Pavlov’s Dog, Lottery Dreams & the Dopamine Trap

 

Do You Remember Pavlov's Dog-?

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🔔 Pavlov’s Dog, Lottery Dreams & the Dopamine Trap: How We’re Still Being Trained

Over 30 years ago, I learned about something called Pavlov’s Dog. Maybe you did too — or maybe you didn’t. But once you understand it, you start to see how deeply it still affects us, every day.

In the early 1900s, Russian scientist Ivan Pavlov discovered that if he rang a bell every time he fed his dogs, eventually the sound of the bell alone would make them salivate. They had learned to associate the bell with food. This is called classical conditioning, and it forms the basis of much of our behavior — even today.

But the “bells” of today look different. They’re notifications, lottery tickets, red tags, headlines, sales pitches, and even loud voices. And just like Pavlov’s dogs, we react without thinking.

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🧠 Dopamine: The Drug Inside Us

Neuroscience tells us something even more startling: money lights up the brain like heroin.

When we receive money — especially suddenly, like winning the lottery — our brain releases dopamine, the same chemical that floods our system during sex, gambling, or drug use. It feels amazing… for a moment. Then it fades. So we chase the high again.

The brain doesn’t care if it’s a $5 scratch ticket or a $500,000 windfall. It just knows: This made us feel good. Let’s get more.

This is behavioral conditioning — just like Pavlov's dogs. And it shows up everywhere: lottery lines, online shopping, social media likes, hustle culture, stock markets, and more.

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😨 Trauma & Yelling: The Other Side of Conditioning

But not all conditioning is about chasing pleasure.

Some of it is about avoiding pain.

If you grew up around yelling, slamming doors, or loud angry voices, you may notice your body tensing, shutting down, or panicking when it happens — even years later.

That’s not drama. It’s not oversensitivity.
That’s trauma-based conditioning.

Just like Pavlov’s dogs reacted to a bell, our nervous systems can be trained to react to tone of voice, volume, even certain words or body language — because those signals once meant danger.

For some, yelling = fear.
For others, loud noises = panic.
That’s not weakness. That’s survival.

Understanding this helps us move from judgment to compassion — especially for ourselves.

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🎰 The Lottery Bell & The High We Chase

Now combine that pain-response conditioning with a society that constantly dangles pleasure triggers: money, fame, status, and stuff.

The lottery is a classic example:

• Flashy lights, cheerful music, the dream of instant wealth.
• Stories of people "just like you" who won.
• Dopamine hits from even small wins.

You buy the ticket, scratch the surface, get a rush — and whether you win or not, your brain is being trained.

The bell rings, and you come back for more.

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🏦 Money & Addiction

And it’s not just scratch tickets.

Big money — promotions, sales, jackpots, crypto spikes — all tap into that same brain circuitry. The more you get, the more you want. The more you fear losing it. The more anxious you become.

We’re not just trained — we’re hooked.

Like the article titled: “Money hits the brain like heroin.”

And when people are desperate for the next hit — whether it’s money, power, or attention — they can betray their values, their loved ones, even themselves.

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🌍 A Different Bell: Indigenous Teachings

But not all bells are traps.

From an Indigenous perspective, true wealth isn’t about hoarding — it’s about harmony.

🌱 Real wealth is in:
– Giving freely
– Living simply
– Sharing with community
– Honoring Mother Earth
– Knowing when enough is enough

These teachings remind us that we were never meant to live for the next hit, the next purchase, or the next praise.

We were meant to live in connection, not reaction.

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🙏 Final Thought: What Bells Are You Responding To?

Whether it’s a loud voice that freezes your body, or a sales ad that hijacks your mind — these are all learned responses. You’re not broken. You’re conditioned.

And that means you can re-train yourself.

You can choose:

• Calm over chaos.
• Community over consumption.
• Compassion over comparison.

 — All My Relations.
We are all connected. May we remember what truly matters.

#PavlovsDog #DopamineAddiction #TraumaAwareness #LotteryTrap #MindfulLiving #IndigenousWisdom #AllMyRelations #WakeUpCall #HealingStartsHere

Wolverine's Open Letter -TIME FOR TRUTH & JUSTICE!!

Secwepemc Elder Wolverine

 

 

WOLVERINE'S OPEN LETTER TO PM TRUDEAU

The Right Honourable Justin Trudeau
Office of the Prime Minister
80 Wellington Street
Ottawa, ON K1A 0A2

The Honourable Jody Wilson
House of Commons
Ottawa, ON K1A 0A6
December 30, 2015

Dear Mr. Trudeau,
My name is Wolverine. I am also known as William Jones Ignace. I am an 83-year old father, grandfather and great grandfather, and an Elder of the Secwepemc nation in what is called British Columbia. I am a farmer. This past summer I cultivated 8 acres of organic food to nourish the people in my nation and other nations as well. I am a long time defender of the inherent jurisdiction of Indigenous peoples to steward our traditional homelands.

Today I am writing to you to request that you initiate a federal public inquiry into the events surrounding the month long standoff at Ts'Peten (Gustafsen Lake), British Columbia in 1995, an event which cast a deep shadow on the relationship between the Canadian government and Indigenous nations, which to this day has not been adequately investigated.

In 1995, after a long history of peaceful attempts to have Secwepemc sovereignty respected, Indigenous people from the Secewpemc nation and their supporters took a stand on sacred Sundance lands at Ts'Peten, aka Gustafsen Lake. The incident began after a local white rancher, Lyle James began demanding that the sacred Secwepemc Sundance Camp leave land to which he claimed ownership. Approximately 24 Sundancers set up camp to defend Ts'Peten. I was one of those people.

Beginning in August 1995, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) surrounded the Ts'Peten Defenders. Over the next month police, politicians, and media escalated the situation to make the siege the most expensive and largest domestic military operation in Canada's history: armoured personnel carriers, .50 calibre machine guns, land mines, and an astonishing 77,000 rounds of ammunition were directed at the land defenders.

In the course of the standoff, RCMP shot at unarmed people and at people in negotiated no-shoot zones. RCMP Superintendent Murray Johnston expressed the belief that a resolution to the standoff would "require the killing" of the defenders, including myself. Although this thankfully did not come to be, the unjust and violent actions carried out against the Secwepemc people during the siege remains strong in our memories to this day.

Despite the twenty years that have passed since the Ts'Peten standoff, the core issues that so forcefully clashed against each other remain at the forefront of the hearts and minds of Indigenous people. That is our right to self-determination, autonomy and protection from the dispossession of our lands and territories. According to the Royal Proclamation of 1763, Aboriginal Title to land exists inherently and will continue to exist until it has been ceded by treaty with the Crown.

The land on which the Ts'Peten standoff occurred was, and remains to this day, unceded territory. The land at Ts'Peten was never handed over by the Secwepemc Nation to Canadian control through treaty or otherwise, and is therefore land that cannot have been sold to settlers by the Canadian or British Columbian governments. The use of Canadian paramilitary forces against the people of the Secwepemc nation asserting our inherent jurisdiction and title over our own territories therefore is a serious abrogation of the Nation to Nation relationship between the Canadian government and the Secwepemc Nation.

This abrogation has yet to be properly investigated, and remains one of the largest stains on relations between Indigenous nations and the Canadian state. A public federal inquiry is long overdue into the actions of the RCMP, the Canadian government and the provincial government of British Columbia.

In recent months, Mr. Trudeau, you have called for a renewed Nation to Nation relationship with Indigenous nations, promising a new era of recognition, rights, respect, cooperation and partnership, rooted in the principles of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. According to that Declaration, Indigenous peoples have the right to be safe from being forcibly removed from their lands and territories.

Even now, aggressive resource extraction and the destruction it inevitably brings regularly occurs on Indigenous lands without the consent of Indigenous peoples. Indigenous lands which, according to the very agreements that founded the nation of Canada, do not belong to Canada to be given away without the free prior and informed consent of the Indigenous people of those lands who never relinquished their rights. In order to build this Nation to Nation relationship, Indigenous peoples must know that they can continue to pursue peaceful processes for protecting their sovereignty, without the threat of state sanctioned violence being used against them.

The use of police and RCMP intimidation and force as a method to settle land claims in favour of the Canadian national and provincial governments is antithetical to the creation of a healthy and just partnership between nations. If Indigenous people are prevented from asserting their rights to sovereignty, true reconciliation cannot occur.

The time has come to honour your commitment to Indigenous people, and to a reconciliation between our nations. An inquiry into the Ts'Peten standoff would demonstrate that the Canadian government is truly committed to a new era of respectful, Nation to Nation relationships in which the wrongs of the past are thoroughly understood and acknowledged, ensuring that threats, intimidation, defamation and force are never again used against Indigenous people in Canada.
With respect,
Wolverine, Wiliam Jones Ignace

http://www.realpeoplesmedia.org/news/2016/1/4/secwepemc-elder-wolverine-calls-for-public-inquiry-into-gustafsen-lake-standoff 

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Did you ever wonder what happened at Gustafsen Lake? I was just finishing 4 years of really hard education and started a new job that didn't last and then started another about this time and was moving...so I really did not follow it at all. And now I also know why, it was basically a media blackout.  I heard terrible things about what happened but we didn't have the internet like we do now and trying to get the truth or different opinions other than what we were fed in the newspapers and on TV.

I too have heard of Wolverine and he is regarded a great hero for taking a stand on this issue. Watching the video is really shocking and we never heard about the RCMP blowing up the truck and shooting at the people and killing the dog.  I only heard the details of the story recently and I believe that many more people really need to know the truth and to see how awful some people treat others and feel entitled to do it for some bizarre reason.



Let the RCMP evidence incriminate itself!! This is really shocking.




From Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustafsen_Lake_Standoff
The Gustafsen Lake Standoff was a confrontation between the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and the Ts'peten Defenders in the interior of British Columbia, Canada, at Gustafsen Lake. The standoff began on August 18, 1995, and ended on September 17, 1995. The RCMP operation would end up being the most costly of its kind in Canadian history having involved 400 police officers and support from the Canadian Military (under Operation Wallaby). The predominantly indigenous occupiers believed that the privately owned ranch land on which they stood was both sacred space and part of a larger tract of unceded Shuswap territory.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police launched one of the largest police operations in Canadian history, including the deployment of four hundred tactical assault team members, five helicopters, two surveillance planes and nine Armoured Personnel Carriers. The RCMP kept journalists well away from the site and some reporters became uneasy that the only side of the story being told was that preferred by the police.^[7] By the end of the 31-day standoff, police had fired up to 7,000 rounds of ammunition, disabled a supply pick-up with buried explosive, and killed a dog. One of the indigenous leaders claimed that at least one of the shooting incidents blamed on them in fact occurred when two APCs fired on one another when their view was obscured.^[8] The operation was the largest paramilitary operation in British Columbia history and cost $5.5 million.<sup>[9]

THIS IS VERY INTERESTING!!
Shocking and Shameful for Canada....:( :(  
Did you know any of this?? I didn't.

According to Janice Stewart, a magistrate justice of the U.S District Court in Oregon, "The Gustafsen Lake incident involved an organized group of native people rising up in their homeland against an occupation by the government of Canada of their sacred and unceded tribal land." She also asserted that "the Canadian government engaged in a smear and disinformation campaign to prevent the media from learning and publicizing the true extent and political nature of these events".</sup> 

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Now let's look at another informative video. Are you Canadian? Did you know this?



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 There are many videos online, just google them and look in Youtube

What do you do when the system is against the victim?

Very disturbing. I cringe and curl back watching it. I always remember years ago with the actor who played on the television show, Elizabeth Montgomery- Samantha ,on Bewitched, and she played in a movie where she was raped and her husband doesn't believe her .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Case_of_Rape  This is 1974 people...surely we can change?? See movie below. I haven't watched it yet, again, and not sure I can...

 I was just young when I saw it and it deeply imprinted me. Please watch and let's change the system.



Published on Feb 24, 2015 Written/Directed/Edited by Cynthia Kao Cast (in alphabetical order) Pam Murphy (Officer Mulligan) Mark Schroeder (Tom) Paul Welsh (Officer Sakula) Crew Yesel "Yak" Manrique (titles) Ed Spangler (sound) Allyson Schwarz (gaffer) Rose Arscott (pa) Zoe Andrikidis (pa) Special Thanks Jennie Church-Cooper Donna Thomas Ed Spangler Code Fischer Mary Sasson Bill Posley Honora Talbott Dave Thuene Connie Shin

The Dog & the Mysterious Coconut!

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Blog post by Tina Winterlik © 2011
http://tinawinterlik.blogspot.com
http://twitter.com/#!/zipolita @zipolita
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So I have to tell you about the funny story that happened today. We are at the beach (in Vancouver- West Coast of Canada) and my friend turns to me and says "What do you think that is in the water?" " I don't know but it looks like a coconut. ...but it must be a ball. " "Yah, probably a ball!" my friend says.

So we sit and relax and in a bit decide to collect the kid and leave, as we get closer water, we see, it is a coconut!! We tell my daughter, she sees and she wants it. Just then this dog sees and he wants it.

It's a big golden lab and he goes for it, but it's huge and he can't get his mouth around it. I get worried as it's going out farther and farther and I'm afraid he'll get too cold and to far out and drown...so I mention this to Angel ...loud enough to the owner and we try calling him in. No good, he keeps going for it...the coconut keeps turning and going out, a few times he manages to get it back ,but then the darn thing turns again.

Eventually we coax the dog in. We are all calling, the owner, my child and me,"Good boy, Good boy!!" but just as the owner turns her back he goes for it again!!  I wish I would have had my camera.

Again he's trying and trying, and I am thinking "he'll never get it, I hope nothing bad doesn't happen" I don't know why I wasn't being more positive.

Anyways, again we coax him in, because the coconut is going way far out and my daughter is getting a little upset because we may never get the coconut. So after this time when we coax the dog in I say "Let's just sit down, the waves will wash it in, we just have to be patience!"

So we do, but the dog looks over at us, and another dog goes for it, but then changes it's mind, that's when the big lab goes again. And we are like "Oh No!!"

But Guess What? He got it!! YAYYYYY! We all shout! Hurray! What a good dog!!

So then he's about to eat it, ...well chew it apart and we ask the owner if we can take it. She says "Of Course!"

I felt a little bad because he was such a GOOD DOG to get it, but it made my girl soooo happy! All the way home she said "It was the best day ever!"

It set our imaginations in motion...where did it come from? Hmmmm! Hawaii? Mexico? South Pacific? We all had ideas...dreams. Where do you think it came from? It still had it's stem...

Now we have a friend for Harry, my girl says! Remember Harry...we found him in Cancun \Mexico and he travelled with us from there to Merida, Palenque, San Cristobal Las Casas, Zipolite, Acapulco, Zihuatanejo, to Puerto Vallarta and finally Bucerias!!

Here's our new amigo!!