As in, why do so many people admit that they think the idea is ridiculous but still make sure they've at least got a window open? Or, as one blogger put it:
Sometimes what we believe without any questioning might not be true. Therefore, we should check at least one time whether what we believe so naturally is really true or not.
Regardless of it, I would like to recommend opening the windows when you sleep with the fan in summer. As a matter of fact, sleeping while drunk in the hot summer is such a dangerous behavior (maybe the drunken people even don’t have sense to open the window). It doesn’t matter whether you have a fan or not. Even when you use the fan, place it near your feet, and so your face is not going to be swollen the next day ...
I have to admit, since my daughter was born, I fall into the 'I think it's bunk, but hedging the bets anyway' category. When I moved here almost three years ago, I thought belief in fan death was one of the most absurd things I'd ever heard. I mean, it's not like it's some superstition left over from the murky mists of time. We're talking about a fear of electric fans.
But now that the weather is so hot that we need a fan in my infant daughter's room, I just can not bring myself to completely shut the door when it's on. I leave it open, you know, just in case there's something to it.
I had some half-baked, pseudo-intellectual argument worked up about the power of culture and socialization versus the individual, and how the surrounding culture inherently shapes the way you think---sometimes against your will, sometimes without you even knowing it. But, this is probably a lame example, so I'm not even going to try to explain it.
All I know is, although I'm glad to have it, I totally don't trust that fan.
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6 comments:
Fan Death sounds like one of those horrible and barely-scary Korean horror movies.
I sleep with an electric fan on and the door closed every night. Fan death is totally ridiculous.
It's an intriguing notion - the idea that air circulated, while sleeping (clearly a very dangerous time to be alone with a fan )can kill you. Maybe it's the precise speed of the blades' rotation that can create some kind of mystical phenomenon - an oxygen vortex, or maybe a smothering layer of thick whooshing air, or the worst case senario - the idea that all fans are part of a conspiracy to get rid of the humans and take over the world (killing us willy-nilly in our sleep in ways we can only imagine and never know) - which to be perfectly honest, sounds like the most plausible reason for fan death I have heard so far.
it does sound totally ridiculous, right?
and yet... after 3 years living in korea, if i JUST so happen to wake up not feeling so well, and if it JUST so happens that the fan was on all night... i can't help feeling suspicious of that poor unsuspecting fan...
it's the power of suggestion, and human nature to reach for the closest (albeit illogical) explanation available when looking for answers...
Yeah, that's the thing that fascinated me. The power of the suggestion. Before moving here, I would never have given leaving the fan on a second thought.
sigh . . .
I feel like I need video tape of myself sleeping perfectly happily and contentedly all night with the fan running while all the doors and windows locked tight. If this phenomena weren't understood perfectly well as completely ludicrous, I'd have more sympathy. But we know the sciences is bunk, and we all know people who've successfully lived through the night despite it all. I've certainly done it enough, and I'm still here. It's an urban myth with no place in reality.
Now, there are compelling reasons to keep a window open at night when running the fan, but they have nothing to do with death. Fan's don't actually cool they air (rather, they make you feel cooler by facilitating the evaporation of sweat) but if placed in front of an open window when the outside temperature is lower than the temperature inside the room, they can help pull in cooler air which will in turn cool the room.
I suppose it doesn't do any harm to leave a door open if it can be done safely, but at least you should recognize that it's just a superstition, like not crossing under ladders.
And the face swelling thing? That has got to be psychosomatic.
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