How to Become a Superorganism in 3 No, 4 Not-So-Easy Steps

Step One: Dump Your 5000 Facebook Friends. Cancel your accounts at these 100+ Social Media sites.

Step Two: Realize that becoming a Superorganism has nothing to do with the fact that bacterial cells outnumber human cells in the body 10 to 1 (approximately 10¹⁴ versus 10¹³), and that according to the King of Cooties, University of Colorado microbiologist Noah Fierer, a healthy human kicks up a “convective plume” of about 37 million bacteria per minute that can survive for extended periods. Becoming a Superorganism has little to do with that.

Step Three: Identify at most, 149 living people you’d love to develop deep, stable, enduring relationships with.

Step Four: Do your best to answer the Big Brain Question for all 150. It’s probably not doable, but at least you and they will know you have the awareness along with some degree of desire. Why is this important? Because children who have that question answered Yes grow up Securely Attached. Having it answered No as adults is the Number One reason people quit jobs, and the Number One reason people end up in Divorce Court.  

But notice that I’m including you in the Superorganism number. And for good reason: If we’re not answering that question in the affirmative for ourselves, the probability of being able to answer it affirmatively for others in any reliable, sustained manner is significantly reduced.

Why 150 and not 5000? Because evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar’s prize-winning research strongly suggests that human social networks become their strongest and stablest at that number. After that, they begin to seriously erode.

Drake Bennett, a journalist writing for Businessweek observes …

“the world’s remaining hunter-gatherer societies tend to have 150 members. Throughout Western military history, the size of the company—the smallest autonomous military unit—has hovered around 150. The self-governing communes of the Hutterites, an Anabaptist sect similar to the Amish and the Mennonites, always split when they grow larger than 150. So do the offices of W.L. Gore & Associates, the materials firm famous for innovative products such as Gore-Tex and for its radically non-hierarchical management structure. When a branch exceeds 150 employees, the company breaks it in two and builds a new office.”

So, it sounds like Dunbar is onto something. Especially since he came up with his number by comparing brain size among primates. And as much as we’d like to think differently, I’m in Pepperdine professor, Lou Cozolino’s camp when he asserts that human beings in 2013 operate with what is still essentially the same tribal brain found in today’s Kalahari Bushmen (If you don’t believe our institutions and our technologies have surpassed our brain’s processing capacity, take a look at this astonishing visual that shows our government’s recent outsized investments of taxpayer money in non-appreciating assets: The Billion Dollar Gram).

The Play of Living

So now that you have a stable, manageable community around you, what’s next?

Here’s what gets my vote: follow your feelings and become exceptional at the 1st work of every brain. What’s the first work of every brain? According Stanford emeritus neuroscientist Karl Pribram, it’s the regulation of arousal. Begin to pay attention to the ways the different 150 people in your community affect your body and brain. Around some of those community members you will feel really great – safe and open and undefended. You’ll make jokes and laugh and spontaneously come up with all kinds of unexpected creative things to say to and do with one another. A great time will generally be had by all. Until the time of The Great Bait and Switch, of course.

But around others, the experience will feel significantly different. Around other members of the community our bodies might shut down or … become hyper-aroused. So, for example, there’s a person in my island circle whom I encounter regularly, and every time I do, I immediately find my face muscles increasing in tension. I find myself unwittingly exposed to the sharp edges of his intellect, mostly cut off from his compassionate heart, which produces a tightness in my belly and a heaviness in my lower torso. I’m constantly looking for ways to cut our time together short. And even shorter.

Later, when I reflect on this somatic response, it doesn’t take me too long to figure out that I’m not really present to the real, actual person standing or sitting in front of me. Rather, I have overlaid a significant person from my past onto them. Generally someone I associate with pain or loss, or in this case, someone super-competitive. Often, father. Sometimes I unconsciously overlay more than one such person. What to do?

Arousal Regulation Is My Responsibility

Essentially, pay attention. Bear witness. Notice what’s going on in body and mind in response to this person and every other person in my (barely) manageable circle of 149 friends. Do what I need to do to calm myself down, which usually means spend some time focusing on my breathing – specifically on the exhale, which is known to lower heart rate. A lowered heart rate signals the brain that there’s no real threat presenting itself as cause for arousal. My left brain is mostly making it all up. Practice chill.

Island Communities as Superorganisms

Superorganism Theory has been around for awhile now. Small islands, like Whidbey Island where I live, are wonderfully conducive for evolving superorganisms. As it applies to this blog post, what it means is that my 149 stable, deepening relationships begin to function as a high-level organism unto itself, once I honestly take on the work of my own arousal regulation. When I do, I begin to undeniably realize we each have both an impact upon and a responsiblity to one another, much as disparate neurons in a living brain do. So, when I need to order lumber for the addition I’m building onto the house, I drive a half mile up Route 525 and order it from Hanson’s rather than have it delivered by Lowe’s or Home Depot from off-island, even though I might save a few dollars. Then when Hearts and Hammers’ army of 500 volunteers has their annual free island home fix-up day, Vic and Dan Hanson are willing and able to make a generous contribution.

When I need to buy fruits and vegetables, I get them from The Goose, the family-owned grocery store, who gets them from local growers. When I decide to buy ice cream to do a classroom demo, I buy pints of Whidbey Island Ice Cream with flavors I’ve never tried before, like licorice or ginger snap or Cho-Chardonnay. I do well when my island neighbors do well, just as my brain cells do well when my body cells do well, and vice-versa.

And what are the benefits of becoming a Superorganism. Well, I guessing you can think of a few on your own. I’ll just tell you what E. O. Wilson and Bert Hoelldobler, prize-winning leaders in Superorganism Theory claim a major benefit to be: The growth and spread of The Greenbeard Gene. You remember, that’s the gene scientists believe is most responsible for the cultivation of our generous hearts. It’s also the gene that might ultimately save the super-Superorganism known as … the Human Race.

~~ Experimental Results from Last Week ~~

So, last week I asked for $1.99 as payment for my research, writing and editing efforts with this blog. In part it was an experiment in observing the crazy-wild thoughts our brains secrete without us being able to consciously do much in response to the secretion process. Here’s a breakdown of the results from last week’s experiment:

Total Mailing List / RSS Feed Subscribers: 412,100

Readers Who Paid the $1.99: 5,700

Contributions by People I Know Personally: 2,100

People Who Asked for Their Money Back: O

And a tip of the ballcap along with the Greenbeard Generosity Gene Award to: Debby Jay at http://www.debbyjay.com who bought multiple, multiple “copies” of the blog post.

Total Revenue Raised: $16,200*

Here’s a question for those of you who elected not to participate last week. I ask it in all sincerity and hope you might find some value in answering it: If the blog isn’t worth spending $1.99 on, might the time of your life genuinely be better spent not reading it at all?  Wouldn’t yours be a better life if its time was spent on free things that you WOULD spend $1.99 on?  This is a sincere question intended to invite you to authentically ask and answer The Two Perilous Questions. Just because you get something for free, doesn’t mean it doesn’t cost you the time you might invest in something that calls more deeply and profoundly to your heart. If you think about it that way, $1.99 turns out to actually be a high price to pay even for something free.

*A number of people contributed more than the $1.99

P.S. I’m kidding about those experiment numbers. Don’t let Wild Mind run wild. A guy can dream, can’t he? Take the two zeroes off the ends of each number and you’ll have the actual, real tally.

The 3 Things We’re All Terrified Of: Thing Three

Greetings.

I thought I’d change things up a bit this week. The conventional wisdom argues that people will refuse to pay for something they’re used to getting for free. Nevertheless, I thought I’d try an experiment with this post: I would like to ask you to pay $1.99 for it; realizing of course, that most of you probably won’t. But that’s okay. That’s the nature of an experiment.

What’s most interesting, to me, of course, will be the results of the experiment. I’ll post the results here next week. What’s even more interesting to me, however, is the relationship between what you think about this experiment and The Third Thing We’re All Terrified Of. Next week I’ll resume our free publishing schedule (until, of course, I get the itch to try another experiment).

Click HERE to Learn More: “Sure, I’ll risk a buck ninety-nine. What the heck.”

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The 3 Things We’re All Terrified Of: Thing Two

“There are two kinds of fears: rational and irrational – or in simpler terms, fears that make sense and fears that don’t.” ~ Lemony Snicket

In its extreme form it’s called anthropophobia. In any of its forms it’s rooted in our neurophysiology, predominantly our polyvagal nervous system. Here’s one example of how it recently showed up in my life: a couple of weeks ago I agreed to attend a Whidbey Island nonprofit organization’s service presentation. A presenter asked for a volunteer to demonstrate a yoga principle. I stood up. The first thing the presenter asked me to do was “lock your knees.” Well, it’s been 50 years since high school gym class, and standing in front of the group, I had no idea whether she meant for me to bend them or hold my knees straight. While I stood there in my confusion, suddenly one of the other participants whispered within earshot, “And he has a Ph.D.” Immediately I could feel my shoulders hunch and my stomach tighten. Suddenly the room and everyone in it became unsafe. This kind of reaction can often be in response to pretty innocuous comments – they somehow remind us of someone who was once unkind, or it might simply be a remark that triggers neural pathways hiding in our Unthought Known – real thoughts and feelings that live in our body and brain that we don’t have words for. Our body instinctively senses danger and automatically acts to protect itself.

On Guard

The amygdala is the early warning sensor in my brain and the first thing it does (if my social engagement network transmissions aren’t malfunctioning) is immediately make me look at people’s eyes. Some brain scientists, like Simon Baron-Cohen, think you can read people’s minds by looking at their eyes.

In addition to being the windows of the soul, the eyes are often the windows displaying people’s present-moment intentions – they signal a person’s internal emotional reality along with actions they may be driven to take. We can often know and predict these actions – especially if they might be threatening – before the person takes them or is even aware of them. For this reason – and others we’ll explore in a moment – other people turn out to be the second thing that most terrifies us. Only most of us don’t realize it.

Fear the One You’re With

What about the people we really like, or love even? We’re not afraid of them, you might argue. No, not consciously, but I’m willing to bet that your body is. Not always, of course, but pay attention next time some sort of afflictive emotion arises in response to someone close to you, like jealousy, anger, frustration or boredom.

There’s a pop saying that goes, “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.” Well, if my neuroscience theory that “healing’s always trying to happen” is accurate, keeping our friends close will often prove more painful than keeping our enemies closer. Because it’s frequently around our friends and lovers that we soften our defenses, and when we do, what ends up surfacing more often than not? – traumatic memories yearning for healing integration. Every time I get triggered by “the little things” in the household – the toilet paper roll put in the “wrong” way; the “ladies” things spread through every room in the house; the overly-emotional response to a “factual” discussion – even a cursory bit of reflection will disclose that my upset has little to do with what’s happening now. Where the roots of the disturbance lay is in buried, ancient neural fibers often dating back decades.

Choiceless Threat Detection

Another way that people end up being terrifying to us unconsciously is underscored by Polyvagal Theory mentioned above. The vagus nerve is intimately involved in all social engagement. Without its activation little authentic emotional human contact is possible.

Through the unconscious process of neuroception, defined as “threat detection without awareness” (and the “without awareness” piece is key here), we are constantly monitoring other people for safety. And how do others frequently violate our safety without them or us realizing it? Through evaluation; that’s one way. Any time another person evaluates us, consciously or unconsciously – through word, deed, a critical look – commenting on knee-locking competence – showing up for meetings late, failing to follow through by action, failing to keep promises to us – our brain registers such experiences, most often as threats, great and small. But it doesn’t announce to our conscious mind that it’s doing so. Our body, however – through the workings of the dorsal (vegetative) and ventral (smart) vagal complex – clearly gets the message. And often takes precautionary, protective measures in response. And doesn’t inform us about that either.

How a Good Word Turns Bad

And the evaluation doesn’t even have to be negative. I can’t tell you how many creative projects of mine have been stopped dead in their tracks by positive evaluation. Evaluation of any sort often becomes a death knell. And the challenge for dealing with it becomes particularly difficult when the evaluation arises out of our own left brain’s sharp intellect. Few people’s evaluation, positive or negative, can carry as much destructive, immobilizing weight as our own.

So, how might we counter this mostly unconscious process? From my experience, the best we can do is expand awareness: become increasingly conscious of our brain’s and body’s responses – writ large and small – on our neurophysiology. With expanded awareness comes the most potential for taking fearless, conscious action in response.

The 3 Things We’re All Terrified Of: Thing One

“The modern geography of the brain has a forbidding, antiquated feel to it – rather like a medieval map with the known world encircled by terra incognita where monsters roam.“ ~ David Bainbridge

I was friends with the son of a Hell’s Angel for several years … until he went to prison. As a way to show Tom love, his dad would beat him every day as a kid. This, in order to toughen him up, to increase his pain threshold so as to prepare him for a world that could be pretty cruel and uncaring. It worked. Tom was definitely tough, and physical pain was something he had little trouble enduring. The problem was that dad’s Hell’s Angel methods left Tom with little prefrontal, executive function brain development. Like the majority of violent offenders in prison, Tom couldn’t control his emotional impulses in the least, particularly anger.

In high school Tom went out for the football team as a defensive lineman. He lasted all of two scrimmages. When the offensive lineman successfully blocked him and knocked him off his feet during the second play, Tom got up off the ground and tackled and repeatedly punched the guy … long after the coach’s whistle had blown. Why? Because in his rage, his brain simply stopped playing football and chucked him into a full blown dissociative street brawl where a coach’s whistle doesn’t mean a thing.

A number of years later, Tom’s wife lay dying in Stanford Hospital of a very painful terminal disease. Trying to be an advocate for her, Tom asked the doctor to up her pain meds. The doctor refused, stating that there was too great a risk of addiction. “But she’s dying!” Tom told the doc. “What does addiction matter to a dying person?” When the doctor still refused to increase his wife’s pain medication, Tom went ballistic and ended up destroying a hospital nursing station. It took five security guards to subdue him with the help of several tasers. Tom’s threshold for pain was indeed quite high.

When we would talk about it, Tom made it clear that he was not afraid of pain or the First Terror, death, in the least. But that’s not the way I saw it. From my perspective, Tom was absolutely terrified of death, only he didn’t realize it. Not only was he terrified of it, but he was resigned to dying young, and he had little neural capacity to mount a defense against his terror. So he resorted to drugs and alcohol frequently as a way to numb the fear. Not to mention the painful memories of having been repeatedly beaten as a child.

What’s There to Be Afraid Of?

From working with death and grief for more than 20 years, I know that if you ask most people if they’re afraid of death, their defensive, denial structure will immediately tell you “No,” that what they’re most afraid of is the pain that seems to often be involved in the dying process (the medications currently available to address severe pain these days do a very good job of managing it, and most palliative care docs leave the administration of those meds up to the patient). Few will readily admit though, that it actually might be fear of death itself that lurks in the brain/mind’s deep recesses.

Years ago, cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker outlined in great detail how that fear ends up distorted and buried in the brain’s depths. His Pulitzer Prize-winning book, The Denial of Death put forth the argument that all of the evil in the world could be traced back to mortality denial. Neuroscience offers up a bit of a different perspective than Becker proposed: much of the evil in the world stems from early neural disorganization that results in important brain structures never coming to full developmental fruition, particularly the Executive Function/Mindsight circuitry. In other words, we lack the blood flow and physical neural wiring to enable us to emotionally control ourselves, to think about our actions and their consequences.

To think deeply about the end of our lives.

Most of us lack the necessary neural mass and integration to truly be unafraid of either death or pain. So, we’re better served if we stop kidding ourselves. Most of us won’t really know if and how much we’re afraid of death until we’re actually directly dancing in its embrace, as it squeezes out our life force. And when that happens, we can rage against the dying of the light if we choose. But hopefully we can relax and take solace in the fact that all of us, in each successive moment, will manage the very best we can – just as our neurophysiology allows us to do in every other moment of our lives.

Does a Cougar Have Your Leg?

Take a close, undistracted look at this three minute video: The Bear. Seriously. Do it. Notice the nature of the feelings that arise in your body as you view it. I’m guessing, if you’re like me, you’ll feel tension in your stomach and possibly constriction in your throat. Your breathing might slow and/or stop for a time. You’ll feel tension, then relief, then tension again. And then finally relief. This short video is definitely worth watching, for several reasons.

I like to use this video during live presentations to underscore several important lessons. The first is: it’s a wonderful, dramatic illustration of The Big Brain Question. When we are undeniably certain, as children and as adults, that there are people in our nearby environment upon whom we can unquestionably count, we’re much more willing to go out and explore and take risks, both prudent and sometimes foolish.

I’ve had long periods when I’ve had such people watching my back, and periods when I haven’t. It’s easy for me to look back at the times when those people were present and see the extraordinary growth and learning that unfolded in my life, both from the risks I took which turned out well, and from those that “failed” (It’s difficult though, to consider something a failure when great learning results).

For example, I’ve written about my fear-based, internal struggle to accept a job as a maintenance man at this Stanford Think Tank after I’d earned two Master’s degrees and a Ph.D. What was all that education for if I wasn’t going to put it to “good” use? (Well, it was for learning things that I was interested in learning, that’s what. Why does it have to be for any more than that?). I ended up staying at that think tank – a sanctuary that many high-level academics describe as the place where the single best year of their lives unfolded – for TEN years! Many more than one of them were very good years for me. I wrote and published three successful non-fiction books and two suspense novels just for fun. I also met any number of interesting people I would never have met otherwise, from Steve Levitt (Freakonomics) to Alison Gopnik (The Philosopical Baby) to K. Anders Ericcson (Developing Professional Expertise). I also got to observe how academia operates at the highest levels.

I was first exposed to neurobiology research there at that Think Tank way back in 1999. For the last 14 years since then I’ve been working on a kind of self-directed, post-doctoral research fellowship. As such, I get to follow my interests wherever they may lead, beholden to no one and nothing but my own heart of hearts.

Does a Cougar Have My Leg?

I also learned that not once – before, during and after those past 14 years – actually, in almost every moment of my life – not once has the Cougar had my leg. What I mean by that is not once in all these years has a single fearful thought generated by my bully left language brain been in response to a real, in-the-moment, in my face, bona fide threat. Such thoughts do manage to trigger a neurophysiological emotional cascade of stress hormones much as my brain would if the Cougar in that movie actually did have me by the leg, but all I have to do is look down at my leg, Cougar-free, and I can exhale. And relax. And come back to the actual safety and freedom available in the present moment – the place where all of our lives, if they’re to be lived authentically – are required to consciously unfold.

I will admit that it’s a rare day that goes by when I don’t generate at least one fearful thought or two that forces me to actually look down at my leg as a necessary reminder. Overdraft notices from the bank, dwindling winter wood stores, a muscle spasm in my back – they can all emotionally hijack me in much the same way a Cougar attack might. But a lot less often, and not for very long.

And that’s a good thing. Increasing numbers of Cougar-free days can then eventually begin to allow me to look past my leg, past my own fear-based self-concerns and begin to allow me to follow my truest heart and consider increasingly answering the Big Brain Question in the affirmative for others.

How G-Tummo Turned Me and Maynard G. Krebs into Real, Warm Human Beings

Before he became the cultural icon Willy Gilligan, shipwrecked on an uncharted island in the Pacific, the actor Bob Denver played Maynard G. Krebs, the original TV beatnik with a compulsive aversion to work. Every week all through 1959-1960 I would tune in expectantly as Maynard, Dobie Gillis, Thalia Menninger, Zelda Gilroy and Chatsworth Osborne Junior would haplessly try to resolve one class conflict after another arising from The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. For Maynard, the only “real human being” on the show was Dobie’s father, played by Frank Faylen. For those of you who never caught an episode, Maynard was being facetious. What he lacked in the social graces, Mr. G. more than missed in lack of warmth. Clearly, Mr. G had never been taught g-tummo meditation.

Calif. State Senator
Zelda Gilroy (Sheila Kuehl)
Harvard Law, ’78

If he had, Dobie’s dad would have become a master at not only inter- personal warmth, developed and regulated by a massive, connective fiber highway (his anterior cingulate cortex) connecting his emotional brain centers to his prefrontal cortex, but he would also have become superb at being able to raise and lower his internal core body temperature at will. Both of these benefits seem to accrue to diligent practitioners of g-tummo meditation.

To Vase Breath or Not to Vase Breath

Now, I’m guessing you might be wonder- ing just was IS g-tummo? Well, it’s usually practiced in combination with Vase Breath Meditation. There, does that help? How about: it’s a little known sacred medita- tion technique mostly practiced in eastern Tibet and it directs the flow of energy in the brain, first to the extremities – the fingers and toes – and then to the body’s central core structures, increasing them by as much as two degrees Fahrenheit. Here’s a description of both from the actual research article hyperlinked above:

The two aspects of g-tummo meditation that lead to temperature increases are “vase breath” and concentrative visualization. “Vase breath” is a specific breathing technique which causes thermogenesis, which is a process of heat production. The other technique, concentrative visualization, involves focusing on a mental imagery of flames along the spinal cord in order to prevent heat losses. Both techniques work in conjunction leading to elevated temperatures up to the moderate fever zone.

One reason I find this research interesting is because contemporary Information Theory posits that of all the possible information we might be able to access inside and all around us in any single moment, 99% of it is taken in unconsciously. This is generally considered to be a good thing, since our waking conscious neural circuitry is already way overmatched in terms of information overload. But what this g-tummo research is suggesting is that we can actually enhance the neural networks devoted to conscious awareness by being able to intentionally control something customarily assigned to the autonomic nervous system – body temperature.

I’m Normal and I’m Fine

Why might we want to, especially when a body temperature of 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit seems to be working for most of us just peachy-dandy. Well, one question that arises is: if we can consciously control body temperature, what else might we be able to take instruction in and learn to consciously control? How about vision, visual processing? Might we be able to learn to see the coronal discharge around living creations much like Kirlian photography is apparently able to do? And might we then learn to use what we see to make unique, life-enhancing meaning from such experiences?

Or perhaps we can learn to cultivate a photographic memory in ways that make learning fast and easy? Or might we quickly acquire musical talent accompanied by perfect pitch? What about being able to intentionally amp up our immune system, that is, periodically increasing body temperature when we’re not ill the way a fever spikes to kill pathogens? No research that I know of has been done on this potential benefit of g-tummo.

Hanging Out on the Healthy Side of the Hump

Finally, there’s this central aspect of g-tummo. I’m not going to extol the wide range of benefits increasing research attributes to a regular contemplative practice. There’s plenty of evidence accruing already to support it. But what I will offer up as a point of inquiry is: what are you doing to A. recognize the stressors in your life and what they feel like in your brain and body (hint: everyone’s are unique and individual); B. effectively manage them; and C. insure that what you’re doing to manage stress is actually working to keep it on the healthy side of the hump? Perhaps it’s time to give g-tummo a try.