You didn't think I'd forgotten that I hadn't shared every last one of my vacation pictures with you yet, did you??
And yet, that'll have to come later, because this post is going to be exclusively about how weird the brain is, and why it doesn't want you to jump to your death.
(remember how scary it was when Jenny is about to jump to her death in Forrest Gump, then panics and climbs down??)
Colorado changed my perspective on the United States -- I really do think it's one of the most beautiful places in the country and I would be so lucky to get to live out there for a while (I hear Boulder actually has some important cognitive research currently going on right now :)..just kidding...for now).
Speaking of cognition, the brain is an extremely interesting organ, which if you read this blog I'm sure you already knew.
Have you ever tried to navigate a frightening or difficult scenario and noticed that even if you can rationalize it, your body still has a visceral reaction to the event? It's easy to delineate the feelings -- the visceral reaction is felt in your body (heart racing/sweaty palms) while the rational part is clearly taking place in your head. However, if you've ever taken bio or anatomy 101, you know that the panic and fear you feel during in a haunted house, or a horror movie is still coming from the same organ that rationalizes why you shouldn't have the fear in the first place. Weird!
seems a little two-faced, really...
A particular event in Colorado caused me to think about this a little more.
Our gang found ourselves rafting in the Arkansas River on the second day of our trip. About half way through the journey, we stopped at a spot where the river was a bit slower than it had been so far. This was our "break", where we were given a chance to swim across the river and climb up the rock formation on the other side. I was unaware of the rules associated with this rock climbing, so it came as a bit of a shock when I prepared to climb down and was prevented from doing so by the rafting instructor, who was yelling up to me that in fact, to exit the rock formation in a safe manner, we were all going to need to jump off. Into the swirling, churning river below.
Two things are happening at this point in my mind. The first is happening in the more "primitive" non-rational part of my brain: it's telling me that I'm 15 feet (or more) above the surface of the river, and really NOT interested in jumping. This is the part of my brain responsible for making sure that I don't perform motor actions that will kill me cannot be any clearer in its strong "anti-jump" chemical signals rushing to the rest of my bodily organs. However, the rational frontal cortex doesn't want me to hurt myself climbing down slippery rocks, which the messages from my visual cortex are telling me look fine, and not that unsafe. The rational part, however, understands that sometimes you need to trust the people with the best opinion (i.e. the instructor in this case). Needless to say, a mental battle is raging inside my head, with serious physiological consequences (mostly panicked crying and the strong desire to throw up and/or curl up in a ball).
The place where the instructor is pointing me to jump is an area of relatively calm water right next to the rocky place where we climbed out. This is where some of my experience shaped my more primitive brain's panic about jumping. I grew up in Michigan around lakes. Everyone knows that when you jump in a lake, you need to jump off of a dock or boat. Why? because the water is typically most shallow where it meets land (the shoreline), and jumping from any height to 1 inch of water is going to hurt. Years of experience have shaped my own visual perception and what certain images mean for the decisions my brain will allow me to make. In other words, we aren't born with a fear of heights, or a fear of jumping next to dry land, but after experience our non-rational brain learns to make associations with visual images and danger (among other things), and this results in the unease that we feel in these situations.
My personal experience with the world drives an instinct is to jump to the middle of the river, where I "think" the water will be deepest (and therefore most safe). Our instructor assures me that the place he is indicating is safest in this river because the entire thing is all roughly the same depth, including the parts where water meets land, but this area is the calmest. The tissues initially responsible for dealing with signals coming from the visual cortex are not convinced. So who wins?
Well, eventually the rational side wins. I jump to what part of my brain is convinced is my death. Which is why, I imagine, its panicked protests are silenced as soon as my feet leave the cliff. It was really amazing, as soon as I leapt off the rock and began plummeting toward the water, all the fear brewing in my mind was gone. It felt like flying.
And naturally, I landed safely in the very deep and safe river, surfacing almost instantly to find Eric helping me into the boat.
The visceral reactions you feel in your body are there for a reason. Your mind has a vested interest in keeping you alive -- but sometimes, a rare scenario comes along in which it's ok for the reasonable side to win the fight every once in a while.
It leads to come cool experiences :)
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