Researchers believe the behavior could be a clue to why humans seek out altered mental states.
Researchers studied videos of great apes spinning and found that the animals are deliberately getting dizzy; the team believes that the behavior may have implications for humankind’s occasional exploration of altered states of mind.
Evidence collected from hundreds of instances of rope spinning across several great ape species demonstrated that, in some instances, the animals sought to induce dizziness. The researchers compare the behavior to spinning to induce mind-altering experiences in humans, like Sufi whirling. The research is published in the journal Primates.
“Spinning alters our state of consciousness, it messes up with our body-mind responsiveness and coordination, which make us feel sick, lightheaded, and even elated as in the case on children playing in merry-go-rounds, spinner-wheels, and carousels,” said Adriano Lameria, a psychologist at the University of Warwick and co-author of the paper, in a University of Birmingham release.
