This chapter guides the reader in moving from a general interest in neuroscience to a specific testable hypothesis.

In this chapter, the research approaches that involve observation of variables are introduced, ranging from naturalistic studies to multiple correlational designs.

This chapter introduces the reader to definitions of science and to the history of scientific approaches.

When I first began my journey to understand high sensation-seekers, I honestly wondered what was wrong with them. People who threw themselves off of buildings and out of airplanes, chose the most unusual thing on the menu, and would pick a topic of conversation that they knew would cause conflict? Who does that?

Could Freud be right? Maybe Thanatos was stronger in high sensation-seekers and created an unruly, pandemonium-loving personality. Was sensation-seeking some kind of death wish? Were high sensation-seekers simply lackadaisical about the beauty and fragility of life? Were they actually chaos junkies or adrenaline addicts? Or was high sensation-seeking a neurological impairment that makes people want to BASE jump or rollerblade downhill in city traffic or try ever more challenging, even poisonous exotic foods? I was baffled. It seemed, at the time, that what they really sought was chaos.

Cindy was pretty excited when the guy she’d been dating for the last few months offered to fly her to Texas to visit her relatives. After all, she’d never been in a single-engine airplane before. The trip from Illinois to Texas would take a while. Single-engine airplanes fly considerably slower than commercial ones. Instead of zooming at 540 miles per hour you putter along at around 80, albeit in a mostly straight line.

During the long flight she peppered Tom with questions. “You know, the way you do when you’re getting to know somebody and learning about what they’re interested in,” she explained.

Hours later Tom tapped her on the shoulder. Cindy was surprised. “I figured we were nearly there, except I looked down, and all I saw was water. I didn’t know what we were doing out over open water. He had pulled us out over the Gulf of Mexico and lowered our altitude a bit. ‘We’re clearly not going to land there,’ I thought.” Then Tom does the unthinkable, he stalls the plane – deliberately. “We’re in a single-engine plane over the ocean and he stalls it!” she explained with panic in her voice.

Imagine plodding through a pool full of beef stew: thick, murky, and carrot-filled. Now add the rushing currents of a storm surge and you have an idea of black water. There’s zero visibility and chunks of debris fly about. Extreme scuba diving in black water during the huge tidal surge on the east coast that came with Hurricane Sandy was not something even the most fearless high sensation-seeking people would have done. For Jason this isn’t a hobby. It’s his job. For the last 15 years, he has been braving conditions like these and worse to fulfill his life’s passion and profession: to discover new species and better understand ancient life.

Jason’s career is far from typical. He is a mechanical engineer, project strategist, paleontologist, and runs a non-profit. He’s been on archeology digs. And then there is his diving, which facilitates the deep need behind all of these endeavors – an insatiable desire to discover new things.

In Alice in Wonderland, Alice follows a white rabbit down a rabbit hole and then her strange, trippy journey begins. The white rabbit represents an idea or concept which could lead to discovery. It actually pops up in many places including the Matrix films, Star Trek, Jurassic Park, and Stephen King novels. It’s also the pen name of a 24-year-old high sensation-seeking adventure blogger who views herself as a white rabbit open to new and different ways to do things.1

“The white rabbit doesn’t tell you what to do, it shows you,” she explained. And that’s exactly what she has set out to do. Her plan? the world for free.

“It’s an idea that started growing when I started hosting on CouchSurfing,” she said.

Matt Davis was a self-described everyday guy. “I was your average 40-year-old, married with a couple of kids kinda guy that played neighborhood softball and an occasional flag football game. No one would call me obese, but I certainly wasn’t in shape. I couldn’t run more than a mile.” He did his first obstacle course race, the Warrior Dash, because it sounded fun, it seemed manly, and you got a goofy hat and a turkey leg. He wasn’t looking to change his life; his sensation-seeking personality drew him into activities with a high adventure factor.

An obstacle course race (OCR), also known as a mud run, is an adventure endurance race. Swamp Dash and Bash, Tough Mudder and Beast Race are some of the more popular ones. Those who pay to participate can look forward to the muddy mayhem, arctic enema, cry baby, and more. These are the affectionate names mudders give to such activities as belly-crawling underneath barbed wire with your face in the mud, sliding feet first into a pond of icy water, and crawling through a tent filled with tear gas. It all sounds like a scheme that might have been concocted by Dr. Evil to thwart Austin Powers. I guess the sharks with lasers attached to their heads were already booked.