n-Dimensional
Emotional Hyperspace
by
Darrell G. Yardley, PhD
On this page I discuss the psychobiological concept of emotional
hyperspace. On our "Psychobiology of Emotions"
page, we discussed the seven basic emotions: anger, fear, sadness,
happiness, pain, shame, and loneliness. Below, I present the basic
model, then discuss some of the psychobiology behind it and a few
applications.
Figure 1 persents a drawing of a seven (n=7) dimentional emotional
hyperspace:
"n" is the number of basic emotions as described above and equals seven
in this case. Each emotion is in its own dimension, i. e. has its own
axis.
For
perspective, we live in a four-dimensional space-time continuum. Space
consists of length, width, and depth. Each of these dimensions are
independent of the others, meaning you can move down the axis of say
time, without affecting your position along any of the space
dimensions. In a our two dimensional drawing here, imagine each axis
(i.e. emotion) going off into a different dimension. Of course you can
not draw that, but you can represent it.
Can you have more than
four dimension? Yes, at least theoretically. In mathematics, you can
have any number of dimensions. As I discuss in the Alternative View of
Reality (coming soon), quantum physics string theory points to the
possible existance
of up to ten dimensions.
Several additional points about the model:
Rating scale for intensity
Each
emotion is scaled on a 0 to 10 scale of intensity. I often have clients
do this is therapy. I have them rate themselves on a scale of 0 to 10
for the intensity of their emotion, such as sadness, where 0 is no
sadness and 10 is the strongest sadness they can imagine. Only two
emotional axises are so labeled in Figure 1.
Orthogonality
Orthogonal
means that the axises are independent of each other in our emotional
hyperspace, i.e. they are at 90° from each other. Mathematically, this
means that
movement along one axis/emotion, does not affect location along the
others. Is this true?
Are our emotions really independent of
each other? Can we be both happy and sad, for example? Can we feel
happy and shame at the same time? Happiness is the culprit here. It is
the only positive emotion here. The rest are all negative emotions. We
can definitely feel a mix of emotions about something or someone.
We can have love-hate relationships for example. Or we can love
someone, but not like them--our teens often fit into this category at
least at times. I have not discussed "love" as an emotion. It is not a
primary emotion and is more of a state of being. At best it is a
secondary or derived emotion. More on this later.
Our
emotional hyperspace model here is conceptual, not rigorously accurate.
It is useful for helping us understand how our emotions affect us, as
discussed below.
Comfort Zone
Our comfort zone is those set
of emotional intensities in our emotional hyperspace in which he feel
at ease or comfortable. Outside our comfort zone we feel discomfort.
The further we move out away from our comfort zone, the greater the
discomfort becomes.
Real personal, spiritual, or emotional
growth does not occur until we step out of our comfort zone. Within our
comfort zone we do not want to change usually. We are simply not
motivated to change. For most of us, we usually do not step out of our
comfort zone of our own free choice. Instead life and circumstances
throw us out, usually kicking and screaming. This goes back to the old
saying, "no pain, no gain," which in my experience is true.
I
have indicated a low emotional intensity comfort zone above in Fig 1
where the emotions are all around 1. As one grows personally,
spiritually, and emotionally, our comfort zone tends to enlarge,
meaning we can tolerate a wider range of emotions and the situations
that generates them.
Of course, a lot of people do not grow.
Their comfort zones remain small, or even shrink. As we move into our
elder years, you can see that a lot in the elderly. Their lives become
more and more restricted as they desperately fight to stay inside their
comfort zone. Yours truly being an exception of course.
Neurotransmitters and the Brain
We
are learning that the various emotions we feel are physiologically
based on their own set of specific levels of neurotransmitters released
into
specific regions of the brain. Underlying our emotional hyperspace then
is a neurotransmitter hyperspace for the various neurotransmitters that
determine our emotions.
Let us first step back to the primordial emotional system as discussed
on our "Emotions"
page...
The primordial emotional system Fig 2
Figure
2 below represents graphically the primitive "emotional hyperspace" system found
in simple animals and plants. The two primordial "emotions" (more like pre-emotions) are avoidance
and approach. It is not that a simple amoeba, for example, actually has
emotions per se. Rather they have two responses to a stimulus, well
actually three: approach, avoid, or neither. In the latter case, one
could argue, "Well, then, it is not a 'stimulus', if it does not
respond to it." Good point.
The serotonin-dopamine-acetylcholine system
In
humans with their vastly more complex neurosystems, their emotional hyperspace is much more complex. The
neurotransmitter dopamine can be thought of as controlling the
"approach" part of a response to a stimulus and adrenalin the
"avoidance" response. (See Neurotransmitters, coming soon.) This is an
oversimplification, but will suffice for our discussions here.
Figure 3 below is a graphical translation of the
serotonin-dopamine-acetylcholine system shown on our Depression
webpage as a Zenn diagram. The comfort zone here depends on the right
amounts of each of
these three critical neurotransmitters. Nor-adrenalin is another name
for nor-epinephrine. Physiologically, this comfort
zone is known as homeostasis.
Homeostasis is defined as a state of steady state equilibrium or a
tendency toward that state. Organisms try to maintain their various
biochemical and physiological processes within those homeostatic bounds.
In the 3-dimensional model above I have again
scaled it in a 1-to-10 relative scale, not an absolute scale.
Neuropeptides
There are other neurotransmitters and hormones that play a role in
determining our emotional hyperspace. Most notably here, I just want to mention a
very a very important class, the neuropeptides. As discussed on the
Neurotransmitters webpage (coming soon), the neurotransmitters above
are fast acting and belong to a class called monoamines, meaning one
amine. Amines are closely related to amino acids, the building
blocks of proteins. Some of the amino acids themselves function as
neurotransmitters, e.g. glutamate.
Neuropeptides are made up of short chains of amino acids. They are
slower acting than the smaller monoamines, but very powerful in their
effects. This group includes the endorphins, the natural opiates of the
body and brain. There are a large number of these thus far identified,
50 or more now, and they also play an important role in determining our
emotions.
OK, let's move on to discussion of the emotional hyperspace model, and
how it can help us understand such things as ....
Multi-dimensional aspects of emotions
The emotional hyperspace model helps us to visualize and understand the multi-dimensional
aspects of our emotions and to scale these to each other if desired. We
can track, for example, several feeling levels graphically together as
opposed to one at a time. If we work with up to three emotions at a
time, these can be drawn out graphically and we can follow how or if
they co-vary together. It can also help us to pay closer attention to
our emotions by co-tracking them. These can add insights into what is
going on with us.
Comfort zone
The major usage of the emotional hyperspace model as I can see it now is in relation to your
comfort zone. The model introduces the conceptual "comfort zone" in a
form that is in relation to our overall emotional landscape. We can
actually map out our emotional comfort zone by paying attention to our
emotions and rating them even when low when we are within our zone.
Depression
Our behaviors and thoughts can move our position in and out of our
comfort zone/homeostasis. When we are depressed, we are outside our
comfort zone. Being outside our comfort zone is not necessarily always
bad or negative as discussed below. But with prolonged depression, we
are pushed pretty far out of the comfort for an extended time. This is
very hard on the body, including the brain. It can even cause us to
lose brain tissue as discussed on the Depression
page.
So how can we move ourselves toward our comfort zone--adjusting our
behaviors and thought patterns. For example, increasing our exercise
and working on our dysfunctional
thoughts (as in Cognitive-Behavioral therapy).
We can graphically map out how depression moves us out of our comfort
zone.
Anxiety and Stress
Likewise for Anxiety and its kid brother, Stress. Track yourself, see
how anxiety and stress move you out of your comfort zone.
Personal Growth
We could also use this to track how our comfort zone expands (or
contracts) through the years. If you are in a pretty good place right
now, for example, that is in your comfort zone, map it out in a journal
for a baseline. Do it for several months to establish your baseline.
Then at various times in your life, you can compare this baseline level
in emotional tolerance to where you are then.
Copyright © 2009. Darrell G. Yardley. All rights reserved. |
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