The Spinning Silhouette

When I talk to patients with substance abuse problems, I spend a lot of time early on helping them find the motivation to change. Motivation is key to efforts to help substance abusers, because it is not easy to change a behavior as substantial as drug abuse, and the patient really has to believe that his efforts to change are for good reason, and he also has to believe that he can do it.
I have used a number of messages with patients to try and help them find motivation. One message is the promise that getting rid of substance abuse is a pleasure seeking enterprise. We generally think that drugs equate to pleasure, but my message is that a drug free life is even more pleasurable. Why might this be so? Well, I make the case that the human brain has evolved on this planet for millions of years. And the human brain is designed to enjoy the planet most fully in its natural state, unless of course, something is interfering with the brain being able to do this. When this is the case, allowing oneself to be drug free gives doctors and other helpers the chance to figure out what is getting in the way of the patient enjoying life, and do something about it.
Another message I give patients is to get them to consider the notion that the brain is very cool. More than one respected brain scientist has described the human brain as the most complicated thing we know of in the universe. This notion is not that surprising when you think about it. After all, the brain is something that can understand the universe. The brain does amazing things that we take for granted. It can do everything from finding fundamental laws of the universe and building breathtaking technology, to reading peoples’ mood from nuances of their facial expressions. Imagine trying to program a computer to do that.
We take our brains for granted for a number of reasons. One reason is that human brains are so common, there are billions on the planet. Secondly, we can do these marvelous things with our brains so seamlessly, that it’s easy to forget how complex and marvelous the functioning of the brain is.
Let’s take a moment now, to look at our brain as the miracle of a machine that it really is. For many years psychologists have been intrigued by various illusions. An illusion is a visual representation of something that plays tricks on our perceptions. Illusions make it possible to see the complexity of processing that goes on from the moment when light from objects we see first falls on the retina of the eye, to the evocation of a perception that we experience. Consider this famous illusion of a woman’s face, popular in European postcards and as a magazine illustration in the 19th century. When you first look at this, you may see either an old or young woman. If you look at it long enough, something switches, and the faces’ age changes. The young woman is looking away from the viewer, and the haggard old lady faces the viewer looking slightly to the left. With practice, you can learn to quickly shift from seeing one perception to the other. I like to use the choker on the neck of the young woman, which is the mouth of the hag, to visualize this change. Some people prefer to focus on the eye of the older woman, which is the ear of the younger. With a bit of practice, you can quickly see the change. What is interesting, and this speaks to the machine or computer like quality of our brain, is that when the switch occurs it is instantaneous, and it’s impossible to see both perspectives at once. This implies that there are two different circuits, programs if you like, processing the perception of this picture. Either one is running, or the other, but not both at the same time.

Now let’s take a look at an even more striking example of this kind of thing, the ‘Spinning Silhouette’ that has been making the rounds on the Internet. To see an illustration, follow this link: www.maniacworld.com/Spinning-Silhouette-Optical-Illusion.html. What you will see here is- okay I admit it, an attractive dancer spinning, and when you first look, you will see her either spinning clockwise or counter clockwise. If you look long enough however, her direction of spin will switch. And like with the old lady, if you give it a bit of time and practice, you can, at will, cause her to change directions. I practiced long enough to get her to change every half turn- although you have a justifiable claim to ask why I’d spend so much time practicing this!

This illusion works on a very similar principle to the old/young lady illusion. The picture of the pretty dancer at the beginning of this article is not merely there to merely draw the reader’s interest, particularly the male readers, into this story. Rather, it is a frame in a sequence of frames of the dancer’s animation which illustrates the switch phenomena quite nicely. If you look long enough, you can see that this illustration is ambiguous, and can either be seen as a young woman facing in the viewers direction looking 45 degrees to the right, or, it can be seen as a woman whose back is to the viewer, facing again, 45 degrees to the right.
What is so interesting about the animated version of this illusion is that it illustrates even more starkly than the old/young lady, that there are complex circuits processing the movement of the lady, one for the clockwise and another for the counter-clockwise movement, and that these function seamlessly, though obviously with a huge amount of complexity.
I hope this short article helps you see how complicated and beautiful your brain is. Once you can genuinely experience this, it will make it much harder to treat your brain with disrespect.
Drugs of abuse are not good for your brain. I have often said to my patients, imagine taking a 10,000 Rolex watch off of your wrist and tossing it onto a concrete floor, just to see what will happen. This is the moral equivalent of what people do when they experiment with drugs. Your brain is a beautiful thing. So love it, it deserves it.

If you are into illusions and would like to see more, you’ll find many places on the Internet with collections. One nice place to start is:  www.exploratorium.edu/exhibits/f_exhibits.html . A Google search will find you many more.

Dr. McEwen is a psychiatrist and is founder and clinical director of Wake Forest Psychiatric Associates. www.wfpanc.com
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