Various YouTube videos show people spinning around in circles until they are visibly dizzy. A study has now systematically evaluated such videos and compared them with human behavior. According to this, the monkeys spin at a similar speed to professional human dancers and artists or like dervishes who achieve a spiritual trance through ritual whirling dances. The researchers say the behavior of the great apes could provide a clue as to how our early human ancestors sought out mind-altering experiences.
People from different cultures seek mind-altering experiences from time to time. In addition to intoxicants such as alcohol and drugs, we also have other ways to confuse our senses and achieve other mental states. Muslim dervishes, for example, twirl in ritual dances to induce a spiritual trance. Children love to challenge their sense of balance, whether it’s spinning around or riding the carousel on the playground. And many adults also like the exhilarating feeling after dancing or a ride on the roller coaster.
Altered consciousness due to dizziness
“The human trait of striving for altered states is so universal historically and culturally that there is an intriguing possibility that we inherited it from our evolutionary ancestors,” explains Adriano Lameira of the University of Warwick in the UK. He discovered a possible clue to the evolutionary origins of this behavior in YouTube videos of great apes: “Numerous YouTube videos show great apes turning around during play,” he reports. The primates often use ropes or lianas and are visibly dizzy at the end of the shooting episodes.
Together with co-author Marcus Perlman from the University of Birmingham, Lameira analyzed 40 videos of gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos and orangutans, all of which were spinning. As a comparison, they used videos of human dancers doing pirouettes in ballet, for example, or twirling on ropes as circus artists. In addition, they also included video recordings of Muslim dervishes entering a trance state during their traditional whirling dances.
Parallels between apes and humans
“Spinning alters our state of consciousness, throwing off our body-mind response and coordination, making us feel dizzy or jittery, like children playing on carousels,” explains Lameira. “For our early human ancestors, this could have been a way to reach other states of consciousness without further aids. If great apes do vertigo, then it’s very likely that our ancestors did too.” In fact, Lameira and Perlman found that the primates spin at a speed similar to that of the human dancers in the videos, about 1.5 revolutions per second.
“Our analysis suggests that the primates intentionally turn until they become dizzy and unable to keep their balance,” says Perlman. So far, the researchers can only speculate about the reasons for this behavior. “There might be a mental health link, since the primates in the videos were mostly in captivity and maybe they were bored and trying to stimulate their senses in some way,” says Lameira. However, wild gorillas also showed this behavior in two videos. “It could also be a game, similar to what children do on the playground,” the research team said.
Spin instead of drugs?
Previous studies examining human motivation for self-induced dizziness have focused on alcohol and drug use. However, it is doubtful whether such substances were already accessible to our early human ancestors. “The further back in human history you go, the more uncertain the role that substance-induced experiences have played in our evolution,” explains Lameira. Turning, on the other hand, could have opened up the possibility of briefly changing one’s own sensory perceptions early on.
“It is likely that similar behaviors in our most recent common ancestor also improved the nervous system and muscles, thereby contributing to expanding the spectrum of action patterns,” the research team says. “The empirical evidence presented here provides clues to the intriguing possibility that the self-induced altered mental states of our ancestors may have shaped aspects of modern human behavior and cognition, as well as mood regulation and mental well-being.”
Source: Adriano Lameira (University of Warwick, UK) et al., Primates, doi: 10.1007/s10329-023-01056-x