The limbic system, or the early mammalian brain, is the part of you that has more than an immediate sense of your environment. It has some limited ability to predict, and has awareness of humanity as a group. Gives you the ability to understand such things as “family.”
As we are not reptiles, this is actually the part that wins out in most human behaviour, except of course in sociopath behaviour. Where your reptilian brain just says “eat something”, your first mammalian brain might say “eat fruit.” It’s the part of your brain that has the more complex behaviour options when fight or flight is triggered. The limbic brain functions at the level of the “trunk” of the Shamanic world tree.
Do we already have these brains from birth? Do they develop as the child grows? We already have the reptilian and the limbic, and the starts of the cerebral cortex. But an infant mostly functions with its reptilian brain and rapidly develops its limbic. Thus an infant can’t automatically smile, but learns to rather quickly.
The reptile makes you want to flee and the “monkey” brain makes you call for help. In fact, those smaller breeds of monkey have only a very simple limbic system. It is more fully developed in, say chimpanzees, those that can function well on the ground. Most predatory species have a good limbic system, and function as social units very often.
The ability to stealth? The option to “be careful” is a limbic system talent, as chimpanzees often are actually.
Requires thinking of the future? But still can’t project beyond what experience would tell it about the present moment.
Would you say the limbic system is our conscience? It would be in a sense, but the conscience is mostly held by the cerebral cortex.
Where is the location of this early mammalian brain in the body? The sections of the brain visible as the first big bulge above the brain stem. The reptilian brain is under that and sort of embedded in it.
These locations are individually wired into certain nerve complexes located elsewhere in the body? Ah yes, the reptilian brain is directly connected to the enteric nerve plexus, also called the “stomach brain” which actually is very close in complexity to the brain itself. And the limbic system is closely connected to the cardiac nerve plexus. This is why we are so heavily motivated to flee threat and remain near attractive or comforting members of our own species, or perhaps even ally species like dogs and cats and what not.
Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.
Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~