CHAPTER 1

MEET THE BRAIN

ALL ABOUT OUR BRAIN

FACTS AND FIGURES

MELON HEAD

The human brain is about the size and shape of a ripe cantaloupe.

A SOGGY WHAT?

The brain is split down the middle and wrinkled on the outside. It looks a great deal like a soggy, overgrown walnut.

WRAP IT UP TO GO

The human skull contains slightly over three pounds of gray, viscid brain matter.

BETTER THAN A CD-ROM

Our brains are capable of retaining about 100 billion bits of information. That's the equivalent of 500 encyclopedias.

NO WONDER WE'RE SO BRIGHT

There are 200 billion neurons in the adult human brain. That's as many stars there are in some galaxies.

AN YOU THOUGHT THE PHONE COMPANY HAD PROBLEMS

Many of our brain cells can link up with as many 200,000 others. But the average neuron only connects with 60,000. Altogether, there are over 100 trillion possible connections within the average brain. No wonder our mental wires get crossed from time to time.

LOW WATTAGE

The brain runs on electricity. But if the brain of the world's greatest genius was hooked up to a socket, it wouldn't generate enough power to light the average light bulb. The total output of the brain is a mere 20 watts!

A REAL ENERGY SAVER

A single memory uses one-tenth of the energy contained in a single particle of light.

NOT EXACTLY A LIVE WIRE

The speed of thought isn't that fast. The fastest thoughts in the brain travel at no more than 300 miles per hour. That's far slower than household electricity.

TALK ABOUT GETTING A SWELLED HEAD!

The brain triples in size from birth to maturity. But from adulthood to old age, it shrinks by more than an ounce.

no wonder we're tired

The brain undergoes 100,000 chemical reactions per second.

BEST ONE LINE DESCRIPTION OF THE BRAIN

"The Brain is a little saline pool that acts as a conductor, and it runs on electricity." – Judith Hooper and Dick Teresi, The 3-Pound Universe

A SHORT TOUR OF THE BRAIN

Our brain and its connections are so complex that no function is located in a single spot. Different portions of the brain process and store the same experience simultaneously. But scientists agree that the following are the principle parts of the brain and their general responsibilities:

Brainstem – the body's transatlantic cable, carries signals from the senses to the brain and from the brain back to the body.

Cerebellum – the body's drill sergeant coordinates muscle movement and keeps the higher portions of the brain informed of the motion of feet, fingers, legs and feet.

Limbic system – the brain's morale officer, controls learning and motivation through coordinating sensory data with basic bodily needs like hunger and sex. The limbic system consists of a number of subsystems, each with specific tasks:

* Hypothalamus, the brain's taskmaster, uses pleasure and pain to regulate the state of the body, temperature and hunger

* Thalamus, the brain's administrative assistant, passes data from the senses to the cortex

* Basal ganglia, the brain's acrobat, coordinates balance and the movement of the body

* Hippocampus, the brain's receptionist, holds short-term memory and passes it to other parts of the brain for permanent storage

* Amygdala, the brain's data transfer system, relays memories and habits from storage in the subconscious to consciousness in the cortex

Cortex – brain's brain and its uppermost layer, center of intelligence thought, memory, decision making and voluntary action. Like the limbic system, the cortex is actually a complex of organs, all working together but each with its own assigned tasks:

* Frontal lobes (or neo-cortex), the brain's CEO (lies behind our foreheads), its newest and most highly developed function; the true center of personality and thought, processes the future, plans in advance and looks beyond the self toward the good of others and the group.

Parietal lobes – the brain's president (arches over the brain from ear to ear), center for sense of touch, determines which incoming information should receive the highest priority

Temporal lobe – the brain's audio system (behind both temples), the center for hearing and the coordination of sight with sound.

Occipital lobe – the brain's video system (back of head), contains the primary area for sight and the storage of visual memory.

[Judith Hooper and Dick Teresi, The 3-Pound Universe & Isaac Asimov, The Brain]

THE LITTLE MEN INSIDE YOUR BRAIN

There are two little men inside our brains. Scientists call them the sensory and motor homunculi (homunculus means "little man"). Each is an inch-by-inch representation of the human senses. Each area of the sensory homunculus receives sensations from a specific part of the body, torso, legs, arms, fingers, nostrils, eyes, lips and tongue. Each area of the motor homunculus sends signals back to one of those bodily parts.

The brain's map of the body is distorted: with outsize tongues, lips, tongue, genitals, fingers and eyes. Neuro-anatomists explain that this is because supersensitive bodily parts, and those requiring extreme physical coordination, take up more brain cells. An inch of tongue covers a much wider area of a homunculus than an inch of our backs.

If our homunculi could be photographed, here is what we would see: Two little men, their toes tucked into the cleft between in front of the cerebellum, stretching backwards around the cortex away from each other with elongated legs and trunks, small heads and enormous fingers – beyond their tiny heads, about mid-way around (roughly where our temples are) you would see two separate enormous faces with enormous eyes, lips, tongue and nose.

[Don Campbell, Introduction to the Musical Brain]

brain dead

All the privileges of being an adult are bestowed on us when we turn twenty-one. But crepe should be the order of he day, not celebration. For the ripe old age of twenty-one marks a more sobering turning point. It's also the age at which we begin losing our minds – or at least our brain cells. You can bid good-by to more than 10,000 brain cells every morning after the age of twenty-one.

That may sound like a lot – but it's merely 70,000 per week, or an insignificant 3.5 million per year. Over the rest of your life, you'll only lose 200,000,000 brain cells. So relax, you won't miss them. With some 200,000,000,000 brain cells packed in your cranium, that's less than 1% of the total. You'll still got plenty of brain power to spare.

[Isaac Asimov, The Brain]

PERMANENT WAVES

Most of us think of sleep, normal waking consciousness, intense creativity and quite relaxation as completely different. But new understandings of brain waves suggest these four states are more closely related than we realize. By listing brain waves in alphabetical order, most charts obscure a number of surprising relationships, that only become apparent when they are arranged in terms of increasing frequency (cycles per second or CPS), instead.

* Delta waves (1-3 CPS), signify we have fallen into a deep dreamless sleep

* Theta waves- 4-7 CPS), generated only during great stress or emotion – and intense creativity

* Alpha waves (8-12 CPS), appear when we feel relaxed, rested, daydreamy

Beta waves (18-40 CPS), produced during normal, every day awareness – and when we are dreaming

Seen this way, it is obvious that sleeping, intense emotional states and relaxation – which feel so different to us – each begins where the other ends. Except for a jump of 6 CPS – almost as many CPS as the width of any two other waves combined – between relaxation and full the alpha state that suggests the brain has to generate a bit more energy to gear itself up to produce full conscious awareness.

The fact that delta and theta waves lie side by side, also suggests closer link between where our heads are at during intense emotional states and creativity – and sleep (unconsciousness) – than previously suspected. Another surprising fact is that daydreaming is more closely related to creativity than to sleep.

[Don Campbell, Introduction to the Musical Brain]

not easily shocked

Brain tissue is extremely delicate, not much thicker than oatmeal. Unprotected, the slightest touch or jar could injure it seriously. So nature has given our brain cells their own built in shock absorber.

The outermost layer of this shock absorber is the skull. Rap on it with you knuckles, and you will feel, for all its lightness, how strong and resilient its bones are. Beneath this protective shell are three layers of membranes that further cushion the brain shock and injury.

Just inside the skull is a shock absorbent coating of tough, fibrous membranes (the dura mater or hard mother). Below the dura mater is a thin, web like tissue that acts as a second layer of protection (the arachnoid or cobwebs). Through these, the brain is anchored to the skull by a delicate membrane (pia mater or tender mother).

Between the pia mater and the arachnoid is a clear, colorless liquid (cerebrospinal fluid) that surrounds the brain, serving as a last line of defense in shielding our oh so sensitive brains from shock and injury.

[Compton's Encyclopedia and Fact Finder]

THE HOLES IN YOUR HEAD

The most important part of your brain is not the cells – but the gaps between them (synapses). What takes place in our synapses turns out to determine an enormous amount about us – personality, memory, mood, mental and physical health, intelligence, even the ability to love and mate. According to the authors of The 3-Pound Universe, the gaps between our cells turns out to be the critical juncture at which many of the fundamental decisions in our brains are made.

When our brain cells originate or pass on a signal, they send an electrical charge to the edge of the cell where it triggers the release of a chemical messenger (neurotransmitter). The neurotransmitter crosses the gap to the next cell, where it releases an electrical charge that carries the message inward.

But many things can happen to a neurotransmitter during its 0.3 to 1.0 millisecond voyage across the synaptic cleft. A crossing signal or chemical can even break it down in the gap before it reaches the other cell; the other cell can even refuse to accept the signal. In both cases, the result is the same as if no signal was transmitted at all.

When a message successfully passes all the synaptic clefts between it and its destination, a thought may be generated, a muscle contracted, a mood altering hormone secreted, the functioning of our nervous system or organs effected. Ultimately, every aspect of who we are and what we do is determined by what transpires in these gaps. Many neurobiologists, Hooper and Teresi write, believe that the mysterious source of personality and behavior lies here – in the holes in our heads.

[Judith Hooper and Dick Teresi, The 3-Pound Universe]

BRAIN MATTER

IT NEVER SLEEPS

Whether we are awake or asleep, at any given moment, millions of our brain cells are at work. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, information is being fed into the cerebrum and regulatory signals are sent back out to the body. Even when we slumber, our nervous system is constantly relaying information on the position of our limbs, the temperature of our body and all the thousands of individual activities involved in breathing, digesting, dreaming. No wonder we wake up so tired every morning.

[Isaac Asimov, The Brain]

YOUR BRAIN BREATHES

To do all its work, the brain needs oxygen. We've all said, "I need a breather!" or "I need a breath of fresh air!" after a period of intense mental concentration. But it's not us that needs to breathe – it's our brains.

In directing your thinking, sensing and movements, the brain consumes more than a quarter of the body's oxygen. Intense mental concentration depletes as much of our oxygen and energy as intense physical exercise, according to biochemist Isaac Asimov. After a while, the oxygen levels in the blood begin to fall and our brain begins to crave more oxygen than we can get sitting in a room thinking, so it signals us to stand up, stretch, move around go for a walk. Your brain wants a breather.

[Isaac Asimov, The Brain]

IT MAKES YOU SMARTER

On the other hand, exercise can increases the amount of oxygen reaching our brains by as much as 30%. Studies reported in The Brain have shown that increasing the amount of oxygen available to the brain increases mental activity. Jogging, a brisk walk, mowing the lawn, can restore your mental edge. But if that were true, wouldn't jocks all be Phi Beta Kappa's?

[Isaac Asimov, The Brain]

NO HARDER THAN GOOFING-OFF

People who are mentally lethargic often excuse their lack of forethought with, "Thinking makes me tired." Now Allan Gevins, director of EEG Systems Laboratory, says they're right. It takes just as much energy to scribble mindlessly as to paint a masterpiece.

Gevins used an eight-channel EEG to record the brain waves of people engaged in serious drawing and those who were just doodling. He had expected to find that those who were concentrating on what they were doing would generate more mental energy than the doodlers. But to his surprise, Gevins discovered that both activities took the same amount of energy. One researcher suggested that since you have to generate just as much energy to goof-off as paint a masterpiece, you might as well just paint a masterpiece.

[Alan Gevins, "Electrical Potentials in Human Brain During Cognition," Science, August 21, 1981]

Blindsight

Some people who lost their sight due to a stroke or brain injury develop an amazing ability. Although unable to physically see an object placed before them, they are able to reach out unerringly and touch it with a sureness that confounds researchers. This ability is called blindsight.

Psychologist Anthony Marcel of Cambridge University has studied blindsight for two decades. His discoveries show that blindsight occurs only when injury is confined to those areas of the brain involved in transmitting visual signals and not the neural areas that receive and interpret the signals. Although what they see is no longer transmitted to the portion of the brain that does the "seeing," the message from their visual centers is still being transmitted below the level of their awareness (the subconscious) to other portions of the brain. These parts of the brain know where the object is, allowing someone with blindsight to reach out surely and touch it on the first attempt.

Blindsight tells us that one part of the mind may not know what the other part is doing.

[Judith Hooper and Dick Teresi, The 3-Pound Universe]

self-repairing

Scientists say the ideal machine would sense when it is going out of whack and replace the effected parts itself. Once built, it would run for years without ever needing to be repaired. However, researchers at the University of California at San Francisco have already discovered such a machine – the human brain.

Neuroscientists were put on the trail by the "phantom limb" phenomenon. People who had lost limbs told doctors they could "still feel" the missing limb. At the time scientists believed that the brain cells controlling a body part died when that part amputated. They assumed that sensations in "phantom" limbs resulted from stimulation of nerves near the missing limb's stump.

Now, research by Dr. Michael Merzenich, and others reveals that the brain does not have fixed circuits. Instead, it appears to be capable of reorganizing itself over incredibly large distances – so that brain cells receiving inputs from the face and shoulder can trigger brain cells no longer receiving inputs from an arm. Once we learn how the brain manages this rewiring, Dr. Merzenich told journalists, it should be possible to help the process along – offering the first hope to many people suffering from nervous-system disorders, spinal cord injury, paralysis, stroke, depression, mental illness and brain injury.

[Sandra Blakesless, "Missing Limbs, Still Atingle, Clues to Changes in the Brain," New York Times, November 10 1992]

the brain's own microwave receiver

Could the benign and ubiquitous microwave have a sinister side? Could all those cellular phones, power lines, satellite dishes, even the wiring in your house have an effect on the brain? Neuroscientists W. Ross Adey believes the might. Disturbing research he performed at the Pettis Memorial Veterans Administration Hospital proved our brains – and our minds – respond strongly to surrounding electromagnetic field.

Adey found that brain cells synchronize their firing to surrounding microwaves. In one experiment, an excited monkey calmed down and began to produce alpha waves when a carefully modulated electromagnetic field was broadcast at it. Adey calls the microwave's ability to alter mood and mental functioning a bit ominous, for a world in which there is no escape from the ubiquitous electromagnetic field.

But relax, if Adey were right, our cities (which are saturated by electromagnetic fields) would be full of crazy, mentally disturbed, utterly unstable people – and we all know that's not so.

[Judith Hooper and Dick Teresi, The 3-Pound Universe]

BRAIN FOOD

Looking for uppers, downers, sleeping pills, painkillers, memory enhancers. Forget the corner drug dealer. Tomorrow's highs – as well as the chemicals that will help boost intelligence, stabilize mood and ease mental illness – will come out of your refrigerator. MIT Neuroendocrincologist, Richard Wurtman, has massed an impressive collection of evidence demonstrating that the brains vital neurotransmitter levels are determined by what we eat. Eggs, liver and soybeans are rich in acetylcholine, and proteins contain tyrosine and typtophan, amino acids norephinephrine – all involved in the building of the brain's prime memory boosters. So whether you are a vegetarian or a meat eater, enhanced memory, mood and mental function are no farther away than your local grocery.

[Judith Hooper and Dick Teresi, The 3-Pound Universe]

THE DIRTY BRAINED

Scientists have traced responsibility for many of our abilities and facilities to specific areas in the brain. Now neuroanatomists may have located the site where our ability to use dirty words is located. When this area is damaged, victims can suffer from an uncontrollable compulsion to utter obscenities. Scatologies, profanities and obscenities pour forth in an endless stream. Psychiatrists call this Gilles de la Tourette's disease (named after the physician who first identified it). Some people are dirty minded, but these poor souls are clearly dirty brained.

[Carl Sagan, Ph.D., The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Origin of Human Intelligence]

STILL ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT

Most of us assume that the human brain is the crown of creation. But the brain took its present form some 40,000 years ago, according to anthropologists. And hasn't made noticeable progress since.

"We often lose sight of the fact that the brains we carry in our heads are not the last word in nervous systems," warns neurophysiologist Daniel Robinson. We take for granted that a dog perceptions are limited by its level of evolution; but never consider how limited our own might be. We accept that dogs are color-blind and can't see the wavelengths that carry colors; but forget the myriad hues of the wavelengths our eyes can't detect. Perhaps the limitations of our brain structure and chemistry prevent us from perceiving and solving critical problems that would be child's play to a more evolved species.

[Daniel Robinson, The Enlightened Machine]

GUESS WHO'S ON FIRST

People have long wondered who's in charge the brain or the mind. Is it one of those chicken and egg things? A sort of mental "Who's on first" that can never be answered?

Neurophysiologists Benjamin Libet and Bertram Feinstein of Mount Zion Hospital in San Francisco believe their research into the mechanisms behind our response to touch may supply a clue. Women and men were wired up to EEGs and asked to press a button the instant they felt themselves being touched.

The results were startling. EEG measurements showed the brain registered the touch in only one ten-thousandths of a second; and participants finger's signaled this reaction a tenth of a second later by pushing the button. But to Libet and Feinstein's astonishment, the participants themselves were not consciously aware of the touch or of pressing the button until almost a full half-second later.

These results told the researchers two things: The first, that the decision to push the button was made by the patients' brain, not their minds. For it occurred long before the mind was even aware of having been touched. The second, that all the study participants believed they had consciously decided to push the button. Apparently the brain has ways to convince the mind that it is making the decisions – but the brain is definitely in charge.

[Michael Talbot, The Holographic Universe]

DON'T RESET YOUR CLOCK, RESET YOUR BRAIN.

Flying to a different time zone, the switch to and from Daylight Savings Time or a new job schedule can throw our body's internal rhythms off for weeks. We may find ourselves waking when we should be sleeping, wanting breakfast when its dinner time, experiencing a lull in attention just when we most need to be alert and falling asleep long before we can make love. When this happens we speak of "jet lag" and "the body's clock" being off. But it's the brain's clock that's off, not the body's.

Now science may be on the way to producing the first "jet lag" pill – guaranteed to reset the body's clock. The body's clock resides in the suprachiasmatic nucleus, a small group of brain cells whose nerve fibers are directly linked with the retina, keeping the body locked in rhythm with the pattern of light and dark outside. The suprachiasmatic nucleus is controlled by a hormone called melatonin. Dubbed the Dracula hormone, melatonin floods the body when we are exposed to darkness and puts us to sleep; it is inhibited during daylight, allowing us to wake.

Pioneer sleep researcher, Alfred J. Lewy, found he could reliably advance or delay a person's biological clock by giving them a precisely measured dose of melatonin. Lewy pronounced the results "dramatic." Without competition from daylight, the researchers showed that melatonin pills could readily adjust anyone's biological clock.

[Brody, Jane E., "Doses of Pineal Gland Hormone Can Reset Body's Daily Clock," New York Times, 10/3/92]

THE BRAIN-MIND CONNECTION

THREE THEORIES OF HOW THE BRAIN WORKS

The Creature with Three Brains

We share our minds with reptiles, mammals and apes, according to Dr. Paul MacLean, Chief of the Brain Evolution and Behavior Laboratory at the National Institute of Mental Health. MacLean sees the brain as divided into three distinct systems, each representing a different stage in our evolution. He dubbed these the reptilian, mammalian, and primate brains.

The reptilian brain – the oldest and lowest part of the brain, consists of the brain stem and allied organs; ruled by all the primitive functions and concerns of our reptilian ancestors: physical space, basic survival, possessions and the urges of self-defense.

The mammalian brain – the next major development in brain evolution, also known as the mid-brain or lymbic system; performs functions vital to our mammalian ancestors: memory, learning, emotions, social and family matters, rewards, punishments.

The primate brain – the last of our brain systems to develop, consists of the cortex and cerebellum (our frontal lobes); performs the functions our primate ancestors relied on for their survival: reasoning things out, trying different solutions.

MacLean believes the brains "triune" design has created a serious, sometimes catastrophic, "design error." Conflict often develops between the urges and needs of our three brains – the (reason) and the two older brains (survival and emotion). Dr. MacLean feels this helps explain the "split" we so often feel between reason (the primate brain), instinct (the reptilian brain) and emotion (the mammalian brain) – and the difficulty we have resolving it

[Don Campbell, Introduction to the Musical Brain, MMB, 1983]

I'm of Two Minds About It

Torn between conflicting impulses, most of us have said, "I'm of two minds about it." Scientists may now have discovered the reason we feel this way so often.

The most noticeable visual feature of the brain is the division running down the middle that separates it into right and left halves (lobes). Neuropsychologists have spent decades charting these two lobes and found that, although there is some overlap, each processes and responds to different types of information in different ways. Most activities involving speech, language, logic, mathematics and time sense take place in our left lobe. Activities involving our visual and spatial, creativity, patterns, inspiration, geometry and the subconscious take place in the right.

For the 95 percent of the population who are right-handed, the two lobes of the brain generally process information in these contrasting modes:

LEFT HEMISPHERE

time

reason

words

parts

analytical thought

details

numbers

conscious

literal

specific

speech

RIGHT HEMISPHERE

space

emotion

timeless

sounds

whole

intuitive knowledge

patterns

geometry

subconscious

metaphoric

general

vision

Since both halves of our brain react to a situation, we simultaneously experience two completely opposite perceptions, interpretations and responses. This may be why we so often feel, and say, we are "of two minds" about a subject.

[Don Campbell, Introduction to the Musical Brain]

THE three pound HOLOGRAm

No need to visit a museum to see a display of holograms. Sanford University neurobiologist Karl Pribram says you've already got a three pound hologram – in your head. Pribram's researches led him to conclude the brain operates on holographic principles.

The holographic brain has gained wide support in the scientific community since it seems to provide answers to two key questions that have baffled researchers for years:

* What accounts for the survival of learning and memory even after catastrophic injuries?

* How does the mind fuse newly experienced events with earlier memories in the process called learning?

Your high school graduation ceremony is not stored at a specific location, like papers in a file, where it can easily be destroyed, Pribram explains. Instead, specific memories are stored throughout the brain, just as each portion of a hologram stores the entire image. Because our recollections are so widely spread, Pribram claims, they survive and can be retrieved even when we suffer extensive damage to the cells responsible for memory. Holographic storage would also explain how old and new memories merge to produce learning and personality – since each new memory is stored on top of (or within) every preceding memory.

But we have it backward if we believe the brain is like a hologram, Pribram observes. The hologram is actually like the brain. We discovered the principles of holography, he believes, precisely because they are so much like the way our minds work.

[Karl Pribram, "Behaviorism, Phenomenology and Holism in Psychology," Journal of Social and Biological Structures, Vol. 2, 1979]

BEYOND THE BRAIN

An open LETTER

Think you're in touch with reality? Think again. Science says the world you see, taste, feel, smell and hear is not the real world. It's not even a good simulation.

The colors, sounds, flavors and scents carried to us by our senses are not straightforward copies of the universe beyond our skin. At best, they are abstractions relayed from our nerve endings in a series of electrical impulses and decoded in a series of complex mathematical operations by our brains. Reality, if we could actually perceive it, would be a rainbow-hued pattern of uncountable interwoven waves – sound waves, gravity waves, electromagnetic waves. Every object and living creature in the universe is a bundle of radiating energies. We humans are able to see, hear, taste and smell only the most minute fraction of this spectrum.

As British neuropsychologist Richard Gregory puts it, "Brain states represent the world rather as a letter ... represents the truth." If so, the real question may be, what kind of letter? A love letter? A Dear John (or Jane) letter? Hate mail? Or just plain junk mail?

[Judith Hooper and Dick Teresi, The 3-Pound Universe]

YOUR BRAIN'S FILTER

You've probably changed your car's filter, but what about your brain's filter? Brain mechanics say our brains come equipped with filters just like our automobiles. And just like our cars, the brain's filter keeps the system from clogging up and breaking down.

No one can digest the billions of bits of information pouring in from their half a trillion brain and nerve cells all at once. The brain's filter prevents overload by determining the most important signals for transmission to straight to conscious awareness – shunting the rest for storage into the subconscious. If this filter broke down, as happens when the brain is injured or under the influence of psychoactive drugs, we'd be overwhelmed by a flood tide of sensations – our ability to sort, remember and perceive would be so thoroughly "short circuited" – that afterward we would be unable to recall the experience.

[Nigel Calder, The Mind of Man & Judith Hooper and Dick Teresi, The 3-Pound Universe]

HOW THE MIND WORKs

We take ourselves for granted. We exist, and we rarely reflect on what "we" are or how it is possible for a personal "I" to exist. The mind's greatest mystery, which has long puzzled scientists, is why we are conscious and how our sense of personal consciousness is created. Though scientists have resolved many key questions about how the brain works, the mystery of how the brain creates the mind still remains a subject for heated debate. The front-runners in this controversy are:

The brain-site theory – attempts to explain consciousness by locating the specific sites responsible for each of its individual functions.

The cause and effect theory – views consciousness as a mere cause and effect reaction to outside stimuli.

The mental monitor theory – consciousness is simply a system the brain evolved for monitoring the efficiency of its own activities: alertness, perception, memory, movement, decisions, planning and imagination.

The CEO in your brain theory – consciousness arose as an executive control function, to help the brain make more sophisticated choices and decisions.

The "white noise" theory – the randomness of brain impulses (scientists refer to it as mental "white noise") generates personality and consciousness; if every "input" resulted in a fixed "output," we would be computers, incapable of a new response or individuality.

The emergent properties theory – consciousness is a unique mental function that arose spontaneously as the various subsystems continued to evolve and interact.

The "overlap" theory – our conscious minds inhabit a moving slot of time six to twelve second long in which our impressions of the moments just past and of those just to come are overlapped with our experience of the present; it is this critical tenth of a minute that allows us to learn, think, remember and perceive; without it, we would be unaware of anything more than the present moment, and the world around us would appear random and chaotic.

["The Enigma of Time," National Geographic, March 1990]

PERSONALITY – ITS (ALMOST) ALL IN YOUR HEAD

Where does personality come from? What makes some of us act one way; and some another?

Doubtless, the interplay of unique aspects of our backgrounds, behavior and personality, along with all the learning, reacting, feeling and experiences we've accumulated in our lifetime, have a lot to do with making us who and what we are. But brain researchers now believe that important building blocks of personality are determined by the way we respond to stimuli, says science writer Nigel Calder in The Mind of Man.

Some brains are super reactive to outside stimuli; others are super sluggish. This phenomenon may lie at the root of two of the most basic types of personality: the extrovert and the introvert. We often think of these as Type A and Type B personalities, or leaders and followers, or extremely active and extremely passive people. Brain researchers theorize that the extrovert is simply someone whose brain is less easily aroused and requires constant sensory input to keep it active; while the brains of introverts may be too easily aroused, becoming "over amped" by even normal amounts of stimuli, sending them fleeing in search of quite environments that offer minimal stimulation.

If true, this theory would supply the first strong connection between brain mechanisms and personality.

[Nigel Calder, The Mind of Man, Viking, 1970]

CHAPTER 2

OUR MIND AND MEMORY

MIND

WHAT OUR MINDS DO

building blocks

All the art, anguish, science, achievement, passion, poetry, war, selflessness, criminality and philosophy produced by the human mind are the result of interaction of five basic functions:

* Perception

* Emotion

* Thought

* Communication

* Memory

It is to these five faculties that we owe everything from the sublime genius of Shakespeare to the horror of the guillotine and the poseys of romantic love.

[Norris and Ross McWhirter, Illustrated Encyclopedia of Facts, Doubleday, 1969]

PERCEPTION

HOW YOU ARE ABLE TO READ THIS BOOK

How do our minds see? To what do we owe the miraculous gift of sight? Current research says we owe it all to three kinds of cells.

As you read down this page, different groups of brain cells called "feature detectors" take up registering the edge as it enters the area of your visual field they are responsible for. Turn the book slightly, clockwise or anti-clockwise, and completely different groups of cells will begin registering the edges of the page – because their angles have all changed.

Your ability to see the letters that make up the words on this page is due to these feature detectors – highly specialized cells that recognize the horizontal, vertical or oblique lines and features of an object. David Hubel and Tosen Weisel, who are responsible for most of our knowledge of how the brain's visual cortex works, have identified three types of feature detectors: simple, complex, and hypercomplex.

There are three kinds of simple cells, each responding to a specific type of line or feature – although the cell will stop responding if a line is rotated as little as five or ten degrees.

* A bright line in a specific location in our visual field and sloping in a specific direction

* A dark line in a specific location, sloping in a specific direction

* A straight edge between a dark and light area in a specific location, sloping in a specific direction

There are also three kinds of complex cells, each recognizing a bright line or bar or edge with a specific slope – regardless of its location in your visual field. As you shift your eyes back and forth while reading this sentence, the same groups of complex cells will continue to register the edges of the page, even though where they lie in your visual field may change.

Hypercomplex cells recognize even more subtle features – an individual cell might be conditioned to respond optimally only to a letter of a specific shape and size, moving across your visual field from right to left, but not from left to right.

Together, the hundreds of millions of feature receptors in the visual cortex are responsible for your ability to read these, and all other, written or printed words.

[David Hubel and Tosen Weisel, "Brain Mechanisms of Vision," Scientific American, September 1979]

LIMITED VISION

Hubel and Weisel's research into feature receptors may shed light on an recent discovery made by UCLA psychopharmacologist Ronald Siegel: For all their seeming visual and imaginative complexity, our minds produce an astonishingly limited number of visions.

Siegel collected data from thousands of people who had hallucinated during hyperventilation, hypoglycemia, hypnosis, marathon running, psychedelics, dreaming, daydreaming, sensory bombardment, sensory depravation and more than a dozen other "altered states of consciousness." Then graphic artists drew the visions Siegel's "psychonauts" described. Though individual details of their hallucinations differed, the psychonauts kept "seeing" the same four basic geometric forms: the spiral, the tunnel (or funnel, the cobweb and the lattice (or honeycomb).

It may be that these visions are hardwired into our visual cortex, the basic shapes our feature receptors recognize and respond to, and the building blocks of our ability to "see" the multitude of complex shapes we perceive in the world around us.

[Ronald Siegel, Ph.D., "Hallucinations," Scientific American, October 1977]

What Sounds Yellow?

We take our senses pretty much for granted. Seeing is seeing, hearing is hearing. We even have a saying, "Seeing is believing." But sometimes "seeing is hearing."

Our sensory circuits can get crossed like telephone lines. When that happens, we begin to "hear" colors and "see" sounds. Scientists call this phenomenon Synesthesia. It can occur as the result of a bump on the head, damage to the brain, ingesting psychedelic drugs or spontaneously, without any prior warning.

In its, most common form, auditory-visual Synesthesia, sounds are seen as colors – as if the "victim" had a "light show" in their head. Oddly, human speech, especially vowel sounds, evokes the most vivid visual responses. Higher and shorter vowels are seen as light, bright colors; while longer vowels are perceived as darker, more somber hues. For some reason, yellow is produced by the very short, sharp vowels in "bait" and "beets."

[Judith Hooper and Dick Teresi, Ph.D., The 3-Pound Universe]

THE TOUCH OF THE BEHOLDER

Science has long acknowledged the truth in the old adage: "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." How we see someone we love is influenced more by how we feel about them than how they actually look. Now there is evidence that how things feel to the touch is also in the eye of the beholder.

Physiologist Andrea Gwosdow and engineer Larry Berglund, of Yale University asked people to rate the feel of a variety of fabrics under various environmental conditions. The way fabrics felt to participants turned out to be strongly influenced by factors determined by their emotional state – skin temperature, humidity and sensitivity. Love, obsession, depression, joy and delight alter the chemistry throughout the brain and body, according to biological psychiatrist Arnold Mandell, changing "how food tastes, whether music seems pretty, how a person walks, his dreams, his body temperature, his appetite, whether he asks for a raise or a vacation."

[Psychology Today, July 1987]

[Judith Hooper and Dick Teresi, Ph.D., The 3-Pound Universe]

Where There's Smoke, There's Less Mental Fire

Political decisions are often made in "smoke filled rooms." Perhaps that's why our political system reached its current sorry condition. Cigarette smoke does more than clog our lungs; it clogs our wits as well.

Experimenters at Bermidji State University discovered that inhaling someone else's cigarette smoke reduces alertness, perception and the ability to think clearly. Participants forced to breath to second-hand smoke grew so distracted and irritated that they no longer paid as much attention to events and people around them. In fact, workers in a smoke filled room were 40% less likely to notice – and therefore offer assistance – when someone dropped papers on the floor.

If cigarette smoke makes everyone 40% less perceptive, its no wonder many smokers don't have sense enough to quit.

(There's a down side to these findings: bosses who learn of them may expect 40 percent greater efficiency, intelligence, and productivity from those working in smokeless offices.)

[Psychology Today, November 1988]

EMOTIONS

HARD OF FEELING

"I don't want to hear it!" is a common reaction to bad news. Apparently this statement is literally as well as figuratively true. We actually don't hear unpleasant words as well as we do pleasant ones.

Experimenters at the Cambridge University Applied Psychology Research Unit have discovered there are some emotions so highly charged we don't want to hear about them – much less feel them. They asked people to write down words played in a noisy room. Participants had significantly more trouble hearing emotionally loaded words like "death" and "blood" correctly than neutral words like "square" and "run."

[Nigel Calder, The Mind of Man, Viking, 1970]

pity the lovelorn cockroach

Emotions are universals. Every living creature feels emotion, says neuroscientist Candice Pert, even cockroaches. "They have to, because they have chemicals that put them in the mood to mate and chemicals that make them run away when they're about to be killed. That's what emotions are usually about – sex and violence, pain and pleasure. Even bacteria have a little hierarchy of primitive likes and dislikes." If sex is a chemical lure, as Pert claims, it might explain why roaches and politicians have both come to grief after entering motels.

[Judith Hooper and Dick Teresi, Ph.D., The 3-Pound Universe]

THE MOST EMOTIONAL ANIMAL

Ever feel your emotions are getting the best of you? You're not alone – almost everyone feels that way sometimes. It's a natural part of our evolutionary heritage. Humans are the most emotional animals of all according to Canadian psychologist Donald Hebb.

He believes that as animals evolve and become more intelligent, they become more emotional Rats are capable of fear, dogs of fear, love and jealousy; while chimpanzees are capable of a range of emotions that almost seem human.

Though adults are supposed to be less emotional than children, Hebb is convinced that, as we mature, we become more emotional. "My theory says that the human adult is more emotional than the three year old. Why don't we seem that way? How often have you heard laughter at a funeral? We build human society so that we are carefully protected from our own emotional weaknesses, because we are so easily upset."

[Nigel Calder, The Mind of Man, Viking, 1970]

HOW EMOTIONAL ARE YOU?

How emotional are you? Psychologist Robert Plutchik has charted what he believes are the eight basic emotions. Everyone, except the extremely mentally ill, feels emotions. Some people seem firestorms of feeling; others emotional icebergs; most of us experience a healthy range of emotions balanced between these two extremes. One of Plutchik's charts below shows how the eight basic emotions are experienced by people who are extremely, moderately and minimally emotional:

EXTREMELY

Ecstasy

Adoration

Terror

Amazement

Grief

Loathing

Rage

Vigilance

MODERATELY

Joy

Acceptance

Fear

Surprise

Sadness

Disgust

Anger

Anticipation

MINIMALLY

Pleasure

Tolerance

Apprehension

Distraction

Pensiveness

Boredom

Annoyance

Alertness

[Robert Plutchik, Ph.D., Emotions: A Psychoevolutionary Synthesis]

ENDORPHINS HAVE CHARMS TO SOOTH THE SAVAGE BREAST

Do you enjoy the thrill of great music? Ever wonder what makes you feel that way? The composer? The musicians? The instruments? The sheer physical sensation of the sound itself? If this was a quiz, you'd have flunked. The correct answer, according to psychopharmacologist Avram Goldstein, is endorphins.

Goldstein arranged for a group of students to listen to their favorite music in a darkened room on headphones. But between sessions, he gave half of the students an endorphin-blocker and the other a placebo. After nineteen separate tests, the results were in: many students who had received the endorphin-blockers failed to experience the sublime thrills from the music their compatriots who received he placebo felt. Apparently Beethoven and Ice-T just aren't the same without our endorphins.

[Avram Goldstein, "Thrills in Response to Music and Other Stimuli," Physiological Psychology, Vol. 8, No. 1, 1980]

THOUGHT

Talking to Yourself

Most of us worry here's something wrong with us when we begin talking out loud to ourselves. But talking to yourself is normal, says research psychologist Eric Klinger, Most, people talk to themselves at least once every day. Even when we're not talking out loud to ourselves, Klinger writes, we're still talking to ourselves – mentally.

Our inner voice is quiet less than 25% of the time, according to Klinger. Hearing a snatch of music makes us wonder, "What was the name of that song?" Thinking work may trigger the thought: "I've go to ask for a raise." Almost everything that happens around us triggers a chain of thoughts, and those thoughts trigger still other thoughts. With this constant mental monologue going on, it's hardly surprising that some "leaks through" from time to time, and we unwittingly find ourselves verbalizing our inner thoughts out loud.

[Eric Klinger, Ph.D., Daydreaming]

A Penny for Your Thoughts is Good Pay

"A penny for your thoughts" is a popular saying. If we did get paid a penny for each thought, we'd be earning about forty dollars each day. Research at the University of Minnesota revealed we average four separate thoughts per minute – or around 4,000 thoughts a day. It's no wonder our brains feel tired and we are ready to sleep at night.

[Eric Klinger, Ph.D., Daydreaming]

Superficial Thinkers

When a friend's mind leaps constantly from one subject to another we call them "scatterbrained" and accuse them of being "superficial thinkers." But new findings about the way our minds work suggest that human beings are a "scatterbrained" species.

While we think a great deal, most of our thoughts are only a few seconds long, according to experiments conduced by Eric Klinger. Half of our thoughts last five seconds or less – most others, less than a minute. While our average "train of thought" occupies a brief fifteen seconds. We rarely stick with the same subject for as long as five consecutive minutes. Instead, we tend to "think around" a subject, flitting between it and other subjects.

This kind of scatterbrained thinking might seem superficial or even counterproductive. But Klinger believes it actually enriches our thinking. Stray thoughts often lead to solutions for perplexing problems. This kind of "associational" thinking can give the superficial, scatterbrained individual a distinct advantage over their more mentally disciplined detractors.

[Eric Klinger, Ph.D., Daydreaming]

NOT PAYING ATTENTION

Children are constantly admonished to "pay attention." But as adults few of us seem to be heeding our mother's advice. A recent survey of what people think about on a typical day revealed we only concentrate on what we're doing about a third of the time. Most of our attention is occupied thinking about relationships, personal problems and people who have made them angry.

Here's where people are actually paying attention to on a typical day:

33% – concentrating on current surroundings or activities

25% – thinking about others and interpersonal relationships

6% – active thinking focused on solving problems

3% – self-praise or self-criticism

3% – anxiety-related thinking

2% – self-instruction

1% – violence

26% – widely scattered thoughts about a variety of subjects

[Eric Klinger, Ph.D., Daydreaming]

BETTER BRAINS

Did an insoluble problem or an overwhelming series of events ever make you say, "I wish I had a better brain"? If so, you probably had in mind all those brilliant, self-composed people who seem to master every challenge and juggle an endless number of activities. Why is life so effortless for them, and so hard for the rest of us?

The answer may, in fact, be better brains. New research quoted by award-winning science writer Marc McCutcheon, suggests that the exceptionally bright have more efficient neural "wiring". More efficient brain circuitry means they can solve problems more easily and with less effort. No wonder they don't even seem to sweat!

[McCutcheon, Marc, The Compass in Your Nose, Tarcher, 1989]

COMMUNICATION

GOOD LISTENERS

People frequently accuse each other of being "poor listeners." But research by R. R. Allen, Professor of Communications Arts at the University of Wisconsin, suggests people are better listeners than they realize. If we seem inattentive or bored, it may be because we only manage to get a word in 30% of the time – the other 70% is spend listening. With that much practice, most of us ought to be "good listeners" by now.

[R. R. Allen, Ph.D., "Communication," Developing Communication Competence]

speechless

Communication doesn't just involve speech. We can make our meaning clear without ever saying a word. Our facial expressions and body language tell as much, if not more, about our moods and meanings than anything we say.

In a study done at England's Birmingham University, Psychologist Michael Chance found that gestures can convey meanings as precisely as words. He observed children's squabbles and interviewed the youthful participants afterward. When children lift their hands during an argument, Chance discovered, the position of the hand in relation to the head tells other children exactly how angry or frightened he feels.

[Calder, Nigel, The Mind of Man, Viking, 1970]

IT TAKES TWO TO TANGO

Communication, scientists say, is say two-way street. It requires not only the speaker, but a listener as well. Most of us take our listeners for granted. We have no idea how important they are to us.

Munich researcher Detlev Ploog, believes the lone primate is only half a primate. Our interactions with others are not merely tangential to our lives, but critical to them. Apparently, interaction with others releases important brain chemicals, possibly endorphins that are necessary to our physical and mental health. Unable to communicate with others, we begin to deteriorate. Ploog says that, "As a psychiatrist, I believe that the cause of mental illness is a disturbance or even a breakdown of the communication system."

[Calder, Nigel, The Mind of Man, Viking, 1970]

Talked to Death

People who talk too much may be more distracting than most of us realize. Loud, incessant background chatter is a major contributor to lost productivity and impaired performance in the workplace, according to recent Dayton University Psychology Department findings. Their research may also shed light on the source of workplace related violence.

Test subjects rated random chatter ten times more distracting than the sound of jackhammers. Subjected to endless doses, they became nervous and irritable, unable to concentrate, and their ability to perform assigned tasks deteriorated. The Dayton researchers concluded that under the right circumstances, prolonged chatter can even drive people to emotional breakdown and violence.

[David Louis, 1001 Fascinating Facts]

Oh Why Do We Lie?

We all tell lies now and then. Most of the lies we tell are "white lies," harmless social prevarications related to sparing ourselves and others embarrassment.

When it comes to telling more serious lies – "black lies" – a De Paul University Psychology Department study found we're usually trying to avoid punishment or disapproval. We also lie to make ourselves seem more important and to get our way with others.

[Calder, Nigel, The Mind of Man, Viking, 1970]

MEMORY

OUR MIRACULOUS MEMORY

LIVING FROM MOMENT TO MOMENT

Individuals who suffer serious damage to the brain's hippocampus and amygdala have what scientists call "permanent global anterograde amnesia." These two organs apparently coordinate the processing of our memories. Without them, individuals are unable to store new memories or associate objects with each other. As a result, they live from moment to moment.

[Judith Hooper and Dick Teresi, Ph.D., The 3-Pound Universe]

HOW MANY KINDS OF MEMORY CAN YOU REMEMBER?

As if you didn't have enough to remember already, scientists now tell us there are eight kinds of memory, each stored in a different part of the brain.

* Short-term Memory, which allows us to be aware of what happened recently

* Long-term Memory, which allows us to recall events of the past

* Verbal Memory, retains words we've spoken, thought or heard

* Spatial Memory, retains things we've seen and spatial relationships we have experienced

* Episodic Memory, contains our experiences of particular times, places, contexts, events

* Semantic Memory, contains our knowledge of concepts and language

* Procedural Memory, stores rules, procedures, "how-to" knowledge

* Declarative Memory, stores facts and other specific items of information

Now, quick – what kinds of memory were involved in reading this article?

[Judith Hooper and Dick Teresi, Ph.D., The 3-Pound Universe]

EASY TO REMEMBER, AND SO HARD TO FORGET

We've all done things we'd rather forget. But we can't, according to brain research pioneer, Wilder Penfield. Everything we've ever felt, sensed, done or experienced – good or bad – is still recorded somewhere within our brains.

Penfield used electricity to stimulate the portions of the brain that store memory. Subjects had sudden flashes from their pasts – old conversations, cars passing outside a window – complete with all the feelings and sensations of the original event. After seeing small electrical currents miraculously produce many such "tableaux vivants," Penfield concluded that our minds store everything that has occurred during our lives. Which may be why some memories keep coming back to haunt us, no matter how hard we try to forget.

[Wilder Penfield, "The Mystery of the Mind"]

BUILDING YOU MEMORY'S MUSCLES

Everyone knows physical exercise causes muscles to swell – but did you know that mental exercise causes your brain to swell? Neuroscientists have found that when a finger is immobilized for a prolonged period, the area of the brain that controls it shrinks. But when the finger is used in a new way – or exercised heavily – that part of the brain actually grows. Muscle builders move over, the beaches may soon be crowded with memory builders.

[Don Campbell, Introduction to the Musical Brain]

What Was that Number Again?

If you have trouble remembering seven digit phone numbers with three digit area codes, not to mention those nine digit zip codes, you're not alone. Research shows most of us have a short-term memory capacity of only five to nine digits. This factor was once taken into account when assigning telephone numbers, street addresses and zip codes. But now that population growth has swelled cities and nations – causing area codes to proliferate and zip codes to become increasingly complex – more and more people are going to have more and more difficulty remembering more and more numbers.

[David Louis, 1001 Fascinating Facts]

THEY REMEMBER IT WELL

Our ability to form new memories peaks in the twenties (not so coincidentally the peak training years of college and our early work experiences). It begins to decline gradually thereafter. By the time we enter our eighties the brain no longer stores fresh memories as readily.

However, multiple copies of the memories we have already formed are still accessible, stored in many locations throughout the brain. This may explain why older people often recall events of the distant past vividly, but frequently forget trivial short-term data, such as what they ate for breakfast.

[McCutcheon, Marc, The Compass in Your Nose, Tarcher, 1989]

MEMORY METHODS

AFTERNOON DELIGHT

When you learn something may be as important as how you learn it. According to science writer Marc McCutcheon, some times of day are better for learning new information than others. If you have something you want to commit to your Short-term memory, it's about 15% more efficient in the morning. If it's something you want to store in long-term memory, that reaches its peak in the afternoon.

[McCutcheon, Marc, The Compass in Your Nose, Tarcher, 1989]

TO SLEEP, PERCHANCE TO REMEMBER

Researchers have given a new meaning to the term "sleep on it." Our memory for new information improves 20% -30% if we sleep first, before being tested on it. Dr. Avi Karni, a neuroscientist Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel, found that people did better on a test of visual memory after a night's sleep.

In a second series of tests, volunteers in a sleep laboratory were woken up at various times of night. Those who were woken up during the deepest part of sleep, rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, were unable to retain what they had learned the day before. Participants who slept on their knowledge scored higher.

Karni decided there must be "a stage of sleep that is important for memory consolidation." Apparently, an important mechanism in sleep helps our brains "fix" information learned over the day, especially "how to"' or procedural memory. Dr. Karni's advice to those learning a complex, challenging new task – like skiing, a foreign language or the table of elements – is "sleep on it."

[Sandra Blakeslee, "To Sleep, Perchance to Learn: Neural Links to Memory," The New York Times, November 3, 1992]

TOTAL RECALL

Throughout history there have been people with photographic or "eidetic" memories. These remarkable individuals are able to remember everything they see or read. Actor Robert Mitchum was legendary for his ability to memorize a script on a single reading. Writer Isaac Asimov, produced more than 300 books during his lifetime – at least in part because whatever he read stuck in his memory.

Most of us have this capacity. But only a few people can access it normally. However, there is evidence that under unusual circumstances – hypnosis, drugs, injury to the brain – anyone can recall past events in minute detail. In London, a woman injured in an auto accident lapsed into a coma and began speaking Greek. A professor of Greek told authorities the woman was reciting "The Iliad" in ancient, not modern, Greek. When she recovered, the woman claimed to have no conscious knowledge of Greek. But recalled that 30 years earlier she had heard a scholar recite "The Iliad" as she cleaned the building in which he lived.

[David Louis, 1001 Fascinating Facts]

THAT OLD FAMILIAR SONG

Rock music during homework has generated heated arguments between parents and teens for years. Most parents object when they find their children doing homework while listening to music, concerned that it will interfere with their offspring's ability to retain what they are studying. Now there is evidence that listening to music can actually enhance student's ability to recall their lessons – but only if they listen to the same music when they take the test.

Psychologists at Texas A & M University, asked students to study while contemporary music played in the background. Later some students were given their tests while different music was played; some were given tests while the same music played; and some took the tests in silence. The results were conclusive: Students who heard the same music during tests they heard while studying scored appreciably higher than those who listened to something different or took their tests in silence.

If students learn this, Walkmans could replace "cheat sheets" during finals.

["Crosstalk," Psychology Today, November 1988]

WHY YOU CAN'T FIND YOUR KEYS

We seem to spend half our time looking for something we've misplaced – lost car key, missing files, important phone numbers, grandma's recipe for fudge. Often we search everywhere we normally store the missing item first, only to find that we put it away in some out of the way corner, certain at the time we would remember its location, precisely because the spot was so unusual. After all, we reasoned, unusual happenings stand out more vividly in the memory than commonplace ones.

Wrong, says psychologist Eugene Winograd. When it comes to where we put things, we have more trouble remembering the unusual than the usual. In an experiment at Atlanta's Emory University, Winograd found that people consistently recall the location of objects left in usual locations more accurately than those left in unusual spots. A week later, students were 70% more likely to remember an item's storage spot accurately if they had put in a spot where it might normally expect to be found.

[Eugene Winograd and Robert Soloway, The Journal of Experimental Psychology, Vol. 115, No. 4]

IF YOU CAN'T TRUST YOUR MEMORY...

Most people rely on their memories. They'll even argue, "I trust my memory" and if their recollection is challenged, will often offer to bet on it. However, University of Washington, psychologist Elizabeth Loftus, says we shouldn't trust our memories. She believes memories can become falsified in several ways.

In a series of experiments, Loftus arranged fake automobile accidents, then put genuine eyewitnesses in rooms with fake witnesses who shared fake memories with them. By the time real witnesses were called to deducible what they'd seen, most had confused the fabricated memories with their own – stop signs became yield signs, barns grew up out of thin air, yellow cars turned fire-engine red.

We all walk around with false memories, Loftus claims. Our memories become contaminated by our own emotions – we remember it the way we felt it was or waned it to be. Or by the suggestions and recollections of others. Worse, once we have has constructed a memory, true or false, we believe it so sincerely it registers as "true" on a lie detector.

"There's no way even the most sophisticated hypnotist can tell the difference between a memory that is real and one that's created," Loftus says. "It may be that the legal notion of an independent recollection is a psychological impossibility."

[Judith Hooper and Dick Teresi, Ph.D., The 3-Pound Universe]

MEMORY COCKTAILS

Having trouble remembering? Swamped by details? Wish you could add more RAM to your brain like you can to your computer? Soon you may be able to do exactly that.

Brain researchers have isolated and duplicated a number of the critical chemicals involved in storing and enhancing memory. Separately, or together, these chemicals point toward the much-heralded "memory pill" we've all been waiting for.

Vasopressin – a neuropeptide that triples the memory span of mice and other mammals

DDAVP – an analog of vasopressin that boosts memory in both normal people and victims of Alzheimer's disease (senile dementia)

MSH/ASTH 4-10 – a fragment of the ACTH molecule, enhances the attention span and concentration of young and old alike

Norepinephrine – enhances memory and learning

Enkephalins – improves learning in rats

Zimelidine – restores memory after an alcoholic memory black by selectively increasing serotonin

These aren't the only chemicals involved in memory. Dozens of others interact in producing our recollections as well. Apparently our memory benefits from a good cocktail too.

"We remember best the things that excite us," psychologist James McGaugh, explains, "Arousal causes all these chemical cocktails – norepinphrine, adrenaline, enkephalin, vasopressin, ACTH – to spritz out. ... These chemicals are memory 'fixatives' When you are excited or shocked or stressed, they signal the brain, "This is important – keep this."

[Judith Hooper and Dick Teresi, Ph.D., The 3-Pound Universe]

CHAPTER 3

OUR BODY-MIND CONNECTION

HOW THE BODY AFFECTS THE MIND

WHAT THE BODY KNOWS

the body's messENGER SERVICE

We all know the body effects the mind. When we are tired or sick, temper and attention spans shorten, brains turn sluggish, performance declines. When we are healthy and rested, productivity, clear thinking, optimism and confidence reach a peak.

But how does the condition of the body interact with the mind? Recently scientists discovered the answer. The body's Western Union, says psychobiology researcher Ernest Rossi, Ph.D., is "messenger molecules." Also called "information substances," the body's messenger service employers couriers, like testosterone and estrogen (the sexual hormones), glucose and insulin (which direct energy to various parts of the body), cortisol, adrenalin (which rule awareness and responsiveness), endorphins and beta-endorphin (which mediate pleasure and relaxation).

"Messenger molecules carry signals about the state of the body's energy level, pain threshold, sex drive, thirst, alertness, pain, pleasure and mental outlook," Rossi writes. When they reach the brain, these molecules signal us that our body is hungry or full, stressed or relaxed, needs to be more active or to rest and recuperate. And like most other special delivery messages – we ignore them at our own risk.

[Ernest Rossi, Ph.D., The Psychobiology of Mind-body Healing]

Walk It Off

Your mom's advice was right. You can "walk it off." Exercise of any kind releases the same brain chemicals (endorphins) that make us feel happy when we hear good news. When anger, depression or any other negative emotion has you in its grip, try taking a walk, exercise or engaging in some other physical activity.

Participants in a study by psychology professor Robert E. Thayer were asked to take a ten minute walk every time they became angry, depressed or upset over a personal problem. At the end of the walk, the majority reported their negative feelings had dissipated and they felt positive about life again. Evidently when we feel like telling everyone to take a hike – its time for us to take a walk.

[Robert E. Thayer, "Energy Walks," Psychology Today, October 1988]

ADDICTED TO FITNESS

Exercise is good for us. Its many beneficial effects are drummed into our heads from every side – by fitness gurus, health nuts, even the federal government. But for some women and men, exercise becomes an addiction – as destructive as any other, according to research reported by Psychology Today. Joggers who spend all their time at the track; amateur golfers who only live for the game; weight lifters who constantly haunt the gym – may all be flirting with addiction.

The "high" of exercise – produced by the endorphins (our body's own homegrown narcotics) – traps some. Ironically, the pain attracts others. While still others find it a safe place to escape from the real world.

Constant exhaustion, no time for personal relationships and dangerously overspending on equipment – may be signs you've become an exercise junkie.

[Eleanor Grant, "The Exercise Fix," Psychology Today, February 1988]

the fantasy or the erection?

Do women and men get horny because they think about sex? Or do they think about sex because they are horny? Most of the time, the second answer seems to be correct. Some 10 to 15 times each day, our hormones make us begin to think about sex – whether we want to or not.

Every 90 minutes, our bodies squirt out additional testosterone (the hormone governing sexual arousal), according to The Psychobiology of Mind-body Healing. We suddenly find ourselves preoccupied with thoughts of sex; we begin to notice the attractive features of those whose gender arouses us; we even become partly physically aroused. The effect is even more pronounced on males, who have the highest natural levels of testosterone. It is especially noticeable to their bed partners just after sunrise – when testosterone reaches its daily peak.

[Ernest Rossi, Ph.D., The Psychobiology of Mind-body Healing]

DRESSING FOR DISTRESS

Grey flannel suits, dress shirts and ties have always been part of the corporate dress for success style. But now there's evidence traditional business attire may be the worst thing success-minded young executives could wear. Researchers at the Department of Textiles and Apparel at Cornell University discovered the pressure of shirt and tie can seriously restrict blood flow to the brain – interfering with our ability to think clearly, our physical dexterity and how aware we are of what's happening around us.

The Cornell researchers tested businessmen who habitually wore suits and ties to work and those who did not. Most participants who wore ties and collars, wore them too tight – and this slowed down their response time in a battery of tests. A second finding, with strong economic implications for the workplace, was that even after loosening their collars participants response time was slow to return to normal. This discovery "holds implications for a variety of other sensory and cognitive functions," the researchers concluded, "including intelligence, creativity, productivity and memory retention." Rather than dressing for success, these findings suggest most of those in gray flannel suits are dressing for distress.

[Leonara M. Langan and Susan M. Watkins, Human Factors Vol. 29, 1987]

and stay away from magnets

Eating metal can boost your brain power. Forget your morning cereal. Instead, pass around a heaping bowl of iron and copper, with a generous sprinkling of zinc for seasoning. You can top off your tank with up to 20% more smarts and acuity for the day ahead – if you consume your daily share of metals.

Iron, zinc and copper deficiencies dull our wits. Both minerals are needed to build neurotransmitters, the brain's chemical messengers. But supplements boosted participants in one University of Texas study back to normal in just two months. Those who received zinc or iron supplements improved their scores an average of 10% on tests of memory and cognitive ability – with some showing improvements of 20% and more.

The University of Texas study even revealed which metals we should take for boosting what parts of our brain. Got a short-term memory problem? Try iron. Want to improve your ability to associate ideas, objects and words? Try zinc. For calmness, crunch up copper. You might want to avoid metal-detectors, however.

[Science News, May 4, 1991 & "The Sleep/Mineral Link" Prevention, November 1988]

big, beefy and brain-damaged

Research shows natural forms of bodybuilding – exercise, weight lifting, athletics – boost mental health. But steroids and other artificial methods of enhancing musculature may actually cause mental illness. Almost 50% of steroid users surveyed in a McLean Hospital-Harvard Medical School study had experienced serious psychological problems. The results were chilling – of the bodybuilders surveyed:

33% - reported major mood swings

12% - experienced manic episodes

12% - had psychotic episodes

10% - manifested "subthreshold psychotic" symptoms

Steroids increased irritability and aggression in the majority of bodybuilders – and created full-blown delusions in some. One man became convinced jumping from a third floor window would not hurt him. Another bought two expensive cars he couldn't afford – and had to sell them. A third bodybuilder heard nonexistent voices for a period of weeks.

There was one bright light in the McLean-Harvard report: Most of symptoms disappeared when users quit taking steroids. They may have been building their bodies – but they were clearly tearing down their minds.

[Eleanor Grant, "Of Muscles and Mania," Psychology Today, September 1987]

TAKE TWO BEFORE BEDTIME

Have trouble reaching orgasm? Think it's time to see a shrink or a marriage counselor? Before you do consider this scientific news flash: The problem may not be in your head – it may be in your diet.

Impotence – along with memory loss, confusion and depression – are just a few of the psychological problems that have been linked to deficiencies in Vitamin B12 alone. B12 is as vital to our mental health as it is to our physical health, says Robert Allen, M.D. of the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver. Many B12 deficient men beset by erectile problems have restored their natural hardihood through vitamin therapy.

Get set to see males (and frustrated women) crowing around the health food counters when this news leaks out.

[New England Journal of Medicine June 30, 1988]

BODY PARTS

THE SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS

Some men and women seem to have gambling "on the brain." But for others it may be more "in the nose." Tens of thousands of studies have dissected what makes people gamble. Now there's evidence that for some of us, it may be the bouquet of the casino.

Neurologist Alan Hirsch added a pleasant scent to the slot machine area of one Las Vegas casino. Over the next few months, gamblers dropped 45% more coins into the machines. Professional ethics prevented Dr. Hirsch from revealing the formula for his fragrance – but for the casino it was clearly "the sweet smell of success."

[Los Angeles Times, October 2, 1992]

peace pill

The end of war may be in sight – and without "unpleasant side effects." Psychopharmacologists in the Netherlands seem to have manufactured an honest-to-goodness antiaggression drug – DU 27716. This miraculous compound dramatically curbed normal interspecies hostility in rodents. Although male mice normally attack strange mice, males treated with DU 27716 get along with strangers fine – and show no traces of anger, aggression or hostility.

But DU 27716 is an anti-aggression drug with a plus. Other chemicals that reduce hostility simply sedate people so heavily they are only semi-conscious. DU 27716 treated mice are as active and alert as ever. Better yet, this miraculous chemical erases aggressive violence – but leaves the ability to fight back in self-defense unimpaired. If subsequent experiments bear out these findings, DU 27716 could be the real post-Cold War "peace dividend."

[Judith Hooper and Dick Teresi, The 3-Pound Universe]

what your mom said about naps is true

It isn't just children who need to take naps. Adults need naps, too. Research psychologists at the University of Ottawa have discovered our brains function best when we sleep twice a day – not just once.

We all "have two major sleep periods, one at night and one in the afternoon," says the Ottawa report. The second is much briefer (usually half an hour to 90 minutes) – and arrives about 12 hours after the middle of our previous night's sleep. (For most of us, that's around 3 p.m.). Our brain turns sluggish, our energy reaches a low – and our body signals its need for a nap with a yawn.

A daily siesta isn't a necessity, the Ottawa researchers found. But if we didn't get enough sleep the night before – or for several nights running – obeying the body's urge for a nap becomes critical. We begin to make mistakes, efficiency declines, we miss important cues in conversations and work, fall asleep on the job. In short, if you don't take your naps like a good-girl (or boy) and put them off too long, your body may decide to take one for you – in the middle of a meeting ... or a freeway.

[Rae Corelli, "The Mysteries of Sleep and Dreams," Macleans, April 23, 1990]

the touch-character connection

Children who don't get enough physical affection are at risk of growing up into hard-core felons, rapists, child molesters and murderers. Monkeys deprived of all physical contact in infancy, turned out to be aggressive, violent adults – producing the same disturbed EEG readings as criminally insane patients. Research by James Prescott of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development showed both groups shared a serious disorder of the lymbic pain-pleasure system.

Sensory stimulation plays a vital role in the growth of infant's brain structures, Prescott claims, especially the all-powerful lymbic system. The biological systems that signal pleasure don't develop normally in children who receive little or no hugging, touching or contact. All they can experience is pain – when that happens they develop into violent adults.

If his findings were correct, Prescott reasoned, "cultures that give infants a lot of physical affection – touching, holding, and carrying – would be less physically violent, and they are." He surveyed forty-nine cultures, from the peace-loving Maoris to the martial Comanches – from the United States, Italy and France, to Japan, Australia, Mexico and South America. Prescott's theory held true: Crime, violence, child abuse – along with such charming customs as "killing, torturing or mutilating the enemy" – were rare or unknown in cultures where parents were nourishing and physically affectionate.

Prescott's researchers may even provide the key to a winning strategy in the war on crime – and one that won't cost taxpayers an additional cent. "I'm now convinced," he says, "that the root cause of violence is deprivation of physical pleasure. When you stimulate the neurosystems that mediate pleasure, you inhibit the systems that mediate violence."

[Judith Hooper and Dick Teresi, The 3-Pound Universe]

SUICIDAL BRAINS

Prescott's discoveries may tie into experiments on the brains of suicide victims at Israel's Weizmann Institute of Science. People often try to take their own lives because the brain's "pain switches" get stuck at "on" – while their "pleasure switches" are stuck at "off." The Weizmann Institute's Ruth Gross-Isserof probed the innermost recesses of the brain cells women and men who had died by their own hands and found they shared characteristic irregularities of the opioid receptors (which play critical roles in sensations of well-being and suffering). Most showed a 100 to 800% increase in one of one type of opioid receptor (mus) and a 50% decrease in another (delts).

People often harm themselves during a long depression. "The essence of depression is anbedonia – an inability to experience pleasure," explains Anat Biegon, who co-chaired the Weizmann project from the New York University School of Medicine. "And opioid receptors are the primary targets of the brain's reward system."

Men and women born with disorders of the opioid system may have brains "wired" for suicide. Of so Gross-Isserof and Biegon's discoveries offer more reason for rejoicing than despair. If born out, their work may point the way toward a chemical cure for those "suicidal brains."

["Suicide Brains: Naturally prone to pain?" Science News, November 10, 1990]

THE SCENT OF SERENITY

It may not be music, but scent that "soothes the savage breast." Scientist at Yale University discovered some fragrances have a calming effect – even lowering blood pressure. Researchers there devised an apple-spice fragrance that stopped panic attacks. The University plans to patent the formula and license it for commercial use.

As most aficionados of the shore know, the aroma of the ocean can also be very relaxing. In one study at England's University of Warwick, up-tight, agitated men and women were exposed to a "beach perfume" containing "essence of seaweed." Anxiety levels decreased as much as 18% after subjects had whiffed the tangy scent of the sea.

[Marc McCutcheon, The Compass in Your Nose]

some are born with it...

Does our body chemistry dictate our personality? Or does our personality dictate our body chemistry? Aggressive, dominant men (and monkeys) – Type-A personalities who become leaders and authority figures – have long been known to have twice the normal level of serotonin in their blood. Psychiatrist Michael McGuire wanted to know: Are leaders simply born with more serotonin, or do their do their serotonin levels rise with their social rank?

First, McGuire removed Type-A leaders from monkey groups and isolated them in solitary cages for a few weeks. Sure enough, with no one to boss around and boost their egos – the levels of serotonin in the "leaders'" blood promptly halved. But when McGuire restored the Type-As to their group, they quickly displaced the new "leader" who had taken over in their absence – and their serotonin count returned to normal.

The evidence seemed to suggest personality ruled body chemistry. But McGuire decided to confirm his results by trying the reverse experiment. He boosted serotonin levels in passive monkeys; and saw timid, insecure males swagger and grow authoritative before his eyes.

McGuire concluded it was neither the chicken or the egg – but a symbiotic relationship. Our bodies and minds interact to determine what we are and how we feel – and which has the greatest influence changes according to what's going on in and around us. McGuire's work seems suggest that some are born Type-A's; some become Type-A's; and some have being Type-A's thrust upon them.

[Judith Hooper and Dick Teresi, The 3-Pound Universe]

riding the waves

"Body surfing" may soon take on a whole new meaning. Waves of alertness wash through our minds in 90 minute cycles (ultradian cycles) triggered by messenger molecules from the lymbic and endocrine systems of our bodies. For an hour and fifteen minutes out of every hour and half, the body sends signals (via adrenaline, or adrenaline and other "alertness" drugs) that keep our minds at a peak of awareness, energy, physical skills, memory, learning ability and productivity. Then, for the next fifteen to twenty minutes, the body sends our minds into a low, as it secretes chemicals that repair the stress and strains created by its alertness "messengers" – while recharging our batteries for renewed endeavors.

Midway through the active part of this cycle, we are at our most efficient, mentally and physically, claims Ernest Rossi, Ph.D., in The 20 Minute Break: The New Science of Ultradian Rhythms. Verbal and spatial skills, eye-hand coordination, memory, alertness, creativity, productivity – reach a crest. We feel energized, "in tune with the universe" and seem to cope with most problems effortlessly.

Midway through the downswing of this cycle, our awareness of the outer world declines to a minimum (as "alertness" chemicals fall) – while the barriers to our inner world fall away. Mind and body are in the ideal state for tapping intuition, mental rehearsal, emotional and physical healing – and seeking creative inspiration. We feel sleepy, sluggish, daydream and become introspective.

Those who learn to ride the "waves" of the body's 90 minute ultradian cycle, Rossi claims, can:

* Match critical work with periods of maximum productivity

* Maintain personal energy throughout the day

* Break patterns of stress and tension

* Reap the maximum benefit from moments of greatest insight and creativity

* Enhance physical and mental well-being

[Ernest Rossi, Ph.D., The 20 Minute Break: The New Science of Ultradian Rhythms]

IT'S A WISE MOM...

Mother's and their babies seem to be able to identify each other instinctively. Advocates of parapsychology claim its ESP. But a series of studies cited in Psychology Today suggest a more mundane solution: It may be the nose that knows.

Psychologist Michael Russell found 6 out of 10 babies could identify the scent of their mother's breast pads. Mom's were just as quick to sniff out their own newborns – the same percentage of mothers could identified their babies by scent after only hours after birth. Mothers were equally adept at sniffing out clothing worn by their older children.

Apparently an olfactorily wise mom always does know her own child.

["Scent: The Tie That Binds?" Psychology Today, July 1986]

HOW THE MIND EFFECTS THE BODY

HEALTH AND HEALING

gut feelings

Having a "gut feeling" may be more than just a figure of speech. The communication system between mind and body is a two-way street. Our brain, nervous system, immune system and endocrine system are so closely linked that they constitute a single master network, says Candace Pert, chief of Brain Biochemistry at the National Institute of Mental Health.

The mind communicates with the body via the same messenger molecules the body uses to signal the brain. Among these are neuropeptides (endorphins, vassopressin, Factor S, bombesin) that regulate our moods and emotions; the body doesn't just flood the brain with peptides, our bloodstream carries them to muscles, heart, lungs, liver, intestines and other organs, as well. Clear proof, Pert says, "emotions are not just [experienced] in the brain, they're in the body."

Like and dislike send waves of these neuropeptides flooding through our bodies – and we experience these as "gut" reactions.

[Ernest Rossi, Ph.D., The Psychobiology of Mind-body Healing & Blair Justice, Ph.D., Who Gets Sick]

IT'S all in your head

Forget germs, microbes, bacteria, viruses and all the other causes of illness you learned about in school. New scientific understandings of why we get sick say it's our mental health that rules our physical health, writes Blair Justice, Ph.D., Who Gets Sick. Most of the "bugs" that "cause" illness already reside in our bodies. Our thoughts, beliefs, attitudes and emotional stance – not our bodies – make the difference between "coming down with" infection or staying in good health.

How resistant we are to disease depends on our characteristic way of responding to the difficulties and challenges of life – and the chemical changes those responses cause. Our moods and feelings register in our brain's hypothalamus, which signals our endocrine and nervous systems to trigger the release of pleasure-pain hormones (especially neuropeptides and adrenaline). These in turn determine the health and well-being of key elements of our immune system – white blood cells, T-cells and macrophages (scavenger cells that aid in our defense against disease).

When our responses to problems in life are negative – fearful, angry, despairing – the hormones our brains release weaken the body's defenses. Our body's indigent microbes and viruses run wild, and we become prey to illness from within and without. When our responses are positive – optimistic, loving, laugh at life's troubles – the hormones our brains release strengthen our immune system.

"One of the primary functions of the mind, possibly as important as rational thought, is health maintenance," confirm Robert Ornstein, Ph.D., and David Sobel, M.D., in "The Healing Brain."

What makes us sick? It's all in our heads!

[Ernest Rossi, Ph.D., The Psychobiology of Mind-body Healing & Blair Justice, Ph.D., Who Gets Sick]

stressing out

Stress is probably the best known effect of attitude and mood on physical health. Newspapers, magazines, radio and television programs have all popularized stress as our #1 health problem. Stress has "surpassed the common cold as the most prevalent health problem in America." writes Paul Rosch, M.D., head of the American Institute of Stress.

Stress-related conditions costs the U.S. $10 to $20 billion annually in loss productivity. And it has been indicted as a leading killer of men and women. Even a brief list of the psychological and physical problems stress causes reads like a Who's Who of modern illnesses:

Physical effects – hypertension, heart disease, strokes, anurisms, ulcers, cancer, impotence, frigidity, decreased fertility, migraines, backaches, asthma, bronchitis, digestive disorders, skin problems, sleep disorders;

Emotional effects – depression, bulimia, anorexia, crying spells, paranoia, addiction, chronic anger, suicide, domestic violence, panic.

Unfortunately, many stress-prone men and women tend to worry about the effects of stress on their life. For them, mental life becomes a vicious tail-eating circle – as they stress out about stress.

[Blair Justice, Ph.D., Who Gets Sick]

what makes us well

Throw away those expensive pills. Dump all the booze and cigarettes down the sink. Cancel those expensive therapy sessions. Your mind and body have their own built-in antidotes for stress – a state that's its diametrical opposite. Scientists call it the "relaxation response." When we are completely relaxed, our blood streams become flooded with chemicals that counteract the harmful effects of stress – and promote optimal health. These include: endorphins, benzodiazepines and other neuropeptides – the same hormones released when we are happy, optimistic or laugh.

The term "relaxation response" was coined by cardiologist Herbert Benson, director of the Hypertension Section of Beth Israel Hospital in Boston. Benson studied the psychological and physical conditions involved in deep relaxation. A restful environment, mental silence, a comfortable posture and slow, even breathing were always involved. But could people learn to consciously induce the relaxation response – countering stress and its effects at will, Benson wondered.

He placed volunteers in quiet, comfortable rooms, and working with them to duplicate the quiet mind and measured breathing of found in the relaxation response. Millions have since used this technique – or one of its many variations – to reverse the damage of stress. What Benson had discovered, of course, was a technique handed down from the beyond the dawn of history, through the world's oldest religions and philosophies under names like "meditation," "prayer" and "yoga."

Like their cause, the cure for illness and stress are – all in your head.

[Willis Harman, Ph.D. and Howard Rheingold, Higher Creativity & Blair Justice, Ph.D., Who Gets Sick]

stress – it may not be bad for you

Ignore everything you've heard about stress. Poor stress may not be the villain its been painted. Psychologists Suzanne Kobasa and Salvatore Maddihen decided to test the popular theory that high stress means increased risk of illness. Kobasa and Maddihen surveyed 200 managers and executives who had recently experienced severe stress. Half had suffered stress-related illnesses – but the other half were as healthy as any other group.

Clearly heightened stress didn't make everyone ill. Women and men who stayed healthy, discovered had a different way of looking at, and dealing with, stressful events than those who became sick. Healthy executives shared a "relaxed" toward problems. They:

* Embraced change, good or bad, as an inevitable part of life and an opportunity for growth – and not as a threat to their security

* Never viewed setbacks and disasters as the end of the world or beyond repair

* Were confident they could control the impact of problems when they occurred

* Were deeply involved with families, work and friends

* Possessed a strong sense of commitment, meaning and direction in their lives

* Believed in the importance and value of who they were and what they were doing

Kobasa and Maddihen's discoveries suggest it's not the stress in our lives – but how lively we are when stressed, that counts.

[Justice, Blair, Ph.D., Who Gets Sick: How Beliefs, Moods, and Thought Affect Your Health]

MIND OVER MATTER

CAUTION – HUMOR MAY BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR ILLNESS

A laugh a day may do more to keep the doctor a way than an apple, according to psychiatrist William Fry. Laughter may not be the best medicine – but there's solid evidence a sense of humor may be one of the most potent medicines in the modern physician's pharmacopeia. Researchers at dozens of hospitals and medical centers have established beyond doubt that laughing at life's problems strengthens our ability to resist disease, fight infection and recover from injury or surgery.

Psychiatrist William Fry claims laughing produces the same physical effects as exercise. Twenty seconds of "ha-has," Fry says, put our cardiovascular, muscular and respiratory systems through a workout equal to twenty minutes of aerobics. Laughter also reduces stress – and stress related diseases like high blood pressure, heart disease and stroke. In one famous experiment, Harvard psychologist David McClelland found infection-fighting proteins in the bloodstream increased after participants viewed comedy films.

Among mirth's many benefits:

* Releases anger, depression and other negative emotions

* Helps us transcend worry and tension

* Uplifts, encourages and empowers

* Draws our attention away from our troubles

* Puts problems in perspective

* Keeps us balanced

Without laughter, we'd be sick far more often than we are, Fry concludes. Humor, it appears, is no laughing matter.

[Fry and Salameh, eds., Handbook of Humor and Psychotherapy & Allen Klein, The Healing Power of Humor]

IT ONLY HURTS WHEN I DON'T LAUGH

Laughter may not only be your best medicine – it may be your best anesthetic, too. Rosemary Cogan, Ph.D., a Texas Tech psychologist, decided to test the effects of laughter on our ability to withstand pain. Participants' pain thresholds were measured before and after they listened to a comedy tape. Students who laughed out loud withstood 20% percent more pain than other students. Subsequent research found laughter releases opiates and endorphins, the body's own natural pain killers. The old movie cliché of the hero who laughs at wounds because they feel no pain may be true – only they may not be feeling any pain because they're laughing at their wounds.

[Rosemary Cogan, Ph.D., Journal of Behavioral Medicine, Volume 10, 1987]

health – its who you know

Everybody needs a sense of belonging – to a person or a group. Now there's evidence lovers and friends are not only good for your psyche – they may be good for your health as well. Women and men who reported strong senses of connection to others, a larger group or the rest of humanity showed greater resistance to disease, in one U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare survey.

There is mounting evidence that "organic diseases are linked to ... the nature of one's relationships with others and to one's position in the social world," write Robert Ornstein, Ph.D. and David Sobel, M.D. in "The Healing Mind." The more we accept our need of others, the less we need physicians. When it comes to health – just like business and politics – it's "who we know" that counts.

[Robert Ornstein, Ph.D. and David Sobel, M.D., "The Healing Brain," Psychology Today, March, 1987]

ONE MAN'S (or woman's) PAIN...

Pain isn't all in your head – but how much it hurts may be. Fear of suffering can actually increase the amount of pain an injury causes. Combat vets wounded in battle require only a fraction the painkiller civilian surgical patients require, according to a study by H. K. Beecer.

Wounded soldiers interpret the pain of their wounds as an end to the horror and stress of combat, Beecer theorizes. While civilian patients viewed the pain of surgery as part of an unpleasant experience associated with helpless, disease and death. One man's (or woman's) pain can be – apparently – the end to another man's (or woman's) suffering.

[Steve Fishman, A Bomb in the Brain]

MEDICINE – ITS HALF IN YOUR mind?

There's good evidence we only get half the benefit from our pills and medicines we think we do. Half the money – and more – that we spend on medicine is probably wasted. That's what scientists discovered when they conducted research into the "placebo effect."

Placebos are "dummy" pills that contain no medicine. In testing new medicines, half the participants are unknowingly given placebos – the other half, the actual drug. Supposedly, if a medicine proved effective, the half that received the actual drug would improve; while those who received the placebo would not.

But researchers found at least 50% of those given placebos got well, too. Participants believed they had been given medicine that would make them better – those beliefs proved as powerful as any medicine scientists tested. In studies reported in The American Journal of Psychiatry, placebos proved effective on an awesome variety of complaints: angina, warts, asthma, pain, arthritis, anger, insomnia, obesity, nightmares, anxiety, mood swings, addiction, impotence and frigidity.

Could the placebo effect may point the way to containing the world's spiraling costs? It's possible. If we can learn to harness the power of belief – without the pill – we'd never need medicine or doctors again.

[Blair Justice, Ph.D., Who gets Sick & Adam Smith, Powers of the Mind]

on the blink

Remember mood rings? Their colors changed with our feelings. Other people could tell our moods just by looking at the ring. Now science has discovered an even surer guide to our thoughts and feelings – how fast we blink. Most adults blink about 15 times per minute.

However, according to a experiments cited in Psychology Today, our emotional states affect blinking: We blink faster when angry, frightened or lying; drug use causes us to blink more slowly; tiredness makes blinks last longer. Trained observers are able to read our mood – in the blink of an eye.

[Susan Chollar, "In the Blink of an Eye," Psychology Today, March 1988]

SOME KINDS DON'T SOOTH THE SAVAGE BREAST

For years right wing pundits and religious zealots claimed rock music was an insidious influence that drove youth crazy – or worse. Now a Connecticut hospital study suggests there may be more fire than smoke in these claims. Psychiatric patients who watched a twenty-four hour music video channel developed hallucinations, increased belligerence and a greater hostility toward the staff. Once music videos were banned, patients returned to normal. Considering the much headlined idiosyncrasies of rock stars – listeners may not be the only ones effected.

[Hospital and Community Psychiatry, February 1992]

Not Tonight Honey, I've Got a Muscle Ache

People who have headaches from stress and overwork often say, "My brain hurts." But they are wrong. The brain has no pain receptors and can't feel pain. The "ache" in the headache actually comes from contractions or dilations in muscles and blood vessels outside the brain. It may feel like the pain's inside our heads, but it's actually outside – in the scalp, sinuses, blood vessels and muscles of the face, head, eye or neck.

What causes our heads to hurt? Our minds! Most headaches are caused by stress.

[The Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons Complete Home Medical Guide]

GETTING HIGH ON HELP

There's a new legal high on the horizon. It's clean. Its free. And it has positive side effects. Helping others gets you high, according to an Institute for the Advancement of Health analysis. More than 1700 volunteers reported helping others produced the same sense of well being as exercise and meditation. Doing good unto others really does result in doing good unto yourself. And no one can arrest your for the funny little smile it puts on your face.

[Alan Lulks "Helper's High," Psychology Today, October 1988]

PAIN RELIEF

One man's meat is another man's poison – at least when it comes to pain. Researcher H. K. Beecer discovered an astonishing fact about wounded combat vets. Severely injured soldiers needed only a fraction of the painkiller to put them out of their misery that normal surgical patients require. Beecer believes that while hospital patients see the pain of surgery as part of an unpleasant experience, injured soldiers see the pain of their wounds as a relief from the horrors and stress of combat. Apparently, sometimes it's a relief to hurt.

[Steve Fishman, A Bomb in the Brain]

Pseudocyesis – an equal OPPORTUNITY employer

Most people have heard of false pregnancy. Scientists call it "pseudocyesis." For some reason, the body of a woman who isn't pregnant produces all the physical symptoms of a one who is – often as a result of a mistaken belief they have conceived:

* Partial or complete disappearance of menses – for up to nine months

* Abdominal enlargement

* Nausea and vomiting

* Cravings for weird foods or increased appetite

* Weight gain

* Swelling and tenderness; secretion of milk and colostrum, changes in pigmentation; enlargement of papillae

* Sensations of "fetal movement"

* Softening of the cervix and enlargement of the uterus

Pseudocyesis doesn't discriminate according to gender – its an equal opportunity employer, says an article in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease. Men get pseudocyesis, too – usually when their wives are pregnant – experiencing all the same symptoms as women: swollen tummies, morning sickness, phantom fetal movement, enlarged breasts and increased appetite. And some people say there's no justice!

[Evans and Seely, "Pseudocyesis in the Male," Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, Vol. 172 1985]

THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING YOU

How tall are you? Think your know? It may be time to haul out the measuring tape. You may not be the height you remember. Or the height you were yesterday. Or even the height you were ten minutes ago. We grow taller or shorter with our mood, according to research reported in Woman's Day.

Happiness can subtract as much as half an inch from our height; our bodies actually shrinking as muscle tension eases. Stress can add half an inch, as muscle tension draws us inward and upward. The unconscious inner tensing of pride can produce the same result. No wonder we speak of pride making us "feel ten feel tall."

[Judith Chase Churchill, "That's Life," Woman's Day, May 1992]

CHAPTER 4

OUR CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS

OUR CONSCIOUS MIND

THE ICEBERG'S TIP

ONE GIANT STEP FOR HUMANKIND

What's the most important advance in the history of humankind? Fire? The wheel? Religion? The microchip?

The answer may lie farther back. The Encyclopedia of Ignorance dates it as some 500,000 years ago. Nobel laureate neuroscientist Roger Sperry bestows the award to: "The evolutionary debut of consciousness," which he considers. "The most critical step in the whole of evolution."

[Roger Sperry, Ph.D., "Problems Outstanding in the Evolution of Brain Function."]

a 10% tip

Your consciousness seems all encompassing. Sitting here, reading this book, you are aware of the words on the page, the page itself, the book, the chair you sit in, your body, the room around you, many of its contents – and all the sights, sounds and scents that fill it. Not to mention the meaning of the words you read, your own responses to them, the host of associated thoughts and feelings they stir up – even strong memories of the events of day so far and anticipations of events to come.

What could be more complete? Yet researchers at Sanford Research Institute say consciousness represents only the tip of our mental iceberg – a mere 10% – the smallest sliver, of the vast mechanism that makes up our minds.

[Willis Harman, Ph.D. and Howard Rheingold, Higher Creativity]

don't give it a second thought

Most of us never give consciousness a second thought. We are rarely conscious of the fact that we are conscious. Just keeping abreast of all the things we are conscious of – our problems, our lives, the unfolding events of the world around us – overloads our mental resources. Nature may have planned it that way.

Research by psychiatrist Howard Shevrin at the University of Michigan Medical Center suggests the mind has mechanisms designed to minimize those moments when we become aware of being consciousness. Other research has shown that thinking about what we're thinking can interfere with our original train of thought. Still others have demonstrated that self-consciousness interferes with performance; and that we tend to be more morbid, insecure and worried about our mental health when we are aware of and thinking about our minds and consciousness.

When it comes to most things in life, it's usually wisest to think them through two or three times. But when it comes to consciousness, its apparently wisest not to give it a second thought.

[Laurence Miller, "In Search of the Unconscious," Psychology Today, December 1986]

its importance has been over rated

Consciousness is the most special thing about us. It's our awareness of what goes on in and around us and of the link between them and ourselves as someone who is experiencing them. It's what makes the "self" possible. "Those things of which we are conscious, and the ways in which we are conscious of them, determine what it is like to be us," write Douglas Hofstadter and Daniel Dennett in The Mind's I: Fantasies and Reflections on Self & Soul.

Psychologist John F Kihlstrom of the University of Arizona calls conscious the "staging area of the mind." This staging area holds together a point of view encompassing the moments just past, the present moment and those coming into existence, knitting them together with everything we have been and everything we are now – while being aware in individually, worded thoughts of all that comes to our attention. And it is this mechanism that creates our sense of ourselves as an integrated personality moving through time.

For all the emotional and personal burdens it places on us, consciousness has evolutionary advantages that helped make human beings the most successful animal on Earth. Other animals respond, have emotions, even engage in very primitive reason. But they are not capable of the complex thoughts, advanced degree of perception; and what has been called the "internal flexibility of combinatory play among its components" that produces creativity, imagination and logic – leading to our unique ability to reason and problem solve.

But for all the miraculous accomplishments that make it possible for us to be us, we could get along fine without it. According Kihlstrom, "It is not necessary for complex psychological functioning. These functions can take place outside of phenomenal awareness."

[Douglas Hofstadter, et al, eds., The Mind's I & John Kihlstrom, "The Cognitive Unconscious," Science]

center of CONSCIOUSNESS

Where is our consciousness located? We know its somewhere inside our head, because that's where our thought and awareness take place. If you wanted to find it, you would have to descend down between the lobes of the brain, past the rigged girdle of the cingualte gyrus, through the hard body of the corupus callosum into a twisting, bottle like labyrinth. You have reached the interlocked organs of the reticular activating and lymbic systems – the thalamus, the hypothalamus, the hypocampus, the pineal gland, the amygdala and the caudate nucleus. Though all parts of the brain work together in creating consciousness – mental activity depends on the normal functioning of this area of the brain. As an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association said: "It may be postulated that the 'center' of consciousness is located in this region, and much clinical and experimental evidence supports this view."

[Samuel Ingham, "Some Neurologic Aspects of Psychiatry," Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. 111 1938]

you're not alone in the voting booth

Does your view of consciousness determine how you vote? Neurobiologist Roger Sperry thinks it does. Most of us don't quickly perceive the link between consciousness and such elephantine institutions as the courts, the welfare system, religion, the military and corporate policy. But according to Sperry it's there: "Social values depend ... on whether consciousness is believed to be mortal, immortal, reincarnate, or cosmic ... localized and brain-bound or essentially universal..." Sperry might have added: To what degree it's dictated by chemical and electrical interactions, whether free will exists (and if so to what extent, considering what we know of the influence of hormones, family environment, even genetics). Our view of consciousness determines so much of what we think about social and moral values because it's nothing less than our view of what we think it means to be us – and to be human. We take this view with us everywhere we go, from the voting booth to church to bedroom, boardroom – and all the other aspects of our lives.

[Willis Harman, Ph.D. and Howard Rheingold, Higher Creativity]

double vision

Have you ever had a memory so vivid it seemed as if you were back at that moment in the past? Most people have. Scientists call such experiences "dual consciousness."

In the laboratory, when electrodes stimulate the parts of the brain responsible for memory, past experiences are suddenly replayed with their original intensity and vividness. In daily live, electrical impulses generated by the brain itself set off "dual consciousness" and its flood of vivid memories. For those who have this unique experience, "The stream of consciousness is suddenly doubled," says the dean of brain researchers, Wilder Penfield, Ph.D.

Do those who experience dual consciousness ever confuse the two? "No," Penfield writes. Subjects are aware of what is going on around them as well as the "flashback" from the past.

There's a fortune to be made by the first scientist who can show dieters how to produce "dual consciousness" at will – enabling them to savor flavorsome feasts from the past, while munching down tasteless low-cal preparation.

[Wilder Penfield, The Mystery of the Mind]

teamwork

It not only takes two to tango – it takes two to create consciousness (two neurons that is). Wolf Singer at Germany's famed Max Planck Institute for Brain Research, seems to have proven that at least two brain cells (one in each hemisphere) must fire for us to become conscious of a stimulus (like the color red or the touch of a feather). Studying the way cats' brains work, Singer found neurons at widely separated locations fire synchronous electrical impulses when the brain responds to stimuli from an object.

Other neuroscientists believe Singer has discovered the "philosopher's stone" of all brain research – the cellular basis of consciousness. Singer's experiments seem to answer the fundamental question of how neurons at different locations can pool their information to create a coherent image and how the brain might link these with the cells responsible for ideas and thoughts They may do it, Singer suggests, simply by firing in unison.

Like so much else in life, consciousness – our most precious product – seems to require teamwork.

[Marcia Barinaga, "The Mind Revealed," Science, August 24, 1990]

NO WONDER THERE ARE SO MANY WAYS OF CONSTRUCTING TRIBAL LAWS

Most of us assume that there is one "normal" state of consciousness and that it is pretty much the same for everybody. "But that's not true," says Candace Pert, Ph.D. a researcher at the National Institute of Mental Health. Just as there are enormous variations in height, intelligence and skill among us – there are enormous variations in brain components and chemistry (two factors that effect 90% or more of our state of consciousness). At one extreme are those of us who always see the positive elements around them – at the other end are those who only see the negative; some people relate to words best – others the visual; some are very intuitive – others see everything in logical terms.

Rather than a single, common state of consciousness shared by all, there a "spectrum of composed of discrete states of consciousness," writes psychologist John Klimo Ph.D. These include: daydreaming, hypnotic trances, out-of-body experiences, peak performance states, moments during which insights pour in on us in rivers, religious ecstasy, meditative contemplate, prolonged sleeplessness – and dozens, perhaps hundreds, of others. More over, Pert claims, "We don't all start from he same baseline consciousness, and we vary widely in our ability to transit between different states. What one person experiences as an altered state may fall into the sphere of ordinary consciousness for another."

[Jon Klimo, Ph.D., Channeling & Judith Hooper and Dick Teresi, The 3-Pound Universe]

ALTERED STATES

as american as apple pie

Have you experienced an "altered state of consciousness" recently? Most of us (unless we're drug users or meditators) answer "no." But we're mistaken, claims Charles Tart, Ph.D. Our consciousness fluctuates constantly in response to we eat, breath, feel and think.

Suddenly, without warning, we find ourselves in a different state of consciousness. We might catch ourselves drifting off into vivid daydreams; in a state of heightened awareness; pulling into our parking space with no memory of the journey; or unaccountably depressed.

Scientists have catalogued a multitude of ASC's. Among them: reveries, daydreaming, hypnosis, Out of Body Experiences, peak experiences, channeling, mystical trances, religious ecstasy, fuzzy mindedness, meditation, Near Death Experiences, creative inspiration, the "auras" we see during migraines, sleepiness, drunkenness, uncontrollable rage, inner peace. ASC's are produced in an equally fascinating variety of ways: exercise, fasting, prayer, dance, sleeplessness, fever, chanting, hypnosis and self-hypnosis, hyperventilation, hypoglycemia, biofeedback – and of course drugs and chemicals.

ASC's may seem strange, unreal, even threatening – but they're really "as all-American as apple pie and the Superbowl." In fact, almost all the world's cultures have institutionalized mind-altering rituals, says anthropologist Erica Bourguignon. Amazonian Indians have tribal ceremonies that create ASC's – and we have ours: cocktail parties, discotheques with strobe lights, football fever, evangelical religion. "The fact that they are nearly universal," Bourguignon tells us, "must mean that such states are very important to human beings."

For one thing, they sure help break the monotony.

[Judith Hooper and Dick Teresi, The 3-Pound Universe]

a little silence, please

What's older than the dawn of history – and as modern as today's neuroscientific researches? Need a hint? It cures mental and physical illness – and provides solutions to your most pressing problems. Give up? Meditation.

Meditation quiets our usually busy consciousness. Through physically and mentally stilling the mind, we achieve heightened mental clarity. Multiple experiments, writes physician-researcher Harold Bloomfield, prove meditation produce "positive feelings that ... promote emotional health ... add noticeably to self-esteem [and] sociability ... reduce anxiety, tension, irritability, chronic fatigue and depression" while "doubts and insecurities fade."

The mental quiet and relaxation produced by meditation confers profound benefits on body as well as mind. "Inner silence is crucial to health," Bloomfield claims. "One experiences a state of deep rest, marked by decreases in heartbeat rate, oxygen consumption, perspiration, muscle tension, blood pressure and levels of stress hormones." Meditation?

No wonder its still around after ten thousand years.

[Bloomfield, Harold, "The Healing Silence," Healers on Healing & Blair Justice, Who gets Sick?]

you can't just sit there and do nothing

Meditation may seem mysterious and difficult. But it's really as easy as falling off a log, says Herbert Benson, M.D. Benson has successfully taught thousands to meditate in the laboratory. It may take a few tries to get the hang of meditation, Benson warns. But he promises that you'll soon notice its physical and mental benefits.

Benson's research shows four things are necessary to produce a state of deep meditation: 1) a quiet environment to eliminate distractions; 2) a comfortable posture that allows complete relaxation; 3) a few moments spent relaxing; and 4) a "mental device" (traditionally called a mantra or prayer) to help block the endless flow of thoughts that generated by our waking mind. Begin by slowly relaxing all your muscles, Benson advises, starting at your feet and ending with your neck, head and face. Then for the next 10 to 20 minutes, while keeping the muscles relaxed, breath in and out easily and naturally, mentally saying "one" (or the mental device of your choice) with each breath.

Why meditation? Why not just sit quietly and relax? Because simple relaxation doesn't produce the same mental and physical benefits as meditation. One joint Oxford University and University of London research project found meditation-like programs are far more effective at reducing stress than just relaxing.

[Herbert Benson, M.D., The Relaxation Response & "Relaxation Really Works," Psychology Today, January 1987]

putting it all together

It's the most sublime of all mental experiences: A sudden, almost mystical sense of oneness and harmony with the universe. Those who've had them report a profound sense of awe, wonder and overflowing love for everything around them. Psychologist Abraham Maslow called it "unitative consciousness."

Such experiences were once thought the province of mystics and the highly religious. But scientists like Spencer Sherman, Ph.D. have taught others to induce "unitative" experiences in the laboratory. Volunteers recounted the same feelings of "oneness with everything," the same sense of "peace" and "awe."

More significantly, personality profiles and detailed interviews with family, friends and colleagues suggest laboratory birthed mystical experiences produce the same dramatic and lasting personality changes produced by years of psychotherapy. "These include," writes psychologist Roger Walsh, Ph.D., "an increased belief in afterlife; a greater sense of the preciousness of relationships, love and life; more interest in learning and self knowledge; and a significant shift from materialistic goals and possessions toward helping and caring for others."

[Kenneth Ring, Heading Toward Omega & Roger Walsh, Ph.D., The Spirit of Shamanism]

OUT OF it

Have you ever suddenly found yourself floating "outside" your body – free to move around from room to room, even to distant locations? If so, you're in good company. A full third of us report having these "Out of Body Experiences" (OBE), according to a survey conducted by Britain's Institute of Psychophysical Research and Australia's University of New England.

How real are OBE's? Skeptics dismiss them as "hallucinations," "daydreams" and "micro-dreams." But Sanford Research Institute experiments in "remote viewing" suggest we may actually possess the ability to travel "mentally" while leaving our bodies behind. In one test, women and men were given a randomly chosen latitude and longitude – then asked to visualize sending their minds out to that location. Correspondences between sketches they made and photographs taken at the site were astonishingly high

"If the SRI results are accurate, the ability to know what is happening at a place one has never visited is not a rare talent," one researcher wrote. Instead, it lies "latent within all of us." The Sanford researchers even developed a program that enabled participants to learn remote viewing. Traveling mentally, they concluded, is "a trainable skill" anyone can learn..."

That may explain the "vacant" look people get in their eye during a long harangue by a boring speaker.

[Michael Talbot, The Holographic Universe & Stephen LaBerge, Ph.D., Lucid Dreaming]

SO NEAR AND YET SO FAR

Your heart has stopped – by all medical standards, you are clinically dead. Yet, you don't feel dead. Instead, you find yourself outside your lifeless body, moving down a dark tunnel. A profound sense of peace and well-being fills you. You know you are dead, but feel no fear – for you now know there is life beyond death. An incomprehensibly brilliant light radiates from the tunnel's end, as you enter it, deceased friends and loved ones greet you in an atmosphere of love, peace, and joy. They help you review your life, then persuade you to re-enter the body to complete unfinished business in the world of the living.

Abruptly you find yourself back in your body. Doctors state you were clinically dead – pulse, heart and brainwaves stopped – then revived by the miracles of medical science. Like most men and women who have died and been resuscitated, you have just had a "near-death experience" (NDE). Many scoff at these accounts, passing them off as hallucinations or wish-fulfilling dreams. But surveys reported by psychiatrist Roger Walsh, Ph.D., reveal those who've had NDE's dumbfounded doctors with detailed descriptions of what occurred in the operating room while they were pronounced clinically "dead."

Women and men who have undergone NDE's report them as major turning points in their lives. Research backs up these dramatic psychological growth, Walsh writes. That may explain why nine out of ten people would be willing to have a NDE again. For all their attractions, however, the stiff admission requirements ensure NDE's won't become a fad anytime soon.

[Roger Walsh, Ph.D., The Spirit of Shamanism, Kenneth Ring, Heading Toward Omega: the Near Death Experience]

MIND SPAS

Peace of mind and spiritual bliss used to be numbered among the things money can't buy. But no more. Today, you can rent them by the hour.

Just head down to a consciousness-altering spa. Satoris, bliss and perfect relaxation are served up to order. Job and memory performance boosts, our specialty. Just pass over your credit card, slip off your shoes, put on the special goggles and headphones – and the spa does the rest. A combination of spinning colors and pulsing tones send you drifting in and out of meditation-like states. Bizarre as it seems, this high-tech route to altered states of consciousness has a solid scientific basis.

Researchers at St. Luke Medical Center discovered that exposure to patterns of audio and visual pulses cause the brain to change states. With one pattern, they induced the deep relaxation associated with theta waves, easing chronic pain, increasing alertness; with another, the alert attention associated with beta waves, helping women and men improve motivation and break the chains of addiction. Forget mental discipline and spiritual attainment – enlightenment and OBE's have just joined the list of things money can buy.

[Linda Williams with Selichi Kanise, "Turn On and Tune Out," Time, February 26, 1990]

OUR UNCONSCIOUS MIND

THE OTHER 90%

subconscious or unconscious?

Subconscious, unconscious – everyone gets them mixed up. Don't 90% of the mind's processes take place beneath the surface in the "subconscious"? And aren't we all motivated by forces from somewhere deep in our subconscious minds?

Well, no. You can tell those who lack "psychiatric sophistication," claims psychiatrist Jerrold Maxmen, Ph.D. because they say "subconscious" instead of "unconscious." Freud popularized the term "subconscious" in his pioneer 1893 tome, Studies on Hysteria – only to outlaw its use twenty years later and replace it with "unconscious." Today, Maxmen writes, psychiatrists never use "subconscious" – they always say "unconscious."

[Jerrold S. Maxmen M.D., The New Psychiatry]

not a swelled head

It's not surprising that 90% of our mental activity takes place below our conscious awareness. More than 99% of what goes on in a calculator – hundreds perhaps thousands of operations – takes place off screen. In both cases, only the end result is visible.

Thousands of "mental modules" in the unconscious carry on most of our lives for us – somewhere outside our consciousness. "The mind consists of a number of innate, domain-specific cognitive modules controlling such activities as language and visual perception, hardwired in the nervous system," writes clinical psychologist, John F. Kihlstrom. These specialized subsystems of our brain regulate eating, breathing, memory, movement – and all the myriad other processes of our minds and bodies

When someone tells us "the sky is blue," we know instantly what it means – and never give the "why" a second thought. But during the space of half-a-second, specific mental modules apply our knowledge of language to the sounds, while simultaneously scanning our memory for each word's main meaning. Then, in less than the blink of an eye, the sense of what is being said pops into our minds – almost before the speaker has finished saying it.

Hard as we try, we cannot perceive or control our unconscious's activities. For, as Kihlstrom says, "They operate outside of conscious awareness and voluntary control," where "we have no conscious access to their operations." That's why scientists call it "the unconscious."

Our unconscious performs many vital roles: It is the repository of our memory, experience, decisions – everything that makes us "us." The unconscious also monitors our body for signs of illness and disease; scans our minds for conflict and distress; assesses our environment for danger and threats; and relays and interprets perceptions, sensations and feelings.

For our conscious mind to handle all that, as well as its own tasks – awareness, thought, response – our brains would have to be more than 100 times larger. And so would we – to carry our boulder-sized heads around. Like the dinosaurs, our nerve impulses would take so long to travel from our heads to our limbs that we'd have become extinct millennia ago.

[Kihlstrom, "Cognitive Unconscious," Science & Carpenter, "Stalking the Unconscious," U.S. News & World Report]

it's smarTER THAN YOU THINK

Feel dumb? Wish you had more brain power to bring to bear on your problems? Don't worry. You've got a secret genius on your side – your unconscious. It's a lot smarter than your conscious, according to research by psychologist Pawel Lewicki.

Lewicki not only proved the existence and power of the unconscious – but also how astonishingly smart it is. Volunteers pushed buttons corresponding to the apparently random appearance of an "X" on a computer screen. Although the volunteers were not informed of it, the X was actually following a very complex pattern – determined by 10 interacting rules.

To see if participants could consciously figure out this pattern on their own, the researchers offered a 100 dollar reward to anyone who figured out what the 10 rules were. But no one collected – although several of the students tried. Yet as they continued to play the game, each student's response time quickened, and they began to "instinctively" choose the spot where the X appeared. Students' unconscious Lewicki concluded, had succeeded where their conscious minds had failed.

It may sound unbelievable – but it's true. Your unconscious is not only smarter than you think. It's smarter than you can (consciously) think.

[Daniel Goleman, "Your Unconscious Mind May Be Smarter Than You," New York Times]

THEY REMEMBER IT WELL

We can remember birth. Once scientists judged it impossible. Now there is increasing evidence its true. Babies are fully conscious and aware at birth, according to pre- and peri-natal psychologist, David Chamberlain, Ph.D. And under the right conditions women and men can recall their entry into the world as vividly as they do last night's dinner,

Under clinical hypnosis in offices and laboratories, people have described in detail everything they saw, heard and experienced during and immediately after labor. At first, many scientists felt infant brain structure wasn't developed enough to retain birth memories. But Chamberlain and his associates won converts when they proved independent accounts – from parents, relatives and medical personnel – confirmed birth memories in almost every detail.

In the future pleasant music and soft voices may be mandated in delivery rooms, Chamberlain suggests. Doctors, nurses and parents will make an effort to maintain a positive, harmonious atmosphere throughout the birth process. As long as newborns are going to be fully aware of their entry into the world, Chamberlain says, we might as well make their arrival as pleasant as possible.

[David Chamberlain, Ph.D., Babies Remember Birth]

IT'S NOT THE DEVIL'S FAULT

We don't make most of our own decisions or choose most of our own responses. We don't even determine most of what we think, feel or want. Our unconscious does it for us.

Studies of brain cancer patients at the Dartmouth Medical School produced startling evidence that we can remain completely unaware of our actual motivation for and action – even while we're in the midst of carrying it out. In one study, researchers exposed the word "walk" to the right eye of a patient whose left and right brain lobes had been separated surgically. The man promptly stood and left the testing area. When asked why, he told researchers he was "thirsty and going to get a Coke." The man had no conscious knowledge of the unconscious impulse that had actually motivated his behavior.

The many "conscious" processes research shows are controlled by the unconscious include:

* What we feel

* What we think

* How we act and react

* The decisions we make

* What we pay attention to

* Who we love and who we hate

* How we interpret the world and events around us

If you have difficulty believing your unconscious determines so much of what we think are our own conscious thoughts and actions, you're not alone "It is generally assumed that human beings cannot carry out unconsciously the same kinds of intellectual activities they perform consciously, such as making plans and assessing risks," professor of psychiatry Joseph Weiss, Ph.D., writes. "Yet studies indicate that, in fact, people can unconsciously think, anticipate consequences and make and carry out decisions and plans."

The good news is – you can relax. What ever goes wrong – it's your unconscious' fault. "The unconscious made me do it!" may become the modern catchphrase that replaces the old one (popularized by comedian Flip Wilson) about the devil bearing full responsibility.

[Betsy Carpenter, "Stalking the Unconscious," U.S. News and World Report, October 22, 1990]

unable to face the truth

"Control freaks" scoff at the existence of the unconscious. They claim they are fully in charge of all their own thoughts and actions. According to a study by Oxford psychologist Anthony Marcel, many people reject the suggestion that their unconscious exerts a greater influence over their lives than their conscious.

Marcel flashed a word on a screen so fast participants were unaware they had seen it. Then they were given a list of words and asked to check the most closely associated with the word they had just been "thinking" about. Although most of the women and men involved picked a word associated with the word on the screen, they were certain the screen had been blank. When Marcel questioned participants carefully, to make sure they hadn't seen the word, many walked out in a huff – angry because he kept pestering them about a word that hadn't been there.

[Anthony Marcel, "Conscious and Unconscious Perception," Cognitive Psychology, Vol. 15, 19833]

THE KID AT THE SWITCHES

On what does our unconscious base its decisions? Mostly on what we came to believe, as children, is the way world works – and what is and is not possible in reality. A hundred and fifty years of research, says psychologist Robert G. Crowder of Yale University, have confirmed this view.

"Conscious perception is the product of unconscious inferences based on the individuals' knowledge of the world and memory of past experiences," Crowder writes. No matter what we learn consciously later in life, the beliefs we form in childhood are more powerful. They form the basic operating system (the DOS if you will) of the biocomputer we call our minds, and all subsequent programs run within their parameters.

Studies have proven that childhood beliefs operating in our unconscious determine: Our stance toward life; what we think is possible and what we think is real; what we think we can and can not do; what we think we should and shouldn't do; what we perceive and how we perceive it; politics and religion; much of our interaction with other people.

Actually, there's nothing surprising about this news – considering how "childish" so many adults act. This discovery that so many of what we have assumed were our adult decisions are really based on our most juvenile perceptions and understandings of the world, lends new meaning to the biblical statement that "a child shall lead them"; and may explain the sorry state of so many "adult" institutions.

[Kihlstrom, Cognitive Unconscious]

WHY WE MAKE SO MANY MISTAKES

Our unconscious belief systems even prevent us from noticing facts that contradict them. One University of Arizona experiment, demonstrated that when we listen to people whose personality, politics or religion we disagree with "activation from the negative memory modes ... will spread to nodes [in the unconscious] representing other undesirable attributes." We do hear the positive things they say, according to the researchers, and "activation will spread to nodes representing ... desirable features." But they also found our unconscious will emphasize the negative and minimize the positive. "More activation will accrue to nodes representing socially undesirable features, leading to a more negative impression of the target than would otherwise have occurred," the researchers said. A similar process was found to minimize negative aspects of ideas and people we like.

It's no wonder we think we are right so often – when we're wrong.

[Kihlstrom, "Cognitive Unconscious," Science & Bruce Bower, "Gone But Not Forgotten," Science News]

OUR CREATIVE UNCONSCIOUSNESS

WHERE DO THEY COME FROM?

Professional novelists are always asked where they get their ideas. The answer, says psychologist Ernest Rossi, Ph.D., is the same place everyone else gets them – the unconscious mind. "It is now well established that the unconscious mind is the wellspring of all human creativity," Rossi writes.

We all have moments when "creative ideas or insights bubble up into consciousness from their source in the unconscious," Rossi writes. "These are the happy moments when we grasp the solution to a vexing problem, suddenly have a new perspective, or are hit with a flash of inspiration."

People have bestowed many names on the wellspring of our creativity: the muse, a totem, the inner voice, the soul, the observing mind, god, the creative unconscious, the higher self, spiritual guide, the anima and countless others. Whatever we call the experience, Rossi claims, its causes are always the same: "Your normal waking consciousness – what psychologists term the executive ego – relinquishes control, allowing the inner, creative parts of your mind-brain to come forward with new patterns of understanding and meaning."

Yet in the course of our rushed daily life, Rossi says, "this creativity breaks through to our waking consciousness only occasionally." Often the signals our inner muse sends us are so subtle that – between the clamoring demands of work, personal commitments, family life, chores and other concerns – we fail to recognize them. Creative inspirations can take myriad forms: thoughts, feelings, visual images, sounds, voices, even physical and visceral sensations.

The muse, as many poets have attested, apparently speaks in different ways to different kinds of people. "The important thing, is to discover your own natural style of inner accessing," Rossi says. His prescription for discovering the way your creative unconscious signals you is simple. Just stop, relax and take half an hour off. At the end of that time, you'll find you've experienced an abundance of creative inspirations – and be in no doubt about exactly how your muse sends its messages to you.

[Ernest Rossi, Ph.D., The 20 Minute Break: The New Science of Ultradian Rhythms]

you're one too

Most of us don't think of ourselves as creative. We assume creative people must have enormous IQ's. But highly-successful authors, painters, musicians, scientists and other creative types are no smarter than anyone else, according to psychology professor Dean Simonton, Ph.D. After numerous studies, Simonton was unable to discover any relationship between intelligence and creativity. On the other hand – considering the current state of popular writing and the arts – perhaps Simonton's results aren't all that surprising.

[Dean Simonton, Ph.D., Genius, Creativity and Leadership]

gift of the gods

Creativity has long been regarded as "a gift of the gods." But cheer up. Creativity isn't limited to a favored few. Research shows you're as creative as any genius, says research psychiatrist, Ruth Richards, M.D. It's part of your birthright as a human being – hardwired into all our brains.

Richards sees creativity as a necessity we evolved to enhance human survival. Creativity, Richards claims lies at the heart of "our ability to adapt" and "to change." We're being creative when we learn how to perform a new job or change our plans at the last minute, Richards writes.

David Henry Feldman, a developmental psychologist who conducts creativity studies Tufts University, concurs. "Not everybody can be Beethoven," Feldman says. But, "all humans, by virtue of being dreamers and fantasizers" are creative. "They are always transforming their inner and outer worlds."

If creativity is a gift of the gods, it's one they seem to have bestowed on all of us.

[Leslie Dormen and Peter Edidin, "Original Spin," Psychology Today, July/August 1989]

NOT VERY SURPRISING

Virginity isn't the only thing we lose young. Our creativity goes young, too. Children's drawings, stories and play show creativity develops quickly in early childhood, claims Harvard creativity researcher Howard E. Gardner, Ph.D. But tests show that by age seven, most of us loose the creative urge

It generally takes only a year in the educational system to discourage grade schoolers (and the adults they later become) from relating to their creativity. This loss of creativity is not very surprising, says professor Mark Runco, founder of the Creativity Research Journal, considering what happens to children in the school system. "We put children in groups and make them sit in desk and raise their hands before they talk. We put all the emphasis on conformity and order, then we wonder why they aren't being spontaneous and creative."

["The Magic of Childhood," Psychology Today, May 1987 & "Original Spin," Psychology Today, July/August 1989]

four steps to CREATIVITY

We have all felt the surprise and excitement that come when the solution to a difficult problem suddenly "pops" into our minds. But for most women and men such moments are maddeningly rare. Instead, we find ourselves wishing this talent was a more than a sometime thing – and that we could call on it for answers whenever we need it.

Now we can! Creativity researchers have discovered four steps common to all recorded experiences of creative insight:

1) Preparation, intently thinking your way through every aspect of the problem;

2) Incubation, letting go of the problem with your conscious mind, and turning it over to your unconscious;

3) Illumination, suddenly when we least expect it, your creative unconscious will supply the answer;

4) Verification, seeing if the idea works.

Millions of ordinary women and men, not to mention artists, scientists, inventors and captains of industry, have used these four steps to "incubate" the ideas that transformed their lives – and their pocketbooks.

[Willis Harman, Ph.D. and Howard Rheingold, Higher Creativity: Liberating the Unconscious for Breakthrough Insights]

THE AGE OF GENIUS

We tend to picture geniuses as youthful prodigies. Better add some lines of experience to that picture – and a touch of gray at the temples. Survey's show most of the world's celebrated geniuses spent at least 10 years mastering their chosen field before producing their fabled masterpieces, reports psychologist Howard Gruber.

Einstein is considered a young genius because he formulated the Theory of Relativity at 26 – but he had actually begun working on the problem at 16. Mozart had been writing music for more than a decade, when at the ripe old age of 22 he penned what critics consider "his first mature works." Gruber's research suggests a caution for self-styled young geniuses: Don't expect fame over night – it's a ten years wait.

[Lesley Dormen and Peter Edidin, "Original Spin," Psychology Today, July/August 1989]

why edison was a failure

All geniuses are failures. The secret of their success lies in their failure. Geniuses aren't successful because they succeed so often – but because they fail so often. "Great geniuses make tons of mistakes," according to studies cited in Genius, Creativity and Leadership.

If these conclusion are right, the main difference between successful geniuses and the rest of us is that geniuses act on their ideas and inspirations more often. They know every idea they have can't be a winner and every project they attempt won't succeed. But they also know that if they keep generating ideas long enough – every so often, one's bound to be a winner. Edison held over 1,000 patents, the book says, and "most of them are not only forgotten, they weren't worth much to begin with."

[Dean Simonton, Ph.D., Genius, Creativity and Leadership]

no ivory tower

Real estate agents hoping to unload vacated ivory towers on local geniuses are in for a disappointment. Despite what we've been taught – most geniuses don't need undisturbed peace and quiet to generate their creative output. The hypersensitive artist who can only work in the isolation of an ivory tower – is a myth.

Many creative artists had their best inspirations in noisy, crowded environments, according to Woman's Day contributing editor ... Dickens got the idea of Tale of Two Cities while acting in a play. Noel Coward composed "Ill See You in My Dreams" in the midst of a traffic jam. Horror writer S. P. Somtow pens his epics seated at the local mall.

Savvy real estate agents wishing to court the genius market are advised to skip the ivory towers. Instead, they should run ads for: "A nice, noisy house under a freeway – ideal for creativity."

[That's Life, Woman's Day, May 12, 1992]

its never too late

Many of us feel strong creative urges in childhood, but put them off in favor of job and family. We don't realize how important they really are to us until suddenly in our late-30s or 40s they return in full force – with a suffocating sense that we should have followed our hearts at the beginning. Usually we think it's too late – that creativity's is a young person's game.

And research does show there some areas of creative endeavor where age is a handicap. The best work in lyric poetry, mathematics and theoretical physics usually comes from women and men in their mid-20s and early 30s. All three fields are "characterized by relatively early peaks," according to studies reported in Handbook of the Psychology of Aging, "with somewhat steep descents thereafter."

But the same research revealed there are also creative fields that are age-friendly – where maturity is a plus. Those stricken with the restless urge to create in their 40s and 50s might be well advised to look toward writing, history and general scholarship. The most acclaimed figures there seem to reach their height at "a comparatively late peak ... with a minimal, if not largely absent, drop-off afterwards."

If you've been suddenly bitten with the restless urge to create late in life, don't let that throw you. If these statistics are correct, its never too late to create – as long as you pick the right field.

[James Birren and Warner Schaie, Handbook of the Psychology of Aging]

its true what they say about artists

People have always believed there is a strong relationship between genius and insanity. Psychiatrist Nancy C. Andreasen studied participants at a series of University of Iowa Writers' Workshops. She found creative artists are 400% more likely to have a mental illness than men and women in other professions. More than 40% suffered from manic-depression, 30% battled alcoholism – and, in one study, 7% committed suicide before the year was out.

Andreasen's findings dovetail with research showing intense creative states are virtually indistinguishable from the manic state. An uncommon richness and intensity of emotional experience is triggered in both – along with a freeing of the unconscious processes and intense absorption in our thoughts. Depression and mood swings may simply be the price some of us pay for our bursts of creativity.

[Constance Holden, "Creativity and the Troubled Mind," Psychology Today, April 1987 & Eric Maisel, Staying Sane in the Arts]

CHAPTER 5

OUR DAYDREAMS AND NIGHT DREAMS

DAYDREAMS

THE FACTS ABOUT FANTASY

dreaming our lives away

If daydreaming your life away is a sin – it's one we're all guilty of. Our minds are somewhere else between a third and half the time. Daydreams occupy us five to eight hours a day, seven days a week. Over a year we'll spend 2,300 hours or more fantasizing; over a lifetime, at least 200,000 hours. That's more time than we'll devote to any other activity.

[Eric Klinger, Ph.D., Daydreaming]

AND ON TODAY'S PROGRAM...

Most of our daydreams are depressingly mundane. More concerned with what groceries we need to pick-up for dinner – than exotic, opulent flights of fancy. On those rare occasions when our fantasias do match the popular conception of daydreaming, they generally center around:

Money – wealth and luxury are common daydream subjects among both men and women.

Power – not only over others, but over our own destiny, for the freedom, respect and ease it brings

Sex – biology ensures that suddenly, several times a day, uninvited, sexual thoughts pop into our minds.

Reliving the past – often we return momentarily to emotionally significant events in our lives, reexperiencing them with nearly their original intensity.

Rehearsing the future – often we project ahead, planning how we will approach a difficult problem or fantasizing events we know will never take place.

[Jeffrey Kottler, Ph.D., Private Moments, Secret Selves: Enriching Our Time Alone]

daydreams of the rich and famous

H. Scott Fitzgerald was right, the rich are different from you and me. At least, their daydreams are, according to surveys by psychologist Leonard Giambra. Not only are the lives of the privileged more satisfying, so are their fantasies. The wealthy daydream about continuing success and future pleasures; and their fantasies contain less self-doubt, self-criticism and guilt than those of other people.

[Leonard Giambra, "Daydreaming: Religious, Economic and Residency Influences," Journal of Clinical Psychology, Vol., 37, 1981]

dayDREAMS OF THE DISADVANTAGED AND DEPRIVED

The rich get rich and the poor get poorer. It's true not only of money, but of daydreams. The disadvantaged have poorer daydreams than the wealthy. Vivid, frightening, hostile and guilt-ridden daydreams were more common among disadvantaged African-Americans than middle-class European-Americans, in one Baltimore study.

[Leonard Giambra, "A Black-White Comparison," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 42, 1982]

efficient and elegantly ecological

Many of us consider daydreaming a waste of time. But daydreaming may prevent, rather than be, a waste of our mental resources. We fantasize most when we have the most brainpower to spare, according to studies by Jerome Singer, Ph.D., the dean of daydream researchers. Our brains are wired to keep ticking along – sorting information and generating possibilities, practical and impractical – through our every waking moment. When we have nothing else on our minds, daydreaming helps maximize the use of brainpower that would otherwise be wasted. Rather that being a time waster, daydreaming appears to be an efficient, almost elegantly ecological, use of our mental resources.

[Jerome Singer, Ph.D., The Inner World of Daydreaming]

why you never hear people DISCUSS their DAYDREAMS

People rarely share their daydreams. Friends think nothing of casually describing the most intimate details of their night dreams. But chances are you can't remember a friend ever telling you about a daydream. Experiments conducted by Eric Klinger, Ph.D. revealed that, given the choice of describing a daydream or a real experience about the same subject, four out of five of us opt not to describe our daydreams. Participants were asked to share a real or fantasized "achievement, something that happened with a friend, or a situation that aroused anger." An overwhelming 80 % felt more comfortable describing an actual experience.

Why are we so willing to talk about our night dreams, and so reluctant to discuss our daydreams? Most people don't feel responsible for their nocturnal dreams, which occur when they are asleep. But they feel they must be responsible for daydreams, which occur while they are conscious. Since men and women are complex creatures with many conflicting needs and urges, some of their fantasies contrast with what they wish to cultivate of themselves. When we find our self-image and our daydreams disagreeing, we believe there is something wrong with us, and hide them even from our closest friends.

[Eric Klinger, Ph.D., Daydreaming]

RETHINKING walter mitty

Some women and men daydream a lot. Psychologists call them "fantasy prone." Like James Thurber's character, Walter Mitty, daydreaming really gets them off, and they fantasize constantly – throughout almost everything they do and every encounter they have with others.

Heavy daydreaming was once considered a sign of immaturity and mental illness. However, when Ohio psychologists, Seven Lynn and Judith Rhue, gave fantasy prone participants a battery of psychological tests, they found the vast majority were normal, mentally healthy. well-adjusted individuals with successful careers and relationships. The Walter Mittys of the world, it turned out, fantasize so often because they have better quality daydreams. Perhaps because of a quirk in brain structure, what they imagine is far more vivid and intense for them than for most of us. As real as real," was the way the fantasy prone typically described their daydreams.

[Steven Lynn and Judith Rhue, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 53 1987]

daydreaming by the clock

You can set your clock by your daydreams. That's the substance of research by psychiatrists Daniel Kripke and David Sonnenschein. Every ninety minutes we experience a biological urge to fantasize. Our biochemistry alters our mood and brain state – our thoughts become more vivid and fanciful. Ten to twelve times a day, whether we are talking to others, driving a vehicle, facing a critical test of our abilities – convenient or not – the urge to daydream strikes. Which probably explains all those people who ask you to "please repeat what you just said over again."

[Jerome Singer, Ph.D., et al. (eds.), The Stream of Consciousness]

GLORIOUS TECHNICOLOR AND WONDERFUL STEREOPHONIC SOUND

Our daydreams ought to be entertaining. At least half include "color, movement, sounds and a picture-like quality," writes dream researcher, Eric Klinger. Draw the blinds and pass the popcorn, please!

[Eric Klinger, Ph.D., Daydreaming]

WHAT KIND OF DAYDREAMER ARE YOU?

We all have different daydream styles, writes Steven Starker, Ph.D., chief psychologist at the Veterans Administration Medical Center, Portland, Oregon. Researchers have discovered three main styles of daydreaming – and believe that each one reveals a great deal about the daydreamer.

Positive daydreamers – have more vivid, upbeat, constructive and enjoyable daydreams and night dreams; and a more positive attitude toward life; they rarely suffer from nightmares or insomnia, and their daydreams contain solutions to their problems more often than for other people.

Negative daydreamers – have daydreams that are more laden with guilt, depression, anger, fear, anxiety, conflict and failure; have a generally more negative attitude toward life, and are far more vulnerable to nightmares and insomnia.

Distracted daydreamers – have daydreams that nervously jumps around from one subject to another; they have the same trouble concentrating in their daily lives, perhaps because they also become easily bored.

[Steven Starker, Ph.D., F-States: The Power of Fantasy in Human Creativity]

the power of daydreams

Daydreams aren't just kid stuff anymore. Scientists have discovered that our fantasies have the power to literally transform our lives. The things we daydream about – walking, talking, making love – activate the actual brain cells involved in doing them. Simply picturing ourselves feeling calmer or practicing a golf stroke can slow a racing heart or improve a score. Psychologists call this "guided imagery" or "mental rehearsal. Millions of people have used daydreaming to help them gain social skills, alter moods, sharpen athletic abilities, solve problems, prepare for difficult meetings and improve their love lives – and it doesn't cost a dime.

Maybe the best things in life are free, after all.

[Eric Klinger, Ph.D., Daydreaming]

It Doesn't grow hair on your palms, either

Perhaps because they both give us secret pleasure, the puritanical among us have promulgated many of the same myths about daydreaming as self-gratification – and scientific investigation has revealed them to have just about as much foundation. According to psychologist Steven Starker, research has overturned the following daydream myths:

Daydreaming can make you crazy – repeated studies found psychiatric patients daydream no more than others; their daydreams reflect their craziness, their craziness doesn't reflect their daydreaming.

Daydreaming can weaken your grip on reality – experiments demonstrate that children who engage in games of "pretend" are better, not worse, than other children at distinguishing between fantasy and reality.

Daydreaming about things is so satisfying it weakens your motivation to work for them – the opposite is true, psychologists have found that anticipation strengthens our motivation to have things.

[Steven Starker, Ph.D., F-States: The Power of Fantasy in Human Creativity]

no escape

The popular notion that daydreamers are trying to escape realty has just received a severe setback. A team of Louisiana communication researchers have discovered that women and men with the greatest need to escape – the lonely, unhappy and those in difficult circumstances – have the most unpleasant daydreams. Rather than escaping into fantasies of warm relationships and a better future or past, their imaginations were preoccupied with dismal projections of unsuccessful encounters and continuing failure.

[Renee Edwards, et al. "Imagined Interaction as an Element of Social Cognition," Western Journal of Speech Communication, Vol. 52, 1988]

Definitely Not Dreaming Their Lives Away

Many of us may think of senior citizens, especially the retired, as daydreaming their lives away. But fantasizing actually declines as we age, according to studies by Leonard Giambra. At 45, all participants still reported significant daydreaming. By age 60, only 75% still daydreamed. While only 27% of those who had passed 75 continued to fantasize on a daily basis; and 15% no longer daydreamed at all. Apparently it's the young, not the elderly, who daydream their lives away.

[Leonard Giambra, Ph.D., "Daydreaming Across the Lifespan," Journal of Aging and Human Development, Vol. 5, 1974]

NOT SO DIFFERENT AFTER ALL

There is a point in our evening's repose when daydreams deepen, become more vivid, and for a period of time we pass into a unique realm of "hypnogogic" imagery, where we remain conscious while transiting the border between waking and sleep. For our daydreams and our night dreams are more closely allied than most of us realize. "It must be remembered," writes research psychiatrist Gordon Globus, "that there are strong biological grounds for supposing that perception utilizes comparable mechanisms across waking and dreaming." Globus brands as "absurd" the idea that evolution would abruptly divide our consciousness into two completely different forms operated by two entirely separate brain mechanisms. Instead, he says, dreaming is special form of waking thought that takes place under the "special circumstances" of sleep.

[Gordon Globus, Ph.D., "The Causal Theory of Perception: A Critique and Revision Through Reflection on Dreams," in Consciousness and the Brain]

SEX FANTASIES

not dirty minded

We usually picture daydreams as lurid fantasies filled with erotic fulfillment and violent revenge. Most daydreams, however, are depressingly humdrum. Sex occupies less than 1% of these fantasies; violence only a bit more.

Why are we convinced our daydreams contain so much more eros and vengeance than is actually the case? People remember things that arouse their emotions, explains daydream expert Eric Klinger, Ph.D. Our sexual fantasies carry a higher emotional charge than those about the weekend's activities, and more likely to come to mind when we think about daydreaming.

[Eric Klinger, Ph.D., Daydreaming]

Theirs is just fine, thank you!

Psychoanalysts once believed people who daydream a great deal about sex must be compensating for an unsatisfactory love life. But a survey of Missouri citizens suggests the opposite is true. Men and women with the most satisfying and active love lives had sex on the mind more of the time than those who rated their love lives less satisfying. These findings are supported by studies showing that when people commit to celibacy, the amount of daydreaming they do about sex begins to decline.

[William Arndt, et al., "Specific Sexual Fantasy Themes," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 48, 1985]

SEX daydreams OF MEN AND WOMEN

From the enormous sales of romance novels to women and hard-core pornographic novels to men, you might guess that their sexual fantasies would reflect similar themes. A survey by a team including psychologist William Arndt, Ph.D., found that romance and commitment are central elements in women's erotic daydreams; while explicit sexual activity and its variations play the dominant role in men's fantasies.

Arndt's study found that women's most frequent fantasies are:

* A man kissing her breasts

* A man gently removing her clothes and making love

* Being a very glamorous and having sex with a very handsome man

* Having sex where there is a risk of being caught

* Attracting male attention at a party of the rich and famous

* Wearing skin-tight clothes, with men staring at her

The most common daydreams among males were:

* Being excited by "a woman's shapely legs"

* Kissing a woman's "large breasts"

* Having a woman "forcing her intentions" on him

* A woman telling him that she wants his body

* Two women exciting him sexually

* A party where everybody is having sex with everyone else"

* Watching a man and woman having sex

[William Arndt, et al., "Specific Sexual Fantasy Themes," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 48, 1985]

WHAT DO THE KINKY DAYDREAM ABOUT?

Most people probably imagine the sexual daydreams of the kinky to contain an unending series of wild, perverse encounters and unconventional activities. But except for daydreaming more about their own particular fetish, the sex fantasies of the kinky were monotonously unimaginative and normal.

Psychologists Chris Gosselin and Glenn Wilson interviewed hundreds of men and women interested in unconventional sex. Those who enjoyed being spanked, were preoccupied with scenarios of tanned cheeks and rosy bottoms; those who yearned for oral sex, daydreamed of eager, cooperative partners; transvestites fantasized of dressing as, becoming and being treated like women. The remainder of their sexual daydreams were no different than those of anyone else – intercourse with a partner they loved, intercourse with a someone they knew but had not slept with, oral sex, watching others have sex, homosexual encounters and other common fantasies.

[Christopher Gosselin and Glenn Wilson, Sexual Variations]

That Helpless Feeling

For all our pretensions to sexual equality, few men or women fantasize about sexual situations where they and their partner make love as equals. Instead, more than 75% of us fantasize about forcing or being forced – so completely that we no choice but submission. And the closer we get to orgasm, the more intensely unegalitarian our daydreams become.

The fact that many women still fantasize about being forced to have sex will surprise no one. Though it may disturb some to learn just how universal such rape fantasies are among women. Almost 80% of those surveyed in a recent Masters and Johnson Institute study had such fantasies; and the figures were nearly the same for lesbians as for heterosexual women. What will surprise everyone is that far more men (75%) daydreamed about being forced into sex by women, than about doing the forcing.

[Eric Klinger, Ph.D., Daydreaming]

the grass is greener

Many straight women and men daydream about engaging in gay sex. More than 25% of the men and 50% of the women in one Quebec community admitted fantasizing about an erotic encounter with a member of their own gender. Many heterosexuals even fantasized about gay sex during straight sex.

Turn about seems to be fair play – at least in this particular case. Gay men and women also daydream about straight sex, according to the Quebec survey.

These fantasies do not necessarily represent a desire by gays to try heterosexuality or a desire by straights to try homosexuality, the authors of the Quebec study warn. The actual attraction may be the increased excitement and arousal we all experience when imagining novel and unusual sexual scenarios. Given the opportunity, both groups would probably prove very reluctant to practice in the real world, an activity that gives them so much pleasure in their inner world.

Apparently, the grass is always greener on the other side of the sexual preference gap.

[Claud Crepault, et al., "The Erotic Imagination of Women and Men," Archives of the Third International Congress of Sexologists]

making love in stereo

It's something most partners do in bed during lovemaking. Some people think it's kinky; others are reluctant to admit they do it. Most say it turns them on more than plain intercourse. Sexologists claim it's fast becoming the hottest new bedroom technique in our sexual repertory.

We're having sex and thinking about sex – but the sex we are thinking about isn't the sex we are having. By the end of the first year of a relationship or marriage, three out of four men and two out of three women were daydreaming about sex while making love to their partner. Proportions that continued to increase, a study by psychologist Clark McCauley found, the longer relationships continued.

Participants weren't fantasizing because of boredom with sex or because they no longer found their partner attractive. Having an exciting erotic daydream running through one channel of their brain, while the sensual input of making love ran through another, added an extra fillip, a dash of spice. It was like making love in stereo.

Participants reported the most common fantasies they pictured during sex were:

* Making love to someone famous and glamorous

* Oral-genital sex

* A previous sexual experience or partner

* Something "wicked and forbidden"

* Activities partners refuse to participate in

* Being in different surroundings – a car, motel, drive in, beach, woods, etc.

[Amnd David Sue, "What About Sexual Daydreams," Psychology Today, October 1987]

NIGHT DREAMS

DREAM DATA

AND IT DOESN'T COST A DIME

Most of us experience the dream state (REM sleep) six times a night. Over an average lifespan of eighty years, that works out to some 150,000 dreams or about four years of solid dreaming. If you paid to see that many motion pictures in a theater, it would cost you slightly over $1,000,000. Four years of cable television, on the other hand, would come about $3,000. Either way, dreams are clearly your best entertainment value.

[Alan B. Siegel, Ph.D., Dreams That Can Change Your Life]

People Who Never Have Dreams

Although some people claim they never dream, they're wrong. They simply don't remember their dreams. EEG recordings reveal we all dream every ninety minutes throughout the night, every night of our lives. Those who believe they don't dream, simply forget their dreams more easily than most.

["Dreamchasers," Psychology Today, April 1989]

HOw TO REMEMBER YOUR DREAMS

If you have ever woken up with the vague impression of a wonderful dream you wished you could remember – or if you are someone who has trouble remembering their dreams – take heart. Psychologists have devised a simple four-step method that has helped millions remember their dreams.

1) Keep a pad and pen in a convenient location before going to bed;

2) Without moving or opening your eyes, try to recall as much as you can of your most recent dreams;

3) Sit up slowly, allowing your body to stay in a relaxed, sleepy mode;

4) Open your eyes, reach for your pad and pen, and write down all that you can remember.

If you still have difficulty, give your "dream recall muscles" a boost by telling yourself firmly several times before falling asleep: "When I wake up, I will remember my dreams." This acts as a post-hypnotic suggestion directly on the subconscious, where dreams originate. Soon, you'll find yourself remembering your dreams far more often and in far greater detail.

[Patricia Maybruck, Ph.D., Pregnancy & Dreams]

THE FIVE MOST COMMON DREAMS

What do we dream about most? Are our dreams unique? Or are there common elements in all our dreams? According to dream researchers, five themes predominate in everyone's nightly excursions:

* Falling

* Being pursued or attacked

* Trying to perform an important task but failing repeatedly

* Work and school activities

* Sex

[Marc McCutcheon, The Compass in Your Nose: and Other Astonishing Facts About Humans]

BLIND DREAMS

Many people have dreamed about being blind. But what do the blind dream about?

Those of us born sighted dream in the senses that are most important to us: color, light, images, sound – less frequently of touch or taste. Those born blind dream in the senses that are most important to them: touch and texture, hearing and sound, flavor and scent.

Men and women who lose their sight during or after adolescence, usually continue to dream visually as they always have. But those blinded as children, generally lose the ability to "see" in their dreams as they mature.

[Psychology Today, January-February 1989]

sleeping more and enjoying it less

The stereotype of the genius as a gaunt, pasty-faced individual, with dark hollows under their eyes, turns out to have a strong basis in fact. They get that look because heir brains are busy working all night in their dreams. Research shows that Creative people and problem-solvers sleep longer. But they don't get more rest – instead they dream more and wake up less refreshed than the rest of us. Albert Einstein, for instance, slept more than ten hours a night.

[McCutcheon, Marc, The Compass in Your Nose: and Other Astonishing Facts About Humans]

sleep on it

You can dream your problems away! Just tuck the subject that troubles you most under your mental pillow at night – and you may literally "dream" up the solution. That's the message of Willis Harmon, Ph.D. who has spent years collecting thousands of accounts of great insights that came in dreams.

Robert Louis Stevenson dreamt the plot for "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Mozart's masterpieces came to him during dream-like state of reverie in which he "heard" the music being played and merely scribbled it down as rapidly as he could write. Thomas Edison slept on the floor of his workshop and waited for inspiration.

University of Arizona researchers decided to put this anecdotal evidence to the test. They interviewed college students rated highly creative. An astounding 93% actually had been gifted with special insights during their dreams; while only 63% of students rated less creative received inspirations in their slumber.

[Willis Harmon, Ph.D. and Howard Rheingold, Higher Creativity]

sIX THEORIES ABOUT WHY WE DREAM

Why do we dream? And what, if anything, do our dreams mean? Dream researchers have been fighting tooth and nail over these questions for years. The following have emerged as the front running theories in this hotly contested debate:

Coded messages from the subconscious – views dreams as forbidden urges we can't bear to acknowledge consciously; so they slip forth in disguise during our sleep and must be decoded if we are to truly understand them.

Straightforward messages from the subconscious – dreams are not in code and rarely about forbidden urges; they are straightforward messages about subjects we don't have time to think through completely during our waking hours.

A search for psychological equilibrium – dreams are our mind's attempt to balance the inequities of our daily lives; if we have an encounter that makes us doubt our intelligence, we may have a dream series of dreams portraying us as alternately bright and stupid, until we reach emotional resolution.

Learning and memory storage – dreams replay key experiences and information, reinforcing it in key sites where memories are stored in the brain; proponents point to thousands of studies showing dreaming plays a vital role in learning, especially when we acquire complex new skills.

A process of "unlearning" – we dream in order to forget; the fragmentary images that give our nightly dreamscapes their shifting, surreal quality, are stimulated as the brain erases unnecessary information from memory storage sites in the cerebral cortex.

Meaningless mental static – dreams result as the random firing of brain cells while we sleep sets off a jumble of unrelated images and sensations; dreams have no underlying meaning and are not signals from the subconscious.

[Stephen LaBerge, Ph.D., Lucid Dreaming & Edward Dolnick, The Atlantic Monthly, July 1990]

WILL THE WINNING DREAM THEORY PLEASE STAND UP?

The firing of a single nerve cell in a Rockefeller University laboratory may have spelled the end to decades of scientific quarreling over the nature and significance of dreams. Neuroscientist Jonathan Winson decided he might be able to resolve the controversy by establishing a definitive link between dreaming and memory. Aware that brain cells produce sharply increased theta waves during both learning and dreaming, Winson monitored several cells in the memory center of a rat's brain as it learned to run a new maze. One cell showed increased theta activity.

When the rat was taken out of the maze and returned to its cage, the brain cell that had produced increased theta returned to normal. Later that night, during dream sleep, the cell began to produce intense theta activity again. By tracking a specific brain cell involved in learning a task during day to a dream later that night, Winson seemed to have unraveled the Gordian knot of modern dream research: memory is indeed being stored during our dreams.

Since animals normally show increased theta rhythm when they are behaving in ways crucial to their survival, Winson believes dreams are a primitive brain mechanism for processing and storing information important to our personal well being. Thus our dreams, though more a means of reinforcing memory than a vehicle for conveying messages from the unconscious, offer significant clues to our personal concerns and values – and through them to who and what we are.

[Jonathan Winson, "The Meaning of Dreams," Scientific American November 1990]

DREAM DILEMMAS

dreams that can save your life

Dreams may be our early warning system for serious illness. A startling link between dream content and health emerged when psychologist Robert C. Smith of Michigan State University began studying the dreams of victims of heart attack, stroke and other severe pulmonary illnesses. Long before the illness was apparent to patient or doctor, most victims had similar dreams involving common themes of death, disease or disruption. The more frequent and frightening the dreams, Smith found, the weaker the "pumping power" of the patient's heart.

The dream symbols that warned women and men of approaching illness turned out to be stereotypically different. Men with failing hearts dreamt of death and destruction; women were haunted by nightmares of relationships doomed by forces beyond their control. As Smith was quick to point out, only about 5% of those who dream of death and separation are suffering from a serious illness.

["Dreamchasers," Psychology Today, April 1989]

TURNING POINT DREAMS

At moments of crisis or significant personal change, our dreams become more intense and vivid. If we view the change as negative – or it causes us pain or fear, nightmares result. These "turning point dreams" as they are called, come most frequently at:

* The beginning of new relationships

* The conception and births of children

* The ending of intimate relationship

* During crisis and transition

* Midlife transitions

* Personal crisis: financial, natural disasters, crime victim, threat to a loved one

* Injury and illness

* Death of a loved one

Turning point dreams, claims Alan Siegel, Ph.D., who has spent decades studying them, can help ease our transition through crucial life passages by providing valuable clues to the successful resolution of their challenges.

[Alan B. Siegel, Ph.D., Dreams That Can Change Your Life]

HOW TO INTERPRET YOUR DREAMS

We all want to know what our dreams mean. Fortunetellers and psychotherapists claim to be able to interpret them. Publishers have gotten rich issuing dictionaries of dream symbols.

But the only person who can interpret your dreams is – you. We dream in our own private code, says Gail Delaney.. The most potent symbols in our psychological firmament have meaning only for us. "No one else can tell you what your dreams mean. Only you can know," she explains.

To help decode the meanings in your dreams, Dr. Delaney offers a simple two-part process:

* Write a description of every image and event your remember from a dream

* Ask yourself: what real-life situation most resembles the one in your dream

Delaney suggests using unlined paper and setting ideas down far apart. As one idea leads to another, draw a line between them. As connections develop, you should begin to see patterns and meanings in your dream.

[Kristin Von Kreisler, "The Dream that Haunts You," Redbook, April 1992]

haunting dreams

Have you ever been haunted by a dream? Dreamed the same sequence of events over and over – days, weeks or even years apart? Dream researchers call these "recurring dreams" and most of us experience them at some time during our lives.

Recurring dreams can be uplifting and leave you exhilarated. Or they can take the form of nightmares that leave you drained and depressed. The bad news is that recurrent nightmares out number happy dreams by almost six to one. The good news is that recurrent nightmares are trying to tell you something.

Recurrent dreams are pointing to "where it hurts," says Dr. Edward N. Brennan of Columbia University. And if we don't get the message the first time, "they will show you again and again and again."

[Kristin Von Kreisler, "The Dream that Haunts You," Redbook, April 1992]

DREAMING'S DARK SIDE

Nightmares are the secret fear that haunts our dream life. They are dreaming's dark side Nightmares don't just terrify us within the dream. We return to the waking world with heart hammering, chest tight, drenched in sweat, flooded with fear.

We all have nightmares sometimes. A few of us visit night's dark realms frequently. "Sometimes we're more troubled than we realize," says dream researcher Milton Kramer, M.D. "When ... a problem seems insurmountable – the dream can turn into a nightmare." According to dream specialists, the most common nightmares and their meanings are:

Abandonment – loss of a loved one

Being chased – feeling being stuck or threatened in your daily life

Climbing – the desire to realize an ambition or anxiety about making a change

Falling, feelings of loss, insecurity, failure or being out-of-control

Killing an authority figure – the desire to break away from family, a job, relationship or a way of life

Missing planes, trains or buses – fear of not progressing in life or of missing an opportunity

Being nude – fear of ridicule, exposure and embarrassment

Taking tests – anxiety over a difficult challenge

[Rae Corelli, Macleans, April 23, 1990 & Leuzzi, Linda, Ladies Home Journal, March 1990]

NIGHTMARE PROnE

Most of us have heard of "accident prones." Individuals, first identified by insurance companies, who seem to attract disaster. Now there's evidence that some people are "nightmare prone." The dark terrors of the dream world come swarming in on these hapless men and women nightly.

Although nightmare prones are otherwise healthy physically and mentally, they have what psychiatrist Ernest Hartmann terms "thin emotional boundaries." This means they are more open and sensitive – and become more easily and deeply involved in relationships – than most people. Their sensitivity may also make nightmare prones more creative. Hundreds of studies have proved that artistic and `creative people suffer from more than their fair share of nightmares. Having nightmares for constant dream companions may be the price some people pay for creativity.

[Prevention, November 1992 & Linda Leuzzi, Ladies Home Journal, March 1990]

PREGNANCY AND DREAMS

Expectant mothers dream more. And their dreams are frequently unpleasant and disturbing. The physiological changes and the psychological stresses that accompany pregnancy provide fertile soil for nightmares and night terrors, writes Patricia Maybruck Ph.D. in Pregnancy & Dreams. Six fears, each intimately connected with her own pregnancy, shadow expectant women's dreams:

* Fear that her baby will be deformed or die

* Fear of being an inadequate parent

* Fear of losing her mate

* Fear of a difficult delivery

* Fear she'll lose emotional control

* Fear of financial difficulty

[Patricia Maybruck, Ph.D., Pregnancy & Dreams]

no more nightmares

You can transform nightmares into sweet dreams. That's message of Barry Krakow, M.D., a sleep researcher at the University of New Mexico. When plagued by nightmares, a simple new technique called "imagery rehearsal" has proved to be nearly 100% effective in banishing bad dreams. In one study, women and men who had been terrorized by nightmares for almost a quarter of a century, eliminated them completely in just a few weeks.

Krakow's "imagery rehearsal" involves learning to "incubate" positive dreams in which dreamers master frightening nightmare situations:

1) Write a summary of a nightmare you like to change

2) Describe the way you would like to see the situation reversed

3) Visualize this new dream for a few minutes each night before going to sleep

"What's amazing about the rehearsal technique is that it didn't just make their bad dreams go way, it actually made the people feel better overall," says Krakow. Participants were no longer afraid to go to sleep at night, slept better and felt more rested the next day. "It's such a simple technique but it works," Krakow adds.

[Barry Krakow, Conquering Bad Dreams & Nightmares , American Journal of Psychiatry, May 1992]

LUCID DREAMING

In the midst of a vivid experience, some element strikes us as incongruous, and we suddenly become aware we are dreaming. Stephen LaBerge, Ph.D., the world's leading authority on so-called "lucid dreaming" taught "oneironauts to recognize when they were dreaming. Then in a feat that rivaled the first manned landing on the moon, LaBerge's oneironauts used a complex series of eye and body movements to send signals from within their dream worlds to observers in the waking world outside.

LaBerge believes we can reap a cornucopia of benefits from lucid dreaming: the elimination of nightmares, emotional and physical healing, anxiety reduction, decision-making and creative problem solving. Grandiose as these claims may seem, a University of Northern Iowa survey supports LaBerge's findings. Psychologist Jayne Gackenbach found lucid dreamers are less neurotic, less depressed, and have higher self-esteem and better emotional balance than other dreamers.

["Take Control of Your Dreams," Psychology Today, October 1989 & LaBerge, Stephen, Lucid Dreaming]

leaning lucid dreaming

Anyone can become a lucid dreamer, says Stephen LaBerge of the Sanford University Sleep Research Center. While only one person in ten is a natural lucid dreamer, he has developed a simple process that proved effective in helping tens of thousands learn lucid dreaming. LaBerge believes there are only two essential requirements for learning lucid dreaming: motivation and good dream recall.

LaBerge's four-step method for inducing lucid dreams:

1. When you wake spontaneously from a dream, go over all the details until you have them fully fixed in mind;

2. Before you go back to sleep, tell yourself firmly several times: "Next time I'm dreaming I'll recognize I'm dreaming";

3. Visualize yourself inside the dream you just recalled – aware that you are dreaming;

4. Repeat steps two and three until you the desire to remember your dream is firmly planted in your mind – or you fall asleep.

With a little practice, you should find yourself lucid in your dreams.

Lucid dreaming may also be the ideal medium for overcoming nightmares. If you find yourself faced with a frightening situation in a lucid dream, simply face down the image that's threatening you. When that happens, LaBerge avers, frightening images vanish and rarely return.

[LaBerge, Stephen, Lucid Dreaming]

CHAPTER 6

OUR GENDER AND SEXUALITY

GENDER

MEN AND WOMEN

WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE?

Are women and men different? And if so, how? And why? Culture was named the popular culprit for a while, with the idea of innate differences ridiculed and dismissed.

But two decades of research into genetics, hormones and brain structure have turned the trick. Scientists are almost unanimous: There are distinct differences between the genders and nature, not nurture is to blame. Jerre Levy, professor of psychology at the University of Chicago, spoke for the convertees: "When I was younger, I believed that 100% of sex difference were due to the environment. Now, I am sure there are biologically] based differences in our behavior."

On average, neuroanatomist Laura Allen says, men are more aggressive (and therefore more likely to be abusive) physically, emotionally and sexually than women. On average, women are less aggressive (and therefore less likely to be abusive) physically, emotionally and sexually than men. On average, men are more spatially and mathematically oriented than women; on average, women are more verbally and interpersonally oriented than men.

Though there is some evidence that the attitudes of parents and society play a role in influencing what makes men "men" and what makes women "women," much more seems to be due to differences in:

Genetics – genes determine whether fertilized eggs will develop as male or female; scientists believe as much as one half of the differences between men and women may be genetically programmed.

Hormones – sex hormones have an enormous influence over our behavior; when women are given male hormones, body hair increases, voices lower, aggression increases and so does libido; and when men are given injections of female hormones, breasts and hips develop, while libido and aggressiveness decrease.

Neuroanatomy – differences in the brain structures of women and men may explain the advantage of men on space perception, mathematical ability and mechanical problems; and the advantage women have in verbal ability and rote memory tasks.

Researchers caution that these differences are purely statistical – that there is such a wide range of variation among individuals in both genders that some women have higher levels of aggression than most men, and some men greater verbal and emotional skills than most women.

["Gender and the Brain" Time Magazine, January 20, 1992 & Hooper and Teresi, The Three Pound Universe]

men – traveling light

Handbags – men would rather be caught dead than carry one. They even ridicule women who rummage for a moment in their bag to find the pen they asked for. So most men travel light. Right? Just shove a wallet and comb into a pocket and take off? Wrong. Their secret is out. Men might find they looked less ridiculous carrying purses, than walking around with the bulging pockets they sport now.

A survey of men ages 25 to 57 cited in First found males stuff so much stuff in their pockets – it's a miracle they can move. Most men had six or more of the following items in their pockets: breath freshener, sports page, condoms, stamps, hair gel, keys, wallet, glasses and sunglasses, baseball cap, road map, gum, address book, mini flashlight, and a Swiss army knife.

Toting such a heavy load in your pockets is also dangerous to your health, says chiropractor Frank Castella. "When men sit, their billfold can cause the pelvis to tilt forward," Castella warns, adding a stinging tag sure to create a whole new market for purse makers: "And adding weight to jacket pockets can throw your back out of alignment."

[The editors, "First Impressions," First, February 10, 1992]

HANGING OUT VERSUS HANGING TOGETHER

Men and women – even they way they approach friendship is different.

Women "hang together," their friendships are more intense, writes Elizabeth Nelson, couples columnist for Glamour. Relationships are important to women, who devote a lot of energy to cultivating them. Women like to spend as much time as possible with their friends, and can't imagine life without them. Women see friendships as a support network and as a way to keep your perspective than to bounce ideas, joys and disasters off someone who really knows you.

The male approach to friendships is much more casual; content just to "hangout." Most men have friends they see from time to time, but it's rare for a man to be "close" to any of them. Even with close friends, says Elizabeth's husband and co-columnist Todd Nelson, men aren't as open about their emotions and worries as women are with other women.

Women wonder if men aren't missing something. Or if men aren't afraid to get close to one another.

Men actually value friendship as much as women do, Todd concludes. They just approach it differently. He points out that women's friendships have their drawbacks, too. "I've seen female 'best friends' start feuding, and suddenly the relationship's in the shredder." Men, he claims, are choosier and their friendships last for life.

[Elizabeth Todd Nelson, "Men and Friendship," Glamour, March 1990]

WHY MEN DON'T (USUALLY) HAVE TO ASK FOR DIRECTIONS

Women have always wondered why men don't like to ask for directions. Now science may have the answer.

Men excel at thinking in three dimensions. This may make them better at reading maps and certainly makes them better at visualizing their route, their location and the way to their destination. Sociobiologists believe this talent may be due to ancient evolutionary pressures related to hunting, which requires orienting oneself while pursing prey.

As a result, men need to ask for directions so rarely, that when they do need help, they become embarrassed because they are not used to asking for it.

["Gender and the Brain" Time Magazine, January 20, 1992]

The Mothering Instinct

Do women have a "mothering instinct"? Experiments at the University of Birmingham, England appear to provide measurable physiological proof women have such an instinct – and men don't. Since the pupils of the eyes tend to dilate when we are interested in something and contract when we are bored, men and women were shown photographs of babies to gage their interest. Whether they were single or married, childless or a mother, the pupils of women participants dilated. But when the same photographs were shown to men, only married men with children displayed any interest. Apparently, men learn to be interested in children after having. Women, however, seem to possess an innate "maternal" reaction.

[Nigel Calder, The Mind of Man, Viking, 1970]

THE CARETAKER AND THE LAWGIVER

Women and men don't just have physical and mental differences. They seem to have innate differences in values and perceptions as well. In a series of ground-breaking experiments, Harvard psychologist Carol Gilligan found that men and women have contrasting approaches to morality she labeled: the Caretaker Perspective, found predominantly in women; and the Justice Perspective, found predominantly in men.

Asked to make difficult moral choices, women's concerns centered on helping others, providing care, preventing harm and maintaining relationships. Men's concerns centered on abstract rules of fairness and justice, principles and people standing on their own.

The Justice Perspective, Gilligan found, arises from a basic perception of the world as composed of separate individuals. Its focus is on protecting those individuals from unwanted interference in their rights through rules, rationality and legal principles. Moral actions are based on fear of punishment or fear of authority; while moral decisions are based on following society's laws and the social order.

The Caregiver Perspective arises from a basic perception of the world as network of interdependent people. Its focus is on reinforcing all the links in the net through human responsiveness. Moral actions are based on protection and compassion; while moral decisions are based on acting responsibly toward self and others.

Lawyers may be reacting to an intuitive sense of Gilligan's discoveries when they try to stock juries with men and exclude women in some criminal cases.

[Marie Dalloway, Winning for Women]

thirteen MORE intriguing DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE SEXES

There are hundreds of other differences between men and women – some subtle, some not subtle. Here are a baker's dozen of most intriguing:

* Women have a better sense of the future – they think more about it and plan ahead better

* Men are harder to persuade than women

* Women are more likely to express their emotions and to empathize with the emotions of others

* Women are more likely to be anxious about failure and more likely to blame themselves

* Men are less likely to disclose personal information – politics, religion, sexual activities, etc.

* Men are more prone to color-blindness and left-handedness

* Women are more sensitive to sounds and more agitated by loud noise

* Men smile less often than women

* Women have sharper senses – scent, taste, hearing and touch

* Women are superior at left-brain tasks; while men are superior at right-brain tasks

* Women attempt suicide more often – but men succeed more often

* Marriage increases the risk of depression for women but decreases it for men.

* Men commit seventeen times more homicides

[Albert B. Gerbrer, The Book of Sex Lists, Lyle Stuart, 1981 & McCutcheon, Marc, The Compass in Your Nose]

MORE GENDERS THAN TWO

HOW MANY GENDERS?

We are born in one gender and expect to die in it. Now biologists tell us, we may be taking gender too much for granted.

The relationship between the sexes has always been so thorny that just coping with two genders proved difficult enough for most people. But geneticists discovered more than a dozen other genders. According to Glenn Wilson writing in Love and Instinct, "there are not just two sexes, but a range of people who are male or male to a greater or lesser extent both anatomically and mentally."

Scientists have identified more than twelve different "intersex" states, in which male and female traits are mixed. Four out of every one hundred people may be born "intersexuals" (there are ten million estimated intersexuals in the U.S.). In most cases, their chromosomes said they "should" develop as one sex, while their body developed as the other.

Normally men have XY chromosomes and women have two X chromosomes. But some women can have a Y chromosome and still be and appear overwhelmingly female, and some men can have two X chromosomes and still be and appear overwhelmingly male. Neither they, nor those who love them, have any doubt about their sexual identity or the slightest idea that their chromosomes and their bodies don't match.

It may be just as well that feminism has done away with gender based social distinctions, like men opening the doors for women, or women walking on the inside of the sidewalk. With a dozen or more genders parading around, trying to keep special rules for each in mind would just be too much trouble.

[Wilson, Love and Instinct]

THE OTHER KIND OF TRANSSEXUAL

When most people think of transvestites and transsexuals, their minds naturally jump to images of men dressed as, or surgically altered to become, women. Virtually overlooked in all the attention that has been focused on males is a second of transvestite and transsexual – women who dress as men, live as men, pass as men and sometimes even have their body's surgically altered so they can perform sexually as men.

Probably, the most famous case is that of Billy Tilden, the jazz musician who successfully passed as a male for more than fifty years, married and adopted children, until death and autopsy uncovered the anatomical facts. Undoubtedly many "butch dykes" (lesbians who act out an aggressively male role in dress and manner) are driven, consciously or unconsciously, by this impulse as well. Since female to male "sex change" operations have only been possible relatively recently, and since women commonly wear male clothes in our society, no one knows precisely how many female to male transsexuals and transvestites there are.

Experts estimate that more than twenty-five thousand males have undergone gender reassignment surgery to become female; and that about a quarter that many women have had surgery to become males. But recently the number of women electing for gender reassignment been increasing, according to Chris Moran, spokesperson for Professionals for Gender Awareness. Women are now seeking the operation at least half as often as men. Ms. Moran estimates that there are at least another 100,000 "pre-op" male to female transsexuals taking hormones and living part-time or full-time as women, and around 50,000 "pre-op" female to male transsexuals living as men.

[Janrae Frank, Women at Arms]

THE IDEAL SOLDIER

Men who object to women serving beside them in the military may have good reason. Women appear to make better soldiers.

Initially, male soldiers do start out with a somewhat greater advantage in upper-body strength, leg strength, power, body weight and height than women. However, a West Point study reveals that women have a greater capacity for improving their physical condition than men. Women have also been found to endure starvation, exposure, shock, fatigue and illness better. They have more acute hearing, and their sexual organs, being internal, are far better protected from injury. Women were even found to possess greater tolerance for heat because their sweat glands are spread over their body, rather than in a dense cluster like those of men, causing them to sweat more efficiently.

Women may even be fiercer warriors than men. The late Dr. Dudley Sergeant, Dean of the department of physical education at Harvard, said his experiences convinced him that female combatants contradict the notion that women are inherently more pacifistic than men. "The average, normal woman," he wrote, "is biologically more of a barbarian."

[Office of Physical Education at the United States Military Academy, West Point, Report on the Admission of Women to the U. S. Military Academy, Department of Behavioral Science and Leadership, U. S. Military Academy at West Point]

THE ULTRA FEMININE WOMAN

Homophobic men who insist in having a really feminine woman for a companion may be in for a shock. There is now substantial evidence that the only ultra feminine women are men, reports science writer Jared Diamond in Discover. Not transsexuals, but a special breed of women born with a Y chromosome rather than a second X chromosome.

Once in several thousand conceptions, an embryo with XY chromosomes will lack the receptors to react to testosterone (the male hormone). Since, the bodies of all men and women produce some of the hormones that create the opposite gender, the cells of "androgen insensitives," unable to respond to male hormones, respond to their female hormones instead. As a result, androgen insensitives are born with vaginas, develops breasts, female features, contours and psyche. However, androgen insensitives lack a uterus and ovaries, and have vestigial testes somewhere within their body. Until recently, many doctors misdiagnosed this condition. Others, knowing how traumatic it would be for someone to live their life as a member of one gender and suddenly be told they belong to the other, simply gave their patients the impression they were normal women who were infertile and should not expect to bear children.

Androgen insensitive women conform more closely to the male ideal of feminine beauty than many XX women: They are typically tall and long-legged, with well developed breasts and flawless complexions, and many have been found around the ranks of the glamorous fashion models men are so eager to romance and bed. Scientists consider androgen insensitives more "feminine" than "normal" XX women. Normal women, they point out, respond to the small amounts of male hormones their bodies produce and will develop masculine characteristics if given additional testosterone. But no matter how much testosterone an androgen-insensitive woman is given, she will never become less feminine.

[Jared Diamond, "Turning a Man," Discover, June 1992]

THE HORNIEST WOMEN

Pity horny homophobic males. The women most willing to engage in sex are chock full of male hormones, too. According to The Three Pound Universe, some women produce 10 times more testosterone than others. These women are also the most sexually active and the most likely to say "yes."

[Hooper and Teresi, The Three Pound Universe]

MEN – THEY'RE ALWAYS GOING TO EXTREMES

About male versus female genius – for males there's good news and bad news. First the good news: More men score in the genius class on IQ tests than women. Now for the bad news: More men also score in the mental retardation category than women.

This ties in with the general tendency of men to show more extremes and abnormalities of every kind than women. The explanation, says sociobiologist Glenn Wilson, Ph.D., may lie in the fact that men lack a second X chromosome. Many geneticists feel the second X chromosome women possess acts like a back-up system, possessing duplicates of all the genetic information in the first when it suffers damage or develops anomalies. Lacking this back-up system, men are more vulnerable to the kind of genetic abnormalities that create genius – and serial killers.

[Glenn Wilson, Ph.D., Love and Instinct]

WHO did you say IS FAKING ORGASM?

Everyone knows women fake orgasm during sex sometimes; while some women fake it almost all the time. For many years, psychotherapists assumed women were simply trying to sooth fragile male egos. Now there is compelling evidence the true explanation lies in the power of the myth of the vaginal orgasm as a hallmark of female sexuality. The vaginal orgasm, according to feminist historian Sandra Stone, is the belief (promulgated heavily in romantic fiction) that most "real" women experience thrilling pleasure and climax just from the friction and feel of intercourse.

Recent surveys have shown that women often fake orgasm, even with men they know are secure in their sexuality. While studies at the Sanford University Gender Dysphoria Program offer striking proof that the myth of the vaginal orgasm is so pervasive that even male-to-female transsexuals fake orgasms with their partners. Not one transsexual in a twenty year period would admit they had experienced sexual pleasure through any other means than intercourse. They also denied ever feeling sexual pleasure while living in "the wrong body," and would not even acknowledge that they had ever given themselves pleasure as "boys."

For everyone concerned with femininity, Stone writes in Body Guards, "Full membership in the assigned gender (female) was conferred by orgasm, real or faked, accomplished through heterosexual penetration."

[Sandy Stone, "The Empire Strikes Back," Body Guards]

SEXUALITY

BASICS

WHAT's LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT?

A British government survey asked several thousand people to describe their most frequent reasons for engaging in sexual activity. Their answers may not be surprising, but they are revealing. Although society only bestows its unreserved approval on sex for love, amour was only one among the many motives people gave for "making love." Other reasons include:

* Feeling horny at the time

* A strong physical attraction to their partner

* Wanting to find out more about each other

* Reassurance about their own attractiveness

* Nothing more interesting to do

* The desire to have children

* The desire for closeness

[Report of the Committee on the Operation of the British Sexual Containment Act, 1978]

GOOD LONG-TERM SEX is a fantasy

Some couples seem to have the knack of keeping sex alive and vital throughout a marriage – others don't. The key, says Helen Kaplan, Ph.D. Director of Cornell University Human Sexuality Program, is to marry someone who looks and acts like your sex fantasy. Couples who managed this trick remained sexually entranced and excited with each other long after the passion had grown cold for others.

These couples said that when they met, they knew almost instantly that something special was going on between them, and that this feeling did not fade with either time or the physical changes that came with aging. Kaplan also discovered that even when one or both partners did not start out as the other's fantasy but were willing to fulfill it, they were able to capture and sustain the same kind of long-term sexual excitement in their relationship.

Apparently marriage works better when we marry our fantasies – perhaps Cinderella and Prince Charming did live "happily ever after."

[Helen Singer Kaplan, Ph.D., Speech, Los Angeles Chapter, the Society for the Scientific Study of Sex, December 1990]

the key to a good sex life

Almost everyone wants a good sex life. Now a study by Captain David Hurlbert, Clinical Director of Marriage and Sex Counseling, Dornall Army Community Hospital, may provide the key. Hurlbert found it wasn't the "how" of making love that determines the degree of an individual's sexual satisfaction, but their attitude toward sex. Couples with the healthiest attitude toward sex had the most fulfilling love lives. They also made love more often and experienced the highest frequency of orgasm. All rated themselves as looking forward to sex more than most people they knew, and reported greater satisfaction with their partners.

Hurlbert discovered that the women and men who reported the greatest sexual fulfillment, were those who felt positive enough about their sexuality to say:

"I approach my partner for sex when I desire it."

"I enjoy sharing my sexual fantasies with my partner."

"When a technique doesn't feel good, I tell my partner."

"I feel comfortable giving sexual pleasure to my partner."

"I feel comfortable initiating sex with my partner."

"I feel comfortable telling my partner how to touch me."

"I enjoy masturbating myself to orgasm."

"If something feels good, I suggest doing it again."

Couples who reported the least sexual enjoyment proved to be those who were least comfortable with it. They described themselves this way:

"I feel that I am shy when it comes to sex."

"I try to avoid discussing the subject of sex."

"I feel guilty when I masturbate."

"I feel uncomfortable talking during sex."

"I feel uncomfortable telling my partner what feels good."

"I'm reluctant to insist that my partner satisfy me."

"I'm reluctant to describe myself as a sexual person."

"I find myself having sex when I do not really want it."

"It is difficult for me to touch myself during sex."

[Captain David Hurlbert, Journal of Sex and Marital Therapists, Fall 1991]

AN EMBARRASSING POSITION

Men have long known that most women seem to object to certain sexual positions. Psychologist Hugo Beigel believes he knows why. Beigel noticed a pattern in the fights couples he counseled had over coital positions. Although they enjoyed sex otherwise, certain women became quite angry when their husbands or boyfriends' expressed a desire for them to be "on top" or to "do it doggy-style from behind." The women felt embarrassed by these positions, describing them as "cold," "greedy," "unfeminine" and "animalistic."

Many women in our society still consider the pursuit of love spiritual and the pursuit of sexual pleasure animalistic, Beigel writes. When one of these women reclines on "her back and she and her mate embrace and kiss, eyes closed, she can feel that love and the man's lusts are combining to lead her into sex, and that is acceptable." But if she is on top, eyes open, or down on her knees with the man behind her, "actively cooperating in a quest for sexual pleasure," she perceives their activity as animalistic, greedy, cold. She cannot justify what they are doing as lovemaking and say, "He and love somehow put me in this position."

In resisting these positions, women see themselves as resisting an act that threatens to strip them of their dignity, their decency and their self worth.

[Hugo G. Beigel, "The Meaning of Coital Positions," in Manfred De Martino ed., Sexual Behavior and Personality Characteristics, Grove, 1966]

THE OTHER HALF OF SEXUAL EXPRESSION

Our cultural stereotype, that men engage in sex for pleasure and women for love turns to be half right. These motives hold true when members of both genders are younger. But as they age, a curious phenomenon takes place: men and women's reasons for having sex reverse. Women become increasingly motivated by the desire for physical pleasure, while men are motivated by thoughts of romance.

A combined Florida State University and University of Kansas study found that 61% of the younger women interviewed, gave love as their primary reason for engaging in sex, while only 22% would admit having sex for pleasure. However, pleasure became the main motivation for 43% of women over 35, with only 38% claiming they had romance on their minds.

The survey also revealed a shift in the opposite direction among men. Almost 45% of the younger men cited physical release as their motive for having sex, with only 31% claiming love. But by the time they had passed 36, the number of men who said romance was on their minds climbed to 50%, while the number who cited physical pleasure had fallen to 36%.

Psychologists say that both physical pleasure and love are two halves of the same sexual coin. If that's true, then even though men and women both start out on one side of that coin, they each seem drawn to "the other half of sexual expression."

[Captain David Hurlbert, Journal of Sex and Marital Therapists, Fall 1991]

THE FACTS ABOUT THE FACTS OF LIFE

Traditionally parents are supposed to tell their children about the facts of life. However, American women and men, of all educational levels, just don't know the facts about reproduction. A new study found:

* Only 40 percent of women and 33 percent of men know that the most likely time for conception is about 2 weeks before the menstrual period

* Only 39 percent of women and 28 percent of men knew that the typical length of time during a month that woman can get pregnant is 2 days

* More than 40 percent of women and nearly 50 percent of men don't know what ovulation is

Unsurprisingly, lack of this information has not had a negative effect on population growth

[A. Bozman and J. Beck, Archives of Sexual Behavior, Feb. 1991]

what will drive you CRAZY

If it really were true that self-gratification led to madness, 85% of the world's population would be stark raving bonkers by now. Surveys show that 94% of men and 80% of women play with themselves, and that men do it about twice as often as women. Even infants do it, often several times a day. So do most animals – elephants, primates, canines, felines, even dolphins. Psychobiologists theorize that our urge for self-gratification, like so many near universal behaviors, may be hardwired into the brain. This would explain why animals prevented from masturbating become more moody and show signs of stress. Apparently, parents should be admonishing their children to "be careful not masturbating can drive you crazy."

[Hooper and Teresi, The Three Pound Universe]

FRILLS

THOSE NOT SO SEXY COLLEGE STUDENTS

The old saw that college students think of nothing but sex is not true. In fact, a series of university studies revealed only about one percent of the average college and university student's daily thoughts concern sex. Of course, that still means that the typical college student thinks of sex about 40 times a day.

[Eric Klinger, Ph.D., Daydreaming]

YOU'RE NOT MORE BEAUTIFUL WHEN YOU ARE ANGRY, TESS

Anger has long been thought to heighten desire. The image of two lovers quarreling violently only to change moods in an instant and throw themselves passionately into each other's arms is familiar to everyone. Romantic heroes are always telling the high-spirited heroine, "You're beautiful when you're angry, Tess."

But a University of Houston study of the effect of anger on arousal and sexual desire in male students, demonstrated that anger reduced both. The angrier they became, the less young men responded sexually to the presence of provocative, attractive young women or to visual erotica. Rather than heightening the attractiveness of these young women, anger reduced it. Whatever the look of love is, it's not a furious stare.

[A. Bozman and J. Beck, Archives of Sexual Behavior, Feb. 1991]

CHEAPER THAN BUYING A BOOK

People often speak of being "carried away by sex." Apparently they are right. One of the vital functions of sex is to carry us away from the here and now, according psychologist Mara Adelman of Northwestern University.

We all inherited a strong need for excitement and diversity – from our nomadic ancestors. Both are vital to our health, mental and physical. Without their stimulation, we become dull, sluggish, far from our best.

Like great music and a great story, passion and Eros help us transcend the mundane world around us, and fulfill our need for excitement and novelty.

[Mara Adelmanm, "Sustaining Passion," Archives of Sex Behavior, Oct. 1992]

PROMISCUITY? THAT'S ABOUT THE SIZE OF IT!

Are men and women natural cheats or do we really want true love? The answer, writes sexologist, Jules 0lder, in The Los Angeles Times, may lie in new understandings about how the difference in size between males and females of the same species (dimorphism) influence sexual behavior. When males and females are about the same size and shape, as with the gibbon, they tend to be strictly monogamous. But, when there are significant differences, as with the elephant seals who keep harems with as many as 48 mates, species tend to be highly polygamous.

Men and women are moderately dimorphic (men are 8% taller and 20% heavier than women). Older calls this moderate dimorphism "nature's joke on us." As a result, he believes, we are equally monogamous and equally polygamous – and we find ourselves torn by the conflict between the two opposing urges. No matter how much we love our partner, we all have a yen for others.

[Jules 0lder, "Mother Nature's Dirty Tricks", The Los Angeles Times, March 12 1988]

COLD-HEARTED LOVERS

There may be some truth to those songs about "cold-hearted" lovers. Some people are physiologically unable to return romantic love. Only the problem isn't with their heart, it's with their pituitary gland. Our feeling of strong attachment toward another (scientists call it pair-bonding) is rooted in the pituitary. When damage or alteration occurs, the hormones and nerve pathways controlling these feelings is are disrupted. Those who have suffered malformation, disease or injury to the pituitary are unable to feel the intense yearning to be with another that is the hallmark of love and pair bonding. "These people can show affection," notes Johns Hopkins University researcher, John Money, Ph.D., "but most of them will never experience pair-bonding, the phenomenon most of us call falling in love."

[McCutcheon, Marc, The Compass in Your Nose]

WHAT YOU HATE ABOUT 'EM IS WHAT YOU LOVE ABOUT THEM

Something about heterosexual men seems to leave their sex partners feeling ambivalent. Those who have relationships with straight men – straight women, bisexual women, and transsexuals – told the authors of The Erotic Impulse: Honoring the Sensual Self that they found many traditionally masculine qualities both distasteful and arousing. They cited the ambivalence this created as an important factor in heightening the sexual excitement they experienced during encounters with traditional males.

[Morin, Jack, "The Four Corners of Eroticism," The Erotic Impulse, Steinberg, David, ed., Tarcher, 1992]

OUR SEXUAL SECRETS

Most of us never reveal our secret sexual turn-ons – not even to our lovers and spouses. The reason, claims sexologists Jack Morin, is that most of the activities that give us the greatest thrill are taboo. The fact that they are taboo, Moran says, is part of what makes them turn us on so much. Most secret yens also contain highly potent sexual images that have strong appeal to one aspect of our personality or another. Whatever the explanation, Moran writes, "The erotic equation predicts that the hottest sexual experiences usually won't be the sanitized affairs most of us were taught to idealize."

What are our secret turn-ons? When women at one workshop were asked to name a long-harbored sex fantasy they had never shared with anyone before, they gave the following candid responses:

"I want to have sex without love"; "I want to buy a strap-on dildo"; "I want to have sex with a teenager"; "Performing oral sex."; "I want to rape a woman"; "I want to have sex with more than one lover"; "I would like to have sex with my brother/sister/father/mother/child/best-friend"; "Talking dirty in private."

Quizzed about their own unvoiced fantasies, one group of men replied:

"I would like to make love to an amputee"; "I want to have sex with an adolescent"; "I'd like to expose myself to a strange woman"; "Have the power to make a woman a cringing, obedient slave"; "Have a woman dress in garter-belts, nylons, high-heels and be feminine."; "Have my wife give me an enema"; "Be spanked and forced to dress like a woman"; "I would like to rape a woman"; "I'd like to be in bed with two women"; "I'd like to make love to my girlfriend while someone watched us."

[Paula Webster, "Eroticism and Taboo," The Erotic Impulse]

THE SEXUAL peak

Everyone talks about the "ultimate orgasm." Psychologist Jack Morin has spent years charting them. Morin calls them "peak sexual experiences." Suddenly, during sex, Morin writes, "all the crucial elements coalesce – the partner, the setting, an unexpected twist of luck or fate" and love becomes so deeper, more profound, more physically and emotionally intense, "that something close to the core of our being has been touched."

The interviews Morin's conducted convinced him that five elements interact, in combination or separately, to trigger a peak sexual experience:

* Intense attraction

* Longing and anticipation

* Violating prohibitions

* Searching for power

* Overcoming the fear of loving

Sexual arousal, Morin says, whether love or lust, reaches its maximum intensity when there is enormous attraction pulling us toward our partner, and one or more obstacles standing in our way. Peak sexual experiences are triggered when those obstacles, and our ambivalence, give way to passion.

[Morin, Jack, "The Four Corners of Eroticism," The Erotic Impulse, Steinberg, David, ed., Tarcher, 1992]

FOOT FETISH

Some of us find feet erotic. We like to touch and kiss lover's feet and have our own touched and kissed in return. Psychologists long thought this was fetishistic, and attributed it to childhood imprinting. Neuroanatomists have a different view: they say it's due to brain structure and that the desire to give and receive erotic pleasure through the feet is a natural, normal impulse unless carried to extreme.

The areas in the somatosensory cortex receiving and sending signals from our feet and our genitals, says Dr. Ramachandran, are very close together. Sensations sent from the feet can easily be received by the brain cells designed to signal erotic pleasure from a somewhat higher locale. This would explain why some people become turned on when their feet are stroked; and others become ticklish if touched around the thighs.

[Blakesless, Sandra, "Missing Limbs, Still Atingle, Are Clues to Changes in the Brain," New York Times, November 10, 1992]

AND IT'S LEGAL TOO

Lots of us go on eating binges after an unhappy love affair. Chocolate is usually the poison of choice. Men typically gobble store-bought chocolate bars while pouring out their problems to friends; women seem to prefer theirs imported and exotically wrapped.

Although they probably don't know it, rejected lovers with a penchant for chocolate are taking the right drug for what ails them. Chocolate is loaded with phenylethylamine, a chemical that creates a happy, slightly dreamy feeling by stepping up our body's heart rate and energy levels, writes science journalist Marc McCutcheon. Ironically, phenyle-thylamine is the same chemical our brains secrete to create the dreamy sensation broken hearted lovers experience when they first fall in love.

[McCutcheon, Marc, The Compass in Your Nose]

CHAPTER 7

OUR MATING AND MARRIAGE

MATING

ATTRACTION

WHO ATTRACTS US?

Long before we meet our destined mates, we have an exact idea in mind of the person we want to share our lives with, according to psychologists R. H. Stretch and C. R. Figley. So what do we look for in potential partners? Intelligence, shared values, mutual interests, character, personality? All of the above?

In one experiment, Stretch and Figley gave male and female college students detailed descriptions of the personalities and intelligence of a number of potential dating partners. The students were asked to select the candidates they most wanted to go out with. These candidates had been carefully screened before hand so that their intelligence, values and interests would match those of many of the students. The students were also supplied with photographs of their potential dates.

When the results had been tabulated, the candidates the students were most eager to date weren't chosen for intelligence, common values or personality. It was how "good-looking," "beautiful" or "handsome" they were that counted. The more highly students rated the attractiveness of a potential date, the more they wanted to go out with that person.

[R. H. Stretch and C. R. Figley, "Predictors of Interpersonal Attraction in a Dating Experiment," Psychology, Vol. 17, 1980]

YOU'RE TOO GOOD (LOOKING) FOR Me, dear

We may all want to date the most attractive partner we can find, but given the choice, research shows we often lack the courage to approach those we consider exceptionally good looking. Experiments conducted in four singles bars and reported by the Journal of Social Psychology, found that the men actually made fewer passes at women they considered beautiful than they did at women they rated as less attractive. Apparently, the more attractive we perceive someone to be, especially in comparison to ourselves, the more likely we are to feel they will perceive us as unattractive. This fits in with a number of complaints therapists have recorded from extremely attractive people, that they are rarely asked out on dates.

[S. D. Glenwich, et al., "Physical Attractiveness and Social Contact in the Singles Bar," Journal of Social Psychology, Vol. 105, 1978]

WHAT THEY SEE IN EACH OTHER

What turns men and women on about each other? Studies conducted by psychologist H. S. Budge, Ph.D. yielded two surprising results: first, that men and women judge the physical appearance of members of the opposite sex on the basis of a very small number of features; second, it overturned a number of long-standing cultural myths about what men and women find attractive in each other.

The surveys listed a tempting menu of forty-four physical attributes – from toes to eyelashes. But only a few turned out to be important. For men the most attractive things about a woman were: 1) weight; 2) face/features; 3) height; 4) hands; 5) figure; 6) teeth; what women found most attractive in men was: 1) face; 2) hair; 3) silhouette; 4) shoulders/arms; 5) height/voice.

Women are said to be less concerned with a potential partner's looks and more concerned with his character and values. But women chose face and biceps as what turned them on most about men. Men are reputed to inordinately influenced by a woman's beauty. Yet, the men only rated a woman's face second and her breasts and figure fifth. Both men and women reported that a potential partner's face was extremely important to them, with over fifty percent of both groups voting it the most important.

[H. S. Budge, Ph.D., in Dimensions of Physical Attractiveness]

THE PERFECT FACE

"The perfect face." We all use the term. But what is the perfect face? Scientists think they have the answer.

In a number of tests, cited in the Journal of Social Psychology, men and women were asked what they thought would were the ideal features in a member of the opposite sex – hair color and texture; face shape; nose profile and width; mouth and lips; and skin tone. For most women the ideal male face turned out to be "square, have a Roman nose, brown hair, and tan skin." For most men, the ideal female face was "heart or pear shaped, with a narrow or pug nose, full lips, and fair skin."

[E. Wagatsuma and C. L. Klienke, "Ratings of Facial Beauty" Journal of Social Psychology, Vol. 29, 1979]

BOOB theory goes bust

Men are supposed to be crazy about women with big breasts. An impression reinforced in part by their group behavior around well-endowed females. But when it comes to actually choosing partners, most men prefer a moderate sized bustline. In dozens of tests, conducted with a wide variety of men, breasts that were unusually small or large were perceived as a turn-off. Strange as it seems, men – who are extreme about so many other things – are moderate about breasts.

[T. Horvath, Ph.D., "Physical Attractiveness: the Influence of Selected Torso Perimeters," Archives of Sexual Behavior, Vol. 10, 1981]

it's TRUE WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT GIRLS (AND BOYS) WHO WEAR GLASSES

Men don't make as many passes at girls who wear glasses; but there's no sexism in it. The feeling is mutual: women don't make as many passes at boys who wear glasses. Over the course of a decade, Psychologist Robert Terry conducted a definitive series of studies proving that glasses do have a detrimental effect on other's perceptions, and ratings, of the wearer's physical attractiveness.

People who wear glasses are also perceived as having less interesting personalities; although paradoxically they are perceived as being more intelligent. Ironically, the same people were described as "sexy" and "fascinating" when photographs of them sans glasses were shown to a different group of test subjects. Apparently, men do make passes at girls who wear contacts (and vice versa).

But then love has always been a contact sport.

[R. L. Terry and D. L. Kroger, "Effects of Eye Correctives on Ratings of Attractiveness," Perceptual and Motor Skills, Vol. 42, 1976]

I JUST LOVE YOUR SENSE OF HUMOR (OR LACK THEREOF)

We all know a sense of humor is vital to attracting a mate. Now science has proved we're right, but not in the way we think. It's not whether someone has a sense of humor that draws us to another – it's whether they share the same sense of humor we do.

Psychologists Bernard Murstein and Robert Burst surveyed thirty college age couples to determine the relationship between sense of humor and what attracted them to each other. All the participants were asked to rate the humor of twenty-five cartoons, comic strips and jokes. Then they were given a related questionnaire focusing on why they had selected their partner.

With these couples, it wasn't the presence or absence of a sense of humor that worked the magic. It was having similar senses of humor – or lack of same – that brought and helped keep them together. Murstein and Burst believe our sense of humor plays a more critical role in our lives than we generally realize. Our sense of humor (or even its lack), they claim, "is indicative of many things: values, interests, preoccupations, intelligence, imagination, and needs."

[Bernard Murstein and Robert Burst, The Journal of Personality Assessment, Vol. 49, No. 6]

COURTSHIP

THE facts about FLIRTATION

Flirting is making a comeback – and its good for you. Relationship therapist, Sonya Rhodes claims it's healthy for a woman and man to assess their desirability by flirting. Sometimes flirtation is serious and meant to lead to sex. But most often flirting is nothing more than a game, Rhodes writes, a pleasant time-passer that leaves participants feeling stimulated, alive and desirable. The bantering humor of flirtation also helps lighten the sexual tension that arises when a man and woman find each other sexy.

The best flirts, according to Glamour contributing editor, Louise Lague, are personal without being anatomical. Acknowledging that you have seen and appreciate the other person's secret self can be an enormous turn-on for them. People who are shy and quiet worry they're perceived as dull; they respond strongly when someone they find attractive notices their wit. Individuals who are a barrel of laughs, worry that others think they are air-heads; they light up immediately when a member of the opposite sex notices their serious side.

But, flirtation doesn't necessarily require words. People flirt through smiles, direct eye contact, listening intently, a touch while talking or the brush of the fingertips on a hand.

Handled correctly, Rhodes writes, there is an unspoken understanding, acknowledged through eye contact, that the flirtation is sexual without being seductive. Flirting merely says "I've noticed you, you're a sexy person, and under different circumstances I'd swoop you right off to bed."

[Sonya Rhodes, D. S. W. "Go Ahead – Flirt a Little!" McCalls, January, 1992, Lague, Louise, "Flirting", Glamour, March 1990]

the dark side of flirting

Flirtation is harmless when you stay within bounds. But because sexual attraction underlies flirtation, men and women frequently find themselves in a misunderstanding afterward. Sonya Rhodes, D. S. W., has discovered seven warning signs that your flirtations are taking you into dangerous territory:

* Do you keep thinking about someone you've flirted with?

* Do you play out affairs with someone you are flirting with in your head?

* Do you flirt on a regular basis to feed your self-esteem or only with special people

* Do you ever have an embarrassed "morning after" feeling after a flirtation

* Do you realize the effect flirtation has on someone who is sexually attracted by you?

* Do you send signals that could be presenting yourself as a potential accomplice in an affair?

* Do your flirtations prompt a sexual response?

[Sonya Rhodes, D. S. W. "Go Ahead – Flirt a Little!" McCalls, January 1992]

you believe in a long what?

Long courtships went out with grandmother's high-button shoes. But new research suggests the old gal may have known her stuff, after all. A long premarital acquaintance was found to be a common factor in relationships that were still working after a quarter of a century, in one Kansas State University study.

The optimum length of these "courtships" seemed to be two years – or longer. The Kansas researchers surveyed four groups of women: those who had dated or lived with their husbands – less than 5 months, 6 months to 1 year, 1 to 2 years, and over 2 years – before marriage. Women in the last group reported the most satisfactory married lives.

The study concluded that longer couples knew each other before marriage, the more time they had to determine whether they were truly compatible. Longer courtships also allowed pairings that were going to peak early and then fade, to burn themselves out – sparing both members the emotional carnage of an unhappy marriage.

Evidently there is more to the old saying "Marry in haste and repent at leisure" than most people realize.

[Psychology Today, 1986]

THE HIGH COST OF DATING

Knights once paid a high price in blood and danger to win fair damsel. Modern knights just pay a high price.

Even for adolescents, love doesn't come cheap anymore. In New York, a typical high school date costs about $60, according to a Teen magazine survey. While even a modest date for adults in Los Angeles can run to $175 or more, if dinner, concert tickets, parking, nightcap and tips are totaled.

Why are we willing to spend such an extraordinary proportion of our gross national product on a courtship ritual many nations do not have? Couples counselor Tina Tessina, Ph.D., believes dating is so important to us because "the outcome involves so many vital intrapersonal issues: sex, acceptance, rejection, marriage, etc." Dating's importance to us, she says, is proved by the anxiety it arouses, the money both women and men spend on it and the many sub-institutions it has created: movies, concerts, dinner, valentines and the cosmetic industry.

[Editors of Teen magazine, "Dating Dilemmas, Teen, October 1990]

BY-BY COURTSHIP

Dating and courtship may be on the way out. Today's teens don't carry books or share milkshakes. The old girlfriend-boyfriend relationship is breaking down, writes Martha Toche, national editor of American Demographics.

Teens no longer ask for a date to a movie or the hop. Instead, they just show up, usually in a group. The new courtship ritual for teens is traveling in packs anywhere they can hangout and buy an orange slush – blurring the line between dating and friendly activities. At school, girls and boys are simply together a lot – studying, working, playing tennis. Expects these trends to transform adult dating habits, too, Toche warns, as today's teens mature and carry the "new dating" through college and then to life as adults. "It's going to take time," she claims, but watch for "these trends to percolate through society."

[Ned Zeman, "The New Rules of Courtship," Newsweek Special Issue, Summer/Fall 1990]

WHO'S CHASING WHO?

Evolutionarily speaking, the old folk saying, "A man chases a woman until she catches him," turns out to be true. It's women who do the choosing when it comes to mating and marriage. According to Sociobiologist Robert Trivers, Ph.D., women, not men, play the central role in natural selection and determining the future of the human species.

When the burdens of reproduction fall unequally on males and females, Trivers says, which ever bears the greatest burden – usually the female – ends up deciding the sexual success of the other. When a female carries the overwhelming reproductive burden – as they do among humans, with prolonged pregnancy and childhoods – she screens males carefully, often selecting those her genes tell her will make the best mate. As a result, much male behavior – more than men might willingly admit – is the result of males trying to appear what females want them to be.

What qualities do women look for in potential husbands? Trivers writes that the evolutionary evidence suggests they are guided by four criterion:

· The ability to provide significant resources or services, such as food or protection.

· Genetic superiority – healthier, smarter, more talented, stronger, more successful

· Aesthetic traits – looks, physique, artistic ability

· The rejection of undesirable males

Triver's conclusions have been backed up by the largest cross-cultural study of human mate preference ever conducted. More than ten thousand women from thirty-three countries were surveyed, sampling a wide variety of cultures and social situations. Over 97% of the time, women had chosen men for characteristics like increased earning capacity, ambition and industriousness.

Does this mean that all women are gold-diggers? The answer may be that if they are, the gold women are digging, is meant, not for themselves, but for their children. In modern nations, money gives women access to medical care that virtually ensure a successful pregnancy and the continued health of her off-spring.

[Robert L. Trivers, Ph.D., Social Evolution, Benjamin/Cummings, 1985]

marriage fever

People in an unseemly hurry to wed may have contracted what psychologists call "marriage fever." Most of us fall in love and want to get married at some time in our life. But marriage fever is an all-consuming obsession with getting married for marriage's sake – entirely separate from the object of our desire.

Any number of sparks can trigger marriage fever: a biological clock that is about to run out, loneliness, a long series of temporary relationships, even a sudden nostalgia for the family scenes and feelings of childhood. But, according to Mademoiselle editor, Jennifer Farbar, when a woman begins clipping pictures of wedding gowns and a man begins planning clever ways to propose – and neither is seeing anyone at the time – then marriage fever has probably struck. Marriage fever is an equal opportunity employer, Farber writes; it afflicts men and women alike. Today it's just as likely to be the man who is ready to exchange vows but finds himself confronted with a reluctant partner.

Human nature being what it is, as soon as one party starts wanting marriage, the other often becomes ambivalent. When the siren call of love can only be heard by one, feelings are bound to be hurt. Men usually react with anger, Farbar writes, while women tend to feel rejected. In the grip of a serious case of marriage fever, rather than accept a turndown as final, both are likely to redouble their efforts to convince a reluctant person to say, "I do."

Farbar offers one pointed piece of advice to those afflicted with marriage fever: "The warning your mother gave you about the perils of rushing into bed with someone applies here, too."

[Jennifer Farbar, "Marriage Lust: When Only One of You Has It," Mademoiselle, March 1992]

THE LOOK OF LOVE

How can you tell if what you feel is really love and not just a case of marriage fever? Look in the mirror. That's the essence of advice given by David Baron, Deputy Clinical Director of the National Institute of Mental Health.

When romance strikes a host of chemicals and hormones are released that enhance our physical condition and make us more attractive. "When people are in love," acknowledges Baron, "they blush, their voice cracks and their pulse races."

Another reason for this miraculous physical transformation is that when people feel better about themselves, they look better. "When we fall head-over-heels, we become cheerful, optimistic confident and energetic," says psychologist Dorothy Tennov."

Our blood pounds, our eyes sparkle, our skin glows – no wonder they call it "the look of love."

[The Editors, "Love Makes You Beautiful," First, February 10, 1992]

NO MORE HEARTACHES

Love won't be as painful in the future, claims Arthur B. Shostak, professor of sociology at Drexel University. As the median age of the population increases, Shostak expects to see "more mature courtship behavior." People will take their time getting married and comparison shop longer beforehand. They'll also be less likely "to feel it's the end of the world when a relationship ends." If Shostak's predictions prove accurate, country and western music stocks are in for a slump.

[Editors of Glamour, "The Great American Date," Glamour, February 1990]

MARRIAGE

BASICS

THE FIRST YEAR IS THE HARDEST

It's true, the first year of marriage is the hardest. The initial period of adjustment to each other's differences often wrecks new marriages, according to psychologists Samuel L. Pauker. But only for those who enter it with an unrealistic view of what marital life will be like.

Pauker surveyed husbands and wives had been married at least ten years. Almost half reported serious difficulty during the first year of their life together. Significantly, the same group also said they found marriage harder than they anticipated. Couples with the most unrealistic expectations of married life, Pauker concluded, were least successful in coping with its initial challenges.

Most women and men contemplating marriage fail to realize that relationships don't happen overnight but take time, agrees Howard Markman, head of the Center of Marital and Family Studies at the University of Denver. It helps if they are able to abandon the idea of instant gratification. Couples need to understand that they will have to go through life making changes if they want a successful marriage.

[Samuel L. Pauker and Miriam I, The First Year of Marriage: What to Expect, What to Accept, and What You Can Change]

you seem so distanT, dear

Wives often complain that their husbands seem "distant." These women are describing emotional distance – but it turns out that men also put physical distance between themselves and spouses when they are dissatisfied with the way a relationship is going.

Marital partners were asked to walk toward one another and stop when they reached what they felt was a "comfortable distance for conversation" in an experiment by Psychologist D. Russell Crane of Brigham Young University. The greater the husband's dissatisfaction with their marriage, Crane found, the farther they stood from their wives. Men whose marriages Crane rated "distressed" maintained a 25% greater distance between them and their wives than husbands in successful relationships.

[D. Russell Crane, Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, Vol. 307, 1989]

TOO SENSITIVE TO FIGHT

Everyone knows that marital conflicts send men fleeing. The words "we need to talk" or the first sign that an argument is brewing and husbands beat a hasty psychological retreat – followed by a strategic physical withdrawal, if circumstance permit. Now researches believe they have discovered why: Males are more sensitive than their wives and just can't handle the intense emotions fighting with a spouse stirs up as well.

Psychologist John Gottman, Ph.D., hooked husbands and wives undergoing marital counseling to equipment that recorded a wide range of physiological responses – skin conductivity, brain waves, heartbeat. The recordings Gottman made clearly show the men became more physiologically aroused during arguments than their wives.

The husband's hearts beat faster, their brain waves became disturbed, they perspired more and they became more anxious. These sensations are so unpleasant, Gottman concluded, that men simply panic, becoming desperate to avoid an argument or potential argument. If husbands are unable to escape physically, Gottman wrote, they "stonewall" – faces frozen, heads rigid, displaying no reaction to anything their wives say.

[Hara Estroff Marano, "The Reinvention of Marriage," Psychology Today, January/February, 1992]

WHEN WOMEN DON'T TALK

What wives don't complain about is often a clearer indication of trouble spots in their marriage than what they complain about. If a woman never mentions sex, or finances, or closeness, or children – even when other wives are discussing them, writes couples counselor Sonya Rhodes, you can be sure these are sources of intense marital anguish.

Some wives conceal serious problems, even from close friends, because they are afraid of being disloyal, Rhodes says. Others want to present their marriage in the best possible light. But most frequently, women are reluctant to discuss real relationship hot spots because of the underlying fear that their marriage won't measure up to those of their friends.

Next time a husband finds himself in the doghouse and doesn't know why, he might do worse than to ask his wife's friends – what she doesn't complain about.

[Sonya Rhodes, D. S. W., "The Hidden Dangers in Your Marriage," McCalls, September 1992]

THE SECRET OF MARITAL LONGEVITY

What's the secret of marital longevity? What did wives and husbands who remained together for life do right that the rest of us do wrong? Psychologists Judy Todd and Ariella Friedman, of the Dominguez Hills, California State University Counseling Center, decided to find out. They were certain men and women who stayed wed for the long haul would have found solutions to many of the problems that cause other couples to divorce. But, when Todd and Friedman surveyed those celebrating golden wedding anniversaries, the results were disheartening.

Most of the wives and husbands told the psychologist they were very unhappy and had been for years. All that held them together was the belief that divorce was wrong, no matter how bad a marriage might become. "We would get so sad at the end of the interview," Todd lamented to one reporter, "that we wouldn't do another one for two days." Reluctantly Todd and Friedman concluded that many couples who remain with each other for life do so, not because of any happiness or personal fulfillment they within the marriage, but because they have rejected the idea of divorce.

[Glenn Wilson, Ph.D., Love and Instinct]

THE SECRET OF MARITAL LONGEVITY – PART II

Happily, Todd and Friedman's survey doesn't tell the whole story. A study of 351 couples who had been married for fifteen years or longer drew a much sunnier picture of togetherness. More than ninety percent of the wives and husbands interviewed by psychologists Jennets and Robert Laer expressed satisfaction with their relationships. An astonishing 300 of 351 couples pronounced themselves happily married. Only 19 couples said they were unhappily married, while the remaining 32 were unable to agree on how happy they were.

When the Laer's asked men and women with successful relationships, why their marriages had worked out so well, the replies were illuminating. The seven most frequently cited factors were:

* "My spouse is my best friend."

* "I like my spouse as a person."

* "We agree on aims and goals."

* "My spouse has grown more interesting."

* "We laugh together."

* "We agree on a philosophy of life."

* "We agree on how and how often to show affection."

Couples who share these qualities, the Laers feel, have a solid foundation on which they can build an enduring relationship.

[Jennets and Robert Laer, "Marriages Made to Last," Psychology Today, June, 1985]

BLAME IT ON THE MAN

How husbands handle conflict – especially whether they withdraw during arguments – determines the success or failure of most marriages. "Many people believe that the causes of marital problems are the differences between people, and problem areas such as money, sex, children," says psychology professor Howard Markman. "However, our findings indicate it is not the differences that are important, but how these differences and problems are handled, particularly early in marriage.

By noting the way men handled disagreements in the initial stages of marriage, researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle found they could accurately predict which couples would remain together and which would divorce. They called the degree to which the husbands withdrew "the most important predictor of divorce." They believe the issue goes to the heart of contemporary marriages. Most women find it difficult to live with a man who walks out in the middle of a fight.

[Marano, Hara Estroff, "The Reinvention of Marriage," Psychology Today, Jan/Feb 1992]

OTHER FORMS OF MARRIAGE

Marriage has always conveyed the image of a woman and a man living together in a monogamous relationship. But in U.S. alone, the number of families headed by wedded heterosexual couples has fallen to 77% (50,000,000) and continues to decline. What about the remaining 23% (20,000,000 families)?

Family Synergy, a group, say they are in touch with people, living in all the following relationships, who consider themselves "families":

* Monogamous heterosexual relationships

pre-marital

post-marital

non-marital

celibate

* Single parent families

* Monogamous, committed gay and lesbian marriages

* Open marriages

* Bisexual marriages

* Triadic marriages

* Role reversal marriages

* Dual-household marriages

* Group marriages

* Polygamous marriages

* Polyandrous marriages

[Tina Tessina, Ph.D., Lovestyles, Newcastle, 1987]

IT HAPPENS TO EVERYONE

iNTIMACY can BE BAD FOR YOUr marriage

We all want intimacy. That's one reason we marry. Thousands of books, tens of thousands of articles and countless television programs have promised to help us develop intimacy. Now there's evidence that full-time intimacy actually hurts relationships.

Emotional space and time alone are critical to a healthy self and a healthy relationship, argues sex therapist Linda DeVillers. Intimacy is critical to self-growth and understanding, DeVillers says. But so the freedom to develop unique aspects of ourselves and explore areas of the world outside that call to us personally. Lucky couples, balance intimacy and freedom, granting each other the space and privacy that allow them to be close and merge.

[Linda DeVillers, Ph.D., Private Correspondence, January 29, 1993]

THE SEAT OF THE matter

Where wives and husbands sit when they go driving with other couples is a clear indicator of their economic status. Sociologists charted the seating habits of North American marrieds and made some astonishing discoveries, as reported in First. Working-class marrieds prefer to keep their spouses by their sides. When middle-class couples go out, the husbands sit up front, with the wives in the back. Among the well to do the woman guest is likely to sit in the front seat with the host husband and the male guest in back with the wife. But, when the wealthy tool out in chauffeured limos, they reverse the working-class line-up completely: the wives up front, while the husbands recline in back and talk business.

[The Editors, "Save a Seat for Me," First, February 10, 1992]

marital look-alikes

People who chose their mates on the basis of physical appearance may be on the right track after all – one day you will look like the person you marry. According to psychologist Robert B. Zajonc, Ph.D., the old saw about marrieds growing to look more alike over the years is true. In a survey involving photographs of husbands and wives, those married 25 years or longer were perceived as more similar in appearance than younger couples.

Zajonc attributed this resemblance to evidence that when we are placed in close proximity to others for long periods of time, we begin to unconsciously mimic their mannerisms. After years together, this can affect the way wives and husbands use facial muscles, their skin texture, the angle of the head and their expressions. Zajonc also found that the more a couple resembled each other, the greater their happiness and satisfaction with their relationship. Perhaps because those who liked their mates and were satisfied with them tended to mimic them more; while those who were dissatisfied with their mates tended to withdraw and avoid mimicking their behaviors.

[Robert B. Zajonc, Ph.D., Motivation and Emotion, Vol. 11, No. 4]

MARITAL SEX – IT'S NO BIG DEAL

Sex may play a less important role in a satisfying marriage than many people think. A United States International University team asked husbands and wives to rank the factors they thought contributed most to wedded bliss. One of the phrases couples could have checked was "A satisfactory sex life." Surpassingly, sex didn't even make most participants top ten list.

[Jennets and Robert Laer, "Marriages Made to Last," Psychology Today, June 1985]

a unique approach to life-extension

Women who marry younger men live longer. A new study reveals that women, whose husbands are at least five years younger, live significantly longer than normal. Ironically, women whose husbands were at least five years older, died significantly younger than normal. If these figures are supported by subsequent research, insurance companies may soon be funding ad campaigns directed at selling women on the advantages of wedding younger men.

[Tina Tessina, Ph.D., Lovestyles, Newcastle, 1987]

MISSING AN OPPORTUNITY

More than 40% of all husband and 20% of all wives expressed interested in mate swapping, according to a survey of 4,000 couples conducted by Psychology Today. However, the institution of marriage is not the hotbed of immorality these figures make it seem. For all their brave talk, less than 4% had actually tried swapping mates, and only 1.5% "swapped" with any frequency. Apparently, our fantasy of switching partners with others is honored more in the breech than the observance.

[Arno Karlen, Threesomes: Studies in sex, power, and intimacy, Beech Tree Books, 1988]

WHAT PARENTS REGRET MOST ABOUT SEX

Warning: children have been proven to be hazardous to your sex life. Carolyn and Phillip Cowan found that most childless couples still have as much fun in the bedroom as they did during the first years of marriage. But those who became parents reported a significant drop in sexual satisfaction.

The Cowans attribute the decrease in marital sex to the demands of parenting. Their findings may cast light on a recent "Dear Abby" poll in which 70% of parents said that if they could live their lives over again, they would not choose to have children.

[David Grossvogel, Dear Ann Landers, Carolyn Cowan and Phillip Cowan, "Making the Most of Marriage," Psychology Today, December 1987]

NOT YOUR MOTHER'S HOUSE

Sex may suffer when children come into a marriage – but the house goes first. With so much of their day taken up by children and job, 42% of working mothers drop other activities to find time for their husbands, according to a Family Circle survey. More than 80% lower their standards of housekeeping; while friendships go on the back burner, with 51%. Despite all this corner-cutting, the demands of parenting were so time consuming that 75% of the women surveyed admitted they had to sacrifice much of the time they formerly spent with their husbands, as well.

[Psychology Today, June 1989]

SIGNS OF A SUCCESSFUL MARRIAGE

With so few examples of successful marriages around, people have little to help them gauge how well their own is working. Are the problems they have just the routine difficulties everyone encounters during married life? Is their relationship sound enough to last? Or, are there already indications that it cannot be, or is not, worth salvaging?

Family therapist Tina Tessina, Ph.D. says that it is easy to tell if your relationship is working well or not. In a relationship with healthy dynamics, both partners can:

* Discuss problems and disagreements without fighting.

* Allow each other to have different opinions and styles

* Recognize and acknowledge serious differences without laying blame or making accusations.

* Speak for themselves and make their wants known

* Hear and understand each other, even during disagreements.

* Relax their normal roles when necessary

* Find time to communicate on a regular basis

* Work together as equals rather than engaging in power struggles

* Embrace each other's change and growth

[Tina Tessina, Ph.D., Lovestyles]

CHAPTER 8

OUR THERAPIES AND THERAPISTS

THERAPY AND THERAPIES

SCHOOLS

SCIENCE OR SILLINESS?

What's on your mind? The world situation? Urban crime? The insult you received in 6th grade? An unfulfilling relationship? That raise you've been dreaming about? Sex? Revenge? A new hairstyle? What ever it is – what you think and feel and how and why you think or feel it – is the province of psychology.

Psychology is one of our newer sciences – little more than a hundred years old. Some men and women even claim it isn't a science. Otherwise, they say, therapy's success rate wouldn't be so hit and miss – currently only one out of two clients shows improvement. Critics also point to the headline generating crimes committed by those who have been under the care of therapists; the number of men and women who seem to stay stuck in therapy for years without improvement; and the ever growing number of mentally ill on the streets.

What most people don't realize, says psychologist Tina Tessina, Ph.D. is that psychology is a very young science, barely out of its infancy. Medicine, biology, physics, astronomy and most other sciences have roots reaching back thousands of years. By comparison, psychology is little more than a hundred years old (professionals date psychology's origin only back to 1879). Until then, religion held a jealously guarded monopoly (usually enforced with the rack and the pyre) on defining what went on in the human psyche – and why.

Psychology, or its popularizers, did over-claim its success rate at first, concedes Jerrold Maxmen, Ph.D. And they often leapt to incorrect conclusions in early attempts to unriddle how the mind works. But during the last two decades, this science of the mind has come a long way – uncovering many of the physiological and psychological processes that underlie our behavior, thought and feelings. Best yet, Maxmen claims, psychology has begun to discover universal rules everyone can use for creating a more satisfying, fulfilling life.

[Tina Tessina, Ph.D., "Private Correspondence" & Jerrold S. Maxmen, M.D., The New Psychiatry]

the power behind the throne

Most of us think of psychology and therapy as synonymous. But therapists – "clinical psychologists" to their fellow professionals – represent only the tip of the psychological and psychiatric iceberg. In order for therapists to treat us successfully, someone has to first research how and why the mind works. Behind each therapist, and each therapeutic success, stands an army of tireless researchers who helped develop the psychological insights that created that success. Among the most important battalions serving in this army are:

Abnormal psychology – mental illness, violence, war, sadism, criminal behavior and all the other fine qualities that make human beings such an endearing species.

Biological psychology – building better balanced brains through chemistry (psychopharmacology).

Clinical psychology – not a research "clinic" but the shrink's office; applying theory to therapy in search of a therapeutic result.

Cognitive psychology – thinking, concept formation and problem solving and...

Comparative psychology – psychologists compare the behavior, motivation and reactions of animals with those of people ... and try to tell the difference.

Developmental psychology – childhood, adolescence, adulthood, old age; patterns, problems, turning points and progress.

Educational psychology – how we learn; how we can learn; better learning; why we don't learn.

Experimental Psychology – experiments, surveys and studies to test theories about what we do, and why and when we do it.

Physiological psychology – brain cell, brain structure and brain chemistry; how they effect, create and guide what we think, do and are.

[Norris and Ross McWhirter, Illustrated Encyclopedia of Facts, & Compton's Encyclopedia and Fact Finder]

they're easy on your pocketbook, too

Talking it out with a therapist is passé. Psychotherapists have discovered a whole new set of roads to mental health. Today's innovative therapies are cheaper, often faster and best of all – more fun. Even their names are more fun – removing "the curse of the clinical" completely:

* Aromatherapy. A nose full of soothing, relaxing scents can, apparently, soothe and relax us, and promote physical as well as emotional healing.

* Dream therapy, instead of waiting for the unconscious to send us signals in the form of dreams, uses dreams to send messages to the unconscious

* Imagery, harnesses the power of images to change body, attitudes, feelings

* Bibliotherapy, reading self-help books can do you as much good as a session with a shrink

* Occupational therapy, having something useful to do can make anyone feel better

* Recreational therapy, nothing's better for the ills of urban stress than a good relaxing hobby

* Self-help and personal-empowerment groups, by following a few simple "steps" a group of average people can do themselves as much good as a therapist

* Hypno therapy, you're under their "control" – and so are your problems

If you and your loved one aren't getting along – or if your life is a painful mess – don't put off seeing a shrink a moment longer. Head right down to a therapist's office and enroll in one of the new therapies. You can relax and enjoy yourself guilt-free – knowing you're working hard to solve your personal problems.

[Robson and Edwards, Getting Help: A Woman's Guide to Therapy & Heller and Henkin, Bodywise]

putting psychology to work

Psychology isn't just good for helping women and men with low self-esteem or chronic depression. It's also good for what ails us in all the other important arenas of our lives: relationships, recreation, job, family, sex, business. In fact, psychologists are hard at work in all of these areas, diligently unearthing the secrets of how each effects our minds and how our minds effects it:

Business psychology – how and why we do business; how to get others to do business with us; how we can best do business.

Family psychology – moms, dads, kids, healthy and unhealthy interactions; generational patterns, grandparents, uncles, aunts, siblings ... the whole dern stew.

Marriage – why we love who we love; why we fall out of love; the various stages of love; how to make love work better and last; the physicality of love.

Industrial psychology – the colors, sounds and mise en scene that produce the most productive workplace; repetitive tasks; mental and physical limits; employee morale; work flow and efficiency; making life better for workers because it enhances the bottom line.

Social psychology – making friends, making enemies, making groups, cultures, mobs, nations, armies and soccer teams; their the way they work, the way the effect us, we way we interact in them, they way they conflict and cooperate with each other.

Sports psychology, seeks to find the maximum mental leverage we can bring to physical competition and challenge.

Vocational psychology – the right person for the right job; and steering the wrong person away from the wrong job.

[Norris and Ross McWhirter, Illustrated Encyclopedia of Facts, & Compton's Encyclopedia and Fact Finder]

express yourself

Men and women had always found it easier to express themselves through dancing, singing, writing, painting – and all the other arts – than face-to-face in words. In the hands of a skilled therapist, the arts can become a powerful therapeutic tool. These so-called "Expressive Therapies" include: Music Therapy, playing and listening to music hath charms to sooth the savage client; art therapy, what we draw and paint reveals so much of what we feel and are; dance therapy, when the body feels free in motion, our emotions feel free to express themselves; journaling, get a whole new perspective on your self and discover long buried feelings as you commit your experiences to paper. Crazy as it sounds, all these therapies have been shown to help make people saner. If psychologists are right, for many people Expressive Therapies can be an express route to mental health.

[Robson and Edwards, Getting Help: A Woman's Guide to Therapy & Heller and Henkin, Bodywise]

TALKED TO DEATH

THE TALKING CURE

Talking it out – that's the age-old principle behind psychotherapy. You and your friends do it every time you settle down to gripe about your problems over tea, a beer – or for a phone-side chat. The only difference is that professionals are more objective and have (at least in theory) a superior knowledge of the secrets of successful living.

Like close friends, therapists have the knack of putting us at ease so that we let down our defenses and feel free to talk about personal problems. Their supportive, non-judgmental manner makes it possible for us to discuss our most troubling emotions, upsetting events, embarrassing facts and less than admirable behaviors. While we talk, our therapist is tuning in on our "verbal and nonverbal communications ... tone of voice, facial expression and bodily posture," according to the The New Psychiatry. Issues and subjects we keep coming back to; what we don't talk about; the subjects that stir our feelings; when what we are feeling doesn't match what we are saying – all offer tell-tale clues to the source and nature of our difficulties.

Acting on these clues, the therapist draws conclusions about what's gone wrong in our lives and how they might go right. Then, when they sense we are ready for a fresh approach, therapists make suggestions, hints, advice and comments intended to help us find healing insights into our lives. "A valid insight is one that leads the clients to resolve personal problems and immediate life difficulties in a positive, healthy way," The New Psychiatry says.

[Robson and Edwards, Getting Help: A Woman's Guide to Therapy, & Maxmen, Ph.D., The New Psychiatry]

group grope

Half a dozen or a dozen, it turns out, can get therapy cheaper than one – typically costing each only a tenth to a third the price of individual therapy. A group of men and women gather once a week under the guidance of a therapist. During sessions, they discuss their own difficulties and share their insights (often stingingly) on the problems of other members of the group. Members argue, react and begin to discover their own relationship patterns – good and bad. The group, in effect, becomes the therapist.

Some people believe this interaction between members makes "group therapy" superior to private therapy. They claim it provides the same insight into personal problems, and a unique focus on our relationships with others – often the very source of the pain that sent us into therapy. "The group is a laboratory for showing patients how they affect others, for offering advice on better ways of relating to people, and for experimenting with these behaviors," Jerrold Maxmen, Ph.D. concurs.

[Jerrold S. Maxmen, M.D., The New Psychiatry]

togetherness

Sometimes it isn't a person that's troubled. It's a relationship or a family. When that happens, therapists try to persuade all involved to enter therapy as a unit.

Couples therapy focuses on the difficulties women and men face in making intimate relationships work. "Most relationship skills are pretty hit-and-miss. Also, people from different families have different expectations of what a relationship is and what actions show loving and caring. It's not surprising that so many couples have trouble making their relationship work," says Tina Tessina, Ph.D. Couples therapy aids partners in acquiring expertise in problem solving, self-assertion, conflict resolution, negotiation and clear communication.

Family therapy often begins with a troubled child. "Because many emotional problems in children are reflections of family problems, many therapists now 'see' the entire family," writes Jerrold Maxmen. The therapist attempts to help members identify and replace unhealthy patterns and ways of relating.

Apparently, the family that visits shrinks together – stays together.

[Jerrold S. Maxmen, M.D., The New Psychiatry]

the software is a shrink

Computers are replacing people in so many other arenas of life. Now they're replacing shrinks, as well. Dozens of computer programs offer to help solve your problems and provide healing insights.

Software can provide broad insights into our personality and character, according to evaluations by writers for Psychology Today. Several programs incorporate the classic Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, proven to produce accurate profiles of those who take it. But when it comes to healing and personal growth, software is pretty hit or miss. Its effectiveness is hindered by the inability of psychologists to agree on standardized rules of therapy and produce consistent results.

Human therapists, on the other hand, are hindered by the inability of their patients to be completely honest about their thoughts and feelings. This is one area where computers have an edge, the Psychology Today report concludes. Studies show women and men consistently give more honest answers to a computer than to real therapist.

For all the limitations of computer therapy programs, if you're not going to be honest with your therapist – you'd probably be as well off with a software shrink.

["This Machine Wants to Help You," Psychology Today, February 1988]

effective – but illegal

You may not need a shrink. You can probably therapize yourself just as effectively as any professional. That's the implication of research conducted at Vanderbilt University.

Troubled individuals were counseled for six months by professionals with at least 20 years of experience – and by non-professionals selected on the basis of warmth, trustworthiness and interest in others. The report's conclusions were eye opening: the non-professionals with no formal training proved as effective as professional healers. "Patients undergoing psychotherapy with college professors showed, on the average, quantitatively as much improvement as patients treated by experienced professional therapists," the researchers stated.

What many people overlook is that "all of us to some extent are experts on doing therapy on ourselves and others," writes psychiatrist Bernie Zilbergeld, Ph.D. in The Shrinking of America. Every day of our lives, he claims, we unknowingly give and receive "what would be called therapy if it was done by a professional." We are engaging in self-therapy whenever:

1) We tell ourselves to stop dwelling on the negative and "accentuate the positive"

2) We reward ourselves on completion of a difficult or distasteful task

3) We release explosive feelings through physical exercise or hard work

4) We lie down, relax and "space out" to good music, arising calm and refreshed afterward.

All of these commonsense ideas, as well as countless others, have been taken over by psychotherapists, dressed in scientific sounding terminology and made to sound esoteric. Professionals call the ones above: 1) thought stopping; 2) positive reinforcement; 3) catharsis; 3) trance induction or deep relaxation.

Our own efforts may not seem very impressive to us – but as the Vanderbilt study shows, they are remarkably successful much of the time. Some of us are better than others at it, Zilbergeld notes wryly, "but the same can be said of professionals."

There's only one drawback to self-therapy. It's illegal to practice therapy without a license in some states. But don't worry. If you don't turn yourself in – nobody else will.

[Bernie Zilbergeld, Ph.D., The Shrinking of America]

WHAT THERAPY CAN AND CaN't DO

Many of us think of psychotherapy as a miraculous cure-all. But therapy is only effective for some of the mental ills that plague us. Surveys show it works best for less serious, less persistent problems like reducing fear; raising self-esteem; resolving sex, marital and family conflicts; strengthening assertiveness. But there is also a host of psychological ailments for which seeing a therapist is not particularly effective, writes the author of The Shrinking of America. Among them: depression; compulsive behaviors – food, drugs, sex; schizophrenia; hard-core criminal behavior. When it comes to more serious illnesses, psychotherapy still has a long way to go.

[Bernie Zilbergeld, Ph.D., The Shrinking of America]

A LONG-TERM SEDUCTION

Often we fear to seek a therapist's help because we've heard psychotherapy is an endless process that takes years to complete. But studies at Palo Alto's Mental Research Institute prove short-term therapy produces the same results as treatment lasting "two, three, ten or even twenty times as long." Ten to twenty-five sessions of intensely focused therapy generated the same improvement rate (75%), as long-term therapy. People around the world, Zilbergeld asserts, "are allowing themselves to be seduced until therapy becomes a way of life."

[Bernie Zilbergeld, Ph.D., The Shrinking of America]

just WASTing away

Up to 85% of therapy may be a complete waste of time. Studies by psychiatrist Jay Haley, Ph.D., found 50% to 70% of the men and women on waiting lists at clinics had resolved their problems on their own before a therapist became available. While surveys cited in The Shrinking of America placed this figure even higher – at 85%: "In this country, we're giving major surgery to everybody, when only 15% are so deeply ill that they need long-term therapy." Others have contradicted this position, suggesting anyone who would spend years paying for unnecessary therapy – really does need to have their heads examined.

[Jay Haley, Ph.D., "The Art of Being A Failure as a Therapist" The Power Tactics of Jesus Christ and other Essays & Bernie Zilbergeld, Ph.D., The Shrinking of America]

DARK SIDE OF THERAPY

Some people even believe therapy does more harm than good. What's more, they're right – at least in some cases. One out of every ten men and women in therapy appear to get worse, according to a surveys quoted by Dr. Bernie Zilbergeld, Ph.D. One reported that "On the whole ... it appears that 5 to 10 percent of patients or of marital or family relationships worsen as the result of treatment." Another study of group therapy participants "found that 16 percent were worse off after the groups than before, and that their deterioration seemed a direct result of being in the groups."

But therapy only has the power to harm because it has the power to heal, Zilbergeld writes. "A moment's thought should be sufficient to indicate that a method powerful enough to produce positive change is also capable of producing negative change," he claims. Even Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychotherapy, acknowledged the potential dangers of therapy, when he asked one student: "If you can not do any harm, how can you do any good?"

[Bernie Zilbergeld, Ph.D., The Shrinking of America]

A PET WOULD BE CHEAPER

When all is said and done, then – what benefits does psychotherapy actually produce? Summarizing the vast research into the effectiveness of therapy, The Shrinking of America, was able only to establish that it had been proven to help ease fear and anxiety. The most important benefits of therapy, surveys suggest, "are not behavior change but caring, comforting and structuring." Of the other sources for these three forms of emotional support, marriage is most expensive, pets are extremely low maintenance – but dollar for dollar, a mother's love is unquestionably your best alternative.

[Bernie Zilbergeld, Ph.D., The Shrinking of America]

THERAPISTS

guess who needed a shrink

In their writings, the great figures of psychotherapy seem models of rational, unruffled composure. But in their personal lives, they were as confused, self-destructive and vindictive as the rest of us. Sigmund Freud, the father of psychiatry, was practicality a textbook case. While his followers enacted out all the classic patterns of adolescent rebellion and sibling rivalry. It isn't possible to catalogue all the personal eccentricities and petty foibles of these pioneers of the mind – but even a brief summary of their careers reveals enough steamy neurosis and latent sexuality to supply the plots for half a dozen soap operas.

FREUD – SEX was at the root of it

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), a physician, became interested in patients whose illnesses had no apparent physiological cause. His celebrated conclusions – that many of our physical and mental ills are caused by underlying psychological conflict between the conscious and unconscious involving sex – continues to shape psychotherapy a hundred years later.

Therapist – Freud appeared to suffer from many of the aberrations he became famous for identifying in his writings; among them, the rigid and uncompromising habit patterns of schedule, dress, meals, family and work that characterize the "anal retentive neurotic"; and a decades long affair with the family maid which suggests his claim that sex lies behind most psychological problems was backed up by personal experience.

Theory – Freud believed our minds are composed of three conflicting parts:

* Id, our primal self-centered instincts (survival, sex, pleasure), which lie, buried deep in the unconscious, beyond our control;

* Superego, consciously learned parental and social taboos (sexual restraint, moral codes, selflessness) against giving free reign to the self-centered urges of the Id;

* Ego, the self or personality, caught between the instinctive urges of the Id and the restraints of the Superego; attempting (with and without success) to channel the former (like sex) into socially acceptable forms (like courtship and "dating").

When our Superego successfully balance the needs of Id and Ego, we are "healthy"; when it fails the result is psychological imbalance and mental illness.

Therapy – after noticing that people often reveal unconscious clues to their real concerns in dreams or as "slips of the tongue", Freud developed a technique (psychoanalysis) for getting clients to relax and "free associate" hoping clues would emerge that would give the therapist insight into the unconscious conflicts and unresolved instincts that he believed lay at the basis of their psychological problems.

The field has come a long way since Freud first formulated his "psychoanalytic" theories – and the authenticity of his cures and research methods have been seriously called into question -but even his critics honor him for his founding contributions to the "science of the mind."

[Dwayne Schultz, Ph.D., Freud and Jung: Intimate Friends, Dangerous Rivals]

JUNG – standing in the shadows

Carl Jung (1875-1961), already interested in science and the mystic, turned to Freud's new psychoanalysis in his search for the secrets of the mind; shared Freud's view that primal instincts strongly influence our behavior, believed they were counterbalanced by a spiritual instinct that sought for personal growth and a feeling of connection to something larger than the self; mental illnesses began when men and women failed to fulfill all the aspects of their personalities.

Therapist – Jung was Freud's "favorite son," designated heir of the psychoanalytic movement on Freud's death; but ironically, their relationship played out one of Freud's most celebrated theories; the Oedipal Conflict, which said males have an inherited animalistic urge to slay and replace their fathers; soon Jung was rejecting many of his father-figure's doctrines and replacing them with his own; twice during arguments between the two, Freud, that paragon and theorist of mental health, became so worked up, he fainted; Freud even accused Jung of harboring homicidal feelings toward him.

Theory – Jung's unconscious was far more elaborate than Freud's and drew heavily from mystic traditions; in addition to a personal unconscious there was:

* The collective unconscious, the few basic forms and feelings the brain perceives are reflected over and over again in our art, dreams, symbols and myths (the mandala, the dream of flying, heroes and villains, mother love); Jung called these "archetypes" and felt they exerted a more direct and powerful influence on the unconscious (and hence conscious behavior) than sexual instincts.

* The polarized unconscious, the conscious is outward and extroverted; the unconscious inward and introverted; when the first dominates, men and women have a tendency toward openness, sociability, physical drive; when the second dominated, they have a tendency toward quietness, solitude, thought.

* The shadowed unconscious, we are so disturbed by the things we consider negative, bad or even "evil" about ourselves, that we force the out of our conscious minds into the unconscious; these repressed aspects of ourselves are the "shadow"; which alone know the evil in the hearts of men (and women).

* The sexual unconscious, most of us also repress the elements in our make-up associated with the opposite gender; forced into the unconscious, these become "the contrasexual archetype of the ego" or "soul-image" (in men, the anima or female spirit; in women, the animus or male spirit); we fall in love when we find someone whose outward manner matches our soul-image, not realizing it is the need for union with our repressed male or female self we see in them, and not their real nature, that attracts us.

Therapy – through exploration of the patient's dreams and fantasies, seeks to discover conflicting archetypes underlying the client's problems in order to trigger self-discovery and self-growth (and not just the relief of mental illness), through discovering and interpreting the archetypes underlying the client's problems.

Jung rejected Freud's mechanistic, deterministic model for a view of the mind that saw it as an organic, creative whole – unfolding to purposive ends.

[Charles Hampden-Turner, Maps of the Mind]

FREUD's followers

For more than half a century, Freud and his theories reigned supreme. Everyone who wanted to know anything about the mind made pilgrimage to sit at the feet of the master. But like Jung, all these "sons" turned rebelliously against their mentor, each developing his own theory of the wellsprings of human behavior, replacing primal instincts with society, family or culture. Among Freud's most famous progeny, and the schools of psychology they founded, were:

Alfred Adler (1870-1937) – felt social experience was a stronger influence on behavior than the unconscious; believed mental illness began as an unsuccessful attempt to compensate for the feelings of inferiority a child experiences when they first compare themselves to parents and other adults; Adler was also the first to point out the role children's order of birth plays in their personality development; became the first male to suggest that what Freud identified as "penis envy" in females was probably envy of the power welded by its possessor and not of the object itself.

Otto Rank (1884-1939) – stressed the importance of will; in Rank's eyes, the weak-willed, unable to assert themselves, became mentally ill; Rank believed anxiety related illnesses began with traumas caused during birth by early-20th obstetrical practices; his theories created a revolution in delivery-room procedures.

Erich Fromm (1900-1980) – argued that freedom is frightening, and claimed that many people (and societies) followed dictators to escape the burden of making their own decisions; drew a convincing catalogue of the various defenses and personalities women and men develop to cope with their fear of freedom; felt we evolve from dependence on maternal bonds as infants to increasing capacities for independence, while we grow from self-centeredness to increasing capacities for loving: first family, then neighbors, then humanity and nature itself; believed psychology's highest purpose lay, not in the treatment of mental illness, but in its potential for enhancing everyone's ability to live and love.

Karen Horney (1885-1952), played out her own Oedipal role in the psychoanalytic movement; claimed parent's attitudes and behaviors played a stronger role in forming personality than primal urges; believed mental illness was fostered by thoughtless, uncaring parents; rejected many of Freud's theories regarding female sexuality and personality, particularly penis envy and the idea that women are inherently masochistic; her revisionism led colleagues to accuse Horney of suffering from the very penis envy whose existence she rejected.

Erik Erikson (?? - ??) – an artist and teacher who became interested in the psychoanalysis of children; believed that at each stage of development in life, we face a psychological challenge that we must resolve successfully for continued growth; mental illness; failure resulted in mental illness; in infancy the challenge is between developing a sense of trust (the world is a safe, warm place that is ready and willing to meet one's needs) and a sense of mistrust (the world is unsafe, cold and withholding); healthy women and men have parents who helped them develop a strong sense of trust and enough mistrust to keep them from being reckless.

[Norris and Ross McWhirter, Illustrated Encyclopedia of Facts, & Robson and Edwards, Getting Help]

NEW DIRECTIONS

As psychology moved across the water from its European roots it began to take on an American flavor all its own. The new psychologies would be more pragmatic, aimed toward fitting emotionally disturbed men and women back into a productive society.

William James and Functionalism – developed the first distinctively American brand of psychology; "functionalism" focused on studying the functions served by human thought and action; believed the way the mind worked could best be discovered by studying how men and women reacted to outside stimuli; the mind was though to adapt to disruptive events by seeking to return to its original equilibrium; failure to adapt led to mental illness; functionalism's pragmatic bias won a wide following in the U.S., where it led to an emphasis on testing abilities and aptitudes and the grading of individuals as "normal" "average" and "successful" or "unsuccessful"

Watson, Skinner and Behaviorism – introduced by John B. Watson at the turn-of-the century, but brought to international celebrity in the 1960s thorough the writings and thought of B. F. Skinner. Behaviorists felt "mind" and "consciousness" were subjective states whose existence could not be scientifically proven, and that psychology should concern itself with concrete, observable behaviors like speech, action and reaction; they believed that all behavior, including mental illness, was learned; and their therapies focused on changing the behaviors associated with mental illness, rather than the causes and cure of the illness; like Functionalism, Behaviorism's pragmatism made it a major force in American psychology; until the late-1960s, when researchers returned to the investigation of human thought as well as behavior.

Harry Stack Sullivan and Interpersonal psychology – personality and mental illnesses are formed in childhood through the reactions of parents and other significant adults and cannot be separated from the network of interpersonal relations; children given love, respect, and approval, grow up assured that they are worthy of love and esteem ("good me"); Sullivan sought to emphasize the role of psychology as a preventative medicine, by shifting its focus to the causes and fostering of mental health, instead of illness.

Kierkegaard, May and Existential psychology – Soren Kierkegaard and Rollo May achieved notoriety through their advocacy of a psychological approach whose roots lie in the European philosophy of existentialism; we feel at once, infinitely great because we are part of universal systems and infinitely small and helpless because we must separate from those systems and die; perceiving this "absurd" contradiction at the center of life leads to fear and anxiety; mental illness begins when we give into this fear and fail to join ourselves permanently to larger systems by fulfilling our potential; rather than analyzing past or current behavior, the prime concern of therapy is moving the client past alienation and despair, to the realization of their possibilities and the sense of a meaningful life.

R. D. Laing and Liberation therapy – felt the mind, like the body, has its own natural healing mechanisms, and that mental illness isn't an "illness" at all but the mind's attempt heal the wounds inflicted by an insane society; in his view, it was not women and men who are crazy but the world around them; given support and asylum from the "slings and arrows" of maddened world, their condition will resolve itself in greater sanity and emotional stability; Laing opposed medication for even the most severe mental illnesses, believing any medicine or therapy aimed at adjusting the individual to society, disrupted the healing process and forced them back into a toxic, dysfunctional world that would only wound them again.

Abraham Maslow and Humanistic psychology – concentrated on seeking the causes of mental health, instead of illness; studied women and men leading productive, fulfilling lives, instead of the troubled and confused; views our basic drive as the need to grow and enhance our lives in satisfying, positive ways (self-actualization); mental illness begins as children when parents force us to choose between their love and pursuits vital to our fulfillment, or when we are robbed of self-esteem and given a negative image of our talents and character; therapy aims at helping us remove these barriers to self-actualization; when we unconsciously say something that provides clues to the heart of our problems during therapy, the therapist repeats it, directing our attention to beliefs and feelings blocking our path to health.

Carl Rogers and Client-Centered therapy – believes the capacity for change and resolving problems is already within us and the function of the therapist is to support and encourage positive, healthy impulses; each of us, as an infant, learns what is self-actualizing or and what is not; mental illness begins when what is self-actualizing for us is not met with a positive response by people in the environment; thorough unqualified positive regard, the therapist encourage us to choose those experience which enhance our self-actualization.

Eric Berne and Transactional Analysis – revolted against the technical language of previous therapies, their esoteric language, their lengthiness, their failure to offer concrete solutions to the problems women and men brought them; Berne's simplified system was easy to lampoon, but its effectiveness soon made it a major influence in late-20th century psychology:

* Our three part personality: the parent, which embodies the criticisms and warnings we internalized from our parents; the adult, our reasoning, mediating self; and the child, our playful, carefree self.

* Transactions, exchanges that take place between two people – one or more of our three personalities takes part in each transaction.

* Games, transactions in which we have ulterior motives.

* "Ok" or "Not-"Ok" postures – our feelings self-esteem or inferiority

* Scripts, our own plans for our life, and the people and events in it – frequently not consciously thought out and influenced by childhood experiences

* Mental illness results when all we've learned are self-destructive scripts – or when our personality is dominated by critical parent, irresponsible child or seesaws back-and-forth; the goal of therapy is to help us avoid self-destructive scripts, moving from playing games to intimacy by helping us learn how to reassure the parent, support the child and build a strong adult state of being.

Arthur Janov and Primal Therapy – as infants we often experience an immediate need for love and the primal agony of not having it met; by the time we reach adulthood, this pain has long been covered over and buried in the unconscious, leaving us with an inexplicable feeling of anger and loss; this primal pain can only be released through reconnecting with it, reexperiencing it and releasing it – through violent physical activity or the famous "primal scream."

Gestalt therapy – inspired by the German word, Gestalten, which means parts working together as a whole; believes psychology can never understand the mind by studying its components, and should consider the whole person; emphasizes the unity of individuals and groups; mental illness begins as children when the unity of the self (thought, feelings, action) is split, and we are forced to suppress important aspects of our personality while over-emphasizing others; one result is faulty communication between the parts of the self and the self and the world around it; Gestalt therapists can be confrontational, encouraging our movement toward wholeness by abrasively challenging the defenses that keep us from facing our disenfranchised selves.

J. L. Moreno and Psychodrama – produces insights and resolves damaging feelings by reenacting, with the aid of others, important scenes from our lives; allowing us to experience and reexamine the feelings they generate under the guidance of a therapist; by confronting our over-critical mother in the psychodrama, we may make key discoveries about our relationship with her; by reversing roles with the person playing our mother, we may begin to see things from our mother's point of view; during psychodrama men and women often experience intense emotional release, breaking into tears or screaming at the person playing a relative.

[Norris and Ross McWhirter, Illustrated Encyclopedia of Facts, & Robson and Edwards, Getting Help]

PUTTING THE body TO work

Since the body affects the mind (and vice versa), some therapies aim at working the kinks out of our minds – by working them out of our bodies. Professionals have dubbed these new therapeutic approaches "bodywork." There are dozens of different kinds of bodywork. But all fall into one of four "traditions" in bodywork – each the branch on a single, enormous tree:

The Energetic tradition – the oldest of the four is based on the ancient belief that divine, cosmic or universal energy can flow through the hands of a "healer" to an ailing person; strengthening them and speeding their recovery; the most systematic presentations of this tradition are:

* The chakras of Hindu mysticism

* The acupuncture meridians of Chinese medicine

The Mechanical tradition – unlike the other traditions, concerns itself solely with the physical relief of bodily stresses; believes we live fundamentally through our bodies, and that emotional, mental, and spiritual health depend on the organism's ability to function well; views the body only as an interrelated system of pulleys, levers, hinges and plates that can become worn or misaligned because of stress and tension; the most celebrated schools of the Mechanical tradition include:

* Rolfing

* The Seever Method

* The Trager System

* Alexander Technique

* Feldenkras Method

* Chiropractic & Osteopathy

The Psychological tradition – believes emotional health can be achieved only when our energy (emotional and muscular) can flow freely through the body; mental illness is created when we tense up against the pains and betrayals of childhood and block the flow of this energy; seeks to release this tension directly by physical manipulation and pressure; the Psychological tradition was pioneered by:

* Reichian therapy

* Bioenergetics

The Integrative tradition – views body and mind as a complex, interactive system and attempts free the energies locked in both by unifying the first three tradition with common elements in meditation, exercise, yoga and the martial arts; the leading movement in the Integrative tradition is:

* Hellerwork

[Michael Murphy, The Future of the Body & Joseph Heller and William A. Henkin, Bodywise]

CHAPTER 9

OUR PROBLEMS AS PATIENTS

PATIENTS

THERAPISTS

YOU CAN'T TELL THEM APART WITHOUT A PROGRAM

Psychiatrists, psychologists and psychotherapists – what's the difference? It's subtle but vital. Most people can't tell the players apart without a program.

Psychiatrists – the elite among therapists, actual M.D.'s, physicians who specialize in treating mental disorders and illnesses; the only mental health professionals allowed to prescribe drugs and medicines.

Psychologists – therapists with M.A.'s or Ph.D.'s, trained to help normal, mentally healthy people gain the insights and personal skills needed during difficult life crisis or to reverse self-defeating behaviors.

Marriage counselors – psychologists specializing in helping men and women find more effective ways to cope with troublesome family interactions.

All are "psychotherapists" (although psychiatrists would strongly disagree). Roughly 50% have undergone personal psychotherapy themselves.

[Jerrold S. Maxmen M.D., The New Psychiatry]

over analyzed

There are 35,000 psychiatrists, 65,000 psychologists, and 150,000 other mental health workers in the United States. That's one therapist for every thousand people – a higher proportion of therapists than can be found in any other nation. So, if therapy is effective, why isn't the U.S. the sanest country in the world?

[Psychiatric Manpower for the 80s, American Psychiatric Association & The World Almanac and Book of Facts 1990]

are you a yavis?

Do therapists like some clients more than others? Psychotherapists try to remain objective. But they have their preferences just like everyone else, writes psychiatrist Jerrold Maxmen. Clients with novel backgrounds, jobs, life-styles or experiences fascinate therapists. So do clients who make witty or insightful observations that would never have occurred to the therapist.

Although they fight it, therapists tend to relate better to clients from backgrounds similar to their own. But what they like best of all are YAVIS (Young, Attractive, Verbal, Intelligent and Successful). YAVIS have more appealing, engaging personalities than most clients. So they are "more often given encouragements to enter therapy, and remain in it longer, than members of other groups," write therapists, Mandy Aftel and Robin Lakoff.

As a result, YAVIS "probably have pleasanter experiences in therapy." Apparently, the benefits of being "teacher's pet" are the same in every field.

[Aftel and Lakoff, Ph.D., When Talk is Not Cheap & Jerrold S. Maxmen, M.D., The New Psychiatry]

what kind of PERSON becomes a SHRINK?

Some think of psychotherapists as paragons of mental health, free of the self-defeating hang-ups that beset the rest of us. Others believe that only those with psychological problems of their own are attracted to the ranks of the profession – seeking to cure themselves as they cure their clients. A national survey of postgraduate students planning on careers as therapists found some truth on both sides, according to Donald Light, M.D., Ph.D. in Becoming a Psychiatrist.

There was plenty of evidence that those who become therapists are more nurturing, feel at ease with greater degrees of intimacy and are more independent than most women and men. Test results showed they relate better to unstructured time and ambiguous situations, and are more reluctant to control other people's behavior. They are also less concerned about power and status, and more open about their feelings.

But there was also evidence that potential therapists bring some strong psychological problems along with them into the profession. Though brighter and more verbal than other students, their academic achievements were actually poorer than average. They also reported greater dissatisfaction, lower self-esteem, greater anxiety and deeper cynicism – and significantly more serious worries about death.

When looking for a therapist, your best bet seems to be to pick one who's seeing a shrink.

[Donald Light M.D., Ph.D., Becoming a Psychiatrist]

THE BLAME GAME

Therapists always advise clients to stop blaming others and take responsibility for their own problems, when things go wrong. But when therapy proves unsuccessful, therapists minimize their own contribution to the process, and instead blame the client. They alibi their failure to colleagues with phrases like: "The client wasn't sufficiently motivated." "The client was afraid to change." "The client needs to be sick." "The client likes to suffer." This therapeutic "blame game" outrages Hans Strupp, the dean of psychotherapy researchers. Strupp feels the client has already proved their motivation by seeking help. If men and women lose the motivation to make progress, Strupp claims, it is because the therapist failed to motivate them. Apparently, therapists find accepting responsibility for their failures just as difficult as their clients.

[Hans Strupp, M.D., et al., Psychotherapy for Better or Worse: The Problem of Negative Effects]

DISEASE OF THE WEEK

The style-conscious may want to check out the newest wrinkle in fashions: mental illness. Like skirt lengths and haircuts, psychological conditions go in and out of fashion with therapists. When a new illness is discovered – or an old one is the subject of a major new study – the number of cases therapists diagnose increases dramatically. Psychologists call this "diagnostic vogue bias."

Researching case histories at Boston's McLean Hospital, a team of psychologists found the number of patients diagnosed with a disease increased with the number of publications written about it. Anxiety and phobias were the rage at the turn of the century. Then schizophrenia became the most diagnosed disease; later manic-depression had its turn. Today obsessive-compulsive disorders (addiction) rank number one.

["Disorder of the Day," Psychology Today, June 1989]

how therapists feel about clients

How can therapists listen to all the lurid, dramatic revelations their clients make and still remain objective, dispassionate observers? Don't they ever react to the secrets they are told and the emotional anguish they see? Therapists have trained themselves to appear dispassionate and supportive, writes Jerrold Maxmen. But underneath their carefully cultivated exteriors, they are often deeply affected by what they hear. "Psychiatrists are moved, shocked, amazed, disgusted, thrilled, disappointed enchanted and everything else by patients," Maxmen says.

[Jerrold S. Maxmen, M.D., The New Psychiatry]

WHY THERAPY GOes WRONG

When therapy fails, the therapist is usually at fault. One report, released in Psychotherapy for Better or Worse found that the therapeutic process typically went wrong because the therapist:

* Promised more than they could deliver

* Lacked respect for the client

* Misdiagnosed the client

* Had excessive psychological problems of their own (especially hostility and seductiveness toward clients)

* Failed to convey enough hope to the client

[Hans Strupp, M.D., et al., Psychotherapy for Better or Worse: The Problem of Negative Effects]

Therapists pick the top ten Self-Help Books

"Bibliotherapy" is the term therapists use for help we receive from reading books that offer insight into our personal problems. Over 65% of the psychotherapists polled in a recent study told interviewers they feel "self-help" books have an important place in the therapeutic process, and encourage clients to read them. However, while therapists considered these books a helpful adjunct to therapy – they did not consider them an alternative. The ten books therapists recommended most often were:

1. The Relaxation Response by Herbert Benson and Miriam Z. Klipped

2. On Death and Dying by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

3. Parent Effectiveness Training by Thomas Gordon

4. Between Parent and Child by Hasim G. Ginott

5. Your Perfect Right: A Guide to Assertive Living by Robert Alberti and Michael Emmons

4. What Color is Your Parachute? by Richard N. Bolles

7. When I Say No I feel Guilty by Manuel Smith

8. The Boys and Girls Book about Divorce by Richard A. Gardner

9. Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy by David D. Burnsy

10. How to Survive the Loss of a Love by Melba Colgrove, Harold Bloomfield and Peter McWilliams

faking it

Sometimes people try to fake mental problems to get attention, escape work or to avoid punishment. But they don't fool their therapist very long. While therapists may be taken in at first, clients rarely succeed in deceiving them over any extended period of time. Eventually a therapist notices the client is "with it" or "out of it" depending on what's "convenient," and begins to suspect the patient may be faking their symptoms.

[Jerrold S. Maxmen, M.D., The New Psychiatry]

PATIENTS

half-crazy

More than half of us will consult a psychotherapist at some time during our lives. Typically, we will spend six to eighteen months in therapy, at a cost of $2,400 to $7,2000. Ironically, many surveys have shown those who don't seek therapy improve just as quickly, says psychiatrist Bernie Zilbergeld. Instead of therapy, these women and men took walks, read books, indulged their hobbies – and went on vacations (presumably with the money they saved).

[Bernie Zilbergeld, M.D., The Shrinking of America]

not a patient group

Contemporary therapists never call those they serve "patients." They feel the traditional "doctor-patient" relationship is a bad model for successful therapy; since it implies an authority figure who alone possesses the knowledge and the ability to "cure" an ignorant, dependent patient. "Client" suggests a relationship between equals, a client and a specialist they have hired to assist them in achieving specific goals; a healthier model that implies the client is beleaguered by "problems" that can be solved – rather than an "illness" to be cured. It may only be coincidence that the term "clients" sounds also more prosperous than "patients."

[Aftel and Lakoff, When Talk is Not Cheap]

do you need therapy?

Do your lover's keep walking out? Have trouble holding friends? Do you're bosses and co-workers seem to always turn against you? Unable to sleep at night? Wondering if you need therapy? Or if you're just encountering the normal difficulties that bedevil everyone else?

If you're like most people, as long as you aren't certain you need therapy, you'll keep putting it off – until after your life becomes so painful, you can no longer bear it alone. The following questionnaire, adapted from work by psychotherapists Mandel Aftel and Robin Lakoff, can help you determine whether your problems have become serious enough to warrant therapy:

* Do you have trouble sleeping during the night – or saying awake during the day?

* Do you want to sleep all the time?

* Have you been thinking about suicide?

* Does everything seem empty and hopeless?

* Are you no longer attracted to your partner – but don't understand why?

* Do little things upset you more than they should?

* Do you have trouble holding or getting jobs?

* Do you keep getting into fights with friends and breaking off the friendship?

* Do you have trouble making important decisions?

* Do you always seem to be caught in a constant series of accidents or minor illnesses?

* Do you go on compulsive buying sprees, spending money on things you don't need?

* Are you eating (drinking, smoking) more than is good for you?

* Do you burst into tears without knowing why?

* Do you feel constant unease?

* Are you afraid to be alone?

* Are you constantly in debt although you make good money?

* Do you find it unusually hard to make friends?

If you answered "once in a while" to nine or more of the above or "frequently" to three or more, Aftel and Lakoff strongly advise you consider consulting a therapist.

[Aftel and Lakoff, Ph.D., When Talk is not Cheap]

freaking out

Many men and women entering therapy are haunted by the thought of stumbling into deep emotional waters, loosing control and looking foolish during their first session with a therapist. But clients rarely freak-out during the initial interview, according to surveys cited in The New Psychiatry. Typically, clients refrained from discussing the kind of highly charged emotional issues that might cause them to "lose control," until after they developed a strong bond of trust with a therapist. Often people who had spent weeks dreading a massive emotional catharsis, reported disappointment when the initial visit failed to produce one.

[Jerrold S. Maxmen, M.D., The New Psychiatry]

If You Can't Trust Your Therapist, Who Can You Trust?

People who don't get anywhere in therapy may be blocking their own progress. Promised complete anonymity, almost half (42%) the participants in a poll at one Texas clinic admitted concealing crucial thoughts and actions from their therapists. Women tended to be dishonest about sexual thoughts; males about anger and violence.

The Texas findings may explain why some of us seem to remain stuck in therapy "forever." Inability to cope with feelings about sex and violence underlies many psychological problems. Unless we can be honest about these aspects of our lives, it is difficult to benefit from therapy.

Considering what therapists charge, those who prolong the process by prevaricating – truly pay for their misdeeds.

[Eric Klinger, Ph.D., Daydreaming]

the THERAPEUTIC attitude

The right attitude can get you a long way in life – it can get you a long way in therapy, too. You don't have to act like Bogart. But you do need to possess a little native curiosity about how your own mind works – and be willing to embrace personal change, says therapist Jerrold Maxmen.

Most clients wonder if they getting everything they can from therapy. Since therapy costs money, takes time and the outcome of important personal issues are involved, it's a legitimate concern, Maxmen acknowledges. Clients make the fastest and most enduring progress, Maxmen writes, when they have "the therapeutic attitude." Curiosity about our own feelings, thoughts and actions is one element of this attitude. A firm focus on how we can change themselves, rather than blaming our problems on others, is the other

Maxmen, a member of the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University, offers two further recommendations for those who want to get the most out of therapy:

Think about your therapy between sessions – set aside a definite time for reviewing each session and make notes; both will keep key points fresh in your memory until the next visit.

Arrive with specific issues in mind for discussion – concerns carried over from the last session or that have developed since.

[Jerrold S. Maxmen, M.D., The New Psychiatry]

WHAT PATIENTS WANT TO KNOW ABOUT THERAPISTS' LIVES

Therapists constantly ask clients about their private lives. But a new study quoted in The New Psychiatry reveals clients would like to do the asking for a change. Among the questions clients most wanted answered were: "Are you married?" "If so do you have children?" "What's your religion?" "Do you talk about me to your colleagues?" "Do you talk about me to your spouse?" "Do you think about me between our sessions?" "Do you ever dream about me?" "Do you like me?" "Am I your favorite client?" And: "If I were not your client, would you want me as a friend?"

[Jerrold S. Maxmen, M.D., The New Psychiatry]

AN AMBULATORY SEMAPHORE

We may think we are concealing our thoughts from our shrinks – but the only person we're fooling is ourselves. Every movement we make, including many we are unaware of, telegraphs our actual thoughts and feelings straight to our therapists. When we suddenly shift position, the therapist immediately notes what we are talking about – since people often do this when they are discussing highly charged subjects. When we cross our arms, it's a good sign the current topic makes us feel defensive. Looking away from the therapist – especially up at the ceiling or down at the floor –is a strong indicator we are about to lie. And according to research reported in the American Journal of Psychiatry, whether our thighs carry our lower legs along when we walk, or our lower legs propel our thighs forward, can tell a therapist whether we are suffering from clinical depression.

[Lawrence Sloman, Ph.D. et al., "Gate Patterns of Depressed and Normal Patients," American Journal of Psychiatry, Vol. 139 1982]

GeTTING TO THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEM

Clients who tell their therapist, "I want to get to the root of my problems" have been misled by a popular myth: the belief that our emotional and personal troubles arise from a traumatic circumstance or incident in childhood. But our psychological problems don't have a single root, according to psychiatrists. Instead, there are many roots twining from our genetic heritage, through our youth, to the impacts of adult life. The myth of the single root can be very harmful to those just entering therapy, writes Jerrold Maxmen, M.D. When new clients discover they won't be magically cured as soon as the therapist uproots some forgotten childhood trauma – they often drop out of the process. Our problems, Maxmen seems to suggest, are less like trees with a single root system, than weeds that spring up throughout our mental garden.

l[Jerrold S. Maxmen, M.D., The New Psychiatry]

PICKING A SHRINK

If you reach the point in life where you find yourself seeking a shrink, how do you know when you've found a good one? The authors of When Talk is not Cheap or How to Find the Right Therapist When You Don't know Where to Begin suggest women and men meeting a therapist for the first time ask themselves:

* Did the therapist seem to understand what you were trying to say?

* Was the therapist someone you felt you could trust?

* Did the therapist listen to your position when you felt misunderstood?

* Did you feel comfortable enough with the therapist to be honest and direct?

* Did the therapist maintain eye contact?

* Did you feel the therapist was interested in you (and not preoccupied with other things)?

* Did you feel the therapist give you adequate feedback?

* Did the therapist make a direct statement about wanting to work with you?

* Did the therapist make any rules clear at the outset?

* Did the therapist set you at ease about asking any questions you had?

[Aftel and Lakoff, Ph.D., When Talk is not Cheap]

a new kind of shopaholic

Confirmed shopaholics have discovered a new rage: shopping for therapists. It's more expensive than window shopping – but no more costly than a new wardrobe. "Twenty-five years ago, nobody shopped around for a therapist," says clinical psychologist, Marcella Wine, Ph.D.

But contemporary clients say, "You're my tenth one!" Or "I've been with a Jungian, a cognitive therapist, a transpersonal psychologists, a neo-Freudian and a Rogerian." They want to know: "What can you do for me?"

What such people really want, is the one thing money can't buy: "... somebody, somewhere, somehow, who can touch their inner soul and respond to them in a way in which no one has ever responded," Wine writes.

Therapists seeking to service this new breed shopaholics may open their offices where shoppers are to be found – right next to the department store in their local mall.

[Bernie Zilbergeld, M.D., The Shrinking of America]

PROBLEMS

ILLNESSES

WHO'S CRAZY?

"You have to be crazy to see a therapist," according to one old joke. But the vast majority (80%) of those enrolled in psychotherapy aren't crazy at all. They only lack skills for coping with everyday "problems of living" – depression following personal loss, confusion over relationships, value conflicts, anger, indecisiveness. Only those who fail to experience any of these emotions can be considered mentally ill.

Many of the rest have what therapists consider minor "mental disorders" – phobias, anxiety and panic attacks – exaggerations of normal behavior (heightened by slight imbalances in brain chemistry) that are more troublesome to the victims than those around them. A small percentage have serious "mental illnesses" (resulting from significant chemical imbalances) – schizophrenia, major depression, manic depression – that can seriously impair their ability to function in the "real" world.

Only a fraction, around 1%, are "crazy," Therapists reserve this term exclusively for "psychotics," individuals who have lost touch with reality and are themselves lost – in a world of hallucination and delusion.

[Jerrold S. Maxmen, M.D., The New Psychiatry]

210 ways to ~~leave your lover~~ lose your mind

Less than 20% of us suffer actual mental disorders – but those few are host to an amazing variety of afflictions. The therapist's bible, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, lists two hundred and ten separate illnesses, and literally thousands of secondary syndromes. Among the best known are bi-polar disorder (manic-depression), dysthymic disorder (depression), obsessive-compulsive disorder and schizophrenia. Among the rest are such weirdly-worded diseases like: scizo-hystero iddysphoria, seasonal effective disorder, anosognosia, neurolepic malignant syndrome, attention-deficit disorder, Munchausen's syndrome and hypomanic state-hebephrenic scizo-depersonaliaton. It's no wonder psychiatric patients act so weird – wouldn't you act a little strange, if someone said you had "hebephrenic scizo-depersonalization syndrome?"

[Jerrold S. Maxmen, M.D., The New Psychiatry]

permanent guests

When Jesus of Nazareth said, "The poor ye always have with ye," he might have added the mentally ill. Only 2% of us have extreme mental illnesses – but however small, the number is still too large. In the U.S. alone that totals 5,000,000 people.

Each year about 500,000 women and men are briefly hospitalized due to emotional or psychological problems – almost half of all hospital patients. Another 2,000,000 receive treatment as outpatients. But the only treatment the remaining 2,500,000 receive is on the streets.

[Bernie Zilbergeld, M.D., The Shrinking of America & The World Almanac and Book of Facts 1990]

WHO HAS WhaT?

What are the most common mental illnesses? Depression, schizophrenia, anxiety? A National Institute of Mental Health survey study produced the following results:

* 8.3 % – anxiety disorders (phobias, panic disorders), effecting some 22,000,000,000 Americans

* 7.9% – obsessive-compulsive and addictive disorders, effecting some 18,0000,000 Americans

* 6% – affective disorders (major depression, manic-depressive), 15,000,0000 Americans

* 1% – schizophrenia, 2,500,000 American

* 1% – personality disorders, 2,500,000

There was good news in the NIMH survey: the more serious the disorder, the smaller the number of victims. The worst – psychosis and personality disorder – typically effecting 1% of us or less.

[D. A. Reggier, et al. "The NIMH Epidemiological Catchment Area Program," Archives of General Psychiatry]

the dope about disorders

Most of us know less about mental illness than we do about the dark side of the moon. Asked to name five we'd be lucky to get two right. Asked to describe their symptoms, we'd probably find ourselves at a loss for words. Below is the low-down on the illnesses you're most likely to be hearing more about:

Affective disorders – involve disturbances of mood; victims are too "up" (manic), too "down" (major depression, a leading cause of suicide) or alternate between the two (manic-depressive).

Anxiety disorders – chronic, acute unease, anxiety, and fear; includes phobias (irrational fears of people, places and things) and panic disorders (paralyzing attacks of anxiety or fear triggered by specific situations).

Obsessive-compulsive and addictive disorders – uncontrollable, irrational and self-destructive behaviors:

* Obsessive thoughts that dominate the victim's behavior

* Compulsive actions, a repetitive behavior we are unable to restrain

* Addiction, obsessive-compulsive abuse of substances, credit, sex, religion and just about anything else

Personality disorders – victims appear intelligent and personable on the outside, but inside they are morally empty, calculating and cruel.

Schizophrenia – the ability to think and talk in a consistently clear, logical and rational manner is seriously disrupted; can come and go for hours, days, weeks, months or even years at a time. Among its most identifiable symptoms are:

* Delusions, obviously false beliefs which tend toward the bizarre

* Disturbed thinking, thoughts bounce from topic to topic with no apparent rhyme or reason

[Rebecca Wooolis, M.F.C.C., When Someone You Love has a Mental Illness & John Nelson, M.D., Healing the Split]

dope for disorders

What causes mental illness? A visitation from the Gods and punishment for sin, were humankind's first guesses. Then, Freud found evidence linking emotional difficulties to traumatic events and unhealthy family interactions during childhood. Next, psychologists discovered strong connections to faulty thinking patterns that could easily be relearned. Biological causes became the next suspect, as science began the mind's physiology: Genetic studies established that many mental illness run in families; while abnormalities in brain structure were thought to explain others.

The newest suspect is brain chemistry – the messenger molecules that carry signals across the gap between brain cells, writes psychiatrist Jerrold Maxmen. Four brain chemicals seem to play key roles in the creation of mental disorders: Dopamine – excessive levels appear to trigger schizophrenia; norepinephrine – increases seem to trigger mania, while decreases trigger depression; serotonin – fluctuations appear to trigger sleep and mood disorders; gamma-aminobutyric acid – lowered levels are associated with anxiety and panic disorders. Strong substantiation for the chemical theory of mental illness comes from the fact that when victims take the drugs needed to correct these imbalances, symptoms lessen or vanish.

Other psychotherapists acknowledge that brain chemistry plays an important role, but point to mountains of evidence linking mental illness to psychological causes. The question of whether alterations in brain chemistry cause mental illness or result from it, they say, has yet to be answered.

Experiments reported in The 3-Pound Universe seem to unite these seemingly divergent theories. Men and women who had normal brain chemistries before the loss of a loved one, showed decreased levels of norepinephrine during the depression that followed; but in victims of clinical depression norepinephrine levels suddenly lowered without an emotional cause, triggering the depression.

[Judith Hooper and Dick Teresi, The 3-Pound Universe & Jerrold S. Maxmen, M.D., The New Psychiatry]

crazy about madness

Certain diseases (like cancer) strike such dread into our hearts, we don't even want to think about them. One of these is mental illness in any kind or degree. Just knowing a friend is "seeing a shrink" makes us wonder if there's something "wrong" with them. In some of us, the fear of mental illness becomes a mental illness itself. We never mention the subject ourselves, change the topic hastily when it's introduced, cross the street to avoid those who act mentally ill, drop friends suspected of having psychological problems – and worry constantly that we or others might be "going crazy." Psychologists have a name for this condition: lyssophobia – fear of insanity.

[Norris and Ross McWhirter, Illustrated Encyclopedia of Facts]

MUNCHAUSEN'S SYNDROME

Some people suffer from a compulsion to fake serious illnesses and be hospitalized. Therapists call this condition "Munchausen's Syndrome." Psychiatrist Bernard Schwartz believes Munchausen patients find their lives intolerable and hunger for the attention, care and isolation from outside problems that accompany hospitalization.

Though it sounds harmless, Munchausen's Syndrome can be a life threatening disorder. Victims will do anything to enter and remain in hospitals: injure themselves, drink toxic substances, even trick physicians into unnecessary surgery – over and over again. Even when caught red-handed, Munchausen patients refuse to acknowledge they faked symptoms. They simply start all over with a new doctor – with a whole new set of symptoms.

[Rebecca Wooolis, M.F.C.C., When Someone You Love has a Mental Illness]

WHAT'S IT LIKE TO BE CRAZY?

What does it feel like to be mentally ill? Fear is your dominating emotion. Schizophrenia, manic-depression and panic attacks can strike you without warning. You live in constant dread of each new occurrence. Events take on an exaggerated importance: Other people's words and actions, the weather, even a routine traffic accident, can seem to be messages from the gods or part of a deliberate conspiracy directed against you. Other people are maddeningly unable to understand what you are saying, and you have trouble making sense of them. Worse, when you do understand them, much of what they say seems hostile and negative. More frightening, you lack the energy to resist either a world that is overwhelmingly threatening and the uncontrollable forces working inside you.

[Rebecca Wooolis, When Someone You Love has a Mental Illness]

brain DAMAGE

Brain damage, the subject of a million bad taste jokes, is no laughing matter. Damage to the brain causes many bizarre disorders, some relatively benign others frightening, even devastating. Among them: aboulia (lack of will or initiative), agrypnia (total inability to sleep), alexia (inability to understand the printed word), algolagnia (lust for pain), amimia (loss of expressive capabilities), amorphia (inability to judge form), aphagia (inability to swallow), bradykinesia (slowness of movement), catalepsy (rigidity of posture), choreas (involuntary "flickering" muscle movements), echolalila (parroting of words), echopraxia (parroting of actions), ophthalmoplegia (paralysis of gaze), orexia (incontinent gluttony), tachykinesia (excessive speed of movement).

[Judith Hooper and Dick Teresi, The 3-Pound Universe]

the thirteenth step

In the 1980s, the world went on a recovery binge. By decade's end Newsweek reported more than 500,000 12-Step type groups had sprung up nation-wide – helping victims manage dozens of addictions: relationships, gambling, sex, drugs, spending and a host of others. From the 12-Step perspective, almost every one seemed to have some kind of problem that could benefit from the application of its principles. Those who weren't addicts themselves were children, spouses or parents of addicts who needed 12-Step help to heal the emotional scars caused by the addict in their lives. Millions more were said to be suffering from unhealed childhood traumas like divorce, the loss of a parent or abuse (physical, sexual and even verbal) – and were quickly enrolled in such groups.

Clearly, 12-Step groups helped millions of alcoholics and addicts. Before the advent of Alcoholics Anonymous, addiction recovery rates were non-existent and permanent cure was believed impossible. These groups have also enabled millions of others to successfully manage many other self-destructive behaviors.

But such groups also had what psychologist Stanton Peele calls their "dark side." Participants were told "recovery is forever," they would "always" be addicts, always need to "keep coming back." Members attended meetings three, five, even fourteen times or more per week. Those who received benefit from one program discovered yet other addictions that needed 12-Step management – moving from alcoholism groups to those for overeating, from gambling to cigarettes.

Soon therapists began to talk of America's "addiction to recovery" and "recovery from recovery." Critics like psychologist Stanton Peel branded 12-Step programs "a kind of brainwashing" a developmental dead end that denied members future growth and progress. Others called for "A 12-Steps Anonymous to handle people's addiction to the program." 12-Step groups, they charged, made no provision for graduation – a 13th step.

[Tina Tessina, Ph.D., The Thirteenth Step]

ABERRATIONS

winter blues

The sun's rays keep us happy. When daylight shortens in winter, melancholy settles over many men and women. Psychologists call this Seasonal Affective Order (SAD).

Leaves turning and falling, nights getting longer, warmth fleeing the earth – and other psychological cues of life shriveling up before winter's advance – were once blamed. However, sunlight, not the subconscious, may be responsible for winter blues, if research by Alfred Levy, at the Oregon Health Sciences University in Portland is confirmed. Levy knew that melatonin, a key mood-elevator is produced by sunlight. Since there is less light in winter, he wondered if lowered melatonin levels might trigger SAD.

Sufferers basked under bright artificial sunlight for at least half an hour every morning. The majority soon lost their winter blues. Real sunlight, Levy claims, would have a similar salutary effect.

[Alfred J. Levy, M.D., Ph.D., "Seasonal Defective Order," Science, Vol. 2325, 1987]

no slapping matter

Traditionally, victims of panic are told to "take a deep breath and relax" – or slapped sharply on the face. Folklore held that increased oxygen had a calming effect on the body. Rather than being helpful, taking a deep breath may be the worst thing panic sufferers can do, according to David V. Sheehan, director of clinical research at the University of South Florida.

Because some drugs relieve or prevent panic attacks, Sheehan looked for biological roots. Soon he discovered even modestly increased trace of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere can trigger panic in many sufferers. Breathing deeply means inhaling more carbon dioxide, making the attack worse, not better. Panic, Sheehan's research suggests, is no slapping matter.

[David Sheehan and Scott M. Fishman, Psychology Today, April 1988]

THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING PENIS

Most men worry about the size of their penis; some even worry that it might shrink. But a handful of males suffer from a psychological syndrome called "koro" – an overwhelming fear that their penis is shrinking into the belly. Koro strikes during periods of increased stress – holidays, work and relationship problems, important events. First identified in the Far East, the syndrome's most extreme form includes the conviction that when the penis finishes contracting into the belly, the victim will die.

A team of British researchers decided to reassure males afflicted with this obsession. Using the penal plethysmograph, which detects changes in circumference, they convinced sufferers their manhood showed no diminution in size. Ironically, the British team discovered that, while the victim's organs were not shrinking, attacks of "koro" caused temporary contraction.

[Psychology Today, July 1986]

COMPULSIVE LIARS

Everyone lies sometimes – usually to escape a sticky situation. But some of us lie all the time. In fact, one out of every twenty people we meet is a compulsive liar, according to Bryan King, a psychiatrist at the UCLA School of Medicine.

Compulsive liars are simply unable to tell the truth. Unlike the rest of us, who only lie when we feel we have to, compulsive liars fabulate for the sake of fabulation. King, who has studied lying for years, believes compulsive liars "come from traumatic home environments. Their own history is so bad, they revise it."

The feeling of liberation from a past they can't face becomes addictive – giving compulsive liars motivation to stretch the truth again and again. "They get an instant rush by duping someone," says professor of psychiatry, Charles Ford.

Both men view compulsive lying as an emotional illness. Victims don't just tell lies – they try to live them. "Compulsive liars start to believe their revised versions, a whole new fictionalized world opens up for them. A new self-esteem. A new sense of power."

Compulsive liars are difficult to help, because the success of therapy depends on one quality of which they have the shortest supply – honesty.

[Gordon Monson, "The One That Got Away and Other Tall Tales, Los Angeles Times]

Fear of Filing

No one likes going to the dentist. But for some people fear of dentists is so overpowering it endangers their life. Almost 15% of us put off making dental appointments until serious damage has occurred, according to the Academy of General Dentistry. When treatment is unduly delayed gum disease, tooth loss, internal infection and a serious threat to life and health can result. That seems like a high price to pay for a little lack of polish.

[Susan Chollar, "Fear of Fillings," Psychology Today, January-February 1989]

the Scent of Madness

A team of doctors in St. Louis have breathed new life into the old saying: "It smells like madness." Studies have long shown that schizophrenic patients can detect odors so dilute that no one else can smell them at all. Now come reports that suggest schizophrenia produces an aroma all its own. The St. Louis investigators isolated the chemical involved (trans-3-methyl-2-hexonic acid) in the sweat of schizophrenic patients. Oddly, rats and some humans can detect this scent. Both found it unpleasant. Trans-methyl may be nature's way of letting us know we are dealing with someone who is potentially unstable.

[Psychology Today, January-February 1989]

a hairy problem

People who are angry or frustrated often jokingly threaten to pull out their hair. But for some people hair pulling is no joke – they have the hair fetish known as trichotillomania. Researchers have linked stress to more than 25% of trichotillomania cases. Victims appear "wigged out" by stress.

[Psychology Today, January-February 1989]

NOT A CASE OF LOGOPHOBIA

We all have some kind of irrational little phobia – bees, earthquakes, being mugged, dentists, the dark. People can develop phobias about anything – a person, place, thing, idea, group or situation. Some of us have one (monophobia); some have many (polyphobia); others are fearful of everything (panphobia). More than one hundred-seventy phobias have been identified. Some of them common and understandable, others bizarre and unlikely.

Our more common phobias are: Agoraphobia (fear of open spaces), ailurophobia (fear of cats), apiphobia (fear of bees), aviophobia (fear of flying), astraphobia (fear of storms), iatrophobia (fear of doctors), algophobia (fear of pain), arachnophobia(fear of spiders), cynophbia (fear of dogs), xeonphobia (fear of foreigners), zoophobia (fear of animals), altophobia (fear of heights).

Our less common, but more understandable fears include: Ballistophobia (fear of bullets), harpaxophobia (fear of robbers), hypegiaphobia (fear of responsibility), phasmophobia (fear of ghosts), thasophobia (fear of sitting idle), taphephobia (fear of being buried alive), thalassophobia (fear of the ocean).

Among our more bizarre, if harmless, phobias are: Trichophobia (fear of hair), aulophoia (fear of flutes), dendrophobia (fear of trees), kyphophobia (fear of stooping), linonophobia (fear of string), patroiophibia (fear of heredity), pteronophobia (fear of feathers), siderophobia (fear of stars), odontophobia(fear of teeth), belonephobia (fear of needles), ombrophobia (fear of rain), amathophobia (fear of dust), groups crystallophobia (fear of crystals).

But a few phobias can be very inconvenient: Oophobia (fear of opening one's eyes), sistophobia (fear of food), vestiphobia (fear of clothing), dermatophobia (fear of skin), hypnophobia (fear of sleep), phagophobia (fear of swallowing), ochophoiba (fear of vehicles), gephydrophobia (fear of crossing bridges), nyctophobia (fear of night), oikophobia (fear of home), clinophobia (fear of beds).

A few are even philosophic: Eleuthrophobia (fear of freedom), neophobia (fear of the new), ergophobia (fear of work), ideophobia (fear of ideas), mechanophobia (fear of machinery), dikephobia (fear of justice), kakorraphiaphobia (fear of failure), gymnophobia (fear of nudity), bibliophobia (fear of books), hednophobia (fear of pleasure), peccatophobia (fear of sinning), satanophobia (fear of Satan), androphobia (fear of men), gynophobia (fear of women), anthropophobia (fear of human beings), genophobia (fear of sex), gametophobia (fear of marriage).

Evidentially, whatever else early 20th century therapists suffered from, they did not suffer from logophobia (fear of words) or phobophobia (fear of fears).

[Norris and Ross McWhirter, Illustrated Encyclopedia of Facts]

CHAPTER 10

OUR PSYCHOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT OVER A LIFETIME

THOSE WHO THINK YOUNG

CHILDHOOD

NEVER TOO YOUNG TO LEARN

Scientists long ago proved the truth of the axiom: "you're never too old to learn." Now they have unearthed evidence that we're never to young to learn, according to research cited in Psychology Today.

Infants only 2-4 days old learned which sound, a tone or a buzzer, produced a taste of sugar water, during one Brown University study. While newborns as young as 42 minutes learned to imitate facial gestures like sticking out the tongue, in a University of Washington research project. Parents who read great books to infants and play them great music – convinced the influence will carried over into latter life – may not be so crazy after all.

["You've Come a Long Way, Baby," Psychology Today, May 1987]

Don't Blame Your Mom

Chronic anger, addiction, violence, failure, broken relationships – and many other adult problems have been traced to poor infant-mother bonding. But what prevents mothers and their babies from forming a warm emotional bond in the first place? For years psychologists believed babies only developed personalities and preferences over a period of months – so whatever went wrong with the bonding process must be due to some attitude or failure of the mother.

Now a University of Delaware study suggests that many times mom's not to blame. Some infants are born with negative attitudes and personalities that prevent bonding – no matter how much love, care or nurturing mothers shower on them. Fussy babies – those who demanded the most attention and became most anxious during stressful situations – were the most likely to bond poorly. Their inability to form a warm attachment with their mothers reflected – not a failure on their mother's part – but innate emotional and personality problems these children carried with them into the rest of their lives.

[Michael Lewis et al., Developmental Psychology, Vol. 21, No. 60, 1986]

the age of reason

What's the age of reason? Two? Five? Thirty-five? When do we gain the ability to connect two events and reason from them? Some people never seem to reach it. But for most of us the age reason is about one month after birth, claims psychologist Elizabeth S. Spelke.

Aware that babies stare longer at the new and novel than at the familiar and routine, Spelke decided to test the age at which babies first began to reason. Infants between one and two months of age watched a rolling ball disappear behind a screen and then were shown it resting against a wall. Another group this age watched the ball disappear without being shown what caused it to stop. Babies shown what stopped the ball became bored more quickly watching the ball disappear – indicting they had connected the obstacle with the disappearance. Spelke believes her experiments prove that infants "reason in basic ways about what they see."

Spelke's findings fly in the face of older scientific views on the brain structure of newborns – that the neurological connections necessary for reason don't develop for many months. If confirmed by others, her studies show there's reason to give new thought to how babies think.

["Infants Signal the Birth of Knowledge," Science News, November 14, 1992]

the thrill of the new

The secret of building smarter babies may be at parent's fingertips. Psychologist Marc H. Bornstein discovered that the more often mothers encouraged babies to look at new objects by pointing them out, the higher the child's results on intelligence tests later in life. Apparently the thrill of the new boosts babies' brain power.

[Marc H. Bornstein, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 82, 1987]

the dawn of the self

When do we first become ourselves? At what point do we pass from the passive oblivion of infancy to the self-awareness of childhood? Dabbing a spot of rouge on babies' noses and sitting them in front of a mirror, a team of Rutgers Medical School psychologists waited to see what would happen. Infants who touched their own nose rather than the mirror, the researchers reasoned, were obviously aware of themselves as separate and distinct entities. From the babies' responses, the Rutgers team fixed our dawning awareness of ourselves as separate and distinct from the world around us at between 18 and 24 months.

[Michael Lewis et al., Developmental Psychology, Vol. 21, No. 60, 1986]

BABIES FORGETTING BIRTH

If babies can remember birth, why can't most of us recall anything that happened before we were three or four?

Those memories aren't lost – we're just looking for them in the wrong file drawer, says psychologist Abdul Neisser of Emory University. Adult recollections are linked to words – infant's memories are associated with visual and sensory cues. As a result, when we mentally flip through memories filed under "birthday parties," we find only those from the age of four or five onward.

The "lost" recollections of infancy can be recovered, says Neisser. But only if we heed the Biblical injunction to see and think as "little children." We must look for them where they are filed: with our visual and sensory – rather than verbal – memories. One of Neisser's students was kneeling down to install a gumball machine at his fraternity – and thus viewing the world from the height of a two-year-old – when he triggered an onrush of childhood memories.

["Stages of Life, Ages of Mind," Newsweek, September 29, 1986]

the birth of the blues

Anger and happiness are the most basic emotions (even animals have them) and the first we develop as infants. The more complex emotions – the one's that make us human – develop later, around the age of two. At this point, we become aware of others as separate individuals and of our interactions with them. Leading to our first experiences of empathy, jealousy, shame, guilt and pride, according to researchers at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. At this point babies become subject to depression and loneliness – unknowingly, they have just experienced the birth of the blues.

[Psychology Today, May 1987]

"i don't feel good today, mommy!"

As children, we all tried to dodge grade school by pretending to be sick. Epidemics of sniffles, aches, pains and other non-specific complaints sweep the 6 to 12 age group routinely when class projects are due or on the day of important tests. Playing sick is a healthy part of childhood, according to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

But for some grade schoolers, pretending to be sick is more than a sometime thing. Up to 10% of children "play sick" because of a deeper underlying anxiety. Therapists call this "school anxiety" and it can be set-off by many things: temporary fear of school, teacher change, academic stress, illness, divorce, the death of a relative or worries about crime, bullies and scapegoating. Usually children are more than eager to confess their concerns when observant parents become aware there is a problem.

["I Won't Go To School," Parents, September 1990]

ahead of the pack

Gifted children are ahead of their peers in intellectual development – they also appear to be ahead in developing emotional problems, as well. Psychologist Richard Klene found that gifted children tend to develop most childhood fears about two years before other kids their age. Without understanding from the adults around them, most gifted children found this a painful, confusing process. When parents were aware of their offspring's advanced emotional development and gave them special support, gifted children had no more difficulty handling these transitions than anyone else.

["Precocious Fears in the Gifted," Psychology Today, April 1989]

5 TO 1

No wonder so many of us grow up with shaky self-esteem. When it comes to verbal licks versus verbal strokes from parents – the picture we see painted of us is overwhelmingly negative. Parents criticize children five times for every complement they bestow, according to psychologist Jane Marks. She suggests disbelieving parents keep track of how often they criticize and praise children for a few weeks.

Most parents are distressed at how far their licks outnumber strokes. But Marks offers quick reassurance: "Criticizing doesn't make you bad parents. It shows that you're trying to teach [your children]." She recommends complementing specific behaviors so that children know exactly what the praise was for; she also cautions against confusing children by mixing praise and criticism at the same time. Otherwise, the odds against children developing strong self-esteem are 5 to 1.

[Jane Marks, "We Have a Problem," Parents, September 1990]

CHILDREN WHO DON'T PLAY

Most of us envision childhood, especially the toddler years, as a time of carefree play. But some children's don't play at all, writes Dr. Margaret Lowenfeld. In a well-equipped nursery school, such a child will remain tense and refuse to play with any of the toys. Or they will aimlessly handle every toy without playing with any one thing and initiate half a dozen games only to drop each one moments later.

These children are suffering from an anxiety they cannot express. Because it is very difficult for young children to express what troubles them, they often retreat from the world. "Lack of ability to play is not natural and is not an inborn characteristic," Lowenfield warns. Children who don't play are sending a signal of a deeper underlying problem.

[Margaret Lowenfield, Children and Play]

bilingual or split- PERSONALITY?

Bilingual education has been highly touted. But now U.C.L.A. psychologists have unearthed disturbing evidence being bilingual can produce a "split – personality" like effect. Since these "coordinate bilinguals" learn the second language in a totally different culture, some researchers believe each language – and the national characteristics absorbed with them – may be stored in different parts of the brain. As a result, when coordinate bilinguals use a language, they unwittingly tap into the mannerisms and values that go with that culture.

A group of third-world students who had learned English as a second language were given a personality assessment test – first in their native language and then, several weeks later, in English. Participants revealed notable personality differences depending on which language they used. In English, they scored higher in social presence, self-acceptance, well being and achievement – characteristic American values. When answering in their native tongue, they scored higher in self-control and the desire to create a good impression – qualities long valued in their native cultures. "

Coordinate bilinguals, the researchers suggested might show one personality pattern in one country, and a completely different set in the other. "Based on these findings," they concluded, "you would predict that behavior will differ according to the linguistic context."

["Dr. Jekyll, Senior Hyde," Psychology Today, December 1987]

ADOLESCENCE

not a kid anymore

The growth from childhood to adolescence is a gradual and largely invisible process. Even parents might not be able to pinpoint the difference between their child and the teenager they've become. But a University of Michigan study of changes in the way childhood and adolescents spend their day reveals clear differences and growth.

At the age of 3, boys and girls typically slumber ten and a half hours; but by age 16, they're down to eight hours and twenty minutes – gaining more than two hours of waking time. Strangely, with this increase in waking time, television viewing actually declines among 16 year olds – to less than two hours, from a peak of two and a half at age 10 – perhaps due to increasing preoccupation with romance and sex. Play becomes a thing of the past, gone with childhood, down from two hours twenty minutes to a mere fourteen minutes. Time spent in personal grooming, not surprisingly, more than doubles – up from forty minutes in childhood to a full hour by mid-teens. Time spent with friends sextuples, from ten minutes to nearly an hour.

While complaints about teens being "godless" seem to have some basis – church attendance decreases from an hour per week to half an hour – or less.

[Psychology Today, May 1987]

IT'S not rebellion

Teens can seem very confusing to adults – and themselves – by turns, angry, ecstatically happy, depressed and ultra mellow. Some of their highly combustible emotionality is due to the confusion and rebellion "caused by moving into an adult world in which relationships and responsibilities are quiet different." But many are triggered by "the hormonal and central nervous-system changes brought by" adolescence, according to research quoted in Dreams and the Development Of Personality. "They are not being contrary purposely." Their shifting, volatile emotions reflect – not one more face of adolescent rebellion – but "the hormonal shifts of puberty."

[Ernest Lawrence Rossi, Ph.D., Dreams and the Development Of Personality]

the defiant ones

Rebellion or defiance – what's the difference? It can be a very big difference where teenagers are concerned. Adolescent rebellion is one of life's most celebrated rites of passage. The vast majority of us shake it off and pass on to relatively normal adulthood. But for some young men and women, what appears to be adolescent rebellion is actually a more serious, underlying disturbance therapists call, "oppositional defiant disorder." Unchecked this defiance grows worse, culminating in risk-taking behavior that can endanger the teen – and others.

Oppositional defiant disorder can strike children as young as 12 or 13, writes Dr. Lee Salk, clinical professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at the Cornell Medical Center. Because troubled teens at first fit the same behavior patterns as other adolescents, parents often don't realize their off-spring has a serious problem until an arrest, suicide attempt, automobile accident or even criminal activity sends its own chilling signal. Normal adolescent rebellion, Salk says, is generally limited to the family circle. Only when defiance extends into other areas of life, school, friends, work – should parents become concerned. According to Salk, eight other tale-tale clues are:

* Frequent loss of temper

* Frequent arguments with adults

* Deliberately doing things that irritate others

* Blaming others for one's one errors or mistakes

* Being easily annoyed

* Frequent anger and resentment

* Frequent spitefulness and vindictiveness

* Frequent swearing and using obscene language

[Lee Salk, M.D., "Adolescent Rebellion or Sheer Defiance" McCall's, July 1990]

THEY'RE EITHER TOO YOUNG OR TOO OLD

Pity the poor teenager. In a hurry to grow up as children, they now find themselves in a no-win situation. Either their bodies seem to develop too early or too late. When this happens adolescents experience deep emotional anguish, suffering from their own insecurities and the taunts of their peers, according to James Comer, M.D., professor of child psychiatry at Yale University.

Girls whose bodies develop early (11-13) become the targets of sexual interest and pressure long before they are emotionally prepared for it; with dropping grades and self-esteem as a result. Boys who mature early also experience a decline in grades and self-esteem; and in regions where gang activity runs high, are at serious risk of being pulled into them by older boys.

Boys and girls who mature late worry about their normality – frightened their bodies will never develop and there is something "wrong with them." Girls see other girls becoming attractive to boys, while they remain ignored; boys find themselves the butt of ridicule, the last to be chosen in sports. Both find themselves frozen out of peer groups.

[James Comer, "Kids Who Mature Fast," Parents, June 1990]

the grass is greener

Most teens envy their beautiful and handsome peers, who they perceive as assured, confident and successful. But attractive teens are insecure about their looks and actually envy each other, according to surveys cited by personal attractiveness researcher Gordian Patzer, Ph.D.

All adolescents are constantly worried about their appearance. To adults, this preoccupation may seem superficial and silly. But so many central aspects of adolescent life – friendship, social acceptance, sexual attractiveness – are determined by appearance that teens spend hours before the mirror examining themselves for flaws. Even the most attractive are more aware of their few deficiencies than the vast preponderance of good features they possess.

[David Elkind, "Teenagers Confront Mother Nature," Parents, May 1990]

smarter than you think

Get set for a shock. Today's teens may have better values than their parents and grandparents. Asked to name school clubs whose members they would like to date, readers of Teen chose "athletes," "cheerleaders," "drama" and "fine arts." Earlier generations only yearned for "athletes" and "cheerleaders" – suggesting contemporary adolescents share intellectual interests their predecessor did not possess.

[The Editors, Teen Magazine, July 1990]

brief candles

One out of every 50,000 teenagers will take their own life this year. The death of the young – with the so much before them – always seems like a tragic waste. A self-inflicted death – all the more wasteful. Yet teen suicides are becoming more common, laying reap to an entire generation of adolescents.

Over the last three decades, the number of teens suicides has tripled. More frighteningly, 30% of all adolescents admit they've seriously considered taking their own lives – while 6 out of every 100 have actually tried to kill themselves. This increase in teen suicide, writes child psychologist David Elkind Ph.D. represents the unprecedented challenges and perils contemporary adolescent face: sexual activity, drugs, divorce rate. Worst of all, Elkind says, they are the first generation to have lost the sense that the world is getting better.

Teen suicides are usually triggered by a traumatic event – parents' divorce, breaking up with a boyfriend or girlfriend, losing an important competition. But the cause is always long-standing feelings of inadequacy, inferiority, persecution or injustice. Any intimation that a teenager is contemplating suicide should always be taken seriously, Elkind warns. Teens who talk of taking their own lives are in a crisis. What they needs most is a sympathetic listener who will not judge them. Often it is an enormous relief for adolescents to confess their self-destructive urges to another.

[David Elkind, The Hurried Child, Addison-Wesley, 1990]

the fundamental things still apply...

How much has the love life of teenage boys and girls changed? Tie-dies and love-ins have gone the way of the malt shop and hop. Easy sex and the fear of AIDS may be the rule of the day. But superficial changes aside, teens still struggle with the same old questions that plagued Andy Hardy – and the ancient Egyptians. According to the results of a Teen Magazine report the questions readers most wanted answered included: Where do you go to meet girls (guys)? Who should pay for a date? Should girls ask guys out? What's the best way let (him or her) you're interested? Should a boy and girl date if she is taller than he is? If someone turns you down for a date, should you ever ask them out again? If you aren't interested in someone but they're still interested in you what should you do? How should you go about breaking up with someone you've been seeing steadily? Should you go out with someone you know already has a boyfriend (girlfriend)?

[Teen Magazine, July 1990]

for those who hate young

Teen bigotry is on the rise. Intolerance and hate crimes are growing among adolescents. According to a recent U.S. News & World Report survey, most of today's hatemongers are under the age of 21. Campuses have been reporting a 30% rise per year in hate crimes. In short, the boy (or girl) next door may be the bigot next door.

Why the rise in youthful bigotry? Psychologists name a variety of factors, among them: Racial competition for diminishing job opportunities and college aid; lowered societal vigilance against bigotry, following a period of long decline. But the most important may be that today's young people don't realize the appalling history of bigotry. "They don't know about gas chambers and lynchings," says Allan Ostar, president of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities.

Once again, those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.

["America's Youthful Bigots," U.S. News & World Report, May 7, 1990]

EMBARRASSMENT by the clock

It's a problem that embarrasses every adolescent boy and is a prime source of amusement and titillation to adolescent girls. Suddenly, on the way to a class, while standing in a group or in the middle of slow dancing – sprong! Without even thinking about sex, the male discovers he's gotten an enormous erection.

"The changes of adolescence are changes in circadian and ultradian rhythms," explains psychologist Ernest Rossi, Ph.D. "This sexual arousal can be seen quite clearly in [boys] who are particularly aware of periodic waves of sexual feelings through the day, as their ultradian rhythms bring changes in their hormone levels." The sad news for boys, if Rossi's correct, is that the only cure is time – becoming "twenty-something."

[Ernest Lawrence Rossi, Ph.D., The 20 Minute Break]

MIDLIFE

welcome to the masquerade

Remember "adults" – those tall people you looked up to when you were eight? Then, you could hardly wait to be one. But when you turned 18, you didn't feel that much different than you did at 16 – and when you turned 21, you didn't feel that much different than 18.

"You don't automatically grow up by a certain age, even if all the outer clues say you have," concludes Carin Rubenstein, Ph.D., after surveying 9,000 adults. As we move through our twenties, we begin to realize that being an "adult" is more complicated and takes longer than we ever dreamed. Being a grown-up, Rubenstein says, is a state of mind.

We'll never find a magical date or event that marks the passage from adolescence to adulthood. Most of us have to decide for ourselves when we have arrived, Rubenstein councils. "Being married and owning a home do not guarantee that you have gained a sense of financial responsibility or learned to accept yourself." Perhaps that's why so many women and men told Rubenstein they felt they were "only masquerading as grown-ups."

[Carin Rubenstein, Ph.D., "The New Adulthood," Glamour, April 1991]

the procrastinAtor gets the worm

Not everyone enters adulthood at the same. Some of us are early birds – others are procrastinators. However, when it comes to the age we attain maturity, its the procrastinators – and even the super-procrastinators – who get the economic worm. The earlier we leave home, the smaller our share of the economic pie.

People seem to feel they enter adulthood in four separate age brackets:

Early birds – 25% of us board the fast-track to adulthood by the time we are eighteen, leaving home early and gaining our financial independence early; usually as a result of a parental divorce that forced us to begin earning our living earlier than most.

On-timers – 25% of us consider ourselves adults between nineteenth and twenty-first birthdays; and when we leave school, begin to support ourselves.

Procrastinators – about 35% of us have the luxury of taking our time growing and only begin feeling a true sense of adulthood in our mid-twenties; procrastinators are more likely to graduate from college and hold white-collar jobs.

Super-procrastinators – about 15% of us don't feel we're adults until our late twenties or early thirties; we live with our parents longer, hold the most professional jobs and have the highest incomes.

Although considered a serious character flaw, procrastination has its financial rewards. "People who leave home later and marry later have the best outcome," explains demographer, Martha Riche, Ph.D.

[Carin Rubenstein, "The New Adulthood," Glamour, April 1991 & "The New Middle Age," Newsweek, December 7, 1992]

THE new GENERATION GAP

Long after the era of the hippies, evidence of a generation gap is stronger than ever. Only it's not between adolescents and adults – but young adults and senior citizens. And this time, instead of older people failing to understand the young, it's the young who don't understand the old.

Researchers at Long Island University wondered how differences in age effect our ability to understand each other. Women 25 to 80 watched videotapes of women in the same age range describing events that had effected them strongly – but without any soundtrack. Then participants were asked to guess what emotions the women on the videotape had been feeling and how intensely they had been feeling them.

The greater the age gap, the fewer the number of correct guesses; the closer participants ages were to those of the women on the video tape, the more accurate they were at reading what the other was feeling. Younger women had the most difficulty in reading the emotions of older women. Apparently, the elderly understand the young better than the young understand their elders.

[Carol Zander Malazesta, Psychology and Aging]

SHELL SHOCKED URBANITES

Everyone knows our cities are becoming urban battlezones. Now a Henry Ford Hospital research project has produced evidence "shell shock" is becoming endemic among young urban adults. The scientific name for shell shock, also known as "battle fatigue," is Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome. Until the Ford survey, most victims were combat vets, disaster survivors and those who lost family members. Flashbacks and dreams of traumatic experiences, emotional numbness, paranoia and difficulty concentrating haunt those who suffer from PTSD.

Almost 40% of the men and women surveyed had experienced these symptoms. While one in ten actually developed PTSD. This makes PTSD one of the most common psychiatric disorders among young adults – only phobias, depression and addiction out rank it. Triggers include a spectrum of urban ills: sudden injury, serious accident, physical assault, rape, and seeing someone mugged or killed.

["Trauma Disorder Strikes Many Young Adults," Science News, March 30, 1990]

the golden age of sex

The Golden Age of science fiction is said to be sixteen. For sex, it seems to be the 20s and 30s, if a National Opinion Research Center survey can be believed. Couples seemed to reach a peak of sexual activity and inventiveness that far exceeded anything they experienced in their teens – or in subsequent decades. Of those interviewed:

80% - made love at least once a week

70% - enjoyed undressing each other

55% - engaged sex outdoors

46% - went nude swimming together

[The National Opinion Research Center, Newsweek, August 24, 1992]

one rotten apple

How good is adult life? No better than its worst part, according to University of Michigan research. Most of us know our problems and negative feelings can carry over from one area of life to another. But a University of Michigan project involving men and women of all ages – from top-ranking executives to manual laborers and custodians – found "unhappiness in one area of life carries over to all other areas – in equal amounts." If you are only half-satisfied with your job or marriage, you'll only be half- satisfied with other aspects of your life.

[Human Behavior, January 1979]

what was that?

Many companies dump older employees, convinced younger workers can bring greater concentration to their jobs. But a National Institute of Aging study found our minds don't wander more as they age – they become more focused. It's younger employees (21 - 40) who can't keep their minds on the job at hand. We tend think more about the tasks we're doing and less about other matters, as the decades pass. The younger participants were, the harder they found it to concentrate.

[Psychology Today, December 1988]

when you don't wish you were fifteen again

It's a devastating condition that only afflicts adults. It can strike anyone from the age of 20 - 101 at anytime – and without any prior warning. There is no permanent cure, but with the right precautions, attacks can be mitigated.

Therapists call it "regression" – but to most of us its feeling fifteen and foolish again. Social snubs, embarrassing mistakes, being caught in a "little white lie" – can all flood us with the kind of paralyzing shame and humiliation we experienced as adolescents when we were made fools of by ourselves or others. Most adults thought they'd left these feelings behind with acne and puberty, and are horrified to find themselves hurled back to the worst moments of their teen years, says Judith Stone.

Our attacks of adolescent anguish will never completely disappear. But the second time around, they needn't be as devastating, Stone writes. We know things as adults we didn't know as teens and can use this knowledge to place our feelings of being fifteen and foolish in perspective. We've had enough experience to realize we are going to win some and lose some in life – and will survive even the most painful humiliation.

[Judith Stone, "Feeling Fifteen Again," Glamour, September 1990]

PRIME TIME OR MIDDLE AGE?

Tens of millions of adults were shocked to wake up one morning and discover a headlined wire service report in their newspapers announcing: "40 is middle aged." Most women and men in their 40s, felt their hearts stop. There was little joy in Muddville that night.

Psychologists were quick to disagree. Though, 40 may have once represented middle age, today "we are seeing that 50 means all kinds of very vibrant, alive, sexy, dynamic people," says June Reinisch, director of the Kinsey Institute of Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction. Reinisch believes better health and increased life span are causing middle age to start later and last longer than for previous generations.

We're really getting a second chance at youth, an unprecedented opportunity to live our lives over the way we wish they had gone, Reinisch claims. Unlike our parents' and grandparents' generation, we have thirty or more active years ahead of us after age forty and fifty. Women and men passing from their thirties are changing jobs, going back to school, renewing old relationships and seeking out new ones, enjoying the leisure activities they've only dreamed of before (travel, sports, the arts). Instead of letting age define them, people today are redefining age, Reinisch concludes.

If true, we may soon think of life in our forties and beyond as "prime time" – not "middle" age.

[Carin Rubenstein, Ph.D., "The New Adulthood," Glamour, April 1991]

MIDDLE AGED MELLOW

When is losing your mind good for you? When you can say farewell to worry with them. Between 40 and 60, we lose many of the brain cells that register anxiety, according to research cited in a Newsweek special report. No wonder men and women are reported to mellow when they reach middle age. Because our brain cells are dying, says Ronald Kessler of the Institute for Social Research, "In terms of mental health, midlife is the best time."

["The New Middle Age," Newsweek, December 7 1992]

KEEPING up APPEARANCES

The Baby Boomers enjoyed the most prolonged period of youth and vigor known to any generation in history. But now as reality finally catches up with them, many have turned to grasp at any possibility – rigorous nutritional regimes, Eastern mediation, even hair colorings and plastic surgery – that promises to postpone the dreaded specter of "old age." University of California, gerontologist Ferenando Torres-Gil predicts Boomers won't confront old age "until they are in their seventies."

Dr. Mel Bircoll, the father of modern cosmetic surgery, backs up Torres-Gill's assertions. Boomers are showing up in his office more frequently, Bircoll says, as the average age of his clients has dropped from 55 to 45. An American Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons survey found 27% of all face-lifts were in the Boomer's 35-50 age bracket; while Boomers hogged 64% of all tummy-tucks. In their quest for youth, more than 1,000,000 Boomers now shell out more that $5,000,000,000 for cosmetic surgery each year.

For Boomers, keeping up with the Jones seems to mean keeping up appearances.

["The New Middle Age," Newsweek, December 7, 1992]

MATURITY

HOW OLD IS OLD?

When does old age begin? Don't ask scientists. One school of thought suggests old age is the point when the expected remaining years of life is 10. Another believes old age should be divided into the young-old and the old-old because the needs and interests of the two groups diverge widely. A third defines the old age as 75 and above. A fourth sets it at 80 to 85. Others argue the term itself is meaningless. If this controversy continues, many now living will die of old age before scientists agree on what it is.

[James Birren and Warner Schaie, Handbook of the Psychology of Aging]

THE TIME OF OUR LIVES

The summers seem longer when we are children. The period between one New Year's day and another feels as if it stretches on forever. As adults, each New Year catches us by surprise, and we wonder where the months have gone. By the time we become senior citizens, half-a-year seems to go by in a blur – and the years whip past at a breathless rate. The seeming acceleration of time is a natural phenomenon. Experiments cited in National Geographic show time seems longer when we are unoccupied. As children, with so little that's urgent filling our attention, the days appear to pass slowly. But as our preoccupations increase throughout adulthood even the minutes seem crowded – creating the illusion that time passes faster and faster with age.

["The Enigma of Time" National Geographic, March 1990]

they'd rather be right

We all know women and men who remain mentally alert and in full possession of their faculties throughout their lives. And others who experience a continuing mental erosion once they pass their prime. Scientists long sought a physical explanation for these differences – health, heredity, exercise. However, a three-decade study by psychologist Warner Schaie, suggests the cause may be more psychological than physiological.

Remaining alive, bright, with-it as we age, Schaie found, resulted from a flexible, open-minded attitude toward life. Rigid, closed-minded and dogmatic men and women experienced significant deterioration of intelligence, alertness, memory and personality as they grew older. But when the closed-minded could be open-minded enough to embrace flexibility, Schaie discovered, they regained a large measure of their metal powers, no matter how advanced their age. However, those willing to change represent only a minute fraction of the rigid and dogmatic, Schaie concedes. As for the rest, apparently they'd rather be right – than bright.

[Psychology Today, March 1985]

exercising the memory

Concerned about your memory fading as you grow older? Don't be. There's a simple solution: strengthen your memory by strengthening your body. A Scripps College research project involving women and men 55 to 89 found those who exercised for just 12 minutes a day developed better memories, quicker reaction and more accurate reasoning.

[Robert J. Trotter, "Exercise: Getting Your Head in Shape," Psychology Today, January 1988]

no lost horizons

Groundbreaking new research suggests adults may not experience any loss of mental ability as they age. It wasn't older people's minds that were faulty, it was the tests they were given. Previous tests compared senior citizens with students, a group unusually adept in the tricks that aid memorization. When later studies compared adults in their 20s and 30 to the same standards, they too appeared to be experiencing a decline in memory, Psychology Today assistant editor Jeff Meer reports. What had actually declined, researchers realized, wasn't adults' memory, but their degree of proficiency with the tricks of the memory trade.

[Jeff Meer, "The Reason of Age," Psychology Today, June 1986]

PEACEFUL (DAY) DREAMS

We not only daydream less as we grow older – we daydream differently. As we age, psychological and physical changes make us less aggressive and less willing to extend ourselves physically in risky situations – and our daydreams reflect these changes. Hostile and heroic themes – fantasies of "saving a drowning child," "blowing away terrorists," "physically hurting someone I hate," "telling off my boss" – all show a sharp decline. College age women and men told psychologist Leonard Giambra they "usually" had such fantasies; while those over 65 reported this was "not" true or "usually not true" of them. Motion picture and television producers in search of family fare, who are sick of Ramboesque shoot-em-ups, might do worse than to search among senior citizens for stories and scripts.

[Leonard Giambra, Ph.D, "Daydreaming Across the Lifespan," Journal of Aging and Human Development, Vol. 5]

a matter of motivation

Images of the young as highly motivated "go-getters" and their seniors as burned-out husks may be due for revision. While motivation does dip in our late fifties and early sixties, studies show it rebounds sharply thereafter, says psychologist David Kausler. Motivation was found to decrease between 55 and 69, and then increase again during our seventies. It dropped once more in the early eighties – and returned for a last hurrah in the between 85 and 90. Companies in search of highly motivated personnel might find an inexpensive source among this extremely under-exploited labor pool.

[David Kausler, "Motivation, Human Aging and Cognitive Performance," in Handbook of the Psychology of Aging]

the furnace is still fine, thank you!

Sex is better than ever for a surprisingly large number of seniors. Data from 6,000 respondents age 60 and over, revealed 37% still have intercourse at least once a week. Almost three-fourths admitted they frequently indulged in caressing without intercourse; half engaged in self-gratification, masturbation; and more than half confessed they still had vivid sexual daydreams. One out of six even reported sex had become more enjoyable and satisfying. Encouragingly, only a third reported no interest in sex whatsoever. Apparently, sex remains alive and well into our 60s and beyond.

[Ageless Sex" Psychology Today, March 1989 & "Better Than A Gold Watch," Newsweek, August 24, 1992]

the best revenge

How does race effect old age? First things get worse – then they get better. Statistics paint a grim picture for many members of minority groups in youth – then in the final two decades of life, they pull ahead of the majority culture in longevity, self-esteem and health.

Research reported in Handbook of the Psychology of Aging shows significant differences in the life span and older age experiences of ethnic minorities – blacks, Native Americans, Hispanics, Asian – in European cultures. Negative environmental, social, and economic conditions early in the life result in shortened life expectancy, premature aging sooner, earlier retirement, increased illness and higher, suicide, accident and death. Minorities are also at higher risk for many mental illnesses – particularly paranoia, suicide and depression.

However, at age 80 and beyond an ironic reversal takes place. Though many minority members have died along the way, survivors begin to live longer and to be healthier. Ironically, at this age, self-esteem outstrips that majority members – and so does mental health.

If living well is the best revenge, these minority members would seem to be enjoying the last laugh.

[James Jackson, Ph.D., et al, "Cultural, Racial and Ethnic Minority Influences on Aging," in Handbook of the Psychology of Aging]

who's a contrasexual?

Men and women the world over are contrasexuals – from the boardrooms of New York and Paris to Mayan villages and Middle Eastern mosques. It's the ultimate gender-bender and everyone gives it a whirl.

Men become more nurturing and family oriented, while women become more independent and aggressive as they pass middle age, claims Psychologist David Gutman of Northwestern University. This "contrasexulity" is a universal phenomenon. According to Gutman's surveys, millions of seniors in cultures and countries around the world are becoming contrasexuals every day.

[David Gutman, Reclaimed Powers: Toward a New Psychology of Men and Women in Later Life]

ITS TRUE WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT OLDER PEOPLE

There's reassuring news – for some at least. Most of us do really become wiser as the years pass, according to research involving thousands of older adults at Berlin's Max Planck Institute for Human Development and Education. The researchers defined wisdom as possession of:

* A rich factual knowledge about life

* The ability to perceive life in context

* Composure in coping with the uncertainties of life

The acquisition of wisdom is not guaranteed by age, researchers discovered – many seniors are far from wise. But over all, they found, the older individuals were – they wiser they had become.

[Dean K. Simonton, "Creativity and Wisdom in Aging," in Handbook of the Psychology of Aging]

CHAPTER 11

EVERYTHING ELSE YOU WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT THE HUMAN MIND BUT WERE AFRAID TO ASK

A SHORT PRIMER ON SLEEP

the high price of SLEEP

We sleep one third of our lives away. More than twenty-five of our allotted four score years are lost in slumber. That's over 10,000 days or 240,000 hours. If you could keep awake and work those quarter million, even at minimum wage you'd have an additional $1,200,000 to count – instead of sheep.

["The Mystery of Sleep," Newsweek, July 13, 1981]

MOTHER NATURE'S BODYGUARD

We sleep because we are not reptiles. If we were reptiles, we would have no need to sleep. Snakes, lizards, toads never sleep. But they are helplessly dependent on the sun for much of the body heat that keeps them alive and active. At night – and on dark cloudy days – reptiles become dormant. Helpless, unable to move quickly, they are easy prey for nocturnal predators.

Nature's solution was "warm-blooded" animals that maintain their own source of body heat. But the internal fires that generate that heat need to be constantly stoked with food, and conserved when possible. Our bodies sleep, researcher Stephen LaBerge, Ph.D. believes, to keep us immobile, conserving our energy during the night – though, unlike reptiles, we can rouse instantly and flee nocturnal predators if threatened.

"Sleep," writes Stephen LaBerge, Ph.D., is "Mother Nature's way of keeping you off the streets after dark, and out of trouble."

[Stephen LaBerge, Ph.D., Lucid Dreaming]

try counting these instead of sheep

Most of us take sleep for granted. We slip under the covers, lay there a while and pop off. But sleep is a serious problem for some of men and women. Sleep researchers have identified 60 different sleep disorders that effect hundreds of millions around the world. Insomnia alone plagues an estimated 1 out of every 8 women and men.

Among the more common sleep disorders are: sleeping during the day; insomnia; sleeping too much; sleeping too little; disrupted sleep-wake schedule; poor-quality sleep; falling asleep late and waking up late; going to sleep early and waking up early; sleepwalking; sleeptalking, dream-anxiety attacks; teeth grinding; and night terror.

Sleep disorders can be hereditary. But some occupations demand such weird sleeping schedules that even those who aren't prone to sleep disorders develop them: airline pilots, combat veterans, long-distance truck drivers, newspaper reporters and editors, night and swing shift workers, firemen, doctors, nurses and police.

Sleep disorders are "a serious health problem that is not being recognized," says Harvey Moldofsky, chief of psychiatry at the Toronto Western Hospital's Sleep Disorders Clinic. Disrupted sleep can result in confusion, disorientation, memory loss, mood swings, violent anger, depression, stress, heart problems – even hallucinations and psychosis.

Apparently, slumber just isn't one of those things we can "sleep" on.

[Rae Corelli, "The Mysteries of Sleep and Dreams," Macleans, April 23, 1990]

SLEEPyheads

Tired, sleepy? Find it hard to wake up in the morning? Do you yawn a lot and struggle to stay alert during the day? If so, move over, you'll need room for more than half the world's population. Most adults need 8.3 hours of sleep at a minimum. But typically, we lie awake, keyed up by the day's stresses, catch the 11 P.M. news, a bit of the Tonight Show, and fall asleep near midnight, only to wake at 7 A.M. for breakfast and the long commute to work. As a result, we don't get enough sleep at night. "Most adults are substantially sleepy all the time," says Dr. William Dement of the Stanford University Medical School.

["The Mystery of Sleep," Newsweek, July 13, 1981]

blue monday

We all get them, though some of us are more susceptible than others. They strike like clockwork in the first waking hours of the first day of the business week. Most people call them the "Monday blues" or the "Monday morning blahs." Scientists long thought they were psychological – caused by our natural reluctance to return to the daily grind.

But now researchers at Germany's Max Planc Institute have uncovered a surprising new explanation for our Monday morning blues. Though the world revolves on a 24-hour cycle – our bodies operate on a natural 25-hour day. Many of us try to compensate for the hour of sleep we loose during the workweek by going to bed an hour or two earlier on Friday and Saturday nights.

By the time Monday morning rolls around, our bodies have reverted to their normal 25 hour cycle – and need that extra hour of sleep we can't give them. We wake up feeling logy, listless, out of sorts – in short, we've got the Monday blues.

["The Mystery of Sleep," Newsweek, July 13, 1981]

SLEEPWALKING

If you've never sleepwalked, it's not for lack of trying. Our bodies try to sleepwalk every night – but are restrained by a special center in the brain. When you walk, talk, move and eat in a dream, your brain sends the same signals to your body that it does when you do them in waking life, a Sanford sleep researcher claims.

But for a handful of men and women the brain center that keeps us immobilized during our dreams goes haywire – at least some of the time. While still asleep, they open their eyes, get out of bed, walk around with their eyes open, even perform chores and eat – but can't remember anything of these nocturnal excursions when they wake up. Sleepwalking is more common during childhood and adolescence – perhaps because the brain mechanism that keeps the body immobile hasn't finished forming yet.

Sleepwalking is supposed to be rare in adults. But it's possible scientists are performing their research during the wrong time period. There's anecdotal evidence that far more of us are to be found sleepwalking during the day.

[Stephen LaBerge, Ph.D., Lucid Dreaming]

SLEEPTALKING

Many motion picture comedies start off when one spouse hears the other mutter the name of an old flame during their slumbers. While the idea of talking out loud in our sleep may seem preposterous – everyone does it. Scientists call this phenomenon "sleeptalking."

Everyone's heard of sleepwalking. Yet sleeptalking is far more common – over 70% of us sleeptalk. Few of us realize just how common "sleeptalking" is – because all the witnesses are asleep.

[Marc McCutcheon, The Compass in Your Nose]

a dreamy discovery

The science underlying modern sleep research stems from an accident so unlikely its youthful discoverer almost threw out the results. In the 1953, Eugene Aserinsky, a doctoral candidate working on his Ph.D. thesis, decided to tape electrodes near sleeper's eyes and use an EEG (electroencephalograph) to record the movement. The only EEG available was a broken-down machine that had long ago been abandoned in a university basement.

For weeks, Aserinsky struggled to put the malfunctioning EEG in working condition. "It would break down with one ailment and I would fix that, and it would break down with something else," he recalled later. Just when Aserinsky thought the balky EEG was completely repaired, he noticed that sometimes it stopped making the slow, smooth lines associated with eye movements during sleep – and started producing the sharp peaks and valleys created when we look around consciously while awake.

Until then, scientists thought the sleeping brain was completely inactive – except for the subconscious processes involved in maintaining vital physiological systems like breath, heart beat and blood pressure. Since Aserinsky had been taught that a sleeper's eyes can't move rapidly during sleep, he decided there was still something wrong with his EEG. Aserinsky tried calling the machine's manufactures and the leading scientific authority on the use of the EEG – neither could help, both advised abandoning the project.

Aserinsky began to panic. "If I had a suicidal nature, this would have been the time. I was married, I had a child, I'd been in universities for twelve years with no degree to show for it. I'd already spent a couple of years horsing around on this. I was absolutely finished."

Aserinsky was left with two possibilities: Either his advisors were right, and in spite of all the tests and repairs he'd made, there was still something wrong with the machine – or he had made an important scientific discovery and the brain produced previously unsuspected bursts of activity during sleep. Was there any way to determine which? Finally Aserinsky saw the solution: He could record the movements of one eye on his machine and the other eye on a machine known to be in perfect working condition. Since both eyes move in tandem, if the second machine showed the same jagged lines at the same time – he'd have proof the sleeper's eyes were actually moving and the lines weren't just the result of a malfunctioning EEG.

Aserinsky soon proved we experience episodes of rapid eye movement (REM sleep) throughout the night. The results earned him his Ph.D. and world fame. The young doctoral candidate had unwittingly laid the foundations for the modern science of sleep and dream research.

[Edward Dolnick "What Dreams Are (Really) Made Of," The Atlantic Monthly, July 1990]

THEY'VE GOT A LITTLE LIST

WHERE DOES THE TIME GO?

More than half of our life is a waste of time. That's the message of a study by Micahel Fortino of Priority Management. During our lifetime, we spend:

* Five years standing in line

* Two years trying to return telephone calls

* Eight months opening direct mail

* Six years eating

* One year looking for misplaced objects

* Four years doing household chores.

* Twenty-five years sleeping,

Out of an eighty-year span, forty-three are taken up by trivial, boring tasks that occupy most of our free time. Another twenty are consumed by work. Out of the 30,000 days of our lives, how many are devoted to the pursuit of our own interests and satisfaction?

A mere 56,000 – or 17 years. Fortino's studies give new credibility to the philosophy of "making every minute count."

[Psychology Today, May 1989]

what scares us?

What are the things that scare us most? Murder? War? The threat of global extinction from toxic pollution? Higher taxes? Lower taxes?

A survey conducted by the Roper Organization asked interviewees what frightened them most in our modern world. The researchers pronounced themselves "astonished" at the results:

41% said "Snakes."

26% said "Public speaking."

19% said "High open spaces."

16% said "Mice."

16% said "Flying on a plane."

11% said "Spiders and insects."

Respondents apparently found themselves most frightened of things that impacted on their daily lives – instead of long-range future possibilities like war and global threats.

[Psychology Today]

What Makes You Happy?

Polls have revealed a great deal about our dissatisfactions. But what makes us feel good? A group of scientists decided to find out.

The results, as reported in Psychology Today, suggest a positive shift in personal values during the second half of the 20th Century. Asked to list the things that made them happiest, the men and women surveyed gave the following responses:

32% - family and friends

20% - hobbies and entertainment

13% - their accomplishments

10% - nature

4% - health

3% - food

3% - money

3% - surprise

1% - sex

Money and sex – instead of being at the top of the list – ranked at the bottom. While most men and women picked family and friends as their greatest source of happiness.

[Psychology Today, November 1988]

THE TEN SIGNS OF FAMILY HOMICIDE

Family members slay each other with increasing frequency these days. But when those involved are aware of the warning signs, they can often head off a murderous outburst by a relative or loved one, writes Robert Trotter, senior editor of Psychology Today. What factors are typically present when family members kill family members? Trotter asked the experts.

According to those who have made a deep study of family HOMICIDE, it is most frequently associated with:

* Drugs in use by perpetrator at time

* Alcohol in use by perpetrator

* Perpetrator under Strong cultural pressures to save face.

* Previous threats of suicide by perpetrator

* Perpetrator suffered recent deep depression

* Perpetrator suffered recent failed love relationship

* Perpetrator recently separated from family unit

* Vengeful threats previously made by perpetrator

[Robert Trotter, Psychology in Action, Psychology Today, November 1987]

"JUST SAY 'nO,'" mOTHER NATURE

Crack. Pot. Caffeine. LSD. Heroin. Nicotine. Morphine. MDMA. Alcohol. There are hundreds, perhaps even thousands of drugs – natural and synthetic – that men and women take to alter their minds and bodies. And new ones are being designed every day. But there are really only six basic classes of drugs:

* Euphorics that produce a feeling of well being, like marijuana, opium, heroin

* Psychoactives that generate unearthly experiences and visions, LSD, MDMA, peyote

* Inebriants that cause intoxication, alcohol, nitrous oxide

* Sedatives that dull us to calmness and sleep, like barbiturates and methaqualone

* Stimulants that produce alertness and arousal, like amphetamines and caffeine

* Ataraxics that create tranquillization without drowsiness, like Prozac, Thorazine, Mellaril and Prolixin

Why do we seem to move amid an environment saturated with drugs? Pychopharmacologist Andrew Weil, Ph.D. believes he has the answer. The cross-cultural and cross-species evidence, Weil claims, suggests all mammalian species have a "natural urge to get high."

[Robert S. de Ropp, Drugs and the Mind]

READING lesson

Have trouble reading people? At a loss for a clue as to what others are feeling? Caught off base when an emotional explosion – good or bad – seems to come out of nowhere?

Reading people is easy if you know how, says psychologist Patricia Maybruck, Ph.D. Every strong emotion gives itself away in the form of unmistakable physical clues. If you want to know what people are feeling, you don't have to be another Sigmund Freud – all you have to do is keep an eye out for the following physical signs. Each is an unmistakable indicator of the emotions that produce it.

Emotion – Physical Signs

Anger (fury, indignation, wrath, resentment, frustration, annoyance) – increased heart rate and blood pressure; rapid deep breathing; indigestion; flushed face; erect hair; muscle strength; increased brain activity (speeded up thoughts).

Fear (terror, fright, panic, alarm, dread, anxiety, nervousness) – Increased heart rate; lower blood pressure; slower brain activity; loss of bladder and bowel control; pale face; cool or clammy sweat; rapid shallow breathing.

Pain (agony, suffering, hurt feelings, sorrow, grief, distress) – Muscle tension; abdominal, pelvis and groin spasms; blurred vision; tears; dizziness; ragged breathing; irregular heart rate, blood pressure and temperature; other symptoms of shock; incoherent speech.

Pleasure and love (happiness, contentment, joy, desire, passion) – Relaxed muscles; steady, even breathing; absence of tension; smiles; sexual arousal; overall well being.

[Patricia Maybruck, Ph.D., Pregnancy and Dreams]

The 28-Hour Day

We've all heard people say: "If only there were more hours in the day." Chances are you've said it yourself. What would you do if you could fit more hours in your day? One university survey asked several hundred men and women what they would do if they had four more hours in the day. Their answers were:

* 33% read

* 31% fix things around the house

* 27% Pursue hobbies

* 26% Socialize

* 21% Exercise

* 14% Sleep

* 12% Study

* 12% Organize

* 8% Cook

* 4% Daydream

* 3% Work

* 3% Eat

* 1% Hold a second job

Ironically love, romance and sex did not even make the list. More people picked a second job over l'amour.

[The Los Angeles Times]

BITS AND PIECES

FAMILIAR FACES

There's good news for rejected lovers. Familiarity, it turns out, doesn't breed contempt. It makes the heart grow founder.

The more often we see, taste, smell and hear something or someone, the more we like it, according to research reported in Science. "Repeated presentation of a previously unfamiliar stimulus tends to increase its attractiveness," one researcher commented.

These findings may explain why some men and women have said "yes" to a persistent suitor – even though they found their prospective spouse unappealing at first. They also explain why we find those of our own country and race more attractive than those of other groups. It may also explain the effectiveness of many otherwise obnoxious advertising campaigns.

[John F. Kihlstrom, Ph.D., "The Cognitive Unconscious," Science, September 18, 1987]

NO LAUGHING MATTER

The funniest people in the world are also the saddest. The great comedians and comediennes – whose comic pratfalls and droll wit set the world laughing – become withdrawn and despondent the moment they step out off stage. Psychiatrist Samuel Janus persuaded 55 successful comics to participate in personality profiles. Janis' conclusions? "The vast majority of funny men are sad men" who suffer from "major depression." If we listen closely to their routines, Janis claims, "many of our top comedians are really crying out loud."

[Eric Maisel, Ph.D., Staying Sane in the Arts]

the secret of productivity

What's the secret of productivity? Start early. Opt for quantity over quality. That's the answer suggested by research cited by psychologists James Birren and Warner Schaie.

Studies of productive women and men – in business, science, politics and the arts – revealed they shared three key characteristics. They all:

* Began their careers at earlier ages

* Continued working at later ages

* Produced at extraordinary rates throughout their careers

High, continuous productivity apparently boosts self-esteem – which boosts endorphins, which in turn generate a high-energy and sense of well being that rekindles our urge to produce – leading to further productivity and the repetition of the cycle.

[James Birren and Warner Schaie, Handbook of the Psychology of Aging]

WHY YOU CAN'T DO TWO THINGS AT ONCE

It's true. You can't do two things once – at least not well. The brain simply isn't built that way.

Experiments by psychologist Harold Pashler, Ph.D. at the University of California in San Diego showed we are unable mentally track two different tasks – even if both are very simple. Women and men were asked to label an object with their right hand, while pushing a button with their left every time they heard a certain note in a series of musical tones. Response time to the tone was delayed if it came in the midst of labeling; labeling was always slowed while participants pushed the button. One task was always delayed while the conscious mind dealt with the other.

Scientists call this "dual-task interference." And Pashler claims it has an important message for everyone. "When expected to perform two tasks," he writes, "don't bother starting on the second before you have performed the first."

[Harold Pashler, Ph.D., "Conversation Stopper," Psychology Today, September/October 1992]

THE LONG AND THE SHORT OF IT

We like tall people better than short people. It's not something most of us are willing to believe easily about ourselves – but hundreds of studies back it up. "American society is a society with a heightist premise: To be tall is to be good and to be short is to be stigmatized," according to The Physical Attractiveness Phenomenon. Phrases like "a giant among men (or women)" and "belittling someone" give unwitting testimony to this prejudice.

For some reason, we tend to be biased in favor of taller men and women. As John Kenneth Galbraith, the 6'8" economist, remarked one of our "most blatant and forgiven prejudices" is the bias in favor of height. In a series of experiments reported in the book, groups of college students were introduced to the same person – who was made to look taller or shorter through the use of lighting, platform shoes and stance. The higher the students estimated the person's height, the higher they rated that person's physical attractiveness.

Short people have more to worry about than a Randy Newman song and shelving built for people 5'8" and over. We appear to have a subtle predisposition against shorter people. Psychologist Gordon Patzer, Ph.D. quotes one "content analysis" of the way short people are treated in the media. Shorter men were often characterized as "small, pallid, and bland," while shorter women were described as "short, wiry and frenetic."

To overcome society's biases and win its approval despite their height – a short person apparently has to ride pretty tall in the saddle.

[Gordon Patzer, Ph.D., The Personal Attractiveness Phenomenon]

it's a real boon to the anti-acid companies, though

If you find yourself racing through your meal at a restaurant – it may be the music. Savvy restaurateurs are picking up the tempo – of the music they play. Slow, soothing music is out – ragtime is in.

It's all the result of an experiment by psychologist Elizabeth Gardner. She played music in a company cafeterias. When there was no music playing, diners consumed an average 3.23 bits per minute; with slow instrumental music the rate increased to 3.83 b.p.m., but when fast instrumental music was heard, it soared to all the way to 4.4 b.p.m.

Patrons were eating more than 25% faster. For restaurateurs concerned about the bottom-line, increasing the tempo of the music they played seemed to promise a bonanza: The faster patrons ate, the more customers per hour a restaurant could accommodate.

There was a word of caution in a follow-up study Gardner conducted at local restaurants. Although faster music did cause people to eat faster – they still spent the same amount of time at the table. They merely lingered longer, socializing over coffee and dessert.

[Michael Lewis et al., Developmental Psychology, Vol. 21, No. 60, 1986]

A TIP ABOUT TOUCHING

Looking for a raise? Need a loan? Want your spouse to okay an extravagant personal indulgence?

Getting what you want may be easier than you think. Just "put the touch on them." Research into the effect of touch on tipping conducted by psychologists April Crusco and Christopher Wetzel may have given this shopworn cliche new meaning.

Customers were chosen at random, and their waitresses asked to touched them lightly on the palm or shoulder. Women and men who were touched – even if the touch was so light they were unaware of it – left bigger tips than the patrons who were not touched.

[April H. Crusco and Christopher G. Wetzel, Personality and Social Psychology Journal, Vol. 10, No. 4, 1984]

THE PHONY SMILE

Most of us have described someone as "having a phony smile." Now science has proven that smile really is phony – it doesn't even come from the same part of the brain that creates happy smiles. Studies of patients who were paralyzed on one side, found when they were asked to consciously smile, they were unable to "produce even a poor smile" on the paralyzed side, writes nueropsychiatrist Norman Geschwind. But when these patients were happy or something struck them as funny, they still smiled spontaneously. This led Geschwind to conclude that we have "a region in the depths of the brain which contains the innate program for smiling." Although the stroke patients had no conscious control over their faces, Geschwind explained, the region in the brain that generates genuine smiles was still intact and in communication with the facial muscles.

[Judith Hooper and Dick Teresi, The Three Pound Universe]

Oh Why Do We Lie?

You're a liar. I'm a liar. Almost everyone lies sometimes, according to a De Paul University study. Most of the lies we tell are so-called "white lies." These are harmless little social lies told to save face, escape embarrassment and avoid giving hurt to others.

When it comes to telling more serious lies – "black lies" – the De Paul study found our major motive for lying is an attempt to avoid punishment. We also lie to magnify our own importance, to create the illusion our ideas and actions are usually "right" and get what we want from others.

The question is: If the De Paul findings are accurate – can we ever believe anyone again – including the researchers who announced those findings?

[Joyce Brother, The Los Angeles Times]

wHAT DO PIGEONS HALLUCINATE?

Pigeons hallucinate red dots. Monkeys hallucinate food. But what do people hallucinate? Psychologist Ronald Siegel, of UCLA has spent years mapping our hallucinatory never-never-lands in an attempt to find out.

Siegel's painstaking surveys reveal a colorful fantasia of optical illusions generated when the brain plays tricks on the eye:

* Black, white and violet hues were seen frequently during meditation, relaxation and trance

* Red, oranges and yellows predominated under the influence of many psychedelics

* Cool blues were reported by those exposed to THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) the active ingredient in marijuana

* Increasingly intricate geometric shapes were produced by LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) and mescaline

· Random black and white forms reported as "boring" to watch resulted from depressants, amphetamines and placebos

[Judith Hooper and Dick Teresi, The Three Pound Universe]

A CLOSE LOOK AT INTELLIGENCE

Men and women who wear glasses are often perceived as being smarter. Images of "brainy" bespectacled students lugging around armloads of books have been with us ever since glasses were invented. The youthful looking among us even don eyewear they don't need – just to appear more mature.

Scientists have long ridiculed this myth. Why should there be more smart people among those born with poor eyesight, they argued, than there are among those born with long legs? But two independent research projects have unearthed evidence of just such a link.

Israeli researchers Mordechai Rosner and Michael Belkin surveyed 150,000 military recruit. Those who wore glasses were almost always the brightest and best educated. A survey of gifted junior high-school students led by psychologist Sanford Cohn also found spectacles perched on the noses of the brainiest. Neither group of researchers had an explanation for this link.

The answer may lie in brain structure. Until further studies are done, all scientists are willing to say is – there's more to the myth of the nearsighted genius than meets the eye.

["Mind and Brain," Psychology Today, June 1989]

a new cure for the disorganized

We usually call people whose minds constantly flit from subject to subject "disorganized." But their minds may actually be giving them a jump-start on organization.

Our brains are wired to resist sticking to a single topic for very long, claims researcher Eric Klinger, Ph.D. Despite our best efforts to concentrate on the task at hand, about half the time our thoughts jump around randomly.

Instead of making us less organized, this seeming mental disorganization helps us stay organized. Our minds keep coming back to the subjects that concern us most, Klinger writes. This constant recycling of our thoughts help keep us from forgetting the most important of our commitments, agendas and priorities.

[Eric Klinger, Ph.D., Daydreaming]

ASK AND YE SHALL RECEIVE

Faced with an insoluble problem? Desperate for inspiration? Sure you will never find the answer? An article in Prevention, offers the following suggestion for tapping your creative unconscious:

1) Find a quite relaxing spot

2) Close your eyes and imagine you are in the presence of the wisest person in the world – picture them as vividly as you can

3) Ask this wise person a question concerning a problem you have

Many men and women are surprised at the accuracy of the answers this technique produces, according to the Prevention article. Questions aren't always answered directly. Sometimes your question may be answered "with another question." That's to help you see the problem in "a different light," the article says. Usually this will get you started "thinking in a whole new direction."

["Tapping the Wise Man Within," Prevention, May 1988]

THREE TYPES OF PERSONALITY

How complex are we? Considering how bewildering so many human actions are – and the seeming infinite levels and nuances of the mind – you would probably guess we're pretty complex animals.

But we're actually pretty simple to figure out, claims. Minnesota psychologist Auke Tellegen. All the many aspects of our personalities boil down to just three basic characteristics, Tellegen says. In the Minnesota researchers' view, the elements that give our characters their distinctive shapes are our degrees of:

* Positive affectivity, the amount of good feeling we experience

* Negativity affectivity, the amount of anxious, tense feelings we experience

* Constraint, the amount of self-control we feel it necessary to exercise

[Eric Klinger, Ph.D., Daydreaming]

FEAR OF FLYING

No matter how often we hear statistics proving plane travel is safer than driving a car – we don't really believe it. The memory of highly publicized airplane disasters comes back to haunt us. That's because airplane crashes involve the deaths of hundreds of people and generate lurid headlines, while the garden-variety auto fatality rarely rates more than a paragraph somewhere on page eight. As a result, writes Carole Wade Offir in Glamour, it's easy to recall the few airplane disasters we've heard about – and hard to recall the far greater number of involving automobiles.

[Carole Wade Offir, "Seven Quick Ways To Kid Yourself," Glamour, December 1992]

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BOOKS

Asimov, Isaac, The Brain, Houghton Mifflin, 1963

Benson, Herbert, M.D., The Relaxation Response, Morrow, 1975

Birren, James and Warner Schaie, Handbook of the Psychology of Aging, Academic Press, 1990

Brown, Barbara, Ph.D., Stress and the Art of Biofeedback, Bantam, 1978

Calder, Nigel, The Mind of Man, Viking, 1970

Campbell, Don, Introduction to the Musical Brain, MMB, 1983

Compton's Encyclopedia and Fact Finder, Encyclopedia Britannica, 1991

DeRopp, Robert, Ph.D., Drugs and Minds, Grove, 1961

Globusm, Gordon, Ph.D., "The Causal Theory of Perception: A Critique and Revision Through Reflection on Dreams," in Consciousness and the Brain, Plenum, 1976

Hampden-Turner, Charles, Maps of the Mind, Macmillan,

Harman, Willis, Ph.D. and Howard Rheingold, Higher Creativity, Tarcher, 1984

Hofstadter, Douglas R. and Daniel C. Dennett, eds., The Mind's I: Fantasies and Reflections on Self & Soul, Basic, 1981

Hooper, Judith and Dick Teresi, The 3-Pound Universe, Jeremy P. Tarcher, 1991

Klinger, Eric, Ph.D., Daydreaming, Tarcher, 1990

LaBerge, Stephen, Ph.D., Lucid Dreaming, Bantam, 1986

Louis, David, 2201 Fascinating Facts, Greenwich House, 1983

McCutcheon, Marc, The Compass in Your Nose: and Other Astonishing Facts About Humans, Tarcher, 1989

McWhirter, Norris and Ross, Illustrated Encyclopedia of Facts, Doubleday, 1969

Ornstein, Robert, Ph.D., The Psychology of Consciousness, Penguin, 1975

Patzer, Gordon, Ph.D., The Physical Attractiveness Phenomenon, Plenum, 1985

Penfield, Wilder, Ph.D., The Mystery of the Mind: A Critical Study of Consciousness and the Human Brain, Princeton University Press, 1975

Rossi, Ernest, Ph.D., The 20 Minute Break: The New Science of Ultradian Rhythms, Tarcher, 1989

Siegel, Alan, Ph.D., Dreams That Can Change Your Life, Tarcher, 1991

Singer, Jerome, Ph.D., The Inner World of Daydreaming, Harper 1975

Smith, Adam, Powers of the Mind, Summit, 1982

Talbot, Michael, The Holographic Universe, Harper, 1991

The World Almanac and Book of Facts 1993, Pharos, 1993

Walsh, Roger, Ph.D., The Spirit of Shamanism, Tarcher 1991

Watson, Lyall, Super Nature, Bantam, 1974

Wilson, Glenn, Ph.D., Love and Instinct, Temple Smith, 1981

Periodicals

The author is also indebted to the following publications which first presented research consulted in this book:

Atlantic Monthly, American Journal of Psychiatry, Archives of General Psychiatry, Archives of Sexual Behavior, Archives of the Third International Congress of Sexologists, Atlantic Monthly, Children and Play, Cognitive Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Dimensions of Physical Attractiveness, Discover, First, Glamour, Harper's, Hospital and Community Psychiatry, Human Behavior, Human Factors Journal of Aging and Human Development, Journal of Behavioral Medicine, Journal of Clinical Psychology, Journal of Experimental Psychology, Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Journal of Personality Assessment. Journal of Sex and Marital Therapists, Journal of Social and Biological Structures, Journal of Social Psychology, Journal of the American Medical Association, Ladies Home Journal, Los Angeles Times, Macleans, Mademoiselle, McCall's, Motivation and Emotion, National Geographic, New England Journal of Medicine, New York Times, Newsweek, Parents, Perceptual and Motor Skills, Physiological Psychology, Prevention, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Psychology Today, Redbook, Science News, Science, Scientific American, Social Evolution, Teen, Time, U.S. News & World Report, Western Journal of Speech Communication, Woman's Day.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

JEAN MARIE STINE is the author of a number of best-selling books including Double Your Brain Power (Prentice-Hall), which was a selection of both the Quality Paperback Book Club and the One Spirit Book Club. Her work has appeared in dozens of publications including The Washington Post, The Los Angeles News, Movieline, Eros and Amazing Stories. For many years she served as editor-in-chief for a number of publishers including, The Donning Co., Rainbow Publications and Jeremy P. Tarcher, Inc.

Finis

Contents

Contents

DEDICATION

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Introduction

CHAPTER 1

ALL ABOUT OUR BRAIN

THE BRAIN-MIND CONNECTION

CHAPTER 2

MIND

MEMORY

CHAPTER 3

OUR BODY-MIND CONNECTION

HOW THE BODY AFFECTS THE MIND

the body's messENGER SERVICE

TAKE TWO BEFORE BEDTIME

HOW THE MIND EFFECTS THE BODY

CHAPTER 4

OUR CONSCIOUS MIND

OUR UNCONSCIOUS MIND

CHAPTER 5

DAYDREAMS

NIGHT DREAMS

CHAPTER 6

OUR GENDER AND SEXUALITY

GENDER

MEN AND WOMEN

CHAPTER 7

MARRIAGE

CHAPTER 8

THERAPY AND THERAPIES

CHAPTER 9

THERAPISTS

PROBLEMS

CHAPTER 10

THOSE WHO THINK YOUNG

CHAPTER 11

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Table Of Contents

eBook Info