Neuroscience: The Paleolimbic Brain

Written by: S. Pradono Suryodiningrat

The Paleolimbic brain is the home of some of our unconscious scripts inherited from our education which regulate our life. There was the reptilian brain was aimed at the survival of the individual. The Paliolimbic brain is responsible for the survival of the group. The Paleolithic brain defines the position of the individual towards the group, this translates into two key concepts, our self-confidence and our trust in others.

Have a look at the Ceremans plot self-esteem and trust on an axis below.

If we put the self-confidence and trust on axis and in the middle, we will find assertiveness, in assertiveness an individual finds balance. he or she doesn’t have too much self-confidence or trust neither does he or she lacks it. Assertive people can say yes to things they want and refuse things they don’t want.

Too much self-confidence is what we call dominance, wait, it is possible that someone has too much confidence? We defined a tipping point where confidence in oneself turns into I am entitled to more it than others. This belief that we are better for whatever reason it may be because we have more money better looks a bigger car or whatever, that belief is too much self-confidence.

The top axis is dominance. Dominance is not as one may think about yelling and overpowering the other. It’s a mild form about manipulation and seduction. The dominant person can be very charming and nice but it’s not genuine, they do so to obtain favors to get what they want. For the dominant person, others are evaluated in terms of utility, the dominant person will use them to obtain their goal whatever that may be. in its most extreme form, excessive self-confidence leads to a narcissistic personality disorder.

The bottom axis is submissive. It is ss lack of self-confidence we call it submissiveness. Submissiveness is a real burden. Whenever something turns out they feel they were lucky. If something goes wrong the submissive person will feel it’s their fault. If you compare the submissive person to a dominant person, every success, they feel is their doing and failure is always due to others. The dominant person is totally incapable of admitting mistakes or taking responsibility because based on their opinion, they are so superior to everyone else and in its most extreme form submissiveness will lead to melancholic depression.

The other axis to one of trust in others we will call someone who is lacking trust to be marginal. You’ve probably heard about conspiracy theories. Did you know that 4% of the population of the United States actually believes that shapeshifting reptilian People control their world by taking on human form and control their governments? This is a good example of what marginality looks like in its extreme form It turns into paranoia.

Too much trust in others, we call it Axiality. The example of this is, have you ever received a mail from people claiming to need your help to free large sums of money? The people sending out those mails know that their mail isn’t intended for assertive people. They prey on the actuals among us and its most extreme form Axiality becomes mystical delirium.

Palaeolithic is quite an archaic structure of the brain. It can learn and evolve. However, it does so very slowly. Any person with a lack of self-confidence could testify. It’s not something you can solve over the weekend. Any person claiming to be able to grow your self-esteem in a record time is a fraud. It is a physical impossibility. The Paleolithic brain cannot evolve that fast. It has never been observed until now. The only exception to this rule is traumatizing events like mugging or heaven forbid rape which can shatter your self-confidence in seconds. However, a quick shift is always downwards never upwards.

We can recognize the reptilian brain is active because people react and treat stress modes, but when the Palaeolimbic brain is active, we will see people behaving in a very territorial way. It’s all about power games. Above all, it’s the dominant behavior that is the most problematic. It’s actually quite easy to spot it goes from peacock or macho behavior over bullying to all types of harassment. These people never question their own behavior and thus never learn.

To summarize, the Palaeolithic brain structure is responsible for the survival of the group and works around to access self-confidence and trust. When it is activated the Paleolimbic makes us quite territorial, we can become dominant submissive marginal or actual.

So, which axis are you?