Thursday 3 May 2001

Pic of the day: "And in my mind I see a desert in the very early dawn..." (Screenshot from Daggerfall.)

Mining the dopamine

Iridium, by David Z. Even though I had liked another of his tracks (the Repetition trance anthem) I was surprised by the beauty of this one. The web site claims that it is fine for Sunday mornings. If so, it is nearly always Sunday morning in my life. You know, that would really explain some other things too. Like why I prefer to sleep in rather than go to work ... :)

OK, I know that I am not you. Perhaps you'd like this tune, perhaps not. Feel free to try, there's a free MP3 there for you, or you can just listen over RealAudio. (If you read this in the archives, the link may or may not still be alive. There is also a CD for sale for those who love them.)

To be honest, I was like totally captivated by the melody. I first played it on RealAudio a couple times while I was on IRC, then downloaded the MP3 file and continued to play it until a late bedtime. I woke up and still loved it in the morning. I've been listening to it off and on through the day. It was so beautiful - to me - that it goes beyond just beauty. It is like water when I'm thirsty (which I admittedly have very rarely been) or like delicious food when I'm moderately hungry. Or like a soft pillow when I'm tired. Or ... OK, I guess we'll stay family friendly here. Let me just say, it was pretty much a physical pleasure to listen to it.

When I was young, popular science would refer to the "pleasure center" in the brain. This may not be quite accurate. Or rather, there may be such a thing, but if so it affects the whole brain. We know that the brain has some optimum level of stimulation, and a normal level of stimulation. Certain instincts or drives have the power to reward us by flooding the brain with a feel-good mix of neurotransmitters. I hear dopamine is considered the foremost of these. As you can guess, I find the name funny. But it is a powerful thing. Many pleasure drugs end up releasing lots of this stuff into the brain, giving people an intense sense of pleasure.

I guess the fact that I get an intense pleasure trip out of a small instrumental melody explains a lot about me. Like why I'm not married for instance. :) Or at least why I don't do drugs. I don't need them - I get naturally high. You may envy me now.

***

I listen to the music and close my eyes. And in my mind I see - or rather sense - a desert in the very early dawn. The horizon is a deep nameless red. A small group of travelers and camels are moving south toward the edge of the desert ... the terrain is already getting rocky rather than just sandy ... and there's this creature flying above and slightly to the right of them, not far from the group. At the same time, the creature is me. I can feel the air, still chilly from the night, and the overwhelming sense of freedom in the very act of flying. The travelers are my friends, but I cannot sense their thoughts.

"OK, let me get this straigth. You listen to some simple little piece of music and POOF, you're having visions of some desert."
Yeah, and when I play the song again and close my eyes, I can go there again! Wheee!
"This creature, what do you mean, creature?"
Well, I can't see it clearly, but it gives me the impression of one of those flying reptiles - pterosaurus? - only it's just a litte bit bigger than a large condor. But it feels like being me, only flying. Except I don't think any words as the creature, only senses and feelings.
"Are you on drugs?"
I don't do drugs.
"Perhaps you should have a nice doctor give you some other drugs."
You're just envious because you can't fly.

***

Pleasures - natural or artificial - can only last so long. If you continue to mine the brain for pleasure, eventually it runs dry. With the natural instincts (or "needs") this limits itself naturally, at least in the short run. You can only eat so much before you are stuffed, and the pleasure is gone. And no matter how thirsty you are, the thirst is slaked in minutes. You can only scratch an itch for so long, and even the adult pleasures of the body can only be milked until a limit. (Particularly for males.) Sense pleasures can be extended to some degree with training and self restraint, but then they end.

With pleasure drugs, it is possible to run the brain's reward system down. In fact, this is quite common, and leads to the stereotypical drug abuse situation: The drug user needs more and more of the stuff, and eventually stronger stuff. Not just to get the original pleasure - that one may be lost forever - but to maintain a normal mood. After being overrun by joy, the brain swings like a pendulum in the opposite direction, an artificial depression.

I have earlier in these pages suggested that the opposite may also be true: That if a naturally joyful person restrains himself, the brain will get trigger-happy on the pleasure stuff. This seems to have happened to me on many an occasion. I suspect that it is a similar thing with the intense delight I can sometimes take in music or a game or a hobby. Perhaps I would have to take "depressiva" (if such drugs exist) to feel like a normal human. If so, you can have your normalcy for me.

***

Even music is an itch that cannot be scratched forever. The almost sensual pleasure disappears by itself, normally after a couple days or 20-50 replays of the music. It is a gradual thing. After a while it is not ecstatically delicious anymore, just delicious. Then just beautiful. Eventually, if I run the course fully, it grows boring and I find something else to do. I rarely stay bored for long.

I think this happens to all stimuli. We grow less sensitive over time. Even if we are not repeatedly stimulated, our brain still gets used to it. Perhaps in dreams at night, I'm not sure. I know that if I hear a particularly beautiful melody, I can't wait a week or it will have faded somewhat. I need to catch it while it is still hot. If long enough time passes by, though, it is almost as if it were new.

Right now, it is late in the evening, and I'm down to the "pretty" stage with this particular tune. A short, but hectic relationship. (Kind of like a fool and his gold, I guess.) Thank the Light I don't fall in love; now that would have been ugly, if I followed the same pattern.