waking the tiger

"as surely as we hear the blood in our ears, the echoes of a million midnight shrieks of monkeys, whose last sight of the world was the eyes of a panther, have their traces in our nervous systems."

-paul shepard from "the others: how animals made us human"

this weekend i happened upon a book i've been meaning to read for years: "waking the tiger: healing trauma" by peter levine. dr. levine has dedicated his life to the study of stress and trauma. this book is an exploration of wild animal behavior in response to overwhelming danger. since animals in the wild are persistently subject to threats yet rarely exhibit symptoms of trauma, levine saw this as a doorway to understanding trauma in humans and our innate capacity to recover from and transform overwhelming experiences.

levine gives the following example: imagine an impala is being chased by a hungry cheetah, the pursuit may reach up to 70 mph, and then suddenly the impala will come to a stop at or right before the moment of attack, falling limp to the ground. the impala is not pretending to be dead, rather it has involuntarily entered an altered state of consciousness shared by all mammals when threat of death is approaching. as it lies there immobilized, the impala's nervous system is still racing at 70 mph, energy coursing through its body.

there are three responses available to reptiles and mammals when faced with overwhelming threat: fight, flight, or immobilization. in the 25 years of levine's research, he found that much less was known about the immobility response than fight or flight. he soon came to realize that it was this response that held the key to unlocking the mystery of human trauma.

the immobility or "freezing" response serves two brilliant purposes. firstly, in freezing, the impala (and human) go into an altered state in which no pain is experienced, a numbing so to speak. (remarkable!!!) this means that if the cheetah is to rip the impala apart, the impala will not suffer in the process. secondly, if the cheetah decides to drag the "dead" prey to a safe place from other predators, the impala may be granted an unguarded moment where it can wake from its frozen state and make a hasty escape. when the impala is sure it is clear of danger, it will move through a process of literally shaking its body in order to discharge the energy that accumulated and coursed through it during the frozen state. this movement allows the animal to pass through the immobility response and gain full control of its body again. the impala will then return to life as if nothing out of the ordinary has happened.

levine writes that when faced with what is perceived as inescapable or overwhelming threat, humans and animals both go into this involuntary immobility response. the physiological mechanism that rules this response is located in the primitive, instinctual parts of the human brain and nervous system, which is not under conscious control. these parts of the human brain and nervous system are virtually identical to those in other mammals and reptiles.

levine writes, "i believe that the key to healing traumatic symptoms in humans lies in our being able to mirror the fluid adaptation of wild animals as they shake out and pass through the immobility response and become fully mobile and functional again."