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InvisibleELECTRIC
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Posts: 177
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An Interesting take on LOVE
    #4551583 - 08/18/05 12:42 PM (18 years, 7 months ago)

Although emotions may run deep and perhaps stem from spiritual extensions within one's inner self, they do interact with the physical brain synonymous to a chemistry lab experiment.

If emotions were like some sort of a creature strolling around your physical being, when they make themselves known to your focus, what you notice, and what observers of the brain see, are the "footprints" of this physical/spiritual interaction.

So why am I posting this here? 



Check it out...




Love is Like a Drug... It Can Make People Do Crazy Things

By E.J. MUNDELL, HealthDay Reporter



HealthDay News - In love songs, passion lifts you up or cuts you like a knife, wreaking havoc with your emotions as it tosses logic out the window.

But what if love isn't about emotion at all? What if it isn't even about sex?


That's exactly what a team of scientists is discovering as they watch new love literally blaze its trail across the living brain. Using real-time MRI brain images of people in the initial throes of passion, they're finding that love originates far from the brain's logic center, its emotional nexus and, perhaps most surprisingly, its centers of sexual desire.



In fact, love may vie for the same real estate in the brain as drug addiction. :eek:




"There's this general craving-and-desire system that's engaged, only in this case the desire isn't for money or a drug or power or freedom. The desire is for merging with another person," explained co-researcher Arthur Aron, a professor of psychology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

"Furthermore, the neural systems engaged by sex and love are really quite distinct," he added. "This is really the first unambiguous evidence that they really are separate systems."


According to Aron, the findings help explain instances where people fall in love with people they aren't even sexually attracted to; or why others can feel equally strong, sudden emotion for a newborn child or even God.



In their study, published in the June issue of the Journal of Neurophysiology, Aron and his co-researchers used functional MRI to watch the real-time brain activity of 17 college students (10 women, seven men), all of whom were in the early weeks or months of new love.

Brain activity was monitored under two conditions: first, when the participants were given a picture of their beloved to gaze at, and then when they were asked to look at the picture of an acquaintance.

Staring at their lover's image "lit up a lot of brain areas, but the two most important ones were, first, the ventral tegmental area - a little factory near the base of the brain that makes dopamine, a natural stimulant - and the caudate nucleus, a large organ in the middle of the head that looks a bit like a medium-sized shrimp," said co-researcher Helen Fisher, an anthropologist researcher at Rutgers University.

"Both of these areas are part of the reward system in the brain - the dopaminergic system associated with very focused attention, elation, energy, craving, motivation," she said. Based on this evidence, "we feel now that romantic love is a drive, not an emotion. It's a basic mating drive."

In fact, the brain's emotion centers tended to light up only as new love grew old, she said. "When we took a look at those who had been in love between eight to 17 months, in fact we did see new activity in regions associated with the emotions," she said.




But early love, rooted as it is in the caudate nucleus, is all about addiction.



"It is a drug addiction," Fisher said. "It's certainly got some of the main characteristics of drug addiction - as with drugs, once you fall in love you need that person more and more, so much so that, after a while, you have to marry them. There are other things, too - real dependence, personality changes, withdrawal symptoms."



And just like the need for cocaine or heroin, love can make people do crazy, sometimes dangerous things.

"It's a major source of depression, suicide, stalking, homicide," Aron pointed out. "Of course, on the more positive side, it's a major source of overcoming depression and making life more meaningful, too."

The findings make sense to Paul Sanberg, a professor of neuroscience at the University of South Florida whose early work concentrated on the caudate nucleus. "From a behavioral point of view - having been in romantic love in my life - I can say it is addictive," he said. "And from an anatomical point of view, they're talking about dopamine."

Most intriguing was the finding that romance and sex are not neurologically linked, although behaviorally they usually go hand-in-hand.

"Sex is only a tiny part of love," said Fisher, also the author of Why We Love. "You want to have sex with the person, but much more than that you want them to call you, to write, to return your love, to be loved back."


People in love often describe the experience as an "expansion" of self, she said, a more general merging with the other: "Your edges get very porous - you lose yourself in order to include the other person."


And when that person leaves, real withdrawal - heartache - sets in. In a second, as-yet-unpublished experiment, the researchers conducted functional MRI scans on individuals who had been recently dumped by the objects of their affection.


"These people were in terrible pain," Fisher said. Again, areas of the brain linked to passionate love lit up on fMRI when participants were given a picture of the loved one. "We all know that when you are dumped you just love the person harder - I call that 'frustration attraction,' " she said. "And that reward system in the brain, when it realizes that the reward is delayed in coming in, it still sustains its activity."

According to Aron, the next step is to find out what happens to brain activity as new love passes away and settles into a more secure, albeit less intense, emotional realm.

"We're hoping to get funding to do studies where we follow the same people, keep scanning them every few months and see how things change," he said.

The team is also gathering a study group of people who claim to feel great passion for their partner 10, or even 20, years into the relationship.

"They aren't common, but enormously interesting," Aron said. "How can it be that you've been together that long and you're still intensely in love with them?"

Fans of Romeo and Juliet and Wuthering Heights may worry that all this neuroscience will drain the poetry out of passion. But Fisher says there's no reason to fret.

"Look, you can know every single ingredient in a piece of chocolate cake," she said. "Then you can sit down with that cake, and taste every bit of its poetry and just revel in the joy of it."

Copyright 2005 ScoutNews, LLC. All rights reserved.

06-13-05 11:35 EDT


--------------------
Nos confido phasmatis occultus in vicis postulo nostrum tutela donatus futurus.

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Invisibleredgreenvines
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Re: An Interesting take on LOVE [Re: ELECTRIC]
    #4551645 - 08/18/05 12:57 PM (18 years, 7 months ago)

i like it


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:confused: _ :brainfart:🧠  _ :finger:

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InvisibleVeritas
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Re: An Interesting take on LOVE [Re: ELECTRIC]
    #4551767 - 08/18/05 01:44 PM (18 years, 7 months ago)

What the researchers were exploring was not love, but limerance.

According to Diane Crenshaw, Ph.D., author of "The Alchemy of Love and Lust," limerance is caused by phenylethylamine, or PEA.  Similar to drugs like mescaline or ecstasy, PEA is responsible for the "walking on a cloud" feeling of infatuation, as well as the dramatic withdrawal effects of separation.

If you are interested, I highly recommend her book.  It is essentially a User's Manual to the human endocrine system. I found it fascinating and illuminating, and it has earned a permanent place on my bookshelf.  :thumbup:

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Invisiblegettinjiggywithit
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Re: An Interesting take on LOVE [Re: ELECTRIC]
    #4551781 - 08/18/05 01:48 PM (18 years, 7 months ago)

Mmmmmmmmmmm dopamine.

Well, that was interesting to see where they found the brain lighting up while falling in love. Not a surprise it with the addiction section. That's what it feels like.

My husband and I use to joke back in the day about what a bunch of dopamine junkies we were.

Neat to see how over time, they said the brain started to light up in the emotional areas and not the addictions ones.

Very interesting as the science matches the experience.

Next, they need to figure out what makes you get addicted to a love connection with one object versus another.

Some look to find a love connection to get the good feeling chemicals flowing and no one they come across sets it off. Others are fired off left and right. Wonder if it has to do with addictive personalities and what the heck is that all about anyway.

I remember watching one study on some science channel that said that addictive personality types have a below average natural production of dopamine. They said that these types are also far more prone to depression.

For them to feel "normal" like someone with normal production does what ever they are addicted to increases the production of dopamine that does help to alleviate depression.

In other words, people with addictions are just looking to feel normal and alleviate depression due to below average dopamine production.

The researchers said the cause was genetic.

I think people that grew up in depressed household developed the hard wiring for depression. felling good and happy wasn't allowed so the brain, just never bothered to develop normal feel good production of dopamine. Just an Opinion.

Me and my sibs are all addictive personality types and grew up in a very depressed and repressed home. Laughter, happiness, joy, optimism, were not allowed. If you got caught entertaining wither of them, you were probably hit, if for anything to wipe the smile off your face. Mom and Dad are not happy so nobody will be.

So, what one to do to feel normal with normal levels of dopamine production "not depressed". Most stuff you can get addicted to can be destructive, even anti depression meds.

Much easier to be in love with life, your hobbies, your family, friends, pets, the world and universe! Keep up the lovin and you can live in above normal levels of natural dopamine flow.


--------------------
Ahuwale ka nane huna.

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InvisibleIcelander
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Re: An Interesting take on LOVE [Re: ELECTRIC]
    #4551815 - 08/18/05 01:57 PM (18 years, 7 months ago)

Timmy Leary sez: "The only state in which we can learn, harmonize, grow, merge, join, understand is the absence of emotion. This is called Bliss or Ecstasy, attained through centering the emotions.

Moods such as sorrow and joy accompany emotions. Like a junkie who has just scored or an alcoholic with a bottle in hand, the emotional person feels good when he has scored emotionally, i.e., beaten someone up or been beaten up. Won a competitive victory. Gorged himself on person grabbing.

Conscious love is not an emotion; it is serene merging with yourself, with other people, with other forms of energy. Love cannot exist in an emotional state."


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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InvisibleELECTRIC
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Registered: 07/21/05
Posts: 177
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Re: An Interesting take on LOVE [Re: ELECTRIC]
    #4554460 - 08/19/05 02:47 AM (18 years, 7 months ago)

Veritas: "What the researchers were exploring was not love, but limerance."


Interesting new word.  I tried to look it up in the dictionary...  Not there...  Did Ms. Crenshaw coin the term?

Sounds like it.

Thanx for the literature reference.





Jiggy: "I remember watching one study on some science channel that said that addictive personality types have a below average natural production of dopamine."


I'm not an expert in brain chemisty, but wouldn't less dopamine relative to seratonin mean being happier?

Im confused..

Of course, maybe if they keep balancing, then a realative decrease in seratoning may occur as well..


Oh, but you weren't talking about being happier, now did ya? 


I think I just clued in to what you tried to convey...  As in...  Dopamine level gets low, brain wants to get a 'fix'  so upon  comedown dopamine levels raise again and brain is not in 'addictive mode' until levels drop again...

That what you mean?





Jiggy:"...household developed the hard wiring for ..."


I can see what you mean by that in terms of hard wiring...  Synonymous to conditionning, right?






Icelander:"Conscious love is not an emotion; it is serene merging with yourself, with other people, with other forms of energy. Love cannot exist in an emotional state."


At first, I wasn't sure about it not 'existing in an emotionnal state'...



But maybe I got it now.


Do you have anything to say to that, Icelander?












So this 'feeling' that we perceive, occurs when the brain releases a certain hormone..


As Veritas pointed out, the feeling can be synthetically made to happen...



Likely in the same way synthetically, as Veritas mentionned, for example, which cannot be distinguised from 'natural causes'... 

So, for example:  The synthetic creation of the 'active' ingreadient in the beloved mushroom can't be distinguished when comparing real or synthetic...  the difference from out in the field harvest or lab manufacture gives the same experience...







So... 




Does love actually exist?


Or is it simply only the byproduct of a chemical interaction?








AND....





If it is, in fact, only an illusion, then the "safetly feeling"  caused when one says that a "God" loves you....









Just might be....
















An illusion as well.






:eek:







Still feel loved?







Comments?


--------------------
Nos confido phasmatis occultus in vicis postulo nostrum tutela donatus futurus.

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InvisibleIcelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery
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Re: An Interesting take on LOVE [Re: ELECTRIC]
    #4554628 - 08/19/05 06:46 AM (18 years, 7 months ago)

Not much to add. What most call love, to me, is just addiction. I do believe there is a different state that is unconditional acceptance of what is. This is not the giddy feeling of ice cream or falling in love. It is serene, the few times I have felt it. It is calm and joyfull and needs nothing to stimulate it. It just is.


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

Edited by Icelander (08/19/05 06:47 AM)

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InvisibleVeritas
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Re: An Interesting take on LOVE [Re: ELECTRIC]
    #4555480 - 08/19/05 01:11 PM (18 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

So... Does love actually exist?

Or is it simply only the byproduct of a chemical interaction?




IMO love is not the chemicals we produce, it is not the feeling of infatuation or "limerance," it is not romance (walks on the beach, flowers, candlelight dinners, poetry), it is not any action we can take or any thought we can think.

Love is what powers the Universe, the flame that burns in each cell, the motivation to grow and learn and enjoy being alive.

The chemicals are our reaction to the human experience of Love energy flowing through us. The emotional attachments we form are not the result of love, but our attempt to share Love energy.

We are physical beings, and we are only capable of measuring the measurable. MRI's, CAT scans, blood analysis, all provide a picture of our physical interaction with Love, but do not capture the essence of what Love is.


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InvisibleIcelander
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Re: An Interesting take on LOVE [Re: Veritas]
    #4555511 - 08/19/05 01:22 PM (18 years, 7 months ago)

Cool sig pic. :cool:


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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InvisibleELECTRIC
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Re: An Interesting take on LOVE [Re: Veritas]
    #4557655 - 08/20/05 01:53 AM (18 years, 7 months ago)

"We are physical beings, and we are only capable of measuring the measurable. MRI's, CAT scans, blood analysis, all provide a picture of our physical interaction with Love, but do not capture the essence of what Love is."

I would be somewhat in agreeance with you on that.


Sometimes I wish that we'd have some sort of breakthru in technology so that our instruments could 'see' more into those very parts of the fabric to which we are blind at the moment.


I'd love it if it would happen in our lifetime. Then our deeper experiences could be justified more than simple subjective observations... as the case seems right now.




patience... patience...




Perhaps, one day.


--------------------
Nos confido phasmatis occultus in vicis postulo nostrum tutela donatus futurus.

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Anonymous

Re: An Interesting take on LOVE [Re: ELECTRIC]
    #4557891 - 08/20/05 04:21 AM (18 years, 7 months ago)

I've been telling people at the shroomery that same shit for about 3 years now. Most folks just dismissed what I said about love being a drug,etc.

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InvisibleTacticalBongRip
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Re: An Interesting take on LOVE [Re: ELECTRIC]
    #4557914 - 08/20/05 05:00 AM (18 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

ELECTRIC said:
"We are physical beings, and we are only capable of measuring the measurable. MRI's, CAT scans, blood analysis, all provide a picture of our physical interaction with Love, but do not capture the essence of what Love is."




Sometimes I wish that we'd have some sort of breakthru in technology so that our instruments could 'see' more into those very parts of the fabric to which we are blind at the moment.






For that to happen the person creating such a machine would have to understand all this stuff and apply it to such an invention. In other words, he himself would have to know before he could program a machine to do it for him.

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InvisibleELECTRIC
I'm a Puppet

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Posts: 177
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Re: An Interesting take on LOVE [Re: ELECTRIC]
    #4561681 - 08/21/05 01:54 AM (18 years, 7 months ago)

Paradis: "I've been telling people at the shroomery that same shit for about 3 years now. Most folks just dismissed what I said about love being a drug,etc.


It is easy to dismiss something if looking further into it is not on the agenda; or if one keeps hitting the same roadblocks time and time again.

It happens.

Veritas, brought about a very nice concept: one that I am entertaining as well...


That: "...we are only capable of measuring the measurable. MRI's, CAT scans, blood analysis, all provide a picture of our physical interaction with Love, but..."


I LOVE it everytime the word " but " enters the equation.





TacticalBongRip:"For that to happen the person creating such a machine would have to understand all this stuff and apply it to such an invention. In other words, he himself would have to know before he could program a machine to do it for him."



A very reasonable addition, thank-you; this concerns: "...that our instruments could 'see' more into those very parts of the fabric to which we are blind at the moment."









So, I would like to ask a general question to anyone and everyone brave enough to share their ideas:



If, our current instruments confirm the interaction of LOVE with our brain and bodies, I ask you....







Then, WHERE is this LOVE coming from?





Anyone feel like taking a stab at it?


I promise that I am not baiting here just to tear ideas down... My word on that.










I have one request: for anyone willing to share, please try to keep it relatively close to home.

By that I mean, take baby steps from our immediate relative vecinity and not great leaps, if possible... For example: Jumping as far away towards something like a 'Heaven' concept and saying that it is all coming from there is too far away, in my opinion.





Permission for me to use an analogy for clarification purposes of the query...

Look at it as if you were a house, and simply wanted to discuss what is just past the last step of the front door... Talking about what is in the next city is too far away.















So... Who's got the courage to share?


--------------------
Nos confido phasmatis occultus in vicis postulo nostrum tutela donatus futurus.

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InvisibleIcelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery
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Re: An Interesting take on LOVE [Re: ELECTRIC]
    #4561911 - 08/21/05 07:31 AM (18 years, 7 months ago)

STAB- Love is everywhere/everything. It is the creative force. All things come into being through it. It is pure energy. It manifests as all things, which includes what we call dualism. So evil and it's opposite (not really opposite but points on a pole) are also aspects of love.

So love isn't comming from anywhere, it's here.

Yet love is just the word we use to describe something. There is no word for it. We need to talk about it so we call it Tao or Love.


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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Offlinecrunchytoast
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Re: An Interesting take on LOVE [Re: ELECTRIC]
    #4573872 - 08/24/05 03:11 AM (18 years, 7 months ago)

it's like the difference between affection and affect

my affection for someone is my orientation in the world, where i am pointing, where my dick is pointing as it may be

my affect is the feelings that result- joys and sadnesses, jealousy a kind of sadness for example, joy when my love enjoys..

i believe calling this addiction is a misunderstanding of the brain. dopamine plays its role in desire. it is addiction that is a kind of desire; desire is not a kind of addiction.


--------------------
"consensus on the nature of equilibrium is usually established by periodic conflict." -henry kissinger

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OfflineBlueCoyote
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Re: An Interesting take on LOVE [Re: TacticalBongRip]
    #4573932 - 08/24/05 04:36 AM (18 years, 7 months ago)

Then, WHERE is this LOVE coming from?
Hey, primal energy source while creation ?!
IMO, you can also ask therefor, where the big bang was comming from ...
:psychsplit:


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Though lovers be lost love shall not  And death shall have no dominion
......................................................
"Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men."Martin Luther King, Jr.
'Acceptance is the absolute key - at that moment you gain freedom and you gain power and you gain courage'

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Offlinemntlfngrs
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Re: An Interesting take on LOVE [Re: ELECTRIC]
    #4575333 - 08/24/05 03:21 PM (18 years, 7 months ago)

I watched a show on this. It all leads to audultery or breakups when it wears off so you can get that high again with someone new.


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Be all and you'll be to end all

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