It’s the nature of being human: to be able to act upon anything we conjure up in our minds. Be it a desire for the future, or a fear of the past, it only need exist in our mind to be convincing enough to get us to pick up a cookie, a lover, a religion, or a gun.
The more you open yourself up and let people see the dirty, gory stuff, the more they want to come close and keep looking — just as long as they are free to move away the moment that the front row seats start getting splashed with blood.