0.8 The psychology of emotions, feelings and thoughts  (Page 49/89)

How can inspiration relate to emotional processing? Arousal clearly relates, when someone is aroused, it influences their perception and determines if they are feeling strongly or weakly. If someone is aroused, then it is likely that they are feeling stronger emotions because they are more stimulated. But what if someone is inspired? Is someone going to be feeling stronger emotions if they are inspired? Can someone be inspired when they are feeling poorly?

Could someone be 'stimulated' or 'aroused' and not be experiencing strong emotions? Why would it matter if those emotions are 'inspiring' or not? Inspiration is related to imagination more than to stimulation. It could take only a little stimulation to get someone inspired because inspiration is something you make up or create in your mind. It takes a lot of stimulation to get someone aroused because arousal is more of a physical response and is less intellectual. It is as if the most obvious form of arousal is sexual arousal, because that is clearly biological and powerful.

Is arousal just 'stimulation'? If someone is stimulated, then they are likely to be aroused. Arousal implies a response so strong that it generates a physical response. Arousal involves the activation of the reticular activating system in the brain stem, the autonomic nervous system and the endocrine system, leading to increased heart rate and blood pressure and a condition of sensory alertness, mobility and readiness to respond. It should be obvious that a stronger emotional response will lead to a stronger physical response. The mind and body are linked, when someone has a reaction, they also move in a certain way to reflect the nature of that reaction (such as a facial expression, or a body expression or gesture), and this physical reaction is not always controlled. That example is one way of demonstrating the link between mind, body and arousal.

Arousal is a difficult concept to understand. It becomes more simple when someone thinks of sexual arousal. Sexual arousal is obvious - someone feels strongly in a sexual way. This makes the person more alerted and possibly results in a faster reaction time because they are stimulated and 'aroused'. Non-sexual arousal works the same way only it is not sexual. It is non-sexual things or stimulation generating a physical response in the body. Imagination also can generate a physical response, which is interesting because it is as if imagination is something you are just making up.

This makes it more clear how emotion is processed - an emotional reaction causes various factors in your mind and body to interact with each other, producing a more complex reaction. Arousal, stimulation, imagination and various thoughts and ideas (which are in the same category as 'imagination' because they are made up by the mind) all interact.

Intentions

When someone has an intention, or does anything such as thinking something or doing something without thought, what is the exact mental process that lies behind that action? What combination of emotions, feelings and thoughts makes that happen? Here is what is at the bottom of the "Emotion is a Combination of Feeling and Thought" chapter: