Instincts short descriptions
I apologize if this is a re-post, but I have not seen a thread on this on here yet, so I thought I might go ahead and start one.
Feel free to go through these and explain how you may or may not relate to them.
The self-preserving instinct is associated with vigilance, protectiveness and aggression; in one way or another you have to fight to stay alive, and you must destroy in order to eat.
The social instinct corresponds to the herd instinct in animals; it involves the sense of belonging to a group, and a preoccupation with your interactions with and place within the group, the pecking order.
The sexual instinct strives towards syntony with the world, to be in tune and vibrate with it; you have to cover a lot of space, emit the strongest and pick up the subtlest signals when searching for the most or best of mates.
Self-preserving (SP):
• I am my body
• Heaviness
• Anxiety all the way to hysterical visions of annihilation; cold panic (if I move, something awful is going to happen; think of a Hitchcock movie)
• Paranoid streak; blaming and accusing others for damaging/endangering/ exploiting self
• Aggressive/defensive
• Money
• Nourishment
• Health; hypochondria
• Logistics
• Generous at feeding others, helping others out in SP crises
• The people who shop only in health food stores, filter the water, install triple locks and security system, refuse vaccination
• Excessively cautious or self-destructive, even suicidal
Social (SO):
• Can be the most decent yet often fake, manipulative, or subtly to grossly antisocial (essence present or left out when relating)
• Prestige, popularity, fame
• Superiority/inferiority problems (forgetting that we’re all equal in our essential functioning)
• Delusions of grandeur or of outcast
• Involved in causes
• Clubs, parties, groups
• The scene, the beautiful people, chic, fashionable, what’s in
• Going with or against the flow
• Socialite/philanthropist/misanthrope
• Political or religious crime (terrorists, anarchists)
• Confusion of boundaries between “you” and “me,” “yours” and “mine” (i.e. using one’s home as a public place, picking from another’s plate as it were one’s own)
Sexual (SX):
• Vibrating out there, looking for a mate; peacock displaying his feathers, deer locking antlers
• Susceptibility to states of intoxication, tripping
• Schizoid disposition (split between affect and intellect, invalidating one with the other)
• Lightness, playfulness
• Curious, seeking, searching
• Often has shiny, leaky eyes (leaking the high energy of sexuality)
• Not about orgasm (which one can have alone) but about letting go, dropping barriers, intimacy, closeness, union through revealing/denuding oneself
• Madonna or whore, abstinent or promiscuous
• Frigid or impotent, unusual sexual preferences
• Crime of passion
• Least likely to become famous (SP goes for immortality, SO intent on glory; SX has other things to do)
Questions
• SP: How am I? (I can’t tell what I need to be safe and sound)
• SO: Who am I? (you tell me; I’m defined by my relation to you and them, my place in the hierarchy)
• SX: What’s going on? (all over the place; has to tune in on the lookout for a mate)
Idealized self-image
• SP: I have psychic powers and I am invulnerable. My life is without a beginning or an end; I can see my past lives and my afterlife. I can predict the future and need not fear the unexpected.
• SO: I am considerate, friendly, generous and self-sacrificing. I possess greatness which commands admiration and respect, and my position in life reflects my exceptional qualities.
• SX: I have the power to attract whomever I choose and I know what passion means. I am in tune with the world around, sense its vibrations, and am ready to respond when my mate calls.
Central delusion
• SP: There must be a way to beat death (i.e. take lots of vitamin C, jog every day, rely on medical science, healing arts, psychic powers)
• SO: I can get from the outside what I’m lacking inside (togetherness, self-approval, acceptance, love)
• SX: Through union with the One I can transcend myself, achieve wholeness (oneness with myself; I’m the half of a pair)
Dilemma
• SP: To be or not to be; how to be
• SO: To relate or not to relate; how to relate
• SX: To be intimate or not to be intimate; how to be intimate
Main concern with:
• SP: Self
• SO: Group
• SX: Mate
Aversion to:
• SP: Living
• SO: Relating
• SX: Sex
Special difficulties
• SP: Mortality irrevocable (suicidal impulse may arise because can’t take the anxious suspense)
• SO: Ephemeral and incomplete gratification (physical satisfaction possible for SP and SX but relating yields intangible satisfaction only; can’t feed all the hungry, can’t be liked by everyone)
• SX: Stop the high vibration, achieve stillness
Get cookies from:
• SP: Safety, security
• SO: Popularity, fame
• SX: Closeness, intimacy
Fear of:
• SP: Poverty, illness, death (insecurity as one of first distortions)
• SO: Loneliness
• SX: Worthlessness (no self-value)
Craving:
• SP: Security
• SO: High ranking
• SX: Power
Drugs:
• SP: Painkillers, tranquilizers, opiates
• SO: Alcohol, amphetamines, cocaine (activate relating)
• SX: LSD,mescaline (mind expanders)
Sex:
• SP: Sensuous
• SO: Friendly
• SX: Imaginary
At a party:
• SP: What’s there to eat and drink? Why is it so hot in here? This chair is bad for my back!
• SO: Am I wearing the right clothes? Who are the right people to talk to? What’s the right thing to say?
• SX: What am I doing here? (scans the room looking for the one right person; ends up in a corner talking to one person)
Focus when divorcing:
• SP: Finances, who will take care of me from now on, who will give me a glass of water when I’m sick
• SO: How can I cope with my new status, what will people say
• SX: What happened, what went wrong between us? I’m a failure, I’m nothing
Joining spiritual/religious groups:
• SP: Looking for immortality
• SO: Looking for companionship
• SX: Looking for the Beloved
Demonstrations, causes:
• SP: Against nuclear power plants, against abortion, don’t feed hormones to cows, don’t use pesticides
• SO: Equal rights, Save the Whale, stop the war, stop capital punishment
• SX: Gay and lesbian rights but mostly none
Chances are your dominant instinct is NOT:
• SP: If food is no big deal for you
• SO: If gatherings are no big deal for you
• SX: If sex is no big deal for you
Examples for dominant instinct:
• SP: Moliere’s Le Malade Imaginaire (The Imaginary Invalid), Karl Marx, Thomas Robert Malthus, Howard Hughes, the Frugal Gourmet, Ralph Nader
• SO: Judas, Jane Austen, Charles Manson, Caesar Chavez, Emily Post, Mahatma Gandhi, Karen Horney, Nelson Mandela, Jimmy Carter
• SX: Marquis de Sade, Tom Jones, James Bond, Don Giovanni, Anain Nin, Sigmund Freud, Marilyn Monroe, Lorena Bobbit
Miscellaneous:
SP and SX like to stay at home - for SO it’s an issue.
SP and SX are prone to allergies (former more to food and chemicals, latter especially seasonally, i.e. to nature’s sex life).
SP and SO are people for whom, fairly often, a cigar is really just a cigar.
SP are prone to obesity and diet fads.
SO most likely to be unwashed and unkempt (antisocial).
SX are liable to insect phobias, tend to be picky eaters.
SP lie and sit, SO stand and walk, SX run and fly.
SP and SX are more readily identified than SO which, at least initially, may be recognized through elimination of the other two types only.
(X)