Primitive Brain Lesson 1:
Basic History and Understanding
By: Jessica
Having an understanding of the principles of what we call primitive brain will help you to understand how to apply it to real world scenarios and creating attraction and sexual tension with women you are interacting with. This lesson is set up to give you the foundation of what we are explaining and the next two lessons are going to breakdown the principles from both male and female perspectives.
Let’s go back in time. Let’s go back to what are commonly called cave man days. Again we are not trying to solve the mystery as to why Homo Neanderthalensis as named by William King (1809 – 1886) in 1864 died off and why the modern version of human exists, we are using the reference to help you to understand why women have some of the reactions they do.
In prehistoric times when man was as much a part of the food chain as any other mammal, we as a species had to develop certain skills so that we could become the dominate force on the planet we are today. Some of those skills included using tools and weapons, building shelter, finding food, defending and protecting our established property, and of course social interaction primarily for the purpose of survival and propagation.
In this time it was rare for individuals to be able to survive on their own without the support of others; usually bands called clans. Women were commodities because without women there was no way to continue to pass on your genes and then care for the offspring. Those same women had several areas on their own to develop, for example because they were smaller and physically were weaker they naturally had more predators to be concerned about so they had to find ways to adapt or they would not survive and not be able to pass on their own genes. They also had a serious issue even within the clans or groups, because unlike the males that simply built the pecking order and established a leader based on physical strength and battle prowess; they could not physically survive a battle between themselves and a male. They had to master the ability to recognize when a male wanted to kill her or mate with her; she also had to develop skills to recognize what her young needed from her without clear guidance and language. She had to be wise in her selection of a mate, because the stronger physically and socially the better because he would have the ability to protect as well as to provide and increase the odds of survival for her and her young. Not to mention the women had to be aware of the intentions of the other women around them, because if they were mating with the most desirable male, the other women didn’t have legal means to separate them, they might just get the competition out of the way permanently or worse have him desire the other woman more and oust her which resulted in a slow death for her and her children.
Okay, there is a lot going on here and it may appear a very grim picture, but remember this isn’t a time that when you are hungry you pick up the phone and call for pizza and there is no such thing as police or social laws to protect you or arrest the bad guys. The women of these clans or tribes basically had to develop survival skills that not only supported them in the wild against other species, but they had to learn to defend themselves from the issues within their own clans and at the same time prosper and make themselves valuable.
One thing to keep in mind is that we are not the descendants of the brave souls that ventured off on their own, nor are we the descendants of the ones that fought and lost. We are clearly the descendants of the individuals that ran away or learned to avoid being in the situations that would jeopardize their lives (think Fight or Flight response first described by Walter Cannon in 1915).
That all being said basic traits had to be developed and honed mother to daughter to ensure survival of the female children. Males were valued because they were needed for hunting and protection and because they were the hunters and protectors there we less of them because of earlier and sudden deaths. Women had to learn to increase the value of female children because they were using up resources that would be better reserved for the males. Add to that the simple physical fact that if a female child was not smart or had an acute sense of what was happening around her then the stronger more aggressive male children would simple take what they wanted from them including food.
So for an example of types of traits and the resulting skills that today are still in play; it is fact that women have better peripheral vision then men. Of course we as men have better focus over distance. Makes sense right if women had to know what is going on around them to stay alive they had better have a wider area of focus and the flip side if we are hunting we are going to need to have less things to distract us from our prey as well as superior focus over distance to target our prey. Neither is better than the other, just simple facts applicable to survival of the species.
Okay, socially women used this developed skill to recognize situations and read people. Another fact today is that female children recognize and respond to facial expressions and physical demonstrations earlier than male children by almost a year and a half. They also typically bond with each other playing in groups and learning from each others reactions and demonstrations where a male child in the same age group is more likely to play off by himself or in close proximity to others, but still having his own “territory.”
Also fact; female children even today are held and coddled more than male children. Based on what you have already learned we are hoping that you can see the direct correlations between the ancient survival necessities that we have pointed out and how they have managed to be passed down to today’s behaviors. Not that there is anything right or wrong; just facts.
- Point of Clarity – it is critical that as you are learning this material that you learn it from the perspective of a scientist. None of what we are telling you is right or wrong. None of what we are telling you is going to fill a gap or be specific to any one person. This is evolutionary psychology basics.
Okay, some simple basics to help you to understand the primitive brain. Through continued development of our physiology and response skills our primary driver is propagation of the species. To continue that drive we had to develop the desire first to survive, then to want to reproduce, then to protect the young and ensure their survival.
Please understand that because we are teaching men we are going to take some of the romantic notion out of who we are as a species, but modern social conditioning has created the need for romance; with the following learning area, understand that though we are going to simplify things, this is not an excuse for you to reduce relationships to the science. Not to mention that in one basic course there is no way for us to teach you the complexities of brain chemistry and social requirements.
Okay with all of that being said, there are some simple chemical reactions that occur to support what we are talking about as far as propagation of the species. When people are all about each other and all they can think about is each other there is a very good reason. Their brains are being dosed heavily with a wonderful self produced cocktail called PEA (Phenylethylamine) commonly known as the love chemical and the association of who created that increased production is what is continually drawing the two of them together. This cocktail mix can keep up at that intensity for up to 3 years depending on the couple; it is always available and part of the skills we teach our guys in the long term relationship and married side of the site is how to stimulate the production well after the three year mark is up. So if intense attraction to each other is the result of the chemical dump, what causes it in the first place? Well, there are all kinds of theories ranging from olfactory response to chemical reactions to each other when in close proximity; visual stimulus to electrical impulse and of course Divine or Universe interjection or will. Again we are not here to prove any theories.
The points that are important for you to get is that the biological response to attraction stimulus is a chemical reaction and that is our advantage because understanding how to stimulate a particular response is a powerful tool.
Beyond the love chemical PEA there are a series of other chemical responses that continue to support the propagation of the species. One of the things that most men are completely oblivious to is that for the survival of the species it is completely necessary for the PEA chemical rush to fade. If it never faded we would not focus on the survival of the young, because they would simply get in the way of our fix. One such example of the replacement chemical is Oxytocin and it is the chemical responsible for creating a long term bond and is highly stimulated by touch and eye contact. Men need to be touched 4 times as much as women to maintain this feeling and to create the male long term bond neuro-hormone Vasopressin which is responsible for male bonding and attentiveness to the female they are mating with and also can be attributed to the desire to protect her as well as children he recognizes as his own.
Okay basic chemistry lesson over, the point you need to understand is that attraction and long term relationships are a series of chemical reactions and the individual you deem responsible for stimulating these chemical releases is the center of your attention. Basically they become your dealer for your chemical fixes.
Back to primitive brain. Obviously if this is new information to you, the cave dwelling individuals would have no concept of why they are driven to do what they do. That being said the primitive brain of men and women would simply be working from the perspective of survival and reproduction. So we have discussed only half of the story; propagation. What about survival?
We briefly mentioned the Fight of Flight response as one example. You may have already guessed, but that is simply a series of chemical reactions and stimulus to various parts of the body as a result. Parts of the brain called the Amygdala and the Cortex throw up a signal in the form of Epinephrine (adrenaline) which in turn fires up the Hypothalamus which then fires up the body to launch the systems that raise blood pressure, heart rate, breathing rate, and muscle tension; it also begins to shut down other systems such as reproduction, digestion, blood flow to extremities, and logic processing and thinking areas of the brain. It also kicks up the production of Testosterone and Progesterone the last combination fires up the aggression and kills the sexual arousal aspects of Testosterone.
Okay, so now you know how it works, but if this is ancient wiring and reaction and we are obviously still using it to protect ourselves; do you think that those responses have any clue that we are no longer in the food chain on a day to day basis? Of course not. It is reacting from the perspective of survival. How is this applicable to modern day and interacting with women? If a woman you have interest in has this response even if she doesn’t flea she is still having the chemical responses and the Amygdala is still the controlling portion of the brain for that moment, what kind of sexual desire do you think she is going to have? None! That system is put on hold because her primitive brain is telling her that we have no need for this, because if we don’t survive the immediate threat we aren’t going to be able to reproduce anyway.
Same is true from the other side of the coin, if you as the male are operating from fear, from stimulus triggering a sense of need to self preserve; what kind of message is going to be clearly demonstrated? This message is not only being delivered to her, but yourself. More on this subject in later lessons.
It’s Jessica here; I want to chime in for a minute and add that both men and women tend to function from these ancient fears, doubts, pains and project it erroneously onto the present. The error is not in the action itself, but rather, its inappropriate application now we don’t have the same kinds of life or death circumstances. Since most people are highly unaware that this is even going on, they don’t understand how using the same tools for a new world is an ineffective way to function. They don’t understand how current life situations trigger old pains and therefore old responses. This is why we are such sticklers about you looking at your baggage, conditioning and motivation for your decisions so that you come to make more deliberate and thoughtful choices based on what’s most supportive and best right now. More on this later…
We find it interesting that with all of this happening in milliseconds and all of these instincts playing role in the decision making process that people as a whole typically chalk up as a gut feeling with little or no more regard to its relevance or origin. It is more than the guts playing a role; it is hundreds of thousands of years of development and species preservation.
The key is that though this is a wide sweep overview, it is clear that areas of the brain are functioning from a completely different perspective than what we consider modern thought process. Those innate and biological responses are what we call the Primitive Brain.
Let’s move on to perspective male and female so we can help you to understand further and also begin to apply some of your new knowledge in the modern world.
