have you ever been in the zone?

[Yuzo]

have you ever been in the zone? my dad used to talk to me about the zone. when i was a kid we'd walk down to the park to shoot hoops and he'd hit a bunch of shots in a row and he'd tell me he must be in the zone. "what was this magic?" i must have wondered. the men on magic carpets is a book about various sports psychologists and sports gurus, shucksters mostly, searching for some way to gain entry into the zone, or "siddhi" a sanskrit term for a supernormal perceptual state. somewhere in the brain there is a region (or a relay of regions) that scientists call the god spot. theoretically, when this region of the brain is activated it produces heightened creativity, the ability to make connections out of unusual associations not immediately perceivable to most, awe, wonder, a feeling of transcendence, and profound religious experience. specifically, religiosity is strongly correlated with dopamine; a sort of coproduct of excess dopamine.

in medical literature there are descriptions of creative bursts resulting from the use of dopamine enhancing drugs used to treat parkinson’s disease. however, as the disease progresses religiosity can completely cease implying that dopamine and religiosity occupy the same circuits in the brain. in manic depressives, the manic or dopaminergic phase can sometimes produce works of incredible virtuosity and profundity - or hyperreligiosity.

suppose then we could peer into the brain of a sportsman who can be said to be in the zone. we may find that his brain is flooded with dopamine. such a dopamine fueled brain may have the capacity to imbue its recipient with superhuman prowess and perception. a sportsman may become bestowed with some kind of prescience and can suddenly see every choice and every outcome that exists all at once. was muhammad ali ever really that great or was he simply a beneficiary of hints and tips encrypted and decoded in fractions of a microsecond in a language only decipherable to him? when oleksandr usyk kisses his cross what is really going on in his brain? when floyd mayweather defeated arturo gatti and dropped down to his knees to thank god in a display of religious ecstasy was that because he was actually in commune with the god spot the entire time? was that surge of dopaminergic activity flooding into his brain and finally spilling over into heightened religiosity and ideation just a clue dropped by the god spot? when we play sports do we enter into a zone that can somehow make us privy to the supernatural?

[TIC]

the mind & body are amazing things, i don't think what you're referring to has to be just sports, we've all heard stories of say a mother lifting something heavy like a car to free their child, i've seen comedians perform a set that was on point from start to finish, gamers (although it's kind of a sport now), even reading or writing, sometimes you can be totally in "the zone"

[TitoFan]

I personally don't link it with religion. But there's definitely a zone in sports. I used to play baseball, and batting is given very much to "zones." That's where batting slumps come from (opposite of being in a zone)... or when you're on fire and seem to hit every pitch hard and for a base hit. Basketball, yeah. Shooting is totally prone to "zones." Usually teammates will just keep on feeding a guy who's in the "zone." Seems they could shoot it with their eyes closed, and make the basket. I've never boxed. But I imagine boxing has its own share of being in the zone.

[Spicoli]

I don't attach much religion to it but call the same description as hitting on all cylinders. When the multi-tasking, delegating and "putting out fires" is without thought or hesitation and keeping things moving. Instinct is sharp as a tac. Surprisingly that becomes more difficult as we get older . Sports itself is a trained repetition really, instincts to apply and react to the ever evolving environment from the very start. One with high level consequences either way. Not to cast it away but too many high profile athletes almost use religion as a crutch, a fall back for a phrase in a way. It's become cheapened if only in their appeal. I mean, in what world is thanking God and Don King in the very same sentence post fight considered sane.

[Yuzo]

I personally don't link it with religion. But there's definitely a zone in sports. I used to play baseball, and batting is given very much to "zones." That's where batting slumps come from (opposite of being in a zone)... or when you're on fire and seem to hit every pitch hard and for a base hit. Basketball, yeah. Shooting is totally prone to "zones." Usually teammates will just keep on feeding a guy who's in the "zone." Seems they could shoot it with their eyes closed, and make the basket. I've never boxed. But I imagine boxing has its own share of being in the zone.

there is an overlap between dopaminergic experience and religious experience. in the dopaminergic mind in human evolution and history, fred h. previc proposes that religion actually emerged from dopamine.

previc was a researcher for the united states air force where he was tasked to investigate spatial disorientation. what he found was that vergence shifts between upper and lower visual fields were causing pilot errors. for this he developed a model for the neuropsychology of 3-D space which puts forward that 3-D space is separated into sections which are managed by specific regions in the brain. specifically, extrapersonal space (which is described as distant, upward and outward space; a space for searching and discovering) and peripersonal space (which is described as nearby, downward and inward space; a space for inspection and tinkering) which we can experience whenever we reach out to grab something and then bring back the item to about nose level to lap level for analysis and review. but what he discovered was that the same regions in the brain that oversee extrapersonal space are the same regions that are involved in creating religious experience. specifically, the circuits in the brain that we use when we look out upon great distances are the very same circuits in the brain that we use to abstract heaven or eternity. you can read more about that in this paper.

whats tying the neuropsychology of 3-D space to the neuropsychology of religion mainly though is dopamine. consider that hyperreligiosity is often a feature of manic depression. during their manic phase (which according to previc "the ventromedial dopaminergic system" becomes "highly activated") manic depressives may think they are receiving divine messages. when we play sports the demand that we put onto the brain to process extrapersonal space may be at its greatest and therefore so too may be our ability to slip into the divine. when you are "in the zone" do you not feel that something is helping you?