The Brain in Ecstasy :: Biology Essays Research Papers

The Brain in Ecstasy â€Å"LITTLE PILL WHITE AND ROUND GULP OF WATER, TURBO DOWN! ANXIETY NOW, CAN'T STAND OR SIT, JUST WAIT, DON'T WORRY, IT WILL HIT! IN HALF-AN-HOUR YOU RISE INSIDE, EVERYONE LOVES, NO HATE TO HIDE. EVERYTHING'S GOOD, THERE IS NO WRONG, IF THE WHOLE WORLD SWALLOWED IT, EVERYONE WOULD GET ALONG... WORLD PEACE I HAVE A VISION, CANNOT BE OBTAINED THROUGH RELIGION BUT CAN BE RESOLVED CHEMICALLY THERE IS A GOD CALLED ECSTASY!† - By Anonymous user of ecstasy (1). The various account of users of a drug known as ecstasy were among the most moving and perplexing reading that I had ever encountered. It is remarkable to imagine that each of us is able â€Å"to rise inside,† overcome the barriers of all negative feelings, and to love to our outermost capacity.... with some help from the little white pill. While most of the accounts that I reviewed had an overriding theme of experience of closeness, love, and peace, the accounts were very case specific: A writer finds a years lost muse, a girl â€Å"learns† how to love herself and others, a religious man finally achieves â€Å"spiritual expansion,† a couple is able to exchange sexual roles as if having their partner’s body, and the list goes on and on (2). But there are also negative experiences associated with the use of ecstasy, although they are documented much less. For example, a user describes his state after a trip on ecstasy: â€Å"for the next couple of days aft erwards I was an emotional wreck, paranoid as hell, shaking, involuntary muscle spasms, and my tonsillitis came back† (3). After a similar negative experience, another user who actually had to stop taking ecstasy because of the detrimental side effects it produced, comments: â€Å"It’s just a pity that people can’t feel like they do on Ecstasy, naturally† (4). Perhaps trying to understand how a chemical can cause a state of euphoria would help us figure out how to achieve it naturally. Then, we can make some sense of, or at least hypothesize about, the neurobiology which underlies the depth of human experience. From even some accounts I outlined above, one can see how complex the feelings brought about by this drug really are. Finding the muse and everything that encompasses it, is a quite complicated behavior, not to mention the vision of world peace and love! It seems unlikely that a simple chemical should cause such a wide range of effects.