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#Post#: 7--------------------------------------------------
The Brain in Love...and high as a kite on it too!
By: arborite Date: October 7, 2015, 1:41 pm
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by Royce Adams (Information gathered and partially written by)
The "chemistry" is your Imago, and it's a mixture of poison and
aphrodisiac.
For many hundreds of years it was said that the heart is the
center of love. However evoluntionary scientists and the
like...Paul McLean, Helen Fish,David Buss and others have
demonstrated that love is all in brain, and fueled by
chemistry.The heart is not pierced by cupids arrow so much a
given a hit with some very potent and addictive chemicals.
“We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them.”
—Khalil Gibran
Infatuation
When two people are attracted to each other, a virtual explosion
of adrenaline-like nuerochemicals floods the brain We in fact
become PEA brained, PEA is the short name for phenylethylamine a
chemical that speeds up the flow of information between nerve
cells or synapes.
Involved also in this chemistry are dopamine and norepinephrine,
chemical cousins of amphetamines. Dopamine makes us feel good
and norepinephrine stimulates the production of adrenaline. It
makes our heart race!
These three chemicals combine to give bring us a dubious gift
called infatuation or "chemistry." It is why new lovers feel
euphoric and energized, and float on air and have their heads in
the cloud or if you like up their rear ends... It is also why
new lovers can make love for hours and talk all night for weeks
on end.
This is the chemistry we foolishy seek and is the nemisis of
romantic love.The seeds of it's own destruction are built into
romance itself...
Actually when we have chemistry with someone, it's not exactly
flattering to the other person. In fact it is insulting in a
round about way....
When we "fall in love" our body dumps PEA into the brain...this
happen becasue the old brain r complex as described by Paul Mc
Clean recognises the new lover as a "love object" with whom we
can
1. Finish our childhood business.
2. Give us back what we lost to the socialization process of
growing up.
Singles when they set out on the hunt for a mate go armed with a
laundry list of qualities desired in a mate/lover. The lsit of
cousre has on it such honorable fine qualities as honesty,
fidelity, loyalty, sense of humor, intelligence, warmth, etc.
Yet when that person appears they say, He/she is a really nice
person, but nothing clicks....and the often heard lament of
there being no "chemistry" is heard...
Unfortunately, when we do feel "it" we are feeling our original
parent/child woundings. That's when our brain really gets those
phenylethylamines and other chemicals moving.
Some people become love junkies,they truly are addited. They
need chemistry or this chemical excitement to feel happy about
and intoxicated by life. Once this initial rush of chemicals
wanes (this waning is inevitable and can begin in a little a 3
months and usually no longer than three years, depending on the
individual and the circumstances,(for instance it can be drag
out by absences and living apart, their relationship crumbles.
Soon they are off again, addicts seeking a quick fix to their
forlorn feelings, another chemical high from infatuation.
Love junkies also have another problem. The body builds up a
tolerance to these chemicals. And as in drug addiction it takes
more and more chemistry to bring that special feeling of "love".
They crave the intoxication of chemistry and infatuation.
Many adults go through life in a series of six-month to
three-year relationships. If these love junkies stay married,
they are likely to seek affairs to fuel their chemical highs.
Monogamy
Only a tiny perectage of mammals can be said to be monogamous,
who mate and bond with one partner for life. Scientists tell us
humans are not one of these naturally monogamous mammals.
Maybe a few injections of vasopressin would help us. It has been
called the monogamy chemical.
By isolating male voles before and after mating, scientists
found that lifelong mating could be linked to the action of
vasopressin. Before mating, the male vole is friendly to male
and female voles alike. Within 24 hours after mating, the male
vole is hooked for life.
When the chemical vasopressin kicks in, he is indifferent to all
females but one. He is also totally aggressive to other males
with a classic exhibition of the jealous husband syndrome.
Cuddling
The chemical oxytocin has been coined the cuddling drugl. Linked
to milk production in women, oxytocin makes women and men calmer
and more sensitive to the feelings of others.
It plays an important role in romantic love as a sexual arousal
hormone that signals orgasm and prompts cuddling between lovers
before, during, and after lovemaking.
Oxytocin production is derived from both emotional and physical
cues. A lover's voice, his/her certain look, or even a sexual
fantasy can trigger the release of oxytocin.
Attachment
When infatuation subsides, a new group of chemicals takes
over.(although not with any absolute certainty will it prolongs
the relationship,it may though...many are called upon to make a
choice to love and as often seen many don't make the choice but
go on a new quest of conquest...)... This new type of chemical
rewards the brain by(an endorphine and related to morphine) is
released into the human system.
These morphine-like opiates calm and reassure with intimacy,
dependability, warmth, and shared experiences. Not as exciting
or as stressful as PEA, but steadier and more addictive for
some(and for a little while...)
However it must be said that the longer two people have been
married, the more likely it is that they'll stay married. In
part, they become addicted to the endorphins and marital
serenity. It is the absence of endorphins that make long-time
partners yearn for each other when apart. Absent endorphins also
play a part in grief from the death of a spouse. However before
this happens there is "the power stuggle" and one set of
relating patterns is pitched againgst the other partners set.
Their is a contest where each partner tries to get their needs
met by the other partner but runs smack up againgst the other
doing the same thing and consequently no ones needs get met at
this stage...this in fact is the divorcing or break up stage and
is according hellen Fisher replicated throught out the world and
accross all cultures.....this happen around the 4 year mark.
According to Mark Goulston, M.D., professor of psychiatry at the
University of California at Los Angeles, "Adrenaline-based love
is all about ourselves, we like being in love. With endorphins,
we like loving."
[hr]
Science proves that love is blind
Do our critical facilities vanish?
Scientists have shown that there is a degree of truth in the old
adage that love is blind.
They have found that feelings of love lead to a suppression of
activity in the areas of the brain controlling critical thought.
It seems that once we get close to a person, the brain decides
the need to assess their character and personality is reduced.
The study, by University College London, is published in
NeuroImage.
The researchers found that both romantic love and maternal love
produce the same effect on the brain.
They suppress neural activity associated with critical social
assessment of other people and negative emotions.
The UCL team scanned the brains of 20 young mothers while they
viewed pictures of their own children, children they were
acquainted with, and adult friends.
The team found that the patterns of brain activity were very
similar to those identified in an earlier study looking at the
effects of romantic love.
Euphoria
Both studies recorded increased activity in parts of the brain's
"reward system".
When these areas are stimulated - as they can be by food and
drink, or even monetary gain - they produce feelings of
euphoria.
But perhaps more surprisingly, both studies also showed reduced
levels of activity in the systems necessary for making negative
judgements.
Similar findings have been found in animal studies.
Lead researcher Dr Andreas Bartels said it was crucial that both
romantic and maternal love were viewed by the brain in a highly
positive way - because both were crucial to the perpetuation of
the species.
He said: "Our research enables us to conclude that human
attachment employs a push-pull mechanism that overcomes social
distance by deactivating networks used for critical social
assessment and negative emotions, while it bonds individuals
through the involvement of the reward circuitry explaining the
power of love to motivate and exhilarate."
The research did highlight one difference in the brain's
response to romantic and maternal love.
Only romantic love triggered heightened activity in the
hypothalamus - which controls feelings of arousal.
#Post#: 8--------------------------------------------------
Re: The Brain in Love...and high as a kite on it too!
By: arborite Date: October 7, 2015, 1:45 pm
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[center]The Myth of Romantic Love[/center]
Some thoughts about The Myth of Romantic Love: Living off the
Fat of Infatuation
Romantic love is mental illness. But it's a pleasurable one.
It's a drug. It distorts reality, and that's the point of it. It
would be impossible to fall in love with someone that you really
saw.
FRAN LEBOWITZ
Romantic love is, quite literally, a drug high. The intensely
good feeling of "falling in love" is triggered by the same
physiological reactions caused by free-fall in sky diving or
winning a fortune in the lottery. Free-fall, fortune winning,
and falling in love release into the bloodstream epinephrine,
commonly known as adrenaline (the body's natural hey-hey-hey!
chemical) and endorphins (the body's whoopee! chemical). These
chemicals are just as pleasurable as any drugs (licit or
illicit) you care to name--and just as addictive.
It's an addiction, however, our society not only tolerates, but
encourages. According to cultural norms, addiction to heroin,
cocaine, or alcohol is bad. Addiction to the thrill of falling
in love is good. In fact, not being addicted to love is bad.
Further, being "in love" is reason enough to do almost
anything--from murder to abandoning one's career.
It is hard to name anything that gets more free positive
publicity than romantic love. Every movie, commercial, TV show
(sitcom, drama, or movie-of-the-week), popular song, billboard,
and nine out of ten bestsellers sing the praises of romantic
love.
It is painful to watch how tortured the plots become in order to
work in the "love interest," as it's known in Hollywood. How is
it that Indiana Jones always seems to find at least one
gorgeous, intelligent, but otherwise romantically available
woman in the midst of the jungle, desert, Incan ruins, Egyptian
pyramids, or Peking opium den? Why? Well, as George Lucas once
advised Steven Spielberg, "If the man and woman walk off into
the sunset hand-in-hand in the last reel, it adds $10 million to
the box office."
Human beings seem to have an almost unlimited capacity to
deceive themselves and to deceive themselves into taking their
own lies for the truth. One's only task is to realize oneself.
R. D. LAING
Romantic love is used so often because it sells so well, and the
media always have something to sell. As they are using romantic
love to sell what they want to sell (higher ratings, soap,
Fenamint, books, tickets), they are also selling the notion of
romantic love itself. This means romance sells better, which
means it's used more often to sell, so it gets sold even more
often, and so on. It's a very successful marketing tool.
From the consumer's point of view, however, there is only one
small problem with romantic love: it's almost always doomed to
failure.
Why Romantic Love Is Almost Always Doomed
The consuming desire of most human beings is deliberately to
plant their whole life in the hands of some other person. For
this purpose they frequently choose someone who doesn't even
want the beastly thing. I would describe this method of
searching for happiness as immature. Development of character
consists solely in moving towards self-sufficiency.
QUENTIN CRISP
Few enterprises fail as often and as traumatically as romantic
love, yet are still considered by many not just a solution, but
the solution.
Solution to what? You name it: love waltzes in and dances your
problems away. From solving the fundamental "problem" of
existence to renewed health to financial rejuvenation to a cure
for loneliness, Prince Charming or Cinderella cureth all.
At the outset, perhaps this is true. The problem, however, with
this all-purpose problem solver is that it is based almost
entirely on illusion.
We are programmed with the illusion of romantic love from an
early age. The same culture that programs us to believe in Santa
Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, and Free Lunch also
programs us to believe in One Significant Other Out There
Without Whom We Can't Be Whole, Much Less Happy. Minnie and
Mickey, Olive Oyl and Popeye, Barbie and Ken, Lady and the
Tramp--and they all lived happily ever after.
Right.
Mercifully, by the time we reach puberty and the advent of all
those raging hormones that form the biochemical basis of
romantic love, we have been disillusioned (probably
traumatically) about Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth
Fairy, and (for some) Free Lunch. Alas, as the early teenage
years progress and our throbbing hormones create desires for
other people's bodies which easily surpass even the most
meaningful childhood visitation to Toys R Us, the illusion of
romantic love is not dispelled. In fact, the spell is cast
deeper, stronger, in Technicolor, 3-D, Dolby ProLogic,
Sensearoundsound, and feelaroundbound.
In real love you want the other person's good. In romantic love
you want the other person.
MARGARET ANDERSON
We are taught (by songs, movies, TV shows) that the natural
physical attractions of the early teenage years are all part of
the romantic ideal. It is "the dawn of love," "love at first
sight," or "if you call it horny your parents will ground you,
but if you say you're in love your parents will say it's a crush
and whisper `Oh, how cute!'"
We are told the attraction--which is biochemical and electrical,
but feels downright magnetic--is just the start of Something
Big. "You mean it gets better than this?" Oh, yes, the more
deeply you fall in love, the more spectacular it becomes. "Love
Is a Many Splendored Thing."
To quote another song (you can discourse on romantic love's
philosophy by quoting almost any song), "Fools Rush in Where
Wise Men Fear to Tread." If this is true (and it probably is, if
you consider that even the wise can become foolish when hormones
and cultural programming combine to lower the IQ roughly one
hundred points, as it does when one is about to fall in love),
the wise are distressingly silent when it comes to teaching us
about a certain biological imperative common to all mammals.
Rather than saying, for example, "Yes, this is a perfectly
natural, healthy reaction, but it is not practical to act on it
every time you feel it any more than it is practical to eat
every morsel of food you see. Sexual attraction is just energy;
if the time is not right to express it sexually, for whatever
reason, then the energy can be used to create something else
that is productive, satisfying, and fun."
No, the wise seem to have had their wisdom co-opted by the Grand
Illusion. Some of the wise tales sound more like old wives'
tales. "This feeling you have will deepen into desire, ripen
into passion, grow into fulfillment, and flower into love." That
even the wise want to escape the birds and the bees and instead
discuss flowers is indicative of just how far from reality those
who sell us the notion of romantic love must go.
The message that "love" will solve all of our problems is
repeated incessantly in contemporary culture-- like a
philosophical tom tom. It would be closer to the truth to say
that love is a contagious and virulent disease which leaves a
victim in a state of near imbecility, paralysis, profound
melancholia, and sometimes culminates in death.
QUENTIN CRISP
As animals, we have more in common with birds and bees than we
do with flowers. Most birds pair up for a season. They build a
nest, mate, lay eggs, sit on eggs, feed the young for a few
weeks, kick the kids out of the nest, and fly south for a
well-deserved winter vacation--alone. In the spring, they fly
north and begin it all again, usually with a new partner. With
the exception of a few species including some lesbian sea gulls
off the coast of California, to birds "till death do us part"
means that they are living amongst a larger-than-usual
population of cat cats.
And of bees, well, allow Phyllis Lindstrom, of The Mary Tyler
Moore Show to explain: Did you know the male bee is nothing but
the slave of the queen? And once the male bee has, how should I
say, serviced the queen, the male dies. All in all, not a bad
system.
By the time we've reached dating age, the emotionally seductive
concepts of "someone to watch over me," "in the morning, in the
evening, ain't we got fun?" and "they all lived happily ever
after" form an almost irresistible package, which has us by the
end of the fifteen-year romance infomercial picking up our
phones, dialing the number, and proclaiming, "I want it! I want
it! I want it now!"
As with most illusions, reality inevitably intervenes, causing
hurt, anger, and the exceptional success of broken-hearted love
ballads. Unlike other disappointments, however, reality
intervening in romantic love fails to bring disillusion. We
still believe in romantic love; we just think we didn't measure
up or they didn't measure up. Next time, we believe--next
person, next weekend, next year, next lifetime it will be
better, it will happen--true love, true love. To believe that
the illusion is real, but that the loved one or our ability to
love is inadequate, is of course all part of the illusion.
I'm not saying romantic love can't lead to solid, healthy,
flexible, mutually nourishing relationships--sometimes it does,
and sometimes it doesn't. But it's not a sure thing.
Fifty-four(and rising) percent of the marriages in this country
end in divorce, and that's just the marriages. As we explored,
if we add to that the number of people who fall in love "forever
and ever" and break up before getting married, it's clear that
what we are doing to achieve "happily ever after" ain't working.
When two people are under the influence of the most violent,
most insane, most delusive, and most transient of passions, they
are required to swear that they will remain in that excited,
abnormal, and exhausting condition continuously until death do
them part.
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
Jack Parr, who was raised vegetarian, said that, as a child,
every time he passed a butcher's window he thought there had
been a terrible accident. It is not hard to come to the same
conclusion as one surveys the landscape of romantic love,
littered as it always seems to be with wounded, broken, and
bleeding hearts.
Those who say the solution is to return to "traditional family
values," have obviously spent very little time studying
tradition, family, or history. In fact, "the good old days"
(whenever you want to peg the good old days to be) were terrible
for almost everyone. To return to "the good old days" would
require women to be treated as chattel; a significantly
shortened lifespan; six-day, fourteen-hour-a-day work weeks;
fifty percent of all children dying before the age of eight;
increased disease, pestilence, suffering, and no VCRs.
Since we can't go back to an idyllic past that never existed in
the first place, what can we do? We do what we usually do when
we discover what we believed in, hoped for, longed for, and
fully expected to happen (someday) is simply not true; a myth.
Poof. We become the sadder, but wiser, rabbit. This prevents us
from becoming the miserable and stupid rabbit who keeps banking
on a payoff that is a long shot at best.
The fundamental problem with romantic love is that it is based
on sexual attraction, which is, at its most reliable, fickle.
Once desire dries up--in a week, a month, or a year--it's hasta
la vista, baby. More scientifically stated, when the physical
and aesthetic characteristics of the love object no longer
trigger spontaneous emissions of pleasurable chemicals into the
bloodstream, the amount of time spent with, and attention paid
to, the former object of desire decreases in direct ratio to the
decrease of pleasurable hormonal secretions. Put most
simply--when lust hits the dust, it's a bust.
Personally, I like sex and I don't care what a man thinks of me
as long as I get what I want from him-- which is usually sex.
VALERIE PERRINE
[center]"Oh, but I didn't love him for his body," some protest
at my seemingly narrow analysis. "I loved him for his mind
(character, ideals, kindness)." That may be so, dear heart, but
you can bet the reason your partner--the mindful, idealistic,
kindly character--showed you his remarkable mind, character,
ideals, and kindness is, most likely, that he found your body
not too shabby.behaviors (both uplifting and otherwise) in which
anyone can take part--whether male or female, gay or straight,
bi or sell.
When two people have a mutual nonsexual attraction, seldom, if
ever, do they refer to it as "falling in love" or to their being
together as a "relationship." It's called a friendship,
partnership, or acquaintanceship. Although the two may grow to
love one another, they do not fall into anything (unless there
is money or some other lust-inducing enticement) and they don't
go blindly leaping off emotional cliffs, yelling,
"Saint Valentine protect me! Here I go
o
o
o
o
o
oh-oh . . . "
SPLAT. [/center]
[center]From time to time great minds have risked censure,
public ridicule, and the loss of research grants to speak the
truth about romantic love.
A mighty pain to love it is, And `tis a pain that pain to miss;
But of all pains, the greatest pain It is to love, but love in
vain.
--Abraham Cowley (1656)
Time, which strengthens friendship, weakens love.
--Jean de La Bruyre (1688)
Beauty soon grows familiar to the lover, Fades in his eye, and
palls upon the sense.
--Joseph Addison (1713)
If love is judged by most of its effects, it resembles hate more
than friendship.
--La Rochefoucauld
Love is ridiculous passion which hath no being but in play-books
and romances.
--Jonathan Swift
It is impossible to love and to be wise.
--Francis Bacon
Love is the child of illusion and the parent of disillusion.
--Miguel de Unamuno
Love is a springtime plant that perfumes everything with its
hope, even the ruins to which it clings.
--Flaubert
Love is a disease which fills you with a desire to be desired.
--Toulouse-Lautrec
Never the time and the place And the loved one all together!
--Robert Browning
Friendship is a disinterested commerce between equals; love, an
abject intercourse between tyrants and slaves.
--Oliver Goldsmith
When one is in love one begins by deceiving oneself, one ends by
deceiving others. That is what the world calls romance.
--Oscar Wilde
For though I know he loves me Tonight my heart is sad His kiss
was not so wonderful As all the dreams I had.
--Sara Teasdale
One is very crazy when in love.
--Freud
Love is a gross exaggeration of the difference between one
person and everybody else.
--George Bernard Shaw
The worst of having a romance is that it leaves one so
unromantic.
--Oscar Wilde
When first we met we did not guess That Love would prove so hard
a master.
--Robert Bridges
To be in love is merely to be in a state of perceptual
anesthesia--to mistake an ordinary young man for a Greek god or
an ordinary young woman for a goddess.
--H. L. Mencken
My silks and fine array, My smiles and languished air, By love
are driv'n away; And mournful lean Despair Brings me yew to deck
my grave: Such end true lovers have.
WILLIAM BLAKE
Lovers who have nothing to do but love each other are not really
to be envied; love and nothing else very soon is nothing else.
--Walter Lippmann
Great loves too must be endured.
--Coco Chanel
If two people love each other there can be no happy end to it.
--Ernest Hemingway
Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song, A medley of extemporanea;
And love is a thing that can never go wrong; And I am Marie of
Roumania.
--Dorothy Parker
Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.
--H. L. Mencken
And the lovers lie abed with all their griefs in their arms.
--Dylan Thomas
There is hardly any activity, any enterprise, which is started
with such tremendous hopes and expectations and yet which fails
so regularly as love.
--Erich Fromm
Love is a universal migraine A bright stain on the vision
Blotting out reason.
--Robert Graves
One should always be wary of anyone who promises that their love
will last longer than a weekend.
--Quentin Crisp
Every young girl . . . tries to smother her first love in
possessiveness. Oh what tears and rejection await the girl who
imbues her first delicate match with fantasies of permanence,
expecting that he at this gelatinous stage will fit with her in
a finished puzzle for all the days.
--Gail Sheehy
Great passions don't exist--they are liar's fantasies. What do
exist are little loves that may last for a short or longer
while.
--Anna Magnani
There is one thing I would break up over, and that is if she
caught me with another woman. I won't stand for that.
--Steve Martin
I can see from your utter misery, from your eagerness to
misunderstand each other, and from your thoroughly bad temper,
that this is the real thing.
--Peter Ustinov
You love me so much, you want to put me in your pocket. And I
should die there smothered.
D. H. LAWRENCE
People in love, it is well known, suffer extreme conceptual
delusions; the most common of these being that other people find
your condition as thrilling and eye-watering as you do
yourselves.
--Julian Barnes
She was a lovely girl. Our courtship was fast and furious--I was
fast and she was furious.
--Max Kauffmann
My boyfriend and I broke up. He wanted to get married, and I
didn't want him to.
--Rita Rudner
Told her I had always lived alone And I probably always would,
And all I wanted was my freedom, And she told me that she
understood. But I let her do some of my laundry And she slipped
a few meals in between, The next thing I remember she was all
moved in And I was buying her a washing machine.
--Jackson Browne
Kissing is a means of getting two people so close together that
they can't see anything wrong with each other.
--Ren Yasenek
To fall in love is to create a religion that has a fallible God.
--Jorge Luis Borges
Love is simple to understand if you haven't got a mind soft and
full of holes. It's a crutch, that's all and there isn't any one
of us that doesn't need a crutch.
--Norman Mailer
Love is mainly an affair of short spasms. If these spasms
disappoint us, love dies. It is very seldom that it weathers the
experience and becomes friendship.
--Jean Cocteau
The happiest moments in any affair take place after the loved
one has learned to accommodate the lover and before the
maddening personality of either party has emerged like a jagged
rock from the receding tides of lust and curiosity.
--Quentin Crisp
To fall in love you have to be in the state of mind for it to
take, like a disease.
--Nancy Mitford
Love is the drug which makes sexuality palatable in popular
mythology.
--Germaine Greer
If you can stay in love for more than two years, you're on
something.
--Fran Lebowitz
and from me...
"If there was no romantic "love" then there'd be no Jerry
Sringer show"
...Royce Adams...
[/center]
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