of fears in our life. Millions of people run the risk of being useless, without work, without sufficient means of subsistence, without moral support.
Fear paralyzes the will, leads to alcoholism, drug addiction, sexual disorders. Some psychotherapists believe that the hidden reserves of the human psyche, if the patient is able to use them, allows him to cope even with AIDS, but those who succumb to fear are dangerous and runny nose.
In a word, fear does not bode well for anything but worry and anguish. This has been the accepted belief for centuries.
But in the middle of the 19th century, the famous Danish philosopher S. Kierkegaard noticed that fear is not a curse and not a disaster, like a snowfall falling on a person, but its constant companion, sometimes intolerable, and sometimes very desirable and even extremely necessary.
Fear itself is neither good nor bad. It all depends on how you treat it and how you dispose of it. The purpose of fear is to warn of impending disaster. While a person experiences fear, he also retains a chance to safely resolve his conflicts.
This is not about the fear that the patient experiences when entering the dentist's office. The tooth is pulled out - and the anxiety disappears without a trace. But there is also fear, trying to get rid of which is like trying to escape from your own shadow.
Every person has something - freedom, career, power, love, faith - the loss of which would make his life empty and meaningless. Having lost the respect of others or a certain social status, a person ceases to feel like a person, and he fears this no less than death.
Threats are constantly coming from all sides. They are perceived not by reason, but at an unconscious level. There is nowhere to hide from them. It is difficult to take any measures against them, because they manifest themselves in the form of vague anxiety and excruciating self-doubt.
A harsh word or a cold look hurt because they make a person think: "Maybe I don't mean anything anymore?" Sometimes we cross the street in order not to meet someone, unconsciously avoiding unpleasant encounters (impressions).
Most people would probably be very surprised if they knew how often in everyday life they do one way or another in order to muffle the feeling of fear. Efforts to assert themselves and suppress internal anxiety are manifested in literally everything: in the manner of speaking, dressing, gesturing, in the choice of magazines to read, and in whether a person prefers to watch a detective story or a beauty contest on TV.
The response to fear can be normal or neurotic, out of proportion to the threat. A person is often unable to cope with danger, because he is not able to understand its causes. So, for a child who is not loved by his parents, it is not easy to realize this.
As long as the causes of fear remain hidden, they cannot be eliminated. Instead, the person tries to suppress it and escape from it. In the United States, back in the 1920s, sociologists began to consider the usual way to cope with fear of increased business activity, which American psychologists call "normal neurosis."
Trying to gain self-confidence, a person chases after a change of impressions and entertainment, but he can go exactly the opposite way, shielding himself from the world with the help of alcohol or drugs, becoming apathetic and indifferent to everything in the world.
Neurasthenic does not know how to change life, and does not believe that he is able to do it. He prefers to believe in fate and drives his fears into the unconscious, and then they break out, manifesting themselves in the form of diseases. But a happy, cloudless, calm life, in which all anxiety would be completely absent, is extremely rare. It is difficult to find a person completely free from fears, but if for a neurotic, fear is a blank wall that blocks the path to happiness, for a healthy person it is only an obstacle that is sometimes difficult to overcome, but which makes his life less insipid and boring.
Fear of falls and bruises makes the child learn to walk. Fear teaches a person to achieve their goal. The Italian abbot Ferdinand Galliani (1728-1787) even argued that courage is simply the greatest fear. But there is another side to the problem of fear, which, for obvious reasons, doctors do not want to pay attention to. "Fear has big eyes" - they say among the people, implying by these words that it cannot do without the evil eye or the self-evil eye, which is the cause of all the disasters that fall on a frightened person. It is no coincidence that in Russian folk medicine, fear was a sure sign of spoilage.
What does a frightened person do? Trying to hide from danger. But what should he do if he is seized with anxiety, the reasons for which he cannot understand? He seeks shelter in himself, trying to isolate himself from the outside world. And the more he is repulsed by his work, environment, everything that he has to do every day, the more he immerses himself in himself, looks into himself and is exposed to the danger of self-eye.
If a person has a piece of delicious cake in front of him, they salivate. If a person is agitated, angry, or uncomfortable, they turn pale or blush. If a person sees someone yawning, he may want to sleep. Someone else's laughter, no one knows what caused, arouses the desire to laugh.
A sad face leads to a state of sadness, for which, perhaps, there is not the slightest reason. Severe toothache sometimes goes away on its own when a person moves away from the dentist's office. Even watching a seizure in a sick person can cause the same seizure in the observer.
Some people begin to experience physical pain when they see a person in pain. For some, it is enough for this to hear about other people's ailments.
It is believed that during epidemics, people often appear with all the symptoms of an infectious disease, although the real reasons for their ill health lie in fear and suggestion. All this is a manifestation of the laws of sympathy and antipathy.
Like follows like. When a person witnesses murders, fires, catastrophes, he experiences fear: both when there is a real threat to his life, and when he himself is safe. He is afraid because he knows that everything in the world is connected. The events that he watched, according to the laws of sympathy, can be reflected in him. Back in 1582, during the massacre of the Huguenots in France, many cases were described when people died, in whose eyes they tortured, killed and ruined their loved ones, but who themselves had not yet been subjected to violence.
Imagination is the ability to mentally imagine something. Images appear in the artist's head. They are available only to him. He sits in his apartment in snow-covered Samara, and before his eyes the sun-drenched mountains are somewhere far to the south. But now he takes brushes, paints, canvas and depicts what he sees alone. Then other people can get an idea of ​​what the artist is interested in. Is it possible to do without canvas, paints, words? Not to draw anything, not to tell and still make the other person see the same thing?
In ancient Greece, it was believed that a strong tension of the human soul can not only lead to the magical embodiment of pictures that arise in the human imagination, in images seen by other people, but also change the people themselves and the entire environment.
The famous Democritus attached great importance to the doctrine of imagination, who believed that the images emitted by envious people penetrate into the body of the person who is being gazed and destroy it, and the mind of the one who is struck by a bad look becomes confused. Everything that a person dreams of, for which he strongly strives, does not pass without a trace for him.
His soul does not affect objects and people that surround a person, but above all - on his own body. His soul forms and disposes of him. If a person had a sufficiently strong imagination and was not afraid to use it, then he could change his appearance with the same ease with which he changes his facial expression. The images that are created by free will are not at all the same as those born in empty and random dreams. Fantasies have no specific purpose. They only excite a person and can drive him to madness.
Hallucinations caused by drugs only relax a person and deprive him of the will necessary for the material embodiment of his mental images.
The images generated by one soul begin to affect the astral body of the person to whom they were sent. And if the imagination of the person who created the images is strong enough, he will subordinate to his will the one who perceives his images. This explains the action of the evil eye, the transmission of bodily harm and mental illness. Parents' imagination through their will can affect how their child's body will be.
At the end of the last century, an anthropologist who studied the Maori - the indigenous population of New Zealand - described the mysterious death of a young strong man. He broke some prohibition that existed among his fellow tribesmen and disappeared within a few days.
A person who is not loved by everyone and who is surrounded by secret and obvious ill-wishers has every reason to fear the evil eye. He constantly feels the danger of damage, trying to avoid it, often does strange things that make even people he knows well to doubt whether he is of sound mind. They must seem strange to themselves. After all, he does not know what he is running from.
Such a person who was in eternal fear was the War Minister of the Pushkin era, Count A.A. Arakcheev. He was very afraid of poisoning at dinner, and before starting a new dish, he gave it to his dogs to try, on whose graves cast-iron monuments were erected on his Gruzino estate. Arakcheev even poured coffee into a saucer and gave it to the dog. And he drank himself only after her.
You can be sure that it was precisely the fear of corruption. Because people who are afraid of it are constantly and everywhere looking for its signs. When such a search continues for many years, a person cannot stand it.
He wants nothing to change around him. In the slightest change in the order of things, he sees a sign of impending misfortune. Arakcheev made sure that every tree in his estate had a certain look. Boys sat under the trees, picking up the fallen leaves, so that all roads and paths were in perfect order. It is clear that such a lifestyle is calming, but not saving. Arakcheev ended his life deplorably, having lost all honors and positions.
However, some people are constantly under threat of damage, look at things differently and find a way out of a difficult situation.
A person is taught from childhood that fear is humiliating, that cowardice must be despised. Avoiding combat, hiding from a bullet is considered unworthy behavior. But few consider it shameful to fear damage. Roman generals, showing their courage, returning home triumphant, demanded that the soldiers scolded and insulted them in order to avoid the evil eye.
People very often experience fear of illness, exaggerating the threat to their health. They talk about their helplessness and insecurity. They like to delve into their misfortunes precisely because they want to humiliate themselves and thus protect them from the evil eye.
In addition, it was believed that the disease protects a person from spoilage. No one will envy the patient. In India, in order to prevent the evil eye, diseases were often feigned. However, European psychiatry knows many cases when people, for no apparent reason, not only do not go to simulation, but are also ready to inflict serious injury on themselves just to look like unfortunate sufferers.

There are so-called in any language. They are good in imagery and comprehensibility for most people. And how do these phrases, beautiful in their expressiveness, arise? For example, why do they say that you tried to understand this statement in fear? Or are you just happy to screw it in the right place? Let's try to understand what is hidden in it.

Video: Cartoons for kids

Is it about wide eyes?

Everyone must have found themselves in a situation where the will is completely paralyzed by horror. And others were seen in such an unpleasant state. The eyes, as is customary, at this moment, against their will, open wide, threatening to get out of their orbits. And you ask why they say that fear has big eyes. There is a certain physiological moment in this expression. However, it is secondary. After all, people bulge their eyes in other situations. For example, in moments of surprise, they literally climb on their foreheads. This is even more likely to happen than when a person is terrified. This means that the point is not entirely in physiology with the features of facial expressions. And the classics of literature write about the same. They argue that the expression "fear has large eyes" has a deeper meaning. There is another cliché associated with this enduring expression. They say that fear obscures the eyes. If the phrases are considered together, then it will be possible to get to the depth of the meaning inherent in them.

Let's turn inward

It is proposed to find out why they say that fear has large eyes, with examples. Think back to a situation when you were overcome by this negative feeling. It is recommended to break the situation down into several points. First: receiving news or entering a situation. Second: your own reaction to it. Third: finding out the reasons for its occurrence. Fourth: comparing reality and one's own attitude to it. If you do all this on your own, then you will be able to explain the meaning of the proverb “fear has big eyes” at a professional level.

Video: Luntik - 458 series. Pilgrims. New series 2016

Let's say a person is told at work that the boss is very angry. And a few minutes later this "tyrant" invited this worker to his place. His reaction: now he will scold (humiliate, fire, and so on). The poor fellow sweats, on wadded feet he goes to the boss. And he just decided to clarify, for example, a couple of points from the report of this specialist. We talked and parted. Everything is fine. Now we apply the idiom "fear has big eyes" to the situation. Its meaning, apparently, is that under the influence of this emotion a person exaggerates the danger. That is, in his head he builds terrifying thought forms, but in fact there is nothing like that at all. His perception is clouded with fear. He is not able to adequately perceive the information received.

When they say "fear has big eyes"

The meaning of this expression is widely used both in literature and in oral speech, in order to emphasize the expressed thought, to give it imagery. After all, we communicate at all levels. Facts are conveyed by words. They also give rise to emotions in the minds of the listeners. Often for this, they use shades of intonation, exclamations. And in difficult cases, they resort to stable expressions. It is they who help to achieve the intended effect, the required level of reaction, the correctness of the listener's perception of what they are trying to convey. In our case, this expression emphasizes the incorrectness of a person's reaction to a certain event or news. It is skewed towards the negative. Or, in other words, a person has lost for some time to adequately perceive reality. However, this is the second side of the coin, and soon everything will change.

The phrase does not claim that the clouding of the eyes will last long. Quite the opposite. There is in it a hint of the fragility of this state of affairs. Here's an example. The average citizen who listens to the news, as a rule, perceives them negatively. They are trying to convince him that the country is falling apart, everything is going awry. However, such news stories have been pouring from screens for decades. And the country will not "fall apart" in any way. And the power does not particularly depend on the reaction of the viewer. But his nervous system, on the contrary, suffers greatly. Therefore, it is worth remembering the sayings. Folk wisdom, used as intended, prolongs life!

Conclusion

We have tried to figure out why they say that fear has big eyes. The meaning of the expression is voluminous and multifaceted. But the meaning of its stability and popularity, as it seems, is in the imagery. After all, most people understand what is in it, intuitively, without meticulous research and tedious explanations. The beauty of the Russian language, as they say, is in the examples!

Attention, only TODAY! Appendix # 1

Grade 6, social studies

F.I. student ____________________

Lesson Worksheet

Lesson topic: ______

The purpose of the lesson:__________________________________________________________________

№	Tasks	Points
1.	What is fear? Fear is	2b.
3.	Answer the questions: Why is it said that fear has big eyes? (2b) ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ What are the proverbs and sayings about fear? _1__________________________________________________________ 2_________________________________________________________ 3_________________________________________________________ 4__________________________________________________________ Think of films, stories that have caused fear in you, or are aimed at making a person fearful. ___________________________________________________________ 1.________________________________________________________ 2.______________________________________________________ 3.______________________________________________________	1b. per answer
5.	Find the positive and negative sides of fear and name as many continuation of the phrase as possible: - “Prove that fear is a beneficial feeling because …………………… …………………………………………………………………………………..» - “Prove that fear is a harmful feeling because ………………… .. ………………………………………………………………………………..…»	1b. per The phrase
	Total points:

Wish:

Offer:

5 -8 pts. - score "3"

9 - 12b. - rating "4"

13 and more - rating "5"

Appendix # 2

Scorecard (group work)

№	F.I. pupil	Tasks					Score
		Exercise "Scary word" (1b.)	Exercise "Spot of fear" (1b.)	Answers on questions (1b. For the correct answer)	Analysis of the cartoon (up to 2b.)	Group activity (up to 3 points)
1
2
3
4
5
6
Total points:

Appendix No. 3

1. 
   

________________________________________________________________________

1. 
   

1. 
   

Tasks for the cartoon "Cockroach"

Use the algorithm below for analyzing a situation where we are not talking about an individual hero, but about the entire animal kingdom, where suddenly, as a result of an unexpected coup, power has changed.

Consider the following points:

1. 
   Participants in the situation _______________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

Participants' images _______________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

1. 
   Object of claims (Why did this situation arise) ________________________

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

1. 
   The external position of the participants (As they explain to others and to themselves the reasons for the fear) __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

1. 
   

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

1. 
   
2. 
   

1. 
   The internal position of the participants (what are they afraid of) _____________________________

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

1. 
   Changes in the development of relations (whether new participants appeared, what happened) _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
2. 
   The chosen method of resolving the situation (how it all ended) _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Appendix No. 4

Memo "Learning to conquer fear."

1. 
   Get yourself a separate notebook and in those days when you felt fear of this or that life phenomenon, write in it everything that is somehow connected with your fear: what you did, how others reacted, etc. Also write down all your achievements, victories and successes in it. When you have collected at least a small collection of records, you will feel like a completely successful person. Waking up in the morning, be sure to think about your merits, about what you have managed to achieve, how many obstacles you have already overcome. Don't be afraid to take risks! You should not constantly think about problems (if they appear, they will still be unexpected).
2. 
   Running away from your fears is the biggest mistake. To get rid of fear, you first need to overcome it from the inside. To do this, it is useful to understand what exactly scares you, what is the cause of the fear.

This will help the exercise "active sleep": before going to bed for 5-10 minutes, think about what you are very afraid of. This is necessary so that during sleep you replay all your experiences and get rid of them. In the morning, what you were afraid of may not seem so scary at all.

Another exercise can be used: try to draw your fear. Maybe he is not so incomprehensible and mysterious?

1. 
   Play as if.

Imagine for at least one day that you are a brave person. How would you feel? What would you do differently? Watch brave people. How do they behave? How are problems solved? Try to apply their behavior to yourself. In a specific situation, try to act not as you would, but as a brave person would act. Try to practice courageous behavior in a place where no one knows you. It's important not to overdo it. Excessive courage can play a cruel joke on you.

This is easier said than done, of course. The main thing is not to be lazy and work on yourself!

There are plenty of reasons for anxiety and all kinds of fears in our life. Millions of people run the risk of being useless, without work, without sufficient means of subsistence, without moral support.

Fear paralyzes the will, leads to alcoholism, drug addiction, sexual disorders. The purpose of fear is to warn of impending disaster. While a person experiences fear, he also retains a chance to safely resolve his conflicts.

"Fear has big eyes" - they say among the people, implying by these words that it cannot do without the evil eye or the self-evil eye, which is the cause of all the disasters that fall on a frightened person. It is no coincidence that in Russian folk medicine, fear was a sure sign of spoilage.

What does a frightened person do? Trying to hide from danger. But what should he do if he is seized with anxiety, the reasons for which he cannot understand? He seeks shelter in himself, trying to isolate himself from the outside world. And the more he is repulsed by his work, environment, everything that he has to do every day, the more he immerses himself in himself, looks into himself and is exposed to the danger of self-eye.

People very often experience fear of illness, exaggerating the threat to their health. They talk about their helplessness and insecurity. They like to delve into their misfortunes precisely because they want to humiliate themselves and thus protect them from the evil eye.

In addition, it was believed that the disease protects a person from spoilage. No one will envy the patient.

By and large, all our fears are a figment of our imagination, something far-fetched.