Fictional Fear

What we fear, we manifest.

Around this time of the year, I like to highlight a factor in disease that is very often overlooked: the fear factor. Fear—along with its close relatives, anxiety and stress—is well documented to negatively impact physical health. Yet, when discussing illness, people often ignore how profoundly these mental states can mimic or exacerbate disease. The body responds to fear just as it would to the fictional threat of supposed “viruses.”

For instance, in the late nineteenth century, Louis Pasteur, the very father of germ “theory,” inadvertently documented the power of fear and its close connection to so-called “viral” disease. In defending his rabies vaccine after deaths were attributed to it, he invoked what he called “false rabies.” In one case, a man developed classic rabies symptoms—including throat spasms, chest pain, and extreme anxiety—merely after a lunchtime discussion about the disease, despite never having encountered a rabid animal. In another instance, a magistrate fell into delirium and developed hydrophobia upon hearing that a dog which had licked his hand long before was suspected of rabies. His symptoms disappeared only after his physician assured him he would already be dead if he had “true rabies.”

This same phenomenon persists today. A condition known as HIV phobia illustrates how fear alone can produce symptoms indistinguishable from those attributed to “infection.” Those suffering from HIV phobia experience real physical effects, including fatigue, night sweats, rashes, and swollen lymph nodes, all driven entirely by anxiety rather than any “virus.” Despite repeated negative tests, many remain convinced they are ill. Even mainstream sources acknowledge that the cause is psychological, not microbial—rooted in misinformation, stigma, and fear.

Modern research repeatedly confirms that fear, stress, and anxiety can produce physical symptoms identical to those attributed to “viral” disease. In the UK, people with severe “Covid” anxiety reported more than double the rate of somatic symptoms (chest pain, dizziness, palpitations) after the “pandemic” than before—despite many having no new health problems.

A systematic review of 36 studies found that in all segments of society (healthcare workers, the general public), symptoms like shortness of breath, joint/muscle pain, palpitations and more were highly prevalent during the “pandemic,” often in people without “confirmed infection,” and strongly associated with anxiety, stress, and depression.

Even in children and adolescents recovering from “Covid,” studies show that fatigue, emotional distress, and gastrointestinal symptoms are common, correlating with anxiety and mood symptoms more than with the severity of “infection.”

Similar findings appear in fibromyalgia and chronic pain research which confirm that traumatic life events and ongoing stress amplify physical symptoms like fatigue, pain, and malaise in the absence of new “pathogens.”

A 2022 article titled Is Anxiety Making You Feel Sick & Ill? explains how anxiety can cause nausea, breathlessness, dizziness, fatigue, and even flu-like symptoms. Scientists attribute this to activation of the fight-or-flight response, stress hormones like cortisol, and tension affecting the stomach and gut:

Feeling Ill from Anxiety?

You may be coming down with a cold. You may be coming down with a serious disease. Or you may just have anxiety. It's sometimes hard for people to believe that feeling ill can come from anxiety, but it's a very real experience that affects many people.

Anxiety Can Cause Feelings of Illness

The stress from anxiety can cause feelings of genuine sickness. These feelings are often very similar to the way physical illnesses make you feel. Your stomach can feel like it’s rumbling and you may even feel nauseated. Feeling sick may be a sign that you’ve fallen ill, but it can also be a sign of anxiety.

While feeling sick may be the only physical symptom of anxiety, there are often others including breathlessness, dizziness and fatigue.

Why Does Anxiety Cause a Sick Feeling?

In general, that sick feeling is caused by a number of different factors. Just a few of which include:

• Standard Stress Response: Scientists believe that nausea, and some of the common feelings of illness, are the result of issues with related to the activation of the fight or flight response and the hormones related to stress, like cortisol.

• Gut and Abdominal Pressure: Anxiety can also lead to increased muscle tension that causes pressure on the stomach and guts. It is possible that this pressure affects how your stomach feels and thus gives you a sick feeling.

• Mild Illness: Your body fights off germs every day. Anxiety can weaken your immune system, increasing the risk of developing common minor illnesses. This may also contribute to a feeling of nausea and sickness.

Feeling ill is something that often causes concern. Some people feel so sick that they vomit or experience profound nausea that keeps them away from their activities. In this way, the physical effects of anxiety can cause further anxiety, creating a cycle.

Some people experience more than just nausea when anxious. They may experience other symptoms that are similar to catching a cold or flu. They may feel like their glands are swollen, or their tongue is dry. They may feel lightheaded. They may even cough or experience severe stomach discomfort, like indigestion.

These psychosomatic effects blur the line between emotional distress and physical illness. A racing heart, shallow breathing, chest tightness, feverish sensations can all be misinterpreted as signs of “infection.” Once a person believes they have “caught” something, the fear amplifies the symptoms further, locking them into a feedback loop of anxiety and physiological response. The mind and body become the perfect incubator—not for a “virus,” but for fear itself.

This is closely related to what scientists call the nocebo effect—the opposite of the placebo effect—where negative expectations and fear cause real, measurable harm to the body. Studies have shown that simply believing one is exposed to a “pathogen” or toxin can trigger the same symptoms as actual exposure.

Once we understand how easily fear alone can generate the appearance of illness, it becomes clear why it has been such an effective tool for control. Fear works. And those in power know it. Scary images of people collapsing in the street. Alarming headlines about an invisible threat ready to attack the “unprotected.” A running death counter on every screen. Lockdowns, quarantines, masks, and constant sanitizing. Even mild, ordinary symptoms, like loss of taste or smell, suddenly amplified through fear. Add a fraudulent test that counts the healthy among the “infected,” and you have the perfect recipe for a “pandemic” of fear.

To illustrate how this dynamic plays out, here is an excellent short video from Universe Simple that imagines an alternate timeline where fear itself is treated as a literal “virus.”

Fear fills the gaps where understanding is absent. When people do not know why they are sick, fear rushes in to offer an answer, and it is one that is easy to control, label, and sell. This psychological vulnerability has been exploited for over a century under the guise of “germ science.”

I wrote a very in-depth article on this very subject back in 2022, and I added an addendum to it in 2024. The full article, titled Fear is the Real “Virus,” contains far more details and evidence demonstrating how fear is weaponized against us. To help spread this overlooked truth, I also recently designed T-shirts with this very message, available in the ViroLIEgy Shop:

Fictional Fear T-shirt (Regular Edition)

Fictional Fear T-shirt (Halloween Edition)

A big part of exposing the fraud of germ “theory” and virology is highlighting and educating people on well-documented, alternative factors in disease that need no invisible “pathogen” as a scapegoat. Fear and anxiety are not fringe ideas. They are proven stressors that can mirror or even drive illness. Yet these common-sense realities have been sidelined in favor of a perpetual war on invisible invaders. The real weapon is not a microbe—it is fear itself. And the only true immunity comes from breaking its hold through understanding the fraud of germ “theory” and virology.