Assigning Meaning to Emotional Arousal and Experience

by Prof. C.R. Mukundan, IJIP.In

2016 · RED'SHINE Publication. Inc

Nascent emotional arousal has been considered as the driving force or fuel of life for initiation and execution of actions and responses (Mukundan 2016). The nascent emotional arousal gets labelled through cognitive processing as positive or negative emotion, which may become pleasant or distressing to the individual. However, it is now a regular therapeutic practice to consider such cognitive labelling, which produces psychological and physiological distresses, as erroneous, and to help individuals change the related cognitive processing so that the distress and its psychophysiological consequences are removed. This clearly indicates that the primary emotional arousal is devoid of such effects and the article makes effort to examine the nascent state of emotional arousal. It is also proposed that several ancient practices like meditation, praying, singing and listening to devotional music, and dance movements, etc. may facilitate the creation and maintenance of such nascent emotional arousal, which gives opportunity to the individual not get dragged into personally gratifying or distressing cognitive processes, and conversion of nascent emotional arousal into gratifying, or distressing emotional experiences, which may further produce traumatic psychophysiological and behavioral effects. Such nascent emotional arousal has been proposed as alternative to the concept of consciousness, which is considered a semantic fallacy. However, almost automatic cognitive self-appraisal of emotional state leads to recognition of emotional arousal with positive or negative valences, which may facilitate or inhibit individual’s performance capabilities. Learning to recognize the nascent emotional arousal, which one may succeed in experiencing through the practice of meditation and other methods described above, may become a valuable self-enriching practice and experience for each human being. Human brain alone appears to have the capability to entertain such nascent emotional arousal and capability to develop methods that facilitate a larger objective vision of the happenings, or delay the development of distressing cognitive appraisal, initiated by a sensory-motor experience.

Emotion – Arousal and Control

by IJIP.In, Prof. Mukundan C. R.

2016 · Lulu. Inc & RED'SHINE Publication. Inc

Searching for truth, searching for force beyond the realities known, searching for presence of a superior force, with one’s own body and mind, differentiating and identifying the mind and its processing methods have been the goal of human pursuits for centuries. Ancient wisdom took us to the parlors of total devotion and love for a force, which they considered supreme on the one hand, and on the other, they pointed out how ultraparadoxical is the universe in an absolute format. Bertrand Russel said that he searched for rationality in his whole life. He and many more could think of the universe and its components only relatively, as human capabilities cannot take one beyond a relative evaluation, and everything that we know have only relative strength and existence. Many of us are still happy to think of an ultraparadoxical existence of the universe, as a burst of energy. Many believe that energy is present in each of us in the form of consciousness! The need to examine consciousness from a medical point of view has been compelling, as death is the end point of presence of expressions of consciousness. However, consciousness turned out to be essentially the functional property of the sensory-motor systems and how these helped in making reality contacts. Even awareness turned out to be essentially the outcome of a verbal monitoring process of own thoughts and speech. We semantically transcode every experience and contact with reality, and thereby develop its verbal awareness. Consciousness as a universal energy has been only another fictional thought. Assumption that it is a form of force behind reality, remaining beyond the reach of human contacts served it as a magic force of human mind, helping in fantasizing its presence.

Emotional Experience and Expressions

by IJIP.In, Prof. C.R. Mukundan

2016 · RED'SHINE Publication. Inc

Emotional experiences and emotional responses have been mostly considered a psychobiological phenomenon, which man genetically acquired from the animal world. Animals require emotionally controlled behavior for dealing with the survival needs, in terms of needs for food, safety, and sexual gratifications. These emotional responses may often occur without perception or awareness of the presence of the causative stimulus, which we have called processing of the unconscious mind. Outside this realm, man cognitively processes every emotional state and response, and labels them, which may be considered to have positive or negative effects on the individual and others. However, we are aware that the same emotional arousal is the driving force in every individual, and that man cannot lift even a little finger without emotional arousal. This phenomenal role of emotion has been largely ignored and many of us do not care for the proper emotional development of a child and strategic and sincere application of emotional arousal in the later years. The whole emphasis on the mind of man has been invested in many, on consciousness, which today we know is a mere fallacy. Learning to control emotional arousal is a basic lesson of social conditioning, which gives man ability to control thinking, actions and responses. Without emotional controls, actions and responses are automatically initiated, when the emotional arousal reaches certain critical level. Without emotional arousal man is a vegetative system, not capable of thinking, acting, and responding. Thinking and creating indeed form the foundation of growth for man.