"Pavlov used dogs in his famous experiments on 'conditioned reflexes,' and the conditioning stimulus was usually a bell, which the dogs learned to associate with food. But on one occasion, in 1924, there was a huge flood in the laboratory that nearly drowned the dogs. After this, many of the dogs were sensitized, even terrified, by the sight of water for the rest of their lives. Extreme or long-lasting sensitization underlies PTSD, in dogs as in humans."
- Oliver Sachs, in a footnote to a must-read article in the The New York Review of Books titled The Mental Life of Plants and Worms, Among Others.
"Sensitization" is the increased reaction in a sentient organism to stimuli that might pose a danger or offer a reward, and "habituation" is the decreased reaction to a stimulus that poses neither danger nor reward and can thus safely be ignored. Sensitization and habituation are crucial for the survival of all living organisms, but these subconscious, neural-level reactions can also blind highly intelligent organisms, such as humans, that also rely on cognition to perceive their environment.
As a species, humans are ill-equipped to respond to dangers that present themselves gradually over time, and the slow rate of climate change habituates us to its harmful effects even as we lose the environment upon which we rely for our very survival (the frog-in-the-Jacuzzi syndrome). Extreme or long-lasting sensitization, as Sachs points out above, can lead to debilitating disorders such as PTSD.
The practice of meditation, just sitting and quietly observing things as they are without commentary or judgement, can help train us to more properly react to and engage the world as it is, without over- or under-reliance on neural sensitization or habituation.
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