Aspen vs Rock Rose
Aspen hums and Rock Rose shouts. If the feeling is a background unease you have been carrying all week, that is Aspen. If it seized you and you are still shaking, that is Rock Rose.
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Why they get muddled
Both are fear without an obvious object, which is what makes them easy to muddle. Neither comes with a tidy explanation you can hand somebody, so both tend to be kept private. What separates them is intensity and duration: one is a hum you live with, the other is an event you get through.
The differences
Volume
Aspen
Low and constant. A background unease that colors an ordinary day.
Rock Rose
Maximum. Everything else stops while it is happening.
How long
Aspen
Days or weeks, often with no clear beginning.
Rock Rose
Seconds or minutes, with an aftermath that can run for hours.
Where it turns up
Aspen
Empty houses, the small hours, the moment before sleep.
Rock Rose
Real emergencies, nightmares, the second the car started to skid.
What you do about it
Aspen
You carry on with the day and mention it to nobody.
Rock Rose
You cannot carry on. The day stops until it passes.
Which one to pick
Choose Aspen if
- The dread is quiet, constant, and has been there a while
- You wake uneasy at four in the morning with nothing to blame it on
- You have never said it out loud because it sounds strange
Choose Rock Rose if
- Your body took over completely
- You woke from a nightmare with your heart going
- You were still shaking an hour later
What if both sound right?
A long stretch of Aspen dread sometimes tips into a Rock Rose night, which is a good reason to hold both. Aspen for the hum, Rock Rose for the spike. Four drops of the crisis formula covers the spike while the mixing bottle covers the hum.
Common questions
Can nameless dread turn into panic?
It can, and the two remedies are often taken together for that reason. Weeks of low unease wear you down, and the night it finally breaks into something bigger is a Rock Rose night whether or not you could ever name what started it.
Which one is for nightmares?
Rock Rose for the nightmare itself and for waking from it. Aspen suits the other half of the problem, the reluctance to turn the light off in the first place, and the vague sense as you get into bed that the night is going to be difficult.
What if I can name it after all?
Then look at Mimulus rather than Aspen. Aspen is specifically fear with nothing attached to it, and the moment you can finish the sentence I am afraid of, you have left Aspen territory. Rock Rose is unaffected either way, since it is about intensity rather than about naming.
Keep narrowing
The pairs closest to this one, if neither of these two turns out to be it.
MimulusvsAspen
If you can finish the sentence I am afraid of, it is Mimulus. If you cannot, it is Aspen. That one test settles most cases in about five seconds.
MimulusvsRock Rose
Mimulus is for fear you can live alongside. Rock Rose is for the moments fear takes the controls. If your body got there before your mind did, that is Rock Rose.
Rock RosevsCherry Plum
Rock Rose is terror at something happening to you. Cherry Plum is fear of what you might do. The question to ask is whether the danger feels outside you or inside you.
White ChestnutvsRed Chestnut
The names are one word apart and the states have almost nothing to do with each other. White Chestnut is your own thoughts going round. Red Chestnut is fear for somebody else.
Still not sure?
Read both profiles in full, or start from the feeling and let the quiz narrow it for you.