The Molecule of More by Daniel Z. Lieberman

Author:Daniel Z. Lieberman [Lieberman Daniel Z. and Long Michael E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781946885296
Publisher: BenBella Books

There may be chaos inside our heads that requires taming by the more logical parts of the brain, but there is also treasure. Whether or not you find that “shillings” improves Pooh’s poem, one of the cardinal rules of creative writing is to turn off your inner censor when creating the first draft. If you’re lucky, things will tumble out from your unconscious that will resonate in the unconscious of your readers, and your story will strike deep.

Here is a quotation from a schizophrenic patient that illustrates a more pathological tendency to “let things come.”

I got TV tooth, they call it. TV tooth is when they surprise you and put needles in your skull, and they listen to you for years if you know it or not. I didn’t know it. They have this really fantastic, expensive equipment. They said to me, hey, we can check your head for, uh, if a bump shows up bruising, and the electricity is a little different across the top of your scalp, we’ll guarantee social security for that injury or on its own. It’s like cerebral palsy.

In this situation the speaker is unable to hold anything back. As thoughts come into his head, they are immediately translated into words with little processing. Normally, we pick and choose the things we say. We do this to censor unacceptable or illogical speech, but also to finish one thought before we begin the next. A close reading of the quotation makes it possible to get a general sense of what the speaker is saying, but it’s hard.

With one thought rapidly taking the place of another, and a limited ability to hold the thoughts back, expression becomes highly disorganized. A less severe form of this type of jumping around is called tangentiality, in which the speaker leaps from one thought to another, but in a way that makes sense. For example, “I can’t wait to go to Ocean City. They’ve got the best margaritas there. I have to find a place to get my car fixed this afternoon. Where are you going for lunch?” We often speak this way when we’re excited. Desire dopamine gets revved up, and overwhelms control dopamine’s more logical approach to communication.

At the far end of the spectrum is word salad, the most severe manifestation of out-of-control speech. In this case there is so much disorganization that there appears to be no sense to the utterance at all; for example, “How are you feeling this morning?” “Hospital pencils and ink newspaper critical care mother almost there.”

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