BLOG No. TWENTY SIX

Welcome back to my blog on anxiety and depression. Today, I want to discuss an odd topic—conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theories are theories that are not supported by fact, but are supported by circular reasoning. Conspiracy theories go back to medieval times in England, where the peasants thought the king was poisoning the water.

The popular conspiracy theory that prompted the writing of this blog was the theory of chemtrails. Yeah, it hadn’t crossed my radar, either. Chemtrails are plumes behind jet engines seen high in the sky, especially on a sunny day. These plumes are generated by the condensation of water after jet fuel is burned. (CO2 and water). Because the altitude is so high, the air is cold, and the water droplets freeze.

But there are a lot of people who have concocted a belief that chemtrails are the works of the government, spraying chemicals on us for a variety of reasons—population control, mind control etc. In fact, in the study from 2016 of 36,000 people, 9% we’re certain that chemtrails existed, and an additional 19% said that chemtrails we’re at least partly true! Some of their evidence points to pictures inside of planes that have barrels inside of them.

These photos are of planes being tested and the barrels carry sand or water to represent passenger weight!

So, what is the psychology and neurochemistry of conspiracy theories? Conspiracy theorists (and those that believe and propagate conspiracy theories) score high on tests for narcissism and paranoia. They tend to think very highly of themselves and lowly of others. And although they may appear very normal on the outside—they laugh, they joke, etc.—on the inside it is a different story. True, diagnosed narcissists only make up about 1% of the population but people can have varying degrees of it.

A narcissist walks into a bar and says to the bartender, “I want to buy that handsome gent across the bar a drink!”

The bartender looks that direction and says, “Sir, you are looking into a mirror.”

So why the hell am I bringing up conspiracy theories in my blog on anxiety and depression? Well, I see a lot of narcissistic behavior and paranoia in my practice—sometimes by themselves and some times together.

And I see them in people that tend to have other high D2 dopamine traits. So I have a theory—but not one of the conspiracy theory type—that conspiracy theorists (and those that believe in propagate conspiracy theories) have elevated levels of D2 dopamine.

Now I am not saying that every patient with higher D2 dopamine levels is a conspiracy theorist or a kooky believer. But I have seen some bipolar patients who were narcissistic and suffered from paranoia. And I have seen them believe in these kinds of theories. So right now, I’m just putting this out there to see what other people think.

Well, I have no Chardonnay next to me today as I plan to take a bike ride later. (It’s probably why it took me twice as long to write this blog!) Until next time this is Dr. G saying, keep the faith.