The word I use for what you describe is shock, or perhaps if you’re allowing something longer term, dread. I use fear to mean the emotional state I usually (but not always) experience when anticipating negative outcomes. It is characterized by a contracting feeling in the chest, racing thoughts, and what I’ll call for lack of a better phrase “negative emotional valence”. I experience this when anticipating death, which is an outcome that is quite negative indeed. I also experience this, due to my social anxiety, before talking to almost anyone, despite not actually anticipating a negative outcome, and before important tests, which I don’t expect to cause me danger but could cause something bad to happen.
Do you experience this emotion in this way? If so, what do you call it?
The names we assign emotions are, of course, somewhat arbitrary, but I find it interesting that what you call fear seems to be centered around a possible danger. What do you consider danger to be, if not a risk of death? If an assassin were hunting you with a completely painless weapon, would you experience what you call fear?
I enjoyed this book a great deal, and would like to go deeper on the immune system. Does anyone have book recommendations?