[ball_of_lint]

Eslaught didn't mention survival, so Noman-land's rebuttal doesn't cover all cases of dread. I'm more trying to help him understand than directly refute his misdirected point. The feeling of dread isn't about how you react to it, but rather that the typical outcome is negative.

I actually have pretty bad height vertigo. I can suppress it but it takes almost all my attention. In your hypothetical I expect I would suppress it and grab the child. This vertigo is anxiety, not dread; the outcome is almost always neutral or positive, not negative.

A scenario that might induce dread is being forced to jump off a 30ft ledge. Even if you know how to fall well there's still significant risk of injury, and either way it's going to hurt. Learning to fall better might help, but the more important thing is to _avoid that situation in the first place_.