We don’t really need to know all the neurotransmitters and what they do; the Big Dopamine/Little Dopamine metaphor will serve as shorthand for serotonin, endocannibanoids, and a host of others. Neurotransmitters are like the universal myths: we only need to find the one that touches us personally to get the picture. Perhaps, there are as many neurotransmitters as there are myths, and you only need to find the one that best explains your own self.
Dopamine, Big or Little, gives pleasure. It reinforces connections in the neurolandscape. As we use the framework of conscious ritualing, it is the Little Dopamine connections that will be reinforced. They will fire faster, and stronger. The sensations of Little Dopamine, ultimately, will last longer than the Big Dopamine rushes, like an engine that is properly cared for.
Were we to stand up on a seesaw, moving toward its center, we must NOT to react to Big Dopamine. That will throw us off balance. On the other hand, at the center, we can detect the smallest adjustments for balance – these are Little Dopamine changes. Conscious ritualing keeps us in balance.
We can undo the addictive, Big Dopamine brain connections. The neurolandscape is plastic and changeable. We can change the world merely by noticing it.
The color, the size, the texture, the smell, the sound, the taste of our landmarks; where things are in relationship to each other in our pathways; the thoughts we have about what we notice in the brain and the body – are all qualia. That means we can change our lives, and the world, simply by paying attention to the landscapes in which we live.
The matter in the outer landscape affects our body, which affects our brain, which affects our mind. Simple enough – but if we turn it around something just short of miraculous occurs. The qualia in our mind can change our brain, which will change our body, which will, finally, change the outer landscape.
So, we start with the neurolandscape. There are about a hundred different neurotransmitters in the brain, but only two others, besides dopamine, need concern us here: serotonin and endocannibanoids.
Serotonin has been called the confidence drug – it comes with success. Life is a series of crises, from birth to death, and in the human landscape, we ritual through many of them with the help of various traditions in the community.
Traditions are confidence-building machines – families, schools, businesses, churches, governments, and a thousand other cultural institutions. They help us pass through all the stages or crises, in lifeith, and with each success we become a little more confident that we will continue to succeed.
In the neurolandscape, this confidence means that serotonin, just like dopamine, will be always be there to help us. It means that when our landmarks and pathways fail to answer to our needs, we can have faith that new qualia will reveal itself to show us the way.
True faith is born of confidence.
Conscious ritualing breeds confidence. It is a craft which helps us navigate unfamiliar landscapes. This is where endocannibanoids come in.
If serotonin produces the confidence that we can succeed in an unfamiliar landscape, endocannibanoids seem to enhance our interest in moving out of the familiar in the first place.
This occurs because of their effect upon memory: endocannibanoids cause some short term memory loss. In that moment, our usual landmarks may seem unfamiliar, but we soon realize we are still on the right path, and this sense of relief feels good.
Indeed, it causes the Dopamine Reward Circuit to activate, and in the future, anticipatory dopamine will make us more likely to move out of the familiar once again. Brain plasticity at work! Studies show that endocannibanoids do increase the urge to explore.
Dopamine, in combination with serotonin and endocannibanoids, increases our desire to explore, and our confidence to navigate, unfamiliar landscapes. Together they not only encourage us to contemplate change before it happens, they are responsible for the imagination to rearrange the fixities of our material landscapes. They loosen up the habits of our sensual perception, allowing us to notice qualia in-between our usual landmarks and pathways.
The unfamiliar landscape of neurotransmitters is yours to explore.
Happy ritualing!