Chopra Deepak - Molecules of Emotion: The Science Behind Mind-Body Medicine

MOLECULES OF EMOTION

Why You Feel the Way You Feel

CANDACE B. PERT, PH.D.

WITH A FOREWORD BY
DEEPAK CHOPRA, M.D.

SCRIBNER

The names of some of the individuals in this book have been changed.

Copyright 1997 by Candace B. Pert

Foreword 1997 by Deepak Chopra, M.D.

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

SCRIBNER and design are trademarks of Simon & Schuster Inc.

Designed by Brooke Zimmer

Set in New Caledonia

Manufactured in the United States of America

3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Pert, Candace B., date.

Molecules of emotion : why you feel the way you feel/Candace B. Pert; with a foreword by Deepak Chopra, M.D.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Emotions. 2. Neurochemistry. 3. Medicine, Psychosomatic. 4. Mind and body. I. Title.

QP401.P47 1997

612.8dc21 97-17463

CIP

ISBN-10: 0-684-83187-2

eISBN-13: 978-1-439-12488-8

ISBN 978-0-684-83187-9

www.SimonandSchuster.com

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO THE CORE OF MY EMOTIONAL LIFE, TO THOSE CLOSEST WHO NEVER CEASED THEIR GENEROUS SUPPORT OF MY EFFORT:

my mother, Mildred Ruth Rosenberg Beebe; my husband, Michael Roland Ruff; our children, Evan Taaved Pert, Vanessa Carey Pert, and Brandon Mulford Pert; and my sisters, Wynne Ilene Beebe and Deane Robin Beebe Fitzgerald.

It seems as though my book project has been in development for an eternity. Its completion had to await (or did it cause?) certain powerful transformations in the universe, or at least in my own bodymind. For all this, I am most grateful to God, who manifested Herself in the form of devoted professional angels whose participation was essential for bringing my book into the world.

I will be thankful forever for the help of Susan Moldow, whose enthusiasm and brilliant vision provided constant inspiration and energized my effort; Nancy Griffith Marriott, old friend, consciousness writer and consultant, who helped me set my thoughts down in an understandable way; Beth Rashbaum, who pushed me to greater heights of clarity and cohesiveness; Muriel Nellis, my fairy godmother, the best, most marvelous agent in the world; Jane Roberts, for insightful, constant aid of all kinds; and Bernardo Issel, for seminal library assistance and his angelic manifestations during times of need.

CHAPTER 1
The Receptor Revolution: An Introductory Lecture

CHAPTER 2
Romance of the Opiate Receptor

CHAPTER 3
Peptide Generation: A Continued Lecture

CHAPTER 4
Brains and Ambition

CHAPTER 5
Life at the Palace

CHAPTER 6
Breaking the Rules

CHAPTER 7
The Biochemicals of Emotion: A Continued Lecture

CHAPTER 8
Turning Point

CHAPTER 9
The Psychosomatic Network: A Concluding Lecture

CHAPTER 10
Child of the New Paradigm

CHAPTER 11
Crossing Over, Coming Together

CHAPTER 12
Healing Feeling

CHAPTER 13
Truth

EPILOGUE
Peptide TThe Story Continues

APPENDIX A
Prevention-Oriented Tips for Healthful, Blissful Living

APPENDIX B
Bodymind Medicine: Resources and Practitioners

I have admired Candace Pert and her work for many years. In fact, I can remember the first time I heard her speak and my delight at realizing: Finally, here is a Western scientist who has done the work to explain the unity of matter and spirit, body and soul!

In exploring how the mind, spirit, and emotions are unified with the physical body in one intelligent system, what I call the field of intelligence, Candace has taken a giant step toward shattering some cherished beliefs held sacred by Western scientists for more than two centuries. Her pioneering research has demonstrated how our internal chemicals, the neuropeptides and their receptors, are the actual biological underpinnings of our awareness, manifesting themselves as our emotions, beliefs, and expectations, and profoundly influencing how we respond to and experience our world.

Her research has provided evidence of the biochemical basis for awareness and consciousness, validating what Eastern philosophers, shamans, rishis, and alternative practitioners have known and practiced for centuries. The body is not a mindless machine; the body and mind are one.

I have lectured and written about the important role of perception and awareness in health and longevityhow awareness can actually transform matter, create an entirely new body. I also have said that the mind is nonlocal. Now Candace provides us with a vivid scientific picture of these truths. She shows us that our biochemical messengers act with intelligence by communicating information, orchestrating a vast complex of conscious and unconscious activities at any one moment. This information transfer takes place over a network linking all of our systems and organs, engaging all of our molecules of emotion, as the means of communication. What we see is an image of a mobile brainone that moves throughout our entire body, located in all places at once and not just in the head. This bodywide information network is ever changing and dynamic, infinitely flexible. It is one gigantic loop, directing and admitting information simultaneously, intelligently guiding what we call life.

There is a revolution taking form that is significantly influencing how the Western medical community views health and disease. Candace Perts contribution to this revolution is undeniable; and her professional integrity in the pursuit of scientific truth, wherever it had to take her, regardless of its personal or professional cost, underscores the feminine, intuitive potential of science at its best.

Deepak Chopra, M.D.

La Jolla, California

SCIENTISTS, by nature, are not creatures who commonly seek out or enjoy the public spotlight. Our training predisposes us to avoid any kind of overt behavior that might encourage two-way communication with the masses. Instead, we are content to pursue our truth in windowless laboratories, accountable only to members of our highly exclusive club. And although presenting papers at professional meetings is encouraged, in fact required, its rare to find one of us holding sway to standing-room-only crowds, laughing, telling jokes, and giving away trade secrets.

Even though I am a long-standing club member and bona fide insider myself, I cannot say that it has been my trademark to follow the rules. Acting as if programmed by some errant gene, I do what most scientists abhor: I seek to inform, to educate, and inspire all manner of people, from lay to professional. I try to make available and interpret the latest and most up-to-date knowledge that I and my fellow scientists are discovering, information that is practical, that can change peoples lives. In the process, I virtually cross over into another dimension, where the leading edge of biomolecular medicine becomes accessible to anyone who wants to hear about it.

This mission places me in the public spotlight quite often. A dozen times a year, I am invited to address groups at various institutions, and so, when not engaged in my work at Georgetown University School of Medicine, where I am a research professor in the Department of Biophysics and Physiology, I go shuttling from coast to coast, sometimes even crossing the great blue waters. It was never my plan to become a scientific performer, to act as a mouthpiece for educating the public as well as practitioners in the alternative health movement, so wed was I for most of my career to the mainstream world of the lab and my research. But its been a natural evolution, and I am now at home in my new role. The result of translating my scientific ideas into the vernacular seems to have been that my life in science and my personal life have transformed each other, so that I have become expanded and enriched in myriad unexpected ways by the discoveries Ive made, the science Ive done, and the meaning I continue to uncover.