Flux Theatre Ensemble

Previously on this blog we looked at VS Ramachandran's 2007 talk on mirror neurons and phantom limbs. In that post, I imagined how the mirror effects that heals phantom limb syndrome might possibly extend to harmful emotional patterns in the mind of greater complexity, and that theatre, through its use of empathy, could heal these patterns in a similar way.

Well, in November of last year, Ramachandran upped the ante on us big time. NOW, VS says that if it wasn't for our bodies telling us constantly that we are separate creatures, there would be no difference between our experience of our own actions, and the experience of watching the actions of someone else.

Here's the video - watch it.

The ideas are revolutionary enough to need excerpting here:

"So, here again you have neurons which are enrolled in empathy. Now, the question then arises: If I simply watch another person being touched, why do I not get confused and literally feel that touch sensation merely by watching somebody being touched? I mean, I empathize with that person but I don't literally feel the touch. Well, that's because you've got receptors in your skin, touch and pain receptors, going back into your brain and saying don't worry, you're not being touched...

But if you remove the arm, you simply anesthetize my arm, so you put an injection into my arm, anesthetize the brachial plexus, so the arm is numb, and there is no sensations coming in, if I now watch you being touched, I literally feel it in my hand. In other words, you have dissolved the barrier between you and other human beings. So, I call them Gandhi neurons, or empathy neurons.

And this is not in some abstract metaphorical sense, all that's separating you from him, from the other person, is your skin. Remove the skin, you experience that person's touch in your mind. You've dissolved the barrier between you and other human beings. And this, of course is the basis of much of Eastern philosophy, And that is there is no real independent self, aloof from other human beings, inspecting the world, inspecting other people. You are in fact, connected not just via Facebook, and Internet, you're actually quite literally connected by your neurons. And there is whole chains of neurons around this room, talking to each other. And there is no real distinctiveness of your consciousness from somebody else's consciousness.

And this is not mumbo-jumbo philosophy. It emerges from our understanding of basic neuroscience."

What theatre can do is push us to the very limits of this dissolved barrier, to feel absolutely the experience of another human being as our own, while still maintaining the skin of our individuality. Read the full story

Readers of this blog will know I am an avid amateur of science, and unfortunately prone to drawing metaphorical conclusions from theoretical progress. This post will be no exception.

Listening to VS Ramachandran's 2007 TED lecture on what 3 unique kinds of brain damage reveal about the mind, I was especially struck by his work with Phantom Limbs and Mirror Visual Feedback (MFV) therapy.

I was familiar with the phantom limb, the sensation some amputees have of feeling the presence of their amputated limb or organ. I was unfamiliar with the experience some amputees have of a paralyzed phantom limb; a painful, cramped sensation that causes its sufferers years of significant discomfort. Ramachandran believed this is because the mind sends commands to the limb, but notices no results, and so through Hebbian Learning the sensation of paralysis is created, and can not be turned off.

Ramachandran's solution was to jolt the phantom limb out of paralysis with the ingenious visual stimuli of a mirror box. He had an amputee move their remaining arm within the mirror box, which created the illusion that the amputee's missing (now mirrored) limb was moving, and the phantom paralysis disappeared. The pain was gone. Even though the patient knew this was just an illusion, the visual stimuli, called Mirror Visual Feedback, was so powerful it released a phantom clench that had caused them pain for years. Ramachandran's solution is a balm to sufferers of this phantom limb paralysis.

Perhaps you see where this is going. There are some traumas that burn a pattern into the brain more emotionally complex than the loss of a limb, that are narrative experiential in nature, and so would require Mirror Visual Feedback of that narrative experience to release their phantom pain.

Theatre is the mirror box of experience (we know because Hamlet tells us so). And knowing that mirror neurons allow us to experience the actions of others as if we were acting ourselves, I wonder if one of the functions of theatre is to heal our minds from patterns of loss; that through empathy, we see our phantom actions mirrored, and feel our pain released.

This is like catharsis but not quite the same; I remember feeling this experience most keenly myself watching A Moon For The Misbegotten at PSF. Deep regrets and patterns of loathing I felt were somehow released from their clench watching Jamie Tyrone find unexpected forgiveness.

What do you think? Has the mirror box of theatre ever released you from a phantom pain? I think our upcoming play The Lesser Seductions of History may mirror the narrative experience of abandoning, or suffering the consequences of committing to, a particular kind of hope... Read the full story