The Dopamine Squirt

Was driving down the street this morning, just kind of observing those on the same path.  I counted about a dozen people who were walking with their cell phones in front of them.  Mind you, this isn't unusual anywhere on the planet now, but ten years ago would have been unheard of.

My Indian cellphone. Can you hear me now?

What are they looking at?  What are they looking for?  There was only one person on the sidewalk who wasn't eyeballing an object in her hand while she moved through space.  She was about 6 years old, and was in one of those fake cars that she could pedal herself.

Here I am in a giant car, about ten feet from her, she's in a tiny car on a sidewalk.  Both moving through space.  Both looking in front of ourselves to see what's up ahead.  While everyone around us had their heads down, sleek machine in hand, watching the world unfold through this dopamine squirt inducing machine.

You've heard about the dopamine squirt?  It's what your brain does whenever you get a text.  I thought it was such a funny concept I got the website "thedopaminesquirt.com" - but with regard to schizophrenia, it's a pretty dramatic theory.  That somehow the ability to create dopamine is related to the mental affliction.

But I'm referring to the dopamine "squirt" we get when our cell phone goes off.  According to this doctor, "seeking information" causes dopamine to give off a squirt in the brain. 

"Neuro scientists have been studying what they call the dopamine system for a while. Dopamine was “discovered” in 1958 by Arvid Carlsson and Nils-Ake Hillarp at the National Heart Institute of Sweden. Dopamine is created in various parts of the brain and is critical in all sorts of brain functions, including thinking, moving, sleeping, mood, attention, and motivation, seeking and reward.

The myth — You may have heard that dopamine controls the “pleasure” systems of the brain: that dopamine makes you feel enjoyment, pleasure, and therefore motivates you to seek out certain behaviors, such as food, sex, and drugs.


It’s all about seeking — The latest research, though is changing this view. Instead of dopamine causing us to experience pleasure, the latest research shows that dopamine causes seeking behavior. Dopamine causes us to want, desire, seek out, and search. It increases our general level of arousal and our goal-directed behavior. (From an evolutionary stand-point this is critical. The dopamine seeking system keeps us motivated to move through our world, learn, and survive). It’s not just about physical needs such as food, or sex, but also about abstract concepts. Dopamine makes us curious about ideas and fuels our searching for information. The latest research shows that it is the opioid system (separate from dopamine) that makes us feel pleasure."

And according to the same doc in an article in Psychology Today, this is why we're addicted to our cell phones: 

"Why We're All Addicted to Texts, Twitter and Google
Dopamine makes you addicted to seeking information in an endless loop. Post published by Susan Weinschenk Ph.D. on Sep 11, 2012 in Brain Wise"

Here is the original program where I was driving along in my car, and extended my travels just to listen to the story. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129384107 - and a transcript of the show:

This more or less jumped out at me:

MATT RICHTEL:

Physiologically, some have called it in research the dopamine squirt. You hear your phone and you get a little kind of neuro-chemical burst that says, ooh, how exciting. That's physiological.


On the psychological level, and let's assume for a second we can divide psychology from physiology, but the lure of the phone has something that researchers call the lottery ticket syndrome. You never know when the good email's gonna come in, so you are compelled to check every one.

BOB GARFIELD (interviewer):

We've become accustomed to being connected, you know, more or less 24/7. And the bonus of being in the car is that it's no longer dead time; you can be productive.

MATT RICHTEL:


There's a guy named David ****. His son was in the back seat of a car that his mother was driving, and a woman who was on the phone with, of all things, her church, hit the car, killing David's son. And David used to commute in the car and talk on the phone a lot. And after this happened he got in the car and he realized he couldn't resist the ping of his phone. And he was like, what is going on, can it be so powerful that, having lost my son, I still can't avoid the phone?
********************

A closed loop of consciousness... or a sparkler.

The question becomes: who's in control?  Is it our addictive personalisties?  Is it nature vs nurture?  Can we overcome addictions in the body? What keeps us from being focused on the road ahead when we're so busy getting that dopamine squirt from our cell phone?

From the research that's been talked about on these pages, and in my books, we find that we choose our lifetimes for a variety of reasons.  To overcome addiction perhaps. Or to examine the effects of addiction on others. Or to help others overcome those addictions.  There's a myriad of reasons why we choose to be on the planet.

Then let's examine the reality of what's in the cellphone.  We can hear our loved ones voices - we can even get footage of them wherever they are.  As one person put it during their between life session "contacting people on the other side is just like using a cellphone. You pick it up and push the buttons and you hear your loved ones voice." 

That was Howard Schultz's mom who said that to him prior to his passing.

You don't spend time thinking about how that happened - the ones and zeroes moving through space and time to bounce off a satellite and into your loved one's hand.  It just happens.

But it's also in the research that we spend time here on the planet examining the nature of reality in this artificial construct. We're on a stage, we choose the costumes, props and basically what our characters is supposed to achieve or accomplish. Sometimes we do so brilliantly, sometimes less so.  But when the play is over, or the class is over, we bow, we graduate and move on up to the next play or the next class.  We don't want to have to come back and do the class all over again, or even do the play all over again to learn the same lesson.

My peeps in Moscow

So as you're walking down the sidewalk with your head staring at a screen on your phone - try to imagine for a moment that your higher energetic self, for lack of a proper way to put it - is observing you from above.  Watching as you walk through this amazing environment.  There's birds, trees, flowers, living creatures - or as I like to refer to trees - LUNGS - that are actively making your path easier. Giving shade, giving oxygen, giving leaves, giving fruit... and what are we giving?

Giant Lungs in Huntington Gardens

Our footsteps, our heads bent, staring at ones and zeroes moving across time and space into a handheld device that may or may not harm us with its radiation and heat signature, but most certainly can harm us when the dopamine squirt kicks in and we focus on it while driving a car, walking through an intersection - or any of the other crazy ways that we've suddenly become fascinated with moving through the planet while being simultaneously on a cellphone, or apple watch, or eletronically connected to the planet - when in actuality we are ALREADY CONNECTED to everything and everyone on the planet.  We may not be able to see it - but it's there. 

Just lift up your chin.

My two cents.

In Praise of Rod Taylor and Howard Schultz

It's been a busy week in the Flipside.  A number of pals of mine have stepped off stage, from the reality TV Producer and pal Howard Schultz, to the great actor and star of my film Point of Betrayal Rod Taylor.

Howard was a unique individual.  

Photo from Variety

He grew up down the block from me in Northbrook, Illinois, in a unique stone house that sat at the end of our long street.  Some years later, Howard agreed to do a between life hypnotherapy session for me for my "Flipside" project.

During his session, which appears in the book under the chapter heading "THE SOUL RIVER" Howard (as "Steven" in the book - I offer anonymity to everyone who is in the book, as their hypnotherapy sessions reveal usually more than anyone wants to admit, but with Howard's blessing, no reason to keep that a secret now) began by going back in time during his life.  And at some point, he was talking about playing "Kick the Can" in his backyard, with his beloved dog, the sound of cicadas calling through the summer night.  

It's my childhood as well, and so unique to be 50 years older, listening to my neighbor describe events that happened to me as well. It also served as a verification of sorts, that Howard's memories of this lifetime were accurate, because I'd had the same ones.

It was his previous lifetime that gave me pause.  He quickly remembered being a young child in a country in Europe during World War II.  And after describing a kind of fearful existence with troops running around outside, and the parents hiding the children from them, Howard remembered dying in Dachau.  Literally remembered the moment of standing over a pit of bodies and being shot in the head.

I was startled.  Even when he said the word "Dachau" in reference to being asked "Where are you?" he said it as they say it over in Germany.  That hard CH sound, that even as he said it, reminded me of my trip there in my 20's when I was going to school in Italy.  A dark, drab place to be sure, but here my friend was reliving that awful moment in that awful place.

In the between life portion Howard lightened up.  He spoke of how he normally had lifetimes that were "filled with light" and "filled with laughter."  Even as he spoke about them, the odd coincidence that he had named his company "Lighthearted" took on new meaning for me, and for him as well.  He had many lifetimes where he was light hearted, or that the light from that realm filled him with memories of unconditional love.

And at some point, Howard spoke of how that lifetime in Dachau had "scorched his soul."  And so the hypnotherapist, Scott De Tamble, asked if Howard could find a way to alleviate that pain, or to help heal it.  And he said "They're taking me to the river of souls."  He described being escorted into this river where he felt whole and complete again, and experienced that powerful intense feeling of being healed from that dark lifetime.  He was asked "Why did you choose that lifetime?"  And he said "Because I had forgotten the dark.  It's important to remember the dark so that you can really enjoy the light."

Howard had the courage to choose a difficult lifetime so that he could "remember the dark."

Anyone who knew or loved Howard will tell you that he had a memorable laugh, and his eyes kind of twinkled when he laughed or recounted a great story.  He hired me at some point to write a film about his odd adventures in Mexico with Dog the Bounty Hunter - and how he very nearly wound up in prison while trying to film an extraction of a criminal.  There was incredible comedy in the story, but also it showed the amazing resilience of Howard.  He didn't feel that the script captured the chaos of what he'd gone through while he was down there - and I'm sorry that we didn't take it further along.  

We had dozens of meetings, over at least a decade, talking about doing a spiritual show together, a reality show based on past life research - a "past life detective" kind of show where people would be under hypnosis and we'd track down whether or not their stories were true.  He could never get anyone of his writing staff to be invested in the idea however, and he used them as a sounding board for whatever he wound up putting on the air.  If they didn't get it, then he reasoned, an audience wouldn't either.  This is how he wound up with "Naked Dating" and his other dating shows on MTV and elsewhere. It wasn't just the titillation involved - although there was that to be sure - it was because these shows were about connecting people on some level. 

Only a few months ago he called me about the afterlife show.  We still couldn't figure out how to make the project together, and I'm sorry we did not.  However, I'll bet he's putting together a hell of a show as we speak.  One thing he said during his session that's worth repeating - when he spoke to his departed mother during the session, she told him that speaking to someone in the afterlife was like picking up a cell phone and dialing a loved one.  We don't actually know how a cell phone works, we can't really get our minds around the mechanics, but we do know if we push so many buttons, our loved ones answer.  She said it was the same thing when communicating with the afterlife.  They can hear us when we speak to them, or reach out to them, and although they may not be able to have a direct response to our entreaties, they'll eventually get back to us in some manner. 

 1963 Rod Taylor Ed Fury Dorian Gray Daniela Rocca Picture

I met Rod Taylor while making a film called "Point of Betrayal" 20 years ago.  We had cast a couple of other actors who fell out the weekend prior to shooting, and the producer Jonathan Krane suggested Rod Taylor and Dina Merrill as replacements.  They both agreed.

Rod was the smartest actor I've ever met - he knew more about the camera, about directing, about staging, about choreographing a fight scene than anyone on the crew.  He would come in with new scenes that I had encouraged him to rewrite - and they were always 100 times better than what I had written or were on the page.  He was funny, smart, and told some great Hitchcock stories.


THE FIGHT SCENE FROM "POINT OF BETRAYAL"
WITH RICK JOHNSON AND ANN CUSACK 1996.

Rod choreographed this scene, we were losing the light and it was shot in one take.

One I remember is that one day during "The Birds" the studio had invited the international press to the set.  And during a set up, Rod noticed that the practical light in the refrigerator wasn't on, so when they went to do a take, Rod asked Hitch if "he was going to have them turn on the practical light in the refrigerator for the scene."  Hitch took a long pause and said "And now I will take a break while Rod Taylor directs the picture."  Everyone laughed but Rod, who was furious for being made a fool of.  During the lunch break, Hitch's secretary came looking for Rod, who was furious over Hitch mocking him.  

The secretary apologized profusely and insisted the Hitchcock wanted Rod to see him right away.  Rod went up to his office, thinking he was about to be fired, and when he came into the room, it was filled with all the international media - Paris Match, etc, all seated around a table having lunch with Hitchcock.  Hitch stood up and gestured to the empty seat next to him  and said "Ahhh, the star of the film has arrived.  Please, Rod Taylor, come and sit next to your biggest fan."

Of course they were best pals after that.

He last appeared in a Tarantino film - this is a wiki foto from an interview he did - via PDX retro

The saga of Point of Betrayal is short and sweet. Made for under a million, it was a thriller that was purchased by HBO and Paramount Home Video for distribution.  I thought that was fantastic.  Then it turned out no one had done an E and O for the film - an insurance document.  So Paramount sued the producer, and the film was put on a shelf - distributed overseas (I still get checks from odd territories for the musical score I did for the film, as well as checks from the Director's Guild) but the film has never been seen in theaters in the U.S. outside it's premier at the Palm Beach Film festival.




ROD TAYLOR IN "POINT OF BETRAYAL" WITH REBECCA BROUSSARD, ANN CUSACK, DINA MERRIL AND RICK JOHNSON. DIRECTED AND SCORED BY YOURS TRULY

I had a number of memorable dinners with Rod.  Funny, smart, didn't suffer fools lightly, he was also a terrific painter. 


Let's see if I can dig up one of his pix.



Anyways, as we grow older, more of us won't be on the planet much longer.  Both of these fellas made the world a brighter place, and I'm sorry to see them go, but looking forward to seeing them again at some point in the future, on the Flipside.