An interesting scientific study has come to the conclusion that after a hard day’s work, apes like to hang onto a vine and twizzle around i.e. spin around so that they become dizzy because it alters their consciousness in the same way that alcohol alters the consciousness of humans. It allows them to escape the day-to-day grind of life.
Adriano Lameira, of What University said:
“They disrupt the mind-body response for that rush, for that thrill. There is no obvious function to it and yet it so closely resembles things that we do.”
They have hypothesised that swinging around and becoming dizzy on a vine is an “equivalent way of getting intoxicated”.
They also suggested that achieving an altered state of mind is inherent in apes and humans as we do come from the same evolutionary origins.
The scientists studied funny videos on YouTube. They found that in 40 of the videos there were 132 examples of spinning from orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos. They decided that they went out deliberately to change their mood and their state of mind.
They analysed their spinning and found that the average spinning session included 5.5 rotations at 1.5 seconds. This was repeated three times and the overall session normally ended with the ape staggering around!
You can see the similarity with humans getting drunk. In order to do the research properly, they replicated the spinning sessions in the laboratory with humans and decided that “It’s incredible”.
They also decided that it was similar to human behaviour in some societies such as in Sufi whirling dervishes.
Comment: wouldn’t it be amazing if humans got rid of alcohol and copied the primates and decided to start twizzling in order to alter their mental state. It would be far healthier. The NHS in the UK would have a dramatically reduced patient input in a very short time! Accident and emergency departments would see an enormous drop-off of in incoming patients.
