Individual dread. More potent than collective dread? Well a multitude of perspectives arise, as with any inquiry. In the case of individual dread, the trepidation is one’s alone, and therefore all the more horrifying, as no other human being shares this feeling with you, ultimately exacerbating the emotion and state of mind to utter anxiety and forlorn fear. In the case of one’s being kidnapped, the terror is the victim’s and the victim’s alone (apart from the captor who simply enjoys and appreciates the dread he or she has imparted rather than shares in it), and therefore a strong sense of despair would necessitate out of an uncanny helplessness and desperation. On the other hand, a collective dread begets an entity of energy that thrives on the mass input of terror. This creates a dread feedback loop in which the dread inevitably continues to mount as more and more individuals submit their fears into the throng, and as the host increases, so too does the collective dread augment. The grandest example of this collective dread feedback loop would be the circumstance of apocalypse. The impending destruction of the earth’s inhabitants would indict every individual of living, and naturally bring about the inescapable prospect of death. The absolute certitude of death’s arrival, and undeniable aspect that there would and could not be a single survivor engenders a trepidation that cannot rest in an individual’s soul alone, but must bounce out to the billions of other souls to be affected in the same way. This network of dread could result as one of the most frightening of situations imaginable (only perhaps rivaled by a scenario in which every individual in the world would have to take a turn giving a five minute speech to the rest of the global population, and if one refused, the result would be death. This to my mind would produce many deaths and suicides, as public speaking is inconceivably exalted in the minds of billions of people, only highlighting a combined dread of the self and others).
existentialwriter 