For a quarter of a century researchers have been monitoring how our brain reacts to certain stimuli and how it processes the information received. They have discovered that the brain starts to build up a stubborn wall against an overload of information and stimuli of a sensational nature. The necessity of the brain utilizing this defense mechanism is a direct result of the information overload that people, especially those of the past fifty years, have been exposed to. It would appear that as a result of modern humanity's exposure to an ever increasing amount of dramatic, violent, and sensational information, the brain has had to resort to protecting itself.
About 20 years ago the first signs started to surface that something unique was happening inside the brain. Researchers discovered a strange phenomenon when they were studying the processing of stimuli and emotions of people in Germany.
Four thousand persons took part in a biological experiment which took place over a couple of years. After the experiment, it was clearly noted that the 'guinea-pigs' (humans) could not smell and taste as before. "In the department of smell and taste there was an extreme change", remembers psychologist Henner Ertel from Munich. "The brain had developed a stimuli acceptance limit under which it refused to process any new stimulant."
(P.M. Magazine, Nov. 93. pg. 14 - 20)
At the beginning of the experiment, any stimuli was accepted without hesitation, but after these intensive experiments the picture began to change dramatically. It was noticed that our sensitivity to stimuli reduces itself yearly by about 1%. The finer stimuli are filtered out of our consciousness, with the result that more space is left for the receiving and accepting of the coarser sensations known as "the very strong stimuli". With each generation, we have been losing the ability to process and accept the more sensitive and finer kinds of stimuli.
When showing adults (parents of the 80's & 90's), videos in which people are cut to pieces in front of the camera, they reacted sympathetically and disgustedly. Most of them refused to even see it through right to the end. But in the case of the younger generation, the same reaction was not found. They watched emotionless and were more interested in seeing the dramatics and whether the contents of the film were exciting. If it was, then they continued watching. If not, then they would switch the movie off.
"The Committee of Rational Psychology", who conducted this study, discovered a type of generation-gap that was manifest between the groups. Whoever was born before 1949 apparently still had "the old brain". Whoever was born between 1949 and 1969 had a modified version of "the old brain". Only those who were born after 1969
possessed "the new brain".
The new brain can, unlike the older model, react in a state of "dissonance-readiness". By the term dissonance, we understand that there is a disturbance in a normally harmonious process. "The youth", says Henner Ertel, "have grown up with contradictions and can handle them." In the past, one would have called this ability, "multiple-consciousness." Today it is considered normal. (P.M. Magazine, Nov.93. pg. 14-20)
All this points to a rising society whose minds are becoming more and more resistant to the bizarre, violent, sensational and harder messages that they are being bombarded with every day. The sad thing is, that their minds are becoming less and less sensitive to the simpler and purer messages that they are being sent. It is believed that by some time next century, the ability of the mind to successfully differentiate between right and wrong will become all but non existent.
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by Amazing Discoveries