Drugs, Memory, and Attention
Kevin Langdon
Originally published in Gift of Fire, the
journal
of the Prometheus Society, issue #53, April 1992.
Slightly revised and retitled for web publication.
In her essay, "An 'Open' Question," in Gift of Fire #44, C.L. Frost
writes of the similarity between alcohol and the benzodiazepines (e.g., Valium).
These substances and other "downers" depress nervous excitement (and, thereby, often provide some degree of relief from psychic suffering), but there is one very important difference: alcohol, in addition to its relaxing, tranquilizing, disinhibiting, and sleep-inducing properties, has a psychedelic ("mind-manifesting") action, i.e., it reveals levels of the operation of the psychic functions which are not ordinarily visible to the minds's eye.
All drugs with psychedelic properties suffuse the brain with fine energies which act to stimulate and organize perception. But the medications used by mental health professionals to tranquilize their patients do not assist these patients to come to terms with the real world nor to respond to the call of the highest in themselves, leading instead to a marked decline in alertness and in the attitudes corresponding to responsible action in life.
Although alcoholics also deny reality and real responsibilities, they often repent of their addiction and stop, because the psychedelic properties of alcohol provide a platform for the voice of conscience.
For those accustomed to keeping any reasonably sophisticated mental filing system going, thinking at the extremely slow rate possible with psychiatric medications creates, over time, a massive shortfall in intellectual record keeping (and even in labeling ordinary objects and events), often resulting in psychotic episodes in those who cannot tolerate the ambiguity and consequent disorientation.
The most common psychiatric medications sacrifice clear consciousness to produce symptomatic relief. While there is some value in short-term interventions of this type in cases of major grief or shock, it is unethical for physicians to assist people to become chronically comatose and still more culpable to put people into that state against their will.
While little may be known about the long-term effects of psychotropic medications, the short-term effects are horrendous enough and should lead to much tighter controls over appropriate uses for these substances.
Frost observes that "memory is its sharpest in the prepubescent years," before abstract thinking becomes established "at about 12 years of age," and theorizes that certain areas in the brain are "'reassigned' at the time of puberty" from memory to logical reasoning.
It is my observation, from inside and out, that a considerable amount of abstract thinking takes place in children under the age of 12, even as young as two (and even if they're less gifted than Marilyn vos Savant).
But there is certainly a dramatic shift in behavior at the time of puberty, when a complex set of hormonal changes transforms the chemistry of the brain. The body goes through a spurt of physical growth and changes shape in response to chemical signals. The nervous system becomes attuned to a new theme, that of the perpetuation of life. The organism is set in motion and vibrates; it does not generally return to equilibrium for several years.
During the turbulent years of adolescence, major layers of the technical command of basic curriculum subjects needed for later life are developed; it's no wonder that there are invariably important gaps and often catastrophic ones.
While an intelligent young person encounters a modest but increasing demand for logical thought around the time of puberty, he or she is suddenly faced with very much greater demands on his or her memory: to memorize meaningless school work; to remember what has been learned cumulatively since kindergarten; to keep in mind a daunting array of rules, social conventions, and information about the world and one's personal social environment, in response to a growing immediate and practical need for that information.
Sharpness of memory depends on one's level of consciousness--at the time of receiving the impressions remembered and at the time of recall--and on the availability of contextual cues which enable one to interpret what one sees as one's familiar self in a familiar setting. Young children have better access to direct impressions than adults, as the conditioning which will eventually cause them to bow down to their own reified symbols has not yet been completed and their sense of self is still largely sensation-based.
At puberty there is a shift in the way that attention--and therefore memory--is allocated. Things close to the strongly pleasurable and painful feelings which the young person is discovering are remembered very plainly; colorless data, like the contents of school books, leaves a much fainter impression.
Much later, when the same subjects are encountered in the pursuit of the personally-cultivated interests of an adult, formerly uninteresting details are seized upon by an attention tuned for relevance to open questions connected with these interests.
A further step, unfortunately rarely taken, is the recognition and cultivation of a passionate interest in the truth of oneself. Through discriminating attention and impartial self-observation, it is possible to take in clearer and stronger impressions of oneself; such impressions create much more vivid and detailed memories.