It was Jaime Pineda’s first psychology class as a college freshman, in an auditorium of about 500 students, where he felt like his professor was speaking directly to him alone. He found himself on a path to a lifetime of studying psychology, neuroscience, and cognition, resulting in a doctorate, working as a professor at UC San Diego, and running the university’s Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory for nearly 30 years.
“I was sure that learning about the biochemistry, neurophysiology, and other aspects of the machinery of the brain would help me get a better handle on what produces the mind,” he says. “This knowledge certainly helped, although many unanswered questions remained. Somewhere along the way, I turned to contemplative practices, which offered another way to examine the mind.”
Today, he’ll talk about some of what he’s learned when he discusses his latest book, “Controlling Mental Chaos: Harnessing the Power of the Creative Mind,” at 3 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 28, at the La Jolla/Riford Library. He describes it as a self-help book with his personal perspective on what causes most of our human mental suffering — an uncontrolled mind — and how to address that suffering in the simplest way possible.
Pineda, 70, is professor emeritus of cognitive science at UC San Diego and lives in Carmel Valley with his wife, Jane. He took some time to talk about the difference between the brain and the mind, studying his own introversion and anxieties, and learning to channel anxiety into creativity.
Q: During your career, you’ve explored the relationship between the mind and the brain. What does this mean, exactly? Many of us may hear this and think that the mind and the brain are the same thing, so what is the difference between the two?
A: In many respects, they are the same thing. However, the term “brain” typically refers to the biological structures (cells, interconnections, neurotransmitters, grey matter, etc.) that make up the hardware, or machinery, of the brain. “Mind” usually refers to the outcome of the functions and processes occurring in this machinery, that is, the mental activity we associate with thoughts and emotions. There is now substantial recognition that alterations in the biological machinery — for example, a stroke that causes cells and neural connections to die — has profound effects on the mind. Likewise, alterations in the mind, such as repetitive thinking of negative thoughts, will produce changes in the hardware, a literal rewiring of brain connections. This interactivity fascinated me and provided the basis for many of the research questions I worked on for 30-plus years, such as, what is the role of attention in how we perceive and act? How does being social rewire circuits in the brain?
Q: In “Controlling Mental Chaos,” you investigate the ways in which anxiety is connected to creativity. What first inspired you to look at this connection?
A: During my 30-year professional career in studying the brain and mind, and an equally long experience with contemplative practices, I accumulated a lifetime of insights that I wished to share with others to overcome the mental problems we all experience. My personal attempts to resolve such problems, and the discovery of means to do it, provided the motivation for writing this book.
The recognition that anxiety and creativity are linked came both from my professional understanding of how the brain works, and my personal experience with high anxiety. As an introvert, I was terrified when speaking to groups of people, yet this skill is absolutely necessary for an academic to teach, give lectures about one’s research, talk to other scientists, etc. I gradually realized that the anxiety I felt was my mind’s creative energy trying to deal with my feelings and perceptions about the situation, although with little success. I now call this uncontrolled chaos and know that it arises because the tools I use to deal with my mental chaos are insufficient for the task and I feel frustrated, unmoored, anxious, and fearful.
Q: Can you talk about some of the specific dynamics of anxiety you identify in the book? What do these look like?
A: I strongly believe that all anxieties have a basis of fear underneath them. The fear can be different for each of us and therefore manifests in different ways. In my case, the anxiety reflected a fear of being judged, of having others criticize me, and having them see me as less than what I imagined myself to be. This manifested in imposter syndrome, the belief that I did not belong as a member of the faculty at such a prestigious university, as well as other feelings of low self-worth. It took a while practicing the strategies I outline in the book to recognize that my own thoughts caused these feelings and that I didn’t have to believe them. Eventually, the recognition that I am not my thoughts and that I have a choice as to whether to believe them or not, broke through and ushered in freedom from my anxiety that was unexpected.
What I love about Carmel Valley …
I love that I live close enough to the beach to walk to it and enjoy the beautiful sunsets I am privileged to experience here.
Q: How do these particular dynamics demonstrate “uncontrolled creativity”?
A: Creativity is what I refer to as controlled chaos, so the question is how do we navigate between uncontrolled chaos and controlled chaos, or creativity? How do we find that balance? My conclusion is that most mental problems we experience are the mind’s unfocused and uncontrolled attempts to resolve them. We depend too much on rational, intellectual thinking to solve these issues. Yet, science is telling us that our rational mind, wonderful as it is, is limited in resources and gets easily overwhelmed when faced with more than a couple of problems at a time. The experience for most of us, unfortunately, is that we experience dozens of problems every moment, from personal to intrapersonal to institutional to worldwide and systemic ones. What we need is a mind that can give us access to the big picture, see the relationship between problems, and do so calmly. This aspect of the mind is called open awareness, and it becomes the solution to the uncontrolled mind; an answer known for centuries, yet one which very few people know about. Modern culture has not been very good at helping us cultivate this state of mind. Modern studies of the mind tell us we are born with an incredible, original and creative aspect, this open awareness, yet it quickly becomes obscured by the fear and anxiety of everyday life.
Mental problems not only affect us individually, but spread out like rings of fire to touch our families, friends, society, and the world at large. It felt it important to have a sense of responsibility to help and minimize the suffering that ensues.
Q: Have you personally dealt with this issue, within your own mind and brain? Are you comfortable sharing what this experience has been like for you and how you navigated it?
A: A lifelong interest in psychology, neuroscience, and contemplative practices fed a deep-seated hunger in me to know who and what I was. Early developmental experiences, which involved being removed from my immediate family, friends, and culture for the sake of a better education, triggered questions of just what defined my identity. Gradually, I realized that the stories I told myself, and that others told about me, created the core of my identity. To understand my real identity more deeply, I became interested in psychological explanations of behavior, personality, and the ego. Such explanations, however, proved unsatisfying, so I turned to neuroscience and the study of the biological mechanisms that produce the mind. Eventually, those answers were likewise unsatisfying, and I began exploring other perspectives besides science.
One path led me into mindfulness meditation and the study of Zen Buddhism. After approximately 30 years of this exploration, the boundary between my training in science and spiritual insights gave way and provided more satisfying answers. What I learned is difficult to communicate, but essentially it was that what I searched for and had been trying to understand—whether I called it my identity, the mind, consciousness, God, Buddha-nature, enlightenment — was, in fact, a wisdom embedded in the world I experienced. The wisdom refers to a realization that while an individual, I am also part of a family, a society, a world, a universe that defines me.
The most immediate change I experienced following this understanding was a lessening in my need to do and achieve in of my career and professional goals. Suddenly, the self-evident purpose of life wasn’t to achieve anything per se, but to enjoy the simple act of being and experiencing the world. Having studied to be a scientist, I had convinced myself that accomplishments were critical and a necessary aspect of my identity. Accolades, grants, publications, and other aspects of my work appeared to define the who and what I was: productive, hardworking, accomplished, successful. Now, that discernment has changed. I valued these things for their own unique sense without the need to make anything out of them. Being myself rather than an image of myself became more important. Everything else became secondary.
Along with this experience, I developed a greater appreciation of life. I developed a sensitivity to the uniqueness, even sacredness, inherent in all things. These changes in perspective and awareness did not result in a lesser engagement with life or interest in doing my job, attending baseball games, making friends, or making love. Rather, the motivation for doing things changed. Doing to achieve a goal was no longer important, just the doing was enough. Thus, an intrinsic joy in being human and doing normal things came to the forefront unlike anything I’d experienced, and this was very satisfying. It reflected a more embodied sense of my true self and a natural flow without the anxiety I had previously felt.
Q: Can you talk a bit about what our original minds were like and how they became uncontrolled, as you refer to in the book?
A: For most of us, our mind as a child is an original mind—an active, adaptable, energetic, curious, creative mind. One unencumbered by problems, with an attitude of openness, eagerness, and lack of preconceptions. While we may no longer identify with such a mind, we have not lost this treasure completely, and it is possible to recover it. My book presents an argument based on scientific and personal evidence of the uncontrolled mind and this original, creative mind as two sides of the same brain dynamics. Comparable to identical twins who grow up in unique environments, they share the same genetics. The uncontrolled mind is, in fact, the original mind. The former simply focuses more on the past and future, while the latter is more at home in the present moment. Dwelling on the past and future occasionally gets the mind snagged in problem-solving mode and becomes dysfunctional. This dysfunction causes havoc when unmanaged and chronic. The solution is not to get rid of this mind, but to use strategies to place its functioning in the proper context, namely in open awareness. Training and guiding the obsessive mind back to this state is possible, to deal with the challenges of living in the moment.
Q: Can you share a couple of strategies that you’ve used yourself that have been successful for you on your journey to control mental chaos?
A: What I emphasize in the book is that there are many strategies available and one must find the one that works best for us. I tried exercise, nutrition, sports, nature walks, yoga, meditation, self-reflection, etc. Over time, I found that the most effective, natural, and easiest strategy is simply learning to live in the present or in the moment. Doing so gives me immediate access to the open awareness of my original creative mind. The practice has been to rest in that for more than a few seconds and the only way to do that is to practice, practice, practice.
Q: Was there any information you learned during the process of researching and writing this book about how to combat anxiety and calm the mind that surprised you? That you weren’t expecting?
A: The most fascinating research I encountered relevant to this involves the relationship between thoughts, time, and creativity. To solve problems, we rely on experience and memories of those experiences, what we have learned; but sometimes, we need to by memories, disengage from that process and engender creativity, our ability to put things together in new and novel ways. To do that, we need to disengage from our problem-solving intellectual mind and access another kind of mind, which is this open awareness.
Focusing on the present moment changes the focus on past and future events and directly transforms the uncontrolled mind’s maladaptive behavior. Awareness of the moment means being grounded in what is happening now, the contingencies of this moment, and not focused on memories of the past or predictions about the future. The research says that living in the moment disconnects us from autobiographical, self-referential processes (ego-based thinking) and puts the decontextualized actions of the uncontrolled mind in the proper frame to foster the creative mind.
Q: What do you hope people take from your book?
A: An understanding that the solution to the dysfunctional, uncontrolled mind is not to get rid of it, but to place it in the proper environment or context. We can take this mental chaos and, through a simple and innate strategy, guide the dynamics back to their natural and original state, to deal with the challenges of living in the present moment. We do that by cultivating open awareness. When we do that, the uncontrolled mind returns to its innate, creative nature.
Q: What’s been challenging about your work, overall?
A: In retrospect, the insights gained from science and contemplative practices take a long time, a lot of patience, persistence, and maintaining curiosity about these things during periods of doubts, fear, and anxiety. I was my worst enemy in gaining this understanding and what should have taken a short time to recognize and learn, took longer.
Q: What’s been rewarding about this work?
A: How the biology of the brain creates the mind is simply fascinating and undoubtedly one of the most interesting areas to devote a lifetime of work. The rewards are the insights into such complexity, which, when experienced, leave you breathless.
Q: What has this work taught you about yourself?
A: Like many, I consider myself a truth seeker who has turned to different methods and perspectives to try to unlock the secrets of the mind and the brain. Now, in retrospect, I am comfortable with the idea that there is an intelligence to what I studied that I need to connect with in more than an objective, scientific way. This intelligence extends beyond my individual self into life itself, of which I am but a tiny part.
Q: What is the best advice you’ve ever received?
A: Know yourself.
Q: What is one thing people would be surprised to find out about you?
A: That I am interested in many things that may seem unrelated: science, literature, poetry, art, politics, the world, religion, sports, life.
Q: Please describe your ideal San Diego weekend.
A: Walking or hiking the trails around the city.
