Felt Something For The First Time...

[shimmerz]

I still felt hypervigilant while doing this thinking. The fear was often sort of there, but somewhere apart from "me" rather than being something "I" was experiencing. (I liked Spock quite a lot, but I'm not alone in that here I know!)

This is exactly what I was getting at when I asked whether @macbeth had a different thinking process while in this state! I feel like this is an important distinction. I am sorry but I don't know what the reference to 'hot' and 'cool' system are. Would you mind explaining these?

 

[greenleaf]

Hi @shimmerz, I googled it, having never actually looked for definitions before. It turns out to be more *memory* related than *thinking* related, perhaps? Here is a link -- I'd be interested in thoughts on this. I think my memory is horrible from times when I've done this sort of dissociated but cool thinking a lot, so, perhaps the system isn't working ideally when dissociation is there... the hippocampus might be shut down partly during some dissociated numbing, being part of the limbic system? Just a guess, totally not my area of education.
http://www.ptsd.va.gov/professional/newsletters/research-quarterly/V7N2.pdf

 

[WillyKat]

The hot system refers to structures in our brain that handle fight, flight, and dissociation. It's there for a good reason: to handle emergencies. It's an adaptive system, which in a nutshell means it helps us survive. Most animals have this system as it helps us avoid being eaten. When we're traumatized, its the hot system that experiences it because the cool system is switched off.

The cool system is our normal non-emergency state. We see, hear, and touch things, interact with people, go to movies. Normal experience is handled by the cool system, which stores memories that we can recall later.

The hot system doesn't record memories, just emotional / physical states. So when we're triggered, the hot system kicks in, and we find ourselves dissociating, having a flashback, etc. Since the memory recorder was off, we can't recall the memories of the trauma very well if at all, just the terror and so on.

Here's an article on the subject. It's academic and much of it will sail right over the heads of us regular people, but that said, its not as bad as many:

Metcalfe, Janet and W.J. Jacobs. “A ‘Hot-System/Cool-System’ View of Memory Under Stress,” PTSD Research Quarterly 7:2, Spring 1996. http://www.ptsd.va.gov/professional/newsletters/research-quarterly/V7N2.pdf

 

[shimmerz]

Thank you both @greenleaf and @WillyKat. I will read these two links. I appreciate your help sourcing them out. :)

 

[WillyKat]

Ooops, @greenleaf had the same link I had.

You might also Google for a guy named Bessel van der Kolk. His research group has a website with a truckload of other articles on trauma psychology. Most of its academic and can be a chore to read, but some of them are written for actual humans.