Fight or flight?

In the past couple of weeks, I’ve had a couple of dreams. In the first one, I was in a protest situation when the PLA army came out with water cannons. Many of my friends stayed, I basically turned tail and fled the scene. In the second one I was walking down a dark street with my mom and brother when we heard one of my students scream. My mother went to investigate but I was struck by this sense of overwhelming dark force that was going to hunt us down. As I ran, I was joined by others fleeing in mass panic. I had no idea where my brother ended up, I was so focused on self preservation I didn’t even think of sticking with him. In both cases I woke up a bit ashamed of my lack of courage to stand with or at least help out the people around me.

Has anyone been in a life threatening situation of this sort and how did you react? Did you think first of self preservation or of others around you?