Theories on Skydiving Anhedonia and Rewards for Being Stubborn as a Mule

I went to the dentist in Port Alberni today. Sometime within the last two or three weeks, my mandibular third molar on the left broke through the gums, which it was not supposed to do, as the last x-ray showed that it was pointing straight forward, and not up. In fact, both mandibular third molars were pointed forward instead of up, while both maxillary third molars were stuck behind the second molars. When this tooth peeked through, I thought that after years of putting off the extraction of four impacted wisdom teeth, the time had finally come. They took two single shot x-rays and the panoramic x-ray three times (technical difficulties-- I may now be a little radioactive). I might have been a little annoyed by the repetitive exposure to radiation... but I was too overjoyed. As it turns out, all four of my third molars have straightened themselves out, and are now coming in perfectly straight. I was first told about the impacted wisdom teeth about ten years ago. I was told repeatedly that they are not going to fix themselves and that I'm going to have to have them extracted, if not right away, then later, and with increasing difficulty and pain. There is no possibility of their coming out the right way, they said, they will just continue forward and damage the roots of the second molars. Well... here's my reward for being unreasonably stubborn: they did fix themselves and they're pointed in the exact direction in which they should be pointing. Ten years of obstinance, a few periods of intense pain... and voilà... now they're pointing the right way. Ha!

Of course, this doesn't actually mean that I don't have to have them taken out... because even though they're pointing in the right direction, there still isn't really enough room. They're sending the x-rays to an orthodontist for his recommendation. In the meanwhile... I still get to enjoy the intermittent pain (which can be sort of useful-- the last really intense episode coincided with the sudden end of a relationship, and the physical pain in my mouth radiated so radiantly from my teeth that the source of the pain could not be identified, and, though the emotional trauma of the breakup might not have made me cry, the super intense toothache hurled me right over the point of catharsis, and I bawled my eyes out for at least a couple of days... the only negative effect of that whole episode is that now when my teeth hurt, I end up thinking of the dude).

Skydiving and Anhedonia:

Theory #1: Amygdala malfunction - The amygdalae are neurons that control emotions. I once saw a documentary about rhesus monkeys who had had their amygdalae removed... the scientists placed food immediately in front of an rubber angry cobra, then brought monkeys to the scene... when normal monkeys saw it, they were terrified... when the brain altered monkeys saw it, they took the food and started knocking the rubber snake around for fun. Apparently, damaged amygdalae can lead to hypoemotionality and loss of fear. If my amygdalae weren't properly functioning, it could explain my lack of response. (This is somewhat worrisome... Klüver-Bucy syndrome is not cool... I might end up wanting to eat rocks... or worse...)

Theory #2: History of adrenal gland/adrenergic receptor abuse - Maybe I've been an adrenaline junkie all along, and all the times that I've started writing papers at 11PM when they were due at 10AM the next morning had lasting effects (pretty much every paper was written that way... there might have been a few exceptions... but probably not more than three in the 11 semesters). I remember staying awake for three days in a row because I had three papers due one day after another. I remember being a little messed up on day four. Maybe that incident overworked either the adrenal gland or the adrenergic receptors or both, and they have never functioned properly since... so no rush for me.

Theory #3: Lack of height - maybe 3,500 ft isn't high enough. Sean and I are going to go back for our second jump at some point... and it will also be from that height. I think maybe we should also do a tandem jump from 10,000 ft... that might make it scarier (it would be awesome if we could solo from 10,000, but you have to do something like 14 jumps before you are allowed to do that). I know I said that a 150 ft bungee jump wasn't high enough and that a 3,500 ft skydive would be scarier... but I think maybe there are different height standards... as in, a 3,500 ft skydive is no scarier than a 150 ft bungee jump... but a 10,000 ft skydive would be as scary as a 720ft bungee jump, which would be WAY scarier than a 150 ft jump.

Theory #4: Jump order - maybe it wasn't scary because I was the first one out of the plane... so I didn't see anyone else falling out of a plane and didn't get to observe how crazy a thing it was to do. I missed the "this is scary" cue. This also explains why the 150 ft bungee jump wasn't scary... because there was no one else to demonstrate how scared I'm supposed to be. It's like watching a stupid comedy... when you watch it at home, you don't laugh... but when you watch it at a movie theatre and everyone else is laughing, you laugh too... this is why they filmed Cheers in front of a live studio audience and had a sign that lights up to tell people to laugh... so that the viewers at home could hear the people laughing and know when to laugh (hey... do they still film sitcoms in front of a live studio audience?)... so it would probably have made a difference if Sean looked terrified... but he didn't. Brigitte looked scared, but not terrified... besides which, I'd had all day to get used to her looking scared... so it didn't really register.

Theory #5: Skydiving is perfectly safe - it's safer than being a pedestrian in Montreal... and I've done that already... hey... maybe that's what busted my adrenergic receptors! Crossing Boulevard René Levesque.

I've come up with more ideas, I think... but I've forgotten some of them... some of them didn't really make much sense...