Drugs, Situations, Self-Perception, and Cognition:


The effect of mood-altering drugs, interactions with situations and self-perception processes, and comparisons to computer background operations


an essay for the hell of it
by Nick "The Bum" Stauner


psychoactive substances are often classifed and misunderstood as having simple unidirectional influences over one's senses and homeostatic equilibrium. one may drink, expecting alcohol's narcotic and depressant qualities to dull one's mind and calm one's nerves (if that isn't already simply redundant), to feel less pain, to reduce anxiety. one may drink coffee or tea, or smoke a cigarette, or abuse ritalin or other illegal stimulants, expecting to feel energized, more alert, less sleepy, more talkative and sharper-minded, less listless. but how often has anyone who drinks or smokes regularly noticed an opposite effect to what he or she expected? how often have you had a beers or your alcoholic drink of choice if you have one, and felt more energetic, or noticed yourself talking on and on about something when you would normally be more reserved? how often do you smokers out there feel calmer, more relaxed, less anxious, and perhaps even less achey when you have a cigarette? how many of you find it ironic that attention deficit hyperactivity disorder is medicated with ritalin, which is a stimulant? clearly something funny is going on here. these drugs are not having the simple, unidirectional effects we might be expecting in all circumstances.

our first common mistake is in understanding one's mood while under the influence of any psychoactive substance as a direct and simple effect thereof. in other words, one will often blame one's emotions and abnormal sensations solely on the influence of whatever drug one has most recently used. this is an oversimplification of homeostatic processes, perhaps even complete ignorance or neglect of them in some cases. there are unconditioned (and conditioned) stimuli aside from ingested or imbibed or inhaled or injected substances (and i'm not talking about the ones that you can absorb through your skin) that can affect homeostatic equilibrium regardless of the effects of any drug, provided it has not knocked the user out or blinded him or her. things like being surprised or scared by someone sneaking up on me can shock my system into high alertness despite the depressant effects of any narcotic that might've also dulled my senses and prevented me from noticing the stealthy person earlier. the mere fact of being under the effect of a depressant or narcotic does not determine that one's senses will be duller than usual or that one will be more relaxed: this is always determined by the interactions of one's neurochemical equilibrium with one's personality and situational environment. let us not forget these mundane determinants of mood just because of the effect of something out of the ordinary.

secondly, self-perception processes exacerbate the complexity of this three-way interaction between psychoactive substance, personality, and situation. if one becomes aware of the influence of a mood-altering substance, one may subconsciously begin to respond to it homeostatically. in fact, the body responds via classical conditioning mechanisms to the mere thought of using a familiar drug: this is documented in studies of tolerance, and a dangerous phenomenon when, for instance, a highly tolerant heroin addict shoots up in an unfamiliar environment (an environmental stimulus for the conditioned response of a sympathetic tolerance effect), and overdoses because he or she was expecting to have to overcome the body's automatic and opposing tolerance effect on its homeostatic equilibrium. thus tolerance effects can even come into play whenever a familiar and frequently used drug merely becomes cognitively salient, and are amplified by the full engagement in the experience and behaviors of use. is it not conceivable that these natural tolerance effects could at least partially, perhaps unevenly, and in rare instances completely offset the simple unconditioned effects of any given drug with established tolerance effects? this depends on how strongly conditioned one is, how pure and strong the drug is versus how elaborate the rituals and behaviors and experience of using it are, and what the effects are specifically. for example, a strongly-conditioned (i.e. highly tolerant) individual, e.g. an alcoholic, using a very impure and very weak drug, e.g. a weak-mixed Jack & Coke in a very familiar and very involved and very unusual drinking game may become very alert and even jittery if his body's response to the drug's milieu and the game's challenge (and say we throw a little frustration in there...) is stronger than his drink. especially if he IS a he, and has a large, heavy build. body type affects alcohol intake to blood-alcohol ratio ratios [intentionally cryptic, but trust me it makes sense], but it does not similarly dilute the effect of natural neurochemicals, or at least a large body will learn to (or will by instinct and "design", if you will) produce large quantities of natural mood-altering hormones such as endorphins and cortisone and adrenaline.

Yet tolerance effects are not the only way perception can offset a drug's direct, simple effects. there is a less unconscious self-perception process that also governs mood and homeostatic equilibrium. many sufferers of chronic panic attacks and the various anxiety disorders are well aware, torturously aware of this, as they are equally aware of themselves and their feelings at certain times when panic attacks strike. they may notice their hearts racing, even when they did not notice whatever gave them a start, and fear that another panic attack is starting, and notice their hearts racing ever faster, and have their fears confirmed, causing their hearts to nearly explode, causing them to cognitively suffer similar breakdowns of the nervous sort. This is an unfortunately common result of the vicious circle of physiological response to emotional and cognitive reactions to perceptions of physiological responses to emotions and thoughts and perceptions. This is a source of a class of widely documented and widely suffered disorders. in less extreme cases, it is also a cybernetic process common to us all, a natural feedback loop, whereby our influences influence our influences. this effect should also not be underestimated in otherwise normal people who are in abnormal situations, or are undergoing active, abnormal neurochemical effects from a drug.

the case with which i am concerned is that of a person who has taken enough of a known drug to be aware of its effects but out of direct control over them. is this not an alarming situation, to have lost some measure of control over one's own state of mind? don't people who think they're going crazy often exhibit symptoms of mania and/or panic, or isn't this at least the common stereotype of "madness?" my proposal is that, except in the most relaxed, comfortable, and familiar settings, powerfully mood-altering drug use will always have some degree of a stimulant effect simply by the virtue of the self-perception of losing control, and the unconditionally alarming nature of this state of being. this nearly inevitable experience, especially prevalent in the anecdotes of hard drug users, naturally causes activation of the sympathetic nervous system, an effect typical of any stimulant; yet the experience itself may be the result of losing a sense of self-control due the the influence of a depressant or narcotic such as our friendly home companion alcohol. in other words, a depressant can become a stimulant if it depresses one so deeply that the experience of its effect is frightening, hence stimulating. furthermore, any drug regardless of its simple effects and classifiable characteristics can, given enough potency and dosage, cause this degree of disorientation and have a resultant stimulant effect. more succinctly, any strongly psychoactive drug will have stimulant effects, by virtue of its strength and its user's own self-perception processes.

Lastly, and further supporting the self-perception point, many drugs that seem to impair cognitive function may do so in ways that don't necessarily evenly impair all functions. Certain cognitive tasks may be facilitated by the use of drugs that impair other cognitive processes, if one can aptly compare the brain to a computer with limited processing resources and memory. In normal everyday life, one may be focused on a mundane task such as memorizing a sentence or computing an equation or weaving a basket or washing a dish. Such activities pose no threats, but require various degrees of concentration, focus, fine object manipulation, and finger-eye coordination. However, suppose that, like computers, people in such unthreatening, relaxed, altogether normal states have other processes or "programs" running "in the background," subconsciously or autonomically such that they don't require conscious input from the "user or administrator," i.e. cognizant self or "ego," to employ the Freudian term. Suppose that one such process is a perceptive process, e.g. one that always in the back of the mind monitors one's periphery for the motion of potential predators lurking in the shadows, an instinctual, evolutionarily important but modernly vestigial "program." Suppose that this "program" or cognitive process consumes "RAM (Random Access Memory)" or working memory and "CPU" power, or sensory data-processing resources, like constantly trying to remember a phone number while doing something else, a distractor task. Obviously the mundane, conscious task also places demands on these resources. Suppose there are many such "background programs" that constantly tax our memories and cognitive processing capabilities to their maximum levels of output: not necessarily to the point of strain, but to the point where they interfere with our conscious tasks, like a computer being told to open a graphics-intensive program while "subconsciously" running a bunch of spyware or malware programs (a.k.a. viruses). Imagine that user-initiated program slowing down, its graphics distorting or blurring or failing to dither properly or refreshing slowly or creating ghost-images and trailers where movement was represented. Is it not a similar experience when we try to do addition of large numbers in our heads and forget to carry the two? Mathematical processing is pseudo-instinctually understood, and regardless of instinct certainly we all have been instructed ad nauseum in elementary school of how to add eighteen to itself twice in a singly-summed operation. (18 + 18 + 18 = 54, right?) but haven't you ever mistakenly got 34, or made a similar mistake? the formulae are all working right in our heads, we're just losing data or skipping steps because we're doing this all in realtime and maxing out our processors. call it getting stumped, call it screwing up, call it what you will: it happens to the best of us, and it happens to us often. (and to me particularly often!)

Well here's where the effects of cognitively impairing drugs may become especially interesting: say, as we have established in the case of strong drugs, they stimulate us out of our mundane mindsets and homeostatically parasympathetic (i.e. relaxed, calm) states. Sympathetic nervous system activation has been associated with tunnel vision, with incredible focus, and incredible ability to act and react sharply and efficiently in a very expedient, even frantically fast manner. People report feelings of slowed time, and exhibit crisply detailed episodic memories during times of heightened psychological alarm. Computers can be alternately set to optimize the allocation of memory and processing resources to either background programs or maximum performance of highly demanding user-initiated tasks. This would seem to have striking parallels with the human homeostasis system and its dynamic responses to situations. Parasympathetic activation seems to spread out resources so as to keep all processes or "programs" running at acceptable levels of effectiveness and error, whereas sympathetic activation shuts down background programs and optimizes those conscious graphics and rapid decision-making programs, permitting greater concentration and fewer errors of careless inattention. Strong drugs are stimulants: they activate our sympathetic nervous system, shut down background processes, and optimize "user-initiated programs" such as focusing on a task at hand. Even if the drug in question has the simple and direct effect of impairing cognition (be it working memory or sensory data-processing power or both), its activation of the sympathetic nervous system may offset any detriment to performance on the focal task due to decreases in the overall machine's output by allocating a greater proportion of that output to performace of the conscious, focal, primary task at hand. As a result of the sympathetic activation and shutdown of background processes, the focal task may conceivably receive more processing power than it did before overall processing power was diminished! Alternately, the drug's simple and direct effect of cognitive impediment may by direct consequence of this impediment cause the equivalent of a computer program's fatal error in these subconscious processes, forcing their shutdown and thus conceivably freeing up more resources than it directly inhibits overall, if it impedes cognition not too strongly but in just the right ways to interfere with certain unnecessary "programs" that take up a lot of memory and processing power. Even in cases where a drug cannot be proven to have any stimulant or cognitively impeding effects whatsoever, background processes such as the previous example of peripheral vision predator vigilance can be forced to shut down by "fatal errors" caused by a narcotic effect, if it just so happens to dull peripheral vision to the point of providing no sensory data to process. One need not even consider this a process shutdown, it is a situation more analogous to a fancy graphic calculator program carelessly left open but given no numbers to crunch and set to auto-minimize with inactivity: without data to process, it places no demands on the CPU (central processing unit)—and it may still take some memory to keep open, but certain parts of it (in this case the graphic representations) may have automatically and naturally shut down, freeing up some memory as well. such effects can be achieved without the use of psychoactive substances merely by turning off the lights and closing one's eyes and covering them with cucumber slices and putting in earplugs and slipping into a sensory deprivation tank...or for a less relaxing example, a horse can be made to wear blinders. in all three cases one would experience the relief of cognitive resources from distracting or intrusive stimuli and better be able to focus.

is it strange to think drugs could benefit us in our everyday tasks? certainly not. many people cannot function without a cup of coffee close at hand. many people i work with personally cannot keep their tempers in the face of obnoxious, irrational, self-important customers without the promise (always delivered and sorely needed) of a smoke break as soon as the morons are out of their faces. cocaine was once used to soothe teething babies and invigorate tired day laborers before its prohibition. Pink Floyd does NOT credit the genius of their seminal album, Dark Side of the Moon, to drugs of any kind, but the mere fact that such a large section of society assumes they were influenced by drugs implies, in a way that does not deign to explicitly recognize the thought, that some other drugs just might be somehow beneficial to artistically creative and self-expressive enterprises. other artists openly pay homage to Timothy Leary and other advocates of "mind-expanding" drug usage. for instance, to paraphrase a quote by Bill Hicks used to introduce the song "Third Eye" on Tool's own seminal album, Ænima:

I think drugs have done some good things for us, I really do. And if you don't believe me then i want you to go home and take all your cds, all your tapes, all your albums, and burn them. Cuz you know all those artists who made all that music you love? Rrrrrrreal fuckin' high on drugs.

While I'll reserve my own opinion for less formal essays, I would be remiss to not advocate openmindedness and a rational, even-minded consideration of all available facts, and the ceaseless, tireless, relentless pursuit of all unavailable facts, before coming to any conclusions of theoretical truth. While dangerous subjects may be hazardous to study, we must not let fear sequester us within our own self-made boundaries of ignorance. We must approach these subjects and explore their depths and heights and every jagged crevice and every precarious fissure, ever cautious, but ever curious.

Okay, i really should end on that, it's a great conclusion; but i had another thought to contribute, actually a caveat for efficiency-enhancement-type drug users who might be emboldened by the suggestions made herein. While drugs may hypothetically improve performance of focal tasks by shutting down background tasks, whether by sympathetic nervous system activation or cognitive impediment or sensory attenuation, they may also interfere with control of focus. Suppose that by its very evolutionary and self-preservative nature and function, our focus is built to shift from one matter, one subject, one task, to another, restlessly, much like the eye's focal point constantly moves in saccades, so as to constantly refresh the visual and cognitive fields with new data, keeping them up to date and in touch, not zoned out imperturbably on one specific task or pinpoint or wavelength. suppose then that even our most important, bodily-safety-relevant tasks (except perhaps running from a predator, or chasing prey, or whatever would be most instinctually basic and survivalistically salient and immediately urgent), such as keeping a car on the right side of the road, can accidentally shift into our subconscious background processes, maybe when we are innocently distracted by something good, like a wonderfully inspired thought, a "eureka moment" if you will, or even something simply beautiful, like a sunset in the side view mirror. what happens then, when our focus switches to this strangely important, all-encompassing appreciation of something incidentally awe-inspiring, and our life-support tasks switch over to autopilot, only to have the autopilot encounter a fatal error for whichever one of those reasons? the outcome is not good, it is dangerous, it is threatening to the lives of the person using the drug and the people around him or her. and while we may accept a few more fatal car crashes per year just to raise the speed limit and save a little time to be inefficient, we shouldn't necessarily legalize or endorse wanton use of even the seemingly most beneficial mind-altering measures, be they chemical or cognitive or prosthetic or environmental or whatever the future may bring: because things that take us out of our natural equilibrium, our normal, well-balanced and time-tested set point in the broad dimensional space of potential states of consciousness, by that very virtue threaten to take us out of our natural psychological habitat, our place where we've managed to live and grow and prosper as a species and a society and as inheritors of our solar system and perhaps inconcievably more. we might get away with taking a few trips out into the unknown. we might even bring something back with us, something invaluable. but we can't lose ourselves in the process, and we don't want to lose our way back. in other words, let's not all go crazy at once now, alright?