What Can We Learn from the Mentally Disabled?
by Alan Pritt
Bipolar Disorder, for example, brings not only manic lows, but also manic highs. As someone who encountered the symptoms for a brief period when I had my early-life-crisis, I know that the highs feel absolutely amazing. They are so good, that it's almost worth suffering the manic lows to experience them.
But do we really need to mix the rough with the smooth? On his Future Imperative blog, Ralph Cerchione comments:
I personally shy away from the idea that high intelligence must come with some kind of inherent drawback, much less that great creativity is necessarily linked to insanity. But the potential consequences of extreme manipulations of the mind should be borne in mind -- not because great gifts must somehow be "paid for," but because certain gifts may be the result of shortcuts we don't want, such as extreme specialization and a disinterest in social relationships in favor of personal hobbies pursued with obsessive zeal.
My personal experiments have shown that changes made in one area of my life, often cause imbalances in lots of other areas. Improving my concentration, for example, has caused me to zone out in the middle of conversations, as I become lost in my own thoughts. Such disruptions seem to partner any change we make to our life. Take, for example, the lottery winner who suddenly finds their friends reacting differently to them.
I have found that an adjustment period is usually necessary while I try to gain control of my new talents. When I do so, it seems possible to enjoy the benefits of such a change, without having to suffer the negative aspects. As is shown in people such as Daniel Tammet and Rich Shull it is possible for some autistic people to make the same adjustments.
So, through much introspection and personal experimentation, I have indeed managed to find better ways of achieving a natural high. I've also been able to improve my concentration and focus on things which would previously have seemed incredibly dull.
But how far is it possible to take this? One limit may be how far we desire to take it. Is it desirable, for example, to develop such an intense interest in a specialist field that our life becomes imbalanced?
I, for one, would prefer to achieve less in my specialist area and allow for the interruptions that come with leading a balanced life. The genius mentality may be useful for exploring quantum physics, but is it really necessary for nurturing a child?
But what if we could tap into the mind of an obsessive compulsive when we need to tidy the house? What if we could tap into the concentration of the autistic when we have to do our homework? What if we could experience the energetic high of a bipolar sufferer when we want to lift weights? And, more importantly, what if we could turn off those qualities, when we didn't want them?
My experience leads me to believe this is possible; but another source gives me even more evidence.
In the film 'The Aviator' Leonardo DiCaprio plays the part of Obsessive Compulsive sufferer, Howard Hughes. On the DVD, a psychiatric advisor for the film explains the science behind the acting:
We now know, from multiple brain imaging studies [...] that when an actor portrays a part, the blood flow in their brain, and the serotonin in their brain takes on the same characteristics as the actual patient they are portraying. Their brain, in a word, becomes the brain of the sufferer
(Jeffrey M. Schwartz, M.D.)
I've tried this and it works remarkably well. And at the same time, when acting out the role, the ability is there to stop this way of thinking as soon as we have made use of it.
