Yesterday I tweeted this: “It’s not a conscious thing. The Goo Goo Dolls tickle my amygdala.”
I was, at the time, listening to my super cool custom radio station on Pandora Internet Radio (which, if you haven’t tried, I highly recommend), and a Counting Crows song came on that I’d never heard before. I loved it instantly (and not just because, at the end, the singer proclaims his love for red haired girls).
I wasn’t in a bad mood before it came on, but still, the song was working its magic – as music often does – activating the happy particles of my biological chemistry. There are things that do that, I think, things that touch us on an unconscious level, perform a bit of molecular magic and leave us happier than we were before.
They tickle our amygdalas.
When my oldest son was acting, one of his directors told him about the amygdala, an almond-shaped bundle of nuclei located in each temple. The amygdala is responsible for a number of brainy activities, but one of the things it does is “stimulate the neo cortex, the part of your brain that becomes extremely active during deep meditation, ecstasy, nirvana, transcendence and all of your higher functions, emotions and peak experiences.” Good thing to stimulate, right?
So the director taught him how to tickle his amygdala. “Close your eyes,” he said, “and picture, in your temples, friendly, happy, fuzzy, buzzing bees. Cute bees. Bees with cartoony smiles and no stingers. Picture them nestled up against your amygdala, buzzing away.” Or he suggested picturing all the planets in the universe aligning, and then imagining that the force that aligns them shoots down to earth and pulses through you; in an instant, you and the universe are perfectly in sync.
Don’t worry. Stay with me. I’ll get back to the Goo Goo Dolls, I promise. The way you know that you have, in fact, tickled your amygdala, he said, is that you will smile, or laugh, or just feel inexplicably good.
I confess that I could never make this work. I tried, and I usually did feel good, but mostly because laughing at myself is a fortifying activity. Eventually, I modified the theory. I decided that there are things – real things – that make me inexplicably happy and that these things are, in fact, tickling my amygdala; the Counting Crows, for instance, Morgan Freeman’s voice, the smell of rain, Ira Glass. I like the idea of these things that are neither inherently good nor bad, happy nor sad, sort of sneaking up on me, affecting me positively, physically, beyond conscious thought. For a little while, they lift me up. Make me lighter.
So, of course you know where this is going … tell me what tickles your amygdala. I really want to know! And if you try to tickle your amygdala with bees, let me know what happens!
Oh, yeah. The Goo Goo dolls. That was a Twitter mistype. It was the Counting Crows I should have been tweeting about (though the Goo Goo Dolls had been singing Iris just prior… and that song does nice things to my amygdala too).
Wild
Okay, so I just edited my post because Karen From Mentor sent me a sweet email to say, “Hey you totally screwed up your music links and now my amygdala is all askew.” Okay, she didn’t say that, because, really, who would say that? She was polite and inquisitive.
It’s all straight now. The Counting Crows are getting their due. =)
I remember my biology teacher saying that if you made a fist with your right hand it is rather representative of what your brain looks like. And then went on to say what was located where. I love when I get to pull that info out and use it!
“hello Mr. Amygdala, how are you today?” — geeeez, why is it when you start talking to your thumb in a clenched fist people look at you funny!?!
All I know is that if you are going to stimulate my amygdala you better by me dinner first. I am sure I read that in the Starting At 3rd brochure!
Bobby, Dinner’s on me. ;-)
I’m sorry. But it’s too early in the day for the visual I just got from “Bobby, dinner’s on me.”
G A W D .
Ok, now I’m happy.
Karen :0)
50/50 shot of this being published…..giggling
Karen, A comment laid is a comment played. (Or something like that.) Besides, you made me laugh, and that is almost always a good thing!
I especially like those days when you get layers upon layers of amygdala tickling events. It’s kind of like how Disneyland felt the first time.
The trick is to work your amygdala muscle I guess.
In the spirit of a classic movie that does just that, “You just keep amygdala-tickling Butch. That’s what you’re good at.”
cmw
Yay! I made you laugh. You made me smile for the first time in days . So after giggling at you I got myself together and went out.
I just walked back in ..I had a day filled with testosterone and tail lights….rounded out by talking to a gorgeous juggler on stilts for an hour.
Judy, Joy and a Juggler my amygdala is working overtime….full day in Karenland.
Thanks for the jump start.
Hugs!
Karen :0)
Actually, the word amygdala itself is rather stimulating to my adorable little amygdalic giggly bears. And why shouldn’t it be? It’s derived from the Latin word “amigdal” which means almond, and while gently basking at our brain’s 99 degree beaches it’s entire life, our wonderfully ticklish nutty buddy ends up with a nice even cocoa tan. Every time we dream, wake up, make a decision, think a thought, brush our teeth, run out of gas, or strike up a bonfire of old issues of Cosmopolitan Magazine in our backyards to remind us that we’re human, there’s a perfectly roasted almond teehee-ing away in our subconscious, waiting for us to notice it. Amygda-oo-la-la.
CMW, Quoting Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid? Sweet!
Karen, Testosterone and tail lights. There’s a country and western song in there somewhere, little lady.
Bernie, Feel like Tom Robbins just commented on my blog. ;-)
Funny, I had heard the reference to our fist and the human Heart . . . could there actually be a link between the heart and brain???!! OMG
I am a HUGE fan of Pandora Radio . . . trying to give up t.v. completely and my only vice was the music channel — still need it for Annie’s Nick shows and Oscar night though. I found Pandora to take the place of the music channels and I Looooove it!!
If the amygdala actually is the key to retraining all other parts of the brain, and is the key to all associative brain phenomenon, then nothing is beyond us. With music, hypnosis, and suggestion, we can probably retrain our entire mind to do anything we want to do. We need to surround ourselves with well-trained amateurs,
music, and wonderfull smells, piped in at the precise moment when powerful emotional suggestions are presented to us. Over time, such a program would have profound results. Miracles are available, we are the magicians.
As you may have heard, smell is the sense most closely tied to memory and emotion, and helps fix important events and memories in our subconcious. But if we mix smells, music, hypnotic suggestions, (and maybe even a little loving), then we could probably remake ourselves any way we wished. OR NOT? (Or maybe I’m full of crap, whadda-ya think?)
Hey, I’m the other part of Mark’s mind, and BOY is that guy whacky. I been trapped in here for YEARS, and all I ever asked this guy for was beer and poon-tang. What does this idiot give me? Existentialist crap and marigolds! HELP!