Ep #150: Is Your Brain a Dog or a Cat?

We often hear people describe our inner chaos and continuous thoughts as our “monkey minds”. But tonight I want to teach you about your Dog Brain. Allow me to explain… So the dog brain. Let’s call it a Golden Retriever. Golden retrievers are a breed of dog that we know are highly intelligent and for many reasons are the dog of choice as the star in many of those feel good movies.  When I think of a Golden Retriever, I think loyal, happy, playful, eager to please companions.  Golden Retrievers are extremely smart and quick learners which is why this breed is commonly used for search and rescue and as service dogs. So, there is a part of our brain called the reticular activating system. This is our filter, our lens in which we perceive the world. It looks for and finds information that validates our current belief system. Language is what influences the R.A.S. Once it’s activated by the language, it goes on a search and edit mission. Searches for more of these things and edits out the rest.  So just like the Golden Retriever, our R.A.S, when given a command, or SCENTence, it can be trained to search, retrieve, and rescue.