Culture Bound Syndromes Have a Simple

Common Cause

Copyright 2003 -  Revision  Sunday March 16, 2008 19:52 -0600

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Culture Bound Syndromes research notes are here.

Culture Bound Syndromes are ethnic and cultural reactions to dissociative mental events caused by Subliminal Distraction exposure.

In all of human history on this planet the phenomenon that causes visual Subliminal Distraction exposure was discovered only once.

Designers, engineers, human factor scientists, and psychologists who made the discovery did not understand what they had found.

The "special circumstances" of their 1960's close-spaced prototype workstations can be created anywhere even primitive societies.

Once you grasp the concept that this phenomenon is a feature of normal physiology not office workspace you are well on the way to understanding.

This page is the first draft of an article on Culture Bound Syndromes.

The old research page with notes and the list of CBS's is still available here.

Scroll Down one screen or Click Here to skip introductory text and site links.

This site is about a conflict of human physiology that shaped history but was undetected  until the 1960's.

In the entire history of man on the planet Earth this phenomenon was discovered only once.

It caused mental breaks for office workers.

You will find this material hard to believe.

This phenomenon is explained in first semester psychology lectures where students don't believe it either.

For that reason I wrote a demonstration that will allow you to experience the phenomenon.

The Everquest Connection page has the explanation and assumes you have not taken basic psychology.

The solution for this problem was the office Cubicle.

This site argues that the this phenomenon causes College Suicides and Missing Students.

The phenomenon causes mental events around the world, Chaco Canyon.

If you use computers in unprotected workspace such as homes, dorms, student apartments, and small business offices read  ...Prevention... at the bottom of most pages.

Long  term exposure can cause severely altered mental states. Qi Gong  Kundalini Yoga

If you are visiting the site as part of a school project send the person responsible for controlling violence at your school to this site.

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Some Culture Bound Syndromes have the same cause.

Culture Bound Syndromes can be grouped in  two ways because there is common causation. That is a 'conflict of human physiology' related to the vision startle reflex.

The first grouping:

• A sudden onset dissociative or psychotic episode;

• A reaction and understanding, explanation, of the episode which is determined by ethnic and cultural values;

• A full remission with no apparent after effects;

• Sometimes the episode involves violence and automatism;

• Paranoia and anxiety may be a major feature;

• There may be amnesia of the events during the episode.

• Hearing Voices is often mentioned but usually in the local ethnic understanding, spirit possession or speaking to ancestors.

This list conforms to the general diagnosis Brief Psychotic Disorder.

A second Grouping:

This grouping is about activities that engage the  conflict of physiology explored on this site.

The effected person had an occupation or activity which included:

• Confinement of  two or more people in small over-wintering living quarters, (Includes Longhouses in the south pacific, exception to cold weather and small space housing);

• Lived in single-room arrangements, primitive locations or inner cities, huts, hogans, kivas;

• Was a craft worker in unprotected workspace;

• Was a  student in western style classrooms;

• Worked as Knowledge worker in a business where Cubicle Level Protection is not provided, (Going Postal);

• Participant in a repeating group ritual or exercise where eyes-open concentration is required, (Qi Gong and Kundalini Yoga), (The Awakening of Kundalini is not considered a CBS but it is the same phenomenon.)

These two groups overlap. Confusion arises because symptoms may vary from the violence of Amok to the strange behavior of removing clothes and running across snow and ice seen in Arctic Hysteria.

Investigators of Culture Bound Syndromes have been missing a key piece of information. That is the existence of a conflict of physiology.

The DSM is a collection of observations to  group mental disorders into mood disorders and psychotic disorders. This system of categorization fails when Culture Bound Syndromes are considered because the behaviors are not similar. There is no apparent common observed behavior for most CBS's. The jumping diseases, plus  Amok, Going Postal and Iich'aa are exceptions to that. And that's where the information to understand them all is.

Stated briefly that 'conflict of the physiology of sight' is that while many humans can learn to ignore movement in peripheral vision that triggers the startle reflex,  we cannot "stop subliminally seeing' anything in our vision field nor can we prevent our subconscious from acting on the subliminal detection then attempting to force the startle and vision reflex. The subliminal operation of this brain system prevents anyone being aware anything unusual is happening.

We can't stop subliminally seeing movement in peripheral vision because there are no "off switches" for the sensor cells on rods and cones of our retinas. If stimulus strikes these cells neural impulses go to your brain over the normal channels. It doesn't matter what you are doing. If you concentrate or daydream to a level of slight dissociation you engage the warning system. I assure you that this information is from first semester psychology lectures, psychophysics. If this is a problem in your understanding have a classmate, a psychology major, explain this to you.

The problem is called visual Subliminal Distraction.

This problem or common cause accidentally uses peripheral vision and the internal brain signals to form a peripheral vision reflex as a channel to and the stimulation of the subconscious. It can be  Accidental Operant Conditioning and Accidental Self Hypnosis. Whether this happens depends on how each individual's brain interprets the stimulus. This is evidenced by hyper-suggestibility in the jumping diseases and automatism seen in Going Postal, Amok, and school shooting events.

There are ongoing investigations of a genetic cause of the jumping diseases. But additional studies of the features of the episodes that began in 1880's Maine connected the disorder to becoming a lumberjack. One person investigated stated that the symptoms were present beforehand but became much worse after becoming a lumberjack. A genetic predisposition might explain the familial connection. But there is no doubt that single-room living and working situations of bunkhouses in remote lumber camps allow the special conditions for exposure to visual Subliminal Distraction.

The jumping diseases demonstrate that this common cause is something that existed in rural Maine in the 1880's and existed at the same time in the forests of Malaysia.

These two groups have vastly different social constructions, religious beliefs, and different levels of technological advancement, which manifests in the availability of tools and conveniences.

The behavior that caused JFMD disappeared in Maine after the late 1800's. But it still exists in Malaysia and other areas of the South Pacific plus Siberia in Russia. Some articles point out that Latah was a CBS that usually effected men but has shifted to older women. It is now disappearing in the South Pacific too. It is obviously linked through human physiology and is tied to a behavior. The connection is not intuitive. Both CBS's happen when many people live together in a single-room arrangement. (The parallel for this is when two or more people live in very small but similar single-rooms, Windigo Psychosis, Ghost Sickness, etc. )

In 1800's Maine lumberjacks lived in bunkhouses when in remote lumber camps. There is an 1890's lumber camp museum display at the Paul Bunyan Museum site.  In the South Pacific villagers use a longhouse. There may be screened off private areas for families but work is done either sitting beside a light source, door or window, or on long porches that run the length of the longhouse. There are pictures of longhouses linked below the Latah paragraph.

What were  the behaviors that a  villager in the forests of Malaysia and lumberjacks have in common? In Malaysia they would have made tools, baskets, hammocks, clothing, and ceremonial dress. In Maine lumberjacks would have repaired clothing, read newspapers or books, repaired cold weather gear, and sharpened their axes. Pictured in the Paul Bunyan bunkhouse is a stone grinding wheel.  This allowed each man to attend to that without leaving the bunkhouse in cold weather. Water is used to lubricate and cool the edge of a tool when it is sharpened by a rotating abrasive wheel. That water would freeze if the sharpening wheel were outside. It was a matter of economy of space and fuel to place the sharpening equipment in the bunkhouse.

 Anytime a member of either group does something that requires mental investment as part of the task, while others were walking around them, they would have been exposed to Subliminal Distraction. When many people live in a single-room that will always happen.

Why is Latah disappearing? Fewer people are willing to live in primitive rural  situations. Modern housing with specialized rooms usually eliminates the special circumstances that longhouses created. Exposure will happen today in unprotected business offices and in too-small crowded apartments in inner cities. The side-by-side seating seating in classrooms is the same situation but movement by the person next to you is harder to detect if they only sit and write lecture notes. Student exposure is random, accidental, and thus low level. Picking a study area in a room with people walking by, such as a library reading room, or your student union building will create exposure. This is the probable source of panic attacks now appearing in colleges.

In ICU Psychosis the hospital intensive care cubicle replaces the small cabin or mud hut and care-givers entering the cubicle while the patient is awake but lost in thought replaces  the cabin-mate moving while the victim is working on something requiring full mental investment.

For cosmonaut Boris Volynov and flight engineer cosmonaut Vitaly Zholobov the mud hut or small hogan was replaced by the pressure cabin of Salut-5. Volynov had a mental break and the 60 day mission had to be cancelled at 49 days. (Soyuz 21 was the first mission to the space station Salut-5.)

As a contrast to the single-room living arrangement, the Yanomami of South America live in a circular fort. A roof is projected inward from the raised log wall. It is not necessary to walk by someone performing craft work to move across the living area. All the living space around the village takes a donut shape under that roof. All  living space opens directly to the central court. No one has to walk by another family to access the large open space.

While there is no current information available on Culture Bound Syndromes among the Yanomami their behaviors involving violence may be caused by exposure to Subliminal Distraction. Again, no one working in anthropology is aware of this problem and there are no observations that would substantiate this.

The Yanomami teach children to avenge each slight or perceived injury. They use hallucinogens and that alone would confuse observations for sudden mental events caused by Subliminal Distraction.

It seems odd that too-small living arrangements for family groups would create the same special circumstances to allow exposure to Subliminal Distraction. But the relative living space per person is lower in the small rooms.

When you list the CBS's that happen in cold weather areas a pattern of similar symptoms appear. The problem for investigators is to explain how the different beliefs expressed in the episodes are created.

 In the case of Windigo Psychosis conditions in single family over-wintering campsites would create the special circumstances to cause exposure and the mental break. Hunger and cold would feed thoughts that could be translated in to delusions by superstition and fear during the confusion of a dissociative mental event. That fuels the belief that you are becoming the Windigo monster. Some comments to this site have called the process 'confabulation.

Confabulation is usually defined as false memories created to fill in missing memory. In this case on going delusions are created by a combination of a dissociative mental break and existing beliefs the victim holds.

Why would an investigator think that the events are dissociative? A correlation can be made for some victims of dissociative fugue. In the 1880's victims that came to be known as "Mad Travelers," were all artisans, clerks, and small shop keepers.  Those avocations all translate to knowledge work.   There were no farmers, game keepers, woodcutters, or other outdoor workers.

College student disappearances in the United States were first noted at Miami of Ohio in 1953. Several students disappeared but recovered and returned with amnesia of the events during the episode. Ron Tammen, the last to disappear is still missing. Pictures of Tammen's room and  study desk show an unprotected table in a too-small room for two people.  While you may view that as skimpy evidence, remember we are dealing with events, some over one hundred years old, that happened before anyone understood the importance and connection of occupation or living arrangements to Dissociative Fugue.

If we move on to other CBS's, some by the nature of the activity involved,  demonstrate the possibility that they would be caused by Subliminal Distraction exposure. Brain Fag of West Africa is associated with male high school and college students. Too close seating in classrooms would create exposure. A study posted on PubMed notes that brain fag only appears in western style education not the apprenticeship training normally used in Africa.

Paranoia and fear were the outcomes of single-room living on the Belgian Polar Expedition of 1898/99. The Belgica was a converted whaler. The scientists used a "common-room" living arrangement instead of individual cabins on the ship. When the ship was trapped in polar ice the scientists were the first to show symptoms. Crew members had no symptoms as long as they continued to perform normal shipboard duties. They too succumbed as those duties were no longer necessary aboard the trapped ship. Dr Cook was not effected. He continued to perform his duties as the ship's doctor. The problem disappeared when the ship was hacked and dynamited out of the ice then began the return voyage. (Cook later became a renowned polar explorer. There are sites to commemorate his expeditions. There is also a polar ship site that features the Belgica.)

The varied symptoms began when the crew just sat and tried to keep warm. Daydreaming is enough dissociation to engage the conflict of physiology. What ever they did to engage concentration,  it was done while they were all sitting together on the tiny ship.

In the 1930's Schizophrenia was more prevalent in inner cities rather than rural areas. This led to the theory that stress from deprivation caused the disease. Other observers noted that schizophrenics improved in hospitals but had symptoms return when they went home. That led to the theory that the disease was caused by bad parenting or poor dynamics in families. Both theories were proven wrong and abandoned. But the observations had been correct. They were replicated in other countries.

But it is more likely that too-small living arrangements for families caused exposure to Subliminal Distraction. On both the Schizophrenia and Psychotic Mental Illness pages the psychotic episodes and permanent altered psychotic states and bizarre thinking that happen to long term users of Qi Gong and Kundalini Yoga users are used to model Schizophrenia. The fact that the delusions of Schizophrenia are culture specific, like the episodes of CBS's, suggest that the same phenomenon is causing both.

Research done at the University of Georgia, 2002,  has located a genetic defect in the M-channel of the brain in Schizophrenics and their blood relatives. The M-Channel communicates only position and movement information to higher levels in the brain. The P-channel communicates shape and color. The comments were that the M-channel in those family members was sensitive or hyperactive.  I haven't had the time to research this so that I understand it. But peripheral vision only detects movement and position to signal that a vision reflex should happen.

My recent discovery that the US Navy has a problem with panic attacks called Screaming Seaman, suggests that close confinement in submarines can create the special circumstances for Subliminal Distraction. Some duty stations may have movement in peripheral vision. Emails are out to university groups that send expeditions to polar areas. Emails are also out to locate the naval medical research services in Britain and the United States. 

Amok, Going Postal, and Iich'aa demonstrate that sudden unexplained violent behavior exists around the world. It has also existed and disappeared in the United States. In the early 1800's fur trappers experienced a sudden berserk episode and attack in remote cabins. The small cabins created the same single-room living arrangement for two people that longhouses and bunkhouses did for large groups.

Each person experiences the repeating stimulus to cause a peripheral vision reflex differently. We quickly learn to ignore the reflex but can't stop our brain detecting movement and attempting to force that reflex. There is no complex meaning to the stimulus. But repeating detection of threat movement from behind creates a sensation of being watched. Over time this creates paranoia. It also colors thought so that small disputes that continue while the stimulus is present are raised to delusional, psychotic levels. (On the Mental Illness VPN page this is argued to be the source of paranoia in most disorders.)

If you examine the situation for school or workplace shooters most had an ongoing situation involving confrontation. Un-realized paranoia colored that situation so that when the mental break happened they acted out the psychotic episode and attacked their delusional adversaries.

This may be a reason, other that normal disputes, that there is a problem with family violence. Personality traits and poor relationship skills are believed to be the only cause of that violence.

These sudden violent outbreaks in the list of Culture Bound Syndromes happen in the same places that Latah other jumping diseased do. That means both groups of syndromes have the same stimulus.

To be continued.......

Vision Links

These links are for general peripheral vision. The site links are an Internet Explorer "favorites dump" from site research.

I recommend this site.  But you will have to browse several pages.

"Early in evolution, human ancestors had only peripheral vision. The role of this early vision system (still preserved in our eyes) was to detect motion and set off protective reflexes."

http://www.wayfinding.net/vsionsys.htm

Peripheral vision Lego tester

Adobe file with tester construction and data results sample

http://www.edex.com.au/lego/support/activities/032_peripheral_vision.pdf

Nightwalking

"In The Book of Five Rings, Miyamoto Musashi, the legendary swordsman of 16th century Japan, implies that he fought his greatest duels with his eyes crossed, and goes into considerable detail about developing and using this strange abitlity."

The method suggested to engage peripheral vision is to suspend an object from the bill of a baseball cap and practice staring at it rather than looking straight ahead as we all normally do.

The site has a page on the physiology of the eye and sight. It describes the normal field of vision.

http://www.navaching.com/hawkeen/nwalk.html#Anchor-The-59125

Institute for Innovative Blind Navigation

Don't let the site name put you off. This site has several pages which explain sight and how the brain deals with two vision systems.

http://www.wayfinding.net/index.htm

This page has the vision material.    http://www.wayfinding.net/vsionsys.htm#four

Speed Reading (peripheral vision)

http://www.ababasoft.com/wider_eye_span/

Vision, is a set of brain level subsystems

This page explains the M & P pathways and vision processing.

http://www.wayfinding.net/visanal.htm

The Red Myth

Color in Vision

http://stlplaces.com/night_vision.html

University of Missouri

The first paragraph on this page refers to psychological factors effecting pupil dilation.

"Interestingly, the pupil/iris combination also changes in response to psychological factors. One sign of activation of the sympathetic nervous system, which is a system important in arousal, fight, and flight, is dilated pupils. For example, sexual interest results in pupil dilation. (This piece of information may come in handy some time.)"

http://web.umr.edu/~psyworld/eye.htm

 University of Utah

John Moran Eye Center --  Anatomy

http://webvision.med.utah.edu/

Kimball's Biology Pages 

A simple explanation of the eye and sight.

http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/V/Vision.html

Understanding Human Vision

This site deals with color.

http://www.pitir.com/pentile/Human_Vision.html

Vision and the Brain

Block diagrams of vision paths through the brain explain the M and P channels.

 http://www.thebrain.mcgill.ca/flash/i/i_02/i_02_cr/i_02_cr_vis/i_02_cr_vis.html#2

Study Notes Vision

http://www.utmed.com/studynotes/neuro/VisualProcessing.pdf

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