September 4, 2012
Dancing mania was a social phenomenon that occurred primarily in mainland Europe between the 14th and 17th centuries. It involved groups of people, sometimes thousands at a time, who danced uncontrollably and bizarrely. They would also scream, shout, and sing, and claim to have visions or hallucinations. The mania affected men, women, and children, who danced until they collapsed from exhaustion.
One of the first major outbreaks was in Aachen, Germany, in 1374, and it quickly spread throughout Europe; another particularly notable outbreak occurred in Strasbourg in 1518. Affecting thousands of people across several centuries, dancing mania was not a one-off event, and was well documented in contemporary reports.
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September 4, 2012
The bacchanalia [bak-uh-ney-lee-uh] were wild and mystic festivals of the Greco-Roman god Bacchus (or Dionysus), the wine god. The term has since come to describe any form of drunken revelry.
The bacchanalia were rites originally held in ancient Greece as the Dionysia. The most famous of the Greek Dionysia were in Attica and included a festal procession, a drinking feast, and dramatic performances in the theatre of Dionysus. The rites spread to Rome from the Greek colonies in Southern Italy where they were secret and only attended by women. The festivals occurred in the grove of Simila near the Aventine Hill on March 16 and March 17. Later, admission to the rites was extended to men, and celebrations took place five times a month.
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September 4, 2012
Tarantism [tar-uhn-tiz-uhm] is an alleged, possibly deadly syndrome, popularly believed to result from the bite of a kind of a tarantula. It was originally described in the eleventh century and was supposedly common in southern Italy during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. There were strong suggestions that there is no organic cause for the heightened excitability and restlessness that gripped the victims. The stated belief of the time was that victims needed to engage in frenzied dancing to prevent death, and a particular kind of dance, called the tarantella, evolved from this therapy.
Arachnologist John Compton proposed that ancient Bacchanalian rites that had been suppressed by the Roman Senate in 186 BCE went underground, reappearing under the guise of emergency therapy for bite victims. The phenomenon of tarantism is consistent with mass psychogenic illness (the rapid spread of illness symptoms affecting members of a cohesive group, originating from a nervous system disturbance involving excitation, loss or alteration of function, whereby physical complaints that are exhibited unconsciously have no corresponding organic etiology). Although the popular belief persists that tarantism results from a spider bite, it remains scientifically unsubstantiated. The actual cause or causes of tarantism remain unknown.
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September 4, 2012
Daggering is a form of dance originating from the Caribbean. The dance incorporates sexual and other forms of frantic movement. The activity of ‘daggering’ has been present in Jamaica’s dancehalls for many years, but only recently has the name of daggering become acceptable. Some argue that it’s roughly the equivalent of the Caribbean’s ‘cabin stabbing,’ another style of music and dance.
‘Mojo’ magazine journalist and reggae historian David Katz attributes the recently gained popularity of daggering to a series of dancehall music videos and artists that promoted the style. Later on, controversial YouTube videos of people performing daggering would spread the trend worldwide. Daggering is performed on Dancehall-music, although some artists have specifically created ‘daggering’ music, such as Mr. Vegas, Aidonia, and Major Lazer.
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September 4, 2012
Lexical-gustatory [lek-si-kuhl guhs-tuh-tawr-ee sin-uhs-thee-zhuh] synesthesia [sin-uhs-thee-zhuh] is one of the rarer forms of synesthesia (a mixing of the senses), in which spoken or written words evoke vivid sensations of taste, sometimes including temperature and texture (e.g., for lexical-gustatory synesthete JIW, ‘jail’ tastes of cold, hard bacon).
This form of synesthesia was first documented in 1907 in both Italy and the United States, but has only recently become the topic of scientific investigation.
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September 4, 2012
Ideasthesia is a neurological or cognitive phenomenon in which activation of a particular concept triggers a sensory-like experience. Specifically it is when activations of concepts (inducers) evoke perception-like experiences (concurrents). The name comes from Greek, meaning sensing concepts or sensing ideas.
The main reason for introducing the notion of ideaesthesia was the empirical evidence indicating that the related term synesthesia (i.e. union of senses) suggests incorrect explanation of a set of phenomena traditionally covered by this heading.
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September 4, 2012
Grapheme-color [graf-eem] synesthesia [sin-uhs-thee-zhuh] is a form of synesthesia (mixing of sensations) in which an individual’s perception of numbers and letters is associated with the experience of colors. Like all forms of synesthesia, grapheme-color synesthesia is involuntary, consistent, and memorable. It is one of the most common forms of synesthesia, and because of the extensive knowledge of the visual system, one of the most studied. While it is extremely unlikely that any two synesthetes will report the same colors for all letters and numbers, studies of large numbers of synesthetes find that there are some commonalities across letters (e.g., ‘A’ is likely to be red).
Early studies argued that the condition was not due to associative learning, such as from playing with colored refrigerator magnets. However, one recent study has documented a case of synesthesia in which synesthetic associations could be traced back to colored refrigerator magnets. Despite the existence of this individual case, the majority of synesthetic associations do not seem to be driven by learning of this sort. Rather, it seems that more frequent letters are paired with more frequent colors, and some meaning-based rules, such as ‘b’ being blue, drive most synesthetic associations.
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September 4, 2012
Neural oscillation is rhythmic or repetitive neural activity in the central nervous system. In individual neurons, oscillations can appear either as oscillations in membrane potential or as rhythmic patterns of action potentials, which then produce oscillatory activation of post-synaptic neurons. At the level of neural ensembles, synchronized activity of large numbers of neurons can give rise to macroscopic oscillations, which can be observed in the electroencephalogram (EEG).
Oscillatory activity in groups of neurons generally arise from feedback connections between the neurons that result in the synchronization of their firing patterns. The interaction between neurons can give rise to oscillations at a different frequency than the firing frequency of individual neurons. A well-known example of macroscopic neural oscillations is alpha activity, neural oscillations in the frequency range of 8–12 Hz arising from electrical activity of thalamic pacemaker. In lay terms, they are brain waves associated with feelings of relaxation.
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September 4, 2012
Sensory deprivation or perceptual isolation is the deliberate reduction or removal of stimuli from one or more of the senses. Simple devices such as blindfolds or hoods and earmuffs can cut off sight and hearing respectively, while more complex devices can also cut off the sense of smell, touch, taste, thermoception (heat-sense), and ‘gravity.’
Sensory deprivation has been used in various alternative medicines and in psychological experiments (e.g., see isolation tank). Short-term sessions of sensory deprivation are described as relaxing and conducive to meditation; however, extended or forced sensory deprivation can result in extreme anxiety, hallucinations, bizarre thoughts, and depression.
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