It is a state of anxietyreaction, in which the organism reacts to aperceived danger - an injection of pure stress, whichmobilizes all the defenses and the humanswitches over to 'danger mode', with heart beats, breathing and other body functions increasing to intense levels... This condition blocks out experiences/knowledge like 'past', 'future', 'right', 'wrong', the abstract layers of the personality are no longer present, the Self, the Superego disappears to a large extent.
Only 'here and now' exists - but in a way diametricallyopposite
to the 'here and now'of the meditatingEastern monk. For the latter, onlythe moment exists,
as a limitless, horizontless eternity, perceived by a calm, neutrallyobserving Self which
has expanded or is in process of expanding gradually and completely, so that it has merged with all
it's previouslysplintered parts29, and even the world assuch, producing the 'nothingis
everything' paradox, while anoutsider wouldperceive a very slowly functioningand relaxed
body.
For the neurotic urban patriarchal human immersed in a quasitherapeuticall
adrenaline Karl Abraham, 'On Character and Libido Development' pp 2829,
Norton Library 1966.
See'Commentary'(1929) byC. G. Jung on the 'Secret of the Golden Flower' - 'TheSecret of the Golden
Flower. a Chinese book of life', A Harvest Book 1966.
trip, the world radicallyshrinks, most everyday parts of the
structure of the Self evaporate, and the bodyis workingat full capacity as if fighting for
its existence anenemy which taxes every resource to its limit, the price of experiencing
"The annihilationof the individual self and the attempt toovercome thereby the
unbearable feeling of powerlessness" 30 From the point of
view of achieving a sense of gratification through adrenaline
induced escapeof Self, the various 'kinky', 'porn style' sexual practices do
perform a functioninspite of being incapable ofbringing the imaginary relief
at their logical end.
Neither choking someone or being choked can be brought to their logical limits -
there isa point when the choking must stop. Likewise
the size of the artificial penises inserted, a
reenactment basedonearliest childhood erotic anxieties of huge
penetrating bodies, is necessarily limited - as the orifice
in questionadjusts to each new size of the artificial penis a bigger size
is needed, until the size is toobig to penetrate without causing
grave damage - again the imaginary end point of an enormous penis finally bringing relief
is unattainable.
But although the end relief in such practices is a) imaginaryand the
conditions for it are b) unattainable, the very act produces a
state of arousal which for some time at least, does bring
temporary relief. Sometimes these adrenaline shocks are the only momentswhen some human
can actually really feel anything - the organism's perceptions have been deadened byyears
and decades of refusing to recognize the existence of certain stimulus, includingoceansof
anxiety and pain. Every dayin the citygenerates situations in which the danger levels shoot
up - from crossing a busystreet, topassinga suspicious group of men, to being in anelevator
orbus with no personal control overone's life - but the human is long trained topretend that
anxiety situations in fact do not exist and stores terror through and
because of not admitting that causes for alarm
are really there.
Life is also full of emotional pain, and likewise the
human learns from childhood to denyits existence and deadens its senses to it. So,
for a human with sensitivity which has been kept in a coma
dueto unconscious attempts to adjust and survive inthe situations in which it was raised, sometimes
the only way to 'experience' feelings is though adrenaline rituals (also the various sexshopointments
which 'heighten sensitivity'). Although biologically pleasure
is mirrored by relaxation of an organism - and expanded
unrestricted vegetative functions, andunpleasure -bytension, restrictionof the
vegetative functions, inour civilization, due to the pandemic impossibility of experiencing
relaxationwithblocked and splintered organisms, today the experience of intense 'arousal' is
seen as pleasure.
