I agree with the occasional scare gets you going. People are built to deal with that scare in an evolutionary sense. The change in brain chemistry to get you into flight or fight can really alter your perspective (where perspective is pretty much just brain chemistry + a little bit of experience).
I think fight club called it a "near life experience."
Other examples of changing perspective via brain chemistry recently talked about are magic mushrooms, which really do help lift depression, if only for a while before the brain has a chance to settle into its old patterns.
Exercise of course, also changes the chemistry, but I think it is in a less extreme (and more reproducible) way than a good scare (even if what scares you is some kind of hallucinated dragon).
I think fight club called it a "near life experience."
Other examples of changing perspective via brain chemistry recently talked about are magic mushrooms, which really do help lift depression, if only for a while before the brain has a chance to settle into its old patterns.
Exercise of course, also changes the chemistry, but I think it is in a less extreme (and more reproducible) way than a good scare (even if what scares you is some kind of hallucinated dragon).