This really is your brain on drugs

Steven Johnson writes, in a chapter titled "The Hormones Talking": "So begin with this basic premise: you are on drugs. With every shifting mood, every twitch of anxiety, every lovelorn glance, you are experiencing the release of dedicated chemicals in your brains that control your emotions, chemicals fundamentally the same as the ones you might otherwise find in a dime bag or a coke spoon."

This could easily be read as reductionist -- you are only whatever your chemicals are currently saying you are -- although Johnson explicitly rejects that description of what he's about in the book's final chapter. But I found it helpful. With his words in "mind" I was able to step aside, to recognize the feeling of being out of kilter, and by doing so, ameliorate it rather than wallow in it. That doesn't mean I was rushing to pump some external serotonin or dopamime substitute in my system -- although I certainly was tempted to ingest a strong cocktail. But I could see myself as an organism that had gotten a little out of whack, and that was OK.

As Johnson writes, "Knowing something about the brain's mechanics -- and particularly your brain's mechanics -- widens your own self-awareness as powerfully as any therapy or meditation or drug. Brain science has become an avenue for introspection, a way of bridging the physiological reality of your brain with the mental life you already inhabit."

As I sifted through the archaeological trail of my afternoon, seeking an answer to my irritability, it occured to me that perhaps I was having an infatuation withdrawal flashback. At one point in my afternoon, I had, without mental preparation, been reminded of a failed love affair when I glanced at a picture of someone I had recently been emotionally involved with. On a surface level, I had winced momentarily, but quickly shrugged the discomfort away, as I went on through the rest of my day, shuttling kids to and from after-school classes and preparing dinner. But looking back, I began to suspect that, beneath my conscious surface, chemical reactions set in motion by that glimpse were cascading through my brain, undermining my sense of all-systems-go stability. (Or maybe it was just a late-afternoon sugar crash.)

It made sense. Poets and writers have burned through billions of neurons striving to define love, with varying levels of success. We tend to resist the idea that it is a purely biological process -- it's something so much more, whatever it is.

But anyone who has been through a period of infatuation cannot honestly deny that there are aspects of it strongly similar to a chemical high. It's fun, it's addictive, you want more. Whether this has its roots in evolutionary adaptations that encourage humans to find partners for the purpose of reproducing is a question I'll leave alone for now. (Suffice it to say that there is much meat of that sort in "Mind Wide Open" to chew on.)

For now, posit that the feeling of infatuation results in the release of chemicals in your brain that make you feel good. Is it such a stretch to believe that the mere memory of an infatuation can remind the brain of how it felt when all those chemicals were surging, and that the absence of that same neural activity can result in a less than happy brain? I'm simplifying here, even further than Johnson, who excels in taking enormously complex topics and reducing them to deliciously ingestible form. But I found my own self-analysis comforting.

Like a productive session of psychotherapy, or a good long serotonin-boosting run, thinking through the possibility that my antsy out-of-sortsness had some chemical roots based on real things that had been happening in my life was uplifting. Rather than make me feel like I was a machine, it made me feel like I was comprehensible, and with comprehension came clarity, and some amount of peace.

We live in a remarkable time. That it is even possible to take pictures of the insides of our brain, and catch, as Johnson does, a snapshot of the moment when he is having an idea, engaging in his own creative process, is miraculous and magical. That, as human beings, we are capable of engaging in what Johnson calls "recreational neuroscience" is a tribute to just how amazing our brains are, when we use them to our fullest capacities.

Stephen Johnson is using his brain like a grandmaster in "Mind Wide Open." The rest of us are lucky to be able to watch.

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