BBC Focus Magazine

[Jamie]

Reducing numbers when times are hard would simply be down to the weaker ones succumbing to a natural end, rather that animals making a decision to end it all themselves. I'm fairly sure that there's no evidence for this behaviour in animals - the majority of them can't even recognise themselves in a mirror.

[Lateralman]

Miss Flakkarin, can you swim? Can all your friends with the jumping urge swim?

I know that it is a personal question but it might be relevant to the 'urge to jump' theme, for I have just remembered the profound impact learning to swim had on that of my past dreams of, standing on the edge of the cliff wanting to jump.

For once I had learned to swim, I no longer had that dream of jumping anymore!

[Flakkarin]

I can swim, and actually the other day I had a quite freeing dream about jumping off a bridge into the water.

Thanks Dark One, it was rather a shot in the dark posting this, but having some sort of scientific idea on it is a great result!

What ARE lemmings do when they run off cliffs? I'd heard they're not actually committing suicide, but have forgotten the explanation for why they do leap the leap.

[M Paul Lloyd]

I seem to recall that it is thought to be a result of overpopulation that leads to a mass migration to wide open spaces that simply don't exist anymore?

You could say its similar to how Polar Bears are moving into urban communities, they simply don't have anywhere else to go.




Although its probably more likely that its easier pickings from bins and skips than running your but off for a chance of a seal.

[Lateralman]

Beached Whales, Beached Dolphins, Lemmings, that tiny romantic spider who risks being eaten, every time he tries to have it off with the big female! Just a few examples of our worlds, wonderful creatures great and small, who seem harbour a death wish!

But people with the, 'urge to jump' off tall buildings or into fast flowing rivers. I am really struggling with this one, to try and dissociate death, from stepping out into the void? Perhaps it is just me but the two seem to go together like peas in a pod!

[M Paul Lloyd]

Yes, but it is the urge to do something that you know that you really don't want to do, not the urge to actually do so.
My experience on the High Level Bridge was not one of wanting to dive into the River Tyne but rather the feeling that some inexorable force was trying to pull me to my doom.
Trust me it wasn't in the slightest bit suicidal in any way.

[Jamie]

I believe lemmings jump off cliffs or river banks to get into the water below to enable them to swim across.

[Hyrulian Outlaw]

I agree with the MPL on this one lateral, I think you missed the point - it's about survival and not about intention to do harm to yourself.

The monkey tree jump gauging sounds plausible as it would be highly disadvantageous if they could not accurately jump. As it would result in either falling and injury or an inability to escape a predator.

[Lateralman]

Perhaps, the lead Lemming, in the front of the pack, just took a wrong turn? Haha!

Could the inexorable force pulling you down, have anything to do with magnetism? The earths magnetic field effecting our brain waves? Honestly being serious, before you jump down my throat, to tell me that I'm thread blending.
Could there be a reaction such as that in some people. One that we don't yet fully understand? Similar to birds using the magnetic field to get from A to B but ultimately always heading down once they have taken off?

Monkey tree jumping does sound plausible but they are jumping from one tree to the next and not from one tree to off a cliff? The movement is across, rather than down!

[Hyrulian Outlaw]

If it was a magnetic thing then wouldn't there be some link between MRi scans and the sensation?

Lets not forget that we diverged from monkeys quite some time ago, i'm sure it would long enough for our instinct of jumping to become a bit messed up from it's original design.

[Shadowwolf]

Could the inexorable force pulling you down, have anything to do with magnetism? The earths magnetic field effecting our brain waves?

That's gravity not magnetism and the sensation or feeling is not one of being attracted to the ground by an external force but a notion of taking a leap into the free air.

Now I have heard of something in the news recently called transcranial magnetic stimulation which uses an electromagnetic field to induce a low level electrical current in the brain. However this requires a close proximity coil set up to target the field on the person and a specific brain region depending on what is being done, it would not occur by everyday exposure to Terra's field.

Monkey tree jumping does sound plausible but they are jumping from one tree to the next and not from one tree to off a cliff? The movement is across, rather than down!

The movement could be also down but the point is that whereas it was initially connected to short distances in a primitive ancestor it now manifests within us when faced with a precipice; cliff, building or bridge has nothing to do with it.

[Lateralman]

OK, If magnetism is out and we are not suddenly being drawn to the earth, by some unknown force? (By the way, Horizon covered transcrainial magnetic stimulation last week, it was absolutely brilliant! Although, I was a tad reminded of the bad old days of lobotomy! Don't ask why!)

Then, I think that the first prize, of a bunch of banana's goes to the Dark One!
It's that cheeky monkey gene in our DNA that we don't know about, that gives us 'the urge to jump!'

And it is messed up from the original design. Monkeys don't jump off buildings and bridges..we do!

Correction, 'you lot the urge to jump!'

[Healerman]

I know exactly where you are coming from on this one Flak, I don't much like heights, yet there is that sort of compulsion...

I get the same kind of feeling near water too, like something subliminal is saying 'Go on, just jump in!'

Waterfalls! They're the worst. Had one near where I grew up, called Drunk Man's Death. Oooh, the urge!

The whole brachiator business sounds interesting. I'll have to do some reading.

[Lateralman]

Too right!! Healerman, is the ideal candidate to investigate all this 'monkey' business!

[Dark One]

I await my bananas with baited breath

[Foreveryoung]

I came across your forum when I asked the question about an urge to jump. I get that feeling whenever I am close to the edge of a high place. I think it is my fear if heights that causes the urge. If I jump i'm getting away from the height of which I am afraid! Jumping is better than being high

[MikeG]

I think this feeling is quite common, and probably related to the dream many people have of flying. This was the reason I decided to try hang gliding. The sensation you feel is amazingly similar to the feeling in the dream state.

[farbuckle]

Perhaps this strange effect is nothing more than the brain,
which is essentially a pattern maker, being presented with a
huge field of vision that is relatively devoid of measurable
nearby patterns - it searches for a solid foundation in an almost
last-gasp attempt to save us. It's not so much that we feel
like jumping but that we can see ourselves falling due to the
lack of safe visual reference points.

[M Paul Lloyd]

That sounds reasonable to me Farbuckle, after all standing on a plank just few inches wide that is on the ground feels fine but if that plank were a steel girder 200 feet in the air, well not everyone could cope I'm sure.

[farbuckle]

Good point Paul and it begs the question what exactly is different
about these people who can walk narrow planks so high up. I don't
think it's that they don't have a fear of heights, something else may
be going on with their brain/perception. Maybe it's a gradual
process of getting used to such heights in stages. If we spend long
enough so high we learn how to focus on the relative points of
reference that stop us from falling - such as the plank and nothing
else - and we learn to ignore the huge space around us.