“When love is not madness, it is not love.”
~Pedro Calderon de la Barca
“Love must be as much a light, as it is a flame.”
~Henry David Thoreau
“Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place.”
~Zora Neale Hurston
To be loved means being free to be yourself in the presence of another person. It is the mutuality of this experience that we each crave. Somehow we know when it is near, and ache when it is lost. We have all had it: the look, the feeling, and the sense of awe in the presence of the person we are attracted to. But is it more than just the infusion of the catecholamine neurotransmitter, dopamine, or the mammalian hormone oxytocin?
Yes.
You most likely know that the limbic system is the seat of emotions and it regulates the type, degree and intensity of our feelings. But what you may not know is your limbic system may be trying to detect whom you will love, and who will love you back. Limbic resonance is a term used to describe the feeling of attraction to another.
If you haven’t heard of Henry David Thoreau, you might be forgiven for thinking he has nothing to teach us from his time on this planet 150 years ago. I think that perhaps the 5 scientists who thought they might learn something about the brain and attention by taking a little camping trip could have figured this out by revisiting Thoreau’s writings: