India, April 13 -- "You know that feeling you get when you're standing in a high place? The sudden urge to jump. I don't have it," Jack Sparrow, always unpredictable, says, in Pirates of the Caribbean 4: On Stranger Tides (2011).
He's standing at the edge of a cliff at the time, and probably lying. Because what he's referring to is rather universal.
It's called the High Place Phenomenon (HPP). In French, it is the rather lyrical L'appel du Vide, or Call of the Void.
This is the sudden inexplicable urge to veer off a bridge, lean out of a balcony, or indeed jump from a high place.
Where does it come from?
One theory has it that the call of the void is a way for the mind to test our fear and its boundaries. This theory marks it as an evo...