Freud's answer to why I need to travel all the time!

Hi Girls.

I wanted to share my latest thinking on why I feel such an urge to travel all the time.

I was doing some scholarly literature research into Marvin Zuckerman’s Sensation Seeking personality trait concepts. In one of the pieces I read, I found a reference to something called the Constancy Principle of Breuer and Freud. Yes, that Freud … the sit on the couch, tell me your dreams, everything relates to sex, cigar smoking guy. 

Breuer and Freud published a work called Studies in Hysteria in 1895. This seminal work introduced all sorts of stuff, like the unconscious mind. Within the work, these two guys described a possible linkage between activity within the mind (like thoughts and ideas) and the central nervous system. Within this text (p. 142 – 148), there are some insights that may apply to why I feel driven to travel.

“If the waking brain remains long in a state of rest, without changing tension into living energy through functioning, there appears the need and urge for action.” (p. 142).

“living energy” and “action” … a need to do things as a human … living.

“Lack of sensory impressions … become painful; mental rest, absence of perceptions, ideas and association activity, produce the torture of monotony. There painful feelings correspond to an “agitation,” or to an enhancement of the normal intracerebral excitement (p. 142-143).

The “absence of perceptions, ideas, and association activity” point really touches on something for me. As I travel, that is the actual act of going from place to place, especially in unfamiliar places, there is an idea and association avalanche within me. So, does the act of traveling simply relieve this particular mental tension within me?

The text goes on to state that “there is a tendency to preserve at a constant level of intracerebral excitement” (p. 143) a la the Constancy Principle. Indeed, “I believe that we can assume a level of the intracerebral tonic excitement, namely, that it also has an optimum” (p. 143).

What if my optimal level just happens to be different than most folks? Could this be what propels me? Sure, there are all the other wonderful things I enjoy about travel, but maybe at the deepest psychological place, this is what is going on.

Neat stuff!

Love,
Dad