All posts tagged: intensity

Demon Lover Archetype: When Intensity Masquerades as Love

Demon Lover Archetype: When Intensity Masquerades as Love

Published by Jenni Sidey

Some relationships begin with a feeling that is hard to explain but impossible to ignore. Before anything is spoken, something in you recognizes something in them. The pull is immediate. It feels less like a choice and more like a kind of inevitability. People often call this chemistry. Or fate. But psychologically, it may be something else. Not a true beginning, but a return. A reactivation of something old, familiar, and largely unconscious. In the language of Carl Jung, we might understand this through archetypes (Jung, 1968). One of these is what has been described as the Demon Lover, a figure that appears across myth, literature, and inner life. He is not defined by stability or care, but by intensity, absence, and emotional disruption. The Demon Lover does not offer safety. He offers longing. He arrives with a kind of immediacy that bypasses thought. A look. A moment. A charged silence. And then, just as quickly, he withdraws. You become fluent in absence. In waiting. In the space between encounters. The relationship begins to organize …

Brain waves predict the intensity of magic mushroom trips

Brain waves predict the intensity of magic mushroom trips

Published by José Betancourt

A person’s natural brain wave patterns might offer a reliable preview of how intensely they will react to a dose of psilocybin. The resting electrical activity of the brain not only shifts dramatically during a psychedelic experience, but specific patterns present before taking the drug actively predict the psychological effects that follow. The research was published in Progress in Neuropsychopharmacology & Biological Psychiatry. The active ingredient in magic mushrooms, psilocybin, is currently under intense investigation as a presumed therapeutic agent. Clinical trials are testing its efficacy for depression, addictive disorders, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Australia recently approved the drug for treatment-resistant depression in specific clinical settings. Despite this clinical momentum, the exact ways the compound alters human brain function remain somewhat elusive. A major challenge in modern psychiatry is figuring out why people respond so differently to psychedelics. Finding a reliable way to anticipate these diverse patient reactions could help doctors identify which individuals are most likely to benefit from the therapy. To investigate this, a team of researchers led by scientist Cheng-Teng Ip at …

National Youth Orchestra/ Chauhan: Collide review – surging energy and remarkable intensity | Classical music

National Youth Orchestra/ Chauhan: Collide review – surging energy and remarkable intensity | Classical music

Published by Sam Flores

There’s always more at an NYO concert. More players: 160 this time, crammed on to a platform that seems full with half that number. More of the energy that comes with the fact that, for every player, this is a very special occasion. And, in recent seasons, more stuff to remind us that these are teenagers, not hard-bitten professionals. This time there was a semi-choreographed walk-on to a mashup of Raye and Chaka Khan, with the percussion taking the lead and the assembled orchestra eventually joining in. There was a short speech from one of the players before each work – somewhere between pointing out a personal connection with the music and giving superfluous justification for its inclusion. And as an encore – sung, not played – there was Jacob Collier’s Something Heavy, with a bit more choreography. Safe to say the other orchestras conducted by Alpesh Chauhan, the NYO’s new principal conductor, don’t ask all this of their players. But often the tautness and focus of the playing exceeded what he might expect from …

Is Arteta’s intensity Arsenal’s Premier and Champions League hope, or fear? | Football News

Is Arteta’s intensity Arsenal’s Premier and Champions League hope, or fear? | Football News

Published by Sam Flores

Arsenal’s quadruple hunt has been halved in the space of a week, and their UEFA Champions League hopes have been given a stern test by a Sporting Lisbon side that only just squeezed past Bodo/Glimt to reach the competition’s quarterfinals. Sporting, who had to come from 3-0 down following the first leg against Norway’s Bodo, are seven points off leaders Porto in the Portuguese top flight, but were more than a match for the English Premier League leaders in Lisbon on Tuesday, with only a late Kai Havertz strike separating the sides. Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list The 1-0 win favours Mikel Arteta’s side ahead of the second leg in London next week, but it was another game that left the Gunners with as many questions as answers. Back-to-back defeats leading into the game – in the English League Cup final against Manchester City and the FA Cup quarterfinals against second-tier Southampton – have left Arteta’s team in danger of a late-season slump. Having finished second in the Premier League for the …

Intensity level crescendoes for Orange Lutheran-St. John Bosco baseball series

Intensity level crescendoes for Orange Lutheran-St. John Bosco baseball series

Published by Sam Flores

It was Brady Murrietta’s silence rounding the bases, then his Darth Vader-like stare directed at St. John Bosco pitcher Jack Champlin after touching third base on Thursday and slowly jogging toward home plate that sent a clear message: Don’t poke the bear. His two-run home run in the bottom of the sixth inning broke a 3-3 tie and keyed a 5-4 win to prevent the No. 1-ranked Lancers from suffering a three-game Trinity League baseball sweep by No. 2 St. John Bosco. One day earlier, the intensity level between the two teams reached such a crescendo that after the fiery Champlin got the final out in a 4-1 win at Hart Park, he decided to offer a taunt. “I was hearing them all game at third base,” Champlin said. “I pointed to the ground and was saying, ‘This is my field.’ A bunch ran out of the dugout toward me and it got bigger than it needed to be.” There was pushing and shoving as St. John Bosco went nuclear on security for Thursday’s home …

Music shapes your memory through emotional intensity, study finds

Music shapes your memory through emotional intensity, study finds

Published by Jenni Sidey

Music can lift your spirits, calm your nerves, or break your heart in a few notes. It can also nudge what you remember, but not always in the way you might expect. A new study takes a close look at how music shapes memory and finds that the key is not the song itself. It is how deeply the music moves you. How The Study Put Music to the Test In the new work, Kayla Clark of Rice University and Stephanie Leal of the University of California, Los Angeles, wanted to know which parts of music actually help memory. Past research showed that music can support people living with Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia. Yet the field still could not answer a basic question. Is it the mood of the song, how familiar it is, or something more personal that makes the difference. To probe that question, volunteers first viewed images of everyday scenes. These pictures showed common experiences, the kind of moments that form the fabric of a normal day. After that …

J. R. R. Tolkien Admitted to Disliking Dune “With Some Intensity” (1966)

J. R. R. Tolkien Admitted to Disliking Dune “With Some Intensity” (1966)

Published by José Betancourt

One can eas­i­ly imag­ine a read­er enjoy­ing both The Lord of the Rings and Dune. Both of those works of epic fan­ta­sy were pub­lished in the form of a series of long nov­els begin­ning in the mid-twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry; both cre­ate elab­o­rate worlds of their own, right down to details of ecol­o­gy and lan­guage; both seri­ous­ly (and these days, unfash­ion­ably) con­cern them­selves with the theme of what con­sti­tutes hero­ic action; both have even inspired mul­ti­ple big-bud­get Hol­ly­wood spec­ta­cles. The read­er equal­ly ded­i­cat­ed to the work of J. R. R. Tolkien and Frank Her­bert turns out to be a more elu­sive crea­ture than we may expect, but per­haps that should­n’t sur­prise us, giv­en Tolkien’s own atti­tude toward Dune. “It is impos­si­ble for an author still writ­ing to be fair to anoth­er author work­ing along the same lines,” Tolkien wrote in 1966 to a fan who’d sent him a copy of Her­bert’s book, which had come out the year before. “In fact I dis­like DUNE with some inten­si­ty, and in that unfor­tu­nate case it is much the best and fairest …

Big data analysis links war intensity to changes in online sexual behavior

Big data analysis links war intensity to changes in online sexual behavior

Published by José Betancourt

A new study published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior provides evidence that the Russian invasion of Ukraine altered the pornography consumption habits of Ukrainians. The findings suggest that during periods of intense collective threat and violence, individuals may increase their engagement with solitary sexual behaviors as a coping mechanism. This research offers insight into how modern warfare impacts public mental health and human sexuality in real time. Scientists and public health officials have recognized that major global crises disrupt social dynamics. The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated that lockdowns and fear of infection led to measurable shifts in sexual behavior and internet usage. However, there is a lack of objective data regarding how an active military conflict influences these behaviors. Most prior research on sexuality during war relies on retrospective self-reports. These surveys are often subject to bias because participants may not remember accurately or may feel uncomfortable disclosing sensitive information. “This work was motivated by a clear gap in the literature: while wars are known to profoundly alter social, emotional, and sexual lives, there was …