Yet, despite my predicament, I was not depressed or feeling jealous. I was actually feeling pleasure. It was not what I was expecting. I was confused. How could this be?
Reading an essay entitled "The Life In The Mind" by the noted author and physician Lewis Thomas, in his latest book "The Fragile Species" I found the answer to my question.
Thomas described a series of experiments on rats by a scientist named Olds who in the 1950's noted that by placing stimulating electrodes in the medial forebrain bundle of the rat brain, the rats despite being free to run kept returning to the spot where the first stimulus had been delivered as though waiting for another such stimulating charge.
Olds also found that when left to his own choice, the rat would repetitively choose the stimulus to its medial forebrain bundle even to the exclusion of food, water or rest. Olds noted that unless removed from this apparatus, the animal would stimulate themselves until exhausted and near death. This reward system was totally unrelated to drives of hunger, thirst or even sexual arousal. In addition, there was no such thing as being satiated. Nor was the response similar to true addiction, for when the stimulations were turned off they would try a few more times and then quickly give up and go to sleep.
In attempting to prove that there was such a phenomenon as pure pleasure in humans, Thomas takes these findings and explains them by suggesting that "The medial forebrain bundle carries the impulses carried in from cells all over the body bearing the news that they are alive". Since pleasure in being alive ought to exist as a special independent autonomous sense, this center in our brain is present to elicit the feeling of pleasure when all the cells of our body communicating as one a sense of pleasure of being alive. Perhaps that is why we feel so good at special times in our lives when all the cells in our body shout in unison "I'm glad to be alive".
Thomas doubts that stimulus such as cocaine, amphetamine, liquor and other drugs stimulate this very specialized pleasure center. I agree. This pleasure center is too fundamental to be turned on by artificial stimuli. It requires a unique set of events and situations to be stimulated. Lying in the meadow listening to birds singing, smelling sweet fragrances of flowers while watching clouds float by on a lazy Summer day, standing atop a mountain gazing at the multi-colored trees below while feeling the gentle cool breeze of a Fall day, holding newborn child while humming a familiar and reassuring tune, or sitting on a lounge chair at a ski resort knowing that those you love and cherish were happy elsewhere and that someday your leg would heal and you would ski once again are all good examples.
(Frank H. Boehm, MD is a professor of OB/GYN and Director of OB at Vanderbilt Medical Center in Nashville, TN. He can be reached at his web site http://dr-boehm.com. Dr. Boehm resides in Boca).