OUR INNER TURTLE

Interviewing Dr Stephen Porges is like getting a drink from a fire hose because he so urgently wants to tell so many good things that you really need to know.  I mean, I'm delighted to know that when the reptiles evolutionarily split out among snakes, crocs and turtles, we came from the turtles -- it's more fun than knowing about my inner fish, but even that info was not at the top of my list.  Now it's closer. There are traces of all these creatures in us.

It was even more interesting to know that C.Sue Carter is Dr. Porges' wife and that she was the researcher who worked on the prairie voles, who are faithful, versus the mountain voles, who are not, and figured out what the DNA indicators were.  Knowing that she is now the head of the Kinsey Center is even more of an indicator that I am indeed tracing paths crucial to "embodied" thought as opposed to Cartesian logic and rationality.  BUT this embodied thought is actually WHOLE body thought, showing how bodies work.  The opposition is not necessary. It was invented in the first place.  instead of reviewing all of the human systems up to the discovery of what the Vagal Nerve does, which is the subject of several YouTube vids, I want to pick up here three specific mechanisms discussed by Dr. Porges.  There are many others, but I just wanted to mark these.

Here's the url of the vid I'm drawing on.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeN4mWATl9g&t=1508s

1.  THE MOTHER VOICE

At some point in the day the five tiny kittens who live in my closet wake up and begin to explore, peeping all the while. The mother cat uses throat talk, a constant stream of sounds that are a little bit high and have a lilt to them, like a human talking "baby talk."  Dr. Porges calls this "prosody." This is the pattern of emphasis, spacing, high/low, rhythm and so on that distinguishes various languages.  

In voles this stream is ultrasonic.  I can hear the cat and understand that she is making "baby talk" that is meant to be reassuring and encouraging.  Adult humans who are around babies or animal babies or even just pets will speak in their own version of this song that conveys safety and the intention of being protective.

The pitch of the voice is important.  Low sounds can be menacing -- think of the growl of a tiger or the movie music for the shark. My neighbor and others among young men in the town love low sounds and will install in their cars special units that play very loud bass music, almost more felt than heard.  They love it because adults or other vulnerable people have a physical reaction to it (not safe watch out!) and it blocks out all authority voices.  It prevents thought and interferes with the progress of others creating something.

2.  "THE VAGAL BRAKE"  

"Vagal" is the name of this social relationship system that is linked to the face and heart. It is the myelinated part of the third system.  When all the signs saying "you're safe, be cool" are contradicted by sensing danger,  the competing drives to be strongly protective on one hand -- with the vagal brake preventing the child from harm -- can get aroused out of balance to the point when violence is overwhelming but not focused on the actual danger. The violence can hurt or kill the child.  Mother cats can kill their babies.  Stepfathers can beat children to death.  Here's a more technical and slightly old-fashioned version, since the first paragraph doesn't include this third social communication system of Dr. Porges.

Polyvagal Theory

The perception of real or imagined threat activates the SNS (sympathetic nervous system) and depresses PNS (parasympathetic nervous system), or vagal, influence. These coordinated physical reactions increase metabolic output in response to environmental demands. Once threat is removed, the vagus becomes dominant and vagal tone increases, initiating the visceral organs’ return to homeostasis during which recovery, growth and repair resume. Stress, then, is any real or imagined stimulus that disrupts homeostasis and leads to the withdrawal of PNS/vagal tone and the initiation of a rapid SNS response. (This description is a little bit old-fashioned in using the term "tone".)

In his influential book, The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotion, Attachment, Communication and Self Regulation, Stephen Porges examined the phylogenic evolution of the human nervous system and the role of vagal tone in the development of social behavior. His polyvagal theory is predicated on the assumption that the human autonomic nervous system (ANS) is derived from 3 phylogenic stages of neurological development."

This misguided destruction may not be intentional or even conscious.  Afterwards the killer may appear stunned, removed.  Sometimes this is blamed on drinking or drugs.  Dr. Porges suggests that the blocking of violence began in evolution when humans had to shut off their reaction to the physical invasion of babies.  No longer were they neatly confined in eggs and put outside.  Necessary nurturing demanded the mechanism of the third vagus to brake frustration.  Killing children is a reversion to the reptile state.  Our culture keeps feeling more reptilian.

3. THE SOURCE OF SAFETY

Dr. Porgas suggests that the ultimate goal of mammals is safety (this includes people).  Not so different is my own assertion that the goal is survival.  In this time when people are using fear and danger to drive their goals -- of control, the paralysis of individual thought, the encouragement of reptilian violence -- we realize that our culture has not been up to the task -- startled, caught between patterns, not able to change fast enough.  This research about humans searching each other's faces for empathy seems to me like the beginning of a new way that begins in a new understanding of ourselves and each other.

What is our source of safety?  Dr. Porgas was asked what he felt was the most secure place for humans, meaning FELT safety.  He said, "the arms of an appropriate entity."  We all feel he meant ultimately the arms of a loved one.  But he also meant remembered and imagined relationships of embrace and even embeddedness in a sacred universe.  My UU minister used to call it "being enfolded."  As in wings.

Personally, I think Bob Scriver gave the best hugs of anyone ever.  For a decade I would go and ask for a hug, knowing it was there.  Even now, imagining those hugs is a reassurance that makes me smile.  Today, if I need a hug really badly, the best ones are from older indigenous woman -- squashy, enfolding, and in some cases smoky.  But some hugs are dangerous and some huggers are toxic.  Keep your Vagus system alert.