Suspense is a feeling of excited waiting. If you've been waiting for weeks for an answer to your marriage proposal, they keep you in suspense. The verb form to suspend literally means to stay hung up. Suspense can be used as a powerful tool in storytelling für meditation, activating the amygdala and adrenal glands.
This activation creates a wave but contained. Pursuit is where the pleasure is. How is reading suspense different from running away from a predator or watching a James Bond movie? Neurologically, it isn't. The reaction may be less severe and the cognitive content may be different, but the sequence of brain activation and neural pathways are exactly the same.
Basically, the reader is microdosed with the same neurotransmitters that would be activated if a real emergency occurred. And once the amygdala (an almond-shaped part of the brain, fundamental to the parasympathetic nervous system) reacts, the person reading, the person being attacked, etc. Suspense is a state of mental uncertainty, anxiety, indecision or doubt. In a dramatic work, suspense is the anticipation of the outcome of a plot or of the solution to an uncertainty, a riddle or a mystery, particularly with regard to a character with whom you feel sympathy.
However, suspense is not exclusive to fiction. In mystery and suspense, the stakes are high enough to make the narrative seem engaging but not intolerable. But what exactly is suspense? This sense of intense anticipation can be found in several genres and causes the audience to lean forward with their eyes glued to the screen. At the same time, the cognitive aspects of suspense, riddles and questions and problem solving must be recognized for creating those anxious, but sometimes strangely pleasant, feelings of anxiety.
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