Why do we enjoy horror stories?

This is called Why do We Enjoy Horror Stories. It features two stories that supposedly happened to the author. He is telling the stories to librarians in a attempt to explain why we indeed enjoy them so much. The first story is a ghost story. He explains how he left his house one night and couldn't recall if he had locked the door or not. He said that he turned around to check and they was a beaming light the appeared in front of him. At first, he said he thought his house might be haunted, and he had never known. Once he looked closer her realized that it was a reflection from the street light behind him. The author states that after he realized what it was, "The fear had been banished and I felt euphoric and energized."
The next story he told was a horror story. This story consisted of him and his family traveling at a very rapid pace down a highway. He said that they needed to slow down but the brakes weren't working. He described how he tried everything but the car wouldn't slow, he ended up having to turn the car off, and dodge around cars until their vehicle finally came to a halt. He said that this experience was different because instead of euphoric, he felt scared and depressed. The moral of his story was to tell the difference between horror for entertainment, and horror in real life. So this somewhat reinforces Gaut's idea that horror gives evidence of being pleasurable to the audience. Clearly he felt a sense of pleasure from both stories. In the first story he felt a rush from an exciting experience, in the second he felt a sense of pleasure from surviving, yet he was terrified for a while after. Much like the feelings you could get at a horror movie, but more real. The second could go either way because the fear seemed to out weigh the pleasure. I just thought this was an interesting way to look at the question.

Why do I Enjoy Horror Stories?
by Greg "The Undead Rat" on July 16, 2008
http://heightslibrary.org/wordpress/undeadrat/?p=14