Pain and pleasure are sensations that reflect opposite ends of a continuum, involving detection through our skin and interpretation by our brain.

The brain is incredibly plastic from ages 0 to 25, meaning experiences can significantly modify its wiring, impacting behaviors and expectations around pleasure.

The balance between pleasure and pain in the brain is maintained by the same neural pathways, and any deviation from neutrality prompts the brain to restore balance.

Understanding the interaction between pleasure and pain, along with the underlying biological systems, is essential for managing our subjective experiences of these sensations.

Everything you perceive is based on electrical signals processed by the brain, which makes educated guesses about the objects around you.

Experiments in sensory substitution show that the brain can adapt to new ways of perceiving the world, such as through electro-tactile signals.

We are always releasing dopamine at a tonic baseline rate, and deviations from this baseline are what influence our experience of pleasure and pain.

Thoughts can happen spontaneously or be deliberate, and the nervous system is responsible for sensation, perception, feelings, thoughts, and behaviors.

Factors such as expectation, anxiety, sleep quality, circadian rhythms, and genetics all influence our pain thresholds and experiences of pleasure. To reduce pain, it's beneficial to know about a painful stimulus 20 to 40 seconds in advance, as this highlights the importance of subjective interpretation in pain perception.