Survey

Author's own

Above is the survey that I distributed among peers, friends and family to get a better understanding of how they perceive anxiety and the subconscious. In the survey I supplied a list of anxiety disorders for people to tick as many as they felt they have/had. I was able to discover that all recipients all answers yes to having at least one anxiety. It is a very common issue therefore I need to address it so all audiences can relate and understand clearly. I also wanted to learn how Anxiety had stopped people from carrying out life. Furthermore I wanted to see how people experience Anxiety what it makes them feel (symptoms or physical feelings). Lastly I asked what colours people felt Anxiety was to them- this would help determining the colours for my animation later.

I have learnt from carrying this out this survey that almost everyone said Yes to "Has a worry or anxiety ever stopped you doing something?" Which shows the the subconscious is powerful because is stopping people from doing something and controlling us in ways we don't realise. It displayed to me that everyone can feel this way, it isn't a certain stereotype of a nervous person but everyone.

I was mostly interested in learning what the recipients would reply to the question " What does 'worry' and 'anxiety' feel like?" This is because it would give me further ideas of how my character could react and a potential idea to represent anxiety. Some people gave literal ideas such as 'heart pumping', but others gave emotions e.g 'tired, sad, overwhelmed'. But the ones I liked the most were these particular answers:

"Like, you're walking and a person is walking towards you and you both walk towards each other because you though the other would go to the left/ right but they did not."

"Sinking feeling in your stomach"

"High strung tense"

"Powerless"

I then went on to ask people's interpretation of Anxiety via colour. The answers all differed but the colours that were most apparant were grey and blue. This has helped me as I may look further colour symbolism and views to create anxiety in my final animation. I lastly asked the question, "Do you have nightmares or dreams that provoke emotions of anxiety?" I received to answers I liked the most: "I lucid dreams or have blank dreams. When I do dream it involves like...people I wanted to be friends with and its really weird as we end up in live or die situations and get separated" and "Yes-dreaming of bad situations to reflect what I'm worried about. The worst that could happen". This helped me to gather potential story lines and ideas of dreams and anxiety as a possible route.