NEUROCEPTION

Neuroception is a foundational concept in Polyvagal Theory. The word was coined by Dr. Stephen Porges (neuro, as in neurological; -ception in Latin literally means layer) to denote “a neural process, distinct from perception, capable of distinguishing environmental and visceral features that are safe, dangerous, or life-threatening.” (Porges, 2004)

Neuroception is our moment-to-moment embodied detection of safety or threat. Porges notes that it is a neural process distinct from perception.

Have you ever been at a party, felt the urge to turn around and immediately made eye contact with someone who was looking at you? Have you ever reared back from something on the ground abruptly, only after you have done so realizing that what you pulled away from was a coil of garden hose and not a snake?

Neuroception is this moment-to-moment detection mechanism, which is continually updating, and evaluating our surroundings.

The most lucid analogy I have come across for this process is to visualize it as the opening in a snail shell. Snails have a hard shell that they can draw themselves back inside. This keeps them safe. At the same time, if they are withdrawn, they cannot really live. They cannot eat, socialize, et cetera from the retracted position.

I like to think of neuroception as the neural mechanism whereby we decide, in any given present moment, whether we will, like a brave snail, extend out of our shells, where we can live, yet are also vulnerable– or, by contrast, will contract, where we know that we will not be harmed, but cannot really live.

Porges, S. W. (2004). Neuroception: A subconscious system for detecting threats and safety. Zero Three 24, 19–24. doi: 10.1016/j.autneu.2021.102868

Our neuroception surfaces platforms of behavior in the autonomic physiology. When we neurocept safety, connection states are able to arise. We blossom into the fullness of our potential. These states, which include restoration, social engagement, play and union/intimacy, constitute the neurophysiological foundations of wellbeing. They are, functionally, the physiology of the deep ancestral baseline. These states are where we access our truest, deepest, highest, most creative sense of self. These are the states where we can be fully human.

In modernity, however, what we often see as normed baseline states are deviations from this ancestral physiological baseline due to the deflections of chronic, toxic, and traumatic stress. Non-resolving stress, which is underpinned by the enduring neuroception of danger, re-tunes the physiology in characteristic ways.

Neuroception governs interoception, and shifts neural setpoints in the physiology, altering our visceral state, emotions, cognitions, interpretations of the world around us, and our behaviors in predictable ways. Part of the utility of Polyvagal Theory is in offering us a detailed map of the manner in which these deviations from the connection baseline set biological, psychological, and social parameters (a bio-psycho-social modeling).