Psychologist Lee listed some of the reasons why adults enjoy dressing up on Halloween, from novelty and nostalgia to embracing our fears and even expressing our innermost hidden desires.
"We have the sheer novelty of dressing up in a way that would be seen as inappropriate at any other time, and this permission feels powerful," Lee told Bored Panda. "We can also bring back the play and fantasy that we often lose as adults, but embrace in childhood. Costumes can take us back, nostalgically, to those days without responsibilities and stresses."
What's more, Halloween costumes give us a safe way to explore our fears and the darker aspects of our personalities without compromising our safety. "We can dress as things we are scared of and feel comfortable in holding the things we fear very close to us, giving us a sense of mastery," Lee explained.
"They also give us an ability to pretend to be somebody else, exploring our dark side for example, and can become a creative expression for our inner desires. And they remove an aspect of our personalization, and allow us to experiment with our behaviors in a safer, depersonalized space."
A while back, I reached out to Lesley Bannatyne, one of the foremost experts on Halloween on Planet Earth. She explained to Bored Panda how the way we celebrate Halloween has changed in the last century and shared her predictions about how the holiday might look like in the future. According to the Halloween expert, the holiday is incredibly adaptable, so it’s no wonder that it’s changed quite a bit over the long years.
“Halloween morphed from a large, town-wide celebration in the early 20th century to a holiday focused mainly on children and trick-or-treating mid-century, and creative costumes, to a holiday that both adults and children celebrate in dozens of different ways today,” Lesley told Bored Panda.
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“Halloween’s always been adaptable. When some churches objected to Halloween’s presumed devilishness, they created ‘trunk or treat,’ where they could keep their kids in the church’s parking lot and let them go car to car for treats (and could also control images and costume ideas),” the Halloween expert noted how the holiday can change form to survive.
“When houses were too far apart for kids to walk, people created trick-or-treating hotspots in certain neighborhoods or town centers. Remember Mall-o-weens? Bringing children indoors to go store-to-store was an adaptation for some communities that feared strangers giving treats to their kids,” the expert said.
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“Trick-or-treat itself was in part a Halloween idea created to discourage kids from egging cars and papering neighborhood trees on Halloween night,” Lesley pointed out that trick-or-treating itself was a way to help control the chaos and keep kids in check. It provides a more orderly outlet for their fun.
“Halloween follows popular culture, so wherever we go, so will the holiday. If we start to cocoon in our homes, private parties will get more popular. If we become even more social media-oriented, more on display, maybe there will be bigger public costumed events that can be broadcast to bigger audiences,” she mused about the future of the holiday.
