Eventually, he became a familiar presence, and the locals opened up to him. One was a medicine man. Every full moon, he would perform a ritual in which he spoke to the crocodiles and magically sort of showed them that this territory was for humans only.
The man took Shea to the riverbank, cut boughs from a young tree, did a chant, spoke to the crocodiles, and laid the boughs in the river.
He told Shea that no one had ever been taken by a crocodile at that part of the riverbank. He also said he had never shown this ritual to anyone before.
For Shea, the moment was magical, about far more than the personal connection. It was, he says, getting a seat at the edge of a human drama—and then enjoying the thrill of giving it to the world.
In he reported his first Iraq war story for National Geographic, and it hit a chord with readers, especially the ones he wrote about. Soldiers and Marines wrote to say he had captured their experience and got the story right, and readers thanked him for giving them a new insight into what the war was like.
Shea continues to pursue opportunities to meet others around the world. The rush starts in the amygdala, a bundle of neurons at the base of the brain responsible for assessing the unknown. In a thrill-seeking situation—which almost always poses some kind of risk, whether perceived or real—the amygdala registers that risk, then releases a combination of dopamine, adrenaline, endorphins, and other chemicals in order to protect the body against it.
How much of each is released depends on the perceived level of risk. At the peak, every bodily function, chemical brain reaction, and sensory input is hyper-focused on the experience. By the s psychologist Marvin Zuckerman, Ph.
Explore the different sensation seeking types here. No matter what type of thrill a person is seeking, the reaction triggers an increase in testosterone.
Vision narrows. Adrenaline shoots into the body, which increases heart rate. With the heart beating faster, we get more oxygen. The body redirects oxygen to the brain as fast as it can. The feeling often lasts less than 60 seconds, and the immediate aftermath is another flood of mood-boosting chemicals. This is what leads thrill-seekers to chase the process again and again. The amygdala releases a combination of chemicals that includes adrenaline, dopamine, and endorphins.
Dopamine has many functions in the brain, including telling the brain that there is a potential reward if this threat is overcome. As the response intensifies, the brain sends testosterone streaming into the body.
This boosts strength, giving the person a better chance of success. With the heart beating faster, the brain and muscles gets more oxygen. The body reroutes this oxygen to the brain as fast as it can. Now a professor emeritus at the University of Delaware, Zuckerman started studying the field in the s.
Back then it was a matter of survival. In today's far safer world, it's a matter of pleasure. By the s Zuckerman had created a personality survey that identifies four types of sensation seekers: people looking for adventure, people seeking new experiences, people looking for ways to lose inhibitions, and people susceptible to boredom. People looking for adventure are likely to pursue physical challenges such as skydiving or base-jumping.
People seeking new experiences often visit exotic places or try unfamiliar foods. People seeking to lose inhibitions thrive on making social connections with new people, while people susceptible to boredom often crave novelty. Most people fall into multiple categories, Zuckerman showed, but the pay-off is the same.
High-sensation seekers spend their lives pursuing this fleeting feeling. Low-sensation seekers actively avoid thrills and new experiences. Most of us fall somewhere in the middle of this scale, which correlates to certain aspects of brain makeup and chemistry as well as individual tolerance for exhilaration. This tolerance develops as brain and body begin to anticipate that we will survive whatever we have survived in the past, which deprives similar experiences of their thrill and demands a new and greater challenge to achieve the same sensation.
Researchers suspect variations in dopamine receptors are another factor, but the research is preliminary. No matter what type of thrill a person seeks, part of the pleasure comes from the simple act of concentrating fully on a single task, according to the work of Dr. Seymour Epstein, late professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts. According to their findings, the peak moment of exhilaration comes from experiencing a risk you know will be survived.
On a rollercoaster, logic tells us we will be safe, but our bodies and brains respond to more than logic, and as the fear response overpowers intellect, we become disoriented. Our bodies turn all energy to their survival systems, halting everything else. At the end of the rollercoaster ride—or the high-altitude hike, or a close encounter with a tiger shark—we experience the moment of survival as a thrill. Zuckerman wanted to know how people reacted to a loss of sensations.
For the first hour or so, all the research subjects simply sat in the nothingness. But after that, things changed. Some sat quietly for hours upon hours. Others fidgeted, squirmed, and became bored and anxious, among other things. Zuckerman created a Sensation Seeking scale to assess each of these four components. You can take a version at drkencarter. Strangely, no existing psychological test could reliably predict how subjects would react to sensory deprivation.
Zuckerman and his colleagues speculated that some people were high sensation seekers and some were not. Zuckerman realized that sensation seeking was not only a quest for external stimulation, as they had originally thought; it seemed as though high sensation seekers wanted unique experiences, too. He argued that sensation seekers are sensitive to their experiences and choose stimulation that maximizes them.
Sensation can come from emotions, physical activities, clothes, food, or even other people. Someone with a high sensation-seeking personality actively pursues experiences.
Sensation seeking can reach into every aspect of life. It can affect your choice of activities, the way you interact with other people, the things you do for fun, the music you like, the jokes you make, and even the way you drive.
If you think of sensation seeking as a continuum, high sensation seekers are at one end. They are always seeking new experiences, even if and in some cases because they come with risks. Low sensation seekers, on the other hand, may actively avoid new experiences. Most people, as you can imagine, fall somewhere in the middle. Zuckerman recognized that the high sensation-seeking personality is complex.
Thrill and adventure seeking. When you think of sensation seeking, thrill and adventure seeking probably come to mind. This component of sensation seeking emphasizes the enjoyment of at least moderately frightening activities.
Those with high thrill- and adventure-seeking personalities seek out physical activities that are exciting and risky.
Remember the extreme selfie artist Kirill, the Russian Spider-Man? For thrill and adventure seekers, risks may be ignored, tolerated, or minimized, and may even be considered to add to the excitement of the activity. Experience seeking. So, while you may not like to skydive, you may still exhibit a sensation-seeking trait associated with people who enjoy new, complex, and intense sensations and experiences.
Remember Sophie, my second example at the beginning? She has a high sensation-seeking personality by virtue of her love of challenges and travel.
Disinhibition involves our ability to be spontaneous. It includes searching for opportunities to lose inhibitions. People with strong disinhibition tendencies act without consideration of potential consequences, while people with low disinhibition tendencies control their behavior more carefully and think through more of the consequences, looking before they leap.
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