I could not believe it! I was held up and taken for a ride that freaked me out. I knew there were lots of carjackings and computers being hijacked, but this was really close to home, like literally right in my back yard. Who hijacked me? Or should I say WHAT hijacked me? Well, none other than this mysterious mechanism called…… MY BRAIN! My brain took me to a strange place when I went to sit in my gazebo in the yard only to be confronted with an ominous sound emitting from somewhere under the gazebo. It sounded like some kind of animal threatening me, warning me, to go away. The flooring is made of cedar planks with spaces in between and wire mesh to keep things from coming up from below, like bugs. I know at times skunks have lived under there but had not seen or smelled any all summer. Chipmunks are abundant running in and out under there and my wife wondered if it could be one of them. If this was a chipmunk, it was on steroids with a bad attitude as it was an amazingly primitive sound that is hard to describe. I would walk out of the structure and it would stop, walk back in and it started up again.

This sound activated that primitive part of my brain called the Amygdala which sounds the fight/flight or drop and flop survival response. I could feel my heart race and energy moving towards my legs telling me to get out of Dodge fast! After looking around the base of the gazebo and seeing no unusual signs of life my wife finally came out to see what I was reacting to. Turned out, a week ago she bought this birdbath with this clever little solar unit that floated in the water and made for a miniature fountain head. Worked great except splashed all the water out of the thing then the motor would just keep running with no water. She put it in the gazebo until deciding what to do with it and guess what, that was the source of the “warning animal sound” as it was still using solar energy to keep the tiny motor humming. Hilarious! The sound hijacked my survival response and combined with images of a giant rat emerging from the ground, triggered my response to where I could not pause to assess other possibilities as to where this was coming from. When in fight/flight we do not pause to assess things but just react which is what the Amygdala is designed to do.
It is still a mystery why the thing came on when I stepped in the gazebo and turned off when left as it was not motion activated!

Evolving five hundred million years ago, this basic survival mechanism is still intact. Fortunately it’s original purpose to keep us safe is not needed much although lately with the world the way it is (my office is one block from recent mass shooting in Highland Park, Illinois), it might be much more active in scanning for threat for all of us. However, often we are on alert not just because of external factors but internal ones as well. It’s like a smoke detector that is overly sensitive to chemicals in the environment and makes an “inaccurate” interpretation of the information coming in. This lower survival brain operates similarly and can often misinterpreted signals of danger when there is no real danger. For example, someone can look at us the “wrong way” or raise an eyebrow in a discussion and we can react as if it is a criticism, a hostile gesture, even a rejection and send us off as if we are being threatened. (All of us in relationships are probably familiar with this triggering dynamic!) This part of our neurological system is responsible for way more of our stress and conflict than we realize and it is in our best interest to learn about and appreciate how this amazing computer that sits atop our shoulders works.

Here’s a funny story that is a metaphor for another lesson learned. Many years ago I was at work and got a frantic call from my wife from home saying I needed to get home as an alarm was going off in the kitchen and she could not turn it off. I could hear people’s voices in the background and again good old fight/flight kicked in as I finished up and raced home fearing what I would find.The scene I encountered when I walked in the kitchen from the garage was shear chaos! One would have thought that a SWAT team had been called in to defuse a bomb. Three of my neighbors, bright guys who knew a lot about houses, mechanics, etc, were searching everywhere for the source of this alarm. One guy was even starting to dismantle the ceiling fan. What the…..? REALLY I thought to myself! Alarm sounds, like from the brain, are hard to decipher in terms of what direction they are coming from. It appeared to the TEAM that it could not be coming from the unit plugged into the wall as they had unplugged it and thus they were looking elsewhere (behavior based on false conclusions and inability to assess other possibilities in the moment). Although it appeared as if it could not be coming form the detector, when I paused to think about it, I knew it HAD to be from there. It took five minutes for to pick the thing up and see the auxiliary battery inside, installed in case electricity got shut off but could still operate. Mystery solved! SWAT TEAM goes home shame faced. LOL

Well, you get the point. It reminds me of an advertising campaign in the early 80’s (yes, I am a Boomer!) on TV that would ask the question “ Is it live or is it Memorex?” They challenged the listener to see if they could distinguish and actual conversation or performance from one played back on an audio cassette. Maybe that’s a good concept for when we get hijacked by our reptilian brain, to ask ourselves “Is this real” or False Evidence Appearing Real-F.E.A.R.? Maybe more often then we think, there really are no dangerous creatures lurking, warning, waiting to attach us, from that dark place beneath the gazebo of our minds!

Warmest Regards,

Harry J. Nozicka, LCSW
The Nozicka Center for
Hypnosis and Psychotherapy
454 Central Avenue- Suite 206
Highland Park, Il., 60035
Ph: 847-804-2456
Website: nozickacenter.com