Basically, I am a large mammal. Perhaps you see yourself as an enlightened being who is above the other animals on this planet. I don’t. I am an animal that can consciously(er) step out of the here and now to self-regulate when something gets too exciting.
You and I are also among the most vulnerable animals on earth. A mollusk without a shell and born far too early. It takes me a year to stand on my own two feet and even then I am more than needing help. I have no fur against the cold, or thick skin against the bright sun, no claws to hunt or teeth to tear off meat with, I can see reasonably well (yet) but really not like an eagle, I don’t smell like a dog and can’t see infrared like a snake. Actually, I should have been dead long ago in the chaos of this existence.
And yet here I am. Do I even survive as a human being all other species, in fact, humans potentially exterminate all other creatures. How? Through two simple survival strategies:
- Collaboration
- Dissociation
Cooperation is a survival mechanism in many animals; from ants in the anthill to lions hunting as a group to a herd of buffalo being hunted. Cooperation offers a chance of survival on the one hand because many hands make light work and on the other hand, in a group I am better protected as an individual. In addition, through cooperation, we as a species are better protected from collective extinction.
Dissociation is an entirely different thing. I define dissociation as being able to go away from this moment. To be able to escape from the NOW. Not physically but through thoughts of then and there. Not here and now. I step out of the here and now. Conscious and unconscious. I can consciously experience past or future. More than other animals. Those have much more of an unconscious conditioned response that makes them seem to dissociate as well. But not like I can.
In my mind, I can already be at my vacation destination. Or going back to a nasty situation last week with my partner and letting that fill my whole thinking. Animals dissociate unconsciously and humans dissociate unconsciously AND consciously. Although, again, they are often unaware of that fact. Conscious dissociation is, for example, reading a book, watching a movie, thinking about the weather this afternoon, the shopping list, planning, fantasizing, daydreaming. Getting away from here and now and not experiencing the sensations of the body for a while. But dissociation also includes delusions, amnesia, psychosis or narcissistic behavior. Psychological disorders that help me survive where it is too unsafe in the chaos experienced by my social engagement system (Stephen Porges) in the now. My conditioned and thus unconsciously adjusted cq filtered perception plays a role here, no different from that of animals. All dissociation is adapted behavior for survival. We could look at mental illness in this light. As intensity of dissociation on a sliding scale.
Animals have that same conditioned and thus unconsciously adapted cq filtered perception, but now without the conscious also dissociative thinking about it. As a result, animals respond primarily in a primary way. From the hip, WYSIWYG, What you see is what you get.
With me as a human being, another conditioned dissociative layer of thought comes on top. A learned, socially desirable adaptation to the primary response occurs, and thus a secondary response is created. That secondary response in our brain simultaneously creates a dissociated false security. I have had the experience that if I could have reacted uninhibitedly primary in most situations in my life, I would have had more peace and I would have experienced the flow of life earlier in my life. What more primary responding would (have) meant for the collective cooperation and thus survival of the human species I leave aside here for now.
So, as a human being, I have unconsciously conditioned dissociation (autonomic response) and conscious dissociation (remembering, imagining alternatives, desire). When in me those two dissociations differ I experience tension. This, in a nutshell, is what Australian biologist Griffit calls “The Human Condition. Two systems not yet evolutionarily aligned. Which makes me suffer from the difference.
