Religious Experience Activates Pleasure/Reward Centers

[Nathanial.Dread]

This is pretty interesting. This study using fMRI found that, in Mormons religious experiences trigger the same kind of activation in reward centers as sex or drugs.

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/17470919.2016.1257437

High-level cognitive and emotional experience arises from brain activity, but the specific brain substrates for religious and spiritual euphoria remain unclear. We demonstrate using functional magnetic resonance imaging scans in 19 devout Mormons that a recognizable feeling central to their devotional practice was reproducibly associated with activation in nucleus accumbens, ventromedial prefrontal cortex, and frontal attentional regions. Nucleus accumbens activation preceded peak spiritual feelings by 1–3 s and was replicated in four separate tasks. Attentional activation in the anterior cingulate and frontal eye fields was greater in the right hemisphere. The association of abstract ideas and brain reward circuitry may interact with frontal attentional and emotive salience processing, suggesting a mechanism whereby doctrinal concepts may come to be intrinsically rewarding and motivate behavior in religious individuals.

This might explain why 'rewarding' behaviors like sex and certain drugs (cannabis, opium, etc) are so often used to augment religious practices.

Blessings
~ND

 

[Valmar]

I'm not surprised that religiousness is addictive!

Probably part of the whole "being part of a special group" mentality?

 

[Nathanial.Dread]

I'm not surprised that religiousness is addictive!

Probably part of the whole "being part of a special group" mentality?

Activation correlated with the peak of a particular spiritual feeling (I'm not Mormon so I don't know the details, but it has to do with the presence of/oneness with God). If it was just about the social aspect, you'd think it wouldn't correlate to closely with the spiritual feeling.

The author's claim is that, in this case, it's spiritual experience itself that's rewarding, not participation in a particular group.

Blessings
~ND

 

[Mindlusion]

When I was told the only way I could even begin to recover from addiction was by living a spiritual way of life, through a spiritual/mystical/religious experience, it did not make a lot of sense to me. Why would it?

Until I finally said, what do I have left to lose? And I started doing it anyway. Then I experienced things, and I remember I thinking to myself lightheartedly "WOW, why wouldn't I do this? This is like what I had been searching for, its like being on LSD all the time but still sober." This flipped the tables for me entirely, addiction was searching for that same experience, trying to find it through other means, but always inevitably insufficient unmanageable and self-destructive.

So this certainly does make a lot of sense to me.

 

[hug46]

This also makes sense to me.

My kicking of a drug habit seemed to correlate with a period of time that i was using DMT quite regularly. While i would not call myself a spiritual person in the classical sense, nearly all of my experiences were wonderfully uplifting and introspective, leaving me with a longlasting sense of awe regarding my everyday surroundings and situations. I managed to kick a near 20 year habit with relative ease in comparison to previous attempts. There were other factors involved (change of location and lifestyle) but i would say that the boost to my general spiritual wellbeing played an important part.

I can see a correlation of the rise in secularisation and the ability of the average person to be able to shop more for material trinkets and the sexual/drug revolution. A lot of people look down on overly materialistic people very much like some people look down on addicts.
Consumption has become the opiate of the masses instead of religion. And overconsumption could be viewed as a social/mental health problem, like addiction.

 

[syberdelic]

delete me

 

[skoobysnax]

I'm not surprised that religiousness is addictive!

Probably part of the whole "being part of a special group" mentality?

Activation correlated with the peak of a particular spiritual feeling (I'm not Mormon so I don't know the details, but it has to do with the presence of/oneness with God). If it was just about the social aspect, you'd think it wouldn't correlate to closely with the spiritual feeling.

The author's claim is that, in this case, it's spiritual experience itself that's rewarding, not participation in a particular group.

Blessings
~ND

I have to agree. I have had these responses in spiritual gatherings, yoga (especially Kundalini), meditation and even in 12 step meetings and work with other recovering addicts. Tuning in to that connection of primordial wisdom that fills the everythingness that arose from nothingness. Being of service to something greater than myself.